‘Between Scylla and Charyhdis’
Chapter 19
Elizabeth entered the New Year of 1580 in a gloomy frame of mind, at odds with those councillors who had opposed her marriage, and ‘not showing so much favour as formerly to the Earl of Leicester’. Yet before long she began to appreciate the reasoning behind his and others’ objections, and when the French ambassador criticised him for placing obstacles such as religion in the way of the marriage, she snapped that he had only been doing his duty as a councillor. This did not, however, herald a return to their previous intimacy, for it was not until April that her manner towards Leicester began to thaw.
At the end of January, the deadline for Elizabeth’s decision about her marriage passed without her making any move to conclude negotiations. According to Mendoza, Anjou, who knew better than to press for an answer, was doing his best to court favour with the English, having written to ask the Queen to release Stubbs and Page from prison, so that he might be seen as a merciful prince.
Late in February, Mendoza heard that Elizabeth had complained to Burghley that she was ‘between Scylla and Charybdis’.
‘I believe that Your Majesty is disinclined to marry, either of your own disposition, or by persuasion of others whom you trust,’ Burghley had observed sagely. The Queen would neither confirm nor deny it, even when he pointed out that, if she did not intend to marry, she must ‘undeceive Anjou at once’. Her actual intention was to ‘keep him in correspondence’ indefinitely, and she was not interested in her councillors’ warnings that the French would not take kindly to being treated so shabbily. ‘Those that trick princes trick themselves,’ muttered Burghley.
Elizabeth defiantly followed her chosen course, sending the Duke a stream of undated letters in her untidy ‘running hand’. In them, she skilfully implied that, although they should perhaps renounce each other, since her people would object to his celebrating mass, given more time, she might be able to convince her subjects of the benefits of the marriage. Again and again, she praised the ‘firm rock’ of his constancy, and repeatedly managed to blame the delays in negotiations on the French. ‘Our souls are meant to be united,’ she insisted – but the burning question was when?
She let it be known, particularly in the hearing of the French ambassador, that she was still in love with Anjou, and wore his frog jewel to prove it. She often tucked a pair of gloves he had given her into her belt, and ostentatiously took them out and kissed them a hundred times a day. Once, during a court ball, she made the ambassador listen while she read aloud every single letter the Duke had ever sent her, with such warmth and feeling that he gained the impression she was trying to score a point over those who had opposed the marriage.
It was all pretence, of course, intended to keep the French happy. Yet although Elizabeth had almost come to terms with the fact that she could never marry Anjou, her councillors were nevertheless kept guessing, and Walsingham sighed, ‘I would to God Her Highness would resolve one way or the other touching the matter of her marriage.’ To Sussex, he wrote: ‘If Her Majesty be not already resolved, it will behove her to grow to some speedy resolution, for the entertaining of it doth breed her greater dishonour than I dare commit to paper, besides the danger she daily incurreth for not settling of her estate, which dependeth altogether on the marriage.’
In July, Elizabeth was still reproaching Leicester for having prevented her marriage, and although her outbursts were less frequent, they were nonetheless bitter. After one such tantrum, the Earl was heard to sigh, ‘Better for me to sell my last lands than to fall into these harsh conditions.’ The coldness between them made him irritable with his colleagues, so much so that he felt obliged to write to Burghley to apologise. It would be some time before harmony was restored between Elizabeth and her erstwhile favourite.
The eccentric Oxford was also out of favour, having announced his conversion to the Roman faith. To counterbalance the effect of this upon the Queen, he disclosed to her the names of other courtiers who were secret Catholics, which led to all of them being placed under house arrest. However, his revelations did Oxford little good, for his former friends now shunned him, as did Elizabeth, who not only disapproved of his behaviour, but had also learned of his involvement with one of her maids of honour, Anne Vavasour, a ‘drab’ with a tarnished reputation.
The following March, when Anne gave birth to a son, Oxford immediately admitted paternity and made provision for the baby. But Elizabeth was not so easily mollified, being ‘greatly grieved by the accident’, and committed both Anne and her feckless lover to the Tower for several weeks.
The relative stability of the previous five years showed signs of crumbling when, in 1580, Pope Gregory XIII reissued his predecessor’s bull against Elizabeth. During the summer, much to the alarm of the government, Jesuit priests from Rome began arriving in England. Their mission, which was to preserve and augment the Catholic faith, was headed by the radical priest Robert Parsons and the devout and inspirational figure of Father Edmund Campion, who would be largely responsible for the remarkable success of the Jesuit mission and the upsurge in Catholic resistance during the coming decade, not to mention the patriotic reaction which came in its wake.
The political situation was hardly encouraging. Mary Stuart had embarked upon a fresh round of plots against Elizabeth, this time in league with the Spanish ambassador, Mendoza, a dangerous association that was to last for the next three years. Relations with Scotland had cooled since James VI’s assumption of power, for the young King had become increasingly involved with his mother’s Guise relations for a time, and there were fears that Philip II would appropriate the Portuguese throne. With its strong navy and wealthy foreign territories, Portugal would further strengthen his empire and make him the richest monarch in history. In France, the wars of religion had broken out once more, preventing Elizabeth from looking to her ally for support, and England, once again, was vulnerable in her isolation.
In August, news arrived that Philip had annexed Portugal and been proclaimed its monarch. ‘It will be hard to withstand the King of Spain now,’ Elizabeth commented grimly. To counteract this new threat, she threw the weight of her support behind Don Antonio, the illegitimate Portuguese claimant, whose claim was far less sound than Philip’s own. To further discountenance him, Elizabeth offered her support to Anjou in the Netherlands, and invited the French to send marriage commissioners to England as a matter of urgency.
To her dismay, the French did not respond, and it soon became clear that Anjou himself was more interested in becoming King of the Dutch than King of England. The Venetian ambassador in Paris had heard gossip that the Duke had become less ardent, remembering ‘the advanced age and repulsive physical nature of the Queen’. In September, the Dutch rebels, weakened by a series of defeats by Parma, had offered Anjou the crown if he would help rid them of the Spaniards; it was now almost certain that, as a condition of the marriage, he would insist on military support from his future bride. Elizabeth reacted to this development with alarm: ‘I think not myself well-used. If this matter comes to pass, God forbid that the banns of our nuptial feast shall be savoured with the source of our subjects’ wealth,’ she wrote. The marriage, she feared, would involve England in a costly war, ‘considering that the Queen must of necessity be engaged in her husband’s quarrel’. Anjou, ignoring her protests, accepted the proffered crown, and on 19 September was proclaimed Prince and Lord of the Netherlands.
On 26 September 1580, Francis Drake, in his ship, Pelican, now renamed the Golden Hind, dropped anchor at Southampton after a three-year voyage in which he had circumnavigated the world, the first captain to do so since Ferdinand Magellan’s pioneering journey in 1522. As he disembarked, he inquired whether the Queen was still alive, and showed relief when he found that she was, for he needed her protection against the wrath of Spain, whose King would be demanding his head as punishment for wrecking Spanish trade and seizing 800,000 worth of Spanish treasure.
Far from treating him as a criminal, the Queen promptly invited Drake to Richmond Palace, where he entertained her for six happy hours with tales of his adventures. Amongst the treasures he had brought with him on packhorses was a crown set with five huge emeralds, which she was to wear in public on New Year’s Day r58T. So pleased was Elizabeth with the great booty Drake had captured that she allowed him to keep a sizeable portion of it for himself. Her own share, amounting to 160,000, was placed in the Tower. None was returned to Spain, nor was Drake punished, despite Mendoza’s near-hysterical protests and demands. Instead, by the Queen’s command, the Golden Hind was moored on the Thames and exhibited to the public as a memorial to Drake’s heroic voyage.
Thereafter, Drake was always welcome at court, and became a frequent visitor. Elizabeth received him affectionately and delighted in talking of his travels, while he brought her costly gifts, among them an exquisite diamond cross.
Elizabeth’s position was becoming increasingly endangered, for from 1580 onwards Philip II was planning a military and naval offensive against England. In December of that year, asked by two anonymous English Catholic lords if it were lawful to kill the Queen, the Pope sanctioned the assassination of that guilty woman who is the cause of so much intriguing to the Catholic faith and loss of so many million souls. There is no doubt that whoever sends her out of the world with the pious intention of doing God service, not only does not sin but gains merit. And so, if these English nobles decide to undertake so glorious a work, they do not commit any sin.
The Pope’s pronouncement was soon universally known, much to the dismay of the English government, which was painfully aware that it would not survive the assassination of the Queen. Only her existence, it seemed, prevented Rome from triumphing in England.
Both Parliament and the Council had repeatedly urged the Queen to take stern punitive measures against the Catholic recusants and missionary priests. Although by nature she loathed bloodshed, and had hitherto preferred to act with moderation, she now recognised that her peril was such that harsher sanctions were called for. Even so, Parliament was dissatisfied with the new Statute of Recusancy which was passed on 18 March 1581, which raised fines for non-attendance at Anglican services to a steep 20 per month, imposed a penalty of a year in prison for those caught participating in the mass, and classed as traitors any who converted to the Roman faith. Furthermore, anyone uttering remarks defamatory to the Queen would, for a first offence, be put in the pillory, have both ears cut off, and be fined 200; death was the penalty for a second offence. It was also declared illegal for anyone to cast the Queen’s horoscope or prophesy how long she would live or who her successor would be.
From now on, missionaries such as Campion and Parsons would be regarded as dangerous enemies of the state, but even so, there was no wide-scale persecution. During the next twenty years, no more than 250 Catholics would be executed or die in prison. There is, however, evidence that about ninety of these persons were tortured, and although the Queen did not personally sanction it in any of these cases, she must have known about it. Personally, she preferred to punish such offenders with imprisonment or fines.
It was therefore with some relief that in January 1581, the Queen learned that the French had agreed to send their commissioners to England. For the next few months, she would be absorbed in the elaborate preparations for their reception, not because she wished to marry Anjou, but because she realised the necessity for concluding a treaty of friendship with France.
Anjou, deeply in debt and running out of resources, was once again seeking to ally himself in marriage with Elizabeth. In April 1581, the long awaited, and very high-ranking, French commissioners finally arrived at Whitehall, their objective being to conclude the marriage, or, failing this, to persuade Elizabeth to support Anjou in the Netherlands.
On their arrival, the commissioners presented the Queen with a posy of fresh flowers picked for her by the Duke, and she wrote to thank him for ‘the sweet flowers plucked by the hand with the little fingers, which I bless a million times, promising you that no present was ever carried so gracefully, for the leaves were still as green as when they were freshly picked, a vibrant token of your affection, and I hope there shall never be any cause for it to wither’.
Shimmering in a gown of gold tissue, Elizabeth entertained the envoys to a sumptuous banquet in a luxurious new pavilion, 330 feet long, with 292 glass windows, and a roof decorated with suns and gilded stars, which had been built by 375 men at a cost of 1,744. There followed more dinners, plays and masques, pageants, a bear-baiting, a ‘triumph’ in the tiltyard, a grand ball, and many conferences with the Council. Mendoza commented that the Queen was more interested in ‘ostentation and details of no moment than in points of importance for the conclusion of a treaty’.
When at last she did get down to business, she abruptly informed the commissioners that she was still concerned about the age-gap between herself and the Duke. She also felt that, if she married him, it would give unwelcome encouragement to English Catholics. Nor did she wish to become involved in a war with Spain. She preferred, in fact, to make an alliance which did not involve marriage.
When the stunned commissioners explained falteringly that their brief did not empower them to do anything other than conclude a marriage treaty, Elizabeth showed herself immoveable. Hoping she might relent, they remained in London.
On 4 April the Queen went from Greenwich to board the Golden Hind, then in dock at Deptford, to dine with Francis Drake and, in defiance of King Philip, knight him in recognition of his epic world voyage. She also brought the French commissioners with her. The banquet served on board was ‘finer than has ever been seen in England since the time of King Henry’, and during it the Queen was relaxed and animated. For her entertainment, Drake’s crew put on Red Indian dress and danced for her, and for four hours their captain reminisced about the voyage. Although many courtiers wilted with boredom, the Queen was captivated.
When Drake escorted her around the ship, telling him that King Philip had demanded he be put to death, she produced a sword, joking that she would use it ‘to strike off his head’, whilst teasingly wielding it in the air.
Because Elizabeth wished to emphasise to King Philip her defensive alliance with France, she turned to one of Anjou’s envoys, the Seigneur de Marchaumont, and, handing over the sword, asked him to perform the dubbing ceremony for her. Thus it was that the short, stocky adventurer found himself kneeling on the deck before a Frenchman, while the Queen looked on, beaming approval.
Later, her purple and gold garter fell off, and as she bent down to readjust it, de Marchaumont asked if he might ‘capture’ the garter as a trophy for his master. The Queen protested that ‘she had nothing else to keep her stocking up’, but on her return to Greenwich she sent him the garter for Anjou.
The newly-knighted Drake presented his sovereign with a map of the voyage and ‘a diary of everything that happened to him during the three years he was away’. Neither the log-book, nor the Golden Hind, survive today; the ship was rotting by 1599. By then, Drake was himself dead, and already a legend, occupying an enduring place in the affections and imagination of Elizabeth’s subjects and successive generations for many centuries.
On June, Elizabeth having had another apparent change of heart, the French commissioners were permitted to draw up a marriage treaty at Whitehall. However, the Queen insisted that it would have to be endorsed in person by Anjou himself, and thereupon the French delegation went home in disgruntled mood.
By the summer, Anjou was desperate, realising that he might soon have to abandon his ambitions in the Netherlands and return to a hostile France. Although Elizabeth sent him a loan of 30,000, it was not nearly enough, and in one of her letters she implied that she had changed her mind about marrying him: ‘Though her body was hers, her soul was wholly dedicated to him.’
Nevertheless, when she heard that the Queen Mother was suggesting to Anjou that he marry a Spanish princess, Elizabeth sent a reluctant Walsingham to France with instructions to maintain the fiction that she did indeed mean to marry the Duke, whilst attempting to negotiate an alliance that did not necessarily involve marriage. This was to be no easy task, especially in view of the contradictory stream of instructions that would arrive from England, and it was not long before Walsingham, supported by Leicester and Hatton, was urging that the Queen forget about the marriage. This plea fell on deaf ears.
‘I should repute it a great favour to be committed to the Tower, unless Her Majesty may grow more certain her resolutions there,’ wrote Walsingham to Burghley. ‘Instead of amity, I fear Her Highness shall receive enmity, and we, her ministers here, be greatly discomfited.’
Walsingham told Henry III that Elizabeth would be ‘content to marry, so as the French King and his brother will devise how she will not be brought into a war therewith.’ But there was no guarantee that, even were this condition to be fulfilled, she would go ahead with the marriage. ‘When Her Majesty is pressed to marry’, Walsingham grumbled to Burghley, ‘she seemeth to affect a league, and when a league is proposed, then she liketh better of a marriage. And thereupon she is moved to consent to marriage, then hath she recourse to a league; when the motion for a league or any request is made for money, then Her Majesty returneth to marriage.’
Henry III and Catherine de’ Medici, on the other hand, were insistent that any alliance would be dependent on the marriage taking place. They, like Elizabeth, were anxious to be rid of the Spanish presence in the Netherlands, and if they could get Elizabeth to fund the war there, so much the better.
After several weeks of negotiations, Walsingham told Elizabeth plainly that she would have to make up her mind: ‘If you mean it not, then assure yourself it is one of the worst remedies you can use (howsoever Your Majesty conceiveth it that it may serve your turn).’ If she prevaricated for much longer, she would lose the friendship of other princes. Elizabeth chose to take this to mean that Walsingham was in favour of her concluding the marriage, and when he returned to England, teased, ‘Well, you knave, why have you so often spoken ill of him [Anjou]? You veer round like a weathercock!’
In July, Campion was arrested and imprisoned in the Tower. On the following day, he was taken to Leicester House and examined by Leicester and other councillors. According to a Milanese source, ‘He answered them with such learning, prudence and gentleness as to draw praise from the earls, [who] greatly admired his virtue and learning, and said it was a pity he was a papist. They ordered that his heavy irons be removed and that the Keeper of the Tower should treat him more humanely, giving him a bed and other necessities.’ This did not, however, prevent Campion from being racked three times to make him reveal the names of his associates and recant, both of which he steadfastly refused to do. After that, his fate was inevitable: he was hanged, and the Roman Catholic Church would later make him a saint.
It was inevitable that the new, draconian laws against Catholics would have repercussions, and in the autumn, Philip II threatened Elizabeth with war, Mendoza warning her that, if she did not heed his words, ‘it would be necessary to see whether cannons would not make her hear them better’. She answered him levelly, ‘without any passion, but as one would repeat the words of a farce, speaking very low’. If he thought to threaten and frighten her, she said quietly, she would put him ‘into a place where he could not say a word’.
Capitalising on this situation, Anjou decided that it would benefit his cause, and his treasury, if he went to England again to woo Elizabeth in person. Leaving his troops in winter quarters, he landed after a perilous journey at Rye in Sussex on 31 October, and when he arrived at Richmond on 2 November, the Queen received him openly and affectionately, and placed a house near the palace at his disposal: Elizabeth had personally supervised the furnishing of it, and joked that he might recognise the bed. She also presented him with a golden key, which fitted every door in the palace, and a gem-encrusted arquebus, while he gave her a costly diamond ring.
Immediately, both slipped into their erstwhile roles of adoring lovers, Elizabeth whispering sweet nothings to her ‘Prince Frog’, her ‘Little Moor’, or her ‘Little Italian’, and telling him he was ‘the most constant of all her lovers’. Mendoza noted that ‘the Queen doth not attend to other matters but only to be together with the Duke in the chamber from morning till noon, and afterwards till two or three hours after sunset. I cannot tell what the devil they do.’ Nothing was too good for ‘Francis the Constant’, and it was rumoured at court that every morning, as he lay in bed, the Queen visited him with a cup of broth. Anjou was heard to say that he longed day and night to be allowed into her bed to show her what a fine companion he could be. Elizabeth even went as far as to have the Duke escort her to a service in St Paul’s Cathedral, in order to allay the fears of her subjects, and kissed him in full view of the congregation.
On 1 November, Mendoza informed Philip II that the French ambassador and all of Anjou’s entourage ‘look upon marriage as an established fact, but the English in general scoff at it, saying that he is only after money. It is certain that the Queen will do her best to avoid offending him, and to pledge him in the affairs of the Netherlands, in order to drive his brother into a rupture with Your Majesty, which is her great object, whilst she keeps her hands free and can stand by, looking on at the war.’
By now, Anjou was becoming concerned at Elizabeth’s failure to make any public declaration of her intentions towards him. Mendoza heard that ‘when the Queen and Anjou were alone together, she pledges herself to him to his heart’s content, and as much as any woman could to a man, but she will not have anything said publicly’. She was also demanding of the French ambassador that Henry III help to support Anjou financially.
On 22 November, knowing that the Duke’s patience was wearing thin, Elizabeth staged an astonishing charade for his benefit. According to Mendoza, as she walked with him in the gallery at Whitehall, with Leicester and Walsingham in attendance, the French ambassador entered and said that he wished to write to his master, from whom he had received orders to hear from the Queen’s own lips her intention with regard to marrying his brother. She replied, ‘You may write this to the King: that the Duke of Anjou shall be my husband,’ and at the same moment she turned to Anjou and kissed him on the mouth, drawing a ring from her own hand and giving it to him as a pledge. Anjou gave her a ring of his in return, and shortly afterwards the Queen summoned her ladies and gentlemen from the Presence Chamber, repeating to them in a loud voice, in Anjou’s presence, what she had previously said.
Her announcement caused a sensation both at home and abroad. When William of Orange was told that Elizabeth had publicly accepted Anjou as her husband, he ordered that the bells of Antwerp be rung in celebration. The Duke was ‘extremely overjoyed’, but Leicester and Hatton, along with many of the Queen’s ladies, burst into tears. Camden wrote: ‘The courtiers’ minds were diversely affected; some leaped for joy, some were seized with admiration, and others were dejected with sorrow.’ Burghley, bedridden with gout, exclaimed, ‘Blessed be the Lord!’ Later, Elizabeth would claim that ‘the force of modest love in the midst of amorous discourse’ had prompted her to say more than she had intended. Nevertheless, what she had just done, before witnesses, constituted a formal betrothal.
That night, she sat doubting and pensive among her ladies, who ‘wailed and laid terrors before her, and did so vex her mind with argument’ that she could not sleep. She tried to ignore her doubts, anticipating that the French King would refuse the terms submitted for his approval by her envoys, thus releasing her from her promise. If he did not, she would make additional, even more impossible, demands. And if that did not work, she could be certain that Parliament would veto the marriage.
The next morning, Elizabeth told Anjou that if she endured two more such nights, she would be in her grave, and that she had come to the conclusion that she could not marry him just at present: she must sacrifice her own happiness for the welfare of her subjects, even though her great affection for him was undiminished. The Duke professed himself sad and disappointed, but after he had had time to reflect, he resolved that, if he could not fund his Netherlands venture through marriage to the Queen, then he would make her pay to get rid of him.
Elizabeth’s new understanding with the French prompted Philip II to extend, in November, an olive branch, saying he would forgive the Queen’s past offences against Spain, and offering to renew the old Anglo-Spanish alliance. This meant that Elizabeth stood in less danger than hitherto, although her government could not afford to relax its vigilance.
As Elizabeth had expected, Henry III received her list of terms with a ‘sour countenance’, swearing that it was outrageous for her to refuse to contribute a penny towards Anjou’s venture in the Netherlands, and impossible for the French to agree to her demand that they promise to render military assistance should the Spaniards invade England. Not surprisingly, the King rejected the terms out of hand, and when Anjou learned what they were, he was heard to mutter something about ‘the lightness of women and inconstancy of islanders’.
In December, Elizabeth, jubilant at having wriggled out of a difficult situation, told Anjou that, if it pleased him to depart for the Netherlands, she would send him a loan of – 60,000 to finance a campaign against the Spaniards. He accepted this, and arranged to leave England on 20 December. Mendoza heard that Elizabeth danced for joy in the privacy of her bedchamber at the prospect of being rid of the Duke, and she told Sussex she hated the idea of marriage more every day.
However, Anjou was still at court at the end of December and showed no sign of budging, declaring to the Queen that he would rather die than leave England without marrying her. In alarm, she asked sharply ‘whether he meant to threaten a poor old woman in her country’, and said that from now on he must try to think of her as a sister, a remark which caused him to burst into such a torrent of weeping that she had to lend him her handkerchief.
By now, Elizabeth was desperate to be free of him. This time she had never had any intention of marrying him, and his insistence on continuing the pretence of courtship was imposing an embarrassing strain. Leicester suggested bribing him with 200,000 to leave, but the Queen was appalled at the thought of wasting so much money. She told Burghley to advise Anjou to leave before New Year, in order to avoid the expense of providing her with the customary gift, but this did not work. When, on 3 1 December, the Duke became difficult, reminding Elizabeth that she had pledged herself to him, she paid him _ 10,000 on account. Yet still he lingered, fearing, no doubt, that if he went abroad, he would not see any more money.
In the midst of her worries about Anjou, the Queen still had some consolation. That December, she was greatly taken with the charms of an impoverished Devon gentleman, Walter Raleigh, who had just arrived at court with dispatches from the Lord Deputy in Ireland, and it was not long before the newcomer had been asked to stay on permanently and added to her circle of favourites.
Raleigh had been born around 1552 and educated at Oxford; he was the great-nephew of her old governess Katherine Ashley. In his late teens he had fought with the Huguenots in France, and in 1578 had accompanied his half-brother, Sir Humphrey Gilbert, on a voyage of discovery, before securing a post under the Lord Deputy in Ireland.
He was a brilliant and versatile man: in his time he would be a soldier, adventurer, explorer, inventor, scientist, historian, philosopher, poet and scholar, and he also proved to be an eloquent orator and a competent politician and MP, who had a boundless capacity for hard work. He was fearless, daring and overpoweringly virile, being tall, dark and swarthy, with penetrating eyes and pointed beard. He had, wrote Sir Robert Naunton in his anecdotes of Elizabeth’s court, ‘a good presence in a handsome and well-compacted person’. Elizabeth was impressed by his intellectual skills, his forthright manner and candid views. ‘True it is, he had gotten the Queen’s ear at a trice, and she began to be taken with his elocution, and loved to hear his reasons to her demands. And the truth is, she took him for a kind of oracle, which netted them all.’ Mimicking his broad Devon accent, she nicknamed him ‘Warter’. He called her ‘Cynthia’, after the moon goddess, and in 1585 suggested that the English settlement on the Eastern seaboard of America be named Virginia in her honour.
The legend that Raleigh spread his cloak over a puddle in the Queen’s path was first mentioned in Thomas Fuller’s Worthies of England, written in the late seventeenth century; the incident is not recorded in any earlier source. Nevertheless, the gesture is in keeping with Raleigh’s character and what we know of his relationship with Elizabeth.
Fuller also credits Raleigh with scoring a message with a diamond ring on a window in the palace where the Queen would be sure to see it:
Fain would I climb, yet fear I to fall.
Elizabeth is said to have scratched beneath it:
If thy heart fails thee, climb not at all.
In the course of his life, Raleigh was to write several books, including A History of the World (1614), political essays and much poetry, most of which has not survived because he refused to have it published. The lines written on the eve of his execution on a trumped-up charge in 1618, beginning ‘Even such is time’, are some of the most moving in the English language, while, of the Queen, he wrote:
Nature’s wonder, Virtue’s choice,
The only wonder of time’s begetting . . .
O, eyes that pierce to the purest heart,
O, hands that hold the highest hearts in thrall,
O wit, that weighs the depths of all desert . . .
Love but thyself, and give me leave to serve thee.
Unfortunately, Raleigh was all too aware of his own qualities and gifts, and could be ‘damnably proud’, insufferably arrogant and contemptuous of those who had not succumbed to his charm. Their enmity did not bother him. He had a ruthless streak, had spent two spells in gaol in his youth, and when in Ireland was responsible for the massacre of six hundred Spanish mercenaries in Munster, after rebel troops had surrendered. He was also a notorious liar and a honey- tongued seducer. According to John Aubrey, Raleigh was spied having his way with a maid of honour up against a tree.
‘Nay, sweet Walter! Oh, sweet Walter!’ she protested weakly, but ‘as the danger and the pleasure at the same time grew higher, she cried in ecstasy. She proved with child.’
Raleigh’s rise to royal favour was spectacular, and it was not long before he was installed in Durham House on the Strand and appearing at court in expensive, dazzling dress; a pair of his gem-encrusted shoes cost 6000 crowns alone. He made other courtiers look, and feel, like poor relations.
Naturally, his meteoric rise provoked jealousy and hatred in the breast of Leicester, who resented the younger man’s incursion on what he regarded as his territory. Hatton also voiced his concern that the new favourite was ousting him from his sovereign’s affections in a letter enclosed in a miniature bucket, symbolising Raleigh’s nickname, Warter. Elizabeth reassured him, saying that, ‘If Princes were like gods (as they should be), they would suffer no element so to abound as to breed confusion. The beasts of the field were so dear unto her that she had bounded her banks so sure as no water or floods could be ever able to overthrow them.’ And so that he should fear no drowning, she sent him a dove, ‘that, together with the rainbow, brought the good tidings and the covenant that there should be no more destruction by water’. She was her Mutton’s shepherd, and he should remember ‘how dear her sheep was to her’.
In fact, Raleigh was never popular, mainly because of his conceit and his greed. ‘He was commonly noted for using of bitter scoffs and reproachful taunts,’ and his pride was ‘above the greatest Lucifer that hath lived in our age’. ‘He would lose a friend to coin a jest.’ His enemies called him ‘Jack the Upstart’ or ‘the Knave’, and he was said to be ‘the best hated man of the world, in court, city and country’. Perversely, he revelled in his unpopularity, deeming it the measure of his success.
Even the Queen was not blind to the unstable, reckless streak in him, and although she used his talents in many capacities, appointed him Captain of the Gentlemen Pensioners, and knighted him in 1585, she never conferred on him high political office nor admitted him to the Privy Council. He was too fond of ‘perpetually differing’ for the sake of it, and was ‘insolent, extremely heated, a man that desires to be able to sway all men’s fancies’. Instead, Elizabeth granted him lucrative offices and monopolies on goods. He therefore had sufficient wealth and leisure to indulge his passion for adventure, study and exploration.
John Harington, the Queen’s godson, also made his court debut at this time, having completed his legal training at Lincoln’s Inn. He was an immediate success, impressing people with his wit and conversational skills. Elizabeth herself was amused by his ‘free speech’, but she was probably not aware that he was recording for posterity a series of epigrams and anecdotes about herself and her court which would not be published for another two hundred years. There was a genuine affection between the Queen and her godson, and he never abused it by demanding favours or preferment.
It was the offer of a further 10,000, extended by Elizabeth after he had presented her with a New Year’s gift of a jewelled anchor brooch, a symbol of constancy, that finally persuaded Anjou to leave England, which was as well, for the Queen was becoming so agitated about his presence at court that she could not sleep at night and even became feverish. On 7 February 1582, after saying a ‘mournful’ and tearful farewell to her at Canterbury, the Duke set sail from Sandwich, with an escort of three English warships, Leicester and other nobles accompanying him. The Earl had not wanted to go, but Elizabeth warned him that he would suffer if he did not respectfully treat the man ‘she loved best in the world’. She was also relying on Leicester to convey a secret message to William of Orange, asking him to ensure that Anjou never returned to England. At the same time, unknown to the Queen, Sussex had requested William to detain Leicester in the Netherlands, though Elizabeth thwarted this by demanding Leicester’s immediate return.
The Queen pretended to be grief-stricken at the loss of her lover, saying she could not lodge at Whitehall ‘because the place gives cause of remembrance to her of him, with whom she so unwillingly parted’. She wept frequently, telling Leicester and Walsingham that she could not live another hour were it not for her hope of seeing Anjou again: he would, she promised, be back within six weeks, if the King of France was willing. She took to wearing at her girdle a tiny prayer book set with miniatures of herself and Anjou, a copy of which is now in the British Library. She declared to Mendoza that she would give a million pounds to have her Frog swimming in the Thames once more, and she continued to exchange affectionate letters with the Duke. Lie, in turn, kept up the pretence that they were to be married, and pressed her to name the date. Elizabeth knew it was in her interest to maintain this fiction, and kept it going for as long as possible. And it served its purpose, for she had kept Philip at bay with the threat of an Anglo- French alliance, and had also managed to avoid being involved in the war in the Netherlands.
On 10 February, Anjou docked at Flushing, fully intending to take up arms on behalf of the Dutch Protestants. Leicester, however, described the future conqueror to the Queen as looking like ‘an old husk, run ashore, high and dry’; Elizabeth screamed at him for his insolence and mockery, and called him a traitor, like all his horrible family. As it turned out, Anjou found his liberty severely curtailed by the constraints imposed by his new subjects, and he was also hampered by his own incompetence. He ended up playing tennis and hunting while Parma took city after city and Elizabeth fumed impotently at the lack of support given by the rebels to the Duke and his own fatal inertia. ‘My God, Monsieur, are you quite mad?’ she thundered in one letter. ‘You seem to believe that the means of keeping our friends is to weaken them!’
In January 1583, Anjou turned on the Dutch rebels who had imposed such intolerable constraints on him, and launched attacks on several of their cities. ‘France never received so great a disgrace,’ wrote an English envoy to Walsingham. In consequence of this, the Duke was obliged to leave the Netherlands and return to France, his ambitions in shreds, while Parma was able to consolidate his position. The Dutch, disillusioned with the French intervention, began to turn to William of Orange as their leader and their best hope of salvation against the Spanish threat.
