The Sultan and the Queen: The Untold Story of Elizabeth and Islam (42 page)

Following the audience with the queen, the Moroccan delegation returned to its central London lodgings. Over the next few months many of Elizabeth’s courtiers believed that what at first appeared to be just another trade delegation—admittedly from an exotic part of the world—was actually a secret attempt to initiate a new military alliance with plans to invade Spain, and possibly to launch a concerted attack on al-Mansur’s other great enemy, the Ottomans, notwithstanding Elizabeth’s continued friendship with them. If concluded, such an alliance would set Christian against Christian, and Muslim against Muslim, in an unprecedented and unholy alliance.

A second audience was arranged three weeks later, this time at Oatlands Palace in Surrey. Rowland Whyte wrote that what al-Annuri “delivered was in private to the queen; his business hath been very secretly handled, which is not yet come to light; it is supposed that he makes good offers to her majesty, if she will be pleased to aid him with shipping, fit for his ports, to conduct in safety some treasure he hath by mines in part of the Indies conquered by him.”
¹⁴
There is no truth whatsoever to Whyte’s claims that the Moroccans were trying to enlist Elizabeth’s help in smuggling New World treasure across the Atlantic, but his garbled report did bear some relationship to what transpired.

The proposal al-Annuri had been instructed to submit to Elizabeth at Oatlands was in fact one of the most audacious in the history of Anglo-Islamic relations. In a memorandum dated September 13, 1600, al-Annuri explained that he was offering a formal military alliance that would result in the English and Moroccan fleets combining to attack Spain. Having come to London “to speak in secret to her serene majesty” about “the King of Spain’s perfidious ways and dealings, and his incessant treachery,” al-Annuri argued that it would “be an act of compassion and humanity for the benefit of all mankind if her serene majesty should embrace the perpetual friendship between her and the serene emperor his master and join forces against the King of Spain, their common foe and enemy.” England and Morocco would invade Spain together to realize the long-standing Moroccan dream of a Muslim reconquest of Al-Andalus (the Arab name for the Spanish mainland). “He will take the war to Spain,” wrote al-Annuri,

since our land is closer. Moreover, we have a large cavalry and infantry and all manner of munitions, as well as gunpowder and everything else needed to wage war, and plenty of wheat and other provisions. We also have forests with trees for shipbuilding, and iron to fit them, pursuant to the art of war. And should Her Serene Majesty capture any strongholds or cities in Spain that are close to us and which she wishes to supply with soldiers, munitions or money, the Emperor his master shall see to all this, because the Emperor will accede with great love to whatever Her Serene Majesty should ask of him, bound by the ancient friendship between them.
¹⁵

An attack on Spain was not all that the Moroccan king proposed. Al-Annuri was instructed to suggest an even more audacious joint campaign against Spain’s colonies in the Americas and the Far East:

If the two Serene Majesties should forge this alliance, they could also wrest the East and West Indies from the Spanish, thus strengthening both Her Serene Majesty and the Emperor and weakening the King of Spain, because his strength as King of Spain comes solely from his control of the Indies.

The Emperor would meet the needs of Her Serene Majesty’s fleet in terms of wheat, munitions, gunpowder and provisions, as well as infantry and money. He would be best placed to supply the infantry because his people would be better accustomed to the heat of the Indies. Indeed, His Majesty the Emperor has conquered a very powerful kingdom on the River Niger in Guinea in which he has won land spanning ninety days’ march and taken eighty-six thousand towns and cities and supplied them with all they need, as well as soldiers and munitions; and his people have borne the great heat of the hot climate there.
¹⁶

Al-Mansur’s relations with Elizabeth now led him to believe he could rid the world of Catholic Spain altogether. It seems ridiculously far-fetched, but the response of Elizabeth’s advisers suggests that any proposal from a Muslim ruler that threatened to open up a new front against the Spanish was given serious consideration.

In the end the queen and her advisers demurred over the proposed alliance. Perhaps they feared fracturing their close commercial and diplomatic ties with the Ottomans. Instead they countered with their own offer. They seem to have believed that al-Annuri was not originally from Fez as Thomson believed, but was a Morisco who had “reverted” to Islam. Cecil knew that al-Mansur regarded the allegiance of the Moriscos with deep suspicion, even though they hated the Spanish as much as the Moors did. Based on this assumption, Elizabeth’s advisers offered al-Annuri the opportunity to join the English forces in their ongoing campaign against Spain, which was at this point primarily waged at sea rather than on land.

