Jews in Elizabethan England

<plain_text><page sequence="1">Letter of Alvaro Mendez to Queen Elizabeth, with autograph signat? ure Facing p. 1]</page><page sequence="2">THE JEWISH HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF ENGLAND. Jews in Elizabethan England. By Lucien Wolf. Presidential Address delivered at Manchester on Sunday, November21,1926. Between the years 1880 and 1888 the late Sir Sidney Lee inaugurated the renascence of Anglo-Jewish historical study by his researches into the middle period of Anglo-Jewish history?that is, the obscure period between the expulsion of the Jews by Edward I. in 1290, and their readmission by Oliver Cromwell in 1655. He gave special attention to the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and he argued, not unreasonably, that there must have been a considerable number of Jews in England at that period. The evidence on which he relied was, in the first place, the great expansion of foreign trade and the large immigration of foreign merchants and other aliens which took place during the second half of the sixteenth century, and, in the second place, the popular interest in Jews, their character and their activities, which is indicated by the frequent and sometimes very prominent references to them in the popular drama of the time. Unfortunately the number of Jews or persons of Hebrew race identified in proof of this argument was very few. For the whole forty-five years of Elizabeth's reign Sir Sidney Lee was not able to give us more than ten Jews, and of these, six?Arthur Antoe, Philip Ferdinando, Elizabeth Ferdinando, Fortunatus Massa, Judah Menda and James Wolfgang?were more or less obscure inmates of theDomus Conversorum who proved nothing, seeing that as Christians they were free to live in the country. Of the other four, Maria Nunes, a Portuguese Jewess who is alleged to have been captured under romantic circumstances on the high seas and brought to London, was probably a legendary personage. The remaining three were Rodrigo VOL. XL B</page><page sequence="3">2 JEWS IN ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND. Lopez, the Queen's ill-fated physician, Joachim Gannz, a mining chemist who came to England in 1581 in search of copper, and one Amis (sic), who, according to Thomas Coryat, who met him in Constantinople in 1612, was an English Jew born in Crutched Friars, London, in 1552. During the forty years which have passed since Sir Sidney Lee published his last paper on this subject?" Elizabethan England and the Jews," 3?scarcely any additions have been made to his slender census. I can only call to mind two of any note?John Tremellius, the baptised friend of Cranmer, who was in England in 1552 and was endenizened, and a Marrano or crypto-Jew, Alonzo de Herrera, who was seized by the Earl of Essex at the sack of Cadiz in 1596 and brought to England as a prisoner of war.2 Nevertheless, Sir Sidney Lee's conjecture was shrewdly founded, and it has been abundantly justified. My purpose to-night is to show you that there was quite a goodly company of Jews in England throughout the reign of Elizabeth, and that they played a not un? important part in the commerce and public affairs of those spacious days. They were almost all Portuguese " New Christians," that is to say, descendants of the Portuguese Jews who were forcibly baptised by order of King Manuel in 1496, and the majority of them, as of most of the New Christians of that period, were Marranos, or secret Jews. Some of them were Spanish Marranos, but they do not appear to have been an important element in the community. How they came to England is an interesting story. The migrations of the Marranos, after their terrible experiences at the end of the fifteenth century, were at first directed almost exclusively towards Eastern Europe and Northern Africa. For those who remained in Europe, Turkey was then the great land of refuge, and on the road thither through France and Italy they founded or fortified Jewish communities at Lyons, Ferrara, Rome, Turin, Venice and Ancona, whence they penetrated to Ragusa, Salonika and Constantinople, and southward to Suez and Cairo. This was the line of the overland trade with the Indies, and it was largely on the brokerages of that trade and, in some cases, on direct imports from their correspondents and 1 Transactions New Shakspere Society, 1887-1892, Part IL, pp. 143-66. 2 Papers read at the Anglo-Jewish Historical Exhibition (1888), pp. 66, 68.</page><page sequence="4">JEWS IN ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND. 3 co-religionists in Basora and South-Western Hindustan that the exiles lived. With the opening of the sea route to India by the Portuguese navigators, these migrations became deflected northward. For the distribution of the great quantities of Indian produce and merchandise which now accumulated in Lisbon, a powerful syndicate was formed in that city by the great Marrano mercantile and banking house of Francisco and Diogo Mendes, who established for the purpose warehouses and " comp tors " in Antwerp under the management of Diogo. The firm and their partners, chiefly the Italian Affaitati, enjoyed a monopoly of the distributing trade in the North, competing with the Fuggers and the Hanseatic League, who had previously enjoyed a similar monopoly in regard to the overland trade, the headquarters of which were at Bruges.3 The Mendes house flourished exceedingly, and in the wake of Diogo many of his relations and other Marranos settled in Antwerp. It was not long before agents of the " spice trust," as it was called, were sent to England. The earliest seems to have been one George Anes, formerly of Valladolid, in Spain, a relative of whom, Alfonso Anes, was one of the first Secretaries of the organised Portuguese colony in Antwerp in 1517. It was a grandson of this George Anes whom Cory at met as an English Jew in Constantinople in 1612.4 When Charles V. granted to the New Christians permission to settle in the Netherlands in 1536, a fresh impulse was given to the Marrano migration. This was still further strengthened between 1537 and 1540 by the establishment of the Inquisition in Portugal.5 The refugees fled northward both by land and sea, and founded on their way Marrano settlements at Bordeaux, Bayonne, Nantes and Kouen. Meanwhile the Spanish authorities in the Netherlands had become aware of the crypto-Jewish character of many of the immigrants, who consequently became subject to arrest and imprisonment. Neverthe? less, the immigration continued, largely owing to the terror inspired 3 Antwerpsch. Archievenblad, vol. vii. pp. 190, 202 et seq. Cf. Goris, Les Colonies Marchandes Meridionales d Anvers, p. 104. 4 Commercial relations between England and the Mendez Trust existed before 1525 and they were so important that, when Diogo Mendez was arrested in 1532 for Judaism, Henry VIII intervened for his protection (Goris, op. ext., p. 104; Belgian National Archives, Etat et Audience, liasse 1504. 5 Belgian National Archives, Mat et Audience, liasse 11772.</page><page sequence="5">4 JEWS IN ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND. by the Inquisition at home. It became necessary, however, to take certain precautions, and an elaborate system was established, by which the immigrants could be warned of the situation in Antwerp before they reached their destination. It was arranged that the spice ships and other vessels carrying the refugees should call at an English port, where they could be met by messengers from London, who would let them know whether the coast was clear. If it was not, the refugees disembarked, generally at Southampton?then called Hampton? whence they proceeded to London to await a more favourable oppor? tunity of taking shipping for Antwerp. Of this curious movement very full details are available, as in 1540 a sort of unofficial Inquisition was set up in Zeeland, which arrested and examined all passengers on incoming Portuguese vessels before they were allowed to anchor at Antwerp. We learn from the records of this tribunal that the chief organiser of the system for warning the immigrants was a Marrano merchant in London named Christopher Fernandes, and that among the persons who flourished on the traffic was a Marrano money-changer named Antonio de Loroingue, who did a large business in selling bills on Antwerp to the refugees, as they were not allowed to carry their Portuguese specie out of England. A good many of these refugees never proceeded to Antwerp at all, but remained in England, where they swelled the ranks of the young Marrano community. In 1540 a flotilla of fourteen spice ships arrived in Zeeland from Portugal with many New Christians on board. When the officers came to examine the refugees two of the ships precipitately weighed anchor and returned to London, where the New Christians landed and apparently became permanent residents. This appears to have been the chief source of the Marrano immigration in the early years of Queen Elizabeth's reign.6 A few of the immigrants can be identified by name from depositions subsequently filed with the Lisbon Inquisition by informers who had visited London and Bristol. In March 1557 a slave of Gregorio Luiz, a New Christian, in the service of the Infante Dom Luiz, accused his master of going to England to visit his Marrano relatives. There he lived with one of them, named Ruy Nogueira. The informer accused Nogueira, his wife and Luiz of having tried to seduce him from the 6 Belgian National Archives, Etat et Audience, Hasse 11772.</page><page sequence="6">JEWS IN ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND. 5 Christian faith.7 In the following year two New Christians at Bristol, Pedro Vaz, a Portuguese surgeon, and Diogo Alvarez, a native of Ponta Delgada, were accused of celebrating the Fast of Kippur.8 In 1575 Pedro Vaz, who was still living in Bristol, was denounced in company with Antonio Brand?o, a Portuguese physician, of publicly professing heretical doctrines. The same deposition also contains denunciations of four New Christians resident in London, who were accused of wilful sacrilege. Their names are given as Sim?o Henriques, Sim?o Gomes, Diogo Pires and Duarte Pires.9 Diogo Pires came from Antwerp, where he was living in 1572.10 Duarte had been living in London for at least three years, for in 1572 he figured on a list of Merchant Strangers included in the Returns of Aliens for that year.11 None of these people appear to have distinguished themselves in any way outside their counting-houses and their Judaical heresies. For the important members of the Anglo-Marrano community we have to seek elsewhere. In the spring of 1588 two prisoners of war, a Portuguese named Francisco de Valverde and a Spaniard named Pedro de Santa Cruz, were liberated in London. While prisoners they lived in the houses of two London merchants named Simon Borman and John Naunton, who had made themselves sureties for their good conduct. Both merchants were Catholics and had been in the Spanish trade, and Borman was married to a patriotic Spanish lady named Dona Isabel Gil de Aviles. In Borman's house the prisoners heard all about the Marrano com? munity, and especially about their intrigues against Spain. Dona Isabel had apparently spied on the heretics to good purpose, and had even invited them to her house in order to study them more closely. When Valverde and Santa Cruz were released, she looked upon it as an act of Providence which would enable her to send all her information to the lay and ecclesiastical authorities at Madrid. " May you have a bad journey," she said to Santa Cruz when he called to take leave of her, " and may the curse of God fall on you if you reach Spain in safety and do not denounce Jeronimo Pardo and Bernaldo Luis, for 7 Bai?o, Inquisic?o en Portugal no seculo XVI., p. 222. 8 Ibid., p. 177. 9 Ibid., p. 204. 10 Goris, op. cit., p. 615. 11 Returns of Aliens (Huguenot Soc. Publications), vol. ii. p. 155.</page><page sequence="7">6 jews in elizabethan england. they are traitors and have sold Spain." It appears that the said Jeronimo Pardo and Bernaldo Luis were at the moment in Lisbon and Madrid respectively, attending to certain espionage business, and the fiery Dona Isabel was half crazy with anxiety lest they should get away on their return journey to London before they could be denounced to the Spanish authorities. Santa Cruz and Valverde shared her anxiety, and when they found they could not get shipping to take them home for several weeks, they resolved to send their information by letter to the famous Ambassador of Spain in Paris, Don Bernardino de Mendoza. This step proved successful. Mendoza sent the letter direct to King Philip, who both read it and annotated it; and when Valverde and Santa Cruz reached home?the one in April and the other at the end of June?they found that both Pardo and Luis were safe under lock and key.12 Both the liberated prisoners hastened to make depositions to the authorities in amplification of their letter to Bernardino de Mendoza, while the authorities in Madrid submitted Bernaldo Luis to a separate examination.13 The most interesting of these statements is that made by Pedro de Santa Cruz before the Madrid Alcalde, Valadares Sarmiento, on July 4, 1588.14 He gave a detailed account of the Portuguese and Spanish colonies in London, and formally denounced the following Portuguese as being engaged in espionage and smuggling to the detriment of Spain, under cover of a shipping trade with Lisbon, supposed to be carried on by loyal subjects of the Emperor : Dr. Hector Nunez Alvaro de Lima Jeronimo Pardo fernan dalvarez Francisco de Tapia Bernaldo Luis Vlierm Ames (sic) Benjamin George. 12 Infra, Appendix of Documents, pp. 37 et seq., 47. 13 Ibid., pp. 37-45. 14 Martin Hume's statement (Col. Spanish State Papers, vol. iv. p. 326) that the deposition was made in Lisbon is incorrect. It was Valverde who made the Lisbon deposition (ibid., pp. 263-266).</page><page sequence="8">JEWS IN ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND. 7 At this point in his deposition Pedro de Santa Cruz was asked by the Magistrate whether he knew that the aforesaid were Catholics. The official report gives his answer as follows : " He knows, as it is public and notorious in London, that by race they are all Jews, and it is notorious that in their own homes they live as such observing their Jewish rites; but publicly they attend Lutheran Churches, and listen to the sermons, and take the bread and wine in the manner and form as do the other heretics . . . and it is notorious that the said Alvaro de Lima is married to his niece and this witness knows that one day when Francisco de Valverde and Juan de Valverde were coming from Mass the said Alvaro de Lima said to them : ' Where do your Worships come from ? ' to which they replied : 4 Sir, we come from seeing God,' and the said Alvaro de Lima there? upon replied mockingly : ' It remains very much to be seen, whether your Worships have seen God.' And witness knows that the above named and the others utter many heresies." 15 Although this important statement is not conceived in a strictly judicial spirit, there can be no doubt of its substantial accuracy. Apart from circumstantial evidence with which I shall deal later, we have an interesting piece of contemporary corroboration of its main allegations. A few weeks before Santa Cruz made his deposition before the Madrid Alcalde?April 26, 1588?a man, who gave his name as Alexandre Simones, had appeared before the Lisbon Inquisition and had asked permission to make a statement on oath concerning certain Portuguese heretics in foreign parts. He declared that he had been seven times in London, where he had known Dr. Hector Nunez and his wife, as well as Pedro Freire and Jeronimo Pardo, all of whom he formally denounced as " Judaisers." 16 It will be seen that two of these persons are mentioned in Santa Cruz's list. The third, Pedro Freire, of whom I shall have something to say later, was a brother of Bernaldo Luis. On the face of it Santa Cruz's statement does little more than add eight names to our slowly growing list of Elizabethan Jews. As a matter of fact it does much more than this, for the names represent personages of some importance, and they give us clues to other names, being those of their relations and associates, which enable us still 15 Infra, Appendix, p. 46. 16 Bai?o, op. cit., p. 264. It is unfortunate that the full text of this Denuncia? tion, of which Bai?o only gives a brief abstract, is not to be found.</page><page sequence="9">8 JEWS IN ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND. further to enlarge our list. I will tell you something more about these persons presently, but before I do so it is necessary to call attention to Santa Cruz's strange statement that the London Marranos all pretended to be Protestants. This is quite an unfamiliar aspect of Marrano life, and at first it might lead us to imagine that Santa Cruz was more con? cerned to prejudice the Portuguese than to tell the truth about them. As a matter of fact all the Marranos he mentions were, as he says, pseudo Protestants,17 and they had probably, with few exceptions, entered the Protestant Church in Antwerp before they came to England. From an early period the Marranos in Antwerp had taken an active part in the Reformation movement, and had given up their mask of Catholicism for a not less hollow pretence of Calvinism. The change will be readily understood. The simulation of Calvinism brought them new friends, who, like them, were enemies of Rome, Spain and the Inquisition. It helped them in their fight against the Holy Office, and for that reason was very welcome to them. Moreover, it was a form of Christianity which came nearer to their own simple Judaism. The result was that they became zealous and valuable allies of the Calvinists. The Nuncio Aleander reports in 1521 that in Flanders Spanish versions of Luther's books were being printed and circulated by the Marranos. It is also on record that they rose to high office in the Councils of the Reformed Church, and in the troubled year of 1566 the chief of the Calvinist Consistory at Antwerp was the Marrano, Marcus Perez.18 These facts are of importance because they enabled the Elizabethan Marranos to assimilate themselves far more com? pletely with English social life than their successors in the seventeenth century who, coming direct from Spain and Portugal, remained pseudo Catholics until they could openly declare themselves to be Jews. Let me now tell you something about the leading members of the Marrano community, as revealed to us by Pedro de Santa Cruz and Alexandre Simones. I will take them in the order in which their names are recited in the above list. Dr. Hector Nunez was a distinguished physician, a native of Evora in Portugal, who lived and practised in Mark Lane. He probably 17 Returns of Aliens, vol. ii. pp. 279, 280 ; vol. iii. pp. 342, 376. 18 Goris, op. cit.y pp. 553 et seq. Lea, History of the Inquisition of Spain, vol. iii. p. 413.</page><page sequence="10">JEWS IN ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND. 9 settled in London because of the decree of the Emperor in 1549 ordering the New Christians to quit Antwerp, as it is in that year that we first hear of him as living in the Parish of St. Olave's, Hart Street. He was admitted a Fellow of the College of Physicians in 1554, and F.R.C.S. in the same year. In 1566 he married Leonora Freire, a sister of Bernaldo Luis, then of Antwerp, and in 1579 he was endenizened. In addition to practising medicine he was extensively engaged in trade, and in 1568 was a member of the Corporation of Italian Merchants residing in London, although on the list he is described as " Portuguez." He is also entered as a Merchant Stranger in the Return of Aliens for 1572. He seems to have prospered, for in 1582 his household consisted of his wife, three clerks, a butler and two negresses. The clerks were all relatives of his or of his wife.19 Two of them, Francisco de Tapia and Fernan Dalvarez, are mentioned in Pedro de Santa Cruz's list. The third, Francisco Dalvarez, also a relation and a Marrano, is an addition to my list. He was a member of the secret Synagogue in Antwerp, in 1579, when he was known as Francisco Pessoa.20 Hector Nunez died in September 1591, and at his special request was buried near his sister-in-law, Grace Freire, in Stepney Churchyard, although he was a parishioner of St. Olave's, and his burial dues were paid there.21 Of Dr. Nunez's political activities I shall have something to say later on. The facts of his life as known to us afford little direct evidence of his Jewishness. We know, however, that his wife was a devout Jewess, for it is on record that she sent, through Dr. Rodrigo Lopez, a contribu? tion for the upkeep of the secret Synagogue in Antwerp in 1593.22 Alvaro de Lima, the second name on Santa Cruz's list, was a 19 Infra, Appendix, pp. Zl, 41 ; Bai?o, op. cit., p. 264; Returns of Aliens, vol. i. pp. 167, 384, vol. ii. pp. 154, 279 ; M?nk, Roll of College of Physicians, vol. i. p. 49 ; Harl. Soc. Reg., No. 46, p. 123 ; Bannerman, Registers of St. Olave, Hart Street, p. 248 ; Hug. Soc, Denizations, Part i. p. 181. 20 Returns of Aliens, vol. ii. p. 279 ; Bai?o, op. cit., p. 213 ; Goris, op. cit., p. 616. 21 Bannerman, op. cit., p. 123 ; Will of Hector Nunez, Lond. Reg., 66 Sains berbe; Grace Freire is thus entered in the Burials Register of St. Dunstan, Stepney : " 1573/4. Graco ffriarry an Italian was buried the xvijth of the same (january)." She was not an Italian but was no doubt so designated because her brother-in-law, Dr. Nunez, was at the time a member of the Corporation of Italian Merchants and her brother, Bernaldo Luis, belonged to the Italian Reformed Church. 22 Infra, p. 20.</page><page sequence="11">10 JEWS IN ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND. brother-in-law of Hector Nunez. He married Elizabeth Freire, another sister of Bernaldo Luis, in 1582. It is not quite true, as Santa Cruz alleges, that his wife was his niece, for he was only a first cousin of his wife's father. He was a merchant, trading on a large scale with Antwerp, and also appears to have done some banking business, for in 1594 Dr. Eodrigo Lopez drew a cheque on him for ?20 payable to Stephen Ferrara de Gama. He is described as having been " a great Intelligencer." He lived and died in Duke's Place, and was buried before the vestry door of St. Olave's in 1596, next to his nephew, Ferdinando Alvarez, jun., who is not to be confounded with the Fernan Dalvarez already mentioned.23 Besides being a nephew, Ferdinando Alvarez, jun., was also a brother-in-law of Alvaro de Lima, having married Agnes Freire, a sister of Alvaro's wife, Elizabeth Freire. He left a family of two sons, Lewis and Roger, and a daughter, Blanche.24 Jeronimo Pardo was a brother of Alvaro de Lima, and the con? fidential associate of Dr. Hector Nunez in all his commercial and political work. When he was not travelling on Nunez's business he lived with the Doctor in Mark Lane. We have already seen that he was arrested in Lisbon in 1588 on a charge of espionage. There is no record of him after that unfortuuate event.25 Fernan Dalvarez, or, as he is generally called, Ferdinando Alvarez, sen., has already been referred to as a clerk of Dr. Hector Nunez. He was also his brother-in-law, having married Philippa Freire, another sister of Bernaldo Luis, of whom he was afterwards a partner in business. Like his sister-in-law, Leonora Freire, he was a contributor to the secret Synagogue in Antwerp in 1593. He seems to have been much respected by his family. In the latter years of his life he lived in Duke's Place near his widowed sisters-in-law, Leonora, Agnes, and Elizabeth Freire, whose affairs and families he looked after until his death. He left three daughters, Helinor, Blanche, and Elizabeth.26 23 Infra, Appendix, pp. 41, 46; Bannrman, op. cit., p. 251 ; Col. 8.P. Dom. (1591-4), p. 455 ; (1598-1601), p. 120; Bannerman, op. cit., p. 128 ; Will of Alvaro de Lima, Lond. Beg., 28 Drake ; Returns of Aliens, vol. ii. p. 337. 24 De Lima's Will (see preceding Note). 25 Infra, Appendix, pp. 36,38,39,47,48,50, 52; Returns of Aliens, vol. ii. p. 161. 26 Infra, Appendix, pp. 41, 45,46; Wills of Hector Nunez and Alvaro de Lima (supra, notes 21, 23); Infra, p. 20 ; Returns of Aliens, vol. ii. p. 279, vol. iii. pp. 21-2, 337.</page><page sequence="12">JEWS IN ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND. 11 Of Francisco de Tapia we know little more than what Pedro de Santa Cruz tells us. He was one of Dr. Nunez's clerks, and seems to have been a simple and garrulous soul, whom the Spanish spies in London found it easy to pump when they wanted information about his employer's mails or Jeronimo Pardo's movements.27 Bernaldo Luis was a more imposing personage. He came of a Lisbon Jewish family named Freire, or Freyle, and he migrated to Antwerp early in life to seek his fortune. Clever and unscrupulous, he threw himself with zest into the complicated and far-reaching net? work of plot and counterplot, espionage and counter-espionage, which grew out of the rivalries of England and Spain, the Civil War in the Netherlands, the struggle between the League and the Huguenots in France, and the restiveness of Portugal under the Spanish yoke. He made a fortune in trade, and acquired great influence in all the rival political camps. Each seems to have imagined that he was its devoted slave, and to-day, with a very copious documentation before us, it is difficult to say whether any of them was right. It is probable that he served and betrayed all in turn, as it suited his interest or convenience. We have already seen that he was arrested as a spy in Spain in 1588, and the case seemed black enough against him ; but he put up a clever defence, and with the assistance of Antonio da Vega, the head of the Spanish espionage service in England at the time, he managed to extricate himself and was released. He first came to England with his three unmarried sisters, Elizabeth, Agnes, and Philippa, at the time of " the Spanish Fury " in Antwerp in 1576. One other sister, Leonora, was, as we have seen, already married in London, and the fifth, Grace, had died unmarried, also in London, in 1573. He had three brothers: Pero or Pedro Freyle, who acted as his agent in Lisbon, and occasionally visited London, where he " judaised "; John, who came with him to London, and another, who was afterwards in the service of Antonio da Vega, but whose name does not appear. Until 1587, when Bernaldo imprudently went to Spain, he occupied a house in the Tower Ward, where almost all the Marranos lived. Here his two brothers-in-law, Alvaro de Lima and Ferdinando Alvarez, sen., who were also his partners, lived with him and managed his business in his absence. After 1591, 27 Infra, Appendix, p. 47 ; Returns of Aliens, vol. ii. p. 279</page><page sequence="13">12 JEWS IN ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND. when he was denounced by the informer Manuel de Andrada as one of the ablest of the Spanish spies in London, nothing was heard of him. He had probably to fly the country, and he certainly was under a cloud, for there is no word of him in the wills of his relatives, Hector Nunez and Alvaro de Lima, though they were much attached to him in spite of their devotion to the cause of England.28 A table of Bernaldo Luis's family printed on the opposite page illustrates the close relationship of some of the leading members of the Marrano colony in London. The last two names on Santa Cruz's list are perhaps the most interesting of all. They are the names of two members of the Anes family, to whom I have already referred, and who were among the earliest Marrano families to settle permanently in England. The founder of the family, George Anes, was a Jew of Valladolid who, at the time of the expulsion from Spain in 1498, saved himself by baptism, while many of his kinsmen took refuge in Portugal. Whether he was ever in England is not clear, but it is certain that his wife and children settled in London in 1521. Later on they seem to have returned to the Peninsula and to have taken up their abode with their relatives in Portugal, where the Inquisition had not yet been established. Their security in that country was short-lived. In 1540 the triangular struggle between Dom Joao III., the Pope, and the New Christians ended with the triumph of the King, and on September 20 of that year the Lisbon Inquisition celebrated its first regular auto da fe. The Anes family were under strong suspicion and, even before the auto, had made preparations for flight. George Anes had apparently died some years before, leaving a widow, Elizabeth Anes, and two sons and two daughters. In January 1541, during a raid on a shipload of Portuguese refugees who had arrived at Middelburg, a letter was seized in which the elder of the two sons, Francisco Anes of Lisbon, 28 Infra, Appendix, pp. 37-45 ; Goris, op. cit., p. 615 ; Calendars of State Papers Spanish (1580-6), pp. 675-7 ; (1587-1603), pp. 23, 242-3, 299, 326, 346, 487 ; Ibid., Dom. (1591-4), p. 101 ; Returns of Aliens, vol. ii. pp. 161, 256, 279, 337 ; Bai?o, op. cit., p. 264. Martin Hume (Cal. S.P. Span., 1587-1663, pp. 23, 601) is in error in assuming that Bernaldo Luis's real name was Montesinos and that he was a brother of a notorious Spanish swashbuckler and spy named Gaspar Dias Montesinos.</page><page sequence="14">JEWS IN ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND. ? o 3 pH - ? 3 ? ? o ^ &gt; ? ? g?1 ?^ 1 O N GO . ? co ""d TS II 8b?2 pa S.8Sofl . ? ? _J H&gt; ? ^ W o o ^ o S .9 ? ? .SP 2 ? ^ ? ?9 .0 ?5 -? S g ? 3 2 Q ^ o c m s_. w _ ^ ? ^ * ? n g ? . O 'I 'gl ? ?C5 * s ? o ? g ? J ? &amp; M PL, .