Anjou’s departure from England had signalled the end of Elizabeth’s courting days, and she knew it. ‘I am an old woman, to whom paternosters will suffice in place of nuptials,’ she told her courtiers sadly. The Tudor line would end with her, and for the rest of her reign she would have to contend with the ever-present problem of the unresolved succession. Furthermore, she had lost perhaps her greatest bargaining counter: her hand in marriage. No longer was she ‘the best match in her parish’: she was ageing, and too old to bear children. All her councillors could hope for now was that she would outlive the Queen of Scots.
In May 1582, a Catholic conspiracy against Elizabeth involving the Guises, the Pope, Philip of Spain and the Jesuits was hatched in Paris, its object being to place Mary Stuart on the English throne.
It was apparent by now to the government how successful the Jesuit missions to England had been, yet still the Queen would not sanction sterner measures against her Catholic subjects. ‘Her Majesty is slow to believe that the great increase of Papists is a danger to the realm,’ commented Leicester. ‘The Lord of His mercy open her eyes!’
In October, Walsingham’s spies seized a cipher letter written by the Queen of Scots, which indicated that she was involved in some new conspiracy. From then on, her correspondence was carefully vetted and her servants watched more closely.
By the spring of 1583, Mary Stuart and her Catholic allies had conceived a plan whereby she would be reinstated in Scotland as joint ruler with her son, James VI. The plan was doomed to failure because Mary herself was insisting that sovereign power devolve chiefly upon her, which would certainly be resisted by James. Nor would the Scots be likely to welcome a Catholic queen. However, Elizabeth, who was aware of what had been proposed, toyed with the idea, anxious to reach a settlement whereby the problem of the Queen of Scots could be solved without recourse to bloodshed. Mary herself believed that James’s filial loyalty to the mother he had not seen since babyhood would ensure his co-operation in the plan, but although the young King declared that he desired her to be set at liberty, his chief concern was to preserve his own interests and position, not only in Scotland, but also with regard to the English succession.
Walsingham was still on Mary’s trail. At this time, he found out that Sir Nicholas Throckmorton’s nephew, Francis, a Catholic, was paying secret nocturnal visits to the French embassy. As he was known to be sympathetic to Mary’s cause, the conclusion was correctly drawn that he was working as her agent. In fact he was in communication with the Duke of Guise and the Jesuits. However, Walsingham had little idea of what the object of this activity was at that time, and he therefore had Throckmorton and the French ambassador watched over the next six months.
In May, whilst staying at Theobalds, Elizabeth heeded the pleas of Burghley and Raleigh and, after ‘bitter tears and speeches’ at an emotionally charged audience, forgave Oxford for his liaison with Anne Vavasour and allowed him to return to court.
Philip Sidney was now high in the Queen’s favour, and in 1583 she knighted him and sanctioned his marriage to Frances, only daughter and heiress of Sir Francis Walsingham, a match that was a source of great pride to Walsingham.
In July, Archbishop Grindal died, still in disgrace, and the Queen chose in his stead John Whitgift, formerly Bishop of Worcester, to be her third and last Archbishop of Canterbury. Whitgift, who became a personal friend, supported Elizabeth in her insistence on religious uniformity, and his consecration struck a blow at the Puritan movement, since he dealt with those who refused to conform with ruthless severity. A strict Protestant of Calvinist leanings, he was hard-working, dogmatic and inflexible, as well as being an astute politician – he was appointed a Privy Councillor in 1586 – and a religious disciplinarian. Thanks to Whitgift’s influence, within ten years, Puritanism would lose its bite, and no longer pose a threat to the Anglican communion.
That July, Leicester found himself ‘in great disgrace about his marriage’, for he had presumed to refer to it ‘more plainly than ever before’ in the Queen’s presence. He may even have dared take Elizabeth to task over her reaction to the recent elopement of Lettice’s daughter, Lady Dorothy Devereux, with Thomas Perrot, son of Sir John Perrot, a future Lord Deputy of Ireland and reputed bastard of Henry VIII. The Perrots were a family of notorious adventurers, of whom the Queen did not approve. Sir John was to die in the Tower in 1592 under suspicion of treasonable dealings with Spain. Elizabeth had never liked him, nor did she consider his son a fit match for Essex’s sister, who had moreover dared to marry without royal consent, for which the Queen predictably blamed the influence of Dorothy’s mother. Elizabeth’s wrath had been terrible to behold: she had banished Dorothy from court, clapped Perrot into the Fleet prison, and reviled Lettice as a ‘she-wolf whom she would expose in all the courts of Christendom for the bad woman she really was, even proving Leicester a cuckold. However, by the end of August, peace was restored, and the Earl was described as having ‘grown lately in great favour with the Queen’s Majesty, such as this ten years he was not like to outward show’.
Leicester lost his greatest enemy when Sussex died that year. Even on his deathbed in his house at Bermondsey, Sussex gave vent to his loathing for the favourite, and croaked to his fellow-councillors, ‘I am now passing into another world, and must leave you to your fortunes and to the Queen’s graces, but beware of the Gypsy, for he will be too hard for you all. You know not the beast so well as I do.’ With Sussex gone, Leicester’s opponents lost their voice; in future, attacks on him would come from more subtle, hidden enemies.
In fact, though, his power was waning. Elizabeth frequently ignored his advice, especially where the Netherlands were concerned. Leicester believed that England would not be safe until the Spaniards were expelled from the United Provinces, and he still favoured military intervention to accomplish this.
Leicester was now fifty, a corpulent, balding man with the ruddy colour that betokens high blood pressure. He was not well, and suffered intermittent stomach pains that may have been caused by advancing cancer; in vain did he eat a careful diet, and take the healing waters at Buxton. His poor health made him short-tempered and rather paranoid, perceiving criticism where there was none, and taking every man to be his enemy. His friends deplored the change in him, and one, John Aylmer, wrote, ‘I have ever observed in you such a mild, courteous and amiable nature. I appeal from this Lord of Leicester unto mine old Lord of Leicester, who hath carried away the praise of all men.’
Leicester still occupied a special place in the Queen’s heart, but he found it hard to compete with her younger favourites, Raleigh or even young Charles Blount, the twenty-year-old brother of Lord Mountjoy, who had recently visited Whitehall to see the Queen at dinner. Espying the attractive stranger, she had asked his name, at which he blushed. She beckoned him over and said, ‘Fail you not to come to the court, and I will bethink myself how to do you good.’ When Blount finished his training as a lawyer, he took her at her word, and was gratified to be admitted to her charmed circle of handsome male favourites.
In September, 1583, Elizabeth celebrated her fiftieth birthday; she had now reigned for nearly twenty-five years.
In October 1583, an insane young Catholic, John Somerville of Warwickshire, swayed by Jesuit propaganda, was arrested for bragging that he intended to march on London and shoot the Queen with a pistol and ‘hoped to see her head on a pole, for she was a serpent and a viper’. He was thrown into Newgate prison and condemned to death, but hanged himself in his cell before the sentence could be carried out.
The publicity given to this event provoked an upsurge of national affection towards Elizabeth, and in November, the French ambassador reported that, when she travelled to Hampton Court, huge crowds of people knelt by the wayside, wishing her ‘a thousand blessings and that the evil-disposed who meant to harm her be discovered and punished as they deserved’. The Queen made frequent stops to thank them for their loyalty, and told the ambassador ‘she saw clearly that she was not disliked by all’.
Page 2 of 11
Chapter 20
In November 1583, Francis Throckmorton was arrested at his London house, a search of which revealed ‘infamous pamphlets’ and lists of papist lords and harbours where foreign ships could land in safety. More sinisterly, it became apparent that Mendoza was heavily involved in the plot, which surprised Walsingham, whose suspicions had centred upon the French ambassador, who, if he had been aware of what was going on, had managed to avoid being implicated.
Under torture in the Tower, Throckmorton gave nothing away, but after the Queen had authorised him to be racked a second time, his courage failed him: ‘Now I have disclosed the secrets of her who was the dearest thing to me in the world,’ he lamented. He revealed that the conspiracy’s aim had been to prepare for King Philip’s Enterprise of England, the object of which was to set Mary on the English throne. The Pope, the Guises and the Jesuits were involved, and there were to be four separate invasions, centred upon Scotland, Ireland, Sussex and Norfolk, co-ordinated by Catholic activists at home and abroad. Plans were so far advanced that all that remained to be done was stir up rebellion in England. Both Mary and Mendoza had been fully involved at every stage, but Walsingham had already guessed at Mary’s complicity, for she had given herself away in several letters that had come under his scrutiny.
‘All this shows that her intention was to lull us into security,’ Elizabeth concluded, ‘that we might the less seek to discover practices at home and abroad.’
The government were in no doubt that this was a very dangerous plot indeed, and set about hunting down the Catholic lords on Throckmorton’s list. Some were committed to the Tower, but several had already fled abroad. The Queen was pressed to bring Mary to justice, for there was enough evidence to convict her, but she refused out of hand. She agreed, however, that Throckmorton be executed at Tyburn and that Mendoza be expelled in disgrace. His parting shot was that his master would avenge this insult with war. For the rest of Elizabeth’s reign, Spain would never send another ambassador to England.
Both Parliament and the Council were in militant mood, fiercely protective of their queen, and urging that a ‘final’ policy towards Mary Stuart be settled. However, Elizabeth again baulked at this, and this time was backed by Leicester, who wanted Mary kept in honourable and comfortable captivity, a strategy dictated by self-interest, for if Mary ever ascended the throne of England, she would remember to whom she owed her life. Yet his was a lone voice, for most of his colleagues wanted Mary’s head.
On 10 June 1584, the Duke of Anjou died of a fever at Chateau-Thierry in France. His death meant that there was now no direct Valois heir to the French throne, Henry III having no sons, and that the succession would pass to a cousin, Henry of Bourbon, the Huguenot King of Navarre.
Elizabeth was greatly grieved when she heard of Anjou’s death, and wept in public every day for three weeks, leaving observers in no doubt that she had felt a genuine affection for her ‘Frog’. The court was put into mourning, the Queen herself wearing black for six months. ‘Melancholy doth possess us’, wrote Walsingham to a friend, ‘as both public and private causes are at stay for a season.’
To Catherine de’ Medici, Elizabeth wrote:
Your sorrow cannot exceed mine, although you are his mother. You have several other children, but for myself I find no consolation, if it be not death, in which I hope we shall be reunited. Madame, if you could see the image of my heart, you would see there the picture of a body without a soul, but I will not trouble you with sorrows, for you have too many of your own.
Not everybody was convinced of her sincerity. When Elizabeth told the French ambassador, ‘I am a widow woman who has lost her husband,’ he commented that she was ‘a princess who knows how to transform herself as suits her best’.
Worse tidings were to come. Protestant communities in Europe were shocked shortly afterwards at the news that William of Orange had been assassinated on 10 July at Delft. It was obvious that Philip of Spain had been behind the killing, and this boded ill for Elizabeth, whose subjects were terrified that she might be next. Nothing stood now between her and Parma’s great army in the Netherlands: the degenerate Henry III was too preoccupied in keeping the factions at his court from each other’s throats, and Anjou was dead. Parma was advancing steadily, taking city after city, and Elizabeth believed that, once the Netherlands were subdued, as they would be if no leader could be found to replace William of Orange, Philip would set his sights on England. Something must therefore be done urgently to curb the activities of the Queen of Scots.
Mary Stuart was now forty-two, and sixteen years of captivity had had their effect on her former beauty and her health. Her hair was grey, she had put on weight, and she was plagued by rheumatism and a chronic pain in her side. Although she had been allowed to go several times to Buxton to bathe in the waters, this had not improved her symptoms.
In 1584, Mary’s principal residence was Sheffield Castle, where she still lived under the guardianship of the Earl of Shrewsbury. From time to time she stayed at his other houses whilst Sheffield was cleansed. The Earl scrutinised all her correspondence, and whenever she went out to take the air, as she was permitted to do, he and a troop of guards accompanied her. In fact, there were guards everywhere, both inside and outside the castle, while at night, a watch was set in the surrounding town and villages. Every traveller was questioned as to his business in the district, and no one was allowed to enter the castle or communicate with Mary without written authorisation from the Council. She might only receive visitors under supervision.
Mary bitterly resented these restrictions, but she was nevertheless treated with the honour and deference due to a queen. She maintained her own household of forty-eight persons, selected her servants and paid their wages, Elizabeth defraying her food and fuel bills, which often amounted to over jfiooo per annum, and she dined under a canopy of estate, being served two courses of sixteen dishes each at every main meal. She was allowed to indulge her passion for hunting, but rheumatism often prevented her from doing so; instead she worked with her ladies on exquisite embroideries, or played with her numerous lapdogs and caged birds. She would never leave her prison, she told her friends, unless it was as Queen of England, and despite the risks, she continually intrigued to attain that, unheeding of the eyes that watched her every move. Over the years, it had become more and more difficult to correspond with her friends abroad, and now she had to rely on those members of her household who might be able to evade Walsingham’s vigilance.
In August 1584, Walsingham decided to tighten the security net surrounding Mary; Shrewsbury had borne the burden of guarding her for many years and was inclined to be too lenient with her, and she was now transferred into the temporary care of Sir Ralph Sadler. The following month, after Walsingham had shown Elizabeth a letter which proved that her cousin was still plotting to depose her, Mary was removed from Sheffield to Wingfield in Staffordshire, and then, in January 1585, to the forbidding fortress of Tutbury. There would be fewer hunting jaunts there, and it would be far more difficult for her to smuggle out letters. However, she would still be able to retain her household, and although she protested at the move and complained that the castle was damp and cold, the accounts show that she was plentifully provided with food and fuel. Nor, it was pointed out to her, had she been ‘so well entertained when she lived at her own will in her own country’, where standards of living were far lower than in England.
But all this was not enough to ensure Elizabeth’s safety, and by the autumn of 1584, public concern prompted the emergence of a movement among the English gentry and nobility to take more stringent precautions against threats to her throne. There was further alarm and indignation when a Jesuit, Father Creighton, was arrested by the Dutch authorities and found to be carrying a paper describing in detail plans for Philip’s now notorious Enterprise of England.
Leicester, backed by several other privy councillors and probably the Queen, although she would later deny it, suggested the formation of a league of Protestant gentlemen, who would all swear an oath of association to take up arms on the Queen’s behalf and destroy the Queen of Scots if she became involved, even unknowingly, in any plot against Her Majesty’s life. This oath was to be called the Bond of Association, and when the idea was made public that October it so captured the public imagination that there was a huge response from thousands of gentlemen throughout the country, all clamouring to subscribe to the Bond and take the oath. They cared little whether or not they offended their Catholic neighbours, declaring that they would rather engage in a civil war than accept a papist monarch. At Burghley’s instigation, the Bond of Association was shown to Mary Stuart, and it was thus made very clear to her that, if she continued her intrigues, her life would be in the gravest danger.
Mary, in the face of all the evidence to the contrary, protested that she knew nothing of any conspiracies against Elizabeth, and even added her signature to the Bond of Association; only two days later, however, she was writing to Philip of Spain urging him to press ahead with the Enterprise, even at the risk of peril to herself.
Elizabeth herself had an alarmingly careless attitude towards her own safety, and her male advisers could only deplore her feminine aversion to shedding blood in her own interests. Although she was immeasurably heartened by these new demonstrations of loyalty and affection, she was reluctant to sanction what amounted to lynch law, and declared she would not have anyone put to death ‘for the fault of another’ nor permit any legislation that would offend the consciences of her good subjects. Parliament took the same view, and insisted upon modifying the terms of the Bond of Association before enshrining it in law. Henceforth, any ‘wicked person’ suspected of plotting treason was to be put on trial before being ‘pursued to death’.
In order to avoid the likelihood of having to bring Mary to trial under this new law, Elizabeth tried again to persuade James VI to agree to share his throne with his mother, but although the Scots King was anxious to ally himself with England, he made it very plain that he did not want his mother in Scotland stirring up trouble. Elizabeth saw to it that Mary was kept in ignorance of his betrayal for months to come.
In October, Leicester was viciously attacked in a pamphlet entitled Leycester’s Commonwealth, which was widely circulated, and repeated every scurrilous and defamatory piece of gossip about him, past and present. It also made even more serious allegations that he was a serial murderer, extortioner and criminal. It was in fact such a masterpiece of character assassination, and so brilliantly written, that many people were convinced of its veracity. The Earl had never been popular, and the only people to speak out in his defence were Sir Philip Sidney and the Queen. Elizabeth banned the pamphlet, declaring that ‘only the Devil himself would believe such malicious lies, and writing to the Lord Mayor of London commending Leicester’s ‘good service, sincerity of religion and all other faithful dealings’ and saying she took ‘the abuse to be offered to her own self.
Leycester’s Commonwealth was almost certainly a piece of Jesuit propaganda, printed in Antwerp or Paris, but it differed from most such efforts in that it contained apparently authentic details. This lent it weight, and many believed it had been suppressed because it contained the truth. This fiction was maintained for the next three centuries, during which Leicester was vilified by most historians as an unscrupulous adventurer and wife-murderer, and it is only in our own time that the flaws in Leycester’s Commonwealth have been exposed, revealing the Earl to have been a loyal servant of the Queen.
Leicester’s enemies also suspected him of intending to play the part of his father Lord Protector Northumberland to Arbella Stewart’s Lady Jane Grey, as a result of his plan to marry Arbella to his son.* Mary
*The son in question was now his heir, Lord Denbigh, since he had abandoned the idea of his base son as her putative husband. This arrangement suited Bess of Hardwick very well, a legitimate heir being far more desirable than a bastard.
Stuart thought that Bess of Hardwick’s scheme to ‘settle the crown of England on her little girl Arbella’ was a ‘vain hope’, and wrote asking the French ambassador to ensure that Elizabeth knew what was afoot. Leicester, however, managed to convince the Queen that his prime motive for the match was to help cement good relations with Arbella’s cousin, James VI.
Leicester and Elizabeth had reached the point in their relationship where they no longer regarded or wrote to each other as lovers, but as old friends, bound together by a quarter-century of shared experience and affection. Religion was a common bond, and was the dominant theme in many of Leicester’s letters, such as this one, dated 1583, in which he sent the Queen
thanks for your gracious remembrance. Your poor Eyes has no other way but prayer to offer for recompense, and that is that God will long, safely, healthfully and most happily preserve you here among us. This is the goodness of God, my sweet lady, that hath thus saved you against so many devils. Your Majesty only has been the maintainer and setter forth of His true religion against all policy and counsel of man, yet you see how He has served and kept you thereby. God grant you ever to cleave fast thereto.
They still quarrelled, though, and on one occasion Leicester told Hatton that he would not be attending a Council meeting because ‘so many eyes are witnesses of my open and great disgrace delivered from Her Majesty’s mouth’. Even after all these years, her verbal barbs could hurt him deeply, but he invariably forgave and forgot, and sometimes Elizabeth even apologised.
During 1584, Leicester brought his stepson, the eighteen-year-old Earl of Essex, to court, where almost immediately his ‘goodly person, urbanity and innate courtesy won him the hearts of both Queen and people’. This was gratifying to the Earl, who hoped that Essex would supplant the insufferable Raleigh in the Queen’s affections, but it would be some time before Elizabeth came to regard Essex as more than just a handsome and accomplished boy.
At the end of the year, yet another plot against Elizabeth was uncovered. A Welsh MP, Dr William Parry, hid in her garden at Richmond with the intention of assassinating her as she took the air, but when the Queen eventually appeared, he ‘was so daunted with the majesty of her presence, in which he saw the image of her father, King Henry VIII, that his heart would not suffer his hand to execute that which he had resolved’.
There is some mystery as to his motive: Parry had travelled in Europe, and the Pope certainly believed that he was acting on Mary’s behalf, as did her agent in Paris; yet Parry was also an English spy, working for Burghley, and on his return had told Elizabeth that he had posed as a would-be regicide in order to infiltrate papist circles. She rewarded him with a pension, but then Parry asked an associate if he would indeed be prepared to murder the Queen, and attracted attention by acting suspiciously before the abortive attempt on her life. He may, like John Somerville the previous year, have been unbalanced, yet, put on trial, he vigorously denied any evil intent.
The attempt provoked outrage, and the government were in no mood to give Parry the benefit of the doubt. ‘It makes all my joints to tremble when I consider the loss of such a jewel,’ wrote one MP. The Commons urged the Queen to let them devise some worse penalty than the terrible death already meted out to traitors, and there were more calls for Mary to be brought to justice. Elizabeth refused to take either course, although in February 1585 she agreed to send Parry to the gallows. Parliament passed a new law ordering all seminary priests to leave England within forty days or suffer the penalty for high treason, and Walsingham was paid to recruit more secret agents.
Although she thanked Parliament for its ‘safe-keeping of my life, for which your care appears so manifest’, Elizabeth remained apparently impervious to the danger of her isolated position and the threat of further assassination attempts. ‘They are seeking to take my life’, she told a delegation from the English colony in Newfoundland which had been founded in 1583, ‘but it troubles me not. He who is on high has defended me until this hour, and will keep me still, for in Him I do trust.’
She would not modify her lifestyle, nor allow herself to be restricted by the greater security measures that were urged upon her. She showed herself in public as often as before, and when she went for country strolls with her courtiers, she would only permit the gentlemen to be ‘slenderly weaponed’. And she would not listen to Leicester’s suggestion that anyone with papist leanings be forbidden access to the court. Her councillors therefore existed in a state of permanent anxiety for her safety, although they could not but be impressed by her courage.
In March, James VI wrote to tell his mother that it would be impossible to ally himself with someone who was ‘captive in a desert’. Mary was devastated by her son’s betrayal, and anguished by the realisation that her last hope-of negotiated freedom through diplomatic channels had gone. ‘Alas!’ she wailed in an emotional letter to Elizabeth. ‘Was ever a sight so detestable and impious before God and man, as an only child despoiling his mother of her crown and royal estate?’ She vowed she would abandon James. ‘In all Christendom, I shall find enough of heirs who will have talons strong enough to grasp what I may put in their hand.’ Yet in case her cousin took this to mean that Mary had designs on her throne, the Scots Queen hastened to reassure her that she abhorred ‘more than any other in Christendom such detestable practices and horrible acts’. Privately, though, she had decided to bequeath her crown and her claim to the English succession to Philip of Spain.
Demands for Mary to be kept under stricter surveillance were met in April when Sir Amyas Paulet was appointed her new custodian. Paulet was nearing fifty, a staunch disciplinarian who was notorious for his strong Puritan views; when Mary learned of his appointment, she protested vehemently against it, not only because he was of ‘no higher quality than a knight’, but also on the grounds that he would be less tolerant than most of her religion, having treated her agents in Paris harshly during his time there as ambassador. But Elizabeth had chosen Paulet because he was ‘towards God religious, towards us most faithful, by calling honourable, and by birth most noble’. His integrity and his unflinching loyalty to his sovereign had been demonstrated during his service as Governor of Jersey, and she could rely on him not to be moved by the Queen of Scots’s wiles or her charm. He would indeed prove to be a diligent and strict custodian, never relaxing his vigilance nor swerving from his duty, and remaining maddeningly impervious to Mary’s attempts to win him over.
Paulet wasted no time in imposing new ‘rigours and alterations’ into the household, and Mary soon realised that her life was going to be much more difficult under this new regime and that she was to be virtually isolated from the world. Sir Amyas scrutinised all her correspondence: nothing got past him, and letters from her friends abroad began to pile up on Walsingham’s desk. Paulet would permit Mary no visitors, and strengthened the guard at the castle. Her servants were forbidden to walk on the walls, and when she went out she was accompanied by mounted soldiers carrying firearms, who prevented the local people from approaching her. Nor was she allowed to distribute alms to the poor, a rule she thought ‘barbarous’.
There were few chinks in Paulet’s security measures, but he had no solution to the risk posed by Mary’s laundresses, who lived in the nearby village and visited the castle regularly. Unless he had them strip-searched each time, which was unthinkable to a man of his sensibilities, he could not be sure that they were not smuggling out messages. All he could do was place a close watch on them.
During 1585, relations between England and Spain deteriorated further. In May, in retaliation against English attacks on his ships, Philip ordered all English vessels in his ports to be seized and added to his own fleet at Lisbon, which he was preparing for a war he did not want but which he felt was his sacred duty. Three months later, at Nonsuch, Elizabeth made a treaty with the Dutch, who were now her sole allies, and in September she appointed Drake an admiral, provided him with a fleet of twenty-two ships and 2000 men, and dispatched him on a voyage to capture several of Spain’s greatest naval bases in the Caribbean. Drake’s mission was successful: he occupied Vigo on the coast of Spain and then sailed to the Indies and sacked Santo Domingo, Habana in Cuba and Cartagena, the capital of the Spanish Main.
Philip was deeply humiliated, but the Queen behaved as if it was nothing to do with her: Drake, she said blithely, ‘careth not if I disavow him’. Her objectives, in this campaign of harassment, were to keep Philip fully occupied elsewhere, and at the same time demonstrate to him the might of England’s naval power.
Leicester was visiting Nonsuch with the Queen when, at the end of July, he learned that his five-year-old son and heir, Lord Denbigh, had died at Wanstead after a short illness. Without asking permission to leave, he hastened to Wanstead to comfort his wife, leaving Hatton to apologise to the Queen for his abrupt departure. Elizabeth was saddened by the news, and sent Sir Henry Killigrew after the Earl with a message of sympathy.
His son’s death had a devastating effect on Leicester. Ageing, sick and desolate, he contemplated retiring from public life. It was Hatton who, with his comforting letters, managed to dissuade him from doing so, and Cecil who would provide him and his ‘poor wife’ Lettice with a refuge at Theobalds, where they could grieve together. Then, within a month or so, would come the cheering knowledge that, after waiting so long, Leicester was to be given the military command he craved.
Under the terms of her treaty with the Dutch, Elizabeth had extended to them her protection and undertaken to send them an army of 6000 men and 1000 horse under the command of a general, who was also to act as her mouthpiece to their governing body, the States General. On 17 September, she reluctantly bowed to pressure and assigned this command to Leicester, whom she felt she could trust and who was enthusiastic about the venture. However, with his weakened health he was not the wisest choice, and, more pertinent, was the fact that it was thirty years since he had last engaged in active service. Warfare had changed since then, and his adversary, Parma, was one of the greatest generals of the age.
Moreover, when it came to it, Elizabeth could not face the prospect of parting from him. During the past year or so her moods had been more variable and her temper more volatile. Now she became clinging, and one night she besought Leicester ‘with very pitiful words’ not to go to the Netherlands and leave her, as she feared she would not live Iong. He found it impossible to reassure her, but a day or so later, she was cheerful again, although how long that would last was uncertain. Her behaviour suggests that at this time she was going through the menopause.
At the end of September, the Queen had Leicester woken at midnight with a message commanding him to ‘forbear to proceed’ in his preparations until further notice. In despair, he told Walsingham, ‘I am weary of life and all.’ In the morning, however, Elizabeth revoked her order, much to his relief, but in the days that followed she showed herself so morose and irritable at the prospect of his approaching departure that his heart sank.
She was also adamant that his role in the Netherlands be confined to that of Lieutenant General of her army, and nothing more, for she feared he would seek his ‘own glory’ rather than her ‘true service’. Above all, he must never accept from the Dutch any title or role that would imply her acceptance of the sovereignty of the Netherlands, which she most certainly did not want.
Dejectedly, Leicester confided to Walsingham: ‘Her Majesty will make trial of me how I love her and what will discourage me from her service, but resolved I am that no worldly respect shall draw me back from my faithful discharge of my duty towards her, though she shall show to hate me, as it goeth very near, for I find no love or favour at all’
At Richmond in October, Elizabeth issued an open ‘Declaration’, twenty pages long, justifying her actions to King Philip and the world at large, and sent Sir Philip Sidney to the Netherlands, appointing him Governor of Flushing, one of two ports she had the right, by treaty, to garrison. She then dispatched an army which had cost her one half of her annual income.
On 8 December, Leicester left for the Netherlands, determined to rid England of the Spanish menace once and for all. He took with him a household of 170 persons, many of noble birth, as well as his wife, who insisted upon being attended by a bevy of ladies and taking a vast quantity of luggage, including furniture, clothing and carriages. When the Queen heard, she took ‘great offence’: after threatening to strip Leicester of his command, she changed her mind but affected to be no longer interested in preparations for the venture.
With Leicester went young Essex, appointed General of the Horse, a post that would keep him safely behind the lines. However, he excelled so well at the jousts in honour of Leicester’s arrival that ‘he gave all men great hope of his noble forwardness in arms’. When he arrived in Flushing on 10 December, Leicester received an ecstatic welcome from the Dutch, who hailed him as their saviour and honoured him for nearly three weeks with banquets, fireworks, processions, entertainments and tournaments.
Leicester was hoping to work out an offensive strategy for the defence of the Netherlands. However, he was to find it impossible to do so because Elizabeth, ever conscious of her purse, sent him insufficient supplies for his army. Moreover, as sovereign, she was painfully aware of the limitations of her sex and determined to remain firmly in control of the campaign, interfering at every opportunity. Leicester was not to take the offensive, nor ‘hazard a battle without any great advantage’. He naturally resented this, and the further he travelled from her, the less notice he took of her injunctions.
It was the Dutch who caused the quarrel that followed. Disappointed that Elizabeth had declined to be their sovereign, they treated Leicester as a visiting prince, much to his gratification and the Queen’s chagrin, and instead of leading a military campaign, he found himself at the centre of a royal progress round the country. Before very long, his hosts warmly invited him ‘to declare himself chief head and Governor General’.
Page 3 of 11
Chapter 21
Paulet’s fears about security were allayed when, on Christmas Eve 1585, Mary Stuart, having been told that the Queen had heeded her complaints, was moved at Elizabeth’s instigation from Tutbury to the absent Essex’s fortified and moated house at Chartley, twelve miles away, where provision was made for her laundresses to live in.
‘I cannot imagine how it may be possible for them to convey a piece of paper as big as my finger,’ Paulet observed with satisfaction. Walsingham was not so sure, having had vast experience of Mary’s ability to smuggle out messages, and it was at this time that he conceived the idea of using it to his advantage, in the hope that Mary would incriminate herself and give him the excuse he wanted to get rid of her once and for all.
Fate played into his hands that same month when a trainee Catholic priest, Gilbert Gifford, was arrested at Rye on his arrival from France and brought before Walsingham. Gifford, he learned, had been sent to England by Mary’s friends in Paris with a view to re-establishing contact with her. Realising that his plans were known, the weak-willed Gifford was suborned into working for Walsingham instead, and was instructed to pass on the many letters from abroad that were waiting for Mary at the French embassy. Any replies she gave Gifford were to be brought directly to Walsingham, whose secretary, Thomas Phelippes, an expert in codes, would decipher, copy and reseal the letters and send them on to their destination. In this way, Walsingham could monitor all Mary’s correspondence. Thus the trap was set.
Gifford was to inform Mary that he had organised a secret route whereby letters might be smuggled in and out of Chartley. Walsingham had discovered that Master Burton, the local brewer in Buxton, supplied the house regularly with beer in large barrels. It was Gilford’s task to persuade the brewer, with the promise of substantial remuneration, to convey Mary’s letters in a waterproof wooden box that was small enough to be slipped through the bung-hole of a barrel. The brewer, an ‘honest man’ who was sympathetic towards Mary, agreed, thinking he was doing her a service; he did not find out, until it was too late, that he had been used, and when Paulet let him in on the secret, he merely put up his prices, knowing that too much was at stake for his customer to protest.
Using this new channel of information, Gifford sent Mary a letter introducing himself, along with letters of credence from Thomas Morgan, her agent in Paris, and described the secret channel through which she might communicate with her friends overseas. To Mary, deprived of contact with them for so long, this was an answer to her prayers, and she responded enthusiastically to Gifford’s plan, never suspecting that he was not what he seemed. Soon afterwards, she was delighted to receive twenty-one packets of letters from the French embassy, and set to work to answer them.
