Today in 1571 the European allied powers defeated the Ottoman Turks at the Battle of Lepanto. This was an interesting battle for England because it saw Elizabeth joining the Catholic powers to defeat the Ottomans, who were threatening Europe not only through the Mediterranean, but also through Vienna. Lepanto was the largest naval battle fought in Europe since the antiquity, with over 400 ships involved between both sides. The striking thing was the amount of hand to hand combat between the two parties, with the ships acting merely as floating land for the infantry to fight. The Holy League won, and it marked the end of Ottoman expansion in the Mediterranean.
The Christians had twice as many guns, 1815 guns to 750. The galley ships were rowed by slaves, largely, and the leader of the Turks, Ali Pasha, told his Christian slaves that if he won, he would grant them their freedom, and if not, God would give it to them. Don John told his own galley slaves that there is no Paradise for cowards.
The battle itself, on October 7 1571, was so bloody that the sea turned red. I have links to the website about all of the books and programs you can watch and read to hear the specifics of the battle itself, but the Ottomans lost, they lost the majority of their fleet, and their great galley ships.
Isolated fighting continued until the evening even when it was clear that the Ottomans had lost. The elite Turkish soldiers, called janissaries, kept fighting to the death. Supposedly at some point the Janissaries ran out of weapons and started throwing oranges and lemons at their Christian adversaries, leading to awkward scenes of laughter among the general misery of battle. At the end of the battle, the Christians had taken 117 galleys and 20 galliots, and sunk or destroyed some 50 other ships. Around ten thousand Turks were taken prisoner, and many thousands of Christian slaves were rescued. The Christian side suffered around 7,500 deaths, the Turkish side about 30,000
News reached Elizabeth in early November, and she ordered bonfires lit throughout London, and the Bishop of London circulated prayers of praise and Thanksgiving to be said in parish churches as well as St. Pauls.
Much of what we know about Lepanto, from the English perspective, is from Richard Knolles, an English writer, who wrote The Generall Historie of the Turkes in 1603, the same year that James I came to the throne. This was also the same year that Shakespeare’s Othello came out, featuring a Moorish Prince in Cyprus, so interest in the Turks was growing, and was part of popular culture, reflecting the interest that James himself had in this topic.
James VI of Scotland (later I of England) wrote in 1585 of Lepanto:
To wit, a cruell martiall warre,
A bloodie battell bolde,
Long doubtsome fight, with slaughter huge,
And wounded manifold:
Which fought was in Lepantoe’s gulfe,
Betwixt the baptized race
And circumcised turband Turkes,
Rencountring in that place.
Desist, O tempter! Gabriel, come,
O thou archangel true,
Whome I haue oft in message sent
To realmes and townes anew.
Go quicklie hence to Venice towne,
And put into their mindes
To take reuenge of wrongs the Turks
Haue done in sundrie kinds.
That’s your Tudor Minute for today. Remember you can dive deeper into life in 16th century England through the Renaissance English History Podcast at englandcast.com where there is a series on Lepanto.
Suggested links:
Episode 096: The Siege of Rhodes
Episode 098: The Knights of Malta and Battle of Lepanto
Episode 099: Elizabeth and the Sultan
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Heather Teysko is the creator, writer, and producer of The Renaissance English History Podcast, one of the longest running indie history podcasts, going since 2009. She's been writing about history online for over 25 years, since her first site on Colonial American history became number one in history on Yahoo in 1998. She writes books, created the original Tudor Planner (a yearly diary filled with Tudor history) and in 2019 created the world's first Tudorcon (you can "attend" online this year!). She has been passionate about Tudor England since she first read Alison Weir's The Six Wives of Henry VIII 20 years ago, and subsequently moved to London after college to spend her time immersed in Tudor history.