* nS h-3 ? ^3</page><page sequence="15">14 JEWS IN ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND. informed his correspondent at Antwerp, Dominique Mendes, that he was sending his mother and the remainder of the family to Flanders together with their household goods and other merchandise, which Mendes was asked to dispatch to London. Francisco added that he would follow in a later boat. The flight was successful, and it was in the nick of time, for in 1542 the Inquisition prosecuted the second son, Gonsalvo Anes, in contumaciam and burnt him in effigy. Happily in 1541 Elizabeth and her children were already safe again in London. Of the subsequent career of Francisco Anes we know little. He seems to have taken to a soldier's life, and in 1583-4 held a command in the English garrison at Youghal in Ireland. He became Burgomaster of the town and earned the commendation of the Earl of Ormond by his gallant defence against the raids of the Irish rebels. His only son, Erasmus, who was born in Portugal, was living in London as an alien in 1564. The chief interest of the Anes family centres in the second son, Gonsalvo, who was the Benjamin George of Pedro de Santa Cruz's list of Marranos in London, and was also known as Gonsalvo George, though more generally as Dunstan Anes. He was probably born at Valladolid, and must have been an infant when his mother first came to England. At the time of Santa Cruz's deposition before the Madrid Alcalde, he was the recognised head of his numerous and widely rami? fying family. He had married in 1548 a Spanish lady, Constance, the daughter of Simon Ruyse, who was living in London, and by her had eight sons and six daughters. The family had been still further augmented by a number of grandchildren, the issue of his sons Benjamin, Jacob, and William, and his daughter, Sarah. He carried on in his dwelling-house [in Crutched Friars the agency for Indian produce which had previously been established by his father or mother, and he became a Freeman of the Grocers' Company in 1557, although he was a " stranger." He was also appointed " Purveyor and Merchant for the Queen's Majestie's Grocery." But this spice agency was only a small part of his business. He traded direct with Lisbon, where he established his second son, Jacob, as his agent. He dabbled in the illicit shipping business which Hector Nunez and Jeronimo Pardo carried on to mask their intelligencing operations, and he acted as financial agent in England for the Portuguese Pretender, Don Antonio,</page><page sequence="16">JEWS IN ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND. 15 Prior of Crato, purchasing all the stores and ships required for the Don's campaign in defence of his country and throne against the Spanish invasion in 1580. He died in April 1594, and was buried under his pew in St. Olave's Church, of which he had been a congre? gant for many years. His end was perhaps hastened by chagrin and anxiety over the fate of his son-in-law, Rodrigo Lopez, the Queen's chief physician, who had been convicted on doubtful evidence of plotting to poison his Royal Mistress, and was then lying in the Tower under sentence of death. Lopez was the husband of Dunstan's eldest daughter, Sarah, who was married to him when she was scarcely seventeen. As bearing on Dunstan's Marranism it is interesting to note that he gave typically Jewish names to five of his children Benjamin, Jacob, Hester, Rachel, and Sarah?and that he reserved for himself the Hebraic alias of Benjamin, for use, no doubt, on occasions when Dunstan and Gonsalvo would obviously have been inappropriate. Although a grocer he claimed to be a gentleman, and in that capacity received a grant of arms in 1568.29 Of Dunstan's fourteen children I need only mention three? Benjamin, his eldest son, Jacob, his second son, who had an exception? ally interesting career, and William, his seventh son, who is mentioned in Pedro de Santa Cruz's list as Vlierm Ames. Benjamin was employed by Walsingham, at the instance of his brother-in-law, Dr. Lopez, in paving the way for Drake's projected raid on the Azores. Letters of intelligence from him from Terceira in 1583 and San Lucar in 1588 are still extant.30 Jacob seems to have been the English Jew named Amis (sic) whom Coryat met in Constantinople in 1612, and who told the English traveller that he was born in Crutched Friars in 1552.31 If that is so? 29 Infra, Appendix, p. 46 ; Visitation of London, 1568 (Harl. Soc. Pubs.), p. 65 ; Denizations and Naturalisations (Hug. Soc. Pubs.), Parti, p. 6; Herculano, Historia da origen da Inquisicao en Portugal, vol. ii. pp. 331 et seq. ; Belg. Nat. Archives, Etat et Audience, 1177 2 ; Office Fiscal de Brabant, 1233 ; Returns of Aliens, vol. i. pp. 46, 342 ; Brit. Mus. Add. MSS. 5754, f. 235; Gal. S.P. Ireland (1574-85), pp. 467, 472, 474, 483, 557 ; Brigg, Registers of St. Nicholas Aeon, p. 59 ; Note from Mr. L. Hickman Barnes, Clerk to the Grocers Company communi? cated to me by Mr. Wilfred Samuel; Bannerman, op. cit., p. 127; Cat. S.P. Dom. (1594), p. 418 ; Ibid. Spanish (1580-6), p. 146 infra, p. 18. 30 Gal. S.P. For. (1583), Nos. 160, 166; B.M. Harl. MSS., 295, f. 197. 31 See Coryat's Account of his Travels in Purchas's Pilgrims, 1625.</page><page sequence="17">16 JEWS IN ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND. and the hypothesis is supported by the Birth Registers?he was also identical with the " nephew " of Alvaro Mendez whom that personage brought to Constantinople in 1592.32 Alvaro Mendez, the powerful Councillor of Sultan Murad, who was created by that monarch Buke of Metilli, had lived in England and was a brother-in-law and a great friend and ally of Rodrigo Lopez. His sister Catherine, alias Dona Esther, had married Rodrigo's brother Diego, alias Jacob Lopez Alleman.33 He was consequently only an uncle of Jacob Anes in a brevet sense. However that may be, Jacob found a career for himself in Turkey under his distinguished relative's auspices, for he was appointed to manage Alvaro Mendez's lease of the customs. The two sisters who were living with him in Constantinople when Coryat visited him could only have been Rachel and Elizabeth, for of his other sisters two were dead,34 and the eldest, Sarah Lopez, was still living with her children and her sister Agnes in England. Jacob's younger brother, William, was active in his father's business in London, and in 1581 was sent by Don Antonio on a secret mission to Portugal. In the following year he went to the Azores with his brother Jacob to spy out the islands, in preparation for Sir Francis Drake's raid, and on returning to England he and his brother were received by the Queen. He then joined his uncle Francis at Youghal, and distinguished himself in the defence of that town. Ormond wrote of him to the Council that he had " behaved himself like a tall and valiant man." William is the only member of our Marrano colony of whom we get a clear personal glimpse in the docu? ments. In a letter from Bernardino de Mendoza to King Philip announcing the despatch of William Afies to Portugal on business for Don Antonio, the Ambassador gives the following portrait of him; " He is a young fellow of twenty, well built, with a fair and handsome face and a small fair beard." 35 This is not quite the type of Jew that Shakespeare drew or that Marlowe gave us in the red-nosed monster that was afterwards put upon the Elizabethan stage in deference to the anti-Semitic passions excited by Lopez's alleged treason. 32 Cal. S.P. Venetian (1592-1603), No. 83. Infra, Appendix, p. 67. 33 Infra, pp. 21, 32. 34 See pedigree, infra, p. 18. 35 Cal. S.P. Ireland (1574-85), pp. 468, 474; Cal. S.P. Spanish (1580-6), pp. 179, 287, 306.</page><page sequence="18">JEWS IN ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND. 17 The pedigree and Arms of the Anes family, printed infra, p. 18, are taken from the Visitation of London, 1568, recorded in the College of Arms (G. 10, p. 896, and F. 1, p. 174), with additions from the printed Registers of St. Olave, Hart Street, the MS. Registers of St. Bartholomew the Less, and other sources. At this point I may perhaps be permitted to sum up the statistical and social results of my investigations. From the Antwerp and Brussels Archives I have obtained the names of two Elizabethan Marranos, besides references to a large number of others whose names are not given. The records of the Lisbon Inquisition, still very im? perfectly examined, give me ten more. From the deposition of Pedro de Santa Cruz I get a further eight, and an examination of their family connections and other associates yields no fewer than fifty more. There are also a dozen whom I have identified as Marranos on various grounds, but who have not yet been mentioned by name. These are Jeronimo Anriques, who was living with Hector Nunez in 1583 36; Gomez d'Avila, who figured in the Lopez case, but who was afterwards identified in Antwerp as having been active as a Marrano 37; Solomon Cormano and Judah Serfatim, who were sent in 1592 and 1594 respec? tively as Ambassadors or Messengers to the English Government by Alvaro Mendez of Constantinople 38 ; Alvaro's sister Catherine and her husband, Diego Lopez Alleman, who visited England probably in 1572 39; Jeronimo Lopez, a cousin of Rodrigo, who took no pains to hide his Judaism, and Gabriel Fernando, who lived with him in Aldgate; Lewis Lopez, a brother of Rodrigo and John Lopez, another cousin; Bartholomew Nunez, apparently a relative of Hector Nunez, who lived alternately with him and with Lewis Lopez40; Pedro Rodrigues, the Jewish banker of Lyons who was to have married Rodrigo Lopez's daughter, and who came to England and lived with Jeronimo Lopez in 1587 41; and finally we have one Fernando del Mercado, alias Jacob 36 Returns of Aliens, vol. ii. p. 324. 37 Ibid., vol. iii. p. 134 ; Belg. Nat. Arch., Office Fiscal de Brabant, dossier 924. 38 Infra, pp. 27-29, Appendix, pp. 64 68, 76 89. 39 Infra, p. 20. They were living in Antwerp in 1572 (Goris, op. cit., p. 614). 40 Belums of Aliens, vol. i. pp. 365, 483; vol. ii. pp. 10, 136, 161, 476; vol. iii. pp. 55, 124, 125, 128. 41 Hatfield MSS. (Hist. MSS. Com.), vol. vii. pp. 253, 257, 260, 264, 278. VOL. XL C</page><page sequence="19"></page><page sequence="20">JEWS IN ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND. 19 Bueno, who lived with his brother Simon in London in 1603 and who, in the course of some litigation in the English Courts, is alleged to have avowed that he was a Jew.42 Altogether, with the ten names collected by Sir Sidney Lee, we have an identified Jewish community of between eighty and ninety souls living in the England of Good Queen Bess.43 There were probably also not a few humbler Jewish refugees who are still unidentified. In this connection I may remind you of a passage quoted by Sir Sidney Lee from an anonymous Elizabethan comedy, " Every Woman in her Humour," in which a City wife suggests to a neighbour that he might " hire a good suit at a Jew's." This early reference apparently to a Jew old clo' man has been ridiculed on the hypothesis that the word " Jew " does not really mean what it says. Its literal interpretation, however, is not so improbable as it seems. In the official Lista of the first regular Lisbon auto in 1541 appear the following two entries of Jews: " Philippe G-omes, aliabebe" and " Manuel Ferrera, aliabebe" 44 The word aliabebe means " dealer in old clothes," and, as both these Jews were burnt in effigy because they had escaped from Lisbon, it is not at all unlikely that they found a refuge in London. How many of these men and women were real Marranos in the sense that they regularly professed and practised Judaism in secret is, of course, impossible to say. That they were all New Christians is, however, certain, and it is equally certain that they were all united by a more or less slender bond of Jewish consciousness. Perhaps the bond was not so slender after all, for what Judaism there was among them found plenty of instruction and nourishment in Antwerp, where, despite the anti-Semitic vigilance of the Spanish authorities, a secret Synagogue existed between 1579 and 1583, and also in 1594. A list of the congre? gation of this Synagogue appears among the denunciations filed in the Lisbon Inquisition in 1585, and it is there stated that the Marranos imported two Rabbis from Italy to conduct the services for them on 42 Belg. Nat. Arch., Office Fiscal de Brabant, dossier 924. 43 Infra, Appendix, pp. 33-35. 44 There is a copy of this Lista in Belg. Nat. Archiv., Mat et Audience, liasse 11772, and further details are given in the MSS. of the Council of Brabant (liasse 1233). Of Philippe Gomes it is recorded that he had performed the rite of circum? cision on himself.</page><page sequence="21">20 JEWS IN ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND. the Day of Atonement.45 Another Lisbon denunciation gives an account of a Jewish Prayer Book in Spanish which was printed and circulated in Antwerp in 1577.46 There is good reason to believe that this congre? gation kept in touch with their co-religionists in England. They were certainly in close commercial relations with them, and that their spiritual association was perhaps not less intimate is indicated by the fact that money was collected in London for the maintenance of the Antwerp Synagogue. This collection has already been alluded to in this paper, and some of the contributors have been mentioned. The letter referring to it is, however, worth quoting at length. It was addressed to Rodrigo Lopez, under date of Antwerp, February 18, 1594, and ran as follows : " Worship11 " Wth. muche content I red yors of the 20 of the last moneth, and wth the licke content did all of this yor howse Receave the same, speatially mye con sorte, Dona Estir, whoe wth teares from hir hart did reade yor sayd letter often tymes, remembringe hir mystris, hir deare, and awncient friend, desyar inge the Lord, that it might please hime, to ioyne them, in that conversation, wch they weare wonte to have, to enioye the friendshipp and Systerlye love, all wch maye come to passe, for there is nothinge in this worlde impossibleJ and cominge to the purpose, I doe see that yow ordained Diego Lopez Soeiro to give vnto Luis fernandes, to send vnto me 15 pistoletts and from the said fernandez there was onely remitted vnto me 8 pistoletts wch I recovered ioyntlye wth other twenty pistoletts, wch alsoe weare sent me, bye the order of Sra Leonor Freire, and Fernao Daluerez, and they weare, by and bye bestowed, one the Divine worke./ I see that they did the accustomed Seremonyes wch are there vsed, to him who was soe benefitiall to the Suptuous (sic) and devout howse, allwayss prayeinge to the god of heaven, to augment and increase Lyfe estate and honor, to yow, yor wyffe and children, and all that weare healpef ull herein. / and no we yow vnderstand what is remitted vnto me, beinge 8 pistoletts, wch yow saye shoulde be 15 pistoletts, soe resteth, wch he is bound to satysfie 7 pistoletts, I saye this muche, to thentent, that yow knowe, the remaynder is to be made good and seinge that yow promysed, I praye yow to see it accomplished." 47 Owing to the apparently mysterious terms of this letter and the fact that it was unsigned, it was at first regarded by the English counter 45 Bai?o, op. cit., pp. 212-3. 46 Ibid., p. 205. 47 P.R.O., S.P. Dom. Eliz.f vol. 247, No. 69, f. 145.</page><page sequence="22">JEWS IN ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND. 21 espionage service as corroboration of the theory that Lopez was engaged in sinister conspiracies against the Queen, and in that character it still figures in the dossier of the Lopez case. Its true meaning, however, can be no mystery to anyone acquainted with the customs and necessary equivocations of the Marranos. Of the identity of its writer there can be no question. It is fixed by the reference to " mye consorte Dona Estir " and to her " systerlye love " for Lopez's wife. Dona Estir, as has already been shown, was the wife of Lopez's brother, Diego Lopez Alleman. On one occasion at least the Elizabethan Marranos assembled for Divine worship in London. When Solomon Cormano was here in 1592 as the envoy of the Jewish Duke of Metilli, he availed himself of his diplomatic privilege to hold Jewish services in his house. The English Ambassador in Constantinople, Edward Barton, writing to Burghley on Cormano's mission, in August 1592, says &lt;? that he and all his trayne used publickely the Jewes rytes in prayinge, accompayned wth ciiyers secrett Jewes resident in London." 48 What was the legal position of this community of crypto-Jews ? Apart from the statements I have quoted from the depositions of Pedro de Santa Cruz and Alexandre Simones, it must be obvious that its true character could not have remained altogether unknown to the general public, while to the Government, with its vigilant watch of all strangers hailing from Spain and Portugal, it must have been in every sense an open secret. And yet we hear nothing of the outlawry of the Jews, which, even down to the middle of the following century, was popularly supposed to have been enacted for all time by Edward I. The truth probably is that the Elizabethan lawyers, if they considered the question at all, arrived at the conclusion that there was no legal impediment to the incoming of Jews as such, precisely as their successors did in 1655, on the occasion of the famous Whitehall Conferences.49 However that may be, our Marranos entered England without hindrance, and remained in the country unmolested. The knowledge of the Govern? ment in regard to them is illustrated by two letters written by Waad, the Clerk of the Council, respectively to Burghley in 1591 and to Robert 48 Infra, Appendix, p. 68. 49 Wolf, Menasseh b. Israel's Mission to Oliver Cromwell, pp. xlix, lv-lvi.</page><page sequence="23">22 JEWS IN ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND. Cecil in 1597. The first relates to Lopez and his relations with Alvaro Mendez in Constantinople, and shows quite clearly that both Waad and Burghley had known for years that Lopez was not merely a New Christian but a practising crypto-Jew.50 The second letter con? cerns Pedro Rodriguez, the Lyons banker who was to have married one of Rodrigo Lopez's daughters. He had arrived in England, but had been placed under surveillance because it was believed that he had visited Spain and had been in communication with English Catholic refugees there. Incidentally, Waad explains that Rodriguez is "a Portugal by nation and a Jew by race." Later on in the same letter he recommends that a bond for Rodriguez's good conduct should be accepted from Jeronimo Lopez, who was willing to receive him in his house, and who, adds Waad, " is one of his nation and sect whom your honour doth well remember." 51 There is no hint here of the outlawry of Jews. The truth is that Jews were quite free to live in Elizabethan England, so long as they did not break the law or outrage public senti? ment in regard to religion or otherwise. The limits within which they were allowed are clearly indicated by the case of the German-Jewish mining chemist, Joachim Gaunz, who was expelled by the Privy Council in 1590. He had lived as a Jew and worked in London and Keswick untroubled by the authorities for eight years, and he was only arrested because he created some scandal by what were not unreasonably held to be blasphemous reflections on Christianity.52 There was, moreover, no practical reason why the Marranos should be expelled. They appear to have been, on the whole, quite decent folk, who worked honestly and unobtrusively at professions, trades, and handicrafts which added appreciably to the well-being of the country, while some of them rendered substantial services to the State, both as intelligencers and in the higher walks of diplomacy. Of their activity as intelligencers the State Papers and other public documents give many examples. The first in this field appears to have been Dunstan Anes. He was in the habit of importing oranges and other produce from Spain, and 50 P.R.O., S.P. Foreign, Turkey, 2. 51 Hatfield MSS., vol. vii. p. 253. 52 Papers read at the Anglo-Jewish Historical Exhibition, pp. 71, 72 ; Francis, The Smelting of Copper, pp. 24-34 ; Trans. Jew. Hist. Soc, vol. iv. p. 82.</page><page sequence="24">JEWS IN ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND. 23 at an early period he placed his ships at the disposal of Walsingham for the carriage of letters to and from the British spies in the Peninsula. Later on, when Portugal was conquered by Philip II, Dunstan obtained news for Walsingham from his son, Jacob, who was established in Lisbon and married there; and it was in connection with this traffic, which got to the ears of Bernardino de Mendoza in Paris, that Jacob was arrested in 1582.53 Similar work was done on a much larger scale by Hector Nunez, who seems to have enjoyed the complete confidence of both Burghley and Walsingham. Many of his letters of advice, addressed now to one, now to the other, are preserved in the Domestic and Foreign State Papers and the Hatfield MSS. Ships were specially chartered for the traffic, with the full knowledge and licence of the Government, and in connection with it Jeronimo Pardo made many hazardous journeys to Lisbon, and brought back extremely valuable information, besides much priceless contraband in the shape of bullion and cochineal. How he was arrested on one of these expeditions has already been told. Nunez also received much Spanish and Portu? guese intelligence through his Marrano correspondents in Flanders, and all this was duly communicated to the Lord Treasurer or the Secretary of State. The espionage system thus established by Nunez proved extremely valuable in 1587 and 1588, when Philip was pre? paring the Invincible Armada for the invasion of England. According to Pedro de Santa Cruz it was through a despatch received by Nunez from Jeronimo Pardo that the English Government first learnt of the arrival of the Duke of Medina Sidonia in Lisbon, and the great military and naval parades which followed. It was in this way, he says, that " the English finally concluded the destination of the Spanish Armada, and they began to take precautions with greater care and earnestness." Santa Cruz tells a story of Nunez which shows that he did not spare himself in communicating his news promptly to the Secretary of State. The Doctor was one day dining with Dona Isabel, the wife of the English merchant, Simon Borden, when a messenger from his house arrived with letters which had been brought in one of his ships from Jeronimo Pardo. " And the said Dr. Nunez took them and rose from 53 Cat. S.P. Spanish (1580-6), pp. 146, 287. Jacob Anes must have been released as he was afterwards in London and Constantinople (supra, pp. 15-16).</page><page sequence="25">24 JEWS IN ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND. the table without finishing his dinner and took them to Senor Gual zingham (Walsingham) who is the head of the most arduous affairs of that Kingdom." 54 The diplomatic work of our Marranos reached a high level of historical importance. It touched Elizabethan foreign policy at many points, and was at times a material element in the political calculations of both Burghley and Walsingham. The Marranos being all Portuguese, and animated by a bitter hatred of Spain on account of the cruelties of the Inquisition and the annexation of their native land, brought to the main problem of English foreign policy at the time of the Counter Reformation a large measure of valuable experience and zeal. The first important question in which they played a conspicuous part was that of the candidature of Don Antonio for the Portuguese throne. Here the chief Jewish actors were Alvaro Mendez, his brother-in-law, Rodrigo Lopez, and the latter's father-in-law, Dunstan Anes. Mendez was at once a patriotic Portuguese and a devoted Jew. He is the most important and picturesque figure in the story I am now telling. In view of his importance, it is, indeed, quite inexplicable that not a word about him has hitherto appeared in any standard work of Jewish history, and only a few brief references to him elsewhere? chiefly in the ethnographic literature of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. He was born at Tavira in Portugal about 1520, of a Marrano family which seems to have been connected with the Mendez's of Lisbon, whose subsequent career in Antwerp has already been touched upon. He served an apprenticeship to a goldsmith and became an acknowledged expert in precious stones. Probably through the interest of his wealthy Lisbon relatives, who were then forming their great sales syndicate of Oriental produce under the Portuguese Crown, he was sent to the East Indies about 1545. There he acquired an enormous fortune by farming the diamond mines of the kingdom of Narsinga, a native State, which comprised the whole of what is now known as the Madras Presidency. About 1555 he returned to Portugal and won the confidence of King Jo?o III., who created him a Knight of the Portu 54 Infra, Appendix, pp. 46-^7 ; Read, Mr. Secretary Walsingham, vol. iii. pp. 125-6, 292 ; Hatfield MSS., vol. ii. pp. 205, 513 ; Gal. S.P. Foreign (1579-80), No. 499 (1582), Nos.^240, 382, 393 (1585-86), p. 473 ; Gal. S.P. Dom. (1581-90), p. 431; Gal. S.P. Spanish (1587-1603), pp. 219, 253.</page><page sequence="26">JEWS IN ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND. 25 guese Order of St. Iago de Compostella. After the death of the King he spent some years in Madrid. In 1564 he was living in Florence. About this time he seems to have visited Constantinople, where his kinsman, Jo?o Miquez, Duke of Naxos, was at the height of his wonderful career. Five years later he settled in Paris. Thence from time to time he paid visits to Antwerp, London, Lyons, and Venice. His great wealth and political acumen, and more especially his devotion to Portugal and his hatred of Spain, brought him into contact with the leading statesmen of Northern Europe. Queen Elizabeth formed a high opinion of him, and he wTas frequently consulted by Henry III. of France and Catherine de Medici. This was his position in 1580 when the Portuguese dynastic crisis became acute through the death of the Cardinal-King Henry and the claim to the throne of Don Antonio, who was the natural son of the Infante Luiz by a Jewish mother, Violante Gomez. From the first Mendez had espoused the cause of the Pretender as the only alternative to Philip of Spain, perhaps also because of some sense of kinship, for his own mother was a Gomez. So intimate were their relations that when the crushing victory of Alva at Alcantara compelled Antonio to fly the country, it was with Mendez in Paris that he took refuge. Mendez succoured him, and otherwise helped him by his influence with the French King and the Queen Mother. When Antonio went to England to solicit the support of Queen Elizabeth, Mendez's brother-in-law, Eodrigo Lopez, became his chief adviser and the main channel of communication between him and the Government. In 1585 the Don lived in Lopez's house in Holborn, where he was visited by the Queen, and in 1589 it was on the advice of Lopez that Elizabeth sanctioned the expedition of Drake and Norris to Portugal, to restore Antonio to his throne. In the organisation of this expedition Dunstan Anes appears to have played a useful part on the financial side.55 55 Infra, Appendix, pp. 56, 71-76; Boterus, Belacion, Pt. III., " De Giudei " ; Brerewood, Enquiries touching the Diversity of Languages and Religions (1635), p. 92 ; Menasseh b. Israel, Hope of Israel (Eng. Edit., 1652), p. 49, Humble Addresses (1655), p. 6; Belg. Nat. Arch., Office Fiscal de Brabant, dossier 2126; Lamansky, Secrets d'Etat de Venise, pp. 80-3 ; Cal. S.P. For. (1581-2), Nos. 256, 340; Cal. S.P. Spanish (1580-6), pp. 81, 138, 456, 459, 552, 672; B.M. MSS., Nero, D.i. f. 251.</page><page sequence="27">26 JEWS IN ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND. Meanwhile, on August 2, 1579, Jo?o Miquez had died in Constan? tinople, and, probably with a view to the reversion of his great prestige, Alvaro Mendez had settled with his family in the Turkish capital. Here he speedily acquired great influence with the Sultan, who created him Duke of Metilli and Grand Commissary of the Court, and renewed to him the grant of Tiberias which had previously been held by his relative, the Duke of Naxos. Soon after his arrival in Constantinople he had thrown off his mask of Marranism, declared himself a Jew, and assumed the Jewish name of Solomon Abenjaish, although in the diplomatic corps he continued to be known as Don Alvaro Mendez.56 In Turkey Mendez stood for the interests of England and Don Antonio as against the interests of Spain, and he carried on a regular correspondence with Rodrigo Lopez, who conveyed to him the wishes of the Queen, to whom he was devoted. During the English Embassies of Harborne and Barton, Mendez appears to have been the chief instru? ment of English policy in Turkey. Such was the confidence he enjoyed at the hands of Queen Elizabeth and Burghley, that when in 1591 he quarrelled with Barton, who had circulated a calumnious story about him, the Queen disavowed her Ambassador, and wrote a strong letter to the Sultan testifying to Mendez's high character. It appears that Don Antonio had always envied Alvaro Mendez his great wealth, and more than once had dropped wicked hints in Paris and London that it had been obtained by fraud at the expense of the Portuguese Crown. In 1588 he began to despair of the efforts of Barton and Mendez on his behalf, and he entered into communication with another Portuguese Jew in Constantinople, David Passe, who had managed to secure the ear of the Sultan although he was notoriously a Spanish pensionary.57 At first Barton refused to have anything to 56 Infra, Appendix, pp. 57 ; Belg. Nat. Arch., Office Fiscal de Brabant, dossier 2126; Hammer, Geschichte d. Osman. Beiches, vol. ii. p. 468 ; Gal. S.P. Spanish (1587-1603), p. 92 ; Gal. S.P. Venetian (1581-91), No. 598. 57 Passe was a nephew of the Sultan's Jewish Physician, Moses Hamon. At one time he stood in high favour at Court and in 1585 it was reported in Venice that he had been invested with the vacant Dukedom of Naxos which had been enjoyed by Jo?o Miques until his death. The statement by Knolles and Bycaut (The Turkish History (1687), vol. i. p. 708) that he was murdered in 1588 is errone? ous. See Gal. S.P. For. Eliz. (1584-5), p. 663 ; Gal. S.P. Venetian (1581-91), Nos. 892, 994, 1004, 1028, 1030, 1060, 1075, 1081, 1101.</page><page sequence="28">JEWS IN ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND. 27 do with Passe, but when, in February 1591, Don Antonio appointed Passe his agent and the latter succeeded in persuading the Grand Vizier to promise his master the armed support of Turkey?