The only persons who knew about the framing of Mary were Walsingham, his assistants, Leicester and, almost certainly, Elizabeth, who at this time told the French ambassador, ‘You have much secret communication with the Queen of Scotland, but believe me, I know all that goes on in my kingdom. I myself was a prisoner in the days of the Queen my sister, and am aware of the artifices that prisoners use to win over servants and obtain secret intelligence.’ The evidence suggests that she not only knew and approved of what was going on, but followed developments closely.
When, on 5 February, Elizabeth learned from one of her ladies (who had heard it in a private letter) that Leicester had accepted the office of Supreme Governor of the Netherlands, and been inaugurated in this ‘highest and supreme commandment’ at a solemn ceremony at The Hague on 15 January, she exploded with such fury as her courtiers had never before witnessed.
‘It is sufficient to make me infamous to all princes,’ she raged, and she wrote castigating him for his childish dealing. We could never have imagined, had we not seen it fall out, that a man raised up by ourself and extraordinarily favoured by us above any other subject of this land, would have in so contemptible a sort broken our commandment in a cause that so greatly touched our honour. Our express pleasure and commandment is that, all delays and excuses laid apart, you do presently, upon the duty of your allegiance, obey and fulfil whatsoever the bearer shall direct you to do in our name. Whereof, fail you not, as you will answer the contrary at your uttermost peril.
Leicester was deeply upset by her reaction. He believed he had acted in her best interests, and although Elizabeth thought he had not dared to tell her what he had done, he had in fact sent one of the royal secretaries, Sir William Davison, to tell her. Davison, however, had been delayed by bad weather, and when he arrived on 13 February, he had been forestalled by others. Nor would the Queen listen to what he had to say, but lectured him ‘in most bitter and hard terms’. ‘At the least, I think she would never have so condemned any other man before she heard him,’ Leicester observed bitterly.
Elizabeth was under immense strain as a result of the Netherlands war, and Walsingham noticed that she was becoming ‘daily more unapt to bear any matter of weight’. In March, Warwick told Leicester that ‘our mistress’s extreme rage doth increase rather than in any way diminish. Her malice is great and unquenchable.’ She was even withholding pay for Leicester’s soldiers in order to teach him a lesson. Leicester tried to blame Davison for his acceptance of the governor generalship, saying Sir William had urged him to it, but the Queen did not believe this, and soon afterwards appointed Davison a councillor.
The Council was alarmed lest the Queen’s anger should prompt her peremptorily to recall Leicester and thus expose the rift between them, for it was unthinkable that the Spaniards should see the English divided. They therefore exerted their combined talents to pacify the Queen and tried to make her understand why Leicester had apparently defied her; it was only after a messenger had brought her news that Leicester was ill that she grudgingly conceded that the Earl had acted in what he perceived to be her best interests.
On T4 March, in Leicester’s presence, Sir Thomas Heneage informed the Dutch Council of State that the Earl would have to resign his office – ‘matter enough to have broken any man’s heart’. The Dutch wrote begging the Queen to reconsider, but it was Burghley’s threat to resign that in the end moved her unwillingly to agree that Leicester might remain Governor General for the time being, provided it was made clear that in this respect he was not her deputy and that he remained aware of his subordinate position.
Leicester complied with these conditions. In April, when he celebrated St George’s Day with a state banquet in Utrecht, an empty throne was set in the place of honour for the absent Queen, and food and drink were laid before it.
‘The Queen is in very good terms with you,’ Raleigh informed him after this, ‘and, thanks be to God, well pacified, and you are again her Sweet Robin.’ Exhausted and demoralised, the Earl wrote to Walsingham, am weary, indeed I am weary, Mr Secretary.’
In March 1586, Philip of Spain wrote to Pope Sixtus V, asking for the Church’s blessing on the Enterprise of England. It was readily given, along with financial support. The planned invasion now assumed the nature of a crusade against the Infidel, a holy war that was to be fought on a grand scale.
On 20 May, Mary wrote to Mendoza, revealing her intention to ‘cede and give, by will, my right to the succession of [the English] crown to your King your master, considering the obstinacy and perseverance of my son in heresy’. Philip, however, informed the Pope that he himself had no desire to add England to his already vast dominions, and had decided to resign any claim to the English succession to his daughter, the Infanta Isabella Clara Eugenia.
Late in May, Gifford sent Walsingham two letters from Mary Stuart: the first was to Mendoza, assuring the Spaniards of her support for the invasion and promising to enlist James VI’s help. The second was to a supporter, Charles Paget, asking him to remind Philip II of the need for urgency in invading England. Paget’s reply, which also arrived on Walsingham’s desk, described how a priest, John Ballard, had recently arrived from France to orchestrate a Catholic rebellion against Elizabeth, timed to coincide with the Spanish invasion which was expected that summer.
Father Ballard was soon under the surveillance of Walsingham’s spies. Like many other Catholics who had spent time abroad, this misguided priest had an exaggerated concept of the level of Catholic support for Mary in England. Full of zest for his mission, he visited a rich Catholic gentleman, Anthony Babington of Dethick, who had been a supporter of the Queen of Scots for two years. The handsome and zealous Babington was twenty-five, came from an old and respected Derbyshire family, and had once served in Shrewsbury’s household as Mary’s page. However, it was known to the authorities that the previous autumn he had been involved in a harebrained plot to assassinate the entire Council when it met in the Star Chamber.
In June, Ballard and Babington were overheard discussing King Philip’s projected invasion and plotting the murder of the Queen, who was to be struck down either in her Presence Chamber, or while walking in the park, or riding in her coach. Babington undertook to do the deed himself, with the aid of six of his friends, who proved, like Babington himself, to be gently-born, idealistic young men blessed with very little common sense and carried away by chivalrous fervour inspired by the Queen of Scots.
Walsingham, whilst keeping Babington under the strictest surveillance, decided to turn his plotting to the government’s advantage. It was fortunate that Thomas Morgan, Mary’s Paris agent, had heard of Babington and had written to her commending his loyalty and pointing out that ‘there be many means to remove the beast that troubles the world’. It was a simple matter for Walsingham to ensure that this letter reached Mary.
On 25 June, as he had expected, the Queen of Scots wrote to Babington, who replied on 6 July with an outline of his conspiracy, asking for her approval and advice. Addressing Mary as ‘My dread Sovereign Lady and Queen’, he told her that ‘six noble gentlemen, all my private friends’, would ‘despatch the usurper’ Elizabeth, while he himself would rescue Mary from Chartley, and then, with the help of the invading Spanish forces, set her on the throne of England. All Babington asked of Mary was that she would extend her protection to those who carried out ‘that tragical execution’ and reward them.
His letter was delivered to Chartley by Thomas Phelippes. Walsingham now waited in suspense to see how Mary would respond. On 9 July, he informed Leicester that something momentous was about to happen: ‘Surely, if the matter be well handled, it will break the neck of all dangerous practices during Her Majesty’s reign.’
On to July, Phelippes reported, ‘You have now this Queen’s answer to Babington, which I received yesternight.’ However, this proved to be merely a brief note, in which Mary promised to write more fully within the next few days. ‘We attend her very heart at the next,’ observed Phelippes.
The letter that he and Walsingham had so eagerly awaited was written in code on 17 July by Mary’s two secretaries, who transcribed it from notes in her own hand which she burnt immediately afterwards. The original letter does not survive, presumably having been destroyed by Babington, only the copy made by Phelippes, which was rushed with all speed to Walsingham, adorned with a sketch of a gallows drawn by Phelippes himself.
In this lengthy communication, Mary incriminated herself by endorsing the Babington plot and Elizabeth’s murder: ‘The affair being thus prepared, and forces in readiness both within and without the realm, then shall it be time to set the six gentlemen to work; taking order upon the accomplishment of their design, I may be suddenly transported out of this place.’
This letter was just what Walsingham wanted, for it enabled Mary to be dealt with under the 1585 Act of Association, and it is almost certain that, in order to discover the names of Babington’s co-plotters, he forged a postscript to the ‘bloody letter’, asking for their names, before forwarding it to Babington on 29 July. Later, Mary’s supporters would claim that Walsingham had forged other passages in the letter, particularly that endorsing Elizabeth’s assassination; however, Mary’s complicity is corroborated by Mendoza, who informed King Philip that she was fully acquainted with every aspect of the project.
By now, the conspirators were openly bragging of their enterprise and toasting its success in London inns. Babington had also commissioned a group portrait of himself and the future regicides ‘as a memorial of so worthy an act’.
On 5 July, Elizabeth and James VI concluded the Treaty of Berwick, which provided for each monarch to help the other in the event of any invasion. This meant that Philip would not be able to invade England through its northern border. The news of her son’s ultimate betrayal reached Mary just as Babington was asking her blessing on his plot; it caused her ‘the greatest anguish, despair and grief and gave impetus to her endorsement of the conspiracy.
During July, Leicester put it to Elizabeth that the surest way to winning the Dutch war would be for her to accept the sovereignty of the Netherlands. Horrified at the prospect of such a drain on her treasury, and fearful of provoking Philip too far, she reacted hysterically. Then, having calmed down, she wrote to him, rationally explaining her reluctance, and adding: ‘Rob, I am afraid you will suppose by my wandering writings that a midsummer moon hath taken large possession of my brains this month, but you must take things as they come in my head, though order be left behind me . . . Now will I end, that do imagine I talk still with you, and therefore loathly say farewell, Eyes, though ever I pray God bless you from all harm, and save you from all your foes, with my million and legion thanks for all your pains and cares. As you know, ever the same, E.R.’
There was to be no more talk of her accepting the Dutch crown.
By August, Walsingham had gathered together most of the evidence he needed to bring the Queen of Scots to her death, and he now decided that it was not worth waiting for Babington to reply to Mary; he must strike now, before either of them got wind of what was going on and burned their correspondence, which Walsingham meant to produce in court.
On 4 August, Ballard was arrested and sent to the Tower, on the grounds that he was a Catholic priest. Learning of this through his friends, Babington panicked, seeking out one of his regicides, Savage, and telling him he should murder the Queen that very day. Savage, although ready to do so, pointed out that he would not be admitted to the court because he was too shabbily dressed, whereupon Babington gave him a ring, instructing him to sell it and use the proceeds to buy a new suit of clothes. But there was no time, and that evening Babington fled and went into hiding, at which point Elizabeth revealed to Burghley what had been going on and ordered him to issue a proclamation condemning the conspiracy. Copies of the painting of the conspirators were quickly made and distributed throughout the kingdom so that loyal subjects might identify the regicides: the hue and cry was on.
On 9 August, whilst Mary was out hunting near Chartley, Paulet had her belongings searched, impounding three chests full of letters, jewellery and money, which he forwarded to Walsingham. He apprehended her secretaries, Gilbert Curie and Claude Nau, and then rode out on to the moors, where he arrested Mary herself. In floods of tears, she was taken to a nearby house to compose herself before being brought back under guard to Chartley.
The Queen wrote to Paulet: ‘Amyas, my most faithful and careful servant, God reward thee treblefold in the double for thy most troublesome charge so well discharged. Let your wicked murderess know how with heavy sorrow her vile deserts compelleth these orders, and bid her from me ask God forgiveness for her treacherous dealings towards the saviour of her life many a year, to the intolerable peril of my own.’
Elizabeth ordered that Mary’s servants be dismissed and replaced with new ones chosen by Paulet; nor did she relent when she was informed that Mary was ill at the prospect of losing these friends.
Babington, his face ‘sullied with the rind of green walnuts’, was discovered lurking in St John’s Wood north of London on r4 August, and taken to the Tower the next day. When news of the arrests was made public, the bells of London pealed out in jubilation and the citizens gave thanks, lit bonfires and held street parties. Elizabeth was deeply touched by these demonstrations of love and loyalty, and sent a moving letter of thanks to the City.
When Babington’s house was searched, many seditious Catholic tracts were found, as well as prophecies of the Queen’s death. By now, fourteen men were in custody, charged with high treason. Examined in the Tower by Burghley, Hatton and Lord Chancellor Bromley on 18 August, Babington, fearful of torture and naively believing that cooperation would lead to a pardon, confessed that he had plotted to assassinate the Queen, and made the first of seven detailed statements describing the conspiracy, in which he made no attempt to protect Mary or any of his collaborators. Curie and Nau confirmed that Walsingham’s copy of Mary’s fateful letter was identical with the original.
The Council now demanded that the Queen summon Parliament to deal with the Queen of Scots. Elizabeth tried to stall, knowing that the Lords and Commons would insist on a trial and execution which she would have no choice but to sanction. Her advisers were implacable, pointing out that if the lesser conspirators, Babington and his friends, were to suffer the punishment the law demanded for their treason, then the chief conspirator, Mary, should not escape. On 9 September, with a heavy heart, Elizabeth capitulated and summoned Parliament.
On 13 September, Babington and his associates were put on trial. The verdict was a foregone conclusion, but the Queen insisted that the punishment usually meted out to traitors was insufficient in this case of ‘horrible treason’. Burghley told Hatton, ‘I told Her Majesty that, if the execution shall be duly and orderly executed by protracting the same both to the extremity of the pain and in the sight of the people, the manner of the death would be as terrible as any new device could be. But Her Majesty was not satisfied, but commanded me to declare it to the judge.’
The normal practice at such executions was for the executioner to ensure that the victims were dead before disembowelling them. In Burghley’s opinion, ensuring that the lives – and agony – of Babington and the rest were prolonged for as long as possible would be a sufficiently awful punishment, and at length he won the Queen round to this view.
At his trial, although Babington admitted his guilt with ‘a wonderful good grace’, he insisted that it was Father Ballard who had been the instigator of the plot. Ballard, on the rack in the Tower, had admitted only that there had indeed been a conspiracy. The Queen had not wanted Mary Stuart’s name mentioned during the trial, but when her commissioners pointed out to her that this would make nonsense of the evidence, she agreed that the references to Mary in the indictment and Babington’s confessions could remain.
On 20 September, Babington, Ballard and five other conspirators were dragged on hurdles from Tower Hill to St Giles’s Fields at Holborn, where a scaffold and a gallows ‘of extraordinary height’ had been set up. Here, in front of vast crowds, the condemned men suffered the full horrors of a traitor’s death, Babington protesting to the end that he believed he had been engaged in ‘a deed lawful and meritorious’. According to Camden, Ballard suffered first: he and the others ‘hanged never a whit’ before they were cut down and had ‘their privities cut off and bowels taken out alive and seeing’ before being beheaded and quartered. In extremis, Babington cried out, ‘Spare me, Lord Jesus!’ The people, whose mood had been vindictive, were revolted by the savagery they had witnessed and expressed such unexpected sympathy for the victims that, when the remaining seven conspirators were delivered to the executioner the next day, the Queen gave orders that the prisoners were to hang until they were dead before being disembowelled and quartered.
The executions gave rise to a flood of ballads and pamphlets, so that soon ‘all England was acquainted with this horrible conspiracy’ and not only the Council, but the people also were clamouring for Mary Stuart, the chief focus of the plot, to be tried and executed. Even now, however, Elizabeth wanted to spare Mary’s life, if only because she could not countenance the execution of an anointed queen. She had hoped that the deaths of the conspirators would satisfy her subjects’ thirst for blood and retribution, but, she realised, she was mistaken.
Her councillors pointed out that there were many good reasons for proceeding against Mary under the new statute. There was no doubt that Mary had plotted against her life, and evidence supporting this could be produced in court. James VI was unlikely to cause trouble, for he could only benefit from his mother’s death. Mary’s removal would clear the way for a Protestant heir who would be acceptable to the English people. It would also remove the chief focus for Catholic discontent and rebellion. The French had long since abandoned Mary, and King Philip could have no worse intentions towards Elizabeth than those he already cherished.
Above all, the Queen was urged to think of her people, who had become unsettled and fearful as a result of recent events and were now a prey to rumour-mongers, who were spreading alarming stories that Elizabeth had been killed, or that Parma had invaded Northumberland. To be on the safe side, the fleet was sent to patrol the coast, and people became more vigilant in hunting out papist priests.
The mounting sense of imminent catastrophe unsettled Paulet, who warned that he could not keep Mary secure at Chartley indefinitely, and urged that she be moved to another stronghold. The Council wanted her sent to the Tower, but the Queen was appalled at the prospect and flatly refused; she also raised objections to every other fortress they suggested, but at length, she was persuaded to agree to Mary being transferred to Fotheringhay, a medieval castle in Northamptonshire that had in the fifteenth century been the seat of the royal House of York. Mary was brought there on 25 September.
It was still by no means certain that Elizabeth would allow her cousin to be put on trial. While she conceded that there was every justification for it, she was aware that Mary’s supporters would argue that the Queen of Scots was not only a foreigner who was not subject to English law, but an anointed sovereign, answerable to God alone for her actions. The question had already been put to a team of English lawyers, who had debated the matter in depth and now concluded that Elizabeth was within her rights to prosecute Mary under the statute of 1585.
The Queen realised that there was nothing more she could do to prevent the trial from going ahead. Reluctantly, she agreed to the appointing of thirty-six commissioners – Privy Councillors, peers and justices – who would consider the evidence and act as judges, and at the end of September these men began arriving at Fotheringhay. Among them were Burghley, Walsingham, Hatton and Paulet, as well as two Catholic lords, Montague and Lumley, to ensure impartiality.
On 10 October, a very concerned Leicester urged the Queen from the Netherlands to allow the law to take its course. ‘It is most certain’, he wrote to Walsingham, ‘if you would have Her Majesty safe, it must be done, for justice doth crave it besides policy.’ It was frustrating for him to be out of England at such a time, and he longed to return and use his influence with the Queen to make her understand what she must do.
On 11 October, the court assembled, but Mary refused to acknowledge its competence to try her, declaring that she was a twice anointed queen and not subject to the ordinary laws of England, and refusing to attend. Burghley was aware that this would dangerously compromise the trial, and urged her to reconsider.
‘In England, under Her Majesty’s jurisdiction, a free prince offending is subject to her laws,’ he told Mary.
‘I am no subject, and I would rather die a thousand deaths than acknowledge myself to be one!’ she flared. In that case, Burghley warned, she would be tried in her absence. Hatton urged her to take advantage of the public platform a trial would afford her and clear herself of the charges against her, while Elizabeth herself wrote coldly to Mary: ‘You have in various ways and manners attempted to take my life and bring my kingdom to destruction by bloodshed. It is my will that you answer the nobles and peers of the kingdom, as if I were myself present.’
At this, Mary capitulated, although she still refused to acknowledge the court’s jurisdiction, and on 14 October, her trial began, the main charge being that she had entered into a treasonable conspiracy against the Queen’s life.
Careful preparations had ensured that the proceedings would be conducted in a proper and lawful manner, but, as was usual in state trials of the period, Mary was permitted no counsel to aid her; instead, she conducted her own defence. Limping as a result of chronic rheumatism, she appeared before the commissioners, a tall, black-clad, ‘big-made’, middle-aged woman with a face ‘full and fat, double-chinned and hazel- eyed’, who confidently, passionately, even indignantly, denied all knowledge of the Babington Plot. Her crucial letter to Babington was, she claimed, a forgery; indeed, she had never received a single letter from him. As for sanctioning the murder of the Queen, ‘I would never make shipwreck of my soul by compassing the death of my dearest sister,’ she protested. All she had ever done during her captivity was to seek help to gain her freedom wherever it might be found.
Her eloquent defence was crushed, of course, by the weight of the evidence against her, which was irrefutable. Burghley concluded that her guilt was established beyond all doubt. The commissioners saw their duty clear, and were just about to pronounce Mary guilty when a messenger arrived with the Queen’s command, issued in the middle of the night since Elizabeth had been unable to sleep, that the court be adjourned to London to reconvene in ten days’ time.
The Lord Chancellor formally prorogued the court on to October, and the commissioners returned south. Mary was left to ponder her fate at Fotheringhay whilst they again examined the evidence in the Court of Star Chamber at Westminster, patiently enduring the Queen’s constant interference. ‘I would to God Her Majesty would be content to refer these things to them that can best judge of them, as other princes do,’ fumed Walsingham. But the judges’ conclusions remained the same as before and, with only one dissenting voice, they pronounced Mary guilty of being an accessory to the conspiracy and of imagining and compassing Her Majesty’s destruction. Under the statute of 1585, these were offences punishable by death and disinheritance.
The court did not pronounce sentence; that would be a matter for the Queen and Parliament, which had to ratify the verdict.
The English had initially fought well in the Netherlands, earning even Parma’s admiration. In September, they were victorious at the Battle of Zutphen, near Arnhem, at which Essex fought valiantly and was knighted by Leicester, and Sir Philip Sidney received a serious wound in the thigh, having lent his leg-armour to a friend who had none. Weak from loss of blood, he had ridden a mile to camp, ‘not ceasing to speak of Her Majesty, being glad if his hurt and death might honour her’. Her Majesty, however, who since his return to court after his disgrace had been ‘very apt upon every light occasion to find fault with him’, considered that his wound could have been avoided, and that his chivalrous act had been misplaced. Her subjects, however, applauded it, and also loved to recount how, parched with thirst, Sidney refused the water that was offered him, insisting that it be given to a dying soldier nearby. ‘Thy necessity is greater than mine,’ he told the man.
At first, it was thought that Sidney would recover, and Elizabeth was moved to send him a heartening letter in her own hand. But his wound festered and he lingered in agony for twenty-six days before dying, a legend already at thirty-one years of age. It had been a tragic year for the Sidney family: Sir Henry Sidney had died that summer, followed by his wife, Elizabeth’s old friend Lady Mary Sidney.
Court mourning was ordered for the dead hero and there were outpourings of grief, for Sidney had been popular and was regarded as the epitome of the chivalric ideal. His body was brought home in a ship with black sails, and given a state funeral in St Paul’s Cathedral. The Queen, who was ‘much afflicted with sorrow for the loss of her dear servant’, did not attend.
After Zutphen, the tide had turned against Leicester’s forces, not as a result of Spanish retaliation, but because of the Earl’s ineptitude as a commander and his gift for antagonising both his allies and his men. Many of the latter deserted, and it became obvious that the venture was doomed to ignominious failure. Elizabeth wrote complaining of Leicester’s shortcomings, to which he dejectedly replied, ‘My trust is that the Lord hath not quite cast me out of your favour.’ In fact, after a year apart, Elizabeth was sorely missing him, and was fearful that his health would be broken by a second winter of campaigning. Thus, when he asked for leave to come home, she willingly granted it.
Parliament assembled on 29 October, setting aside all other business to settle the fate of the Queen of Scots, ‘a problem of great weight, great peril and dangerous consequence’. The Queen resolutely distanced herself from these proceedings and remained at Richmond, refusing to stay, as she usually did, at Whitehall. She told her courtiers that, ‘being loath to hear so many foul and grievous matters revealed and ripped up, she had small pleasure to be there’.
Both Lords and Commons loudly demanded Mary’s head, and unanimously ratified the commissioners’ verdict on ‘this daughter of sedition’, resolving to petition the Queen that ‘a just sentence might be followed by as just an execution’. This petition, which was presented to Elizabeth by a delegation of twenty peers and forty MPs at Richmond on 12 November, plunged her into an agony of indecision.
She stressed to them that, throughout the twenty-eight years of her reign, she had been free of malice towards Mary. ‘I have had good experience and trial of this world,’ she reminded them. ‘I know what it is to be a subject, what to be a sovereign, what to have good neighbours, and sometimes meet evil willers. I have found treason in trust, seen great benefits little regarded.’ She went on to say that she grieved that one of her own sex and kin should have plotted her death, and she had even written secretly to Mary promising that, if Mary confessed all, she would cover her shame and save her from reproach, but her cousin had continued to deny her guilt. Even now, though, if she truly repented, Elizabeth would be inclined to pardon her.
She desired to satisfy her people, yet it was plain to her audience that she might never bring herself to do so. ‘I tell you that in this late Act of Parliament you have laid a hard hand on me, that I must give directions for her [Mary’s] death, which cannot be but a most grievous and irksome burden to me. We princes are set on stages, in the sight and view of all the world. It behoveth us to be careful that our proceedings be just and honourable.’ All she could say in conclusion was that she would pray and consider the matter, beseeching God to illuminate her understanding, for she knew delay was dangerous; however, she vowed ‘inviolably’ to do what was right and just. Her speech, according to Burghley, ‘drew tears from many eyes’.
Two days later, she sent a message to Parliament by Hatton, asking if ‘some other way’ to deal with Mary could be found. But short of keeping Mary in solitary confinement for the rest of her life, to remain a focus for rebellion, there was no alternative but the death penalty.
Mary, meanwhile, appeared ‘utterly void of all fear of harm’, even when, on 16 November, Elizabeth sent a message warning her that she had been sentenced to death, that Parliament had petitioned to have the sentence carried out, and that she should prepare herself for her fate. Mary, officially informed of the sentence on the 19th, took the news courageously, showing neither fear nor repentance.
‘I will confess nothing because I have nothing to confess,’ she declared. Instead, she wrote to all her friends abroad, including the Pope and the Duke of Guise, proclaiming her innocence and declaring that she was about to die as a martyr for the Catholic faith. When Paulet tore down her canopy of estate, informing her that she was now a dead woman so far as the law was concerned, and therefore undeserving of the trappings of sovereignty, Mary simply hung a crucifix and pictures of Christ’s passion in its place.
That same day, she wrote thanking Elizabeth for the ‘happy tidings that I am to come to the end of my long and weary pilgrimage’. She asked only that her servants be present at her execution and that her body be buried in France. It was her wish to die in perfect charity with all persons, ‘Yet, while abandoning this world and preparing myself for a better, I must remind you that one day you will have to answer for your charge, and for all those whom you doom, and I desire that my blood may be remembered in that time.’
Paulet, reading this letter, delayed sending it, fearing the effect it would have on Elizabeth. His fervent hope was that Mary would be executed before Christmas.
On 23 November, Leicester, accompanied by Essex, returned home. ‘Never since I was born did I receive a more gracious welcome,’ he wrote afterwards. Not only the Queen, but also Walsingham and Burghley expressed their pleasure at seeing him, for they all needed his help at this time. Although his influence on the Council had declined during his absence, Hatton and others having risen to political prominence, the Queen still valued his opinions highly, and needed his support more than ever now.
That evening, after a private supper with the Earl, Elizabeth sent a note to the Lord Chancellor stating she would publicly proclaim the sentence against the Queen of Scots. But the prospect deprived her of sleep that night.
At this time, the French ambassador arrived to plead for clemency for Mary. Elizabeth told him that matters had gone too far for that. ‘This justice was done on a bad woman protected by bad men,’ she told him severely. If she herself was to live, Mary must die.
The Queen’s plea for some other way to be found of dealing with Mary had been laid before Parliament without evoking a single response. The Lords were asked if the execution should go ahead, at which every peer ‘answered that they could find none other way of safety for her Majesty and the realm’. Having unanimously reaffirmed its sentence of execution, Parliament, on 24 November, sent another deputation to Richmond to urge the Queen, with many ‘invincible reasons’, to have it carried out, for the preservation of religion, the kingdom and her own life. As before, in her reply she was distracted and undecided.
Since it is now resolved that my surety cannot be established without a princess’s head, full grievous is the way that I, who have in my time pardoned so many rebels and winked at so many treasons, should now be forced to this proceeding against such a person. What, will my enemies not say, that for the safety of her life a maiden queen could be content to spill the blood even of her own kinswoman? I may therefore well complain that any man should think me given to cruelty, whereof I am so guiltless and innocent. Nay, I am so far from it that for mine own life I would not touch her. If other means might be found out, [I would take more pleasure] than in any other thing under the sun.
She concluded with a typically obscure statement:
If I should say unto you that I mean not to grant your petition, by my faith I should say unto you more than perhaps I mean. And if I should say unto you I mean to grant your petition, I should then tell you more than is fit for you to know. I am not so void of judgement as not to see mine own peril, nor so careless as not to weigh that my life daily is in hazard. But since so many have both written and spoken against me, I pray you to accept my thankfulness, to excuse my doubtfulness, and to take in good part my answer answerless.
Burghley remarked scathingly that this parliament would be known as ‘a parliament of words’, not deeds.
That evening, the Queen, having tremulously drafted a formal proclamation of the sentence on Mary, commanded the Lord Chancellor to read it out to Parliament. Her scrawl was so illegible that Burghley had to decipher it for Bromley, yet before the Lord Chancellor could publish it, he received a message from Elizabeth commanding him to stay his hand and adjourn Parliament for a week.
On the following day, the commissioners reassembled in the Star Chamber and formally condemned Mary to death. After that, Leicester, Burghley and others used all their powers of persuasion to compel Elizabeth to do what her people would expect of her. If she did not, they pointed out, she would lose all credibility, and men would say that the weakness of her sex was clouding her judgement.
When Parliament reassembled on 2 December, the proclamation of the sentence had been redrafted by the Queen and Burghley, and its publication on 4 December prompted an outburst of great public rejoicing, London being lit up by torches and bonfires, and echoing to the sound of bells and psalms. Yet the Queen had yet to sign the warrant for the execution, which was drafted by Walsingham that same day, and had in fact prorogued Parliament until 15 February, in order to give herself ten weeks in which to steel herself to it. Throughout that period, her councillors would do their utmost to force the reluctant Queen to face the inevitable and sign.
She was torn two ways, for the French and Scottish ambassadors were to be equally vigorous in trying to persuade Elizabeth to show mercy to Mary, and she was anxious not to offend either of these friendly neighbours. James VI wrote reminding her that ‘King Henry VIII’s reputation was never prejudged but in the beheading of his bedfellow,’ a reference to Anne Boleyn which greatly offended her daughter. However, James was more concerned about his future interest in the succession than in saving his mother’s life; he had heard that Mary had bequeathed her claim to Philip of Spain, and was determined to circumvent this. In his opinion, his mother was fit ‘to meddle with nothing but prayer and serving of God’, although he told Leicester that ‘Honour constrains me to insist for her life.’
Public opinion in Scotland had, however, been influenced by the publication of the death sentence on Mary, who was now viewed with rising nationalist sympathy as something of a heroine; some lords had even threatened to declare war on England if she was executed, and James could not afford to ignore them, although he was not prepared to go so far on his mother’s behalf- too much was at stake for that. He therefore made token protests, while telling his envoy, Sir Robert Melville, to say privately to the Queen, ‘There is no sting in this death.’
Elizabeth faced the most agonising decision of her life. If she signed the warrant, she would be setting a precedent for condemning an anointed queen to death, and would also be spilling the blood of her kinswoman. To do this would court the opprobrium of the whole world, and might provoke the Catholic powers to vengeful retribution. Yet if she showed mercy, Mary would remain the focus of Catholic plotting for the rest of her life, to the great peril of Elizabeth and her kingdom. Elizabeth knew where her duty lay, but she did not want to be responsible for Mary’s death.
For weeks she existed under the most profound stress, which affected her judgement and brought her close to a breakdown. Her scruples isolated her from her advisers, and she made excuse after excuse to the Council, using her well-tried delaying tactics to avoid having to make any decision.
Paulet could not delay sending Mary’s letter to Elizabeth indefinitely, and it is known to have reached the Queen by 23 December, when a worried Leicester confided to Hatton that ‘It hath wrought tears, but I trust shall do no further harm.’ After this, Paulet forbade Mary to communicate with Elizabeth again.
At Christmas, the court moved to Greenwich, where the Queen agreed that Burghley should prepare a formal warrant from Walsingham’s draft. Once this was done, it was given to Sir William Davison, recently appointed joint Secretary of State with Walsingham, for safe-keeping.
On 6 January, Melville suggested to the Queen that there would be no need to execute Mary if she formally renounced her claim to the succession in favour of her son, who, as a Protestant, would not become a focus for Catholic plots against Elizabeth. But Elizabeth saw the flaws in this immediately, and her anger flared.
‘By God’s passion, that were to cut my own throat!’ she cried. ‘I will not have a worse in his mother’s place. No, by God! Your master shall never be in that place.’ This angered Melville, who was unaware of her fear of the consequences of naming any successor, but he controlled his annoyance and urged her to delay the execution, even for a mere week.
