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When the Ottoman [Turkey] Caliphate Saved Britain
From her accession to the throne in 1558, Queen Elizabeth began seeking diplomatic, commercial and military ties with Muslim rulers.
In 1570, when it became clear that Protestant England would not return to the Catholic faith, the pope excommunicated Elizabeth and called for her to be stripped of her crown.
Soon the might of Catholic Spain was against her, an invasion was imminent.
English merchants were prohibited from trading with the rich markets of the Spanish Netherlands.
Economic and political isolation threatened to destroy the newly Protestant country.
Elizabeth responded by reaching out to the Ottoman Caliphate. Spain’s only rival was the Ottoman Empire ruled by Sultan Murad III.
The Ottomans had been fighting the Hapsburgs for decades, conquering parts of Hungary.
Elizabeth hoped that an alliance with the Sultan would provide much needed relief from Spanish military aggression and enable her merchants to tap into the lucrative markets of the East.
In the 1580s she signed a commercial agreement with the Ottomans that would last over 300 years granting her merchants free commercial access to Ottoman lands.
As money poured in, Elizabeth began writing letters to her Muslim counterparts extolling the benefits of reciprocal trade.
She wrote as a supplicant, calling Murad “The most mighty ruler of the Kingdom of Turkey, sole and above all, and most sovereign monarch of the East Empire.”
She also played on their mutual hostility to Catholicism, describing herself as “the most invincible and most mighty defender of the Christian faith against all kind of idolatries.”
Thousands of English traders crossed many of today’s regions, like Aleppo and Mosul which were far safer than they would have been on a journey through Catholic Europe where they risked falling into the hands of the Inquisition.
Sauce: test accompanying embedded vid