Note 58 — THE BATTLE OF LEPANTO.

In 1587, when the armada was in preparation, Queen Elizabeth tried to draw Sultan Amurath III. into an alliance with her against Philip and the Pope. Von Hammer gives the letters written on the occasion. With characteristic astuteness she appealed to the religious sympathies of the Turk, making common cause with him as the “destroyer of idolatry,” and declaring that together they could “strike down the proud Spaniard and the lying Pope with all their adherents.” Such were the representations made by the English envoy as to the religious belief of his queen and nation, that one of the Turkish ministers remarked to the Austrian ambassador, that “nothing more was wanted to turn the English into good Mussulmans than that they should lift a finger and recite the Eshdad” (or creed of Mahomet).