‘Not’for an hour!’ shouted the Queen in a passion, and stalked out of the room. She was also angered by a message from Henry III of France, who warned her he would deem it ‘a personal affront’ if she executed Mary’. That, she retorted, was ‘the shortest way to make me despatch the cause of so much mischief.
Nevertheless, her reluctance to sign the warrant was obvious to everyone. Her councillors had not yet worn her down, ‘albeit indeed they are very extreme in this’. They even produced for her precedents from ancient Greece to justify the death of the person who had been at the centre of every conspiracy against her, and Burghley argued, ‘Were it not more than time to remove that eyesore?’ Davison feared Elizabeth would ‘keep the course she held with the Duke of Norfolk, which is not to take her life unless extreme fear compel her’.
By January, the suspense had become intolerable; terrifying rumours, put about by the Council to harden the Queen’s resolve, alleged that the Spaniards had invaded, London had been burned, and the Queen of Scots had escaped, causing such outbreaks of panic throughout the kingdom that many men were going about wearing armour, and guards were posted on major roads. It was at this time that the Council informed Elizabeth that they had arrested and questioned the French ambassador in connection with a suspected plot against her life. This may well have been an invention calculated to frighten her into signing the warrant – certainly no further action was taken against the ambassador – but true or not, it certainly swept away Elizabeth’s scruples about provoking the French by executing Mary.
‘Suffer or strike!’ she declared in Latin, pacing restlessly up and down her apartments. ‘In order not to be struck, strike!’
On February, Elizabeth suddenly sent for the very efficient and respected Sir William Davison, who was deputising for an indisposed Walsingham. Two contradictory accounts of what happened next survive. According to a statement made later by Davison, Elizabeth told him that she was disturbed by reports of an attempt to liberate the Queen of Scots, and had therefore resolved to sign Mary’s death warrant without further delay. Davison placed the document before the Queen, who read and signed it, saying that she wished the execution to take place as soon as possible in the Great Hall of Fotheringhay Castle, not in the courtyard. She instructed him to ask the acting Lord Chancellor, Sir Christopher Hatton, to append the Great Seal of England to the warrant, and then have it shown to Walsingham.
‘The grief thereof will go near to kill him outright,’ she jested grimly.
Her final instructions were that the warrant was to be sent to Fotheringhay with all speed and she ‘would not hear any more thereof until it was done’.
Davison immediately showed the warrant to a relieved Burghley before taking it to Hatton, who attached the Great Seal, which validated the warrant so that it could be put into effect. The next day, the Queen sent word to Davison that he was not to lay the warrant before the Lord Chancellor until she had spoken with him again; when Davison told the Queen that it had already been sealed, she asked him, in some alarm, why he was in such a hurry. Fearing that she was about to change her mind, he asked Hatton’s advice. On 3 February, both men went to Burghley, who at once called an emergency meeting of the Council, which debated whether or not to dispatch the warrant without further reference to the Queen. This resulted in a resolute Burghley taking it upon himself to insist that no councillor discuss the matter further with her until Mary was dead, in case Elizabeth thought up ‘some new concept of interrupting and staying the court of justice’.
In order to spare Davison from taking the blame, all ten councillors present agreed that they would share the responsibility for what they were about to do. Burghley then drafted an order for the sentence to be carried out, which Davison copied and sent to Fotheringhay on 4 February with the warrant. His messenger was Robert Beale, clerk to the Council.
Elizabeth’s version of events differed. She insisted that, after she had signed the warrant, she had commanded Davison not to disclose the fact, but when she learned that it had passed the Great Seal, she made him swear on his life not to let the warrant out of his hands until she had expressly authorised him to do so.
Davison might have been mistaken, but this is unlikely. It has been suggested, both by contemporary and more recent historians, that Burghley, realising that the Queen wanted someone else to take responsibility for Mary’s death, chose Davison to be a scapegoat, but there is no proof of this. On the contrary, Burghley held a high opinion of Davison’s abilities, asserting that he was capable of any office in the realm; he is hardly likely therefore to have regarded him as expendable. The only plausible explanation must be that Elizabeth herself had picked Davison to shoulder the responsibility – and the blame – for Mary’s death. In her view, this would be morally justified under the Bond of Association.
What is undisputed is that, as Davison gathered up his papers and made to leave the room, the Queen detained him. Acting on the often- repeated advice of Leicester, Whitgift and others, she suggested that he ask Paulet, as a signatory of the Bond of Association, to ease her of her burden and quietly do away with Mary, so that Elizabeth could announce that Mary had died of natural causes and so avoid being held responsible for her death. Davison was horrified, asserting that Paulet would never consent to such an unworthy act, but when the Queen told him that wiser persons than he had suggested this, he reluctantly agreed to write to Paulet.
After the warrant had been dispatched, the unsuspecting Queen sent for Davison again and told him she had had a nightmare about Mary’s execution. He asked her if she still wished it to go ahead. ‘Her answer was yes, confirmed with a solemn oath in some vehemency,’ but she added ‘that it might have received a better form’. She asked if he had heard back from Paulet, but he had not.
Later that day a letter did arrive, but it was not the response the Queen desired, for although Paulet was one of those who was urging her to let the law take its course, he would not stoop to murder. ‘My good livings and life are at Her Majesty’s disposition’, he wrote, ‘but God forbid that I should make so foul a shipwreck of my conscience or leave so great a blot to my poor posterity as to shed blood without law or warrant.’
When she was shown his letter the next morning, Elizabeth complained about its ‘daintiness’ and wondered aloud why Paulet had ever subscribed to the Bond of Association. She ‘blamed the niceness of those precise fellows who in words would do great things for her surety, but in deed perform nothing’.
Two days later, on 7 February, Elizabeth instructed Davison to write a ‘sharp note’ to Paulet, complaining of the fact that ‘it was not already done’. Davison, realising that she was still hoping that Mary could be disposed of by covert means, insisted that Paulet required a warrant ‘and not any private letter from me’ as ‘his direction in that behalf. That was the end of the matter.
In fact, the warrant arrived at Fotheringhay that day, and in the evening, Paulet told Mary she must prepare to die at eight o’clock the following morning. She took the news well, and was quite cheerful at supper that evening. Afterwards, she wrote farewell letters and gave instructions for the disposal of her personal effects. She then spent several hours in prayer before falling asleep at about two o’clock in the morning.
When she awoke, the sun was shining; the ‘very fair’ weather was interpreted by Protestants as a sign that God approved of the execution. As she was made ready, Mary wept bitterly at the prospect of saying goodbye to her servants, but she had composed herself by the time she was summoned to the Great Hall.
At eight o’clock on Wednesday, 8 February 1587, escorted by the Sheriff of Northampton and attended by her ladies, her surgeon, her apothecary and the master of her household, Mary, Queen of Scots entered the Great Hall of Fotheringhay Castle, watched by three hundred spectators. Many were astonished to see that this almost legendary beauty was in fact a lame, plump middle-aged woman with a double chin. Her manner, however, was dignified and calm, and she had dressed herself with care for this, her last public appearance: ‘On her head a dressing of lawn edged with bone lace; a pomander chain and an Agnus Dei; about her neck a crucifix of gold; and in her hand a crucifix of bone with a wooden cross, and a pair of beads at her girdle, with a medal in the end of them; a veil of lawn fastened to her caul, bowed out with wire, and edged round about with bone lace. A gown of black satin, printed, with long sleeves to the ground, set with buttons of jet and trimmed with pearl, and short sleeves of satin, cut with a pair of sleeves of purple velvet.’
As she approached the black-draped scaffold, strewn with straw, she turned to her ladies and said, ‘Thou hast cause rather to joy than to mourn, for now shalt thou see Mary Stuart’s troubles receive their long- expected end.’
The Protestant Dean of Peterborough was waiting on the scaffold to offer her consolation, but she refused: ‘Mr Dean, trouble not yourself nor me, for know that I am settled in the ancient Catholic religion, and in defence thereof, by God’s grace, I mind to spend my blood.’ As he insisted on praying aloud, she read her Latin prayers in a louder voice, weeping as she did so.
Then the executioner and his assistant came forward to help her remove her outer garments, so as not to impede the axe. ‘I was not wont to have my clothes plucked off by such grooms, nor did I ever put off my clothes before such a company,’ she observed. But there was a ripple of comment amongst the onlookers when she took off her black gown to reveal a low-cut satin bodice and velvet petticoat of scarlet, the Catholic colour of martyrdom; by this, together with the religious ornaments she wore and carried, she proclaimed herself to be a martyr for the Catholic faith.
When the executioner knelt before Mary to beg forgiveness for what he must do, she gave it readily, saying, ‘I hope you shall make an end of all my troubles.’ With great fortitude, she knelt and laid her head on the block, repeating over and over, ‘In manuas tuas, Domine, confide spiritum meum (Into Thy hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit).’ It took two blows of the axe to sever her head, and such was the trauma to the spinal cord that her lips continued to move for fifteen minutes afterwards.
As was the custom, the executioner lifted the head by its hair and cried, ‘God save the Queen!’ But on this occasion, as he did so, the lawn cap and red wig fell off, revealing grey hair ‘polled very short’, except for a lock by each ear. The face, too, seemed to have changed, having become virtually unrecognisable in death.
Orders had been given that the body was to be stripped and all the clothes burned, so that no relics should remain as objects of reverence for papists, but when the executioner stooped to pluck off her stockings, he found her little dog under her coat, which, being put from thence, went and laid himself down betwixt her head and body, and being besmeared with her blood, was caused to be washed, as were other things whereon any blood was. The executioners were dismissed with fees, not having any thing that was hers. Her body, with the head, was conveyed into the great chamber by the sheriff, where it was by the chirurgeon embalmed until its interment.
That afternoon, on Walsingham’s orders, it was securely encased in lead and placed in a heavy coffin.
When news of the execution reached London, the people went wild with joy. Bells were rung in celebration, guns thundered a salute, bonfires were lit, and there were impromptu feasts in every street. The celebrations lasted for a week.
But the Queen did not rejoice: when news of Mary’s execution was broken to her at nine a.m. on 9 February, her reaction was almost hysterical. According to Camden, ‘Her countenance changed, her words faltered, and with excessive sorrow she was in a manner astonished, insomuch as she gave herself over to grief, putting herself into mourning weeds and shedding abundance of tears.’ She erupted, not only in a torrent of weeping, but also in rage against those who had acted on her behalf and driven her to this. Her councillors and courtiers had expected recriminations, but nothing like this, and they quaked in fear at the terrible accusations that were hurled at them. Hatton was paralysed with apprehension; Walsingham fled home to Barn Elms and feigned illness; Burghley and Leicester were banished from the royal presence. A frightened Burghley wrote to Elizabeth several times, begging to be permitted to lay himself’on the floor near Your Majesty’s feet’ to catch ‘some drops of your mercy to quench my sorrowful, panting heart’, and offering to resign, but his letters were simply marked ‘Not received’.
Elizabeth was barely functioning, despite pleas from her councillors to ‘give yourself to your natural food and sleep to maintain your health’. Yet although her grief and remorse were genuine, they were as much for herself as for her cousin, for she very much feared that God would punish her for Mary’s execution, and she was also concerned about what would become of her international reputation when news of this terrible deed spread. Her chief preoccupation was to exonerate herself from blame. Therefore, after the worst outpourings of her misery had dried up, she deliberately affected to appear as ravaged as ever by emotion and regret, hoping thereby that her enemies would say that one so moved by the death of the Queen of Scots could not possibly have ordered it.
And of course there had to be a scapegoat, for she had to convince her fellow monarchs that her councillors were the ones responsible, not her. She insisted that the warrant should not have been submitted to the Council without her express authorisation, although Davison had quite correctly interpreted her signature on the document as implying just that. But in order to convince James VI that she was not guilty of his mother’s death, the Queen accused poor Davison of having acted with impropriety; she refused to heed his explanations, and he was arrested on 14 February, tried in the Star Chamber, and sentenced to a heavy fine and imprisonment in the Tower during the Queen’s pleasure. Elizabeth had wanted him hanged, but Burghley persuaded her that such vengeance smacked of tyranny: she must not think ‘that her prerogative is above the law’. Beale, who had carried the warrant, was demoted to a junior post in York.
But the world at large was not deceived. ‘It is very fine for the Queen of England now to give out that it was done without her wish, the contrary being so clearly the case,’ observed Philip II, whose confessor was sternly reminding him that it was his duty to avenge Mary’s death.
As Elizabeth had feared, Catholic Europe did indeed revile her for what she had done, and that revulsion expressed itself in virulent pamphlets and tracts, condemning her as a heretic and a Jezebel, and calling down the judgement of God upon her. The Pope called for a new crusade against her, and urged Philip of Spain, now ostentatiously mourning Mary, to invade England at the earliest opportunity. Since it was believed that Mary had bequeathed him her claim to the English succession, he would be justified in doing so. But despite papal efforts to establish otherwise, it soon became apparent that Mary had never actually made a new will naming Philip as her successor. A few Catholics in England, including Jesuit priests, nevertheless persisted in regarding Philip’s daughter, the Infanta Isabella, as the rightful Queen of England. The lack of any will did not overly concern Philip, who felt that Mary’s execution was sufficient to justify his planned invasion and seizure of the English crown.
To James VI, her ‘dear brother’, Elizabeth wrote a letter of sympathy, describing his mother’s execution as a ‘miserable accident which, far contrary to my meaning, hath befallen. I beseech you, that as God and many more know how innocent I am in this case, so you will believe me, that if I had bid aught, I would have abided by it. If I had meant it, I would never lay it on others’ shoulders.’
James VI made the noises expected of a cruelly bereaved son, but could not afford to risk alienating Elizabeth, so did nothing beyond issuing a token protest. On 31 March, he declared to his angry nobles that he would not jeopardise the Anglo-Scots alliance by seeking to revenge his mother’s death, and asserted his belief that Elizabeth’s version of events was the true one.
Henry III officially condemned the execution, and there was fury against Elizabeth, ‘this bastard and shameless harlot’, in Paris, where the English ambassador was barred from the court and dared not show his face on the streets, where black-clad crowds clamoured for Mary’s canonisation. But Henry III was faced with too many internal problems to contemplate war with England, and in the end he too lifted no finger against Elizabeth.
On 27 March, the Queen, still upset, commanded that the ten offending councillors appear before the Lord Chancellor, the Lord Chief Justice and Archbishop Whitgift to justify their actions. Burghley, on behalf of them all, protested that Davison had acted within his brief, and that they had all been driven by a desire for Her Majesty’s safety. A week later, Walsingham noted that ‘Our sharp humours continue here still. The Lord Treasurer remaineth still in disgrace, and behind my back Her Majesty giveth out very hard speeches of myself While Burghley was out of favour, his son Robert Cecil had an opportunity to prove his abilities, supporting Hatton, who, in recognition of his political skill, was sworn in as Lord Chancellor in April, Raleigh replacing him as Captain of the Guard. In May, a still distressed Elizabeth told the French ambassador that Mary’s death ‘will wring her heart as long as she lives’.
It was May before Burghley was allowed back to court, and even then the Queen ‘entered into marvellous cruel speeches’ with him, ‘calling him traitor, false dissembler and wicked wretch, commanding him to avoid her presence – all about the death of the Scottish Queen’. The old man bided his time, and in June had his reward when Elizabeth invited herself to Theobalds for three weeks – the longest visit she ever spent with him, during which peace was restored and she recovered her equilibrium.
Leicester had also been forgiven, and he and Elizabeth were once again happily bickering about how England should react to the deteriorating situation in the Netherlands. That spring, Philip had ordered Parma to subjugate as much of the Provinces as possible, in order to create a springboard for the invasion of England, for which preparations had been stepped up, especially since April, when, with \
Elizabeth’s authorisation, Drake had ‘singed the King of Spain’s beard’ by burning thirty-seven Spanish ships in Cadiz harbour, impounding a hundred more at Cape St Vincent, and seizing a huge haul of Spanish treasure off the Azores; thanks to this action, the Armada was unable to set sail that year, but Drake’s daring impertinence had made Philip all the more determined to crush the English once and for all. Leicester was all for armed intervention in the Netherlands, but the Queen was proving difficult.
After the initial furore over Mary’s death had died down, Elizabeth rewarded Paulet by appointing him Chancellor of the Order of the Garter. By April, when it was clear that there were to be no immediate reprisals, heavenly or otherwise, she began to realise that Mary’s death had been necessary and justified; above all, it had rid her of the threat of internal rebellion, for the Catholic cause had lost its focus and its claimant to the crown, and nothing now stood in the way of the succession of the Protestant James. Catholics abroad anticipated that their co-religionists in England would look to Philip as their saviour, but they greatly underestimated the loyalty and patriotism of Elizabeth’s papist subjects, who identified Philip with the horrors of Mary Tudor’s reign, and were as appalled as their mistress’s Protestant subjects at the prospect of a Spaniard on the throne.
On 30 July, on the Queen’s orders, Mary’s coffin was at last taken from Fotheringhay for burial; with the coming of summer, it had become something of a health hazard, giving off such a bad smell that no one wished to enter the room where it was kept. It was brought to Peterborough Cathedral, where it was buried with royal honours and great pomp. In 1612, James I would give orders for his mother’s body to be translated to Westminster Abbey, where it was laid to rest in a chapel opposite that in which Elizabeth then lay entombed.
Page 4 of 11
Chapter 22
Leicester, having got his way, sailed back to the Netherlands with 3000 new troops and a fleet of warships on 25 June 1587. Parma, playing for time, at once sued for peace, initiating months of tortuous negotiations.
On 29 July, the Pope signed a treaty with Spain, consenting to Philip nominating whoever he pleased as the ruler of England, so long as that person would agree to restore the Catholic faith. In September, Philip ordered Parma to assemble a fleet of barges for the coming invasion. Aware of the preparations being made, Elizabeth rested her hopes on the outcome of the peace talks, knowing that England was in no position to go to war, having no standing army and only a small navy.
Meanwhile, such serious differences had arisen between the English and their Dutch allies that it seemed the Netherlands might erupt in a civil war, and in the autumn, Leicester, whose own incompetence was largely to blame, advised the Queen that he could be of no further use there. She recalled him on to November. Before he left, he ordered a medal to be struck, bearing the legend, ‘I reluctantly leave, not the flock, but the ungrateful ones’.
Back at court, he was dismayed to find that, although the Queen had received him graciously in public, she was much displeased with his failure to unite with her allies and check the Spanish advance. Unable to deal with her reproaches, he retreated to Wanstead, having relinquished the office of Master of the Horse, which he had held for nearly thirty years, and persuaded Elizabeth to bestow it on his stepson Essex.
During Leicester’s second absence in the Netherlands, the young Earl of Essex had become closer to the Queen, using his newly-won power to the advantage of the stepfather who had groomed him to boost his own waning influence. Thanks to the affection between the two men, they never became rivals. Elizabeth was fascinated by the young Essex and kept him constantly by her, finding his company stimulating. He possessed all the attributes she most admired in men, even though she recognised that he lacked political acumen. All through the summer, he had been observed walking or riding with her, while in the evenings the pair of them could often be seen playing cards or listening to music ‘until the birds sing in the morning’.
Essex came from a noble family: the blood of the Plantagenets ran in his veins, and he had adopted Leicester’s strict Protestant faith. He was chivalrous, confident and open-handed. He wrote sonnets and stylish, lively letters, and acted well in court masques. In appearance, he was ‘very tall’, with reddish-brown hair and moustache, and elegantly- formed hands.
Women were susceptible to his charm, his masculinity and his athletic physique, and Elizabeth was no exception, even though she was thirty- three years his senior. This did not, however, preclude the young Earl from paying her extravagant compliments or acting as if he were lovestruck by her charms, which were the kind of attentions on which Elizabeth thrived. She had deliberately fostered the myth that her beauty was indestructible, but now she was becoming hard-pressed to maintain that fiction, having to resort to the increasing use of wigs and cosmetics. But in Essex’s company, she appeared to have recovered her lost youth. However, she seems to have regarded him as the son she had never had rather than as a lover or suitor. There is certainly no evidence that she had any real sexual attraction to him, although it may be speculated that, in both looks and character, he reminded her of Thomas Seymour, who had awakened her youthful sexuality.
Yet there was a darker side to Essex. He could be moody, imperious, petulant and difficult, and, when his temper was roused, he tended to be rashly impulsive. He had little sense of self-discipline, and could ‘conceal nothing. He carries his love and his hatred on his forehead.’ He was ‘soft to take offence and hard to lay it down’. A complex man, he appeared to rush through life, but he was also a dreamer who often inhabited a world of his own, being unaware even of what food he was eating and caring little whether his clothes made up a matching suit. He walked with a long stride, with his head aggressively thrust forward. He was as promiscuous as any other of the court gallants, but after casual sex would hasten to church to meditate on God for several hours. And while he loved the dazzle of the court, he often yearned to be at home in the quiet of Chartley. Since boyhood, he had been given to attacks of nervous prostration, during which he would lie in bed for days, hot, shaking and melancholy, unable to speak or think rationally.
The egotistical Essex was driven by ambition; he desired to be the leader of the swordsmen, the gallant young bucks of the court, but in order to enjoy their extravagant lifestyle, he needed money, and that was one thing he was never to have in plenty. He therefore lived beyond his means, existing in a permanent state of near-bankruptcy, from which the Queen, who could ill afford it, often did her best to bail him out.
The young Earl, full of restless energy, also cherished ambitions to achieve glory in a military sphere. Having been bequeathed Sir Philip Sidney’s best sword, he saw himself as Sidney’s successor, and was confident that he could lead men and inspire their devotion. There is no doubt that he did have some talent in this field, but he could also be very rash or take too much upon himself ‘No man was more ambitious of glory’, observed Camden, ‘and no man more careless of all things else.’
One person who resented Essex’s rise was Raleigh, who had thought to replace the ailing Leicester in the Queen’s affections, but whose star was now eclipsed by the new favourite. Raleigh became obsessively jealous, and determined to topple Essex from his present eminence. But when Essex was privileged to be invited into the royal bedchamber to speak with the Queen, Raleigh, on guard outside the door, could only simmer with rage and resentment.
On every possible occasion, he sought to injure his rival. Since her elopement, Essex’s sister, Lady Dorothy Perrot, had been barred from the court. But when, in July, the Queen visited the Earl of Warwick’s mansion, North Hall, during her progress, Lady Warwick, genuinely believing Elizabeth’s anger to have cooled, invited Lady Dorothy to join the guests, along with Essex. Raleigh insinuated to the Queen that Essex had brought his sister because he thought he could get away with showing disrespect towards his sovereign. Elizabeth was so angry that she gave orders that Lady Dorothy was to keep to her room for the duration of the visit.
Mortified, Essex guessed who had been behind this, and after supper, as he sat alone with the Queen and Lady Warwick, with Raleigh eavesdropping outside the door, he defended his sister and accused Elizabeth of having acted hastily ‘only to please that knave Raleigh, for whose sake I saw she would disgrace me in the eye of the world’ – as he wrote to a friend afterwards.
Much riled, Elizabeth made it obvious that ‘she could not endure anything to be spoken against Raleigh, and said there was no cause why I should disdain him. Her words did trouble me so much that, as near as I could, I did describe unto her what he had been and what he was.’
Essex asked her, ‘What comfort can I have to give myself over to the service of a mistress that is in awe of such a man?’ and spoke with ‘grief and choler, as much against him as I could’, hoping that Raleigh could hear him. But his complaints only served to irritate the Queen further, sparking a furious and undignified row in which she attacked the morals of his mother, Lady Leicester. This was too much for the volatile Essex, who shouted that he would not see his house disgraced and insisted he would send away his sister, even though it was almost midnight. As for himself, he told the Queen ‘I had no joy to be in any place, but loath to be near about her, when I knew my affection so much thrown down, and such a wretch as Raleigh so highly esteemed of her.’ Elizabeth did not answer him, but turned her back and spoke to Lady Warwick.
Furious at being ignored, Essex stamped out of the room, arranged tor his sister to leave immediately, and then rode at once for Margate with the intention of sailing for the Netherlands, where he could immerse his wounded soul in war. ‘A beautiful death is better than a disquiet life,’ he declared.
But Elizabeth, guessing that he would do something rash, sent Lord Hunsdon’s son, Robert Carey, galloping after him; catching up with the Earl at Sandwich, he persuaded him to return to North Hall, where he was reconciled with Her Majesty, despite continuing to complain of her ‘extreme unkind dealing with me’ – a complaint that would be heard many times in the years to come.
This set the pattern for their future relationship, which was to be volatile and passionate: their two strong personalities would clash, there would be bitter words followed by sulks, and then the Queen, who needed Essex’s presence more than he needed hers, would capitulate. Essex certainly felt affection for his sovereign, but he knew his power over her, and never ceased to exploit it. He would not allow any woman, even the Queen herself, to rule him; in fact, he was to an alarming degree hostile towards, and contemptuous of, her authority, and detested his servile role, believing that a man like himself was far superior, not only in strength but in intellect. He might flatter the Queen, and play the ardent suitor, but he upbraided her with shocking impunity, and made it plain he resented her having the upper hand in the relationship. Clearly, he often found her to be a meddling, irritating and outdated old woman. The astonishing thing was that she, to the consternation of others, often let him get away with it. Some even wondered if she enjoyed having Essex ordering her about. But when it came to allowing him the political influence he did not merit, or the exercise of patronage which he would have exploited shamelessly, she drew a firm line. It was then that the sparks flew, for Essex believed, quite wrongly and contrary to all the testimony of older, sager men, that he could bully her into submission. Elizabeth knew this and was prepared.
On 21 December the Queen appointed Charles, Lord Howard of Effingham, Lieutenant General, Lord High Admiral and Commander of the English navy, and ordered the fleet to be put on standby. There was no doubt now that Philip would send his Armada soon; she had known his plans since November: the Armada of Spanish galleons was to defeat the English fleet and pave the way for Parma, who would immediately land in England with an army from the Netherlands. When Elizabeth had been deposed and the country secured, Philip himself would arrive to claim the crown for his daughter and the Catholic faith.
According to Holinshed, as the year 1588 approached, the English people remembered that astrologers and seers had predicted ‘most wonderful and very extraordinary accidents’ at this time, and were deeply fearful. But the Queen, who had had her own horoscope cast, was more optimistic.
On a practical level, she and her government had begun to brace themselves for war. Harbours and land defences were strengthened, eleven new ships were built, and old ones refurbished. A chain of beacons to signal the arrival of the invasion was being set up on hill-tops throughout the kingdom. Sailors and soldiers had been recruited, and arms and stores were being requisitioned. Even so, England was far from ready to face an invasion, and when it became clear that Philip’s fleet was not ready either, and would probably not come until the following summer, the Queen, never one to waste money, commanded that her own ships be demobilised.
Although she possessed undoubted courage, Elizabeth certainly did not want a war: it was not in her nature to crave military glory, and she was appalled at the expense in both money and lives. If diplomacy could bring about a solution, she would take that course, and indeed she would continue to sue for peace right up until after the Armada had sailed.
Leicester had not been invited to court for Christmas, for Elizabeth was still angry with him, and when there was no word from her in January, he wrote begging her ‘to behold with the eyes of your princely clemency my wretched and depressed state’. But he was cheered to learn of her loyal refusal to countenance an attempt by Lord Buckhurst to make him answer for the mismanagement of the Netherlands venture.
The looming reality of war prompted Elizabeth to send for Leicester, and throughout the early months of 1588 he was assiduous in his attendance at Council meetings, despite worsening ill health. More vociferous than the rest, he warned Elizabeth that diplomacy would not suffice: she must further strengthen her armed forces.
In April, Elizabeth ordered the refurbishment of twelve more ships and her government instituted a programme of intensive training for her fighting forces. Drake was in favour of sailing to Spain to sabotage Philip’s fleet, but she would not allow it, being concerned that her own ships would be either damaged or lost when she most needed them. Any confrontation at sea, she said, must take place within sight of the shores of England, in order to remind her sailors what they were fighting for.
She was still hoping that it might never come to war. In April, she dispatched Dr Valentine Dale, her former ambassador to Paris, to Parma to sue for peace. The commissioners for both sides met to discuss the matter on 30 May, the very day on which the Spanish Armada of 130 ships, manned by 30,000 men under the command of the Duke of Medina Sidonia, set sail from Lisbon, bound for England. By then, the English fleet was already at battle-stations at Plymouth.
On board the Spanish ships were thousands of printed copies of a papal Bull blessing the enterprise, reaffirming Elizabeth’s excommunication, and calling upon her subjects to depose her. These were to be distributed in England by the invading forces. However, when, late in June, Elizabeth’s subjects learned of the existence of this Bull, they proved fiercely loyal.
In early June, Cardinal William Allen published a vicious attack on Elizabeth entitled An Admonition to the Nobility and People of England. In it, he referred to Henry VIII as the Queen’s ‘supposed father’ and to Elizabeth as ‘an incestuous bastard, begotten and born in sin of an infamous courtesan’. Elizabeth was angered and upset by these smears, and instructed Dr Dale to complain about them on her behalf to Parma. The Duke, however, said he had not read Allen’s book and knew nothing of the new Bull. He was sorry for the bad feeling between his master and Queen Elizabeth, but as a soldier, he was bound to obey his orders. Even as late as 8 July, the Queen was writing to assure Parma that ‘if any reasonable conditions of peace should be offered’, she would not hesitate to accept them.
‘For the love of Jesus Christ, Madam,’ wrote the Lord Admiral, ‘awake thoroughly and see the villainous treasons around you, against Your Majesty and your realm, and draw your forces round about you like a mighty prince to defend you. Truly, Madam, if you do so, there is no cause to fear. If you do not, there will be danger.’
On 17 July, Elizabeth brought the peace negotiations to a close.
The progress of the Spanish fleet had been impeded by storms, but on 19 July, what the Spaniards were referring to as the ‘invincible’ Armada was first sighted by the English off The Lizard. Legend has it that Drake was playing bowls on Plymouth Hoe at the time, but insisted he had time to finish the game before departing to vanquish the enemy.
As the chain of beacons flared, Elizabeth heard the news on the night of 22 July at Richmond, where the Council would meet daily in emergency session over the next few days. Robert Cecil was impressed by her calm response’ ‘It is a comfort to see how great magnanimity Her Majesty shows, who is not a whit dismayed.’ She spoke stirring words of reassurance to Leicester, who ‘spared not to blaze them abroad as a comfort to all’. The Queen’s calm reaction was the result of knowing that everything possible had been done to make England ready to repel the invader, and that her navy, with its smaller, lighter and faster ships which sailed ‘low and snug in the water’, was, in the words of Effingham, ‘the strongest that any prince in Christendom hath’.
A prayer of intercession, composed by the Queen, was read in churches. At court, a strange peace descended, for by Elizabeth’s command, all squabbles between factions and feuding had ceased. Throughout the land, the nation waited, expectant and fearful.
Moving along the south coast, the stately Armada was making for the Netherlands, whence it would escort Parma’s army to England. Waiting at Plymouth was the English fleet, 50 strong and flying the white and green colours of the Tudors from its masts. It was under the command of Admiral Lord Howard of Effingham, assisted by the much more experienced Sir Francis Drake; the Admiral, realising that his rank rather than his naval achievements had qualified him for his command, gallantly announced that he would ‘yield ever unto them of greater experience’. Drake, in turn, behaved so ‘lovingly and kindly’ towards Effingham that he ‘dispelled the fears about this doubtful union’.
The Admiral’s flagship was the Ark Royal, formerly known as the Ark Raleigh, having been sold to the Queen by Raleigh the previous year. Effingham had been authorised by the Queen to conduct all engagements according to his own judgement. By contrast, Philip had written detailed – and sometimes unrealistic – instructions by which Medina-Sidonia was to abide.
Effingham put out to sea in pursuit of the Armada after nightfall on the 19th. There was a brief and inconclusive skirmish off Eddystone, near Plymouth, on Sunday, 21 July, followed two days later by a more vicious engagement near Portland, Dorset, in which several Spanish galleons were severely damaged. Two more were wrecked off the Isle of Wight on 25 July. The English fleet continued to shadow the Armada as it sailed east, neatly avoiding any further engagements by sailing out of range whenever the galleons prepared for battle.