-a promise which, of course, was never fulfilled?-Barton found himself compelled to receive him at the Embassy. This gave rise to a quarrel with Mendez, and in May 1591 the Ambassador?-clearly at the instigation of Passe?adopted Don Antonio's malicious story of the origin of Mendez's wealth, and even wrote to Burghley suggesting that the Sultan should be informed of it. It was further proposed to ask the Sultan to confiscate Mendez's fortune and divide it with Don Antonio. The suggestion found no support in London, but it soon reached Mendez's ears?no doubt through Lopez. He took prompt steps to vindicate himself. Towards the end of 1591 he sent a special Embassy to London, under one of his Jewish factors, Solomon Cormano, with instructions to lay the whole matter before the Queen. Cormano was completely successful in his mission. In March 1592 he obtained a letter from Elizabeth to the Sultan, of which the following is an extract: " Your Majesty's subject, Solomon Abenjaish, Knight, has lately sent us letters praying that since he is troubled unjustly and undeservedly by many calumnies and lies of enemies we will graciously assist him by our testimony. Therefore, since we have found him, being a man of consequence, most ready in the furthering of business and our affairs for many years, we desire to signify to Your Majesty what opinion we have of him. Now we can truly testify that not only we ourselves but also many other Christian Princes have wished him to tarry and dwell in our Kingdoms because of his virtue, honesty and industry where, without doubt, he could have lived quietly in all plenty and abundance, but when he chose rather to dwell at Constantinople in your dominions than anywhere else in the world, the artifices and lies of the Ministers of the King of Spain prevented him from resting even there in safety. . . . We judge that these calumnies were falsely brought against him that he might lose faith and credit thenceforward with Your Majesty (although he has acted and does act zealously against the King of Spain and his allies for the furthering of our interests). Similarly therefore if our Agent residing at Constantinople has said or done anything against his reputation or interest we interpret it to have been done by the deceit and artifices of Paolo Mariani the Italian who being a spy there for the King of Spain has persuaded himself that, this being done, he would certainly enter his favour." Apparently, in order to show that this remarkable tribute to a sixteenth-century Jew was not the personal act of the Queen alone,</page><page sequence="29">28 JEWS IN ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND. but was also the act of her Government, Burghley sent it to Mendez himself for transmission to the Sultan, together with another letter echoing the sentiments of his Royal Mistress and a letter of reprimand for Barton. Some years later the treasonable practices of both Passe and Mariani were discovered, and the one was imprisoned and the other hanged. When Mendez died the Spanish authorities in the Nether? lands, with a view to confiscating his property in that country, investi? gated the story of his alleged frauds on the Portuguese Crown. The evidence collected proves beyond doubt that Don Antonio's allegations had no foundation.58 In 1593 Mendez sent a second embassy to London headed by another of his Jewish retainers, Judah Serfatim, who appears to have been a trained and competent diplomatist. The main object of the mission, which was suggested by the Sultan himself, was to obtain an assurance of the benevolent neutrality of England in the Turkish war against Hungary. It had, however, other aims more personal to Mendez. He was still troubled by the intrigues of Don Antonio and also by the thoughtless conduct of Barton, who continued to rely very much on the tainted counsels of Paul Mariani, and through him had got into serious monetary embarrassments. On both these heads Serfatim was instructed to make representations to the Queen through Rodrigo Lopez. Unfortunately when he arrived in London Lopez was already under arrest on the charge which brought his career to a tragical end. The mission appears, nevertheless, to have been successful. Barton afterwards, as a token of English sympathy, accompanied the Sultan to the battle front and was present at the great Turkish victory at Kereztes. His monetary troubles were also settled owing to the generosity of Mendez. At the prompting of Mariani, but against the advice of Mendez, he had guaranteed the backsheesh which a Moldavian of Jewish extraction named Emanuel Aron had contracted to pay the Grand Vizierate as the price of his nomination to the Voivode ship of Moldavia. Aron got his appointment but failed to honour Barton's guarantee, with the result that the Ambassador was besieged 58 Infra, Appendix, pp. 56-68 ; Read, Walsingham, vol. iii. pp. 328-9, 331; English Historical Review (1893), pp. 446-7, 448-9, 451, 452-3, 456-7, 458, 462 ; Cal. S.P. Venetian (1581-91), No. 753, (1592-1603) No. 83 ; P.R.O., S.P. Dom. Eliz. 233, No. 97 ; P.R.O., S.P. Foreign, Turkey, 1, No. 55, 2, No. 37a.</page><page sequence="30">JEWS IN ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND. 29 by his creditors. Mendez offered the English Government to advance the money?some 300,000 crowns?and the offer appears to have been accepted.59 " Dn sallomo abenajaex." Autograph of Alvaro Mendez, from his letter to Queen Elizabeth, July 28, 1592 (supra, plate opposite p. 1; infra, Appendix, pp. 67-68). The full story of Mendez's crowded life and, more particularly, his services to England in Constantinople, I must reserve for another occasion. It must suffice to say here that he consistently supported Elizabeth's policy of an Anglo-Turkish alliance against Spain, and although he did not succeed in actually concluding an armed alliance, he maintained cordial relations between England and Turkey, and thus defeated for many years all the Spanish schemes for securing the neutrality of the Sultan in the war between England and Spain. By his services in this latter respect he was instrumental in immobilising in Italy and the Eastern Mediterranean large Spanish forces, which otherwise would have been turned against England.60 There was another side to English foreign policy at this period in which the Marranos also took an active part, although it could not have been altogether agreeable to them. This was the policy of peace with Spain, which was always more or less secretly favoured by the Queen from motives of thriftiness, and was supported by Burghley and Cecil and the conservative party against the bellicose Puritans, 59 Infra, Appendix, pp. 71-88 ; further facts about Aron Voivode will be found in Hurmuzache, Documents istorice privitoare la istoria Bomanilor, vol. iii. p. 153, No. cxl. I have to thank Dr. M. Gaster for this reference. See also Jewish Encyclopoidia, art. Roumania, and Schwartzfeld in American Jewish Year Book (1901-2), p. 33. 60 Professor Lewis F. Mott, of New York, has kindly called my attention to a passage in an old play, The True Tragedie of Richard the Third (1589), which may perhaps refer to Alvaro Mendez. It appears in a panegyric of Elizabeth and runs as follows: " The T?rke admires to hear her government, And babes in Jurie sound her princely name."</page><page sequence="31">30 JEWS IN ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND. under Essex and Leicester. There were two sets of these extremely delicate negotiations, in one of which Hector Nunez played a large part, and in the other Rodrigo Lopez, with disastrous consequences to himself. Hector Nunez was an intimate friend of Antonio de Castilio, the gifted Portuguese Ambassador in England who was recalled by Philip II. after the conquest of Portugal. Castilio was a Legitimist, and he had rallied to Spain ; he was also known to be a pacifist with idealist views on European peace, on which he corresponded with his friend Nunez. In 1585, at the prompting of the Queen, Walsingham asked Nunez to write to Castilio, and recommend him to take up the question of peace with the Spanish King or some member of his Council. Nunez agreed, but at the same time suggested that a Spanish prisoner of war named Villareal, who had great influence at the Spanish Court, should be offered his release if he would consent to convey the peace proposals to the King himself. The negotiations were continued all through 1586 down to the spring of 1587, Nunez's letters and Castilio's replies being carried by Jeronimo Pardo. They came to nothing through no fault of Nunez, but apparently because Walsingham, who was a strong Puritan, had no real enthusiasm for peace with Spain.61 Other peace negotiations were opened from time to time with a like result, but it was not until 1590 that Rodrigo Lopez, having broken with Don Antonio owing to his scandalous behaviour to Alvaro Mendez and to his (Lopez's) father-in-law, Dunstan Aries, took a hand in the game. As in the case of Nunez in 1585, there can be little doubt that the Queen, and perhaps also Burghley, were privy to Lopez's overtures. But the times had changed since 1585. The Armada had been fought and destroyed, and the country remained in a warlike mood, ready to look upon anybody who uttered the word 66 Peace " as a traitor. It must also be confessed that Lopez played his cards badly. He quarrelled with Essex, who vowed to be avenged on him. He employed disreputable go-betweens to convey his proposals to Madrid. He did not scruple to accept gifts from the other side. He found his action disapproved even by his brother-in-law, Alvaro Mendez, who wrote to him reproachfully from Constantinople that 61 Infra, Appendix, pp. 50-55 ; Read, op. cit., vol. iii. pp. 125-7, 148-9, 292 ; Gal. S.P. For. (1585-6), pp. 281, 472-3, 473 et seq., 508 ; (1586-8), p. 79; Cat. S.P. Spanish (1580-6), p. 654 ; P.R.O., S.P. For. 94/2, Nos. 70, 71.</page><page sequence="32">JEWS IN ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND. 31 " despite your discretion and prudence and being a Portugall you forget the misery of Portugal." 62 I need not repeat the tragical denouement of the story, how Essex discovered the negotiations, how letters ad? dressed to Lopez were seized and deliberately misinterpreted, how his disreputable associates turned upon him and invented a plot against the Queen's life as an explanation of the obscurities in his letters which would be most agreeable to his enemies, and how, in the end, this con? spiracy and the popular excitement to which it gave rise brought Lopez to the gallows. Major Martin Hume, in a masterly paper read before this Society eighteen years ago, made out a strong case for the innocence of Lopez. All the fresh evidence which has come to light since then tends to support Major Hume's plea. Lopez was not without defects of character, but he had no motive whatever for the crime attributed to him, and all we know of his private character?his attachment to his proscribed religion, his affection for his family, his devotion to the Queen, and his personal amiability?seems to indicate that he was really incapable of it.63 A vigorous effort to save Lopez was made at the last moment on behalf of Alvaro Mendez by the latter's envoy, Judah Serfatim, whose mission to London coincided with the trial. Serfatim urged that the execution would probably lead to the ruin of his master, and that if only a reprieve were granted he was certain that Mendez would be able to produce evidence which would entirely clear his unhappy brother in-law. The answer he received through the medium of Waad, the Clerk to the Council, was that '' the discontent of the people was so great " that it was impossible to grant his request. This curious plea goes far to confirm M. Forneron's contention that Lopez fell a victim 62 Infra, Appendix, p. 72. 63 The literature of the Lopez Case is voluminous, and most of the documents have been published. For the case against the Doctor see A. Dymock in Eng. Hist. Rev. (1894), pp. 440-72, and Lord Algernon Cecil's Life of Robert Cecil, pp. 69-85; for the defence see S. L. Lee in Genfs. 3Iag.,Feb. 1880, Martin Hume in Trans. Jew. Hist. Soc, vol. vi. pp. 32-55, and Forneron's Histoire de Philippe II., vol. iv. pp. 266 et seq. Mr. Cecil Roth has called my attention to an interesting reference to Lopez in the State Archives at Florence, dated February 16, 1594. It pays a tribute to his " friendly and agreeable " character and incidentally mentions that he had paid a visit to the Ghetto in Venice, in the company of " his brothers and wife." (Archivio Mediceo dopo il Principato, filz. 4185, f. 238b.)</page><page sequence="33">32 JEWS IN ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND. to anti-Spanish mob clamour rather than to any misdeeds of his own. Serfatim's fears with regard to Alvaro Mendez were, however, not realised. It was inevitable that his political relations with the English Government should become strained, for after the Lopez affair they could not have been agreeable to either side ; but Alvaro's great position in Constantinople remained unshaken and his political ideas and activities underwent no change. Spain was quick to seize what appeared to be an opportunity of securing the powerful Jew's favour, and there was an exchange of envoys between them. Serfatim was sent to Madrid to negotiate an exchange of prisoners, but when the Spaniards again raised the question of a truce with Turkey, Mendez opposed it as strongly as in the happier days of his collaboration with Barton, and it was not further entertained.64 In 1595 he appears to have become reconciled to Barton.65 He died in 1603. The following is a table of the ascertained members of Alvaro Mendez's family : i Maria Gomes, d. in Antwerp 1607; m. 1564 Nicolas Rodrig ues Devora. s.p. Alvaro Mendes, = Margarita de Saa b.atTavira ; d. ! 1603 at Con- j stantinople. Catherine Mendes (Esther); m. Diego Lopes Alle man (Jacob) and had issue. Francisco (Jacob). Benjamin. Hannah. Bianca Mendes, = d. in Spain. I Alvaro Mendes Pinto. Mendez had two brothers who are referred to in the records, but whose names are not given. He had also a cousin, Leonora Mendes, who married Amador Rodrigues. 64 Infra, Appendix, pp. 89-91; Belg. Nat. Arch., Office Fiscal de Brabant, dossier 2126; P.R.O., S.P. Turkey, 3 ; Cal. S.P. Venetian (1592-1603), Nos. 408, 412, 416, 436, 622. 65 There is a fragment of a letter in P.R.O., S.P. Foreign, Turkey, 3, dated February 2, 1595, addressed to Barton and signed " Salomon Vche," apparently an abbreviation of Salomon Aben Jaish. The writer addresses Barton as his " friend, patron and benefactor" and signs himself " old and most obliged servant."</page><page sequence="34">JEWS IN ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND. 35 This concludes the story I have to tell you to-night. It is not the full story, for the voluminous material with which I have dealt, and much of which will be found set forth in the appended documents, can only be briefly summarised in the time at my disposal. It is also not complete, for there are still unexplored sources, such as the trials of the Portuguese Inquisition and the Spanish State archives, which probably contain much additional information. Unfortunately no calendars have been compiled of the Inquisition processes, while the catalogues and calendars of Simancas covering this period are extremely defective. There is, consequently, a very large and hopeful field for further research relating to the Elizabethan Marranos, and I shall be glad if my paper to-night has the effect of encouraging some of our members to undertake it. APPENDIX OF DOCUMENTS. I.?List of Marranos in Elizabethan England. Diego Lopez Alleman, alias Jacob Alleman, brother of Dr. Lopez. Agnes Alvarez, wife of Ferdinando Alvarez, jnr, Blanche Alvarez, daughter of Ferdinando Alvarez, sen. Blanche Alvarez, daughter of Ferdinando Alvarez, jnr. Diogo Alvarez. Elizabeth Alvarez, daughter of Ferdinando Alvarez, sen. Ferdinando Alvarez, sen. Ferdinando Alvarez, jnr. Francisco Dalvarez. Helinor Alvarez, daughter of Ferdinando Alvarez, sen. Lewis Alvarez, son of Ferdinando Alvarez, jnr. Philippa Alvarez, wife of Ferdinando Alvarez, sen. Roger Alvarez, son of Ferdinando Alvarez, jnr. Avis Anes, sister of Dunstan Anes. Benjamin Anes, sen., son of Dunstan Anes. Benjamin Anes, jnr., son of Benjamin Anes, sen. Constance Anes, wife of Dunstan Anes. Diego Anes, son of Dunstan Anes. Dunstan Anes, alias Gonsalvo Anes, alias Benjamin George. Elizabeth Anes, mother of Dunstan Anes. Elizabeth Anes, daughter of Dunstan Anes. VOL. XI. D</page><page sequence="35">34 JEWS IN ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND. Erasmus Anes, son of Francis Anes. Frances Anes, wife of William Anes, sen. Francis Anes, brother of Dunstan Anes. George Anes, son of Dunstan Aries. Henry Anes, son of Dunstan Anes. Hester Anes, daughter of Dunstan Anes. Jacob Anes, son of Dunstan Anes. Joan Anes, sister of Dunstan Anes. John Anes, son of William Anes, sen. Mary Anes, daughter of Dunstan Anes. Rachel Anes, daughter of Dunstan Anes. Roger Anes, son of Dunstan Anes. Thomas Anes, son of Dunstan Anes. William Anes, sen., son of Dunstan Anes. William Anes, jnr., son of William Anes, sen. Jeronimo Anriques. Arthur Antoe. Gomez d'Avila. Antonio Brand?o. Solomon Cormano. Christopher Fernandes. Elizabeth Ferdinando. Philip Ferdinando. Gabriel Fernando. Grace Freire, sister of Bernaldo Luiz. John Freire, brother of Bernaldo Luiz. Pedro Freire, brother of Bernaldo Luiz. Joachim Gaunz. Sim?o Gomez. Sim?o Henriques. Alonzo de Herrera. Alvaro de Lima. Elizabeth de Lima, wife of Alvaro de Lima. Anne Lopez, daughter of Dr. Lopez. Anthony Lopez, son of Dr. Lopez. Douglas Lopez, son of Dr. Lopez. Jeronimo Lopez, cousin of Dr. Lopez. Wife of Jeronimo Lopez. John Lopez, cousin of Dr. Lopez. Lewis Lopez, brother of Dr. Lopez. Dr. Rodrigo Lopez, Physician to the Queen. Sarah Lopez, wife of Dr. Lopez. William Lopez, son of Dr. Lopez.</page><page sequence="36">JEWS IN ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND. 35 Antonio de Loroingue. Bernaldo Luis. Oregorio Luiz. Fortunatus Massa. Judah Menda. Chevalier Alvaro Mendez, alias Don Salomon Abenjaish. Ester, alias Catherine Mendez, sister of Alvaro Mendez. Fernando del Mercado, alias Jacob Bueno. Simon del Mercado. Ruy Nogueira. Wife of Ruy Nogueira. Bartholomew Nunez. Dr. Hector Nunez. Leonora Nunez, wife of Dr. Nunez. Maria Nunez. Jeronimo Pardo, brother of Alvaro de Lima. Diogo Pires. Duarte Pires. Pedro Rodriguez. Judah Serfatim. Francisco de Tapia. John Tremellius. Pedro Vaz. James Wolfgang. The references to the above persons in the text of the paper and in the Appendix will be found in the Index to this volume. II.?The Denunciations. Francisco de Valverde and Pedro de Santa Cruz to Bernardino de Mendoza, Spanish Ambassador in Paris. (Cal. S.P. Spanish, 1587-1603, pp. 219-22.) Extract: . . . However careful your friends may be to supply information, we are sure they are not more diligent than the Portuguese Ceronimo Pardo, in Lisbon, and Bernaldo Luis, in Madrid 66 who are relatives of Dr. Nunez, who lives here. 66 The letter was sent to the King, who underlined and called special attention to this passage.</page><page sequence="37">36 JEWS IN ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND. They carefully report hither everything that passes at Madrid and Lisbon, and transmit their news by ships which they send from Spain in the following way. Last year Bernaldo Luis took a ship from here loaded with cloth worth 70,000 ducats. When the ship arrived in Lisbon it was embargoed, on suspicion that the cargo belonged to Englishmen, as in fact it did. But they arranged so cleverly as to get permission to deal with the merchandize, on condition that neither it nor they were to. return to England. They have fulfilled these conditions in the following manner. Geronimo Pardo arrived in London in June last in a ship with a little salt as an excuse, but the rest of the cargo consisted of spices, cochineal, and a large sum of money. He brought on that occasion two packets of letters in cipher, giving a full account of the warlike preparations which were being made in Spain. After trans? lating them, he carried them to Secretary Walsingham, and within two months Pardo was on his way back to Lisbon. Since then he has sent three more ships ; the first with raisins and wine, from Ayamonte, the second with wine and cochineal, and the third from Algarves, with wax and figs in barrels, many of the barrels also containing bags of money. By this latter ship full accounts were sent of the ships, men, and stores for the Armada in Lisbon. The despatches were delivered to Dr. Hector Nunez whilst he was at a dinner to which he had been invited. He rose in great haste, and went direct to Secretary Walsingham's house. On one occasion we asked a certain Francisco de Tapia, who is a servant and relative of Nunez, whether there were any letters from Spain from Geronimo Pardo ; and he replied in the following words : " Gentlemen ! Geronimo Pardo dares not write anything, little or big, for they have had him straitly shut up in Lisbon on suspicion of being a spy in the service of England ; and the master of a German ship who knew Pardo here, tells us that when he was in Lisbon, Pardo said to him, ' Brother, since you are going to England, it is a matter of life or death to me that you should carry this letter to Dr. Hector Nunez.' The shipmaster consented, and Pardo then gave him a packet of letters, again repeating that the lives of both depended upon their safe delivery, and their not being seen in Spain. The shipmaster hid the packet in a feather bed and on coming up the Channel in a storm he ran ashore, and lost everything but the lives of his crew. You may see by this how poor Pardo is to be pitied.'' This Tapia may be captured in Lisbon as he is going thither in a ship bound for Brazil. She is one of those that went last year with the Marquis of Santa Cruz to Terceira, and was captured off Cape Spichel (her crew being sick) and brought to England. She must call at Lisbon, and will be taken from there either by Tapia, Pardo, or by one Pero Freire, of Lisbon. She will land also in a port of Galicia or Portugal a man well disguised in the garb of a pilgrim. The ship and cargo are entirely English property, nothing belongs to the Portuguese who ostensibly own her, but to Mr. Cob, Mr. Richard Mayo, his son-in-law, and other Englishmen. Even if the goods belonged to the Portuguese, it would</page><page sequence="38">JEWS IN ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND. 37 be well to embargo them, for the latter are all heretics, and attend heretic service. When your lordship was here perhaps some of them went to mass for their own ends, but none of them go now. Another English ship, called the Bloch Crow, is also going to Spain, carrying a false deed of sale and transfer in favour of certain Flemings. She is loaded with goods belonging to the same Englishmen, but only the master is English. She is consigned to Geronimo Pardo. We have all the informa? tion here set down from good Catholics, and we swear on this cross &gt;}&lt; that we are writing it in all zeal for the service of God and our King. London, 27th February 1588. Francisco de Valverde. Pedro de Santa Crux. " Confession " of Bernaldo Luis. (Archivo General de Simancas, Secretaria de Estado, Legajo 839, folio 215.) Confesion de bernaldo luis = En la villa de madrid a trece dias del mes de mayo de mill e quinientos y ochenta y ocho anos el senor alcalde Valadares Sarmiento tomo y Reeibio juramento en forma de derecho de vn ombre Preso en la carcel Real desta corte so cargo del qual se le pregunto lo siguiente = Preguntado como se llama y de donde es natural y que Officio y edad tiene dixo que se llama Vernaldo Luys freyle e que es poftugues natural de lisboa y que no es cassado y tiene hermanos cassados en lisboa y bibia en la rua de las esteras en cassa de su, hermano Pero freyle y es de hedad de quarenta y ocho anos poco mas o menos = Preguntado donde a rresidido y estado de diez anos a esta parte dixo que de siete o ocho anos a esta parte a estado sienpre en ynglaterra y f ue a ella desde flander donde a estado desdel ano de cincuenta y cuatro quando su magestad se f ue a cassar a inglaterra e Partio de lisboa con mercadurias y f ue encaminado a albaro de lima mercader Primo segundo de su padre y estaua en su compania como seys o siete anos y despues estubo con rruy mendez f ator del Rey de portugal que Residia en la Villa de anveres con el qual estubo a su parecer como cinco anos o seys e despues de muerto el dicho Ruy mendez se bino este conf esante a portugal donde estubo como tres o quatro meses y se boluio a enberes Por tener inteligencia en aquella tierra y negocios en ella y todo el tienpo questubieron el duque de alba y Comendador mayor de castilla y el senor don Joan de austria en aquellas partes Gobernando se hallo este confesante en la dicha Villa de anveres y despues que se hico el saco de anberes y derribado el castillo y auer entrado el principe de orange en aquella Villa por no estar este confesante seguro en ella se paso a ynglaterra donde esta y bibe el dotor nunez cunado deste confesante cassado con hermana suya en londres en la calle de marca lande ques dotor en medecina y alii a estado siete o ocho anos como tiene dicho</page><page sequence="39">58 JEWS IN ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND. donde tenia nego^os de mercaduria de ynportan9ia e inbio algunas y nabios de trigo que a su pare9er serian mas de treynta Encaminadas a Pero freyle su hermano y a otros mercaderes que eran manuel gomez de elbas y duarte furtado y a duarte mendez de lebas y tanbien conoge a vn geronimo Pardo ques su primo ques agente del dicho dotor etor nunez y ba y biene de lisboa a ynglaterra con mercadurias y a otras partes donde el dicho dotor le enbia = Preguntado Con que Portuguese trataba y hablaba este conf esante en yngla? terra Particularmente dixo que con antonio de vega no con otro alguno = Preguntado que Portugueses avia en ynglaterra en la dicha 9iudad de londres donde este confesante bibia dixo que don antonio prior de Ocrato que bino alii este setienbre proximo passado 11190 dos anos de f rancia y antes quando fue huydo de portugal Uego a cales Puerto de fran9ia y de alii se passo a la dicha 9iudad de londres dondestubo como 9inco o seys meses y alii hi90 el dicho don antonio sieta o ocho naos de armada para yr por el mar a rrobar y supo este confesante que abian andado por la canal de ynglaterra Robando e oyo de9ir que yba general de losdichos nabios joan fernandez detea portugues que bibia en la rrochela y que andaban en ellos yngleses e criados de don antonio que no les saue sus nonbres y joan rrodriguez de sosa dira quieneran los criados del dicho don antonio y Portugueses e yngleses que andaban en los dichos nabios el qual f ue enbaxador del dicho don antonio en ynglaterra e agora esta y bibe en lisboa en seruicio de su magestad y despues Passados 9inco o seys meses se fue el dicho don antonio a fran9ia donde estubo hasta que se boluio a ynglaterra que abra el tienpo que tiene dicho y cono9io ansi mismo de vista a diego botello y a don antonio de meneses y don joan de Castro que eran allegados del dicho don antonio y otros muchos que no saue sus nonbres y podria comber a algunos fran9isco de guebara teniente de corregidor de bilbao al qual llebaron presso vnos yngleses dende bilbao a londres y a vn pedro de Villarreal que tanbien Reside en bilbao y tanbien lo podria de9ir Pedro sarmiento de ganboa a quien este confesante Presto mill ducados para salir de londres y benir a espana = Preguntado que veces bino desde ynglaterra donde estaba a espana dixo que no a uenido mas desta uez y Uego a lisboa por fin de mar9o del ano passado de ochenta y siete que binieron este confesante e geronimo Pardo su primo en un nabio cargado de mercadurias de panos y Rajas y cariseas valletas Plomo estano 9era y anascotes y otras mercadurias = Preguntado si es uerdad que le enbargaron el nabio y merca? durias dixo que es uerdad que la detubieron las mercadurias en el alf ondiga y no se las quisieron dar ni entregar hasta queste confesante vino a la corte con cartas del cardenal archiduque para su magestad y con otros Recaudos y su magestad fue seruido mandar se le diesen las dichas mercadurias a este confesante y al dicho geronimo pardo e desenbargasen el nabio y asi se hi90 y los despachos dello enbio al dicho su hermano Pero freyle y se quedo este confesante en esta corte donde a estado y tanbien en segouia y balladolid hasta agora que le prendieronen segobia en cassa de simon freyle su primo =?