At least one of the ambassador’s party, the translator Abdullah Dudar, was unquestionably a Morisco (or “Andalusian”) whose native tongue was Spanish, and it appears that he and Hajj Musa led some kind of revolt against al-Annuri, possibly because they were interested in accepting the English offer. On October 15, the indefatigable diarist John Chamberlain observed, “The Barbarians take their leave some time this week to go homeward; for our merchants nor mariners will not carry them into Turkey, because they think it a matter odious and scandalous to the world to be too friendly or familiar with infidels.” Then, exhibiting the contradictory approach of so many Englishmen toward the Moors, Chamberlain continued, “But yet it is no small honor to us that nations so far remote, and every way different, should meet here to admire the glory and magnificence of our Queen of Sheba.”
¹⁷
The Old Testament story of the oriental Queen of Sheba visiting Solomon is inverted by Chamberlain, who sees Elizabeth as an aged Sheba awaiting visitations from the other side of the world. Six days later, Chamberlain noted, “The Barbarians were yesterday at court to take their leave and will be gone shortly; but the eldest of them [Hajj Musa], which was a kind of priest or prophet, hath taken his leave of the world and is gone to prophesy
apud inferos
[in Hell] and to seek out Mahound their mediator.”
¹⁸

Chamberlain’s rather poor joke was followed by subsequent reports with far darker accusations. The London chronicler John Stow wrote, “They poisoned their interpreter being born in Granada, because he commended the estate and bounty of England. The like violence was thought to be done unto their reverend aged pilgrim [Hajj Musa], lest he should manifest England’s honor to their disgrace. It was generally judged, by their demeanours, that they were rather espials than honorable ambassadors, for they omitted nothing that might damnify the English merchants.”
¹⁹

Had al-Annuri murdered rebellious members of his party on the Strand and then ordered a hasty departure? Or were the rumors of murder and insurrection malicious slanders resulting from disagreements between various commercial and political factions? As speculation grew, the Privy Council was debating action against English merchants artificially inflating the price of Barbary sugar, while petitioning the Levant Company to cover the costs of transporting the Moroccan delegation to Aleppo.

Elizabeth responded to al-Annuri’s overtures for a full-scale military alliance with a studiedly noncommittal letter to al-Mansur, thanking him for his “many effusive expressions of true kindness,” and hoping that “these letters of ours will communicate our deepest gratitude.” She reminded al-Mansur, “We have always been keenly aware of the great esteem in which Your Majesty holds our longstanding correspondence over many years regarding trade and agreements between our subjects,” but then she raised the issue of “some considerable monies owed to several of our subjects, who, along with their merchants, have been treated most harshly” in Morocco. She thanked him for the release of the Dutch merchants, pointing out that it emphasized “our undertaking to safeguard the wellbeing of those who, like ourselves, recognize the name of Jesus the Redeemer and Savior of all men.”

This was hardly an attempt to encourage an Anglo-Moroccan alliance against Spain. She went on to hint at the conflicts raised by the embassy, both among its members and within the wider London community. “We have,” she wrote, “taken Your Majesty’s request for ships to convey your ambassadors to Aleppo into great consideration and we are loath to refuse this or any other greater courtesy.” However, she admitted, “we have been informed and advised that such an operation would entail many inconveniences and difficulties both to our ships and to the ambassadors themselves, out of respect to very many great concerns. We have therefore been so bold as to inform your ambassadors of these circumstances and ensure them that Your Majesty will not find any fault with them for having followed our wishes and instructions.”
²⁰
The disgruntled merchants of the Levant Company had refused to pay for al-Annuri’s official onward journey to Aleppo. Regardless of what was happening behind closed doors on the Strand, the Moroccans seemed to be heading home.