Meanwhile, the shire levies had been mustered, and Leicester, who had just been appointed Lieutenant and Captain General of the Queen’s Armies and Companies, had begun to assemble 4000 troops at Tilbury Fort in the Thames Estuary, ready to guard the eastern approach to London against Parma’s forces. Already he had built a blockade of boats across the river.
The Queen was boldly insisting that she ride to the south coast to be at the head of her southern levies, ready to meet Parma when he came, a notion which horrified her advisers. To divert her, on 27 July, Leicester invited her to visit Tilbury and ‘comfort’ her army, assuring her that ‘you shall, dear lady, behold as goodly, as loyal and as able men as any prince Christian can show you’; he himself would vouchsafe for the safety of her person, ‘the most dainty and sacred thing we have in this world to care for, [so that] a man must tremble when he thinks of it’.
On that same day, the Armada anchored off Calais, not far from Dunkirk, where Parma was waiting with 16,000 troops to cross the Channel. The Dutch fleet was patrolling the sea nearby, hoping to prevent the Spanish from sailing.
The English followed the Armada to Calais, where at midnight on the 28th orders were given for five ‘hell-burners’, or fire-ships, packed with wood and pitch, to be sent amongst the towering galleons. The resulting inferno, fanned by high winds, caused panic and chaos, scattering the Spanish galleons and wrecking the crescent formation of the Armada, which was unable to regroup because of the winds. This meant that the little English ships would now be able to fight on more equal terms. As a result of this action, morale amongst Spanish forces was fatally weakened.
On 29 July, off Gravelines, Medina-Sidonia made heroic and not entirely unsuccessful efforts to re-form his ships before the two fleets engaged in what was to be the final battle. But the English, with greater numbers, now had the advantage, and they pressed it home. The Spaniards lost eleven ships and 2000 men, and the English just fifty men. The action was only abandoned when both sides ran out of ammunition.
Not yet knowing that the English had gained the upper hand, the Queen moved on 30 July to St James’s Palace, where her security could be better assured than at Richmond, and which Lord Hunsdon, who had been designated responsible for the Queen’s security when she was in the capital, immediately surrounded by a cordon of 2000 armed guards. However, Elizabeth was ‘not a whit dismayed’ at her peril.
It was at this time that the wind changed, forcing the Armada northwards, off course, and scattering the remaining galleons. ‘There was never anything pleased me better than seeing the enemy flying with a southerly wind northward,’ wrote a jubilant Drake. Effingham ordered his ships to go after them, but they could not do much more damage because they had again run out of ammunition. In fact, they had no need to do anything further, for the wind – the ‘Protestant’ wind, as people were now calling it, taking it to be a sign from God – and terrible storms were bringing about more destruction than they could realistically have hoped to achieve themselves.
By August, Lord Howard, having pursued the crippled remnants of the Armada as fir north as the Firth of Forth, gave up and returned south, leaving the scattered and broken ships to make their difficult way around the coasts of Scotland, Ireland and Cornwall. ‘Many of them will never see Spain again,’ wrote one English sailor.
Although false reports of victory had prompted premature rejoicing in Spain, by 3 August, when Medina-Sidonia ordered his remaining few ships to return home, it was clear that the Spanish had suffered the most humiliating naval defeat in their history. They had lost two thirds of their men (many dying stranded on remote beaches of wounds and sickness, or slaughtered in Ireland by the Lord Deputy’s men) and forty- four ships, and many more were so badly damaged that they would no longer be seaworthy. The English, on the other hand, had lost only a hundred men, and none of their ships. But Elizabeth was cautious. This ‘tyrannical, proud and brainsick attempt’ would be, she observed in a letter to James VI, ‘the beginning, though not the end, of the ruin of that King [Philip]’.
The Spanish fleet might have been crippled, but there remained a very real threat from Parma and his army, who were poised to cross the Channel, and awaited only a favourable wind.
Expecting an invasion at any moment, Elizabeth, ‘with a masculine spirit’, resolved to accept Leicester’s invitation and go to Tilbury to rally her troops, and thither she was rowed in her state barge from St James’s Palace on 8 August. Her councillors had pleaded with her not to go, fearing her proximity to the expected invaders and raising a host of other objections, but she overrode them, and when she wrote informing Leicester of her determination to visit the camp, he replied, ‘Good, sweet Queen, alter not your purpose if God give you good health. The lodging prepared for Your Majesty is a proper, sweet, cleanly house, the camp within a little mile of it, and your person as sure as at St James’s.’
Escorted by Leicester, who walked bare-headed holding her bridle, and riding a large white gelding ‘attired like an angel bright’, the Queen appeared before her troops in the guise of’some Amazonian empress’ in a white velvet dress with a shining silver cuirass, and preceded by a page carrying her silver helmet on a white cushion and the Earl of Ormonde bearing the sword of state. Leicester had stage-managed the occasion brilliantly, incorporating much pageantry and spectacle. As the tent-flags and pennants fluttered in the breeze, and the drummers and pipers played, the Queen, with tears in her eyes, inspected the immaculate squadrons of foot soldiers, and the well-caparisoned, plumed cavalry, of which Essex was a commander, calling out ‘God bless you all!’ as many fell to their knees and cried aloud, ‘Lord preserve our Queen!’ As she passed, pikes and ensigns were lowered in respect. After a stirring service of intercession, she rode to Edward Ritchie’s manor house at nearby Saffron Garden, where she stayed the night.
On the morning of 9 August, as she returned to the camp, there was a burst of spontaneous applause – ‘the earth and air did sound like thunder’ – and Elizabeth commented that she felt she was ‘in the midst and heat of battle’. When the clamour had died down, the soldiers acted out a mock engagement, after which they paraded before her. Then, ‘most bravely mounted on a most stately steed’, and dressed as ‘an armed Pallas’ with her silver breastplate and a small silver and gold leader’s truncheon in her hand, the Queen again touched their hearts by delivering the most rousing and famous speech of her reign.
‘My loving people,’ she cried,
we have been persuaded by some that are careful of our safety to take heed how we commit ourselves to armed multitudes, for fear of treachery; but I do assure you, I do not desire to live to distrust my faithful and loving people.
Let tyrants fear. I have always so behaved myself that, under God, I have placed my chiefest strength and safeguard in the loyal hearts and goodwill of my subjects, and therefore I am come amongst you, as you see, at this time, not for my recreation and disport, but being resolved in the midst and heat of the battle to live or die amongst you all, to lay down for my God and for my kingdom, and for my people, my honour and my blood, even in the dust.
I know I have the body of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart and stomach of a king, and of a king of England too, and think it foul scorn that Parma or Spain, or any prince of Europe, should dare invade the borders of my realm; to which, rather than any dishonour shall grow by me, I myself will take up arms, I myself will be your general, judge, and rewarder of every one of your virtues.
In the meantime, my Lieutenant General [Leicester] shall be in my stead, than whom never prince commanded a more noble or worthy subject, not doubting but, by your obedience to my general, by your concord in the camp and your valour in the field, we shall shortly have a famous victory over these enemies of God, of my kingdom, and of my people.
At the close of this ‘most excellent oration’, the assembled soldiers ‘all at once a mighty shout or cry did give’. Dr Lionel Sharp, one of the Queen’s chaplains, was commissioned by Leicester to take down the text of her speech, and it was read aloud again the next day, after the Queen had left, to all those who had been out of earshot. Copies were widely circulated, and three decades later, Sharp gave the text to the Duke of Buckingham, whose son had it published in 1654. Leicester was convinced that Elizabeth’s words ‘had so inflamed the hearts of her good subjects, as I think the weakest among them is able to match the proudest Spaniard that dares land in England’.
At noon, as Elizabeth dined with Leicester in his tent, she received word that Parma was due to set sail. The Earl and his captains urged her to return to London for safety, but she protested that she could not in honour do so, having said she would fight and die with her people. Many were moved by her courage, but ‘as night approached nigh’ news arrived that the danger was past, for Parma had refused to venture his army without the backing of the Spanish navy, and Philip had, with a heavy heart, seen the wisdom of this.
He was, naturally, desolated by the defeat, and retreated into his palace of the Escorial near Madrid, seeking to find consolation and understanding in prayer. ‘In spite of everything, His Majesty shows himself determined to carry on the war,’ reported the Venetian ambassador. Philip told his confessor he would fight on and that he was hoping for a miracle from God, but if it was not forthcoming, ‘I hope to die and go to him.’ His people put on mourning clothes, and walked in the streets with heads bent in shame.
‘The Duke of Parma is as a bear robbed of his whelps,’ wrote Drake from Gravelines on 10 August. Making her way back to a triumphal welcome in London, secure in the knowledge that the Armada would not return, Elizabeth’s first consideration was to decommission her ships and dismiss her forces, so that they could go home and bring in the harvest. Only when this had been done could she begin to celebrate England’s great victory and her own triumph.
She had not ‘lost her presence of mind for a single moment’, reported the Venetian ambassador in Paris, ‘nor neglected aught that was necessary for the occasion. Her acuteness in resolving the action, her courage in carrying it out, show her high-spirited desire of glory and her resolve to save her country and herself’
According to Camden, her gratitude towards Leicester led her to have Letters rjatent drawn up appointing him Lieutenant Governor of England and Ireland, a position that would invest him with more power than had ever been granted to an English subject. Burghley, Walsingham and Hatton, however, fearing the consequences of the favourite becoming a virtual viceroy, persuaded the Queen to change her mind, and it appears that Leicester never knew how well she wished to reward him.
Thanks to the thorough preparations made by the government, the intensive training and organisation of troops and resources, the skill of the English commanders, and of course the ‘Protestant’ wind, the mighty Armada had been vanquished, and England had achieved one of the greatest victories in her history.
The camp at Tilbury was disbanded on 17 August, when Leicester rode in triumph back to London ‘with so many gentlemen as if he were a king’, to be greeted by cheering crowds. On the 20th, the Lord Mayor and aldermen of London attended a packed service at St Paul’s to give thanks for the victory.
At the beginning of September, most of the sailors were discharged; money was in desperately short supply and Elizabeth could not even afford to pay the remaining wages due to the men. Few had lost their lives during the fighting, but the poor provisioning of the ships and rations of sour beer had left thousands of sailors ill or dying of typhoid, scurvy or food poisoning in the streets of the Channel ports. Realising that no more money would be forthcoming from the Exchequer, Effingham, Drake and Sir John Hawkins themselves provided wine and arrowroot for their men. The Queen was furious to hear that other captains had squandered money apportioned for their men’s wages, and was ever afterwards prejudiced against sea-captains, but the major blame for her sailors’ plight was undoubtedly hers.
Great national celebrations of the victory were planned. On 26 August, Essex staged a triumphal military review at Whitehall, after which Elizabeth watched with Leicester from a window as the young Earl jousted against the Earl of Cumberland. Leicester, reported one of Mendoza’s spies, had been dining every night with Elizabeth, and had fully regained his former position of power and prestige. But he was a sick man, exhausted by the stresses of the past weeks, and left immediately after the review for Buxton, hoping that the healing waters would restore him.
From Rycote in Oxfordshire, where they had often stayed together as guests of Lord and Lady Norris, he wrote to the Queen on 29 August:
I most humbly beseech Your Majesty to pardon your old servant to be thus bold in sending to know how my gracious lady doth, and what ease of her late pain she finds, being the chiefest thing in the world I do pray for, for her to have good health and long life. For my own poor case, I continue still your medicine, and it amends much better than any other thing that hath been given me. Thus hoping to find a perfect cure at the bath, with the continuance of my wonted prayer for Your Majesty’s most happy preservation, I humbly kiss your foot.
From your old lodgings at Rycote this Thursday morning, by Your Majesty’s most faithful and obedient servant, R. Leicester.
P.S. Even as I had written this much, I received Your Majesty’s token by young Tracy.
His plan was to proceed by slow stages towards Kenilworth, but on the way he was ‘troubled with an ague’ which turned into ‘a continual burning fever’, and was obliged to take to his bed at his hunting lodge in Cornbury Park, near Woodstock. Here he died at four o’clock in the morning on 4 September, with ‘scarce any [one] left to close his eyelids’. Modern medical historians suggest the cause may have been stomach cancer. He was buried beside his little son in the Beauchamp Chapel in the Church of St Mary the Virgin at Warwick, where a fine effigy by Holtemans, portraying Leicester in a coronet and full armour, was later placed on his tomb.
‘He was esteemed a most accomplished courtier, a cunning timeserver, and respecter of his own advantages,’ observed Camden. ‘But whilst he preferred power and greatness before solid virtue, his detracting emulators found large matter to speak reproachfully of him, and even when he was in his most flourishing condition, spared not disgracefully to defame him by libels, not without some untruths. People talked openly in his commendation, but privately he was ill spoke of by the greater part.’
Even after his death the slanders continued. Although a post mortem produced no evidence of foul play the malicious Ben Jonson claimed, without any foundation, that Lettice had poisoned her husband with one of his own deadly potions in order to marry her lover, a tale that many believed, for few mourned his passing, not even the poet Spenser, his former protege, who wrote dismissively:
He now is dead, and all his glories gone. And all his greatness vapoured to nought. His name is worn already out of thought, Ne any poet seeks him to revive, Yet many poets honoured him alive.
‘All men, so far as they durst, rejoiced no less outwardly at his death than for the victory lately obtained against the Spaniard,’ wrote John Stow the antiquarian.
Elizabeth was griefstricken by the loss of Leicester, the man who for thirty years had been closer to her than any other, whom she called ‘her brother and best friend’. In her hour of greatness, she was now plunged into personal sorrow. Walsingham wrote that she was unable to attend to state affairs ‘by reason that she will not suffer anybody to have access unto her, being very much grieved with the death of the Lord Steward’. Mendoza’s agent reported on 17 September, ‘The Queen is sorry for his death, but no other person in the country. She was so grieved that for some days she shut herself in her chamber alone and refused to speak to anyone until the Treasurer and other councillors had the door broken open and entered to see her.’ After that, according to Camden, she ‘either patiently endured or politely dissembled’ her grief.
When the Earl of Shrewsbury wrote congratulating her on her victory and condoling with her on her sad loss, she confided to this ‘very good old man’ that, ‘Although we do accept and acknowledge your careful mind and good will, yet we desire rather to forbear the remembrance thereof as a thing whereof we can admit no comfort, otherwise by submitting our will to God’s inevitable appointment, Who, notwithstanding His goodness by the former prosperous news, hath nevertheless been pleased to keep us in exercise by the loss of a personage so dear unto us.’
Sadly, she re-read Leicester’s letter from Rycote, and then, inscribing it ‘His last letter’, laid it carefully in a little coffer that she kept by her bed. It was found there after her death, and now reposes in the Public Record Office at Kew.
In his will, Leicester left ‘my most dear and gracious sovereign, whose creature under God I have been’, a diamond and emerald pendant and a rope of six hundred beautiful pearls, but he had lived extravagantly and died virtually bankrupt, leaving his widow with debts of 50,000. Half was owed to the Queen, who now had her revenge on Lettice by exacting her dues: in October she ordered a detailed investigation of the late Earl’s financial affairs, took back Kenilworth Castle and all his lands in Warwickshire, and ordered Lettice to auction the contents of his three main residences, Kenilworth, Wanstead and Leicester House. She had no sympathy for the grieving widow, and continued to behave as if Lettice did not exist. Although her marriage appears to have been happy- in his will, Leicester referred to Lettice as ‘a faithful, loving, very obedient, careful wife’ – the Countess, probably for financial security, remarried within a year: her third husband was Sir Christopher Blount, a friend of her son Essex.
The remaining part of Leicester’s estate passed to his ‘base son’, Sir Robert Dudley, which many perceived as a tacit acknowledgement of the boy’s legitimacy. However, Dudley was never able to prove this, and the earldom of Leicester passed to Leicester’s sister’s son, Robert Sidney. Leicester House on the Strand became the property of his stepson, who renamed it Essex House.
Leicester’s death went virtually unnoticed, and certainly unmourned, in the national elation that followed the defeat of the Armada. Elizabeth had to put on a brave face in order to lead the people in their celebrations, but it was noticed, that autumn, that she was ‘much aged and spent, and very melancholy’. When she sat for George Gower, for the famous Armada portrait, she wore Leicester’s pearls, as she would in many subsequent portraits.
With Leicester gone, the task of organising the victory festivities fell to Hatton, Essex and Sir Henry Lee. A medal was struck, bearing the legend, ‘God blew with His winds, and they were scattered’, and proved hugely popular, while Sir Thomas Heneage commissioned Nicholas Hilliard to make the Armada Jewel, which was presented to the Queen, who later gave it back to Heneage. Freed from the fear of reprisals for Mary Stuart’s death, Elizabeth released Sir William Davison from the Tower, remitting his fine the following year and, in 1594, making him a grant of land. She never employed him again, although she permitted him to draw his salary as Secretary up until her death.
On 12 November, the Queen moved her court to Somerset House. The public mood on 17 November, Accession Day, was especially jubilant, and the 19th, St Elizabeth’s Day, was declared an additional public holiday to commemorate the victory, which that year was marked by services of thanksgiving, devotional processions, feasting, tilting, cock-fighting and bonfires.
Godfrey Goodman, the future Bishop of Gloucester, then a child of five living with his family in the Strand, later recalled how suddenly, that November,
there came a report to us, much about five o’clock at night, very dark, that the Queen was gone to Council, and if you will see the Queen, you must come quickly. Then we all ran. When the court gates were set open, the Queen came out in great state. Then we cried, ‘God save Your Majesty!’ The Queen said unto us, ‘You may well have a greater prince, but you may never have a more loving prince.’ And so the Queen departed. This wrought such an impression upon us, for shows and pageants are ever best seen by torchlight, that all the way we did nothing but talk of what an admirable queen she was and how we would venture all our lives to do her service.
The culmination of the celebrations came on Sunday, 26 November, when the Queen, passing through railings hung with blue cloth behind which stood cheering people, came in an elaborate canopied chariot drawn by two white horses to St Paul’s Cathedral to give public thanks for the greatest English victory since Agincourt and acknowledge her debt to God and to Providence. The enormous glittering procession that attended her was such as had not been seen since her coronation, and there were pageants, songs and ballads performed in the City of London in her honour as she passed.
At the west door of the cathedral, Elizabeth alighted from her chariot and fell to her knees, making ‘her hearty prayers to God’ before the huge crowds. Then she passed into the church, which was hung with the captured banners. Later, after the sermon had been preached, she read out a prayer she had herself composed, and addressed the congregation ‘most Christianly’, enjoining them to have gratitude for their glorious deliverance. They responded with a great shout, wishing her a long and happy life, to the confusion of her enemies.
The Queen then went in procession to the nearby bishop’s palace, where she dined with the Bishop of London before returning, ‘by a great light of torches’, to Somerset House.
Elizabeth’s reputation was never greater than at this time, making her the most respected monarch in Christendom. Even her enemies acknowledged her qualities, Pope Sixtus V declaring,
She certainly is a great queen, and were she only a Catholic, she would be our dearly beloved daughter. Just look how well she governs! She is only a woman, only mistress of half an island, and yet she makes herself feared by Spain, by France, by the Empire, by all!
He jested that he wished he were free to marry her: ‘What a wife she would make! What children we would have! They would have ruled the whole world.’ He also praised the courage of Drake – ‘What a great captain!’
It was a time for superlatives. In France and in Italy, as in Rome, Catholics honoured the Queen. Henry III lauded her valour, spirit and prudence, declaring that her victory ‘would compare with the greatest feats of the most illustrious men of past times’. Even the Ottoman sultan sang her praises and made peace with Poland for her sake.
After 1588, the fame of the Virgin Queen spread far and wide, while in England, where her people basked in the reflected glow of victory, her legend grew, giving rise to a new cult figure, . She was more convinced now than ever that God had destined her to rule her people, and that the victory was a signal manifestation of the divine will, and for the rest of her reign, writers and artists would portray the elements bowing to her authority. Her Catholic subjects had proved themselves loyal, and the threat of insurrection had receded, paving the way for more tolerance towards recusants in the future. The conviction of the Protestant majority that God and Providence had intervened in England’s hour of need gave a new stability to the Anglican Church. Above all, there was a surge of national confidence, which led to the flowering of literature and the decorative arts known as the English Renaissance.
A Westminster schoolboy, John Sly, admirably expressed the mood of the English people when, in his text of Julius Caesar’s works (now preserved at Oxford), he repeatedly scribbled the Queen’s name, along with this couplet:
The rose is red, the leaves are green, God save Elizabeth, our noble Queen!
Page 5 of 11
23
After Leicester’s death, Elizabeth turned to Essex, who rapidly assumed the role of chief favourite, moving into his stepfather’s old apartments at court and being constantly in the Queen’s company. Courtiers seeking patronage and favours thronged about him, for they had heard of his ‘forwardness to pleasure his friends’, and he was assiduous in using his influence with the Queen on their behalf. But if, as frequently happened, she turned down his requests, he would sulk, being ‘a great resenter and weak dissembler of the least disgrace’. Elizabeth, whose patience he often strained, enjoined him to be content with his good fortune, but he did not cease his demands, and often threatened to retire from court and live in the country, knowing that she so needed his company that this might bring her to heel.
‘She doth not contradict confidently’, he would say, ‘which they that know the minds of women say is a sign of yielding.’ He thought to manipulate her, but constantly underestimated her formidable intellect and strength of will. However, such was her affection for him that she would invariably forgive him for minor transgressions: this, again, led him to believe that he could do as he pleased with impunity.
Unlike Leicester, he was popular with the people, whom he courted with ‘affable gestures and open doors, making his table and his bed popularly places of audience to suitors’. The Queen soon grew jealous, wishing him to be dependent upon her alone for his success; she wanted no rivals for the people’s affections.
Essex’s old guardian Burghley tried to take the young man under his wing, but Essex was ‘impatient of the slow progress he must needs have during the life and greatness of the Treasurer’, and also resentful of the rising influence of Burghley’s son, Robert Cecil. He desired to reach spectacular heights in the shortest time possible.
At fifty-five, Elizabeth was remarkably healthy. Her leg ulcer had healed and she was as energetic as ever, still dancing six galliards on some mornings, and walking, riding and hunting regularly. Age and victory had invested her with even greater dignity and presence, and when her people saw her pass by in her golden coach, she appeared to them ‘like a goddess’. Essex was clever enough to defer to her as such, conveying to her overtly, and through the subtle symbolism beloved of the age, his love and devotion. ‘I do confess that, as a man, I have been more subject to your natural beauty, than as a subject to the power of a king,’ he told her. Naively, he thought that his influence would in future be unchallenged.
However, he was soon to be disabused of this notion, for in November 1588, the Queen’s eye alighted again upon Sir Charles Blount, son of Lord Mountjoy, a scholarly youth with ‘brown hair, a sweet face, a most neat composure, and tall in his person’, whose skill in the joust brought him to her attention. Impressed, she ‘sent him a golden queen from her set of chessmen’, which he tied to his arm with a crimson ribbon. Observing it, the jealous Essex sneered, ‘Now I perceive that every fool must have a favour.’ The offended Blount challenged him to a duel in Marylebone Park, in which he slashed the Earl in the thigh and disarmed him.
Officially, Elizabeth took a hard line against duelling, but already she was becoming weary of Essex’s high-handedness, and when she heard what had happened, she retorted, ‘By God’s blood, it was fit that someone or other should take him down and treat him better manners, otherwise there will be no rule in him.’ She insisted, however, that she would not allow either man back to court until they had shaken hands, which they did, later becoming devoted friends, despite the fact that Blount remained in favour with the Queen.
Blount, who had fought in the Netherlands and against the Armada, was ambitious to go abroad to seek martial adventures, but Elizabeth would not hear of it, telling him, ‘You will never leave it until you are knocked on the head, as that inconsiderate fellow Sidney was. You shall go when I send you. In the meanwhile, see you lodge in the court, where you may follow your books, read and discourse of the wars.’ In 1589, she appointed him one of her Gentlemen Pensioners.
In December, Essex quarrelled fiercely with Raleigh, and challenged him to a duel, but the Council, in some alarm, forbade it. Despite their efforts at concealment, Elizabeth got to hear of it, and was ‘troubled very much’, but Essex was unconcerned. ‘She takes pleasure in beholding such quarrels among her servants,’ especially when they concerned herself, he informed the French ambassador.
By the spring of 1589, Essex was living well beyond his means and in debt for more than 23,000. When the Queen demanded immediate repayment for a loan, he reminded her that ‘love and kindness’ were more important than money. Relenting, she agreed to give him, in exchange for a manor, the right to all the customs on sweet wines imported into England during the next ten years, which would bring him a sizeable income at public expense.
That spring, determined to break Spain’s naval strength for good and ensure that Philip would never be able to send another Armada against England, Elizabeth decided to dispatch Drake, Sir John Norris and Raleigh, with 150 ships and 20,000 men, on an expedition to Portugal to destroy the remnants of the enemy fleet and, in concert with a rebellion by Portuguese patriots, place Don Antonio, the illegitimate Portuguese pretender, on the throne.
Essex, hoping for rich pickings to clear his debt, was desperate to go, and when, early in April, the Queen, fearing his rashness, forbade it, he defied her and, slipping away from court without leave, rode determinedly to Falmouth, covering 220 miles in less than forty-eight hours. When Elizabeth learned what he had done, Essex was already at sea, having persuaded Sir Roger Williams to let him join his force. Enraged, she dispatched Knollys and Hunsdon in pinnaces to search the Channel for him, and when that proved fruitless, condemned Williams’s behaviour in a furious letter to Drake:
His offence is in so high a degree that the same deserveth to be punished by death. We command that you sequester him from all charge and service, and cause him to be safely kept until you know our further pleasure therein, as you will answer for the contrary at your peril, for as we have authority to rule, so we look to be obeyed. We straitly charge you that you do forthwith cause [Essex] to be sent hither in safe manner. Which, if you do not, you shall look to answer for the same to your smart, for these be no childish actions.
She also wrote to Essex, complaining of his ‘sudden and undutiful departure from our presence and your place of attendance; you may easily conceive how offensive it is unto us. Our great favours bestowed on you without deserts hath drawn you thus to neglect and forget your duty.’
Her letters took two months to reach their destination, and Essex was still with the fleet when it reached Lisbon, where Drake launched an assault but was driven back thanks to the failure of the Portuguese to rise in revolt as planned. Then, ignoring Elizabeth’s express orders, the English made for the Azores, hoping to intercept the Spanish treasure fleet, but were driven back home at the end of June by severe gales. Estimates vary, but between four and eleven thousand men had died of disease, and the Queen was the poorer by 49,000: the expedition had been an unmitigated disaster.
Elizabeth vented her anger on Drake, whom she would not entrust with another such expedition for some time, and also Norris. Raleigh and Essex had fought well at Lisbon, and Essex was now playing the part of a returning hero, but the Queen, aware that Raleigh had distinguished himself more, rewarded him with a medal. She even forgave Essex and Williams for their disobedience, dismissing Essex’s headstrong behaviour as ‘but a sally of youth’, and peace was for a time restored, the court being given over to feasting, hunting and jousting and Essex growing ‘every day more and more in Her Majesty’s gracious conceit’.
But the toils in which she bound him only exacerbated his discontent, prompting him to begin writing secretly to James VI, while his sister, Penelope Rich, told the Scottish King that Essex was ‘exceedingly weary, accounting it a thrall he now lives in’, and wished for a change of monarch. James remained non-committal.
In July came the news that Henry III of France had been assassinated by a fanatical monk, in revenge for his murder of the Duke of Guise. Having no son, he was the last of the Valois dynasty, and was succeeded by his brother-in-law, the Protestant Henry of Navarre, who became Henry IV, the first king of the House of Bourbon.
Philip of Spain immediately put forward a Catholic pretender to the French throne, but Elizabeth, fearing the consequences of this, stood stoutly by the new king. Her dispatch of an army under the gallant Lord Willoughby to Normandy in October, and her continuing financial support over the next five years, undermined the opposition and helped to establish Henry firmly upon his throne.
Worn out with overwork, Sir Francis Walsingham died on 6 April 1590, having almost bankrupted himself in the Queen’s service: he was buried at night in order to foil creditors who might impound his coffin. He had served Elizabeth faithfully, and with a rumoured fifty agents in the courts of Europe, had preserved her from the evil intentions of her Catholic enemies. He was much mourned in England, but ‘it is good news here’, commented Philip of Spain.
Elizabeth did not appoint anyone to co-ordinate Walsingham’s spy network, nor did she immediately replace him; for the next six years, the Secretary’s duties were shouldered by Robert Cecil, whose ability the Queen had come to recognise. Burghley had groomed his son to take over, and was much satisfied by his advancement.
Born in 1563, Robert Cecil had allegedly been dropped by a nursemaid in infancy and consequently had a deformed back and was of short and stunted build. Naunton wrote: ‘For his person, he was not much beholding to Nature, though somewhat for his face, which was his best part.’ The Queen called him her ‘Pigmy’ or her ‘Elf. ‘I mislike not the name only because she gives it,’ Cecil commented, but in fact he resented it, being deeply sensitive about his deformity, of which his enemies cruelly made much.
Being delicate, he had been educated by tutors before going to Cambridge, after which he had served on diplomatic missions in France and the Netherlands, and been elected an MP in 1584. He had a quick intelligence and excellent powers of concentration. As well as being an astute politician he was a gifted administrator with a limitless capacity for hard work, who was often to be seen with ‘his hands full of papers and head full of matter’. ‘A courtier from his cradle’, he had beautifully modulated speech, a charming manner and a good sense of humour. He was not devoid of cunning and was less principled than Burghley. Although she was never as close to him as to his father, the Queen trusted him implicitly.
It now seemed as if Elizabeth, by promoting the son of Burghley and the stepson of Leicester, was trying to recreate the court of her youth, but while Cecil was content to share the limelight with Essex, the latter, aware that he himself was relegated to the role of court favourite, was resentful of Cecil’s political position and determined to undermine it. He saw no reason why he should not fulfil the dual role of favourite and chief political adviser, and never understood why Elizabeth would not allow such ‘domestical greatness’ to be invested in one man.
Essex’s insistence on regarding Cecil as his rival led to the formation of the factions which were to dominate the last years of Elizabeth’s reign and lead to so much squabbling, bribery and opportunism. Essex and his younger followers were avid for military glory and the continuance of the war with Spain, while the faction headed by Cecil and Burghley stood for peace and stability. From 1590 onwards, Essex began building an aristocratic following at court and in the country. Those who had been excluded from office by Cecil, as well as those who agreed that the war against Spain should be aggressively pursued, hastened to offer him their allegiance. He also courted the support of the London Puritans. Cecil, meanwhile, kept a vice-like grip on court appointments and political offices, and in Parliament his father led the House of Lords while he led the Commons.
The Queen, seeing her own generation of friends and councillors gradually disappearing, had to adjust to a court under the influence of a younger, less congenial generation, whose ideas and tastes were unlike her own, and who were becoming increasingly dismissive of the attitudes of their elders. She had also to keep the peace, and preserve a balance between the new factions that had sprung up, a taxing task for a woman moving towards old age.
That summer, the Queen’s progress took her, amongst other places, to Bisham Abbey, where she was entertained by the daughters of Lady Russell, and to Mitcham, Surrey, where her host was Sir Julius Caesar, who presented her with ‘a gown of cloth of silver, richly embroidered; a black network mantle with pure gold, a taffeta hat, white, with several flowers, and a jewel of gold set with rubies and diamonds. Her Majesty removed from my house after dinner, the 13 September, with exceeding good contentment.’
In reality it was a sad time for the Queen. During 1590, death took Ambrose Dudley, Earl of Warwick, Mary Stuart’s former gaoler the Earl of Shrewsbury, and eighty-two-year-old Blanche Parry, Chief Gentlewoman of the Privy Chamber, who had served Elizabeth since her birth.