</page><page sequence="40">JEWS LN ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND. Preguntado si las dichas mercadurias que binieron en el dicho nabio eran de yngleses o algunas dellas dixo que todas las dichas mercadurias eran de este, confesante y de su hermano Pero freyle y de los dichos dotor etor nunez y geronimo pardo de marcos lopez enrriquez y duarte mendez de lebas segun le dixo el dicho geronimo pardo y de albaro de lima hermano del dicho geronimo pardo que serian de balor de mas de sesenta mill ducados = Preguntado si saue o a entendido este confesante porque le enbargaronlas dichas mercadurias dixo que por que su magestad abia proybido que no se truxesen mercadurias de ynglaterra y despues se las desenbargaron como dicho tiene = Preguntado que se hico de nabio en que vinieron las dichas mercadurias deste confesante y los demas que dicho tiene dixo quel dicho geronimo pardo voluio luego en el dicho nabio a ynglaterra y le llebo cargado de sal y especieria y corchos que llebo el maestro del nauio = Preguntadosi llebo dineros algunos el dicho Gero? nimo Pardo en el dicho nabio dixo que no a sauido que llebase dineros ningunos = Preguntado si es uerdad que su magestad le hico merced de desenbargar el dicho nabio y mercadurias con que no llebasen ni enviase otras algunas a londres ni passase e3te confesante alia dixo que don cristoual de mora le dio una carta por orden de su magestad para el cardenal archiduque en que se ordenaba se le entregasen a su hermano deste confesante y a los demas las mercadurias y que la carta yba cerrada y no saue lo que yba dentro della y quel dicho don cristoual de mora dixo a este confesante que la boluntad de su magestad era que no boluiese a ynglaterra sin su lieencia y no le dixo otra cossa mas desto y todo este tienpo queste confesante a estado en esta corte sienpre a continuado con el dicho don cristoual de mora en cosas del seruicio de su magestad y por su orden deste confesante y del dicho su hermano an venido muchos abisos de ynglaterra importantes al seruicio de su magestad y agora vltimamente par la semana del acavo vino vn auiso de mucha ynpor tancia de su magestad y quando este confesante vino a esta corte a que su magestad le hiciese merced de desenbargalle la dicha su hacienda y al dicho geronimo pardo era partir con el dicho nabio cargado de sal como tiene dicho con lieencia del cardenal archiduque e marques de santa cruz el qual le dio passaporte para ello y el archiduque cardenal le mando dar a este confesante vn despacho cerrado y sellado por mano del secretario Lopez suarez para queste confesante lo encaminase debaxo de su cubierta y arrecaudo con el dicho geronimo Pardo para que le diese a leer con sus cartas a antonio de Vega questa y Reside en londres del qual traxo Respuesta el dicho geronimo Pardo quando voluio que fue por el mes de agosto del ano passado = Preguntado si este confesante se escribe y cartea con el dicho dotor etor nunez su cunado desde esta corte todo este tienpo que a estado en ella dixo que es uerdad que se an scrito algunas veces en cosas de negocios = Preguntado que cossa le escriue este confesante dixo que cossa de negocios y de su salud y que procura despacharse lo mas breue que sea posible y que geronimo pardo de lisboa podria tanbien escreuir lo que le pareciere como su fator que es el qu?l esta</page><page sequence="41">40 JEWS IN ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND. agora en lisboa = Preguntado por que horden escriue este conf esante al dicho dotor etor nunez dixo quo por la bia de paris y encamina las cartas a paris a francisco enrriquez Portugues que reside en aquella giudad e por rruan las encamina a hernando de quintana duenas que es burgales el qual haee negocios del dicho Pedro f reyle hermano deste conf esante y de otros en la dicha giudad de rruan =* Preguntado si este conf esante a escripto al dicho dotor etor nunez su cunado cosas de negocios que pasan en espafia que tocan al seruicio de su mages tad contando todo lo que passa por aca dixo que lo que a escripto es que pongan en cobro su hacienda que alia tienen e que la pasen a flandes y a alemania a enburgo por que espera en la misericordia de dios que su magestad a de ser Rey de ynglaterra = Preguntado a que otros mas escribe este con fesante a londres que al dicho su cunado dixo que algunas veees escribe al dicho antonio de Vega e no a otra persona = Preguntado quien le escriue a este conf esante de ynglaterra dixo que desques que esta aca no a tenido carta ninguna e que por la uia de lisboa por mano de los dichos Pedro freyle su hermano e geronimo Pardo su primo saue este confesante lo que passo por ynglaterra a los quales el dicho dotor etor nunez escriue e no a otra persona queste confesante sepa y esto es la uerdad = Preguntado si conoce este confesante al enbaxador de francia que reside en esta corte dixo que si conoce = Preguntado si a comido algunas veges en cassa del dicho enbaxador dixo que abia comido con el en su mesa quatro o cinco veges por auerle enbiado a convidar el dicho enbaxador = Preguntado quien comio con el dicho enbaxador las ueces queste confesante comio con el dixo que una vez vnos mercaderes flamencos y un gentil ombre vorgonon y el uno de los mercaderes se llama geronimo Rasta que bibe en esta villa de madrid y hace los negogios de joan bautista Reuelasio (?) ytaliano tesorero del cardenal archiduque y otra uez comieron los pajes de su magestad que eran dos flamencos quel uno se llama don felippe y el otro no saue el nombre y otra vez comio vn frayle francisco y un picador de los caballos de su magestad ques ytaliano = Pre? guntado de donde conoge este confesante el dicho enbaxador de francia dixo queste confesante conocio en ynglaterra al enbaxador del Rey de frangia dixo queste confesante conocio en ynglaterra al enbaxador del Rey de frangia (sic) y quando este confesante vino a espana el dicho enbaxador le dio encomi endas para el que Reside en esta corte y desto y de auerle bisitado con unos mercaderes franceses que Residen en esta corte quel uno se llama joan Venote y el otro f rantes de mardella que possaban en cassa de armande f usa tudesco archero de su magestad tomo amistad el dicho Enbaxador con este confesante y le conbido a comer = Preguntado si este confesante traxo cartas algunas al dicho enbaxador de parte del enbaxador de frangia questa en ynglaterra dixo que no sino encomiendas como dicho tiene y que no le a conuersado sino desde nabidad aca y questo es la uerdad = Preguntado si es uerdad questando el dicho don antonio Prior de ocrato en la giudad de londres este confesante trataba eon el y entraba y salia en su possada dixo que nunca trato con el ni</page><page sequence="42">JEWS IN ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND. 41 le hablo y que el dicho don antonio no tenia mayor enemigo que a este con f esante por que procuro desacreditarle sirbiendo en ello a su magestad = Preguntado si el dicho dotor nunez cunado deste confesante entraba en cassa del dicho don antonio y le trataba y comunicaba dixo que ni entraba en su cassa ni tenia negocios con el = Preguntado si el dicho doctor nufiez su cunado f ue medico del dicho don antonio y le euro el tienpo questubo en Londres dixo que no fue ni medico ni le euro nunca = Preguntado si el dicho dotor nunez es medico de la cassa de la rreyna de yngalaterra dixo que no f ue medico de la cassa de la Reyna por que no lo quiso ser por tener su libertad = Preguntado si las veces que dize que comio este conf esante con el enbaxador de francia si comio con el algun portugues dixo que no comio con el ninguno y esto es la uerdad e firmolo vernaldo luis f rey passo ante mi f rancisco Enrriquez. = . . . Relacion que enbio vernaldo luis al alcalde Valladares despues que le tomo su confesion = Dice Vernaldo luys freyle que se le olbido de decir a V. m. que quando escreuio a londres al doctor etor nunez que debaxo de su carta escreuia a albaro de lima y f ernao dalvarez sus cunados que dexo en su plasa haciendo sus negocios en los quales tienen parte con poder vastante y que ademas de lo que escriuio por la uia de paris scribio dos veces debaxo de cubierta de gaspar diez y baltecar vazque son dos hermanos que sirbieTon a don antonio e tengo amistad con ellos de cassa de antonio de aveyga ques la persona que hace en secreto en seruicio de su magestad el qual antonio de aveyga antes que yo viniese de ynglaterra envio al gaspar diez con un despacho del seruicio de su magestad al enbaxador don bernaldino de mendoca a paris y alii quedo entretenido del enbaxador el dicho gaspar diez y despues que yo parti envio con otro despacho al otro hermano valtecar vaz a paris al dicho don bernardino de mendoca el qual segun tengo entendido les a alcansado perdon de su magestad y hecho dar entretenimiento por ser en personas de eonflanca y de quien antonio de aueyga se auia todo el secreto de lo que hacia don antonio y deste conocimiento les escreui y que me enbiasen novas del antonio de Veyga y de lo que por aquellas partes passaba y no e tenido Res puesta destas cartas ni de las que escreui y por uia de f rancisco de enrriquez y hernando de qiuntana duenas e conocido mas por uia de antonio de Veyga a otros dos criados de don antonio el uno chamado manuel bazquez fue alcayde en la Villa de setibial junto a lisboa y el otro chamado santo payz y antes que me partiese de ynglaterra me vinieron a decir por sauer en quanto yo hera amigo del seruicio de su magestad questaban de acuerdo de se passar en francia en compania de don antonio de meneces secretamente por quanto don atonio no queria dar licencia a ninguno de sus criados y aqui en la corte supe a mucho que llegaron a francia y deben destar perdonados por bia del enbaxador don bernaldino por que les aconsege que como llegasen a paris les fuesen a dar la ovediencia a otros mas e conocido por parte de antonio de Veyga de que no se los nombres y aun flaire Predicador de don antonio que deseaba harto de se venir a portugal e salirse de tal conversacion mas no</page><page sequence="43">42 JEWS IN ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND podia alcansar ligengia el qual Jlamaba fray luys suares a antonio daueiga por me decir que oompria mueho al seruigio de su magestad y se poder entre tener en el y su cassa y sus criados eomo siempre tube en aquella tierra e para pechar algunos que le advertian de muchas cossa secretes le di dos mill ducados antes de mi partida de ynglaterra y el dieho antonio de veyga escriuio por mi a su magestad y al cardenal archiduque se me mandasen pagar y hager merged y a la buelta de geronimo pardo quando vino con la rrespuesta del despacho que yo enbie a antonio daueyga que me mando dar el cardenal archiduque y fue en la nao en que yo bine torno a escriuir lo mismo a su magestad y hasta agora no soy pago ni de otros dineros que mis cunados le an dado despues que yo de alia bine para sus negesidades y por el dicho antonio daueiga me encargar diese a su muger que esta en lisbona lo que le f uese menester ademas de alguna rropa y piesas que conmigo enbio para ella y dos hijas le di antes de mi partida de lisbona vinte sinqo ducados y pague los derechos de lo que le truxe y la dicha muger me escriuio de lisbona a esta corte que tenia necesidad para sustentar su casa y hijas que le prouese con dineros y otras cosas los quales le an dado por veces de mi parte y otras cossas de que mi hermano pero freyre tiene la cuenta que no es poca suma como la dicha muger dira que se llama lugia de bayros y bibe en lisbona serca del monesterio de san rroque de los teatinos y un padre de la compania del dicho monasterio chamado manuel correa dira donde bibe esta lugia de vayrros por que algunos despachos que enbia por nuestra bia el antonio de ueyga para el cardenal archiduque enbiar a su magestad por mas secreto vienen debaxo de cubierta del dicho padre manuel correa que de su mano da al cardenal y por me decir antonio de Veiga que biniese a portugal a traer el despacho que truxo por ser muy inportante al seruigio de su magestad lo hige y por lo me encargar Pedro sarmento de ganboa por causa de los negogios que le encomendo pararriba que no binieron a efeto por causa de su prision en frangia e yo la padezco mas que ninguno por que si el pedro sarmento aca llegara yo no estubiera en este estado y me ubieran pagado y hecho merged por su dicho como testigo de bista de lo que hi go por el y de otros muchos negogios que en yngalaterra tenemos de servigio de su magestad en el tienpo que el duque de alba estaba en flandes y en el del comendador mayor vine a ynglaterra por dos veges a negogios a donde me detube medio afio a donde tube particular amistad con el enbaxador francisco giraldes que seruia al Rey don Sebastian que santa gloria aya y en el mismo tienpo estaba por agente de su magestad en inglaterra antonio de goras y tenia con el mucha amistad y me escrebia muchas veges a enveres sobre negogios que inportaban a su cargo como podra decir un criado suyo que bibe en esta corte chamado damian en el tienpo que don antonio bino la primera vez a ynglaterra estaba don bernaldino de mendoga en aquella corte por enbaxador por su magestad con el qual tenia mucha amistad de flandes donde sirbio de capitan de caballos y en londre le advertia de todo lo que entendia que conpria el seruigio de su magestad y 4e</page><page sequence="44">JEWS IN ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND. 43 lo que sauia de las cossas de don antonio y el me lo encomendava mucho y io fue parte tanto de la primera vez como de la ultima que no le desen credito los mercaderes por les aduertir que sus negogios eran castillos en el ayre y que nunca pagarian nada y esta tan desacreditado el dicho don antonio que no le fiaran vn ducado y passa grande mieeria y sus eriados por que no se puede sostener con lo que le da la rreyna e con don bernardino comia muchos dias de fiestas y por que a V.m. no le parezca mucho convidarme vn agente del Rey de f rancia por que f ranees de su cassa me dixo que no tenia titulo de enbaxador y mas el don bernaldino de mendoca sendo enbaxador do mayor Rey del mundo venia comer a mi cassa y ser muy Regalado en ella quando le conuenia y monsegner de monbisier que fue enbaxador en ynglaterra nel tienpo de don bernaldino vino a mi cassa muchas ueces y su muger y del mismo tienpo estaba antonio de castriho por enbaxador do cardeal don Enrrique que dios tiene y por su muerte el dicho castriho no hico alteracion ni quigo ovedeser a don antonio y higo alii todo lo que conpria al seruigio de su magestad con el pareser de don bernaldino de mendoga e para se venir a portogal el dicho castriho le enpresto don bernaldino yn serca de dos mill ducados los quales yo pague en londres al dicho don bernaldino por orden del dicho castriho despues de ser llegado a portogal y en este tienpo vino a londres una naue portoguessa de quatrogientas toneladas bien armada cargada de mercaderia de Venegia de que venia por patron gongalo af onsomayo al qua! don antonio Rogo le quisiese seruir con su naue y gente y le aconsege que en ninguna manera tal palabra diese y liebe luego que supe desto al dicho gongalo af onso? mayo a cassa de don vernaldino y de antonio de castriho y le advertiran de la manera que se auia de gouernar e yo le persuadi para lo hager ansi y le asisti en todo lo que le fue menester por tener comision de los parsionerros de dicha naue de lisbona para cobrar los dos tergios del flete y no queriendo seruir a don antonio sus capitanes dixeron al gongalo alonsomayo que le auian de tomar la naue en la mar y le auia de matar lo que hicieron sin falta si no vender a la dicha naue por mi consejo a siertos yngleses para la rronpieron y todas las municiones y artecheria de dicha naue y el dinero de los fletes y su gente e aldicho gongalo alonsomayo enbie muy seguramente a lisbona en una naue que yo enbiaba con mercadurias y llebo cartas de don bernaldino para su magestad que en aquel tienpo estaba en lisbona del seruigio que le tenia hecho todo por mi consejo y su magestad le dio el abito de cristo y le higo caballero y Capitan de vna biagen (sic) a la india y otras muchas mergedes y en el mismo tienpo binieron a ynglaterra giertos mercaderes de la isla tersera con sus hagiendas cargadas en naues ynglesas que eran pastel agugares algodon cueros anbar perlas y otras mercadurias por temor que los ministros de don antonio les tomasen todo para su vso los quales se llamaban gongalo perez francisco lopez baltegar fernandez agostin do pereira manuel martines y por que algunos destos en la ysla terzera no les querian dexar benir con sus hagiendas sin que biniesen consinadas al fator de don antonio questaba en</page><page sequence="45">44 JEWS IN ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND. ynglaterra que se chamaba diego botecho para se seruir dellas yo y mi cunado el doctor le ajudamos a salbar sus hagiendas de manos de tal enemigo e yo les ayude a las uender y las tome a mi cuenta la mayor parte dellas y les hice sus enpleos en trigos y otras mercadurias y los enbarque con ellas para lisbona y de alii se f ueron a su tierra despues que su magestad la gano por manos del marques de santa cruz y aora en las vltimas dif erencias y Robos de los yngleses estando alia don antonio a lleuado muchas naues y la mayor parte de Porto gueses y la pobre gente en tierra de enemigos y sin rremedio nin ayuda si no el f abor de dios y el dotor mi cunado y yo les ayudamos en todo lo que f ue posibel haciendoles dar probision y les procuramos con grande trabaxo pasa porte de la corte y enbarcaciones y los enbiavamos a sus tierras y muchos harto principales que no tenian vestidos por se los auer quitado los ladrones se los dabamos por no pereseren a ningoa dellos y de lo mas hasta sus tierras sin quedar alia ninguno vasallo de su magestad que viniese rrobado que no le ayudasemos de qualquier nacion que f uese de las tierras de su magestad y antes que yo partiese de ynglaterra rrobaron dos naues grandes muy Ricas que venian de santome en que venia mucha gente principal y un pedro baz da quinta que f ue tesorero en dita isla de santome de su magestad y procurador de la dicha giudad e traya su f amilia y venia a portogal a bibir y dar quenta de su cargo y a los Portugueses de dichas dos naues que eran ochenta personas al Pedro vaz da quinta por ser el principal para su rremedio y de los demas les flete una naue flamenca y les alcanse ligengia y passaporte para toda la con pania y les conpre el mantenimiento y todo lo nesecario para los ochenta portogueses y mas ducientos negros de aconpania que les rresgate de ladron que los rrobo a sesenta Reales de prata cada negro y para todo f ueron necesarios quatro mill ducados que yo di a pedro vaz da quinta para os pagar en lisbona a mi hermano de que acia de buena su mano estamos pagos y en la conpra de los negros de ynglaterra a lisbona ganaron los duenos mas de doge mill ducados horros que yo les di a ganar y en la ultima venida de mi primo gero nimo pardo de londres truxo con sigo trenta e sieta Portugueses a su costa y entrellos venia un oficial del comisario geral de su magestad f rancisco duarte que esta en lisbona yo quando bine truxe a mas da nuebe marineros y un maestro de vna naue que venia dol bragil y son tantos los a que tenemos ayudado a venir daquella tierra que mal se podra creer ademas de pedro sarmento de ganboa e de otras personas pringipales y dexando mis negogios propios y les hacer soltar a muchos de prisiones e yr caminos muy largos por mar y tierra a la corte de la rreyna y pasar muchas malas noches por los negogios de las personas que tengo dichas dexando los mios por hacer que ynportaban harto todo por entender que hagia gran seruicio a su magestad esperando de ser de todo pago de tantas sumas de dineros e que por todo se me hiciese la merged que merezco al seruicio de su magestad estoy en esta prision sin culpa que yo sepa ni jamas tube otro pensamiento que de me enplear en el seruigio de su magestad hasta la muerte e quedo confiado que</page><page sequence="46">JEWS IN ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND. 45 entendiendo su magestad ser esto que digo ser gierto lo qual todo lo probare en esta corte y en lisbona ente V.m. dandoseme la libertad que para ello es necesario y que V.m. con la justicia que hace a todos me la hara a quien supplico por amor de nuestro senor jesucristo vea esta mi humilde Relacion y supplica y que sea despachada de breue para que no tenga mas perdida mis negocios ni descredito ques mucho despues que sali de mi cassa para seruir a su magestad y en ello rreceuire justicia y merged vernaldo luys frey Francisco Enrriques (Rubricado). Deposition of Pedro de Santa Cruz, (Archivo General de Simancas, Secretaria de Estado. Legajo 839, folio 183.) (En la carpeta) Declaracion de gabriel (sic) de sancta cruz = (Dentro). En la uilla de madrid a quarto dias del mes jullio de mill e quinientos y ochenta e ocho anos. El senor alcalde Valadares sarmiento tomo y rrecibio juramento en forma de derecho de pedro de sancta cruz hi jo del contador Grabiel de santa cruz estante al presente en esta corte ques comisario de f rancisco duarte proueedor General del Reino de portugal declaro ser de treinta anos poco mas o menos = Preguntado donde a estado este testigo de dos anos a esta parte y en que comisiones se a ocupado Dixo que abia dos anos por el mes de setiembre que viene deste ano queste testigo f ue proueido por el dicho f rancisco duarte para que f uese a conprar vinos a las yslas de canaria y tenerif e y auiendolos conprado y trayendo vn nauio cargado dellos que venia por su cargo deste testigo y en su compania venia otro nauio cargado de vinos a cargo de f rancisco de castrillo tomaron los dichos dos nauios quatro de cossarios yngleses en el paraje del cabo de sanct vicente y los lleuaron y a todas las gentes que venian en ellos en prision a londres donde este testigo a estado diez meses de donde partio el jueues sancto proximo passado y llego a esta corte a veinte y tres del mes de junio proximo passado y el dicho castrillo se vino luego como le lleuaron = Preguntado Diga y declare que gente portuguessa y castellana conoscio este testigo en este tienpo en londres Dixo que conosgio este testigo al doctor Hetor nunez medico de la rreina de ynglaterra a lo que entendio y a Aluaro de Lima y a geronimo pardo y a Hernan dalbarez y f rancisco de tapia y a antonio criado e pariente de los suso dichos que todos son Portugueses y bibian juntos en vna posada y tanbien tubo notigia y supo que hera pariente de los suso dichos y bibia y estaua con ellos vn bernaldo luis al qual este testigo no conogio por auer venido a espana en el tiempo queste testigo estubo y llego a londres con vn nauio cargado de mercadurias las quales supo este testigo por ser muy notorio que heran todas de yngleses por que el rretorno que boluio dellas f ue sal, passa, y Higo, y vino, y grana cochinilla, especeria, y dinero en talegones metido en los barriles en que yva el higo y en las sacas de la grana cochinilla, y f ue anssi mismo notorio que se rrepartio el rretorna</page><page sequence="47">46 JEWS IN ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND. que tiene rreferido entre mestre Ricardo mayo y vn su yerno que no le sabe el nonbre y mestre benablo y mestre Vliermames hi jo de benjamin gorge y mastre brun y mestre brut y otros que eran duenos de las dichas mercadurias quel dicho bernaldo luis auia traido a espana que valia lo que se cargo en el dicho nauio setenta mill ducados largos segun lo que le dixo a este testigo el dicho Hernan dalbarez y asi mismo conogio a otra camarada de Portugueses que se llamaua benjamin gorge y otros nonbres desta suerte ? Preguntado si sabe que los suso dichos son catolicos Dixo que sabe por ser publico y notorio en londres que todos son Judios de nazion y como tales en sus casas es fama que biben en sus rritos judaycos y en publico van a las yglesias luteranas y oyen los sermones y toman el pan y el vino en la forma y manera que los demas Herejes lo hazen y por que muchos Catholicos de fee y credicto se lo dixeron a este testigo y le encargaron la conciengia para que diese dello notigia escriuiendolo o quando viniese a espana diziendolo y entre los que se lo dixeron f ueron tres dellos que particularmente demas de lo que tiene dicho le dixeron que avia acontezido en un dia tomar los dichos geronimo pardo y bernaldo luis el sancto sacramento en casa del enbaxador despana don bernaldino de mendoza y en el mismo dia yr a la yglesia luterana y tomar el pan y el vino como los Herejes y que las tres personas que le dixeron lo suso dicho son vna senora espanola catholica natural de malaga cassada con simon burman yngles que se dice Dona ysabel gil de auiles y vn doctor martin medico natural de cordoua y su muger del dicho doctor que no le sabe el nombre y este testigo los tubo por tales como dicho tiene por que nunca yvan a missa pudiendolo hazer muy a su saluo vna vez o dos o otra como yvan muchos yngleses catholicos y que el dicho doctor martin ansi mismo le dixo a este testigo si dios os lleuare a espana con bien no teneis que hazer sino hazeldos meter en la sancta ynquisigion que ellos conf esaran su pecado y que el dicho aluaro de lima es fama publica que esta casado con vna sobrina suya y que sabe este testigo que viniendo vna vez de missa vn f rancisco de valberde y juan de baluerde espanoles que son naturales de dos barrios junto a ocana el dicho aluaro de lima les pregunto de donde vienen vuestras mercedes y ellos le rrespondieron senor venimos de uer a dios y rrespondio entonges el dicho Aluaro de lima como haziendo escarnio ay mucho que saber en si vuestras mergedes an visto a Dios y saue quel suso dicho y los demas an dicho y dizen otras herejias por que ansi lo oyo decir este testigo = Preguntado que cosas sabe este testigo que ayan hecho o tratado los dichos bernaldo luis y geronimo pardo o los demas de suso nonbrados en deseruigio de su magestad dixo que lo que en esto saue es que por prengipio del mes de Junio del ano pasado de ochenta y siete el dicho geronimo pardo llego a la giudad de londres con vn nauio cargado de alguna sal para desimulagion y en el especeria grana cochinilla y algun dinero y desta vez lleuo el dicho geronimo pardo segun entendio de algunos que se lo dixeron y particularmente de la muger del dicho simon burman que se llama como a dicho dona ysabel dos pliegos de papel escritos</page><page sequence="48">JEWS IN ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND. 47 ?n carateres y cifra y en ellos escritos todos los aparejos de guerra que se yvan aprestando en lisboa y otras cosas ?cerca desto y dentro de pocos dias el dicho geronimo pardo se partio de londres en vn nauio para lisboa y de alii algunos dias enbio el dicho geronimo pardo otro nauio a la dicha ciudad de londres 'cargado de passa y vino y otras algunas mercadurias segun fue publico y ansi se lo dixeron a este testigo y al dicho francisco de baluerde el dicho Doctor hetor nunez y alguna gente de su cassa y se entendio que con el dicho nauio avia embiado cartas avisando de todo lo que se yva haziendo en lisboa y de ay a pocos dias y en dos vezes enbio el dicho geronimo pardo otros dos nauios cargados de las dichas mercadurias y en el hultimo talegos con dineros en los barriles de higos y en las sacas de grana cochinilla y esto fue cossa publica y se lo dixeron a este testigo, la dicha dona ysabel que comunicaua con ellos y otras personas los quales dichos nauios cartas y papeles yva dirigido al dicho doctor Hector nunez y que ansi mismo le dixo la dicha dona ysabel que estando vn dia comiendo en su cassa de la dicha dona ysabel el dicho doctor Hetor nunez le llego vn pliego de cartas que auia lleuado de lisboa del dicho geronimo pardo vno de los dichos nauios y el dicho doctor hetor nunez las tomo y sin acabar de comer se auia leuantado de la messa y las auia lleuado al s? gualsingan ques el que hace cabega en los negocios mas arduos de aquel Reyno y sienpre que yvan los dichos nauios que enbiaua el dicho geronimo pardo auia nueuas despana y en particular de lo que se hazia en lisboa y que tratando este testigo con vn hombre questa en seruigio de su magestad en la dicha giudad de londres de todos los dichos Portugueses le dixo a este testigo que todos heran traidores y si alguna cosa dexauan de hazer contra espana hera por no poder mas y dandole notigia este testigo y el dicho francisco de valuerde de como auian escripto al dicho don bernaldino de mendoza para que prendiese a los dichos Geronimo pardo y bernaldo luis rrespondio que hera vna cosa muy bien hecha y que vn dia este testigo y el dicho francico de baluerde preguntaron al dicho francisco de tapia que nueuas auia del amigo Geronimo pardo y el dicho francisco de tapia rrespondio Senores geronimo pardo no osa escreuir por que le an tenido preso en lisboa por sospecha de espia y quieren ver de que suerte que llego aqui pocos dias a vn maestre de vna nao alemana y dixo que auia visto a geronimo pardo en lisboa y que hera su conosgido de atras y le dixo hermano pues que vais a londres me aveis de hazer vna merged y es que me lleueis vn pliego de cartas para halla y el dicho maestre dixo que si haria y se fueron juntos y dandole el dicho pliego le dixo sabeis lo que nos ynporta a vos y ami este pliego de cartas y que no os le coxgan en espana que no nos va a dezir a entranbos mas que las vidas y que el dicho maestre tomo el dicho pliego de cartas y le metio y cosio en vn cabezal de pluma y viniendo por el canal de yngalaterra con vn tenporal muy rrezio le fue forgade a el dicho maestre y a la gente del nauio por saluar las vidas cabordar con el en tierra a donde con el dicho nauio y cosas del que se perdieron se perdio el dicho cabegal con el pliego miren vuestras mercedes si es de tener lastima al pobre de</page><page sequence="49">48 JEWS IN ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND. geronimo pardo y que el dicho f rancisco de baluerde le dixo a este testigo quest ando en la bolsa de londres en vn corrillo ciertos yngleses espanolados tratando de que en vn nauio auian tornado ciertas bulas de la eruzada estandose todos rriyendo el dicho francisco de tapia auia dicho que no se llamauan bulas sino burlas y que por la nauidad proxima pasada el dicho f ernan daluarez mostro a este testigo vna carta firmada de vna firma que dezia bernaldo luis y le dixo que hera del dicho bernaldo luis que se la enbiaua despana que para se con solase este testigo viese el hultimo capitulo della y doblando la dicha carta para que no pudiese leer mas del dicho capitulo se le mostro en el qual dezia que su magestad avia dado cedula para soltar los yngleses que estauan presos en seuilla y que a el le costaua mucho trabajo y que tuviese buen animo y que fue publico en londres que ansi mismo auia llegado alii vn nauio frances pequeno cargado de naranja e pasa de corintio y queste testigo lleuo de la entrada y rregebimiento que se hizo al duque de medina zidonia quando entro en lisboa y el alarde que se auia hecho de gente de guerra y los nauios y cantidad dellos que auia en la armada y fue publico auerlo escripto el dicho geronimo pardo al dicho doctor Hetor nunez lo qual causo mucho alboroto y por ello se acabaron de rresoluer los yngleses de que hera gierta la determinacion de la armada despana y se comen aron a prevenir con mas veras y cuydado y demas de ser notorio se le dixo a este testigo vn giraldo de malinas residente en londres y natural de enburgo a quien fue dirigido el dicho nauio y este testigo le pregunto al suso dicho si tenia cartas el dicho doctor nunez de portugal y le rrespondio que tenia vn pliego de cartas luego este testigo se topo con vn criado del dicho doctor que se llama antonio y le pregunto si el dicho doctor auia tenido cartas en el dicho nauio que auia llegado de portugal y el dicho antonio rrespondio que por alii se sonaua quel dicho doctor tenia vn mazo de cartas y que no auia tenido sino vna cartita de dos rrenglonzitos e sienpre que yvan nauios despana preguntaua este testigo a criados del dicho doctor hetor nunez si tenia cartas en los dichos nauios el dicho doctor hetor nunez del dicho geronimo pardo y siempre le dezian que no tenia sino vna cartita abierta en que yva quenta y rrazon de las mercadurias de lo qual y de tener tanto Recato este testigo sospechaua mal y que auiendo dicho el dicho doctor Hetor a este testigo vna vez que no auia tenido cartas despana de ay algunos dias con descuydo tratando de gierta materia vino a dezir que auia tenido cartas del dicho Gero? nimo pardo y que ansi mismo oyo dezir en londres que vn pedro freire portugues de lisboa que a lo que entendio es hermano de la muger del dicho doctor Hetor nunez que auiendose proyuido quel dicho bernaldo luis no pudiese tratar ni contratar en la dicha giudad de londres por no ser natural della ni auer asistido en ella el tiempo que se rrequiere para tener naturaleza quel dicho bernaldo luis auia escripto a el dicho pedro freire a lisboa que tomase gertificagion de algunos yngleses que biben en lisboa y flamencos que alii rresiden de como el dicho bernaldo luis auia seruido y hecho algunos benefigios y prouechos al rreino de ynglaterra y naturales del y que se los enbiase para</page><page sequence="50">JEWS IN ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND. 49 que entendido en londres el Costumer ques persona a cuyo cargo esta el dar licencia para las contrataciones diese al dicho bernaldo luis ligengia para contratar y que ansi el dicho pedro freire le auia enviado vna certificacion muy en forma y en virtud della se auia desimulado con el para que tratase y ansi mismo dixo a este testigo la nauidad proximo pasada vn hombre que se dice valderrama que rreside en londres questa casado (...) mi alia quel dicho Hernan daluarez le auia dicho como el dicho pedro freire (...) enviado vn nauio cargado de pastel y que auia ydo a cargar a la ysla (...) y que se lo enbiaua para que lo vendiese y que por prencipio de hebrero deste (...) publico en londres que vn nauio llamado en yngles el blaccia que quiere decir en espanol el cueruo fue acargado de mercadurias de yngleses a lisboa dirigido a el dicho geronimo pardo y con carta de venta falsa en fauor de giertos flamencos y que le despacho el dicho doctor Hetor y despues otro nauio de valletas de colores y otras mercadurias todo de hazienda de yngleses y que entiende este testigo quel dicho geronimo pardo enbiaua correspondencia en mercadurias o lo auia de enbiar y era publico por que el dicho doctor hetor nunez andaua entre los mercaderes yngleses a saber quien queria cargar y auer llegado al dicho simon burma marido de la dicha dona ysabel a preguntar si queria cargar algo y le auia dicho que no andauan los tiempos para aventurar las mercadurias de aquella manera y esto es l o que sabe y que quando este testigo se quiso partir para espana se fue a despedir de la dicha dona ysabel gil de auiles y le dixo la dicha dona ysabel que mal viaje hiziese y mala maldicion de diosle cubriese si a espana llegase en saluamento sino denunciase de geronimo pardo y bernaldo luis por que heran vnos traidores y tenian vendida a espana lo qual le dixo en presencia del dicho francisco baluerde y otras muchas vezes antes les auia dicho lo mismo y en particular este testigo no saue otra cossa que poder dezir por que por ser espanol se guardauan del y por la misma rrazon este testigo no osaua tratar con ellos y preguntarles en particular y que este testigo escriuio a don bernaldino de mendoga enbaxador en frangia y francisco de baluerde juntamente con el sobre lo que dicho tiene y otras cosas para que lo escriuiese a su magestad a lo qual se rrefiere y tambien conogio otros luteranos de muchas naciones que biuian en esta ley que entrellos son vn espinossa vecino de valladolid del tiempo de cagalla y vn frai gepriam fraile del monesterio de san ysidro de seuilla que es de los que huyeron del y otro antonio vaez portugues y otros que no se acuerda de sus nombres y esto es la uerdad para el juramento que hizo y firmolo de su nombre Pedro de sancta cruz ante mi francis enrriquez. Va corregido con el original y en fee dello fiz mi signo en testimonio de verdad=Francisco Enrriquez (Signado y rubricado). VOL. XI.