GK Chesterton's Lepanto, with annotations: Part 6

King Philip’s in his closet with the Fleece about his neck
(Don John of Austria is armed upon the deck.)
The walls are hung with velvet that is black and soft as sin,
And little dwarfs creep out of it and little dwarfs creep in.
He holds a crystal phial that has colours like the moon,
He touches, and it tingles, and he trembles very soon,
And his face is as a fungus of a leprous white and grey
Like plants in the high houses that are shuttered from the day,
And death is in the phial, and the end of noble work,
But Don John of Austria has fired upon the Turk.
Don John’s hunting, and his hounds have bayed—
Booms away past Italy the rumour of his raid
Gun upon gun, ha! ha!
Gun upon gun, hurrah!
Don John of Austria
Has loosed the cannonade.

Titian [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

King Philip: Philip II (1527–1598), King of Spain (1556–98), King of Portugal, King of Naples and Sicily, and through marriage King of England and Ireland (during his marriage to Queen Mary I from 1554–58). He was also lord of the Seventeen Provinces of the Netherlands. The son of Charles V and Isabella of Portugal, his empire included territories on every continent then known to Europeans, including  the Philippines.

Left: .Titian's painting (1573 - 1575) commemorates the defeat of the Turkish armada at Lepanto on October 7, and the birth of the infante Fernando, heir to the throne, on December 5th. Philip gives thanks to the Lord for these blessings. Towards the top, an angel offers a palm leaf and a ribbon with the inscription MAIORA TIBI (Greater triumphs await you) to the newborn child in his father’s arms. The Battle of Lepanto appears in the background, and a bound Turk is depicted alongside the spoils of victory to the left.

crystal phial/death is in the phial: possibly a reference to the theory that Don John of Austria's death in 1578 at a surprisingly early age was the result of poisoning. It is argued that Philip was jealous of the fame of his young half-brother.
Don John of Austria/Has loosed the cannonade: Don John had given orders that no guns were to be fired in the approach to the Turkish fleet. He finally gave an order to a fire a long range shot from his flagship the Real in the direction of Ali Pasha's flagship, almost like a challenge to a duel.

The Pope was in his chapel before day or battle broke,
(Don John of Austria is hidden in the smoke.)
The hidden room in man’s house where God sits all the year,
The secret window whence the world looks small and very dear.
He sees as in a mirror on the monstrous twilight sea
The crescent of his cruel ships whose name is mystery;
They fling great shadows foe-wards, making Cross and Castle dark,
They veil the plumèd lions on the galleys of St. Mark;
And above the ships are palaces of brown, black-bearded chiefs,
And below the ships are prisons, where with multitudinous griefs,
Christian captives sick and sunless, all a labouring race repines
Like a race in sunken cities, like a nation in the mines.
They are lost like slaves that sweat, and in the skies of morning hung
The stair-ways of the tallest gods when tyranny was young.
They are countless, voiceless, hopeless as those fallen or fleeing on
Before the high Kings’ horses in the granite of Babylon.
And many a one grows witless in his quiet room in hell
Where a yellow face looks inward through the lattice of his cell,
And he finds his God forgotten, and he seeks no more a sign—
(But Don John of Austria has burst the battle-line!)
Don John pounding from the slaughter-painted poop,
Purpling all the ocean like a bloody pirate’s sloop,
Scarlet running over on the silvers and the golds,
Breaking of the hatches up and bursting of the holds,
Thronging of the thousands up that labour under sea
White for bliss and blind for sun and stunned for liberty.
Vivat Hispania!
Domino Gloria!
Don John of Austria
Has set his people free!

Pius V 1566. Walters Art Gallery CC0 1.0 Universal

The Pope:  Pope Saint Pius V (1504 – 1572), was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 1566 to 1572. His pontificate was dedicated to applying the reforms of the Council of Trent, called in response to the devastating heresy spreading in Northern Europe. The Catechism of the Council was completed and he consolidated the Roman Breviary and Missal.

His six year pontificate saw him faced with war from within the Church from the Protestant
heretics war from outside, the Turkish armies who were advancing by land ans sea from the East.
He encouraged the newly formed Society of Jesus, founded by St. Ignatius of Loyola. He excommunicated Queen Elizabeth I, and supported Catholics who were oppressed and intimidated by Protestant princes, especially in Germany.


He worked without ceasing  to unite the Christian rulers against the Turks. Before the decisive battle of Lepanto, the Pope asked for all the sailors and soldiers to pray the Rosary, confess their sins and receive Holy Communion. Meanwhile, he called on all the faithful of the Church to recite the Rosary and ordered a 40 hour devotion in Rome. The Christian fleet, vastly outnumbered by the Turks, inflicted a miraculous defeat on the Turkish navy, demolishing the entire fleet. In memory of the triumph, he declared the day the Feast of Our Lady of Victories, later renamed the Feast  of the Blessed Virgin of the Rosary, because of her intercession in answering the mass recitation of the Rosary and obtaining the victory. 

Pope Pius V died seven months later on May 1, 1572, of a painful disease, uttering 'O Lord, increase my sufferings and my patience!' He was buried in Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome, was beatified by Clement X in 1672 and canonized by Clement XI in 1712.

The hidden room in man’s house where God sits all the year: the tabernacle in Catholic churches where Jesus Christ, under the appearance of the sacred host of unleavened bread, is reaaly and truly present in His body, blood, soul and divinity.


He sees as in a mirror: his biographers recount that during a meeting in Rome, Pius rose and went over to an open window and, looking eastwards, saw a vision of the triumph of the Christian fleet. The news of the victory took nearly two weeks to reach Rome.

Star and crescent moon

The crescent of his cruel ships:  the order of battle for the Turkish ships was normally a crescent. The crescent and star are ancient symbols in the Middle East, linked to the worship of demonic Sin/Nanna. They were officially incorporated by the Ottomans as a state symbol.





Cross and Castle: the coat of arms of Aragon and Castile on the Spanish ships.

Christian captives sick and sunless: The Turkish infidels used captured Christians as slaves to row their galleys. Over 12,000 such slaves were freed during the defeat of the Turks at Lepanto.