In the autumn, Elizabeth found out that, back in April, Essex had secretly married Walsingham’s daughter and heiress, Frances, the widow of Sir Philip Sidney. The Queen, thinking Frances not good enough for him with no dowry or beauty to speak of, raged and sulked for two weeks before allowing herself to be persuaded that the Earl had only done what every other man of rank and wealth did, namely, married to beget heirs. Essex himself used every gallant trick in his repertoire to induce her to forgive him, and at length she began to relent.
On Accession Day, 17 November, a black-clad Essex entered the tiltyard at Whitehall in a funeral procession, to symbolise his disgrace, but it was soon obvious to all those watching that the Queen had forgiven him, although she would never agree to receiving Frances as his countess. Two days later he gave a splendid performance in the lists.
This was the last occasion on which the Queen’s Champion, Sir Henry Lee, stage-managed the Accession Day jousts, and to mark it he put on a magnificent pageant of vestal virgins, set to music by John Dowland. Lee then retired to Ditchley Park in Oxfordshire with his mistress, the notorious Anne Vavasour.
Around this time the Queen’s godson, Sir John Harington, foolishly circulated the manuscript of his bawdy translation of the twenty-eighth book of Ariosto’s poem Orlando Furioso amongst the Queen’s maids of honour. Elizabeth, demanding to know what book it was that was provoking such merriment, was shocked when she read it, and declared that it was an improper text for young maidens to read. The ‘saucy poet’ was severely reprimanded and commanded not to come to court again until he had translated Ariosto’s entire work – a monumental commission which would take him the best part of a year.
During 1591, Essex came increasingly under the influence of Francis Bacon, one of the brilliant sons of the late Lord Keeper, whose elder brother Anthony had been working for the last ten years as one of Walsingham’s agents in France and become a friend of Henry IV. Their mother had been Burghley’s sister, but the Lord Treasurer had little time for his nephews, whom he suspected of working to undermine his own son’s influence, and he had consistently refused to extend his patronage to them. This led to a bitter family rift, so it was not surprising that the Bacons should side with the opposing faction.
Francis Bacon was a thirty-year-old lawyer and MP of great erudition, who in his time would publish works of history, philosophy and legal theory. ‘Of middling stature, his countenance had indented with age before he was old; his presence grave and comely,’ wrote the seventeenth-century historian, Arthur Wilson. This future Lord Chancellor was cleverer than both Cecil and Essex, but the Queen never liked him and never appointed him to the high office he deserved. Both Francis and his elder brother Anthony were homosexual, and this may have had something to do with her aversion.
Francis Bacon quickly struck up a rapport with Essex, who soon perceived that, by obtaining advancement for his new friend, he could strike a blow at Cecil. The proud and calculating Bacon in turn saw in what he termed Essex’s ‘rare perfections and virtues’ a means whereby he might use him to achieve political prominence and himself discomfit the Cecils. But it had already been noticed at court that, while Elizabeth might give Essex anything he wanted within reason for himself, she would not allow him to dispense patronage to anyone else, and that those who came to him looking for favours usually went away unsatisfied. It was obvious that she feared he might build up a large affinity of support.
The astute Bacon quickly sized up the situation and sent a letter offering Essex his candid advice, trying to make him see how he must appear to the Queen: ‘A man of a nature not to be ruled; of an estate not founded on his greatness; of a popular reputation; of a military dependence: I demand whether there can be a more dangerous image than this represented to any monarch living, much more to a lady and of Her Majesty’s apprehension.’ He urged Essex to abandon his military ambitions in order to set the Queen’s mind at rest, and seek advancement by peaceful means. It was sensible, sound advice, but the wilful Essex ignored it.
Nor did he do anything to allay Elizabeth’s jealousy of his growing popularity. Not only was the Queen jealous of his rapport with the people, but she could not bear to see him paying attention to other women. Once, when she caught him flirting with Katherine Bridges and Elizabeth Russell, two of her ladies, she shouted at him in disgust, slapped Mistress Bridges (who later became Essex’s mistress), and banished the girls from court for three days. But Essex himself could be jealous too: let the Queen smile upon a rival courtier, and there would be tantrums and sulks.
In May, Elizabeth spent ten days with Burghley at Theobalds, where the Cecil family staged a play in which it was intimated that she should formally appoint Robert, whom she knighted during her visit, to the secretaryship. She failed to take the hint, but three months later admitted him to the Privy Council. It was at this time also that the seventy-year- old Burghley, a martyr to gout, begged leave to retire. Elizabeth merely asked, in jest, if he wished to become a hermit, and refused to let him go on the grounds that he was ‘the chief pillar of the welfare of England’.
During the summer, Raleigh, who as Captain of the Gentlemen Pensioners was sworn to protect the Queen’s ladies and held a key to the Maidens’ Chamber, secretly seduced, or was seduced by, the eldest of the maids of honour, Elizabeth (Bess) Throckmorton, daughter of Sir Nicholas. By July, she had conceived a child, but Bess was not like Raleigh’s other conquests: she began to insist on marriage, although it was certain that the Queen would not have considered her a good enough match for him. That autumn, in great secrecy, Raleigh and Bess Throckmorton were married. Bess remained at court, attending to her duties and doing her best to conceal her pregnancy.
There were still rumbles over the succession, a taboo subject with the Queen which wise men avoided. Elizabeth had a greater aversion than ever now towards naming her successor, fearing that the factions at her court would be easy prey for would-be conspirators. As she grew older, she was apprehensive in case there were moves to replace her with a younger, preferably male, sovereign. Already, several of her courtiers were secretly ingratiating themselves with James of Scotland, the likeliest candidate for the succession. Therefore, that August, when the hotheaded Peter Wentworth, MP, impertinently published a tract entitled A Pithy Exhortation to Her Majesty for Establishing the Succession he was summarily clapped into prison.
That month, the Queen embarked on her greatest progress for years. She visited Farnham, then was the guest of Lord and Lady Montague at Cowdray Castle in Sussex, where her hostess was so overcome by the honour of having the Queen to stay that she threw herself into Elizabeth’s arms and wept, ‘O happy time! O joyful day!’ Here the pageants and novelties in her honour were reminiscent of those staged at Kenilworth sixteen years before. One picnic was laid out on a table forty-eight yards long.
Afterwards, she proceeded to Petworth, Chichester, Titchfield, Portsmouth and Southampton, before returning via Basing and Odiham to Elvetham, Hampshire, where the Earl of Hertford had excelled himself in an attempt to regain the royal favour that he had lost after his marriage to Lady Katherine Grey thirty years earlier. Three hundred workmen had enlarged and adorned the house and erected temporary buildings in the park to accommodate the court. A crescent-shaped lake had been specially dug on the lawn, with three ship-shaped islands with trees for masts, a fort and a Snail Mount, from which guns fired a salute at the Queen’s arrival. It was beside this lake, seated under a green satin canopy, that Elizabeth watched a water pageant, whilst musicians in boats played for her. She stayed four days, during which time there were banquets, dances, games of volleyball (which the Queen ‘graciously deigned’ to watch for ninety minutes), fireworks, songs and allegorical entertainments. When she left, it was raining heavily, and one poet asked, ‘How can summer stay when the sun departs?’ The Queen told Hertford, from her coach, that she would never forget her visit. As she rode out of the park, she saw some musicians playing for her and, ignoring the rain, ‘she stayed her coach’, removed the mask she wore whilst travelling, and gave them ‘great thanks’.
For months now, Henry IV had been sending Elizabeth urgent appeals for aid, for the Spaniards were fighting as allies with the Catholic French forces and had occupied parts of Brittany and Normandy. Elizabeth had stalled, not wishing to involve herself in another costly foreign war. Yet she had no desire to see another threatening Spanish army just the other side of the Channel, and that summer reluctantly consented to send 4000 men to Normandy, although she meant to spend no more money than was absolutely necessary.
Essex had been one of those who had repeatedly urged her to act, and eagerly requested command of her army, but she turned him down. He asked again, but the answer was still no. Even after he begged a third time, pleading with her for two hours, on his knees, with Burghley supporting his pleas, she remained adamant: he was ‘too impetuous to be given the reins’. Only when Henry IV personally intervened did she reluctantly change her mind and say he might go after all, warning Henry that he would ‘require the bridle rather than the spur’. Some believed she could not bear to let him go, nor the thought of him being killed.
Essex landed with his army in France in August and rode to meet King Henry at Compiegne, where he was received with great honour. It soon -became clear that he regarded war as some superior sport: he revelled in his role of commander, exploiting his powers to the full. But he spent the first month doing virtually nothing, waiting for the King to reduce Noyon. Essex was supposed to be besieging Rouen, but could not do that without French assistance. He therefore entertained, held parades and went hawking in enemy territory, needlessly putting himself at risk and earning a rebuke from the Council. The Queen was in a fury of frustration at such a waste of time and money, and the fact that Essex did not see fit to inform her of his plans.
‘Where he is, or what he doth, or what he is to do, we are ignorant!’ she stormed, regretting that she had sent him. Exasperated she ordered him home.
‘I see Your Majesty is content to ruin me,’ he replied with equal heat. Burghley, suspecting that in reality she wanted to see him, commented: ‘God forbid that private respects should overrule public’ The evidence indeed suggests that Elizabeth allowed her heart to override her head on this occasion.
Before Essex left France, he knighted twenty-four of his supporters against her express wishes, a rash act that appeared sinister to those who feared he was building up a power base for his own purposes. From Elizabeth’s point of view, the Crown alone was the fount of honour, and to make new knights so indiscriminately could only debase her prerogative. Burghley tried to shield Essex from her wrath by not telling her what he had done, but she found out all the same, and commented ominously that ‘His Lordship had done well to build his almshouses before he made his knights.’
Yet when Essex returned and exerted his charm, peace was restored, and after a few days, thanks to Burghley’s influence, he was sent back to Rouen to rejoin his troops. From here, he wrote to the Queen:
Most fair, most dear, and most excellent sovereign: the two windows of your Privy Chamber shall be the poles of my sphere, where, as long as Your Majesty will fix to have me, I am fixed and immoveable. While Your Majesty gives me leave to say I love you, my fortune is as my affection, unmatchable. If ever you deny me that liberty, you may end my life, but never shake my constancy, for it is not in your power, as great a queen as you are, to make me love you less.
The campaign ended in disaster. Essex took the town of Gournay ‘rather a jest than a victory’ observed the Queen – but that was all. His army succumbed to disease, and morale was low, three thousand men died of illness or deserted, and his brother was killed in a skirmish. When Elizabeth complained of his lack of progress, Essex, ill with ague, wrote miserably to her, complaining that her unkindness had broken ‘both my heart and my wits’. He had managed to salvage his honour by winning a friendly single combat with the Governor of Rouen, but this was small comfort. When the Queen ordered him to resign his command and return home, he blamed Burghley and Cecil, quite unfairly, for what had happened, believing that they had poisoned Elizabeth’s mind against him.
In November 1591, the Queen visited Ely Place to see her faithful Hatton, who was very ill, administering to him ‘cordial broths with her own hands’. He died shortly afterwards of kidney failure, owing her , 56,000. Some said he had died of a broken heart because Elizabeth had hounded him to the grave, asking for repayment, but this is unlikely. His death plunged her again into grief: it seemed that all those to whom she had been close were being taken from her.
For a time, she was melancholy, obsessed with fearful thoughts of death, hating any word that reminded her of it. Once, when Lord North was acting as her carver, she asked him what was in the covered dish.
‘Madam, it is a coffin,’ he replied, ‘coffin’ being a contemporary word for a raised pie, but one that now moved the Queen to anger.
‘Are you such a fool to give a pie such a name?’ she shouted. Her reaction ‘gave warning to the courtiers not to use any word that mentioned her death’.
Essex returned to England in January 1592. He had hoped to find that his application to be elected Chancellor of Oxford University had been approved, but was furious to learn that Cecil’s candidate, Lord Buckhurst, had been chosen instead. Jealous complaints availed him nothing, so he decided belatedly to take Francis Bacon’s advice and aim for high political office, with a view to breaking the hold on power enjoyed by the Cecils.
When, the following month, Anthony Bacon returned from France, Essex enlisted his support. Anthony was a difficult individual whose uncertain temper was aggravated by arthritis, yet he was more than willing to use his considerable talents in Essex’s service. It was decided that he would help the Earl to build up his own intelligence network, hoping thereby to impress upon the Queen that, being so well informed, Essex deserved political credibility and must be taken seriously. Essex also began courting the favour of the Protestant Henry IV.
But it was not enough: he craved attention and excitement. By March, he was hanging irritably around the court, ‘wholly inflamed with the desire to be doing somewhat’, only to be told by Francis Bacon that he should be working towards becoming ‘a great man in the state’ rather than hankering after the military glory which constantly seemed to evade him. With so many of the Queen’s advisers having died, there would surely now be an opening for him, and he should capitalise on this.
Bess Throckmorton had invented a pretext to secure leave of absence from court in February, and, seeking refuge in her brother’s house, gave birth to a son in March. For some time now, her thickening figure had given rise to rumours at court, some of them pinpointing with deadly accuracy the father of her child. But Raleigh denied it, declaring, ‘There is none on the face of the Earth I would be fastened unto.’
In April, Bess returned to court, where it could easily be observed that she had dramatically lost weight. The rumours became more insistent, until in May Raleigh’s ‘brutish offence’ became known to the Queen, who, as one courtier wrote, was ‘most fiercely incensed and threatens the most bitter punishment to both the offenders. S.W.R. will lose, it is thought, all his places and preferments at court, with the Queen’s favour; such will be the end of his speedy rising, and now he must fall as low as he was high, at which the many may rejoice.’
Raleigh was away at sea, harrying Spanish ships at Panama, but he was ‘speedily sent for and brought back’ in the deepest disgrace, having committed the unforgivable crime of duping his sovereign, seducing a noble virgin committed to her care, and marrying without royal consent – the last two being punishable offences. Worse still was Elizabeth’s||
bitter sense of betrayal, for Raleigh had for a decade been one of her chief favourites, and this marriage seemed to mock all his protestations of devotion to her.
In June, Elizabeth sent him and Bess to the Tower, where they were lodged in separate apartments. Raleigh was not strictly kept: he was allowed to walk in the gardens and probably managed to see his wife, but he was desperate to be free and did everything in his power to achieve that.
On July, being told that Elizabeth was about to leave London to go on progress, he wrote to Cecil:
My heart was never broken until this day that I hear the Queen goes so far off, whom I have followed so many years with so great love and desire in so many journeys, and am now left behind her in a dark prison all alone. While she was yet at hand, so that I might hear of her once in two or three days, my sorrows were less, but even now my heart is cast into the depths of misery. I that was wont to behold her riding like Alexander, hunting like Diana, walking like Venus, the gentle wind blowing her fair hair about her pure cheeks like a nymph; sometimes sitting in the shade like a goddess, sometimes singing like an angel, sometimes playing like Orpheus.Behold the sorrow of this world! One amiss has bereaved me of all. She is gone in whom I trusted, and for me has not one thought of mercy. Yours, not worth any name or title, W.R.
Later that day, learning that the Queen’s barge would be passing the Tower, he begged the Lieutenant, his cousin Sir George Carew, to row him out on the Thames so that he could see her and hopefully attract her attention, but the Lieutenant did not dare. Carew later reported to the Queen that Raleigh tried to kill himself at this point, and was only prevented from doing so by another official, who wrenched the dagger out of his grip, cutting his own hand in the process. Carew also warned Elizabeth that Raleigh would go insane if she did not forgive him, but she remained unmoved.
Raleigh was not to remain in the Tower for long. Early in August, a captured Spanish treasure ship was brought into Dartmouth carrying jewels worth – 800,000. Most was appropriated by English sailors and local people, and when the Earl of Cumberland arrived to claim the Queen’s share, there was a riot. Knowing that Raleigh was the only man capable of restoring order and ensuring that the treasure was fairly apportioned, the Queen agreed to his release. When he arrived at Dartmouth, he received a rapturous welcome from the sailors, but by then most of the jewels had disappeared. However, he managed to salvage Elizabeth’s portion, but only at the expense of other investors, including himself.
Elizabeth allowed Raleigh to remain at liberty, but barred him from the court. Nor did her displeasure abate, for he was obliged to live quietly, ‘like a fish cast on dry land’, for the next five years at Sherborne Castle, the Devon property granted him by the Queen the previous January. Bess, who would prove a domineering wife, joined him there after her release in December.
A mysterious portrait by Marcus Gheeraerts the Younger in the National Maritime Museum is thought to illustrate Raleigh’s disgrace. Recent cleaning has revealed that this portrait of a man was overpainted to look like Raleigh, and has also uncovered the tiny figure of a woman in the background, with her back turned to the sitter. She wears a coronet over her red hair and a chain of office around her neck, and holds a feather fan, and it would be reasonable to assume that this is the Queen herself, shunning Sir Walter in her displeasure. Essex was among the many who gloated over the fall of Raleigh, which removed one of his greatest rivals.
Whilst the Queen was on progress that summer, England experienced the worst visitation of the plague for many years. In order to avoid London, she travelled west to Sudeley Castle in Gloucestershire and then towards Bath. She had by now forgiven Harington for Orlando Furioso, and visited him at Kelston, near Bath, where he humbly presented her with a beautifully bound copy of his completed translation.
Elizabeth was in her element. One German visitor observed that she need not ‘yield much to a girl of sixteen’, either in looks or vigour. In September, she visited Oxford again, where she replied in extempore Latin to the loyal speeches made to her, watched the presentation of honorary degrees, and attended debates, sermons, lectures, dinners and three rather dull comedies. On the final day of her visit, she delivered a parting address, saying, ‘If I had a thousand tongues instead of one, I would not be able to express my thanks.’ Then, noticing that poor Burghley was having difficulty in standing, she broke off and ordered that a stool be brought. ‘If I have always undertaken the care of your bodies, shall I neglect your minds?’ she concluded. ‘God forbid!’
On Shotover Hill, looking back on the city, she said, ‘Farewell, farewell, dear Oxford! God bless thee and increase thy sons in number, holiness and virtue.’ She then travelled to Rycote to stay with her old friends, Lord and Lady Norris.
At New Year, the court was diverted with masques and other novelties. By February 1593, Essex’s intelligence service was well established, and the Queen was so impressed with it that she at last appointed him a Privy Councillor, at the youthful age of twenty-seven. He could now play his part as a statesman, and he did it diligently, attending every Council meeting and co-operating with his rivals for the benefit of the state. ‘His Lordship is become a new man’, wrote a colleague, ‘clean forsaking all his former youthful tricks, carrying himself with honourable gravity, and singularly liked for his speeches and judgement.’ Where a knowledge of foreign affairs was concerned, there were few to match him. But being Essex, he was determined to exploit his position, and virtually bankrupted himself in extending his patronage.
When the post of Attorney-General, which was in the Queen’s gift, became vacant in April, he exerted his influence to secure it for Francis Bacon. But Bacon had recently challenged the granting of a subsidy to the Crown in Parliament, and Elizabeth was not at all pleased with him. When Essex put his name forward, she erupted in fury and barred Bacon from her presence.
For several months, Essex did all in his power to win her round, believing that ‘there is not so much gotten of the Queen by earnestness as by often soliciting’, yet despite all his arguments and pleas, she insisted that the irascible Sir Edward Coke, now Solicitor-General, was a better lawyer than Bacon, and remained ‘stiff in her opinion’, often being too busy or ‘wayward’ to discuss the matter. She told the importunate Earl that ‘she would be advised by those that had more judgement in these things’, and he told Bacon that, during one argument, ‘She bade me go to bed if I could talk of nothing else. In passion I went away. Tomorrow I will go to her. On Thursday, I will write an expostulating letter.’
Philip of Spain had not abandoned his dream of conquering England for the Catholic faith and, having almost rebuilt his navy, ‘breathed nothing but bloody revenge’. England stood again in danger of invasion, but a confident Elizabeth told Parliament,
I fear not all his threatenings. His great preparations and mighty forces do not stir me. For though he come against me with a greater power than ever was, I doubt not but, God assisting me, I shall be able to defeat and overthrow him. For my cause is just, and it standeth upon a sure foundation – that I shall not fail, God assisting the quarrel of the righteous.
Parliament duly voted her a treble subsidy, for which she gave them ‘as great thanks as ever prince gave to loving subjects’. When winds prevented the Spanish fleet from sailing that summer, Elizabeth put it down to the elements being in her favour, perceiving the workings of Divine Providence in such good fortune.
In July, Elizabeth was horrified to learn that her ally, Henry IV, in order to establish himself more securely on the French throne, had converted to the Roman Catholic faith, declaring that ‘Paris is worth a mass.’ She wrote to him: ‘Ah, what griefs, what regret, what groanings I feel in my soul at the sound of such news! It is dangerous to do ill that good may come of it, yet I hope that sounder inspiration shall come to you.’ Her fears were allayed when he reissued his edicts of religious tolerance, and she did not cease to support him in his conflict with Spain, the happy outcome of which could only benefit England.
That summer saw an even worse epidemic of plague than the previous year. The London theatres were closed, and, apart from brief visits to Sutton Place in Surrey, and Parham Park and Cowdray Park in Sussex, the Queen remained mainly at Windsor until Christmas. Here she celebrated her sixtieth birthday and spent her time translating Boethius, mostly in her own hand, in just twelve days. Her secretary informed her that, out of the twenty-five days between 10 October and 5 November, are to be taken four Sundays, three other holidays, and six days on which Your Majesty did ride abroad to take the air, and on those days did forbear to translate, amounting together to thirteen days. Then remaineth but twelve days. Accounting two hours bestowed every day, the computation falleth out that in twenty-four hours Your Majesty began and ended your translation.
The manuscript survives, in a haphazard scrawl, with inconsistent spelling, and corrections by the Queen.
Winter came, and the Queen still prevaricated over appointing a new Attorney-General. Essex continued to importune her to choose Bacon, but she was determined to make her own choice; if she did not establish firm control over Essex, people would think that advancing age was diminishing her powers. So she ignored his tears of frustration, and endured when he stayed away from court in the hope that his absence would sway her. None of this made for a happy atmosphere, for when he returned she berated him with tirades and great oaths for leaving her. Then there would be an emotional reconciliation, and all would be well until the subject was raised again.
Early in 1594, Burghley begged the Queen to reach a decision as to who was to be Attorney-General. Essex had provoked him, asserting, ‘I will spend all my power, might, authority and amity, and with tooth and nail defend and procure the same for Bacon.’ And so the matter dragged on.
Elizabeth celebrated the New Year at Whitehall, watching a play and some dances until one o’clock in the morning from a luxurious high throne, with Essex, her ‘wild horse’, standing by. Anthony Standen, an elderly courtier, saw her often speak to the Earl and caress him ‘in sweet and favourable manner’, and gallantly remarked that ‘she was as beautiful to my old sight as ever I saw her’. It had, however, been a stressful day, for Essex had uncovered a plot against the Queen, and the principal offender, someone very close to her, had just been arrested.
Roderigo Lopez was a Portuguese Jew, who had fled to England to escape the Inquisition in 1559, converted to Christianity, and set up a medical practice in London which had flourished. In time, he became senior doctor at St Bartholemew’s Hospital, and men like Leicester, Walsingham and Essex became his patients. In 1586 he had been appointed chief physician to the Queen.
Because he was a Jew, Lopez was not popular: rumour credited him with having provided Leicester with poisons, and jealous rivals denigrated his undoubted skill as a physician. He had many enemies, among them Essex, whose spy he had refused to become and whose intimate physical shortcomings, confided to him as a doctor, he is said to have leaked. Elizabeth paid no attention to this and, thanks to her favour and his mounting wealth, Lopez could afford to ignore it also.
Essex was now the leader of the anti-Spanish, pro-war party at court. He had cultivated the Portuguese pretender, Don Antonio, then living in England, with a view to using him in intrigues against Spain. Knowing that King Philip wanted Don Antonio assassinated, Essex assigned Anthony Bacon to protect him, and it was Bacon who discovered that one Esteban Ferreira, a disaffected Portuguese supporter who had lost all in Don Antonio’s cause, was not only living in Dr Lopez’s house in Holborn, but was secretly in the pay of the Spaniards and conspiring against the pretender.
Essex informed the Queen of this, and she ordered Ferreira’s arrest. Dr Lopez pleaded for his release, saying that Don Antonio had treated the man badly and that Ferreira had in fact been working for peace between England and Spain, but the Queen showed her ‘dislike and disallowance’ of this suggestion, and terminated the interview.
Two weeks later, another Portuguese connected with Dr Lopez, Gomez d’Avila, was arrested as a suspected spy at Sandwich. Ferreira warned Lopez that, if arrested, Gomez might incriminate them, and Lopez replied that he had thrice tried to prevent Gomez from coming to England. These letters were intercepted by Essex’s spies.
Informed that Lopez had betrayed him, Ferreira swore that Lopez had been in the pay of Spain for years. Gomez, threatened with the rack, confessed that they had all been involved in a plot against Don Antonio. Another Portuguese, Tinoco, revealed to Essex under interrogation that the Jesuits in Spain had sent him to England to help Ferreira persuade Lopez to work for King Philip. Essex, almost paranoid where Spain was concerned, suspected that the subtext to these confessions was a plot against the Queen’s life.
This led to Lopez’s arrest on 1 January. He was confined in Essex House (formerly Leicester House), while his own house was searched. Nothing incriminating was found, and when he was examined by Burghley, Cecil and Essex, he gave convincing answers. Burghley and Cecil went to Hampton Court to tell the Queen they were certain that the man who had served her devotedly for years was innocent, and that the whole episode had been blown up out of proportion by Essex in an attempt to whip up popular support for a new offensive against Spain.
Essex was convinced otherwise, but when he went to the Queen, she accused him of acting out of malice, calling him ‘a rash and temerarious youth to enter into the matter against the poor man, which he could not prove, but whose innocence she knew well enough’. Silencing him with a gesture, she dismissed him. He spent the next two days prostrate with fury and humiliation, then rallied, determined for honour’s sake to prove that he was right and score a point against the Cecils. He had Lopez moved to the Tower and, hardly pausing to eat or sleep, interrogated the other suspects a second time. Under torture, or the threat of it, they insisted that the doctor was involved in the plot, and had agreed to poison the Queen for 50,000 crowns. This was the evidence which Essex was looking for, and on 28 January he wrote to Anthony Bacon: ‘I have discovered a most dangerous and desperate treason. The point of conspiracy was Her Majesty’s death. The executioner should have been Dr Lopez; the manner poison.’
His claim was lent credence by Tinoco’s statement that, three years before, King Philip had sent Lopez a diamond and ruby ring. The Queen recalled that the doctor had offered her such a ring at that time, which she had refused. Lopez had firmly denied everything, but when faced with the Queen’s testimony about the ring, admitted that in 1587, at Walsingham’s behest, he had agreed to his name being used in a plot orchestrated by former ambassador Mendoza against Don Antonio, but only to deceive King Philip. Walsingham was of course dead, and could not corroborate this lame-sounding explanation, and it cost Lopez the support of the Cecils. There is, though, no reason to doubt that during Walsingham’s lifetime Lopez acted for him as a secret agent. Indeed, papers discovered more recently in the Spanish archives substantiate his story and suggest he was indeed innocent, although the truth will probably never be fully known.
Worn down and terrified, the old man gave in, confessing to all kinds of improbable plots and sealing his fate. In February, he, Ferreira and Tinoco were arraigned for treason and sentenced to death. The people, outraged at this latest evidence of Spanish treachery, were in no doubt as to the guilt of the Jew and his accomplices, but the Queen was much troubled, fearing that her judges had convicted an innocent man simply to preserve Essex’s honour: it would be four months before she could steel herself to sign Lopez’s death warrant.
At Hampton Court, Elizabeth grew restless, wondering whether she might not be better off at Windsor. Several times she gave orders to pack in readiness for a move, and as many times changed her mind. After being summoned for the third time, the carter hired to transport Her Majesty’s belongings was disgruntled to be sent away yet again.
‘Now I see that the Queen is a woman as well as my wife,’ he sighed, but Elizabeth had heard him through her window and put her head out, laughing.
‘What a villain is this!’ she cried, then sent him three gold coins to ‘stop his mouth’. Soon afterwards, she decided to move to Nonsuch, where, on 26 March, she finally appointed Coke Attorney-General, much to the dismay of Essex, who interpreted this as a victory for the Cecils. However, he immediately suggested that Francis Bacon be given the vacated post of Solicitor-General. Elizabeth told him that she could not promote a man she disapproved of just because he, Essex, asked her to, whereupon he stalked off’in passion, saying I would retire till I might be more graciously heard’. In fact, the Queen did not appoint a new Solicitor-General for eighteen months, during which time Essex relentlessly pursued his suit, precipitating endless quarrels and reconciliations. Bacon’s mother felt that ‘the Earl marred all by violent courses’, but there were times when the Queen appeared to be wavering, as when she opined to Fulke Greville that ‘Bacon begins to frame very well’. For both her and Essex, however, this was a test of whose will was the strongest, and neither were prepared to give in.
On 7 June, before a howling, jeering mob, Lopez and his alleged accomplices were hanged, drawn and quartered at Tyburn, Lopez protesting to the last that he loved his mistress better than Jesus Christ. The Queen, concerned at what Essex’s power had wrought and still not wholly convinced of Lopez’s guilt, returned some of the dead man’s forfeited property to his widow and daughter, retaining only King Philip’s ring, which she wore on her finger until she died.
It was a terrible summer. Rain fell ceaselessly, ruining the harvest, which in Tudor times meant a dearth that would inexorably lead to famine and inflated prices.
In July, Elizabeth gave Essex , 4000 to defray his debts, saying, ‘Look to thyself, good Essex, and be wise to help thyself without giving thy enemies advantage, and my hand shall be readier to help thee than any other.’ Yet when it came to favours for his friends, she would give him nothing. He had, however, grown in prestige as a statesman, and also increased his popularity with the people. James VI was now his friend, and English ambassadors abroad would send him separate reports of international affairs. He employed four secretaries to deal with his correspondence, while his spies kept him supplied with confidential and often useful information.
There was one moment of panic, however. In Antwerp, an inflammatory book entitled A Conference about the Next Succession to the Crown of England had been printed, and its author, the Jesuit Robert Parsons, had dedicated it to ‘the Most Noble Earl of Essex, for that no man is in more high and eminent dignity at this day in our realm’. The book discussed the claims of all Elizabeth’s possible successors, and called on Essex to play the part of kingmaker on her death. Knowing Elizabeth’s views on any speculation about the succession, Essex was highly embarrassed to have his name associated with such a subversive work, and by the suggestion that he should determine a matter that was strictly a-question of royal prerogative, and was ‘infinitely troubled’. When the Queen showed him the book, he greatly feared her reaction, but, much to his relief, she made little of it, realising that he had been the victim of a Catholic attempt to discredit him.
The following summer brought a return of the wet weather, and there was a second poor harvest, which resulted in a worse famine that winter. Many people died, and the buoyant mood that had marked the period after the Armada rapidly disintegrated.
In July 1595, four Spanish ships made a daring raid on Cornwall, burning Penzance and sacking the village of Mousehole. Alarmed by this, Queen and Council ordered that England’s coastal defences be strengthened.
Elizabeth was still resisting intense pressure from Essex to appoint Francis Bacon Solicitor-General. Provoked beyond endurance, she screamed that she would ‘seek all England for a solicitor’ rather than accept the man, and in October, she slighted Bacon by appointing a little-known lawyer, Thomas Fleming, to the post. Essex was devastated, and unfairly blamed the Cecils who had in fact supported Bacon, but even he realised that there was no point in putting his friend forward for any other major offices, and by way of compensation, he made over to Bacon some property, which Bacon sold for _ i 800.