</page><page sequence="51">50 JEWS IN ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND. III. Dr. Hector Nunez and the Peace Negotiations of 1585-6. Dr. Hector Nunez to Sir Francis Walsingham. (Cal. S.P. Foreign, 1585-6, p. 26.) I think my often writing . . . will give me the name of idle or vagabond, but I see as the Latin proverb saith, that" I do move and yet I do not prosper." I wrote to you before concerning the Spaniards brought out of Biscay, that if one of them were suffered to go home, they would perform all reasonable conditions demanded by the lords of the Council, and he would promise to return into England. I understand that one Peter de Villa Reyeall can do much, having good friends in the King's Court, and think that from his going will grow some further benefit; which I gather from a letter received by him, the copy whereof I enclose. If the words of the letter be true, the world goeth not so hard [there] with Englishmen as it is said here. If you like well of their motion, I think it were not amiss for the said Peter to wait upon you, for you to declare to him your mind and to conclude upon what is to be performed by him. London, 25 September, 1585. Antonio de Castillo 67 to Sir Francis Walsingham. (Cal. S.P. Foreign, 1585-6, p. 281.) Extract: ... I understand by the letters of my friend Mr. Hector (Nunez) and the reports of others, that you have my name in your good remembrance. . . . Lisbon, 3/13 January, 1585-6. Dr. Hector Nunez to Sir Francis Walsingham. (Cal. S.P. Foreign, 1585-6, pp. 472-3.) In November last, I had a safe-conduct from you for my man, Jeronimo Pardo, to go into Portugal, who went in a Frenchman with some goods belonging to Englishmen (but went in my name). As soon as the ship reached Lisbon, the goods were arrested, being suspected to be Englishmen's. By my man I wrote to Antonio de Castilio, touching upon the " pretence " of the Low Country (as declared by the discourse published in her Majesty's name), not to possess that country to her use, but only for security of her estate and the relief of the poor people there, tyrannically dealt with by the King's officers ; which thing has been declared here by her Council to Don Peter de 67 Formerly Portuguese Ambassador in London.</page><page sequence="52">JEWS IN ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND. 51 Villa Reale, at his going away. I touched briefly on the many good means her Majesty has used to purpose the King's goodwill and amity, and what ill offices he and his ministers used to countervail the same; and that he should commit the dealing of such matters to other men (if he mean to live in peace), and not to such as were dealers in it before, and under the name of ambassadors "were factors and deputies to the devil; spreading dissension and discord amongst Princes." De Castilio sent this letter presently to Senor Christopher de Moura (who is in great favour with that King), " and wrought unto him what he thought good." Afterwards, Mr. Castilio sent for my man and asked if his goods were released, or else he would procure them to be so ; and hearing that he was already clear and about to come away, told him he was ready to do all in his power " to bring these matters to quietness " ; that he had sent his letter to the court and had his answer, and desired him to hasten home, and learn whether the lords had any good meaning to peace. My man answered that the matter was of great weight, and he must have some letter or credit, "for to be believed," to which Castilio replied that if he had a letter from Mr. Secretary, declaring her Majesty to be inclined to peace, he would take it upon him to bring this agreement to pass, to the satisfaction of both sides. On my man's urging it, he gave him letters to your honour and to me; charging him to learn here whether these matters should be dealt with by ambassadors or by commissioners, to meet at any port in France, and desiring him, as soon as he had answer, to freight an English ship and come in her himself ; and warranted him his safe-conduct. Told him more, that if he had brought a letter away with him when he talked with your honour, this breach had not gone so f ar; also that if peace were concluded it should be firm and sure. This was at the end of February, about which time the French master of my man's ship had a suit with another ship's master, but by means of Antonio de Castilio he got the suit discharged and was about to come away when the ship was arrested at request of divers Lisbon merchants, who said they had hulks of Hamburg richly laden ready to sail, and that if our ship came to England, our men would give warning to the men-of-war to take their goods. On their supplication to the Cardinal and the Marques of Santa Cruz, all the ships were arrested except the Hamburg men. Antonio de Castilio did all he could, and not prevailing went to my lord Cardinal, who promised to speak to the Marques, and told Castilio that he was to blame for not declaring to me in his letters that Englishmen's goods were not stayed in that country, to which he answered that he had done so. Next night our ship was discharged, and the Marques desired Castilio in the Cardinal's name if I (sic) came back there, to bring half a dozen hobbies for them both and two hounds; also that he should carry certain hats for the Cardinal. (Circ. March 23, 1586.)</page><page sequence="53">52 JEWS IN ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND. Dr. Hector Nunez to Sir Francis Walsingham. (Cal. S.P. Foreign, 1585-6, p. 473.) [Sends enclosed " the writings " translated as well as he could ; the Lord grant it to be of good effect. Prays his honour to remember him on this occasion. Has not been troublesome for a great while, seeing the time unseasonable.] London, 23 March [1585/6], Postscript.?My man shall wait upon you within two days to know " whether he shall have an answer, for then he hath to provide shipping and some goods to carry in her." Enclosure : Antonio de Gastilio to Hector Nunez. I was very glad to understand from Jeronimo Pardo of the good intent of her Majesty concerning her new attempt in the Low Country, and that all was tending to amity and peace ; whereof I am good witness, by the good offer that I made to the King's Majesty, and by the means of others in the Low Country. I do not understand why the matter does not come to pass, both their Majesties being so desirous of it, unless by our sins and sins of Englishmen. . . . But the ill dealers to whom this business was committed heretofore did handle it so ill-favourably, that the state of this will never have an end, some because they live by the war, some by the spoil, some by their particular pretence. . . . This must be so treated that no question be made who began it; lor those who invent such things, understand very ill the sweetness of the war to them that have no experience of it, and that the profits of it go to the pirates and the losses to the princes and the people. The treasures slowly gathered waste and consume, and at length the victory is gotten by the most powerful, and it is easy to understand that the King, gathering all his strength, at length will have the upper hand ; so that for the Lord's service, the quiet of the world, and enjoyment of the profits of both realms, it were good to have a sure and perpetual peace; and if you are still f amiliar with my Lord Treasurer and others of the Council, as when I was there, you are bound, for the benefit of our country and quiet of that realm to deal in it, and to persuade those Lords to such good agreements as they are offered, before his Majesty determine to be revenged " of so many offences," as he shall be compelled by his honour and the importance of the Low Country. If you find any hope to bring this to pass without breach of our master's honour, I know he will yield to any good composition for the quiet of Christendom, and employ his forces in other enterprises of greater weight; because as to England he knows " the little fruit that he shall reap in the matters belonging to the Catholic religion. ..." I write to Sir Francis Walsingham concerning Peter Frire's matters.</page><page sequence="54">JEWS IN ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND. 53 It were well that he should answer me somewhat that I may show here, not to have it thought that I move this of my own head. If your Worship find a disposition in the lords, you may presently freight a bark and send in her commodities of that country. " Send away presently Jerome Pardo, bearer of this, and I will take upon my account his safeguard, and I hope in the Lord that you shall see the greatest deed that ever had been done in such affairs." Walsingham's instructions to Nunez. (P.R.O., S.P. For., 94/2, No. 70.) To lett him to understand that he findeth ?her Matie to continewe her former good disposition to have the interruptyon of the amytye and the unkindnesse between her and the Catholike king compounded in some honorable sorte for the comon benefitt of both their Subjectes, and the generali good of chrisandom. That the greatest difncultie will consist in matter of cautyon and suertie forasmuch as the dowbt and geliousie of the kinges good meaning towardes her Matie is greatlie encreased upon the late discovery of the most wyked and develysh practise both against her person and this realme for that yt f arlleth (falleth) out upon the examinatio of the conspirators that the Kinges Minister in France, D. Bernardin, was pryvie thereunto. That yt is thowght that thos of the people of the United Provinces wyll st?nde greatlie upon poynt of relygio and althowght yt may seme a verye harde matter for the k. to yeld unto yet men of best judgment even such as be Catholikes are of opinion that the said K. in respecte of the miserable state those Contries st?nde in, ought in conscyence to yealde so farr forth in that poynt as is contayned in the pasification of Gaunte, wch may be handeled in sooche sorte as the said kinge with out touche of honor or conscience may assent thereunto by remitting the pointe of religion to the generali state of the whole provinces to assent or dyssent accordinglie as they shalbe directed by their owne consciences upon whose sowles his matie may laie the burden their of. The wysest sorte of the catholykes here doe feare greatly that yf thos contrys shoolde not be reconsyled to the K. before his deathe: that they wyll then wholy not only revolte from the obedyence of Sp. but also in relygyon the most parte of the meaner sort of yt contry being enemyes to the Catholick relligion. And therefore they hold it a better course that a tolleration be granted to a few then that the Catholick religion should be thrust out of the whole contryes. Endorsed : The heades of a Ire. to be written by D. Hector to D. Anth. di Castiglio. In pencil : " 1586, ? Aug. or Sept."</page><page sequence="55">54 JEWS IN ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND. Antonio de Castilio to Sir Francis Walsingham. (Cal. S.P. Foreign, 1586-8, p. 79.) [Expressing his delight and gratitude on learning that her Majesty has not forgotten her Merlino. It appears that the Queen had referred to Castilio as "Merlin" (Cal. S.P. For. Eliz. 1586-8. Letter from Castilio to Nunez, Sept. 4, 1586.) Greatly desires to do her service, and writing to Dr. Hector (Nunez) on the subject, who being born a Portuguese and very fond of the English, will not be wanting in affection.] " Lisbon, 4 September, 1586. Dr. Nunez to Sir Francis Walsingham. (P.R.O., S.P. For., 94/2, No. 71.) Right Honerable, the 111 state of my legges hathe forbidden me to fullfill your commandement, to waite uppon yow this Daie at the Courte, and so I sende my man which cane Declare all Nessesaries touchinge our former talke : The Laste time that I spooke w* yor honnor I did deliver yow Mr. Castillio his Lfe, and the Coppie of an other directed unto me, And althoughe he saith in that lfe that he darse not shewe the Artickles that I sente hime, Becaus it mighte have bine occasion of a newe warr, yet he saith his pleasure, Because I doe knowe by the reporte of my mane that the Cardinall and the Marques of St. Decruse hathe seeine them, and yor honnorrs lfe and Mine, and pntlie (presently) the Coppies were sente out by a Poste unto the Kinge and af terwarde, the kinge Did write unto Anthonie De Castillio and Lickewise Sir Christopher De Moura, (he is as greate with the kinge as Roye gonnis was) and he Did write a large lfe unto the said Castillio and my mane sawe this same lfes in Mr. Castillio his handes so that all that Castillio writeth unto me was taken out of those lfes, Even as it were of his owne heade, and so appeareth that they Doe knowe all and yet they will not be knowne that they have seene our writinges, which shewes evedentlie the greate Desier that they have of peace, Neither Castillio should have bine so Bolde, to wTite without the kinges comission that Her Matle shoulde sende for hime, to come hither privilie to talke with her, that he wroulde come, and that he was suer to Doe A greate good in this Matter, therefore in my opinion in no respecte cane be hurtefull that yor hornier (with her MatIes good likinge) should write unto the said Castillio that her Matle woulde be glade to speake wth hime heare privilie and that he shall crave Leave of the kinge for it, and havinge good likinge of this then my Man shall goe Backe againe in the same shipp and bringe the same Castillio with hime, and if neede be for to make more haste, he shall ride by lande, and the shipp maie goe afterwarde, and</page><page sequence="56">JEWS IN ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND. 55 in such A Case Mr. Castillio will have a saffe condit from her Matie either for hime or for anie other gentleman that shall come hither in the kinges name, and [the] Sooner that this is Done the better yt Wilbe, for theire is greate plparacon Made in Portingale of men and shippes and they looke for more men still, as yow maie understand by my mane and by Others, but it is Not knowen for what place. And if the Course Aforesaid is Mislicked then they will have ane opposicon of the wordes of the Artickle tolleracon in religion for Suerlie these wordes hathe trobled them verie Muche, and uppon that they will Annswere what they will Doe, But this I thincke will be longer A doinge And yor honner shall under stand theire Desiere because the Cardinall and the Marques Darse not geive free libertie to shipp and goods without the kinges order, and my mane hathe Lefte in the shippe whiche is not come upp yet, A saffe condit of the Marques of St. De Cruse for the Safegarde of our shipp men and goodes and Notwithstandinge the generali prohibition made by the kinge, yet we have Leave to goe backe Againe wth the shipp and goodes by the kinges expresse commandemente peradventure for to bringe this Matter to passe : Right Honerable we woulde be glade to understande the resolucon of this matter Because we maie take order in our Busines accordinglie and if neede be my mane shall waite theire A Dale or two to have ane annswer. I am verie muche trobled and importunate by my frinde in Italie called Licentiatus Lewes Alveris, to obtaine her Maties Ire in his favour to the Duke of ferrara for at flrste when I Did move the Matter unto yor honner yow made the obtaining of it verie easie and caused the Ire to be made and it is in your Custodie still and of all this I did advertise hime Sayinge that I was suer to obtaine so much favour, and no we dothe urge verie Earnestlie uppon me Sayinge that I am verie Slack in the fullfillinge of his requeste, for his Neede is verie greate, and nowe writteth me againe if it be not possible to gett her Matles Ire, that I shoulde gett some frinde wth the Lorde imbassendour of Ingland resident in f raunce that he shoulde gett a Ire of the queene mother in his favour, to the said Duke, wth the Imbassend1* I have no Acquaintannce therfore most humblie Bessech yor honnor for to maintain my honestie and credit wth my frindes, to helpe me either of thes waies; and so I Leave to troble yow anie longer Wishinge yowr healthe and prosperitie Longe to continewe to the Lordes pleasure. London the 30th of September /86. Your honors Moste humble Hector Nunez. Addressed : To the Righte Honerable Franncis Walsingham knighte principall secretary unto her Matle and of her Moste honerable Pry vie Counsaile.</page><page sequence="57">56 JEWS IN ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND. IV.?Papers relating to Alvaro Mendez. Tassis 68 to the King of Spain. July 8, 1581. (Cal. S.P. Foreign, 1581-2, No. 256.) Extract: ... Of Don Antonio's Portuguese partizans ... I hear that one is Geronimo " Pezzopayo." . . . There is another called Alvaro Mendez, whom I understand to be a man of more wealth and more importance, and more considerate in his talk, and they say also in what he lends. Anyway I hear he is not so rash in these matters as the other, and if he assists the count he does not do it so openly that it is known by everyone. Perhaps as a more prudent man he wishes to sail with the wind, whatever offers may be made him, and in the event of not being certain to leave Don Antonio's business ; thinking in such a case to keep his retreat open and not depend on others. They tell me that he is a man " of interests " and that for the King to get hold of him the purse is more necessary than words. . . . Sir Henry Cobham 69 to Sir Francis Walsingham. (Cal. S.P. Foreign, 1581-1582, No. 340.) Extract: . . . Last Saturday the King dined with the Portugal Alvare Mendez, accompanied by the Dukes of Lorraine and Guise and the minions. . . . Paris, 19 Sep. 1581. William Harborne 70 to Sir Francis Walsingham. March 9, 1587. (B.M. Harl. MSS. 295, ff. 176 et seq. Printed in Read, Mr. Secretary Walsingham, vol. iii. pp. 328-9.) Extract: The Admiral with much ado hath restored nine English captives which, upon the Grand Signor's commandment reiterated, he durst no longer detain, but yet for spite would not give them himself but to one Don Alvaro a Portu? guese, who after he had paid their charges presented them to the Ambassador [Harborne] gratis in demonstration of his affection to her Majesty's service, 68 Juan Bautista de Taxis (Tassis), Spanish Agent at the French Court. 69 English Ambassador to France. 70 English Ambassador at Constantinople.</page><page sequence="58">JEWS IN ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND. 57 which he doth in all things advance without any benefit to himself whatsoever he is able by his credit in those parts, being very great in regard of his experience, wisdom and wealth. If it were thought convenient he could crave her Majesty's grateful letter to him for a mean to continue and encourage him in like endeavours. Bernardino de Mendoza 71 to the King of Spain. May 23, 1587. (Cal. Spanish S.P., 1587-1603, p. 92.) ... I have a letter in my hands from Alvaro Mendez who went as a Jew to Constantinople and writes to Don Antonio, signing the letter Solomon. He also writes to the English Ambassador and some heretic acquaintances here (Paris) attached to his mistress, saying that your Majesty's truce with the Turk would have been concluded but for him. Your Majesty, he says, demanded the inclusion therein of the Pope, the duke of Florence, and other princes of Italy, and he used influence with Luch Ali to demand, on the part of the Turk, that the queen of England also should be included. Juan Stephano objected to this on the ground that she was at open war with your Majesty, but he, Mendez, had great hopes of being able to induce Luch Ali not to conclude the agreement without her inclusion. He is on very bad terms with the French ambassador (in Turkey) who treats him with contempt, as he knew him here as a professed Christian, whereas now he is a Jew. . . . Sir Francis Walsingham to William Harborne. (Bod. Lib. Tanner MSS. LXXIX, ff. 125 et seq. Printed in Read, op. cit.f vol. iii. p. 331.) Extract: June 24, 1587. Her Majesty hath satisfied Ebrahim Pasha his request touching Don Alvaro de Mendes to whom Don Antonio hath directed a packet going herewith. I have also recommended his case as you require to Sir Edward Stafford 72 and written a few lines in Latin unto himself to the effect you wished, which you may accompany with all circumstance convenient. And withal, to the end he may think his kindness towards our nation the better bestowed, you may make him acquainted how by order from her Majesty Sir Francis Drake in this his present exploit upon Spain doth set free all Portugals with money in their purses which come into their hands, where he selleth the Spaniard to the Moors. And as it were well to seek by all fair means to win the Admiral's favour, 71 Spanish Ambassador in Paris, formerly in London. 72 English Ambassador in Paris.</page><page sequence="59">58 JEWS IN ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND. if directly you cannot do it without dishonour to her Majesty, the said Don Alvaro might prove a good instrument to work a reconcilement underhand, having such credit with him as it seems, upon such instructions as yourself may devise for the purpose. Edward Barton 73 to Sir Francis Walsingham. (P.R.O., S.P. For., Turkey, I, No. 50; printed in English Historical Review, July 1893, pp. 447-9.) . . . The Grand Signor his Hogia or scholemaister seminge to tender the prosperitie of her Maties. affaires hath bine verie earnest since Mr. Harborne his departure wch. was the thirde of the preasent with me to intreate her Matie. to cause Don Antonio to send hither one of his sonnes to rest pledge for satisfaction of such charges or greater part of them that the Grand Signor should be at in sendinge f orthe his Navie assuringe me thereby that he should have what reasonable ay de he would require. In weh I durst not meddle for want of order from your honr. for the reasons menconed in my last Ire but referred the same together with my simple opinion to your honnors wise consideration to be ordered thereafter and to be advised thereon as soon as possible might be for that accountinge it wilbe the middle of October before the arrival of theise and Januarie or Ffebruarie before I can have answeare it beinge then time for preparacon here for the sea it wilbe requisite wth. speede to have your honnors orders how to proceeade for weh. I thought it necessarye brieflye againe to sett downe the same of my foresaide last letter reducinge the same into three proportions the First beinge the Counsaile of the Grand Signor his maister to send hither one of the sonnes of Don Antonio, the second, under yor. honnors correction, my opinion not sendinge him to send the bribes onlie I menconed in my Former being 3 or 4 Rubies or diamondes to the value of 3 or 4 thousand poundes and the thirde the advise of Don Alures Mendas Portingall Jewe, her Mats, most affectionate servante to send a shippe onelye of merchandise wth. some ordinarie preasants of (illegible) without mencion of new Ambassador to kepe theise in suspence whether her Matie will continewe the league or not. The first as I formerlie have saide is no lesse full of danger than expence for that besides the great bribes Don Antonio his sonne must of necessitie bringe wth. him as well for the Grand Signor as Bassaies (pashas) he must make large promise to both vppon con dicon they restoare his father to his kingdome wch. they will hardlye accom plishe with 80 90 or 200 gallies more than wch. I doubt in such case they will not sett out and yett returninge home the interprise unfinished contrarye to the condicon made will demande I feare havinge their will for Lawe the whole some promised uppon his f ethers restitution seinge they made theirs 73 Harborne's successor as Ambassador in Constantinople.</page><page sequence="60">JEWS IN ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND. 59 expences in his Fathers behalfe and requeste, and will not suffer the sonne departe till full paiement thereof wch. would turne to the dishonour of her Matie. and great discontent of Don Antonio theise in the meane time makinge a jiste of both. If they perceave it will yeald them anie small lucre wch. they onelie honnor and worshippe not esteminge howe onhonnestlye or ongodlye soever they come by it so that thereby small fruite is to be expected unlesse her Matie. send fort he also her highness fleete in favour &amp; compagnie. If so it pleased her highnes of Don Antonio to sett him a Land wth. convenient Power in what place of Portingall should be thought meetest wherebye ay de and favour as well of the one syde as of the other putt into possession &amp; his kingdome mighte easelye complie wth. his large promises to theise and consequentlye redeme his sonne wch. is the surest thoughe chargeablest waie the securities of his sonne being provided for by tendringe the sonnes promises in Venice or other sure place in league and friendshippe wth. her Matie. and the deliverie of him made in the same place and instant in like case but yf your Hon : thinke it of sufficient importance to cause this fleete to be sett forthe the next springe against the Spaniards, but that the sendinge forth thereof will countervaile the charge of the said stones without which or the like your honnor hath formerlye perceaved how little is to be expected of theise, I durst take vppon me by them to assure yor. honnor to procure the same or to be answerable for the full value of them meaning not to dis? possess myselfe of anie parte of them till they shall have sent their Navie to sea. As for Don Aluaro Mendes his opinion I esteme is noe lesse pollitike then effectionate knowinge for certaine that the Grand Signor hath great accompte of the friendshippe, league and amitie wth. her Matie. whereby if a shippe should come hither without shewe of knowledge or tydinges of an Ambr. the Grand Signor would be in a great doubte of her highnesse mynde I objectinge the mane fould benefitts her Matie. hath done for him and his Empire &amp; the infinite charges which theis 4 yeares space she hath sustayned and yett is as vppon his request and quarrell it would make him enter into the deper consideracon thereof and perhappes cause some amends of former defaults but yf both the one and the other might be sent I meane both the shippe and the foresaid stonres therein without doubte we should prevaile verie mutch thereby for by the cominge of the shippe as before I saide they should all be in suspence of her Mats, mynde and by the stones beinge of extreme avarice even brought to condescend to grannt vs what soever we should desire the shippe not beinge anie charge to her Matie. but to the Turkie Companie to send hither wth. commodities and her matie. to bestowe onelie aforehande vppon theis hungrye dogs the four or five broade clothes by which I might have better occasion to goe and conferre severallie with them of everie springe. Edwarde Barton. 