These (with a Desire of restoring the Roman-Catholick Religion) seem to have been the real and true Motives of this great Expedition.
The Reasons alleged by Philip were these[[3]]:
I. That Elizabeth had, from the first assisted his rebellious Subjects in the Netherlands, with Men and Money, and spirited them up against him, her greatest Friend and Benefactor; whom she was indebted to for her Life, when her Sister Queen Mary and Gardiner were for removing her out of the Way.
II. Drake, and others of her Subjects, had committed several Depredations in Spain and America.
III. She had been so unnatural as to stop his Money, when, for fear of Pirates, it had been landed in her Dominions; and had put an Embargo on the Vessels employed to carry it to the Low-Countries: (As is related by Camden, under the Year 1568.)
IV. She had acknowledged his Enemy Don Antonio King of Portugal, and armed him against Spain.
V. That it was by her Instruction and Advice the Duke of Alençon had been crowned King of Brabant.
VI. And, moreover, she herself had accepted the Sovereignty of the Low-Countries, and sent the Earl of Leicester thither with considerable Forces; which was an open Declaration of War.
VII. That he undertook it, to revenge the Death of the innocent Queen of Scots.
VIII. And in Compliance with the Holy Father Innocent VIII.’s earnest Injunctions, who ceased not to exhort and importune him, to abolish Heresy in England, and replant the Roman-Catholick Religion there.