And yet a month later, on November 17, 1600, al-Annuri and his remaining entourage were still in London, publicly celebrating the Accession Day festivities held in Whitehall marking the anniversary of Elizabeth’s reign. Al-Annuri was instantly distinguishable from the crowd thanks to his long black robe, white linen turban and richly decorated steel scimitar. His appearance and demeanor marked him out as a traveler of obvious stature, but also as an exotic stranger.

Al-Annuri took his place beneath a canopy at one end of the yard, along with his retinue, to watch a jousting match between some of England’s most famous lords and knights, who entered to the blare of trumpets, some dressed in armor, others in elaborate disguises, accompanied by attendants reciting songs and verse. Thousands of Londoners came out to see the spectacle—“so great an assembly of people,” wrote John Stow, “as the like hath not been seen in that place before.”
²¹

Had he glanced up, al-Annuri would have glimpsed the queen and her ladies watching the entertainment from the windows of one of the palace galleries. From this distance he might not have seen her blackened teeth, “a defect,” the German traveler Paul Hentzner wrote, that “the English seem subject to, from their great use of sugar.”
²²
Elizabeth’s importation of Moroccan sugar since the beginning of her reign led to a passion for candied fruits, which had taken a terrible toll on her teeth. The French ambassador, Monsieur de Boissie, and his Russian counterpart, Grigorii Mikulin, had both been honored with seats next to Elizabeth, but al-Annuri and his followers had been relegated to standing among the queen’s subjects.

Exactly forty-two years had passed since Elizabeth’s accession to the throne, a date she celebrated every year with a carefully staged ceremonial entrance into London. Across the kingdom the day was marked by sermons, public feasts, bell ringing, prayers and bonfires designed to celebrate the rule of the Virgin Queen. The plans for the Tilts in 1600 were meant to show a kingdom at peace. The queen’s chief adversary, King Philip II, had died two years earlier, and although England was still officially at war with Spain, the threat of invasion had receded. But behind the tiltyard’s glittering façade and noisy display, the seemingly unalterable edifice of more than four decades of Elizabethan rule was starting to crumble.

At some point around this time al-Annuri sat for his portrait. Perhaps this event and the delay in the embassy’s departure were not unconnected. The portrait appears to have been designed to mark a specific diplomatic event—al-Annuri’s formal appearance at the Whitehall celebration, or possibly a formal treaty—with its date of “1600.” Al-Annuri’s Anglicized name and his age (“42”) are inscribed on the left, and his title (“Legate of the King of Barbary to England”) on the right. The painting appears to have been tied to Elizabeth’s Accession Day triumphs in some way, as it was surely no coincidence that al-Annuri’s age, marked so prominently on the painting, was the same as the length of Elizabeth’s reign. The portrait could have been painted in response to Elizabeth and Cecil’s attempts to commemorate some aspect of his visit, anticipating an Anglo-Morisco alliance or anti-Spanish union that stopped short of full-scale invasion. Who commissioned or painted his likeness remains a mystery, but the portrait offers a tantalizing glimpse of its subject and is remarkable as the earliest surviving portrait of a Muslim painted from life in England. Its existence is surprising, given Islam’s official injunction against figurative images—all the more so because, more than many other Muslim rulers, al-Mansur observed the Islamic Hadith injunction against figurative representation, never showing his face and speaking in public from behind a veil.

On the same day that al-Annuri watched Elizabeth’s anniversary festivities, the queen’s printers published
A Geographical Historie of Africa, written in Arabicke and Italian by Iohn Leo a More, borne in Granada, and brought vp in Barbarie,
by John Pory. The “More,” or Moroccan, of Pory’s title was better known to his Christian readership as Leo Africanus, though his given name was al-Hasan ibn Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Wazzan. A Muslim born in Granada, al-Wazzan had grown up in Fez and been captured by Christian forces while crossing the Mediterranean in 1518. He converted to Catholicism in captivity and wrote his description of Africa in Rome in the 1520s; it was subsequently published in Latin, Italian and French before Pory translated it into English. Pory dedicated the book to Robert Cecil, suggesting that it was particularly timely, “in that the Moroccan ambassador (whose king’s dominions are here most amply and particularly described) hath so lately treated with your honor concerning matters of state.”
²³
Pory’s book provided the queen’s ministers with crucial information on a Muslim ally with which England was about to ratify a formal alliance.