15 Augt. 1588.</page><page sequence="61">60 JEWS IN ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND. Edward Barton to Sir Francis Walsingham. August 31, 1588. (P.R.O., S.P. For., Turkey, I, No. 53 ; printed in English Historical Review, July 1893, pp. 449-52.) Extract: I thincke it more convenient to send hither as privelye as might be some man of accompte belonginge to Don Antonio, well knowne to Don Aluaro Mendas, Portingall Jewe here resident in good favoure, with three or four Diamants or Rubies in Rings to the value of three or 4 thousande poundes to be given to theise for preasants yf they procure the goinge forth of their maisters navie And Don Antonio his letters besyde secreatlie to the Grand Signor his viceroy, Mehumet Bassa, the Berglerby and Hassan Bassa Admirall promisinge great rewardes yf they restore him to his kingdome, I wold I saie thincke that wee shold then preuaile therein, and doe assure your honner vppon my perill to answeare the said stones yf the fleete goe not forth, mean inge onelie to shew them with faire promises and not to give them till the navie be at Sea, prouided that your honner cause them to be consigned to me and him that shall come to be ordered by my direction and lodged in my house least accompanninge himself ignorantlye with others of the Spanish secte fewe f avouringe our proceadings and disclosinge the secrecy to them not onely bewraye but hinder our enterprises and by this meane as the peril is small so will the experience be as little yf your honour esteme that the settinge forth of the abouesayde stones, the condicon beinge in briefe on this sorte that if they restoare Don Antonio to his kingdome then besydes the sayde stones to have what shal be promised by his letters, and yf they send forth this Armada to molest those places thoughe they cannot obtaine theire purpose to restoare him yett to have the sayde stones without anie challenge of further promise, and the third condicon I assure your honner I will adjoyne and maintaine that if they send not forthe the navie they shall have nothinge for I wilbe answerable for the whole valewe to them. Edward Barton to Sir Francis Walsingham. Sept. 13, 1588. (P.R.O., S.P. For., Turkey, I. No. 54. Printed in English Historical Review, July 1893, pp. 454-8.) Extract : It is my parte to maintaine the credit of my prince and countrie, and were it not that Don Solomon Abynacis, Portingall Jews, formerlie called Don Aluaro Mendas, doth maintaine and confirme my reasons against the false information of our adversaries, I should hardlye have the face to visit anie of them, having no advises of her majesties proceadings and prosperitie of my</page><page sequence="62">JEWS IN ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND. 61 countrie but such as I hear from my enemies. . . . I thinckeitverienecessarie that at the least so longe as theis warres last with the king of Spaine aduises be vsuallie sent to me or other that it shall please her majestie to appoint in my place, as they be monthlye yea in troublesome tymes everie fortnight and oftener as well . . . not forgettinge also I beseach your honnor the faith? fulness and affection of the foresaid Don Aluaro whome as your Honnor by your formers made greatlie in boundes so shall sufficientlie recompence for all his travaile andindustriein her majesties affaires yf your Honnor shall againe send the like desiringe nothinge els but to be assured that his f aithf ull seruice is made known to her majestie and here I referre to your Honnors discretion whither your Honnor shall thincke it meet perticulerlye to mencion her majestie and your Honnors gratefull receipt of the affection he performed in time of the deceased Admirall whoe havinge mortall enmitie with my pre? decessor sent 9 Inglishe captives whome the Grand Signor had commanded him to sett at libtie to the foresaid Don Aluaro for a present whence he havinge well interteyned and refreshed in his howse incontinentlie sent to Mr. Harborne not without some expense vppon the Admiralls men that brought them. Giovanni Moro, Venetian Ambassador in Constantinople, to the Doge and Senate. (Gal. S.P. Venetian, 1581-91, No. 753.) [Contrary reports received regarding the Spanish and English fleets.] . . . Alvaro Mendes was the first to report that the Spanish Armada had been routed by the English, the Ragusan representatives declared the contrary, then when the English agent went to confirm the news of the Spanish defeat the Pashas merely replied, " God grant it may be so," and showed that they doubted it. Dalle Vigne di Pera, 9th October, 1588. Edward Barton to Sir Francis Walsingham. (P.R.O., S.P. For., Turkey, I, No. 55.) Since my last to yor hor of the 28 September I am informed by Don Aluaro Mendas of a certaine Jew belonginge to Dauid Pasmo that should come from Don Antonio verie shortlye hither (of wch he is certified by certaine his f riendes in Englande) to procure and sollicite on Don Antonio his parte the Grand Signor to further his restoringe to his Kingdome, wch he taketh some? what greuouslie that Don Antonio, forgettinge his former faithfull seruices, should preferre and imploye therein rather one [David Pasmo] of as small present creditt here wth the Grand Signor as former little acquaintance there wth him beinge besides that a man more than suspected to favour the Spaniarde,</page><page sequence="63">62 JEWS IN ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND. nay publickely knowen to depend on him as your honnor maie pereeave by Mr. Harborne's formers, frequenting allwayes the Emperors Ambr, the ffrenche Kings Ambr and the Ambr of Venice, yea conversant dailie wth our mortall aduersaries and neuer cominge into my house or presence, whereas Don Aluaro as he often protesteth neuer desired other than to shewe to Don Antonio the good affection he alwaies hath and doth beare him, requiringe nothinge in lieu thereof but the gratefull acceptance of his service and ackno we - ledgement of his sincere faithfullnes in his affayres comitted to him. I also shall remaine very much confused yf as he [Pasmo] affermeth I be by her Matle and yor Hors order adioyned to ayde further or consulte wth him [Pasmo] whome I never accompte for loyall horniest or wise what information soeuer Don Antonio hath of him and shalbe as f earef ull to vtter my aduise as slowe to followe anie Counsaile of his, soe as yf such thing be there agreed vppon and commanded by your honnor I must accordinglye to my dutie doe my best yett warelye as dealinge wth a subtill and suspected enemie but should greatlie have liked thereon and hoped for better fruite therefrom yf it had been inioyned to me and Don Aluaro, notwtbstanding whatsoeuer in such case semeth Good to yor ho: shall likewise wth all dutifullnes be imbraced and to my power effectuated by me, Don Aluaro hath againe informed me of the resolute mynde of the Grand Signor is of to sett forth this yeare a greate fleete and I have been certified the same by diuers Bassaies but for that they have formerlie proved vnconstant to their worde I cannot as yett assertaine yor hor thereof, but deferre the same to my future of December next, when yor ho: shalbe certefied of the truth and know certainlie what to looke for, although now I have better hope than euer by diverse credible signes of Hassan Bassa since his depture. The Grand Signor hath sent a hundred loades of false naughtie aspers countinge euerie loade as sixtie thousande to imploye in Corns and other prouision for the Cittie wh comaundm* that he force all poor people that have corne to take the same as currant beinge little better then Inglishe leaden farthinges . . . 12th Oct. 1588. Edward Barton to Sir Francis Walsingham. January 3, 1589. (P.R.O., S.P. For., Turkey 1. Printed in English Historical Review, July 1893, pp. 461-3.) Extract : It would be proffitt enoughe to the Grand Signor to have his ennemie beaten under his feete which he might quicklie see yf on this side he woulde assaile him as fiercelye as her Matie. doth on that but avarise hath stopped all their eares and I singe continuallye to deaf men. Hassan Bassa is as wearie in this Fruitles travaile as I, and no lesse Don Solomon notwithstandinge</page><page sequence="64">JEWS IN ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND. 63 they both but especially Hassan Bassa bad me write thus much that he did not doubte, but hoped f ullie that in spighte of their harts they shall be constrayned to send out the fleete. [Lord Burghley] to Alvaro Mendes. (P.R.O., S.P. Dom. Eliz., 233, No. 97.) Translation: Most Magnificent Sir, * During these last days Doctor Ruy Lopes has given to the most serene Queen, my Mistress, a letter from you, and for the good will you shew therein for her service she is very grateful. Wherefore she commands me to give you thanks, praying you earnestly to continue as you have done up to the present, assuring you that in no way can you for the present render her most serene Majesty greater service than in aiding and favoring Francisco Caldera de Brito, whom the said King Don Antonio now sends from this Court to the Grand Signior upon his businesses, the which may greatly further his fortune, to whom her Majesty desires all prosperity. Because reason and justice apart she holds him under her protection and favour. For which reason she is under obligation to act with regard to the said King's affairs as she would with her own. And for the great affection I bear the said King and to his service I beg you to do this, and it will bind me to do your pleasure. Our Lord keep you. London 15th October 1590. Endorsed in Burghley }s hand : XVI October 1590. A Copy of a lfe wrytten in Itallien to Don Soliman a Jew at Constantinople in favour of the K. Antonio. In another hand : He mistakes the language, this lfe is in Spanish. Edward Barton to Lord Burghley. (P.R.O., S.P. For., Turkey 2 (37a).) . . . David Passa Jew was yesterdaie wth me and amongst much other Communication informed me how that he had receaved lfes from Francisco Caldera di Britto, Don Antonio his Agent, sent for theise partes wth Mr. Wilcocke, but returned I knowe not vppon what occasion from Danicke into Englande, the same David Passa affirmed that Francisco Caldera his message was especially directed to Aluaro Mendas now called Solimon Abenaheis to borrow large sommes of monney of him, whoe is a man soe miserable, as that I dare assure yor honnor he would not part from one Duckett, as in certaine occasions I have knowen good triall to be made of him, I should</page><page sequence="65">64 JEWS IN ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND. thincke wth yor honors fauour that Don Antonio knowinge in his Conscience that the infinite riches heaped up by the said Mendes was iniustlye gotten, and that of due they doe belonge to him, that then it would be more convenient that he sent his Agent hither to the Grand Signior to require iustice, and to demande his saide righte, of wch there might be the more hope when her Matie should write in his behalf e to the Grand Signior, Viceroy, Admirall and the Grand Signior his scholemaister for greater testimonye of the truthe, and that Don Antonio write as well to all theis as to the whole Senagog of the Jewes, recomendinge his cause vnto them as vnto men whoe have receaued noe small benefitt of his ancestors and know by theire former residence in Portugal! the equetye of his demannde, and the great injurye and harme is donne him by Mendas. Also other pticular Ires vnto them to requiere some loane of monney vppon pmise to restoare the same against, as also soe to requite the same (when God shall send him to his kingdome) towardes theire nation, whome he and his alwayes above all other Christian Princes did most fauor ; and that besides the free lybertie of traffieque and inhabitance in his kingdome, he will grant them extraordinarye priuiledge and fauours, such Ire yf it did noe good, would doe noe harme, and whoe doth knowe what God would worke. The ffrenche K. hath bine greatly dishonnored by Mendas for a Counterfeit dett of Twentie thousande duckettes he hath now theise 6 yeares claymed and sued for (but now since I have lately taken it in hand is overcome and reiected) soe that willingely he would assist and favour Don Antonio therein and by his recomendacon to the ffrenche Ambr shortlye expected and Ires unto the Grand Signior of Don Antonio his just demannde, and Mendas his false dealinge wth him greatlye further his sute, also a Ire from Don Antonio to David Passa to be assistant to his Agent, would be somewhat auaylable. But yor honors wisdome can wyselyer iudge of the expedient for this matter then I can decipher it. And therefore comend the same to yor honor's graue censure and comitt yor honor to the protexion of the Almightie. this 10 Maie 1591. Salomon Gormano, Envoy from Alvaro Mendez, to Queen Elizabeth.'74' March 1591-2. (B.M., Lansdowne MSS. 69, No. 28.) Los Puntos de que en su Carta se quexo a su Magd Sersma su siervo El Cauallro Don Salomon Abenjacix?El primero es que El agente Barthon no mirando a los muchos y senalados servicios que dho Cauallero ha fho a su dha Magd. Monstrando muy Ingrato favorescio y defendio con los priuilegios 74 The endorsement erroneously describes this document as addressed to Don Antonio,</page><page sequence="66">JEWS IN ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND, 65 de su magd dos Italianos papistas Inimigos de dho Cauallr0 que antes hauian estado Casa de lancoma y so# su bandero, y viendolo sin authoridad por la Ribalderia^ Cometio contra dho Cauallro se f ueron a dho agente pedir socorro, y los Rescibio y sustent con todos sus f uersos dho don Salomo Movyd) del Interesse sin tener de la Magd Sersma Comission ny mandado pa) esso y f esso sabiendo que son Inimigos del grand. B y dessa Corona. El segd0 que por Consejo de paulo mariane Romano papista que por El Embaxdor guyllerme Harbot, fue librado de la horca p&gt; sus maldades en Constantinopla y del Rno de egipto fue bandido y condenado a muerte p) reboltoso y hombre pverso?dho5 agente escriuyo vna carta al grand B. contra dho don Salomo diziendo vino fvyendo de portugal y (?bad la hazda) a la Corona con otras palabras similes a las que lancoma havia at es j?epuesto. Dessos sera su Magd furdo escriuyr al dho&gt; don Salomo quanto dello le peza y como el agente lo ha f Ko&gt; sin orden ni Comission suyo con lo que mas fuere la voluntad de su Magd Sersma a quien El omnypotente dios alargue la vyda y sus Inimigos destruja. Queen Elizabeth to the Sultan. March 1592. (B.M., Lansdowne MSS. 67, No. 107.) Augustissime et potentissme. Imperator &amp;c, Nuncium nobis nuper cum literis misit subditus vester Salomon Abenyaex Eques, petens ut quoniam multis inimicorum calumniis ac fraudibus inique praeter meritum, divexatus sit, se testimonio nostro clementer adjuvaremus. Cum itaque gravem hunc virum ad negotia resque nostras promovendas multos jam annos paratissimum expertae sumus, Ma u Vtrae significare voluimus qualem de eo opinionem geramus. Ac vere quidem testari possumus, non solum nosmetipsa sed alios etiam multos principes Christianos eum propter virtutem probitatem industriam in nostris regnis commorari ac habitare voluisse. Quibus in locis haud dubie potuit quiete in rerum omnium copia et afluentia vivere. Verum cum Constantinopoli in Imperio vestro potius sedes ponere quam uspiam alibi gentium praeoptaverit, per artes ac fraudes ministrorum hispani Regis factum est ut ne istic quidem liceat ill! tuto conquiescere. Legatus enim Lancoma et prioris franciae Regis et eius qui nunc regnat proditor foederi cujus Rex hispanus caput estadherens,egregium hunc equitem Salomonem falsis calumniis apud Matem Vtram callide traduxit, tanquam si priores Portugaliae Reges uno Aureorum millione et ducentis millibus in quadam sela cum gemmis et margaritibus ornata conficienda defraudasset. Cui crimini ut fidem concitaret Regis Antonii ad earn rem prosequendam Mandatum ostendit, quod- falsarius ille flagitiose finxerat, VOL. XI. F</page><page sequence="67">66 JEWS IN ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND. cum Rex Antonius ne tale mandatum unquam sibi dederit sicut aperte nobis idem Rex significavit. Hanc igitur calumniam f also illi impactam judicamus ut apud Matem Vtram (cum contra hispanum Regem eiusque confederatos ad Res nostras promovendas studiose egerit et agat) fide et credito deinceps careat. Similiter igitur si agens noster Constantinopoli residens quippiam contra eius famam aut rem dixerit aut fecerit id Pauli Mariani Itali fraude ac technis gestum esse interpretamur, qui pro Rege Hispano istic esplorator illius gratiam hoc facto se initurum certo sibi persuaserit. Qua de re ad eundem agentem nostrum fusius scripsimus ut de talibus ministrorum Regis hispani artibus sibi deinceps caveat. Orantes interim Matem Vtram ut huic Salomoni clementer faveat nec pro nobis contra Hispanum navata opera eum inimicorum calumniis patere sinat. Endorsed: Copie of a letter required to be written to the Grandseignr in favour of Solomon Abonaex. (1591/2.) Lord Burghley to Alvaro Mendes. (P.R.O., S.P. Foreign, Turkey, 2.) Illustris et Magnifice Domine plurimum observande, Serenissima Regina Domina nostra Clementissima, ex veteri optimorum Principum consuetudine, ea in bonos omnes, maxime autem in benemeritos esse solet gratia, et dementia, ut f avore, et munificienti? sua ornatos eos potius, quam nominis sui authoritate lesos, aut prepeditos maxime voluerit. Cum igitur Sacra ipsius Majestas multa de Illustri Magnificentia tua iam alias acceperit, que cum singulari Prudentie Laude coniuncta, optimam erga Majestatis sue animi propensionem, atque obsequendi studium satis declarauerunt, ad Clementiam suam uti benemerito impartiendam, et olim fuit, et nunc quoque benigne comparata est. Quod vero ex literis iam missis intellegit Oratorem suum Barthonum, qui Constantinopoli nunc agit, Pauli cuiusdam Mariani, ac Dauidis Passi vafrimentis ita allectum, ut eosdem non modo in suam pro tectionem acceperit, sed etiam ad nonnulla in Magnificentia tua illorum suasu, ductuque nequiter agenda, se impelli permiserit, reprehensione dignum Majestas sua existimat: presertim cum non leuis suspicio sit duos illos Italos Hispanice f actionis Asseclas, et Ottornanici Imperii latentes inimicos esse et clanculariis pro Rege Hispano explorationibus inibi inuigilare. Atque cum nullam causam Majestas sua hactenus compertam habeat, obquam de pristina in Magnificentia tua ipsius gratia remittendum quid patet, solitam Clementiam suam sartam, tectam, conseruatam retinet, ac Seruitorum suorum conatus huic Regie ipsius voluntati esse vult haud dissimiles. Publicam igitur authoritatem suam ad Italos illos, qui Magnificentie tue</page><page sequence="68">JEWS IN ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND. 67 aduersantur protegendos, nulla vult ratione adhiberi: Quin etiam si Barthonus contra famam, atque existimationem tuam quid scripserit, aut fecerit, id sane prefer Commissionem ab eo factum esse Majestas sua testatum cupit, de quibus ad ipsum Barthonum fusins. Jussit igitur sua Majestas ut hec ipsius nomine ad Illustrem Magnificentiam vestram scriberem bono animo esse, omniaque optatissima a Maj estate sua expectare iuberem, atque eas rationes opportune adhibendas significarem, quibus et ea, que hactenus a Barthono nostro non recte acta sunt, in meliorem ordinem redigantur, et Clementissimam erga se Majestatis sue voluntatem esse Magnificentia tua deinceps intelligat; Cui interim humanitatis ofhcia meae commendo, ac veram felicitatem a Deo optimo Maximo precor. Date E Regia West monasteriensi die 22? Mensis Martii 1592. Endorsed : Martii 1591. Coppie of my letfe to Solomon at Gonstantiple. Giovanni Dolfin, Venetian Ambassador in Germany, to the Doge and Senate. June 13, 1592. (Cal. S.P., Venetian (1592-1603), No. 83.) A nephew of Alvaro Mendez has passed from England to Constantinople on business for his uncle, and to negotiate for the help of a Turkish fleet to the injury of Spain. Alvaro Mendez to Queen Elizabeth. (P.R.O., S.P. For., Turkey, 2.) Sacra Real Mag*. Con la venida de Salamon Cormano entendi con quanta clemencia V. Mag1 mienbra mis pocos seruicios y con su Realissme humanidad los abrasa pera le seren aceptos ; lo q en mi creo nuevas f uercas y si me estime siempre nascido pa vro soberano Seruicio agora lo sere con redoblado vigor como tan ciertam^ affiniziado en la segurissma solonbra de vuestras altissas y sagradas alas, a la qual infinitamente me humillo por la gratiossma Merced de la carta de V. Mag* para ste gran Sor que ando pcurando venga a sus manos. Y como mi entencion con eile es el Castigo de Algunos Inimigos del Real Serui0 de V. Mag* Retexendo vna causa mia espero en al Criador felicemte lo cosiguire. Tambien el Theosorero Mayor por mandado de V. Mag* me scriuio alqual respondo largissma mente lo q es Serui de V. Mag1 pa q lo Repressente a V, Mag1 temiendo ocupar el tiempo a sus altas cosideraciones. En cuyo sublissmo seru0 biuire toda la vida con entera f edelidad Publicador de Vuestros</page><page sequence="69">68 JEWS IN ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND. Heroicos fechos, insatiabil Rogador por la eterna c?seruacion de V. Serma Mag* co abatimiento de sus Inimigos. f cha en Costa a los 28 del nies de Julio De 5352 Creat. Dk sallomo Abenajaex. A la Sacra Real Mag* Reina de Inglaterra. Endorsed in Burqhley's hand : 28 Julii 1592 fro Constantinople. Edward Barton to Lord Burghley. (P.R.O., S.P. For., Turkey, 2.) Ryghte Honorable and my very good lord, your Honnors favorable lettrs of the 11th Aprill were delivered me the third of this present, by a seruant of Aluaro Mendes, not him whome your honr honored wm the cariadge of them, but by a boy of his house, havinge reteyned the same by him after his arrival heere above xx day es and no lesse her Majisties letters to the Grand Sigr in Mendes his fauor wch he caried vp and doune wth him shewinge them in every tauerne and bragging of them, interpretinge them, at his pleasure to the comon people, and boastinge that by them came the conf ermation of my chsgradinge at his suit and request, wth many other vaine rumors vsed by his man or rather Ambassr as he termed him self e that he did invite and banquett your Honr and all the Nobilitie ; that your honor ofte visited him at his house ; that he and all his trayne vsed publickely the Jewes rytes in prayinge, accompayned wth divers secrett Jewes resident in London; that ofte both publickely and privately he had familiar conference with her Majestie of whom he was as royally and gratiously receaved as the Ambassadore of any Christian prince wth many like vaine fables vsed partly to discredett me and partly to curry f auoure with his Mr who liked not his lardge expences surmountinge by his accompt geven up (wch through banquet es made and giftes vnto her Majestie most honorable councell) 5000 ducketes of gould: thoughe I think the latter accompte to be as trewe as the former reportes. No we touching her Majtles and your honrs comanndement to shew the saide Aluaro Mendes sutch favour as I lawfully may wth her Majtes honnor and that your honr will not prese me therto otherwayes ; I humbly requier your honr to caule to minde, that after the death of the late deceased French King succeaded this present henry the fourth, ether for that he was of contrary religion, or ancient enimye to the house of Guise, Lancosmo heere then resident d. turne his coate, and became a leaguer that is mortall enemy to God and his Kinge and contry; and vsed all the means he could to deface the Kinges good fame and credett with the Grand Signior and to prefer that of the league : as also to make a peace and amitie betwene the Grand Signior and the leaguers : wch by my good indeuour not succeadinge and the French</page><page sequence="70">JEWS IN ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND. 69 King hearinge thereof, first I was wtb gratious thankes from her Majestie and the French King rewarded, and after by princely incorradgment alluered to continue my good indeuour in the French King his service, and to take the gouernment and procuerment of his affaires, and no less of his subiects merchantes traders and all other vnder his protection vntill the cominge of .d. before wch chardge laide vppon me, Aluaro Mendes in time of Lancosmo, pretendinge that the French King deceased was his dettor in 12000 dycketes trobled and molested certayne florentine merchauntes vnder the French King his protection for payment thereof ; vntill that the French King writte his espetiall lettrs vnto the Grand Signior assuringe him of Mendes, his faulse demaunde and requieringe that he myght be punished, wch the Grand Signior answeared very favorably afferminge that he would giue no more ears to Mendes his said sutes, but yf he againe did prosecute the same he would condignly punishe him, so that all the time of Lancosmo his creadett, Mendes durst meddle no more therin vntill that the French King had comitted the whole chardge of his affaires vnto me ; wThen Mendes thinking that ether my care would not be so earnest in defendinge the honnor of the French King or my force not suffitient to withstande him, againe molested the poore mer? chantes, and consequently sought to discreditt and endamage the French King wch was the cause of our faulinge out, wherin I assuer myselfe not to have comitted any offence, for that I know hir MagtIe preferreth the hornier of the French King before the friendshipp of Mendes yf at least ther may be any friendshipp betwene a Christian and a Jewe wch by experience I heere have of them I knowe to be a thing vnpossible, and what Aluaro Mendes hath done yf it have bine any thinge, hath bine for his owne benefitt as knowinge the Grand Signior to be delyghted in the aduise of her Majesties prosperitie, and hath reaped of me rewards a hundredth f ould even in that f auore, when in Sinan Bassa his time I toke him out of the gallies : for wch he hath since geuen me a Jeweishe rewaurd notwthstandinge in all other matters saue this woh so nyghe touceth the creadett of the French King her Magtles spetiall f rend accordinge to your honors comandmt. I will do Mendes all the lawf ull fauore I may concerninge certaine infamous reportes latly raised vpon me ther by diuers wicked persons enuieing the prosperitie of my affairs I humbly requier your honor to suspende all rash sinister opinione of me vntill my retorne wch I hope wilbe shortly, or if your honnor be alredy so far incenced, yet at least to judge of me not accordinge to their verdett, whose lives and works have alwayes bine infamouse, but ether accordinge to the relation of the godlier, or accordinge to the success of all my accions in her Majesties seruice desieringe as a good tree to be iudged by my freute, part of wch I send your honor by the bearer my seruant, desierous to retorne into Ingland to the end your honor may see that nether her Magtles credett is impared by my residence heere nor her highness affares slacked, sendinge your Hon* two lettrs of the Grand Signior testifienge two good peces of seruice the one</page><page sequence="71">70 JEWS IN ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND. the repulsinge of Spain his Ambassr frome Ragusa and not sufferinge him to make league wth the Grand Signior so mutch of him and his mr desiered, no nor yett to gett licence to come hether as by the lettrs appeareth the second the imprisonment of Lancosmo formerly .d. a seruice no less profitable and honorable then the first, for the many ill offices he myght otherwayes have done : by wch and others formerly performed your honnor may well Judge that I have ether little leysure or care to tend other matters and for conclution protest that yf at my retorne the least mihte of disloyaltie, towards prince or contry may be proved against me, I requier no fauore but wilbe content my head shall pay for it onely in the mean time request yr honnors fauore to construe my sincere zealous dutifulness, not according to report of psons infamous, but accordinge to the honorable effectes and my dayly carefull industry in her Highness affairs. Now then resteth to excuse myself for not wryghting ordenarely vnto yor Honr wch shalbe so mutch the easier yf your honr caule to mind my former diligence after the death of Sr fraunces Walsingham when diligently and carefully I ordenaryly by every post sent your honr aduice, of all the affairs which heere passed, even vntill that expres comrhition came from her Magtie by the ryghte honorable Sir Thomas Heneage that all forraine affaires were comitted vnto his honor, and therfore that I should direct all my lettrs and aduices accordingly, wch comition to resist your honr knoweth how dangerous it is for one of my estate and therfor hope the soner to obteyne pardon the rather for that in my formers long since I requiered the same and no we againe as well for the said comitions sake as also that I have no helpe to write many coppies, I humbly request both your honors pardon for the saide my silence as also your fauore in the defence of my inocencie in this my absence. And at my retorne hope and promise by probable reasons to geve full satisfaction in both, vntill when and ever desyering your Honrs prosperitie I comitt and cofnend your honr to the protection of the Almyghtie this 19th August 1592. Yor Hrs most dutifull ever to comand Edward Barton. To the righte Honbie The Lorde Highe Treasurer of Ingland. Endorsed: 19th Aug. 1592. Mr. Barton to my 1. from Constantinople. In Burghley^s hand : cause of his not writing to me etc.