Accession Day, 17 November, was marked by the usual splendid jousts and celebrations at Whitehall. The Queen entertained the Dutch ambassador in the gallery, and discussed with him a new offensive against Spain whilst smiling and nodding to the watching crowd and the knights jousting below.
As usual Essex took centre stage in the tiltyard, but this year, in the evening, he put on an allegorical entertainment devised by Francis Bacon, in which three actors representing a soldier (Raleigh), a hunchbacked secretary (Cecil) and an aged hermit (Burghley) asked him ‘to leave his vain following of love’ for a goddess and choose a life either of experience, fame or contemplation. Then an actor dressed as his squire declared ‘that this knight would never forsake his mistress’s love, whose virtues made all his thoughts divine, whose wisdom taught him true policy, whose beauty and worth were at all times able to make him fit to command armies’. Here was a heavy hint, if ever there was one, but Elizabeth chose to ignore it.
The entertainment ended with Essex forsaking the goddess to devote himself to Love by serving his Queen; in his final speech, he made several vicious thrusts at the Cecils. ‘My Lord of Essex’s device is much commended in these late triumphs,’ observed a spectator, but Elizabeth herself commented that, ‘if she had thought there had been so much said of her, she would not have been there that night’.
Drake was now back in favour, and had suggested a further raid on Panama, in the hope of diverting King Philip and, of course, seizing more Spanish treasure, and the Queen agreed to this. But England’s hero never came home: when his fleet returned, having achieved nothing, in the spring of 1596, it brought with it news of his death from dysentery on 29 January at Panama, where he was buried at sea.
By 1596, Cecil had become ‘the greatest councillor of England, the Queen passing most of the day in private and secret conference with him’. Essex, however, was becoming bored with state duties, and people noticed that ‘His Lordship is wearied and scorneth the dissembling courses of this place.’ He was yearning for adventure and martial achievement.
His longings were to be fulfilled, for that spring Elizabeth, anticipating that Philip would send his new Armada in the summer, was preparing for an English expedition to destroy Philip’s new fleet. She, Essex and Effingham were the chief investors, helping to provide 150 ships and 10,000 men. Elizabeth herself contributed , 50,000.
The eager Essex was the obvious choice to command the expedition, but Elizabeth, as usual, was ‘daily in a change of humour’, even threatening to call off the whole thing. ‘The Queen wrangles with our action for no cause but because it is in hand,’ complained the Earl. ‘I know I shall never do her service but against her will.’ He had laboured hard to persuade her to agree to this enterprise, but if she continued to behave like this, he vowed he would ‘become a monk upon an hour’s warning’.
In March, the Queen, with poor grace, agreed to appoint Essex and Lord Howard of Effingham joint commanders, and Essex, in such a good mood that he had even set aside his enmity towards the Cecils, went happily off to Plymouth to take charge of the fleet and muster his men. Then, on 16 May, came a message: having heard the alarming news that a Spanish army had occupied Calais, the Queen required both Essex and Lord Howard to return to her presence, ‘they being so dear unto her and such persons of note, as she could not allow of their going’. This caused an uproar, both at court and in Plymouth, but the Queen, who had worked herself into a frenzy of anxiety, ignored the protests. Essex had forced her to send this expedition against her will, she protested. Burghley tried to calm her, but matters were made worse when Raleigh, newly returned from a voyage to Guiana, suddenly appeared at court, begging forgiveness and asking to be appointed supreme commander above Essex and Howard.
When Elizabeth had recovered from these confrontations, she was persuaded that the expedition had the best chance of success if Essex and Howard were allowed to remain as joint commanders, and she reluctantly agreed to this, grudgingly appointing Raleigh Rear Admiral.
Essex was so relieved he made peace with Raleigh, telling him, ‘This is the action and the time in which you and I shall both be taught to know and love one another.’
Soon, all was ready, and an anxious Elizabeth sent Fulke Greville to Plymouth with a farewell letter for Essex: ‘I make this humble bill of request to Him that all makes and does, that with His benign hand He will shadow you so, as all harm may light beside you, and all that may be best hap to your share; that your return may make you better, and me gladder. Go you in God’s blessed name.’ There was also a humorous note from Cecil: ‘The Queen says, because you are poor, she sends you five shillings.’ Enclosed was a prayer composed by Elizabeth to be read aloud to her troops: ‘May God speed the victory, with least loss of English blood.’ This boosted morale tremendously, and Essex wrote, ‘It would please Her Majesty well to see th’effect of her own words.’
Lord Hunsdon’s death that spring had plunged his cousin the Queen into a melancholy mood. Around this time, she promoted Essex’s friend, Sir Thomas Egerton, an excellent and experienced lawyer, to be Lord Keeper of the Great Seal, an office that was revived whenever there was no Lord Chancellor. His seals of office were handed to him by the Queen in a ceremony in the Privy Chamber. Elizabeth appeared in a gold satin gown edged with silver, and stood beneath her canopy of estate on a rich Turkey carpet. She observed to Egerton that she had begun with a Lord Keeper, Sir Nicholas Bacon – ‘and he was a wise man, I tell you’ – and would end with a Lord Keeper.
‘God forbid, Madam,’ cut in Burghley, who was present, seated in a chair because of his gout. ‘I hope you shall bury four or five more.’
‘No, this is the last,’ said Elizabeth, and burst into tears at the prospect of encroaching mortality. The embarrassed Egerton hastily agreed that Bacon had indeed been a wise man, but Elizabeth only cried more loudly, ‘clapping her hand to her heart’. Then, turning to go to her bedchamber, she paused, remembering that Burghley would have to be carried from the audience in his chair and said briskly, ‘None of the Lord Treasurer’s men will come to fetch him so long as I am here. Therefore I will be gone.’
When she reached the door, she remembered that Egerton had not taken the customary oath of allegiance required by his office, and, still weeping, cried, ‘He will never be an honest man until he be sworn. Swear him! Swear him!’
On 3 June, Elizabeth formally appointed Cecil Secretary of State, a post he had filled in all but name since 1590. On the same day, the expedition sailed for Spain, where, the following month, Essex carried out a daring and highly successful raid on the rich port of Cadiz, ‘the Pearl of Andalusia’, where some of Philip’s ships were being kept in readiness for the invasion of England. Taken unawares, Spanish forces in the area could do little, and for two weeks, English troops ransacked and burned the town, mostly ignoring Essex’s orders to spare its churches and religious houses. ‘If any man had a desire to see Hell itself, it was then most lively figured,’ observed Raleigh, who particularly distinguished himself during the fighting, although he was severely wounded in the leg and had to walk with a stick for some time afterwards. It was, in fact, he who had made some of the critical decisions that had ensured success, but as his rival Essex was determined to take all the credit himself, Raleigh’s praises remained unsung. Predictably, the reconciliation between the two did not long survive Cadiz.
When Elizabeth received the first reports of the victory, she wrote to Essex, ‘You have made me famous, dreadful and renowned, not more for your victory than for your courage. Let the army know I care not so much for being Queen, as that I am sovereign of such subjects.’
Flushed with success, Essex botched the ransoming of a Spanish merchant fleet trapped in the harbour; its owners decided to burn their ships rather than lose the twenty million ducats on board to the English. Undaunted, Essex decided that, rather than go on to attack Lisbon where the bulk of Philip’s Armada lay, his forces should try to intercept the Spanish treasure fleet as it left port, bound for the Indies, but his colleagues overruled him, thereby depriving the English of the chance to seize thousands of pounds worth of booty. To make matters worse, Essex gave most of the loot from Cadiz to his men, rather than reserving it for the Queen.
Essex had at last achieved his ambition and proved himself a hero, and when he returned to England, sporting a newly-grown spade-shaped beard, it was to the acclaim of a grateful, adoring nation, who saw in him a second Drake or Scipio: ‘He took a charter of the people’s hearts which was never cancelled.’ Preachers praised him as a champion of Protestantism, and spoke of his honour, justice and wisdom. There was no doubt that he was the most popular and important man in the kingdom.
Page 6 of 11
Chapter 24
Elizabeth shared the public’s jubilation over Cadiz, which further enhanced her reputation in Europe – the Venetians were now calling her ‘the Queen of the Seas’ – but she was more concerned about cost than glory, and when Essex returned she did not heap praises and thanks on him, as he expected, but sourly asked him to account for his expenditure, desiring to know what ‘great profit and gain’ she was to get on her investment. Essex was forced to admit what she already knew, that there was none; in fact, more money was needed to pay his men. Elizabeth snapped that she had known everyone but herself would make a profit, and reluctantly loaned Essex ,2000 for wages, demanding that he pay it all back.
It was not only money that caused her irritation. She was also jealous of Essex’s success and his all-too-evident popularity with her subjects. It made her feel insecure, for, given his instability, he could, under the influence of her enemies, prove dangerous when he commanded such support. She would not allow him to publish a pamphlet describing his heroic exploits, and when someone suggested that services of thanksgiving be held all over the country, she insisted that they take place in London only. She could not bear to hear people praising him, and made derogatory remarks in Council about his military strategies.
Essex bore it all patiently. ‘I have a crabbed fortune that gives me no quiet’, he wrote to Anthony Bacon, ‘and the sour food I am fain still to digest may breed some humours. I assure you I am much distasted with the glorious greatness of a favourite.’ But as it became clear to the Queen that it was not Essex’s fault that the fleet had returned empty-handed, she softened somewhat, although when Burghley opposed a suggestion in Council that Essex should forfeit some of his profits from Cadiz, she berated him, shouting, ‘My Lord Treasurer, either for fear or favour, you regard my Lord of Essex more than myself. You are a miscreant!
You are a coward!’ Burghley had suffered such outbursts before, but they never failed to shake him, and he confided to Essex that he was between Scylla and Charybdis, ‘daily decaying’. ‘God be thanked!’ said Anthony Bacon, who hated Burghley, though Essex wrote to the old man to express his sympathy. Nevertheless, his old rivalry with the Cecils had resurfaced, and was to become even stronger than before; the French ambassador noted that, ‘It was a thing notorious to all the court; a man who was of the Lord Treasurer’s party was sure to be among the enemies of the Earl.’
Essex now dominated both Queen and Council and was energetically involved in every aspect of state policy. The public regarded him with adulation as a near-legendary hero, and crowds gathered whenever he appeared. One poet referred to him at this time as ‘Great England’s glory and the world’s wide wonder’. Of course, it went to his head, and Francis Bacon warned him that he must do his utmost not to trespass on the royal prerogative and assure the Queen of his utter loyalty. He should abandon martial pursuits and faction fights in favour of devoting himself to his conciliar duties, and should ask the Queen to appoint him to the vacant office of Lord Privy Seal, which carried ‘a kind of superintendence over the Secretary’. But Essex, impulsive and headstrong as ever, was incapable of taking wise advice. Although he declared he had ‘no ambition but Her Majesty’s gracious favour and the reputation of well serving her’, how could he, the renowned conqueror, ever confine himself to a civilian role?
Meanwhile, King Philip, indignant at the sack of Cadiz, declared his ‘violent resolution’ to be revenged upon the English, and ordered the building of more ships with the aim of sending an even greater Armada than in 1588.
For the third year running, there was excessive summer rainfall resulting in bad harvests and ‘dearth’. Food prices were high and there was growing discontent and even rioting. Elizabeth ordered that her government bring in emergency measures to provide food for the poor, but that winter people were dying in the streets. Wednesdays and Fridays were declared fast days, when the wealthy were asked to forego their suppers, donating the money saved to the relief of their parish.
Discharged soldiers and sailors had swelled the labour market, and trade was going into a recession. There were fears that law and order were breaking down, and local JPs spoke out against the violent gangs of vagrants who terrorised many areas.
Sir John Harington was in disgrace yet again, not only because of his womanising, but for having written a book, The Metamorphosis of A ax, the title of which was a pun on his new invention, the water closet or ‘Jakes’. Knowing that the Queen was fastidious about smells, he had presented her with a copy of the book, advising her to have his device installed in Richmond Palace. Elizabeth took offence, not because of the book’s scatalogical detail, but because it contained witty and sometimes libellous references to several public figures, among them Leicester, whose memory she would not see sullied. She refused to grant Harington a licence to publish the book, but he defied her, and within a year it had sold out three editions. This resulted in him once more being banished from court.
Harington went to fight in Ireland, whence he wrote to Elizabeth, pleading for forgiveness. His cousin informed him, ‘The Queen is minded to take you to her favour, but she sweareth that she believes you will make epigrams on her and on all her court. She hath been heard to say, “That merry poet, my godson, must not come to Greenwich till he hath grown sober and leaveth the ladies’ sports and follies.'”
Expecting the Spanish to invade in the summer, Essex put pressure on the Queen early in 1597 to send another expedition. She was amenable, but indecisive as to what form the attack should take and who should command it.
In February, when Essex gave out that he was ill, Elizabeth rushed to his bedside. This effected a miraculous recovery, which was, strangely, followed by a relapse, attributed by many to the Queen’s insistence that he share command of the fleet with Raleigh. For a fortnight he lay in his chamber, while Elizabeth appeared agitated and the court buzzed with rumours of a quarrel. These were confirmed when the Queen announced, ‘I shall break him of his will, and pull down his great heart.’ She added that he must have inherited his obstinacy from his mother.
Essex was further angered by the Queen’s refusal to appoint his friend, Sir Robert Sidney, to the wardenship of the Cinque Ports, which she bestowed on his enemy Lord Cobham. Bacon suggested that Essex make a tactical withdrawal from court, so he ‘recovered’ and announced that he was going to visit his estates in Wales. This prompted the Queen to send for him, and ‘all was well again’, Elizabeth having agreed to make him Lieutenant General and Admiral ‘of our army and navy’ and appoint him Master of the Ordnance. It was her firm hope that he would achieve a victory to parallel Cadiz without putting her to too much expense.
Since the Cecils supported the venture, Essex was disposed to set all jealousies aside, and in April invited them and Raleigh to a dinner at Essex House, where they all bound themselves in a pact of self-interested amity. At the beginning of June, Essex and the Cecils persuaded the Queen to restore Raleigh to favour. Summoning Sir Walter to her presence, she informed him that he might resume his duties as Captain of the Gentlemen Pensioners and come ‘boldly to the Privy Chamber, as he was wont’. That evening, she graciously invited him to ride with her, but he was never to enjoy the same favour as before.
Late in June, Essex took his fond leave of the Queen, and rode to the coast to supervise the final preparations for the voyage. During the fortnight before he sailed, they exchanged affectionate letters, repeating their farewells, Essex addressing her as his ‘most dear and most admired sovereign’, and telling her that, since ‘words be not able to interpret for me, then to your royal dear heart I appeal. I will strive to be worthy of so high a grace, and so blessed happiness. I am tied to Your Majesty by more ties than ever was subject to a prince.’ The Queen sent him gifts and a portrait of herself for his cabin, and told him that, if things went badly, he should ‘Remember that who doth their best shall never receive the blame, neither shall you find us so rigorous a judge.’ He thanked her for her ‘sweet letters, indited by the Spirit of spirits’.
Reports were coming in that the Spanish fleet was nearly ready to sail, but the weather was appalling, with rain and floods for the fourth summer running. After the English ships put out to sea on 10 July, a terrible gale raged for four days over southern England and forced them to flee back to port. Elizabeth, having seen her palace buffeted by the winds and heard rumours that Essex had been drowned, wept with joy and relief on learning he was safe, and Cecil wrote to him: ‘The Queen is now so disposed to have us all love you, as she and I do talk every night like angels of you.’
Cecil also told Essex how Elizabeth had dealt with the impudent Polish ambassador, who, in a crowded Presence Chamber, and against all accepted protocol, had made a long and threatening oration to her in Latin, ‘with such a countenance as in my life I never beheld’. Rising from the throne, a furious Queen berated him in perfect, extempore Latin for his insolence, in a speech that would pass into English folk-lore and be repeated for generations. If his king was responsible for his words, she hissed, he must be a youth and not a king by right of blood but by recent election.
‘And as for you, although I perceive you have read many books to fortify your arguments, yet I believe you have not lighted upon the chapter that prescribeth the form to be used between kings and princes.’ Had he not been protected by diplomatic immunity, she would have dealt with him ‘in another style’.
Turning to her courtiers, she cried, ‘God’s death, my lords! I have been enforced this day to scour up my old Latin that hath lain long rusting.’ Everyone burst out in admiring applause, and when Elizabeth told Cecil she wished Essex had been there to hear her, he assured her that he would write to him of it. Essex replied: ‘I am sure Her Majesty is made of the same stuff of which the ancients believed the heroes to be formed, that is, her mind of gold, her body of brass.’
In August, its damaged ships repaired, the fleet sailed again for Spain, but because of further gales it was unable to reach Ferrol, where the Armada was in port. Elizabeth had told Essex that he might go in search of Spanish treasure, but only after he had wrecked Philip’s navy, yet he now informed her that he was going off in pursuit of the West Indies treasure fleet. This was not what she had sent him for, and she replied frostily, ‘When I see the admirable work of the eastern wind, so long to last beyond the custom of Nature, I see, as in a crystal, the right figure of my folly.’ She warned him that ‘this lunatic goddess make you not bold to heap more errors to our mercy. You vex me too much, with small regard for what I bid.’ She expected his ‘safe return’.
Essex, sailing towards the Azores, ignored this. When he arrived on 15 September, the Spanish fleet was expected at any moment, but whilst he searched for them, his own ships became scattered. Raleigh landed at the island of Fayal, and on his own initiative, took a town and seized a great haul of riches. Essex, furious at having been upstaged, accused Raleigh of disobeying orders and of attacking Fayal with the sole purpose of gaining honour and booty, without thought for his commanding officer. He even considered taking his captains’ advice to bring Raleigh before a court martial and execute him: ‘I would do it if he were my friend,’ he declared fiercely. But Raleigh was persuaded to apologise, and the matter was dropped, though his reputation suffered as a result.
Essex now rashly decided to take the island of San Miguel. However, by diverting his ships there, he missed, by three hours, the treasure fleet, which passed unmolested with its cargo of j,500,000 in silver bullion. Had the English seized the Spanish ships Philip would have been forced to sue for peace, but Essex had missed the opportunity, and had no choice but to return home empty-handed.
Learning that Essex’s fleet was out of the way at the Azores, Philip ordered his Armada to sail, and on 13 October, as Essex was sailing homewards, 140 great galleons left Ferrol and made their stately way towards Falmouth, hoping to intercept and destroy the English fleet, which was in no state to resist. They would then occupy Falmouth and march on London. Southern England was placed on a state of alert, ready to repel the invasion, but by the end of October news had filtered through that the Spanish fleet had been wrecked and scattered by storms off Finisterre.
This disaster left Philip, who was a very sick man, prostrate with disappointment. He was bankrupt, his people were weary of this fruitless war, and he was now forced to face the fact that his great Enterprise of England would have to be abandoned for ever.
On 26 October, Essex reached Plymouth, where he was alarmed to hear that ‘the Spaniards were upon the coast’; some galleons had even been sighted off the Lizard. He hastily refitted his ships and sailed to meet the enemy, though it soon became clear that the crisis was past. When he returned to face Elizabeth, the failure of the ‘Islands Voyage’ was notorious, and he had little to offer her beyond a few merchant ships captured on the way home. More seriously, by his folly, he had left England dangerously exposed to invasion, and the Queen received him icily.
‘I will never again let my fleet out of the Channel,’ she had told Burghley, and she now accused Essex of having ‘given the enemy leisure and courage to attempt us’. Elizabeth was also angry because Essex’s popularity had been in no way diminished by his undutiful behaviour. Most people thought he had been plain unlucky, or held Raleigh responsible for the expedition’s failure. England’s hero, it seemed, could never be guilty of incompetence.
Essex was furious: he could not understand why she should criticise him. ‘We have failed in nothing that God gave us means to do,’ he wrote. ‘We hope Her Majesty will think our painful days, careful nights, evil diet and many hazards deserve not to be measured by the event.’ How could ‘others that have sat warm at home descant upon us’? He did not try to excuse his failure, and withdrew from the court to sulk at Wanstead, which the Queen had returned to him. Dejectedly, he wrote to her:
You have made me a stranger. I had rather retire my sick body and troubled mind into some place of rest than, living in your presence, to come now to be one of those that look upon you afar off. Of myself, it were folly to write that which you care not to know. I do carry the same heart I was wont, though now overcome with unkindness, as before I was conquered by beauty. From my bed, where I think I shall be buried for some days, this Sunday night, Your Majesty’s servant, wounded, but not altered by your unkindness. R. Essex.
Essex’s absence wrought, as usual, a change of heart in the Queen. After speaking affectionately of him to the Earl of Oxford, she wrote to him, inquiring after his health. Then she wrote again, implying that the time was now ripe for forgiveness.
Most dear Lady, your kind and often sending is able either to preserve a sick man that were more than half dead to life again. Since I was first so happy as to know what love meant, I was never one day, nor one hour, free from hope and jealousy. If Your Majesty do, in the sweetness of your own heart, nourish the one and, in the justness of love, free me from the tyranny of the other, you shall ever make me happy. And so, wishing Your Majesty to be mistress of all that you wish most, I humbly kiss your fair hands.
Delighted by these words, Elizabeth invited Essex back to court for the Accession Day celebrations. He would not come, for by now he was nursing another grievance, having learned that, as a reward for his distinguished services against the Armada and at Cadiz, Elizabeth had created Lord Howard Earl of Nottingham, thus giving him, as Lord Admiral, precedence at court above himself who was only Master of the Horse. The jealous Essex felt that he alone deserved the credit for Cadiz, and therefore informed the Queen that he was too ill to move from Wanstead. This plunged her into so bad a mood that all her courtiers were praying for Essex’s return, and Burghley and the new Lord Hunsdon wrote urging it, but in vain.
Accession Day, now called Queen’s Day, came and passed without Essex. Burghley wrote again, reminding Essex that it had marked the start of the fortieth year of Elizabeth’s reign, and Howard wrote too, in a spirit of friendship. By now, Essex was becoming weary of his self- imposed exile, and replied that he would come if Her Majesty asked him to. But Elizabeth had had enough, and declared that ‘His duty ought to be sufficient to command him to court; a prince is not to be contended withal by a subject.’
She refused to discuss the matter further, saying she was too busy, having the French ambassador to entertain. Henry IV wanted to bring about a general peace between France, Spain and England, and had sent a special envoy, Andre Hurault, Sieur de Maisse, to sound out Elizabeth. This proved impossible, for she was prepared to discuss anything rather than a peace, having heard what proved to be unfounded rumours that Philip was planning yet another Armada the following spring. She was courtesy itself: she apologised for receiving him in her nightgown,* but said she was feeling wretched due to a boil on her face; she offered him a stool, and permitted him to remain covered in her presence. But she seemed distracted: ‘All the time she spoke she would often rise from her chair and appear to be very impatient with what I was saying; she would complain that the fire was hurting her eyes, though there was a great screen before it and she six or seven feet away, yet did she give orders to have it extinguished.’ She told de Maisse she preferred to stand up at audiences, and mischievously added that she had often provoked weary envoys to complain of being kept on their feet. ‘I rose when she did,’ de Maisse recorded, ‘and when she sat down again, so did I.’
*What would now be called a dressing gown.
On another occasion she suddenly claimed that Philip had plotted fifteen times to assassinate her.
‘How the man must love me!’ she laughed, then sighed, saying it was a pity they were so divided by religion. Her people were suffering as a result, and she loved her people, as they loved her. She would rather die than diminish by one iota their mutual love, but she feared for their future, since she stood on the brink of the grave. Then, seeing de Maisse’s long face, she laughed again.
‘No! No! I don’t think I shall die as soon as all that! I am not so old, M. l’Ambassadeur, as you suppose.’ Angling for a compliment, she said she was sorry that he, who had met so many great princes, should have come to see such a foolish old woman. She also spoke dismissively of her dancing and other accomplishments, ‘so that she may give occasion to commend her’. When he duly praised her judgement and prudence, she answered ‘that it was but natural that she should have some knowledge of the affairs of the world, being called thereto so young . . . When anyone speaks of her beauty, she says that she was never beautiful, although she had that reputation thirty years ago. Nevertheless, she speaks of her beauty as often as she can.’
De Maisse was amazed at the Queen’s wardrobe. He learned that she had three thousand dresses. At his second audience on 15 December, she received him in a gown of silver gauze in the Italian style, edged with wide bands of gold lace. It had ‘slashed sleeves lined with red taffeta’, and was open in the front to display a white damask kirtle, beneath which was a chemise, both open to the waist, exposing ‘the whole of her bosom’, which was ‘somewhat wrinkled’. Flustered with embarrassment, the poor man hardly knew where to look during the two-hour interview that followed. Whenever he looked at Elizabeth, he saw more than was seemly. To make matters worse, as she talked, ‘she would open the front of this robe with her hands, as if she were too hot’, so that he could see her stomach right down to the navel. She also wore a ‘great reddish wig’ with ‘two great curls’ down to her shoulders; it was laced with pearls and topped with a garland of rubies and pearls. De Maisse could only conclude that she was trying to bewitch him with her faded charms. ‘So far as may be she keeps her dignity’, but ‘her face is very aged: it is -long and thin, and her teeth are very yellow and irregular. Many of them are missing, so that one cannot understand her easily when she speaks.’ However, ‘It is not possible to see a woman of so fine and vigorous disposition both in mind and body.’
On 24 December, arriving for his final audience, de Maisse found Elizabeth listening to a pavane played on the spinet. They talked of many things, and he observed that ‘One can say nothing to her on which she will not make some apt comment. She is a great princess who knows everything.’ Despite his warm admiration for her, he had accomplished nothing, and feared that ‘the English will do nothing in the business’ of making peace with Spain.
The ambassador soon sensed the tension at court, and correctly surmised that it was due to Essex’s absence. Elizabeth told him that, had Essex really failed in his duty during the Islands Voyage, she would have had him executed, but she had investigated the matter and was satisfied he was blameless.
Essex wanted Elizabeth to change the wording of Nottingham’s patent, but she would not. He demanded to settle the matter by a duel, but Howard refused, claiming he was ill. Essex was now attending neither the Council nor Parliament in protest at the way Elizabeth had treated him, and the court was in an uproar, all business being held in suspension. Obviously, this situation could not continue, and on 28 December, on the advice of Cecil, the Queen appointed Essex Earl Marshal of England, an office in abeyance since the execution of Norfolk; this was a signal favour, having the added benefit of restoring Essex’s precedence over Nottingham, and it brought about the desired effect. Peace was restored and ‘the gallant Earl doth now show himself in public’. Nottingham, meanwhile, retired in a huff to his house at Chelsea.
In the euphoria of reconciliation, Elizabeth bowed to Essex’s oft- repeated entreaties that she receive his mother Lettice at court, but she insisted that it would have to be in the privacy of her Privy Chamber. Several times the Countess had waited in the Privy Gallery to see the Queen as she passed, only to find that Her Majesty had gone by another route. Then she had been invited to a banquet the Queen was due to attend, only to learn that Elizabeth had changed her plans at the last minute. Now, however, she was, albeit frigidly, received in the Privy Chamber: she curtseyed, kissed the Queen’s hand and breast, embraced her, and received a cool kiss in return, but it was not enough for her son, who now demanded that Elizabeth repeat the charade in the Presence Chamber. ‘I do not wish to be importuned in these unpleasing matters,’ the Queen snapped, and that was an end to the matter.
Early in 1598, de Maisse left England, dejected after being told by Essex that he was not interested in peace negotiations since he, unlike the Cecils, did not believe in the possibility of peace between Spain and England. He had also informed the ambassador that the court was a prey to two evils, delay and inconstancy, ‘and the cause is the sex of the sovereign’. It was true that the younger, masculine element at court were becoming restive under the governance of an ageing female sovereign, and some openly declared they would not submit to another female ruler.
Essex and many others who had a view to their future were already courting favour with James VI, but when Elizabeth discovered, early in 1598, that James, whom rumour declared might ‘attempt to gather the fruit before it is ripe’, had instructed his ambassadors in Europe to assert his claim to the English succession, she reprimanded him angrily: ‘Look you not therefore without large amends. I may or will slupper up such indignities. I recommend you to a better mind and more advised conclusions.’
Generally, she was in good spirits, but Essex, under a ‘great cloud’ of gloom, had turned to ladies of the court for consolation. Both his wife and the Queen were unhappy at the rumours about his behaviour, and constant suspicion made Elizabeth depressed and vicious. Her maids were more than once reduced to tears after being unduly reprimanded, and when Elizabeth detected something going on between Essex and Lady Mary Howard, she became unbearable. Fortunately for everyone, Essex managed to convince her that her suspicions were groundless, and her good mood was restored.
Essex’s friend, the long-haired dandy Henry Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton – famous for his patronage of Shakespeare – had for four years managed to conceal a clandestine affair with Elizabeth Vernon, one of the Queen’s maids, but they wished to marry, and in February 1598, he asked Elizabeth’s permission, which she refused. When he asked leave to travel abroad for two years, it was granted. He sailed for France on 10 February, leaving behind ‘a very desolate gentlewoman, who have almost wept out her fairest eyes’.
Elizabeth Vernon had good cause to weep: she was pregnant. Fearing she would be ruined, she begged Essex to summon Southampton home. He did so, in the strictest secrecy, and arranged for the lovers to be married at Essex House, where Elizabeth Vernon stayed when Southampton returned to Paris.
Elizabeth celebrated St George’s Day in April with a great feast for the Knights of the Garter. Soon afterwards, a German visitor, Paul Hentzner, saw her as she went in procession to chapel at Greenwich, and left a description for posterity: ‘Next came the Queen, very majestic; -her face oblong, fair, but wrinkled; her eyes small, jet-black and pleasant; her nose a little hooked; her lips narrow and her teeth black; her hair was of an auburn colour, but false; upon her head she had a small crown. Her bosom was uncovered, as all the English ladies have it till they marry. Her hands were slender, her fingers rather long, and her stature neither tall nor low; her air was stately, and her manner of speaking mild and obliging.’
As Her Majesty passed, ‘she spoke very graciously, first to one, then to another, in English, French and Italian, for besides being well-skilled in Greek and Latin and fhejse] languages, she is mistress of Spanish, Scotch and Dutch. Whoever speaks to her, it is kneeling; now and then she raises some with her hand. Wherever she turned her face, everybody fell down on their knees.’
In May, Henry IV made peace with Spain, which provoked Elizabeth to refer to him as ‘the Antichrist of ingratitude’. Burghley urged her to make peace also with Philip, but Essex was violently opposed to it. He wanted to launch such an offensive against Spain as would crush her naval power for good. Burghley criticised Essex for breathing nothing but war, slaughter and blood. Elizabeth was torn between these two viewpoints, and had her work cut out to maintain a balance between them, which did little to preserve her good temper. On the whole, she agreed with the Cecils that it would be foolish to finance a war effort when there was no longer any danger of invasion.
Essex retaliated by publishing a pamphlet containing his views, appealing to the people to support him, and thereby incurred the anger of the Queen. As it turned out, Elizabeth did not sign the peace treaty because her allies the Dutch, who had regained more ground since Philip had switched his military ambitions to France, refused to back it. They had seen too much of the cruelty of the Spaniards to want them as their allies.
Then news came from Ireland that, amidst a deteriorating political situation, Elizabeth’s Lord Deputy had died. She decided to replace him with Essex’s uncle, Sir William Knollys, but when she announced this in Council on July, Essex, wishing to have an influential enemy out of the way, argued that Sir George Carew, of the Cecil faction, was the better choice. When the Queen refused, Essex persisted, and there was a heated quarrel which led to Essex, with gross disrespect, deliberately turning his back on her.
‘Go to the devil!’ she shouted, and slapped him round the ears. ‘Get you gone and be hanged!’ This was too much for Essex, who reached for his sword and cried, ‘I neither can nor will put up with so great an affront, nor would I have borne it from your father’s hands.’ Nottingham stepped between them before he could strike the Queen and, too late, Essex realised the enormity of what he had done.
