The face of Elizabethan gentleman John Wheatley, who gave £40 (nearly £11,200 at 2021 values) to equip a ship to fight the 1588 Spanish Armada. Head detail, with lace neck ruff, of alabaster effigy on table tomb in nave of 13th century Parish Church of St Nicolas at Pevensey, East Sussex, England, UK. Image rotated right 90 degrees.
Pevensey, East Sussex, England, UK: the face of wealthy John Wheately (died 1616), who gave money to equip a ship to fight the 1588 Spanish Armada: head, with fine lace neck ruff, of alabaster effigy lying stiffly on the Wheately monument in the nave of the early-13th century Parish Church of Saint Nicolas. The Sussex gentleman lived in the reigns of Tudor queen Elizabeth I and her successor, the Stuart king James I, and his effigy on the table tomb wears costume appropriate to both the late Elizabethan and early Jacobean eras. Inscriptions on the monument record that it was commissioned by “His sorrowful wife Elizabeth … in regarde of his virtues & her love”; that he was the son of Thomas Wheately of Pevensey and that the couple had one child, a daughter named Katherine. John is recorded as having given £40 (the equivalent of nearly £11,200 at 2021 values) to fund the fitting out of a ship in the port of Pevensey to fight the Spanish Armada, the failed attempt by King Philip II of Spain to overthrow Queen Elizabeth, halt the establishment of Protestantism in England and prevent further English interference in the Spanish Netherlands. The Spanish fleet of 130 ships was ordered to escort an army from Flanders to invade England, but some galleons were destroyed by English fireships or sunk in the Channel by the faster and more manoeuvrable English fleet. The remaining galleons were then harried up the English east coast and more were wrecked in storms. At least a third of the Spanish fleet failed to return to Spain.
Size: 2832px × 4256px
Location: Parish Church of St Nicolas, Pevensey, East Sussex, England, UK.
Photo credit: © Terence Kerr / Alamy / Afripics
License: Royalty Free
Model Released: No
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