</page><page sequence="72">JEWS IN ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND. 71 Alvaro Mendez to Dr. Rodrigo Lopez.75 (P.R.O., S.P. For., Turkey, 2.) Worshipp11 Sir, I haue reed, twoo of yors of the 16 Aprill and 14 May, &amp; both being of one thenour I will hereby make my answer full of storyes of thoughts of that Good King Anthony. I mervayle not at him for that his sinnes and lyfe hath bene for no more, &amp; therof it proceedeth that (he beinge the sonn of the best prince that Portugall hath hadd &amp; Rightest in the inheritaunce) he be or see him self in the estate wherein he is, for so he deserveth, that is so obstinat in so vayne a matter &amp; so vntrew, &amp; that by the counsaile of a Jew traytour to this crowne and the falsest man of the world, &amp; so he is accompted &amp; so he will end. In none of your letters you aske me not what intencion this Jew cann have, seeing himselfe doeth know that it is all false, &amp; admitt it were trew yet by the lawes of this Kingdome he hath no Right therein, &amp; this he knoweth much better than I. I will tell you, he hath no other Reach then to see if he cann discreadict me wth this matle, seeing that all the Brybes that phillip giueth to the bashaar and to all men that he cann psuade wth money are not sufficient to obteyne a peace and treuce wth this Kinge which so soone &amp; so often as they doe bringe to any good purpose or way I doe straight wth my letter vndo all that they haue done, wch causeth me to be much hated &amp; hindreth me from recovering of much money wch of long tyme is owing me, by cause I have hindred the Bashaar of a great deale of money and brybes that hath bene promissed them, &amp; ffor many promisses that on the behalf of phillip are made, whome although no body love yet many are well affected to his money. And as this is the greatest service that this Jew cann doe to phillip his evill ffortune giveth him King Anthony for his companion to help him whose necessitie maketh him forgett whoe he is &amp; whose sonn and to forgett what he pretendeth which is the devyne favour, &amp; employeth him self in these toyes, losing his shame &amp; that all the world may know him for a palterer, for every ehylde in Spaine, ffrance, Italy and some even here knowe that the ffurniture did cost 47000 pardaos of gould of 360 reis every pardao accopting herin 1000 docatts wch I hadd yeerly for my salary or wages, and the pay of 3 Souldiers wch attended on me and presents giuen, and gould wch by waight was receyved &amp; deliuered &amp; workmanshipp, so that in my conscience I think that the stones doe not come to cost 30000 docatts &amp; by the law wch our lord hath given that I being wth that King who is poore both of witt &amp; money in a villadge in ffraunce called San Germess delaya wher I spake wth him before he entred in Paris, the first thing or one of the ffirst thinges that we spake of was that 75 This is an official translation, apparently by Waad, of a letter brought to London by Judah Serfatim. The original is not in the Record Office.</page><page sequence="73">72 JEWS IN ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND. he sayd unto me, your furniture remayned yonder. I well knew that it was of no great pryce but if it hadd not bene I could not have escaped, ffor (sayd he) I, fflying after my overthrow to come for ffraunce, Souldiers followed me, I scattered peeces &amp; peeces of the ffurniture about in the shipp wherin we were, &amp; whyles they prayed thervppon &amp; other thinges I hadd oportunity to escape, &amp; if you doe talk wth him here uppon (if he hath not vtterly lost his shame) he will confesse that it is so, but he doeth so much desyre money to relieve his necessity that he suffreth him self to be caryed or ledd by so great a traytour as this Jew is, &amp; wheras you say that he hath sent into portingall to make provances against me, believe me, it is a great lye, &amp; he knoweth as well as I, if he cann have thence anything to his purpose, ffor it is well knowen what the ffurniture cost in the India &amp; the accopt that I gave therof and the many services that I did to the Kings of portugall, through wch they gave me the greatest honours that ever they gave to any man that came from the India, in so much that the King gave me free the custome of all my precious stones, wch he never gave to any Visrey?That Senior would seeke this invencion &amp; say that his man or his great horse came Running away ^here through having no other Remedy he drew out these lyes there which he sendeth hither. That Senior hath lost his shame &amp; this is the trueth, for if he hadd either shame or honour, all the necessitie of the world were not sufficient to make him comitt so great a falsenes. And according to such as his deedes are, so God helpeth him &amp; them that accompany him, &amp; for proof! therof mark how victorious &amp; well fortuned have bene the Armyes of that mighty &amp; most prudent Queene &amp; leady, whersoever they have gone, except when they went in his company. The Lord doeth not give good successes but to the well deservers. And that poore pero f reguna de costa so soone as he cometh hither shalbe imprisoned where phapps he shall end his day es, &amp; if he be out of prison he shall accom? pany the great wicked man david pace where he is prisoner for a spy and traytour, where he hath bene 3 tymes, and I have ffreed him all the tymes at the request of his Kinsfolkes &amp; that it might not appeer that there is any inffamous Jew spy for phillip, and so they have intreated me much now but I will not doe it, for I have no fface to doe it, the matter being so playne, lett him stick to Justice ffor when he might come out ffree as he hath done at other tymes it would not cost him a little, for to punish an evill villayne in the purse, is a great punishment in this countrey, money endeth much, be it what it shalbe. Now I putt fault in you whose much discrecion &amp; prudence &amp; being a portingall suffyseth not but that you forgett the misery of portin? gall, that could make a ffurniture better then of velvett or when best of some false stones, ffor when they have any trew &amp; rich stones the King selleth it. And the ffurniture grew to cost so much, ffor that onely I could make it publickly in the Kingdome of Nasinga, wher I could comand more then I doe in myne own house, ffor there no stone may publickly be shewed that</page><page sequence="74">JEWS IN ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND. 73 being Rough &amp; unpolished way more then fyve Caractes the wch many tymes being wrought cometh to way onely one Caract, &amp; ffor very good that it be it wasteth the half, ffor the diamantes of that Kingdome are those wch are called of the new Rock, and they are not poynted nor wayphers as those of vther places. And wth this condicion the King ffarmeth vut the mynes of the stones, that every dyamant that they ffynde waying more then 5 Caractes, be his own, and although they steale from him the most part or almost all the great ones, yet no man might or durst publickly woork them in his house as I could; in the sayd ffurniture were some stones aboue the lycence but none that being wrought wayed more than 5 Caractes, &amp; very few such, but the great Libertie which I hadd caused that I bought good cheape. That good King knoweth this as well as I, what devill did or doeth incyte him to psiste in deshonouring him self through the world. And I having bene after the making thereof 4 yeeres in portugall, a yeere and a half in Spaine, 2 yeeres in fflorence &amp; 14 yeres in paris where in my tyme was embassadour John Gomez da Silva, and after him Nuno Manewell; and after him, Giraldez ; and being so many sent thither &amp; all these countreyes of so much Justice &amp; in so good league wth portingall yet never any King brought this ffurniture for so great a Robbery in Question, but Rather for my good service that I did therin &amp; many others they gaue me many honours &amp; favours. That the woorshipp11 King Anthony should come to play the ffoole at Constantinople I wish that our Enemy es may never thryve better then he shall. I haue thought good to giue you lardge relacion herof to clere you from care, And I would be gladd that the Queenes Matie (whome I am bownd to serve all my Lyfe) did know what King she hath in hir countrey, &amp; whome she hath of me heere who day &amp; night doe nothing ells when it falleth to purpose but extoll hir Greatnes to the heavens, and in all wherin I am heard I doe my office &amp; part as hir trusty servaunt, ffor hir embassador. hath so much to doe to cleere him from matters wherin he hath medled that he very seeldome visiteth the Courtes, &amp; onely once hath he visitted Synan Bassaa, &amp; was then very evill receyved as reason was, &amp; lyke a young man he hath forsaken my counsailes and leaned vnto one that made him wryte devilish matter of him being out office to pleasure the other Vezir, which Vezir Azaan (being replaced in dignity) when he vnderstoode you may Judge how he would receyve him, that if the Authoritie of that Majesty were not so great &amp; to whome so much Regard is justly dew, according to the great Authority that Synan Bassaa hath it would haue gone vtherwyse wth him. You wryte me what content the Queenes Mtie will conceyve in yt I reteyne my woonted familiarity &amp; friend shipp wth this embassadour. I affirme vnto you that whatsoever shalbe corhanded me tending to the service of the Queene our Lady I wilbe found most ready. But this embassadour hath much more necessitie of a great Some of money wherwth to Remedy matters wherin he hath thrust him self by the counsaile of one Paulo Mariane then of any thing ells. And if also I be good</page><page sequence="75">74 JEWS IN ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND. for this matter lett hir Matie comannd me for I am very ready in whose con templacion I desyre to see this young man to happ well in all, but he hath thrust him self into such a nett and hath done to him self so much harme that I doe not know any 10 Enemyes of his that could have hurt him so much. I remember well that I writt vnto you how much it imported that an vther embassadour hadd bene sent hither, my opinion was not accepted of the tyme will shew how good it hadd bene. I thincke that what I haue sayd is sufficient concerning don Anthonio his intent, wth ffew words how much I am bound to yor service &amp; good zeale, for it is not reason wth woordes to pay so great a woorke of so trew Love. The shipp stayeth long, she hath of long tyme bene Looked for every day, we know that she is in Shyo, from whence they are soone heere, but it seemeth she hath hadd lett either through busynes or wether. Your Servitour my sonn is in his holly lands psisting in his ffolly, he hath spent me much money in his heate wthout effecting anything for not vnderstanding well the people of the countrey, he is an honest man &amp; of a good conscience, he spendeth all his tyme in meldan &amp; procureth more for his soule then after the world. The Lord be wth all: Although this were fitter in an vther place, yett I make this longe letter to shew that I am not so crewell that I would omitt to assist my naturall King seeing him in necessity as this Senior Anthony was when he came into ffraunce, but I am not bownd to pf orme his ffollies nor to throw or cast away my goods evill spent, and I pray you that when you shalbe wt? hir Matie at some convenient tyme and seeing hir at Leysure &amp; voyde from hir Royall cares shew vnto hir thys lesson of that King &amp; what I passed wth him, if the King Anthony shall see this Capitule it maybe he wilbe ashamed to deny it. This King being in portingall &amp; having his thoughts to be King, he sent vnto me to paris A man named Anthony de Escovar wth a letter whose coppy I send vnto you herwth &amp; by word of mouth asking me my opinion, this his man betrayed him for in steade of coming to my house, he went fhrst to the house of the Embassadour Giraldez and he gave him relacion of all that [he] came for?ffew dayes after came the newes that the King was overthrowen by Phillip or his capteynes, God delivering him miraculously he came for ffraunce, but before that he came to the Court, the King of ffraunce sent for me in great haste for the Countie of Vimioso was alredy at the court; the Kinge of ffr. asked my opinion of the promisses that the Countie hadd made him wch were aii chyldish and to little purpose. After some speeches I vnder? standing that by no meanes he would not make warres wth Phillip it was ordeyned that we should attend the coming of the King Anthony the better to know of him the needfull remedy wch I took uppon me to say that I would giue him if he would follow my counsaile, Shortly after came thither King Anthony and lodged for 2 or 3 dayes in St. Germes &amp; he sent to request me that I would goe to see him, wch I did joyntly wt? Monsieur Strossy, and from</page><page sequence="76">JEWS IN ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND. 75 candle lyghting vntill the morning I was wth King Anthony, onely we twoo alone. After many &amp; infinite speeches I affirmed vnto him that he hadd no vther remedy but to goe into the India, where they would receyve him as comen from heaven, for at that tyme the portingalles there hadd no Viz Rey for Phillip but Remayned wth sorow for the late losse of their King &amp; their myndes wounded wth many Insultes, Robberyes &amp; deshonours done by Spaniards to portingalles which is by auncient hate. I offered him my person and goods &amp; that I could putt him in the India at my cost &amp; charges, &amp; that we should come to this Great Senior to obteyne of him onely this favour that we might haue in Suez or Basor?? 2 Galleyes I deffraying the chardge. I shewed him how from the India we would destroy all the West &amp; that wth much facillity we would dryve Phillip to such a straight that he should have no vther Remedy but to ask mercy, but all that I could pswade was no more but that we should repayre to paris where a determinacion should be made, it prevayled nothing that I tould him he should not trust the woords of the ffrench, and that he should doe it pittifully when he promissed the King som thing that lyked him. The last woord that I sayd vnto him was that he should keepe a trompett at his eare that should tell him no other thinge but that they Lyed, but nothing of these speeches prevayled. He sawe him self in paris lodged lyk a King, served like a King wth a great chappell and musicians, he seemed vnto him self that he was already King both of portin gall &amp; Spaine. The Queene Moother made an Army that did cost a great deale of money, &amp; it was overthrowen as you know through treason of the ffrench, he saw himself spoyled and the Queene Moother too, they determyned to begg my goods for that I was a Jew &amp; that I hadd sent all my Kindred into Turkey, it was not so secreat but I hadd notice thereof, ffrom hence he Remayned as he is, and sufficiently deshonoured, ffor in a supplicacion that I gaue and presented before the Royall Counsaile I sayd worsse against the sayd King Anthony then he hadd sayd against me. We were of long tyme wthout speaking togethers vntill y* seeing him self vtterly destroyed &amp; Remembring what I hadd sayd vnto him fformerly he sent to ask me leave that onely wth 2 men he might come to speake with me in the night season. I Returned for annswer that he should or might bring 102 men wth (sic) me for he should ffynde preparacion for all, I promisse you I hadd compassion to see him and his povertie, knowing assuredly that the King of ffraunce was weary of him, who for that he hadd not so much as a thought to make warr wth Phillip he would by no meanes see him but would haue him ffar of, as in effect we sawe that in few dayes after he sent him to Nantz, &amp; in short he assayed to deliuer him to phillip, &amp; he escaped miraculously, he was in my house 3 houres in the night, in all which tyme I pswaded him that seeing he hadd no other remedy he should goe to the India &amp; I would accompany him vntill he were embarked at Suez or Basor?a, ffor as at that tyme my determinacion was to chaung my habit, I did not offer my self to goe with him into the India,</page><page sequence="77">76 JEWS IN ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND. I could never pswade him to it, say what I could, he annswered me that the Great Turk would take him and wth a stone at his necke he would cast him into the sea through the many Brybes that Phillip would give to his Bash?ar; it suffiseth that I offered myself to doe as much for this Senior as one brother might doe for an vther, but it prevayled nothing, for he lost vtterly his couradge &amp; hart, he thought it better to lyve by Almes then to hazard him self on the Voyadg; his happ hath hitherto bene for no more, God ordeyned for him that paradiche &amp; Refuge of that mightie matle, God help him if he deserve it, but as far as I see into his condicion &amp; evil! conscience his end wilbe wandering as a peregryne. I doe well see how weary you wilbe with this longe letter, but I would putt it in that hazard to the end they may not say that I did forsake that Senior in tyme when I could haue done him good, but as these are waighty mattrs so the Lord governeth them who knoweth best what he doeth, but I thinck well that the Lyf e of this King Anthony wilbe the Ruyne of phillip ffor the evill that he hath done to that King &amp; to portingall against Justice &amp; Reason. By the shipp who is shortly expected I will wryte though not so lardge yet more to your content; Our Lord preserve your Woorshipp11 person &amp; encrease your estate ffor many j^eeres. ffrom Constantina, the 24 August 1593. This bearer will tell you the rest newes. Yr servitor who kisseth your hand Don Sollomon Abenn Iaex. To the Woorshipp11 &amp; excellent Senior, Doctor Ruy Lopes cheeff phisician to the Queenes Matie of ingland in London. Endorsed : [Received by the Council] March 1593[/4]. Translation of a Ire from Don Salamon to Doctor Loppez. Judah Serfatim to [Lord Burghley\ February 7, 1594. (P.R.O., S.P. For., Turkey, 2.) Tres excelent Seigneur comesoit que le seruiteur doibt suiure avec son pouuoir et dilligence le seruice et volunte de son seigneur et pource qu'il est entreuenu au docteur Loppez ces malligintes auquel il f ut trouue auquel iay este depesche et voyant qu'il sa faict inhabile pour les miens Negoces et affaires Je supplie bien humblement a vre excelence que uoyant ses grandz affaires et aultre plusieurs negoces veille donner ordre a quelque vn pour supplier ce que le diet loppez debuoit auoir faict ayant consideracon de mes Ires pour le diet loppez enquoi les affaires dentre monseigneur et luy pendant qu'il se gouuernoit bien.</page><page sequence="78">JEWS IN ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND. 77 Et au plus, voyant ce inf elice homme estre du sang de monseigneur, moy i'entens qu'il apartient a son seruice et honneur a faire ceste supplication a sa Mate et a vre Excelence, les priant humblement de la part de Monseigneur, qu'il est Deuotissime a sa Mate et a sa nobilissime Royaulme comme jusques a c'est heure a montre, et tousiours il sera prest a montrer auec les effaitz que les occasions donneront, qui si ont seruis, de differer pour quelque temps la digne execution de ce malheureux homme Jusques a ce que Monseigneur aye temps de pouuoir communiquer en l'entour de ceste affaire auec sa Mate et vre. Excelence, lequel fait il se peuuent assurer qu'il en sortira grand contentement a sa Mate et vre excelence comme le temps dira ce pendant. Je vous baisse tres humblement les mayns. Endorsed: vii febr. 1593 JUDASER FATIM Do. Salomos servant. Judah Serfatim to the Privy Council. March 1594. (B.M., Harl. MSS. 871, fol. 65.) Mes Tres excellens et honorables Seigneurs. Pourtant qu'il m'a este diet et commande par vos excellences que je debroy bailler par escript la cause de ma venue et message avec les nouvelles et particularity du Grand Seigneur ensemblement de l'Ambassadeur de la Serenisime Royne : Vos excellences seront informes, Qu'au 18eme d'Avril dernier passe, estant le Grand Seigneur en un sien jardin avec le Baxa, capitaine de la mer nomme Cigala Ogle, il envoya appeller don Salamon, Due de Metilli, et grand commercaire de sa Mat6 pour prendre son ad vis et conseil et luy monstrer chemin en une mappe monde qu'il avoit aupres de luy en quoy il estoit beau coup entendu, 1'ay ant ja trace en la guerre que ledit Don Salamon avoit eue contre le Roy d'Espagne, luy donnant par la ? entendre par o? il pourroit plus nuire l'Espagnol, et voyant que le G. Seigneur y prenoit grand plaisir, il luy monstra par raisons qu'en trois ou 4 lieux il le pourroir destruire. Estant ledit Don Salomon en ces de vis le G. Seigneur imaginoit ses guerres d'Hongarie pour ce que les gens de ses forteresses se plaignoient de mauvais traittement que les environnes luy f aisoient. Diet le Roy ? Don Salomon, Je te prye, Due, que tu me veuille dire s'il me fauldra faire guerre ? Hongarie, La Royne d'Angleterre aydera elle contre moy ? A quoy respondit ledit Due. Comment, Seigneur, aves-vous doubte que la Royne estant si votre amie et desirant tant conserver vostre amitie elle veuille ayder a vos ennemis ? ne croyes teile chose. Sur quoy le G.</page><page sequence="79">78 JEWS IN ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND. Seigneur repliquoit, scaves-vous bien cela certainement ? Je le scay tant certainement, respondit Don Salomon, qu'il n'y a pas beaucoup de jours que j'ay eu des lettres de son medecin de la grande affection que sa Mat6 porte a la vostre et le desir qu'elle tient de conserver vostre amitie. A quoy le G. Seigneur respondit Je te pry, Due, que tu veuilles A luy escrire et me reco mander bien fort ? eile et a sa bonne grace, afin qu'elle seaehe par toy que je l'ayme fort et que je la prie, puisque tu dis qu'elle ayme tant mon amitie, qu'en cas qu'elle se delibere en quelque chose contre ses ennemis et me veuille employer, je luy monstreray ce que je f eray pour eile. Par lequel commande ment ledit Don Salomon a escript a la Mat6 de la Royne et au grand Tresorier et ? Docteur Lopez, et n'ay ant homme qui fut si hardy de faire ce chemin pour le grand danger qu'il y a en icelluy par le nombre des espions d'Espagne qui par tous ses lieux sont semes, II a envoye les dictes lettres par le chemin de Ragusa a Venise, ? son f acteur Simon Chavaron pour les envoyer ? Docteur Lopez, avec lequel il est contenue. Et estant estonne ledit Don Salomon que en ce temps il n'a eu responce ny nouvelles des dictes lettres, chose que tant il desiroit pour monstrer au Grand Seigneur la diligence qu'en ce cas il avoit faitte, il se delibera de m'envoyer affin que par bouche je pourrois dire a Docteur Lopes le contenue de ce que dessus, et le faire entendre ? sa Mat6, et venant par Pologne arrivant ? Leopole m'a rencontre un anglois nomme Guillaume Babunton, lequel me demanda d'o? je venoy. Je respondis de Constantinople, et desirant scavoir si je venoy ? ceste terre je me suis doubte de ce que dessus, et luy ay dit que non, mais que j'avois de la marchandise ? vendre, et je luy demandoy l'occasion pourquoy il vouloit scavoir cela. II respondit qu'il avoit entendu d'ung homme qui venoit en Angleterre, mais qu'il lui sembloit estre desja passe oultre, craignant qu'il luy auroit entrevenue quelque travaill. Moy qui estois le mesme de qui il parloit me suis delibere de prendre un autre chemin, beaucoup plus long, pour la seurte de ma personne et pour ceste occasion j'ay demeure si long temps en ce voyage attandant tous jours les compagnies. Touchant l'ambassadeur de la Royne d'Angleterre il se porte en bonne sante, et bien trouble pour sa coulpe ne voulant prendre les conseils de Don Salomon, mon Seigneur, tant s'en fault il se destournoit de sa compagnie et tousjours il s'assembloit en negoces de peu d'un heure et de beaucoup de scandale hors du service de sa Majeste, et suivant hommes qui ne vi vent d'autre chose que de complaire au Roy d'Espagne, comme David Passe et Mosse Benvenisti, lesquels voyant que par l'intercession de Don Salomon et le beaucoup qu'il soblime ? la Majeste de la Royne ledit Ambassadeur a eu plus de place et a este mieux veu que ses ceuvres sont dignes. Lesdits Passe et Benvenisti estant tousjours ,avec 1'ceil ouvert pour voir le moy en par ou ils peuvent servir au Roy d'Espagne et nuyre ses ennemis se sont introduits d'avoir une si estroitte amitie avec ledit Ambassadeur par moyen de Paulo Mariane, Italien, homme de grande teste machinateur a luy-mesme espagno</page><page sequence="80">JEWS IN ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND. 79 lise se nommant de la maison de 1'Ambassadeur auquel ont broulle, de teile maniere qu'ils l'ont fait respondre pour fiance et debiteur pres des 300,000 escus ? plusieurs personnes pour assister un qu'ils ont voulu faire, et ont fait, Roy de Baugdanie, affin que ce Roy le leveroit de la fiance et debte en quoy ils avoient mis ledit Ambassadeur, affin qu'il payasse ses crediteurs, et n'ayant moyen pour le faire, parce que ledit Roy de Baugdanie ne lui paye comme il doit. Tellement que ledit Ambassadeur, sans moyen pour payer, endure grande vergougne de ses crediteurs comme vos excellences de plusieurs anglois de par del? plus amplement se pouroit informer. Que c'est une occasion que ledit ne sort point de sa maison que par eau, et si le G. Seigneur n'eust pr e le grand Baxa il y a longtemps qu'il eust este mis en prison. Mais Dieu ne veuille ny n'endure jamais qu'on luy face deshonneur aulcun. Tant s'en f aut il [Don Salomon] dit que si la Majeste de la Royne luy envoyera, ou 1'excellent Tresorier luy escriprira qu'il le veult oster de gage il luy prestera 1'argent qu'il doit, affin que sa Majeste scache l'affection et envie qu'il a ? son service et aussi pour le voir sortir de dangers et perils comme il n'y a pas longtemps qu'il en est eschape. Et c'est qu'il estoit venu un homme d'Espagne, nomme Guillaume de Savoie, a la maison de David Passe, avec grande somme d'argent pour faire treves ou paix cerchant de subborner plusieurs Grands Seigneurs avec force argent chacun Selon leur qualite, et sachant que Don Salomon par ses intel? ligences, que tous les ans luy coustent bien d'argent, a escript au Grand Seigneur l'importance de ce fait, et qu'il s'en garde de faire teile paix ou treves avecques le Roy d'Espagne, luy baillant si bonnes raisons qu'il luy a fait oster de la fantasie d'entendre plus parier en ce fait, et sachant ceux qui cerchoient ce fait, voyant ne pouvoir nuire audit Don Salomon en aut re chose ont cerche moyens et inventions qu'il ne f ut paye de plusieurs debtes qui luy sont deus par plusieurs personnes et lieux. Estant le fait de ceste maniere a voulu la fortune que ce Roy fit guerre ? Hungarie ? quoy Mr. Don Salomon avoit bailie son advis au contraire. Allors lesdits Espagnollises ont fait une lettre signee par 4 personnes, laquelle ils ont baillee a un Espagnol renie nomme Rammadon, qui scavoit la langue, lequel ils envoyoient en Espagne, et cheminant deux journees il retourna en arriere, craignant de porter ceste lettre, laquelle il bailloit audit Guillaume de Savoye qui estoit preste ? partir avec 14 Espagnols et Portuguez, qui estoient esclaves qu'il avoit ranconne, laquelle lettre il a prins et avant qu'il partit ledit Rammadon craignant le tourment a conf esse de ceste lettre mais non pas qu'il eut sceu des 4 y subscripts, disant qu'il 1'avoit baillee a Savoye lequel incontinent fut prins et par cette occasion il y a eut plusieurs qui sont retires sans estre veux quelques jours, cerchant moyens et diligence pour faire entendre audit Savoye qu'il devoit manger la lettre, comme il fit, et ayant tourment ne vouloit confesser. Mais a la fin il le luy falloit faire disant avoir mange la lettre, mais on luy demanda les soubsignes a quoy il</page><page sequence="81">80 JEWS IN ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND. n'avoit temps pour respondres, ains mourut; aucuns ont pense qu'il a este empoisonne. Quelques jours apres a este prins une diligence de David Passe qu'il envoyoit en Espagne, pour laquelle incontinent il fut emprisonne, et Paulo Mariano s'enfuyt en la maison de l'ambassadeur de France pour ce que F Ambassador Barton a eu crainte de le tenir en sa maison pour ce qu'on le cerchoit a grande force. Et l'autre dit Ambassadeur de France craignant quelque grande f ascherie Fa deli vre entre les mains du Chaoux. Incontinent l'ambassadeur de la Majeste de la Royne est alle au Baxa le priant et disant estre son homme et de sa Royne auquel il a respondu je ne croy pas que la Majeste de la Royne veut soustenir espions et mauvais hommes, mais il seroit beaucoup mieux pour toy cercher le service de ta Maistresse et payer tes debtes ; car moy je feray justice. Pendant ledit Mariane sera mis en prison, mais je scay bien qu'il ne manquera pas quelques autres qui prieront pour luy de ceux qui sont dehors. A David Passe ils ont cerche sa maison et papiers, entre lesquels ils ont trouve une lettre du Roy Don Antonio, et pour ce que Monsgr. Don Salomon ne la sceu avoir, ny mesme la coppie, seulement pour luy complaire le Baxa luy a monstre ladite lettre, lequel m'a dit la sub? stance d'icelle, laquelle je diray de bouche selon que Monsgr m'a dit; et si David Passe eschape ceste fois il ne peut estre par autre moyen que par ladite lettre, car Monsgr a jure de ne parier plus en ses affaires, Fayant ja eschappe deux ou trois fois, mais cependant il estoit trouve fort coupable si Dieu ne Fay de. Touchant les nouvelles qu'il y a en la court on dit qu'au dixieme de juillet dernier sont venus au Grand Seigneur des nouvelles de ses forteresses en Hungarie du grand massacre qu'on avoit f aict aux Turcks, par lesquelles en un instant se delibera le Roy pour ce fait et cause; jurant par Mahomet que chacun homme cousteroit plusieurs milles, et incontinent il a mis sa fantasie en effect, sans que son Mofti lui peult empescher, lui subvenant Faccord de paix que son grandpere Soultan Soulaiman avoit fait et depuis F avoit confirme son pere Soultan Selim pour laisser de suivre son intention. Et