"In the flurry of celebrations as the Spanish Armada was preparing to leave for England in 1588, the Jesuit Pedro de Ribadeneyra published the first part of his widely read ecclesiastical history of the events that led up to the 'English schism', the Historia eclesiástica del scisma del reyno de Inglaterra. Translating and adapting Nicholas Sander’s Schismatis Anglicano (1585), a Latin text written by Elizabethan Catholic exiles, he contended that Queen Elizabeth was not only illegitimate but also born of an incestuous union – the monstrous culmination of Henry’s lust and pride in taking Anne Boleyn and setting himself up as head of the church in place of the Vicar of Christ. [...] Contrary to what may be expected, Spaniards did not always reproduce Ribadeneyra’s monstrous portrayal of Henry VIII, Anne Boleyn, and Elizabeth Tudor, even when they agreed with the Jesuit."
— Deborah R. Forteza, The English Reformation in the Spanish Imagination: Rewriting Nero, Jezebel, and the Dragon