voyant que Fautorite de Mofty n'avoit profite en rien, il n'y a eu aucun qui osat contre dire, et Sinan Baxa envoya appeller Don Salomon luy disant la volonte du Roy de faire ceste guerre, et qu'il ne veult pas qu'aucun parle a Fencontre. Au dessus de cela il debvoit dire son advis, non pas a Fencontre de la delibera? tion royalle, mais des moyens qu'? ceste journe f ailloient, pour ce que le dit Sinan Baxa est nomme General d'icelle, et F ordonnance qu'ils en ont prins 9a este en unze jours d'escrire 600,000 hommes, luy ayant ordonne et constitue ses generaulx et capitaines avecque leurs banderies bien proportionnes pour respondre et suivre ses ordonnances. Ayant le Baxa prins son conge du Roy et salue Don Salomon, il est survenu un Turck qui avoit este esclave en Majerie, lequel avoit veu un certain homme de mesme pais qu'il avoit cogneu habille en T?re, avec trois serviteurs, de quoy il s'esmerveilla et le saluant il s'est mis en doubte qu'il ne</page><page sequence="82">JEWS IN ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND. 81 debvoit pas estre turc. Avec ceste intention s'est retire a Sinan Baxa et luy a dit de l'homme qu'il avoit veu. Et le Baxa luy dit va-t-en, cherche-le moy, et si tu me le mennes, je te bailleray paye du Roy; et puis apres deux jours il Fa recontre au Ballat et lui a dit que le grand Baxa le demandoit. Cest homme cerchant excuse il ne Fa peu faire, tenement qu'il alia devant ledit Baxa, lequel luy demanda quel homme il estoit. II respondit qu'il estoit Turc. Ce n'est pas cela je vous demande, dit le Baxa, je demande vostre Pals, a quoi il respondit, qu'il estoit de Majerie. Je te prie, dit le Baxa, dis-moy qu'est-ce que tu fais ici, et tout ton fait. Je te promets par la teste du Roy que je ne te f eray dommage aucun si tu me dis la verite. Auquel il respondit, qu'il demandat ce qu'il vouloit et qu'il estoit prest ? respondre. Sur quoy il luy demanda s'il estoit Turc. II respondit que si: 1'ay ant fait veoir on le trouve menteur, et pour ce le Baxa luy dit, tu merite deux f ois la mort; l'une pour venir moequer de ma loy, et l'autre pour avoir menti au Roy, mais je te promets par la teste du Roy que tu seras pardonne si tu dis la verite en tout ce que je te demanderay. A quoi il respondit, Sire, je te remercie bien fort de ma vie, scachant bien qu'il n'y a chose qui me puisse sauver que la verite. Mais je te prie de ne me demander un point dont a toy pourroit venir dommage si tu le vouloir trop rechercher ; ce que le Baxa luy accorda, suyvant quoy il debvoit dire tout le fait a quoy il est venu l?. Lequel respondit: Votre Altesse scaura que l'Empereur, mon Seigneur m'a icy envoye pour scavoir ce qu'il y a, et j'ay fait mon debvoir si bien que je scay les gens de bien qu'avez fait et ceux de cheval et chauses et oulacques, et la paye pour Genikaires et espais avec le reste des gens et vivres et munitions de la guerre et les portes par ou ils debvoient passer et vostres deliberation. Et affin que vous scaches da vantage en tel jour vous aves parle avec le Roy d'un tel fait, et le Roy vous respondit teile chose. De quoy le Baxa fort estonne luy demanda d'o? scais-tu tout cela. A quoy respondit: c'est cela qu'aves promis de ne me demander et feres tres bien de ne la scavoir. Le Baxa ne recherchant davantage en ce propos luy demanda quels gens a l'empereur, ton maistre ? Auquel il respondit: il a une si grande force de gens que jamais ne fut veue ; et oultre cela il n'y a grand ne petit qu'il ne vous attende, croyant chacun d'eux que pouvant tuer un Turc ils seront sauves. Sur quoy le Baxa ne dit mot, se retirant au Roy avec grande crainte luy dit tout le fait. Auquel il respondit qu'il fut plus de gens et qu'il parlat au Due pour voir son advis. Ayant 3 jours qu'il estoient sorti de Constantinople 50,000 hommes avec la plus grande monstre que jamais fut veue. Puis apres ils ont fait douze mille hommes audit Constantinople outre la suitte des autres lieux qui estoient des ja sortis, qui se debvoient assembler en chemin. Le Baxa demanda ? Monseigneur Don Salomon par commandement du Roy qu'il dit ce qu'il luy sembloit quels gens l'Empereur pouvoit avoir. Mais il respondit qu'il ne pouvoit juger cela. Ainsi que s'il avoit quelque doubte avec ses gens qui estoient des ja deliberes il pouvoit faire guerre en Espagne par 4 lieux, sans se VOL. XI. G</page><page sequence="83">82 JEWS IN ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND. mettre en si grand danger, et estre assure de vaincre; que puis apres il pouvoit suivre son intention s'il vouloit. A quoy respondit le Grand Seigneur qu'il avoit gens asses pour Fun et pour l'autre. Endorsed: March 1593. The declaration delivered by Judazer Fatim sent from Constantinople. Judah Serfatim to the Privy Council, [March 1594.] (B.M., Harl. MSS. 871, fol. 71.) Touchant les demandes 76 que vos Excellences m'ont faict par vos escript que m'a bailie le Secretaire Maurier. Je respond: 1. Premierement touchant les Baxa de La Porte et Court du Roy sont quattre oultre plusieurs autres qui sont en plusieurs gouvernements pour ledit grand Seigneur, et les dits quattre de la Porte et Court sont ? scavoir : Le premier Vesir Asam, lequel se nomme Sinan Baxa, c'est luy qui marche pour general de l'armee contre Hungarie, mais en sa place il y a Ferat Baxa qui a este le general es guerres de Persia. Le second Baxa c'est le capitaine de la mer nomme Cigala Ogli ; le Troisieme c'est Mehemet Baxa, marie avec une soeur du Roy, qui tient le signe du Roy; et Brahim Baxa, gendre du Roy, qui a marie sa fille, est le 4me Baxa, mais il ne s'assit en sa place, ny aussi Mahemet Baxa, pour ce que c'est une place plus basse que les autres qui l'avoient eus avant estre tombe hors la grace du Roy. 2. La Royne, femme du Roy, eile est mere du Prince et native de Hungarie et pour estre la premiere qui a eu fils du Grand Seigneur de tous ses esclaves, eile est Royne sur les autres, et le fils est Prince du Royaulme, et quand le pere vient ? mourir on ne le couronne Roy avant avoir tue tous ses freres tant fils de sa propre mere que de toutes les autres esclaves, femmes du Roy; mais point les filles, lesquelles se marient avec les Baxa qui sont semblables esclaves et le Roy les fait Grand Seigneur, leur baillant grand gouvernements. 3. Le Prince, premier fils du Grand Seigneur se nome Sultan Mehemet. II se tient en deux Provinces nommes Manachia et Mochia, son Pere ne luy bailie aucun gouvernement, ny ayde, oultre ce qu'il luy fault pour son service, affin qu'il n'aye force. Avant l'aage de treize ans on le circoncit avec des grandes ceremonies, et c'est alors qu'il sort de la court de son Pere et qu'il est envoy e es dites Provinces. 76 The Council had sent Seriatim in writing twenty-five questions based on his previous Declaration (P.R.O., S.P. Foreign, Turkey, 2).</page><page sequence="84">JEWS IN ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND. 83 4. Les Turcs n'ont aucun esvesque, seulement le Mofti est leur Pape, ayant este juge en plusieurs lieux, ayant le Boy bonne oppinion de luy et de sa bonne justice luy bailie ceste qualite de Pape. 5. Le Grand Seigneur n'a aucun confesseur, seulement son ministre qui luy dit son oraison. II s'appelle Hirnan, grand ennemis des chrestiens et des Hebrieux. 6. Le maistre du Roy s'appelle Hogia du Roy; c'est un homme que le Roy honnore pour estre son maistre. 7. Les Ambassadeurs on ne les nomme point par leurs noms mais seule? ment le Bailie de Hungarie, Bailie de Angleterre, Bailie de France, Bailie de Venize, semblablement cestuyla de Raguse et Poloigne, n'ayant autres ambassadeurs en Turquie. 8. Au temps que je party de Turquie le Grand Seigneur n'avoit perdu que trois forteresses, qu'avoit en gouvernement le fils du Sinan Baxa, ayant este blesse et tous les gens tues ; et il se retirant en un chastiau il s'est sauve en grand danger. Les noms des dites forteresses ne me souviennent point pour ce qu'ils sont fantasques. 9. Sinan Baxa il ne se pouvoit avoir rencontre de Montan avec les Hongares mais marchoit avec son camp tout bellement pour estre une grande troupe. 10. L'Ambassadeur de France s'appelle Monsr de Breve, il est nepheu ou cousin de Monsr de Lancome qui a este Ambassadeur du Roy deffunct Henry de France. 11. Le dernier Ambassadeur d'Espaigne, qui se nommoit Sor Ca valla, arriva jusques a Raguse, il y environ trois ans, ayant escript ? David Passe qu'il eust conge et passeport pour venir seurement ? bailler son Ambassade au Roy et luy bailler present qu'il luy portoit. L'ayant sceu, Don Salomon il escript au Roy combien il luy importoit de ne luy bailler audience, et tant s'en faut luy envoyer qu'il ne passat oultre, et qu'il ne se tiendroit plus long temps en Raguza, affin de ne suborner avec son argent aucuns de ses subjects, comme ledit Roy fit. 12. Le Roy Persian il est en paix avec le Grand Seigneur apres avoir perdu Baiglarbeglix, c'est ? dire tant de provinces ayant envoye son fils au Grand Seigneur en gage de la paix. II semble estre en l'aage de 15 ou 16 ans. 13. L'Admiral de la mer c'est ledit Baxa et Capitaine Cigala Ogle. 14. Le Premier Baxa et qui commande sur tous les autres Baxas, tant ceux qui sont de la Porte comme ceux qui sont en leurs gouvernements ; ils obeissent tous avec tous les autres subjects au grand Vesir, qui tient la place du Roy, n'ayant plus hault que luy. 15. Les commerces et coustumes que le Roy fit prendre a Monsr Don Salomon, desquelles mon dit Seigneur bailie la charge ? un sien nepveu, rendent tous les jours mille ducats, et tous les trois mois 40,000 nobles pour les pay es des Genitzaires : c'est un grand re venu. 16. Le duche que le Roy bailla a Mon Seigneur c'est un bon pays, grand</page><page sequence="85">84 JEWS IN ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND. et bien fertille. L'entree et revenu qu'il peut avoir sont environ seze ou dix huit mille escus, oultres les despences qu'il faict. C'est en terre ferme 15 ou 16 journees distant de Constantinople, lequel s'appelle Mittilli, ses sujects son grec et Hebrieux et peu de Turcs. Le fils de monseigneur a une ville, et 7 ou 8 villages ? l'entour qui s'appelle Tiberia, aupres de Saffet. II a basti beaucoup de logis et un beau chasteau audit Tiberia; il est fort ayme des Alarbes. 17. Guillaume Babemtom, Anglois, il demeure ? Leopole, une cite de Pologne. II monstre estre homme de 40 ans, peu plus ou moins. La proportion de son corps semble estre plustost grande que petite, sa barbe soubrouge, son visage est long, il est papiste, il demeure a la maison d'un sien parent, qui est en prison pour debtes, lequel a un fils et une fille ? ce que me semble. 18. David Passe est Portugais Hebrieu, et Mossey Benvenisti il est turquesque hebrieuft 19. Paulo Moriano, il est italien, il fait les affaires de 1'Ambassadeur d'Angleterre, il se nomme consul de France et des Anglois hors de Constantinople. 20. Ledit Paulo Moriane, Mossey Benvenisti et David Passe ont este cause d'embrouiller l'ambassadeur es affaires du Hoy de Baudanie, et l'intercesseur de tous le fait a este Paulo Mariane. 21. L'Ambassadeur Barton, ses crediteurs sont Hebrieux Turcques et chrestiens, qui luy ont bailie beaucoup de bagues et plusieurs marchandises d'argent pour le fait dudit aron V?de, Roy de Baugdanie. 22. Ses gens que ledit Ambassadeur d'Angleterre a en son logis sont 18 ou 20 personnes, la plus grand part Anglois, avec 7 ou 8 chevaux. 23. Le Baxa, ami dudit Ambassadeur s'appelle Chaoux Baxa, qui avoit marie la soeur du Roy, laquelle est morte, et estoit grand Vesir mais le Roy l'a mis hors de sa grace pour ce qu'il mesloit avec Espagne par moyen dudit Benvenisti. 24. Le Chancellieur du Grand Seigneur s'appelle Misangi Baxa. 25. L'Escrivain du Roy s'appelle Raisque Tap ; tous ses charges et offices luy portent grandes dignites et proffict. 26. Les discordez de Monseigneur Don Salomon et du Roy Don Antonio, par les lettres que ledit Seigneur a escript au Docteur Loppez, lesquelles j'ay bailie ? M. Robert Cecile, on verra le faict. 27. Celuy qui fait les affaires dudit Roy, Don Antonio, et de qui il s'assure, c'est de David Passe lequel a este prins trois fois pour espie du Roy d'Espagne, estant prisonnier a ceste heure pour le mesme fait, sans moyen de se sauver, saulf si ne luy ayde une lettre dudit Roy Don Antonio, laquelle, comme j'ai dit en mon premier escript. Baisant tres humblement les mains de vos Excellences, que Dieu garde de mal.</page><page sequence="86">JEWS IN ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND. 85 William Waad, Clerk of the Privy Council, to Lord Burghley. (P.R.O., S.P. For., Turkey, 2.) To the Righte Honorable my especiall good 1. the 1. Burghley 1. Highe Treasurer of England. It maie please yor Honorable L: I have had three Conference wth the messenger that was sente from Don Salomon, the greate Jew that is at Constantinople; the better to vnderstande his negotiacon, I caused the letters that he brought to be translated; and he hath also delyuered vnto me the declaracon wch he gave vnto yor L: The Chief est matters wherein he hathe broken wth me, are the meanes his Master hath deuised and desyreth to be employed in to deturne the warre wch the Turk hath begun and intendeth against Hungary on the Kinge of Spaines Domynions and especially towardes Naples. He setteth downe for reasons the Care he hath, being a Jewe, of his Brethren and kynsffolkes, whereof he saieth there are more in Germanie and those ptes. then in Christendome, and he sheweth the reason of Salamon's hate to theTC. of Spaine because he dothe burne and prosecute the Jewes. The second thinge of ymportance is the cariage of her Matles Ambassador at Constantinople who, as he saieth, is ingaged there to the some of 300,000 Crownes a thinge in my poore opinyion incredible to be believed. Besides he chardgeth him to have reteyned a Spy of the K. of Spaines into his house to be hid there vnder his protection and sauegarde, and to be one of those ffower that did sett his hande to a Ire sent to the K. of Spaine wch is menc?ned in his declaracon. He chardgeth him besides to have receyved money sondry tymes from the K. of Spaine and of late the some of 15000 Crownes, And saieth that he is assured thoughe her Matle should send for him he hathe no meaninge to retorne but to prof esse himself a Turk. Another thinge he doth declare vnto me of a Ire menconed in his declaracon wch the K. Don Antonio sente to one Dauid Passie wch the Bashaie shewed Don Salamon. In that Ire (as he saieth) the Kinge did vse harde wordes of her Matie sayinge: The Brown Bread or a worse terme that he did eate here come from the Heretique Queene wth that difficultie as wyer is drawne through a small hole, and that he never had any good succes since he came into this Hereticall Contry. And therefore desyres him to fynde some meanes by some greate man about the T?rke to be recomended to his favour and helpe, vpon whose reliefe and succor he woulde rather depende then upon her Matle. It maie please yor good 1. that as I am to delyuer vnto you by her Ma*'8 Commandes and yor 1. dyrection that wch I receiue from this ptie so yor good 1. will giue me leave to impte vnto yor 1. that wch I fynde touchinge these matters by these laste Examynacons that I have taken in these Portugal</page><page sequence="87">86 JEWS IN ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND. Causes, and then to lett yor 1. vnderstande the Cheife pointe that this man seeketh at this presente. Doctor Lopez hath alwaies practysed wth D. Salamon being his neere kynsman and bothe Jewes as is most appant by the Ires betwene them and dyuers other Confessions all that he could againste the K. D. Antonio, and did from time to tyme advertyse to the K. of Spaine by the meanes of Andrada and fferera all that he Coulde vnderstande from D. Salamon touchinge the affaires of D. Antonio or of any thinge else for in shewe this D. Salamon professeth himself to be a greate enemy to the K. of Spaine. But the cheif matter that doth prouoke D. Salamon against the K. of Portugal is, that he knewe by Doctor Lopez howe the K. D. Antonio when he sawe that he coulde borrowe no money of D. Salamon went about to informe the Turk against him how he had gotten that greate masse of Substance weh he hathe by deceivinge the Kinges of Portugall being put in trust for them in the Indias and chardginge him wth other Crymes and went about to move the T?rke to confiscate his goods and to allow half of them to himselfe. Therefore by D. Lopez meanes this messenger was (as I gesse) to learne the Course the Kinge held in the prosecucon of this matter. But for the present the Chiefest thinge this messenger doth extreamly labor is to have the Execucon stayed of D. Lopez, as he hathe tolde yor 1: and my L. Admyrall (as he saieth) for besides the dishonor as he saieth that will come to his master, he feareth yt maie be a way to his vtter ouerthrowe being already sought vnder hande. I tolde him the ffact was so odious importinge her Matie so highlie, and the discontentm* of the people so greate as I assured my self e he should finde none of yor 11s: that would once make that motion, and the Execucon was in the handes of those that were Comys sioners. I learne further that this messenger came hether in the Jl Shippes that came from Stoade and often did use wordes that he desyred only to fynde D. Lopez alyve, perhappes vnderstandinge of the doctors purpose to retyre to Constantinople they misdoubted somethinge. It maie pleas yor good 1: I do vnderstande that or merchantes that trade to Constantinople have Shippes ready to go that voyage very shortlie whereof I thought good to put yor 1: in mynde that yor 1: may consider whither this matter of the Ambassador may preiudice them. And so leavinge farther to trouble yor 1: I cornytt the same to the protection of God. from my house in Wood Streete the xixth of Marche 1593. At the Comandm* of yor ho: lp: Al: Waad. Endorsed: 19 Martii 1593[/4]. Mr. Waad to my 1: His dealinge wth d. Salomon's Messenger.</page><page sequence="88">JEWS IN ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND. 87 Enclosures : His Majesty's Ambassador rejecting Don Solomon's counsels gives great scandal by his negotiations with certain men such as David Passe and Benvenisti, who are ever on the alert to see in what manner they can serve the King of Spain. They were introduced to this intimacy with the said Ambassador by Paulo Mariani, a man of great brain and a schemer much hispaniolized?who calls himself of the Ambassador's household, and has involved him and made him responsible for 300,000 crowns for the assistance of a person whom they wished to make King of Bogdania?and did. But for the intervention of Don Solomon he might well have found himself in prison. Endorsed: Information of Don Solomon's Messenger?Against Mr. Barton, Agent at Constantinople [no date]. Monseigneur don Salomon due de Metilli et Grand Comersaire du Grand Seigneur de Turquie fait profession destre tres deuot a la Mate de la Royne d'engleterre ayant tres bonne intension d'atendre en toultes ocasions a la dignite et bon seruice de sa Mate. Doncq par raison de aulcun deuis du Grand Seigr auec lui l'annee passee il a trouue Conuenient descripre a sa Mate et a mon seigneur le Tresorier d'engleterre pour auoir quelque f ondemen dicy par lequel il pouroit auec raison et bon scauoir faire entendre au Grand Seigneur que la Maieste de la Royne n'entent pas prendre armes contre le dit Grand Seigneur auec ses ennemis en ceste presente guerre. Ces Ires de mon seigneur a sa Mate furent enuoyez a Salomon Caraphon facteur de Moseignr a Venise lesquelles il delibura la a vn Anglois dont il fut pense qu'ilz estoist venues en main desquelles Ires. Monseigneur apres quelque temps nayant point de Response pensait la chose de teile importance que il s'est resolu de menuoyer en ce pays pour procurer vne respons des dictes Ires, par le moyen de D. Lopez et pource depuis mon ariual icy ie doute beaucoup que le dit D. Lopez a qui la dite lfe estoit adressee come il sest monstre Traistre a sa Mate ainsi il a este f aulx a Monseig* en enuoyant ce Paquet selon sa mauvaise intention quelque autre Coste. Pour aultant que je debuois uenir icy pour ceste ocasion mon seigr come si e'estoit par chemin me Comanda de faire mension de quelque autre chose. Et Premieremet pour aultant qu'il croit que les guerres de Turquie pouroint mieux pour les affaires de sa Mate de la royne estre en quelque aultre Heu que avec L'empereur il vouldroit voluntiers estre encourage dici pour penser quelque bons moyens Coment par l'intercession de sa Mate ses presente guerres seroint remouuez Des dominions de L'empereiur. Davantage mon Seigneur a este adverti par D. Lopez que don Anthoyne auoit parle beaucoup de mal de luy auec sa Mate parquoy sa Mate pouroit</page><page sequence="89">88 JEWS IN ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND. auoir consceu quelque mauvaise &amp; obiecte opinion de luy ainsi quil est tres deuot a sa Mate et pour ce il est fort desireux de seruir &amp; obtenir sa bone grace et opinion il escripuit a D. Lopez ce qui a passe entre don Anthoyne et luy desirant que sa Mate auec quelque bone oportunite pouroit estre faict entendre dicelle affin destre confirme en sa presedende bonne opinion de luy. Et pour aultant que le Secretayre de sa Mate a Constantinople ha entre en quelques affaires lesquelles peuuent sembler fort contraires a l'intention de la sa Mate et son bon loyal seruice Non pas pour aulcun respect d'amitie ou d'inimitie?Mais seulement avec bone intension de la dignite de sa Mate desira que sa dicte Mate fut aduertiee dicelle affin que quelque bone remede f ut donnee auant que ces choses croisent en quelque plus grande inconuenience. En consideration des dictes choses je desire tres humblement que par la Comission de sa Mate je puisse auoir lettres a Monseignr par lesquelles il poura entendre que sa Mate gardant sa presedente bone opinion de luy acepte de sa bonne deuotion enuers son seruice. Et davantage que avec bons fonde mens scauor il pourra Certifier le Grand Seigneur que sa Mate ne veult point prendre Armes contre luy, et qu'il puisse estre encourage de penser quelque bon moyens pour Diuertir la guerre du Turq en bon temps de l'empereur par l'intercession de ??, Mate Ainsi Je laisse les autre choses a la Consideration de sa Mate et l'excelent Conseil. Endorsed : 19 de Mars 1593[/4]. Certain articles exhibited by Sr. Judaser f atim. Judah Serf atim to Lord Burghley, April 10, 1594. (Cal. S.P. Dom., 1591-4, NTo. 64, p. 482.) Has written to Mr. Waad, as permitted, what he had to declare from his Lord to Dr. Lopez, if at liberty, so now begs his dispatch. Was only sent for the Queen's service, because from her great renown, his Lord thinks his service cannot be better employed. . . . Has been examined as to his com? mission, owing to Dr. Lopez's fall. Begs a favourable reply to his proposals. Endorsed : The Request of the Messenger of Don Solomon. Edward Barton to Lord Burghley? August 10, 1594. (P.R.O., S.P. For., Turkey, 2.) Right Honble. I lett passe the last currier of purpose wthout my Ires vnto yr honr because I had nothinge worth the writtinge. [Follows news of the war between Hungary and Tartars, etc.]</page><page sequence="90">JEWS IN ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND. 89 This is all wch we heare out of the camp resteth humbly to require yr honr thatt in as much as I have byne most iudasly and iewisly dealt wth all by Aluaro Mendax Jewe, who hathneyther spared expense nor labor todiscreditt me with yr honr; sending his seruantts Jewes into Ingland wth Ires against me, in perticular his last Ires and seruant sent little bef or the aprehension of doctor Lopes, by wch he accused me for keeping company wth spanishe spy es, videlicet Mose Benueniste, David Passi and Paulo Mariani, alleaginge thatt I by meanes of the sayd Mose Benuenisti had sett Lancosmo d. free wth many like calumnies, wch I have formerly by Ires disproued; for my futur incouradgment to ascerten me thatt I am in yr honr8 fauor, yr honr wold honr me in the sighte of the world wth the Jewe his last sayd Ires, by sending them vnto me, that all the world may knowe his mallice, my sincarity, and that yr honr gave no creditt vnto him Importing greatly my creditt to have the sayd Ires bycause that hauinge ofte herre complayned of the Jewe his sayd actions, and nowe lately exagerated the same, as well for my owne cause as diuerse other reasons am requested to procure the sayd Ire wch most humbly I beseech yr honr to send vnto me, and I shall nott cease to pray for the increase of your honrs prosperity. This 10 August 1594. Your hrs moste dutifull euer to comand Edward Barton. To the Righte honble . . . the lorde highe Treasurer of Inglande. Augustino Nani, Venetian Ambassador in Spain, to the Doge and Senate. (Cal. S.P. Venetian (1592-1603), No. 405.) . . . On board a galley of the Neapolitan squadron which was driven into Majorca by stress of weather, there was a Jew who had left Constantinople with letters for his Majesty. I am also informed that this Jew has passports from Prince Doria and other Ministers of the Crown. His business is the renewal of the truce between Turkey and Spain. He has shown letters addressed to the King. The Imperial Ambassador confirmed this news. . . . Madrid, 28th February 1595/6. Augustino Nani, Venetian Ambassador in Spain, to the Doge and Senate. (Cal. S.P. Venetian (1592-1603), No. 408.) As regards the Jew, Judas Serafatin, who arrived here four days ago, I have found out something from his servant David Sael, whom I tempted to my house and who gave me an account of the journey. He says that he and three others left Constantinople in the month of September. They were in the service of a Jew named Judas Serafatin, of Portuguese blood. Two</page><page sequence="91">90 JEWS IN ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND. of the three embarked on a galley which it seems was lost. The journey took about five months and a half, and in the Gulf of Spain they were all in great danger. From Constantinople to Ragusa they took thirty-eight days. At Ragusa they waited ten, and then embarked on a caramusal for Venice. In that city they lodged at the Spanish Embassy for about ten days and then set out for Milan, where they passed four days in lodgings. At Genoa they had to wait forty days in an inn till the galley sailed. I asked where his master was. He replied that he had gone to Aranjuez to confer with the King on business about which he said he knew nothing. Madrid, 7th March 1596. Augustino Nani, Venetian Ambassador in Spain, to the Doge and Senate. (Cal. S.P. Venetian (1592-1603), No. 412.) I have learned nothing further about the Jew than what he himself freely states; namely, that he was sent from Constantinople by a Jew of great importance at the Porte, and his mission was to arrange a universal peace with the House of Austria, the Grand Vizir approved the mission. The Ministers of the Sultan are disposed for this peace and wish to effect it through his Catholic Majesty. But the facility with which this Hebrew talks about so grave a mission causes many to have doubts about him and his statements. The Jew has been in Spain before. He is very shrewd; speaks several languages fluently, so no wonder he chatters. He says he has travelled much, and has been in England, where he has had dealings with Don Antonio of Portugal, and with Antonio Perez. Madrid, 22nd March, 1596. Augustino Nani, Venetian Ambassador in Spain, to the Doge and Senate. (Cal. S.P. Venetian (1592-1603), No. 416.) The Jew had an audience of his Majesty, the interview lasted a long time. I have not been able to find out what passed. The rumour that he was sent by Alvaro Mendez is confirmed. My confidant, who knew Mendez in Con? stantinople, says that he was chiefly employed by the Turks in finding out the movement of Spanish affairs. Moreover this Mendez was an intimate frequenter of the English Embassy, besides knowing M. de Lancome, the Ambassador of France, before he was discovered to be in the interest of Spain. One of the Jew's servants, who calls himself his Secretary, says that Mendez sent Serafatin to treat about the exchange of slaves captured at Patras, though he was also retained by the Jews of Milan on some business of theirs. I have noticed that during these last few days this Jew, in talking of his</page><page sequence="92">JEWS IN ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND. 91 affairs, says first one thing and then another, and no longer speaks as openly as he did at first. . . . Madrid, 8th April 1596. Augustino Nani, Venetian Ambassador in Spain, to the Doge and Senate. May 13, 1596. (Gal. S.P. Venetian (1592-1603), No. 436.) The Jew, Serafatin, has left, declaring that he is very well satisfied with his Majesty. But he is proved to be a man full of falsehood and tricks. It seems that the exchange of slaves was his chief commission. He may have touched on the subject of the truce or universal peace between the Turks and the House of Austria, but certainly nothing definite has resulted. . . . Girolamo Capello, Venetian Ambassador in Constantinople, to the Doge and Senate. (Cal. S.P. Venetian (1592-1603), No. 622.) The remonstrances of the English Ambassador have not been able to prevent the Jewish emissary of Spain from opening the negotiations for a truce. The Ambassador endeavoured to persuade the Turks to treat the Jew as a spy, and to refuse to negotiate with a person of such mean condition. He was answered that Jews had negotiated before this, and the example of the peace between Venice and the Porte was cited.77 . . . One in the Ambassador's confidence told him . . . that the Jew was advising the despatch of a qualified agent to Spain, or that the matter should be entrusted to himself. . . . The letters this Jew has brought were written by Don Christof oro de Mora and Don Juan d'Idiaquez to Salamon the Jew called Alvaro Mendez, and are accompanied by letters patent from the Spanish Ministers in Italy attesting that his Majesty has given orders to release all the slaves captured at Lepanto. . . . 6th October 1598. 77 In 1576 the Jewish diplomatist, Solomon Nathan Ashkenazi, who was a secretary of the Grand Vizier, was sent to Venice as Envoy Extraordinary of the Porte to negotiate peace, and signed the treaty on behalf of Turkey.</page></plain_text>