Elizabeth stood in appalled silence. No one spoke. Then Essex stormed out of the room, uttering threats, and rode off to Wanstead, whence he wrote boldly to her:
The intolerable wrong you have done both me and yourself not only broke all the laws of affection, but was done against the honour of your sex. I cannot think your mind so dishonourable but that you punish yourself for it, how little soever you care for me. But I desire, whatsoever falls out, that Your Majesty should be without excuse, you knowing yourself to be the cause, and all the world wondering at the effect. I was never proud till Your Majesty sought to make me too base. And now my despair shall be as my love was, without repentance. Wishing Your Majesty all comforts and joys in the world, and no greater punishment for your wrongs to me than to know the faith of him you have lost, and the baseness of those you shall keep.
Most people expected the Queen to order his arrest and imprisonment in the Tower. Some anticipated that he would be executed. But Elizabeth did nothing, nor did she refer to the incident again.
The quarrel had been symptomatic of a subtle change in their relationship. Each was growing tired of the other and finding it more difficult to play their accustomed roles. Essex was weary of Elizabeth’s fickleness and tempests, while she was determined that he should be governed by the same rules of behaviour as her other courtiers. She later told the French ambassador that she was ‘apprehensive, from the impetuosity of his temper and his ambition, that he would precipitate himself into destruction by some ill design’, and she had advised him at this time ‘to content himself with pleasing her on all occasions, and not to show such an insolent contempt for her as he did; but to take care not to touch her sceptre, lest she should be obliged to punish him according to the laws of England, and not according to her own, which he had found too mild and favourable for him to fear any suffering from them’. Her advice, she added with hindsight, did not prevent his ruin.
In mid-July, Knollys wrote begging his nephew Essex to ‘Settle your heart in a right course, your sovereign, your country and God’s cause never having more need of you than now. Remember, there is no contesting between sovereignty and obedience.’ When this had no effect, Lord Keeper Egerton informed his friend, ‘The difficulty, my good Lord, is to conquer yourself. You are not so far gone but you may well return.’ Essex had embarrassed his supporters, ‘ruined his honour and reputation’ and failed in his duty to his most gracious sovereign, so he should ‘humbly submit’, for his country needed him.
If my country had at this time any need of my public service, Her Majesty would not have driven me into a private kind of life. I can never serve her as a villein or slave. When the vilest of all indignities are done unto me, doth religion force me to sue? I can neither yield myself to be guilty, or this imputation laid on me to be just. What, cannot princes err? Cannot subjects receive wrong? Pardon me, pardon me, my good Lord, I can never subscribe to those principles. I have received wrong, and I feel it.
And having uttered such dangerous and subversive sentiments, he continued to stand his ground.
The fact was, as Essex’s friends were trying to tell him, that Elizabeth really did need him, for Burghley had fallen seriously ill. Now seventy- eight, he was white-haired and shrunken, but still in harness because the Queen, having relied heavily on him for over half a century, would not let him resign, even though she knew he was deaf, in constant pain with gout, and could barely hold a pen.
As he lay in bed in his house on the Strand, worn out with age and overwork, she visited him and affectionately spoon-fed him his meals. She also sent him medicines, writing, ‘I do entreat Heaven daily for your longer life, else will my people and myself stand in need of cordial too. My comfort hath been in my people’s happiness, and their happiness is thy discretion.’ She told him she had no wish to live longer than she had him with her, a remark that made him weep. ‘You are, in all things to me, Alpha and Omega,’ she declared. So distraught was she at the prospect of losing him that she could attend to nothing. He was the last link with the ruling caste of her youth, all the others having died, and without him she knew she would be isolated amongst the rising new men, many of whom resented her or discounted her as a spent force.
When Cecil sent his father some game broth, he was too weak to lift it to his lips. Again, Elizabeth came to the rescue, and after she had gone, he dictated a letter to his son:
I pray you, diligently and effectually let Her Majesty understand how her singular kindness doth overcome my power to acquit it, who, though she will not be a mother, yet she showeth herself, by feeding me with her own princely hand, as a careful nurse; and if I may be weaned to feed myself, I shall be more ready to serve her on the Earth. If not, I hope to be, in Heaven, a servitor for her and God’s Church. And so I thank you for your porridges.
P.S. Serve God by serving the Queen, for all other service is indeed bondage to the Devil.
Burghley died on 4 August 1598, Elizabeth took the news ‘very grievously, shedding of tears’, then she shut herself away to mourn in private. For months afterwards, she would break down at the mention of his name.
By the time of his death, Burghley was being called the father of his country. ‘No prince in Europe hath such a counsellor,’ Elizabeth had said. He had been, wrote Camden in tribute, ‘a singular man for honesty, gravity, temperance, industry and justice. Hereunto was added a fluent and elegant speech, wisdom strengthened by experience and seasoned with exceeding moderation and most approved fidelity. In a word, the Queen was happy in so great a counsellor, and to his wholesome counsels the state of England for ever shall be beholden.’
The Queen ordered that, although Burghley was to be buried in St Martin’s Church at Stamford, he should be honoured by a ceremonial funeral in Westminster Abbey. Among the five hundred black-cowled guests at the impressive ceremony, Essex ‘carried the heaviest countenance’, but this was attributed by most people to ‘his own disfavour’ rather than to grief over his enemy’s passing. Even in her desolation, Elizabeth had declared that ‘he hath played long upon her, and that she means to play a while upon him, and to stand so much upon her greatness as he hath done upon stomach’.
Death was taking not only the Queen’s trusted friends but also her enemies. On 13 September, after fifty days of intense pain, Philip of Spain died, ravaged by a terrible disease that had reduced his body to a mass of putrefying, stinking sores. By his own orders, his lead coffin had been placed at his bedside before he died. He was succeeded by his less fanatical, twenty-year-old son, Philip III, who was to continue the war against England in a desultory fashion.
Two weeks after Burghley’s death, serious news arrived from Ireland. A large English army under Sir Henry Bagenal had been ambushed at Yellow Ford by the forces of the rebel Irish under Hugh O’Neill, Second Earl of Tyrone, leaving over 1200 dead or wounded and the English-held territory from the north down to Dublin unprotected. This was the ‘greatest loss and dishonour the Queen hath had in her time’, and she knew she had to act quickly before it was too late to reverse the damage done.
Tyrone was a fighter of great stature and ability, who had once been loyal to the Queen but had turned traitor in 1595 and succeeded thereafter in uniting his countrymen against the occupying English. He wanted freedom of worship, the withdrawal of English troops from the province, and a say in the appointment of government officials. Many Irish looked to him as their saviour, and great numbers had deserted their English garrisons to join his rebels, while the Spaniards were in league with Tyrone, having for years used Ireland as a springboard for harrying England. On his deathbed Philip II had dictated a letter of congratulation and support to Tyrone as his last act of defiance towards Elizabeth. To control such a man, the Queen knew she must appoint a Lord Deputy of great reputation and ability, someone who could crush the rebel forces and effect a peace.
Essex had remained at Wanstead, still waiting for Elizabeth to apologise, but when he heard of Tyrone’s victory, he wrote to the Queen offering his sword against the rebels and, without waiting for a reply, rushed off to Whitehall, only to find that she would not see him. Spluttering with rage, he wrote to her, ‘I stay in this place for no other purpose but to attend your commandment.’ Back came the terse reply: ‘Tell the Earl that I value myself at as great a price as he values himself.’
Desperate for some military action, and worried in case he might miss out on the redistribution of Burghley’s offices, Essex feigned illness, which had the desired effect. Elizabeth’s heart melted and she sent a sympathetic message and her physician to attend him, which led to a speedy recovery and prompted the Earl to write a flattering letter of gratitude. Charmed, Elizabeth agreed to receive him. Because she was so gracious at their interview, Cecil and many others gained the impression that matters were ‘very well settled again’, but it was not so. When Essex demanded an apology, the Queen refused it, so he flounced back to Wanstead in a foul temper. In fact, she felt it was she who should have an apology, but Essex was not prepared to give her one. Neither would relent, so a deadlock was reached. Egerton and others advised Essex that it was his duty to submit to his sovereign, but he argued that her behaviour had made it impossible for him to do so. Even his election, in Buckhurst’s place, as Chancellor of Oxford University did not lift his spirits.
Meanwhile, Elizabeth had sent a new commander, Sir Richard Bingham, to Ireland, but he had died soon after arriving in Dublin. Hearing of this, Essex again wrote to offer his services in the field, and this time the Queen accepted. Thus he came to court, and in a private interview they settled their differences. It is not known whether either apologised, but it may have been the Queen, for Egerton had showed her Essex’s extraordinary letter of the previous July, and she had been much disturbed by it. Nor, after this, was she ever quite so affectionate towards him. Both retained a sense of injury, and this was to overlay their future dealings with each other.
Essex did not learn from his mistakes. Hoping to extend his following, he demanded from the Queen Burghley’s old – and lucrative – office of Master of the Wards, but she told him she was thinking of retaining it herself. Essex stalked off in a temper, then sent her a letter of protest, in which he pointed out that none of her royal forebears had ever done such a thing. He told her she should think again, but this only stiffened her resolve, and the office remained unfilled.
Undaunted, Essex put himself forward as the new Lord Deputy of Ireland, insisting that he was the only man capable of conquering Tyrone, which everyone agreed would be no easy task. The Queen had proposed Charles Blount, now Lord Mountjoy, for the post, but neither he nor anyone else wanted it, and although she had reservations about giving it to Essex, she had no choice. Robert Markham, a courtier, wrote: ‘If the Lord Deputy performs in the field what he hath promised in the Council, all will be well, but though the Queen hath granted forgiveness for his late demeanour in her presence, we know not what to think. She hath placed confidence in the man who so lately sought other treatment at her hands.’
The next two months saw Elizabeth and Essex wrangling over how his campaign should be conducted. He wanted the largest army ever sent to Ireland, and when she refused it, he sulked. ‘How much soever Her Majesty despiseth me, she shall know she hath lost him who, for her sake, would have thought danger a sport and death a feast,’ he raged. Already, he was having second thoughts about going to Ireland, yet ‘his honour could not stand without undertaking it’.
In the end, his persistence got him what he wanted, the greatest army ever raised during Elizabeth’s reign, comprising 16,000 infantry and 13,000 cavalry. ‘By God’, he told Harington, ‘I will beat Tyrone in the field, for nothing worthy of Her Majesty’s honour has [yet] been achieved.’
Meanwhile, Elizabeth Vernon was still living at Essex House. When the time came for her to be delivered, Essex sent her to stay with his sister, Lady Rich, who was just then engaged in an adulterous affair with Lord Mountjoy and was well versed in subterfuge. A daughter, Penelope, was born on 8 November.
Inevitably, the Queen found out, and ordered Southampton home at once. When he landed, he was arrested for having married without her consent, and committed for a short spell to the Fleet Prison. Essex was by then sheltering the Earl’s wife and daughter at Essex House, and did his utmost to secure his friend’s release. This did not make for harmony in his relations with the Queen.
He had also fallen out with Raleigh again. On Accession Day that year, Essex and his followers appeared in the tiltyard sporting orange tawny plumes, in an attempt to upstage Raleigh, whom Essex had learned intended to deck out his men in the same. Elizabeth was so disgusted at such petty behaviour that she left early, bringing the day’s festivities to an abrupt end.
‘To Ireland I go,’ wrote Essex on 4 January, 1599. ‘The Queen hath irrevocably decreed it.’ Many would be pleased to have him out of the way because, as old age advanced, Elizabeth was finding it increasingly difficult to strike a balance between the rival factions at court, and to control Essex, whose ‘greatness was now judged to depend as much on Her Majesty’s fear of him as her love of him’.
But he faced no easy task. Most Englishmen had little understanding of the native Irish, accounting them savage tribesmen who had wilfully embraced their own form of Catholicism to undermine their English overlords. No Elizabethan Lord Deputy before him had succeeded in conquering them, and most English commanders found it impossible to apply their normal strategies to a land strewn with mountains and bogs, where guerrilla warfare was the norm.
Essex was dismissive of these difficulties, being confident that he would rout Tyrone and thus establish his supremacy in every respect over Cecil and Raleigh, whom he believed were working to undermine his influence. But he feared that, whilst he was away, his ‘practising enemies’ would poison the Queen’s mind against him. ‘I am armed on the breast but not on the back,’ he told the Council, quite openly. It was this fear, more than any other consideration, that caused him, early in 1599, to have second thoughts about going to Ireland.
On Twelfth Night, Essex danced with the Queen before the visiting Danish ambassador. Elizabeth was at this time engrossed in translating the Ars Poetica of Virgil into English, and was still, at sixty-five, ‘excellent disposed to hunting’, going for long rides ‘every second day’. That year, a German visitor, Thomas Platter, described her, certainly with exaggeration, as ‘very youthful still in appearance, seeming no more than twenty years of age’.
It was gradually dawning on Essex that he had saddled himself with ‘the hardest task that ever gentleman was set about’. On 1 March, we hear that ‘new difficulties arise daily as touching the time of his abode, his entertainment, etc., upon which points he is so little satisfied that many times he makes it a question whether he should go or not’. And as the time for his departure loomed, he asked the Council to pity him rather than expect great victories.
Elizabeth was also having second thoughts about sending Essex to Ireland. His courage she did not doubt, but she had little faith in his judgement and stability, and nor, now, could she be sure of his loyalty. In February, she had been perturbed by the publication of Dr John Hayward’s account of The First Part of the Life and Reign of King Henry the Fourth, which was dedicated to Essex. She was painfully aware that, since a performance of Shakespeare’s Richard II in 1597, some of her subjects saw in Essex a second Henry of Bolingbroke, who might overthrow her as Henry had overthrown Richard. Aware that she was entrusting to Essex the greatest army she had ever raised, she declared herself offended by the book.
‘Cannot this John Hayward be prosecuted for treason?’ she asked Francis Bacon.
‘Not, I think, for treason, Madam, but for felony,’ he replied.
‘How so?’
‘He has stolen so many passages from Tacitus!’ smiled Bacon. But Elizabeth was in no mood for jests.
‘I suspect the worst,’ she declared. ‘I shall force the truth from him.’ She even suggested the rack, though Bacon dissuaded her. Nevertheless, Hayward was arrested, condemned in the Star Chamber for having dared write of the deposition of a sovereign, and imprisoned in the Fleet for the rest of Elizabeth’s reign.
Hoping that Essex would learn a lesson from this example, the Queen signed his commission on 12 March, giving him leave to return from Ireland when he thought fit. ‘I have the best warrant that ever man had,’ he observed.
The sun was shining on 27 March as a plainly-garbed Essex rode out of London at the head of his splendid army, cheered by the watching crowds, who cried, ‘God bless Your Lordship!’ Just beyond Islington, however, a thunderstorm broke, ‘which some held an ominous prodigy’. Bacon wrote afterwards: ‘I did plainly see his overthrow chained by destiny to that journey.’
With Essex rode Southampton (who was still, as far as the Queen was concerned, in disgrace), Mountjoy and John Harington, whom he would knight during the campaign; the Queen had vetoed him conferring any offices on the former two, fearing he would build up too great a military affinity. But Essex merely resolved to wait until he was safely in Ireland, and then appoint his friends to whatever offices he pleased.
His crossing was dogged by storms, and on 15 April, he arrived at Dublin, complaining of rheumatism. It had been agreed that he should advance on Ulster and attack Tyrone, but his Irish council urged him to wait until June, when the cattle would be fattened and there would be plenty of food for his army. Without informing Elizabeth, Essex decided, early in May, to march his army into Leinster and thence through Munster, to subdue the rebels in those provinces. Revelling in his power, he also set about creating thirty-eight new knights, despite having received from the Queen ‘an express letter, all written with her own hand’, commanding him not to; he also appointed Southampton Master of the Horse, again in defiance of Elizabeth’s wishes. When she wrote ordering him to revoke the appointment, he flatly refused on the grounds that it would encourage the rebels to see the English disunited. June came, but although the cattle were fat, Essex made no move against Tyrone. So far, he had taken one small castle at Cahir. On the 28th, Elizabeth, furious at the delay, complained that she was ‘nothing satisfied with the Earl of Essex’s manner of proceeding, nor likes anything that is done, but says she allows him , 1000 a day for going on progress’. Essex therefore marched his exhausted army back to Dublin, arriving on 11 July. He was ailing and in a temper, having learned that, behind his back, Cecil had been appointed Master of the Wards, and he complained to the Queen:
Why do I talk of victory or success? Is it not known that from England I receive nothing but discomfort and soul’s wounds. Is it not spoken in the army that Your Majesty’s favour is diverted from me, and that already you do bode ill to me? This is the hand of him that did live your dearest, and will die Your Majesty’s faithfullest, servant.
Elizabeth was unimpressed: she wanted deeds, not words. In a reply sent on 19 July, she pointed out:
If you compare the time that is run on and the excessive charges that is spent, with the effect of anything wrought on this voyage, you must needs think that we, that have the eyes of foreign princes upon our actions, and have the hearts of people to comfort and cherish, who groan under the burden of continual levies and impositions, can little pleasure ourselves hitherto with anything that hath been effected. Whereunto we will add this one thing, that doth more displease us than any charge or expense, which is, that it must be the Queen of England’s fortune (who hath held down the greatest enemy she had) to make a base bush kern to be accounted so famous a rebel as to be a person against whom so many thousands of foot and horse, besides all the force of the nobility of that kingdom, must be thought too little to be employed.
Whilst Tyrone was blazing his conquests throughout Christendom, Essex could only write letters boasting of his supposed prowess, when in fact he had squandered men, money and resources.
Again, Elizabeth commanded him to proceed to Ulster and deal with Tyrone as he had promised: ‘When we call to mind the scandal it would be to our honour to leave that proud rebel unassailed, we must now plainly charge you, according to the duty you owe us, so to unite soundness of judgement to the zeal you have to do us service, and with all speed to pass thither in such order.’
During that summer there was talk that the Queen was showing signs of her age. She was not riding out in the park so often, and after a mile or two would complain ‘of the uneasy going of her horse, and when she is taken down, her legs are so benumbed that she is unable to stand’. When Elizabeth, who greatly feared the consequences of people believing she had lost her grip on affairs, learned what was being said of her, she embarked on a vigorous campaign to counteract it, riding off on private excursions with fewer attendants than ‘beseemed her estate’, and hotly castigating Lord Hunsdon when he asked her if it was wise for one of her years to ride horseback all the way from Hampton Court to Nonsuch.
‘My years!’ she roared. ‘Maids! To your horses quickly!’ Nor would she speak to Hunsdon for the next two days. Soon afterwards, one courtier was able to report: ‘Her Majesty, God be thanked, is in good health, and likes very well Nonsuch air. Here hath many rumours been bruited of her, very strange, without any reason, which troubled her a little.’ But she did not relax her vigilance. After reading ‘an intercepted letter, wherein the giving over of long voyages was noted to be a sign of age’, she deliberately extended her progress.
By the time the Queen’s letter arrived, in the third week of July, Essex was pursuing another fruitless foray into Leinster, to drive out minor rebels. Early in August he was obliged to return to Dublin after suffering a minor defeat at the hands of the Irish at Arklow, after which he sent his secretary, Henry Cuffe, to inform the Queen, not only that the Irish Council had advised him that it was now too late in the year to proceed against Tyrone, but that the weather in Ireland was appalling and that, of his 16,000 men, only 4000 were left, the rest having been killed, deserted, or died of disease.
Elizabeth was appalled, and incredulous at the advice given Essex; greatly agitated, she sent 2000 reinforcements, and on 10 August told him she expected to hear in his next letter that his offensive against Tyrone ‘is begun and not in question’. She angrily charged him, on his allegiance, not to leave Ireland without her permission until he had ‘reduced things in the north’ and accomplished what he had been sent to do. He must stop wasting his resources on ‘inferior rebels’. ‘We require you to consider whether we have not great cause to think that your purpose is not to end the war,’ she added perceptively.
Essex, ill with dysentery and kidney trouble, and demoralised, now baulked at facing Tyrone, knowing he faced almost certain defeat, but the Queen, in a further trenchant letter, insisted that he do so, adding that no good success ever attended a man who refused to heed sound advice. Her courtiers marvelled that ‘Essex hath done so little,’ whilst Francis Bacon, whose abilities Elizabeth was grudgingly coming to appreciate, warned her that leaving the Earl in Ireland and putting ‘arms and power into his hands, may be a kind of temptation to make him prove unruly’. He urged her to recall Essex. Grimly, she thanked him for having given voice to her own suspicions.
Essex, his ego bruised by the Queen’s stinging criticisms and complaints, was becoming obsessed with fears of what the Cecil faction were doing at home to undermine his influence. He had been dismayed to learn that his enemy, Lord Buckhurst, had been appointed Lord Treasurer in Burghley’s stead. There was no doubt that the Queen was displeased with Essex, and this he imputed to the machinations of his enemies rather than his own behaviour. Suddenly, he knew what he must do. He had no business to be in Ireland, pursuing elusive military success; instead, he would return to England to safeguard his interests. He knew, with a mounting sense of despair, that, thanks to his incompetence, his army was in no fit state to conquer Tyrone, and at this point all good sense deserted him.
He now announced to his astonished colleagues that he intended to cross to Wales with 3000 men, gather reinforcements from his estates in the principality, and march on London to insist upon the removal of Cecil and his party, whose misgovernment and desire for peace was, he believed, responsible for the ruin of the kingdom. That accomplished, he would force the Queen to accept him as her chief minister. That it could be done, he was convinced, knowing that he had the love of the people and an army at his back. He stressed that he intended no harm to the Queen, and would personally justify his actions to her, hoping that the joy of seeing him would quell any displeasure on her part. Detached from reality as he was fast becoming, it did not occur to him that she might not welcome such an infringement on her prerogative.
Mountjoy and Southampton tried to warn Essex that what he was contemplating was sheer madness and could lead to civil war, but he would not listen. To ensure his safety, therefore, they urged him to leave his army in Ireland and take with him ‘a competent number’ of his officers and new knights to support him in his demands. But first, they insisted, honour required that he finish this business with Tyrone.
At the end of August, Essex finally left Dublin for Ulster, with a much depleted force, having written in melodramatic vein to the Queen, ‘From a mind delighting in sorrow, from spirits wasted with travail, care and grief; from a heart torn in pieces with passion; from a man that hates himself and all things that keep him alive – what service can Your Majesty reap? Since my services past deserve no more than banishment and proscription into the most cursed of all countries, with what expectation shall I live longer?’ The letter was signed, ‘From Your Majesty’s exiled servant, Essex.’
On 3 September, against the Queen’s express orders, Essex, whose army was outnumbered 2-1, sent secretly to the rebel leader (with whom he had been in contact for at least a fortnight), first offering to settle their differences by personal combat, and then, after Tyrone had declined on the grounds that he was too old, asking for a parley and holding out hope of a pardon. Tyrone agreed, assuring Essex that, if he would listen to his advice, he would make him the greatest man in England. This only served to strengthen Essex’s resolve, and he conceived the idea of enlisting Tyrone as his ally.
Tyrone came to the meeting with Essex to demand that the English leave Ireland to the Irish. On 7 September, the two leaders met on horseback at the Ford of Bellaclynth on the River Lagon, near Carrickmacross. What was discussed during the half-hour meeting is disputed, for Essex had unwisely omitted to bring any witnesses, and made Southampton order everyone out of earshot. However, three men hid themselves in nearby bushes and their evidence, which was later shown to the Queen, suggested that the Earl informed Tyrone of his plans and asked for his support. Essex’s enemies believed he had suggested that Tyrone and he join forces with a view to deposing the Queen and setting up Essex as king, but this is unlikely, although Essex certainly did not inform Elizabeth of everything that had been discussed.
The meeting ended with both leaders fixing a truce, to be renewed every six weeks until May 1600. Under its terms, Tyrone would remain in possession of the territory he now held, and the English would establish no more forts or garrisons. The Irish leader now had all the time he needed to reinforce his army.
Although he had promised Tyrone that he would personally lay his demands before the Queen, Essex was under the impression that the rebel leader had in fact submitted to him, and was unaware of the extent of his humiliation. In case the Queen should complain about his failure to secure a military victory, he persuaded his officers to sign a document branding any campaign in Ulster as useless. Then he marched his weary army back to Dublin.
A week later, Elizabeth was told of the parley, but not of the terms of the truce, which Essex had not thought fit to tell her, and wrote urgently to her Lord Deputy, demanding to know what had been said: ‘We never doubted but that Tyrone, whensoever he saw any force approach, would instantly offer a parley. Ittappeareth by your journal that you and the traitor spoke half an hour together without anybody’s hearing, wherein, though we that trust you with a kingdom are far from mistrusting you with a traitor, yet we marvel you could carry it no better. If we had meant that Ireland should have been abandoned, then it was very superfluous to have sent over a personage such as yourself She reminded him that Tyrone had broken his word before – ‘to trust this traitor on oath is to trust a devil’ – and insisted that Essex take the field against him as planned. ‘We absolutely command you to continue and perform that resolution,’ she concluded.
Essex never received her letter. On 24 September, he suddenly announced he was leaving for England, and, taking a substantial number of followers, took ship half an hour later, in defiance of the Queen’s orders and having, technically, abandoned his army. Elizabeth, and many other people, would interpret this as desertion. In six months, he had wasted 300,000 of public funds, and his campaign had been an unmitigated disaster.
At dawn on 28 September, having ridden hard for three days, he reached Westminster, where he discovered that the Queen was at Nonsuch. Leaving his escort in the capital, he crossed the Thames by the Lambeth ferry and galloped south at great speed in driving rain, arriving there at ten o’clock the next morning. Then he strode into the palace, caked with mud, marched through the Presence and Privy Chambers, and burst unannounced into the Queen’s bedchamber.
Page 7 of 11
Chapter 25
Elizabeth had just left her bed, and her maids were about their work. It now took her a long time to put on her mask of youth, her wig, her fine clothes and her jewels, so that she could face the world looking her best. When Essex flung open her door and fell to his knees she was, according to Rowland Whyte, a courtier, ‘newly up, her hair about her face’ and her wrinkled face unpainted. Despite her shock and embarrassment, she did not lose her composure, but offered Essex her hand to kiss and ‘had some private speech’ with him, ‘which seemed to give him great contentment’.
Elizabeth, having no idea of what was going on outside the palace, may well have concluded that her fears had become reality, and that Essex had come at the head of an army to depose or restrain her. Yet he seemed well-disposed, and with great presence of mind she dismissed him, promising they would talk further when they were both more presentable. He had no idea of her inner turmoil, nor of how grossly he had offended her: ‘coming from Her Majesty to go shift himself in his chamber, he was very pleasant and thanked God that, though he had suffered much troubles and storms abroad, he found a sweet calm at home’.
The court was agog with speculation. ‘ ‘Tis much wondered at here that he went so boldly to Her Majesty’s presence, she not being ready and he so full of dirt and mire that his very face was full of it,’ observed Whyte.
After Essex had gone, Elizabeth quickly completed her toilette, then summoned the four members of the Council who were at Nonsuch that day: Cecil, Hunsdon, Thomas, Lord North, and Sir William Knollys. At half past twelve, she saw Essex again, and for an hour and a half, ‘all was well, and her usage very gracious towards him’. Later, at dinner, he was in high spirits, and entertained his friends and the ladies with tales of Ireland. But Whyte sensed an underlying tension: ‘As God help me, it is a very dangerous time here.’
In the afternoon, having ascertained from Cecil that there was no immediate danger of insurrection, Elizabeth summoned Essex once more, but this time ‘he found her much changed in that small time, for she began to call him to question for his return, and was not satisfied in the manner of his coming away and leaving all things at so great hazard’. He responded by losing his temper and demanding to explain himself to the Council. The Queen ‘appointed the lords to hear him, and so they went to Council in the afternoon’, Elizabeth having retreated, in no very encouraging mood, to her apartments.
Essex was made to stand bare-headed before the Council table whilst Cecil accused him of disobeying Her Majesty’s will, deserting his command, acting contrary to orders, making too many ‘idle’ knights, and intruding overboldly into the Queen’s bedchamber. For five hours he sought to justify his actions before being informed that he was being dismissed so that the Council could adjourn to discuss the matter. After a debate lasting only fifteen minutes, the councillors recommended to the Queen that he be arrested.
That evening, at eleven o’clock, ‘a commandment came from the Queen to my Lord of Essex, that he should keep [to] his chamber’: he was to remain under house arrest until his conduct had been fully investigated. His enemies now closed in for the kill. Next morning, when the full Council, hastily summoned, was assembled, he was brought before it again, the clerks were sent out, and the doors were closed. He then underwent a further three hours of questioning, during which he conducted himself, for once, with ‘gravity and discretion’. Informed of his answers, the Queen made no comment, merely saying she would think on the matter. But she was in an angry and vengeful mood. By now, the court was a-buzz with rumours, whilst the Queen and her councillors were still half-expecting the remnants of Essex’s army to arrive and attempt a coup. When, by the morning of October, it became clear that their fears were groundless, Elizabeth gave orders for Essex to be committed to the custody of his friend, Lord Keeper Egerton, to remain under house arrest during Her Majesty’s pleasure at the latter’s official residence, York House in the Strand. He was permitted only two servants and no visitors, not even his wife. No sooner had Essex been brought there than he fell sick – genuinely, this time.
Nobody, not even Cecil, believed that Elizabeth would keep him under lock and key for long.
Shortly afterwards, Harington received a message from Essex begging him to go to the Queen and show her his diary of the campaign, hoping that it would prove to her that Essex had done his best. Harington was reluctant to face her, for he feared she might have found out that he himself had visited Tyrone after the truce and been entertained to a ‘merry dinner’ with the rebels. It was as he had feared, for when he knelt before her, quaking, she bore down on him and, grabbing him by the girdle, shook him violently.
‘By God’s Son, I am no queen!’ she thundered. ‘That man is above me.’ And ‘she walked fastly to and fro’, frowning at Harington. Tremulously, he handed her his journal, but, reading it impatiently, she was not impressed.
‘By God’s Son, you are all idle knaves, and the Lord Deputy worse, for wasting your time and our commands in such wise!’ she swore. Terrified, he did his best to placate her, but ‘her choler did outrun all reason’, leaving all present in no doubt ‘whose daughter she was’.
‘Go home!’ she bawled. Harington ‘did not stay to be bidden twice’, but rode off to Kelston as ‘if all the Irish rebels had been at my heels’.
After a short interval, Harington sent his wife to plead his case with the Queen, instructing her to say, pointedly, that she kept her husband’s love by showing her love for him. The analogy was not lost on Elizabeth, who replied, ‘Go to, go to, mistress, you are wisely bent, I find; after such sort do I keep the goodwill of all my husbands, my good people; for if they did not rest assured of some special love towards them, they would not readily yield me such good obedience.’ So saying, she agreed that Harington might return to court, but when he ventured to do so, she could not resist taking a dig at him.
‘I came to court in the very heat and height of all displeasures,’ he told Sir Anthony Standen, a friend.
After I had been there but an hour, I was threatened with the Fleet [prison]. I answered poetically that, coming so late into the land service, I hoped that I should not be pressed to serve in Her Majesty’s fleet in Fleet Street. After three days, every man wondered to see me at liberty, but I had this good fortune, that after four or five days, the Queen had talked of me, and twice talked to me, though very briefly. At last she gave me a full-gracious audience in the Withdrawing Chamber at Whitehall, where, herself being accuser, judge and witness, I was cleared and graciously dismissed. What should I say? I seemed to myself, like St Paul, rapt into the third heaven, where he heard words not to be uttered by men; for neither must I utter what I then heard. Until I come to Heaven I shall never come before a statelier judge again, nor one that can temper majesty, wisdom, learning, choler and favour better than Her Highness did at that time.
In October, the truce expired and Tyrone re-armed. The Queen, whose wrath had increased rather than abated, blamed Essex and resolved to teach him a lesson. ‘Such contempt ought to be publicly punished,’ she told her Council. To the French ambassador, she declared her intention of showing Essex who held power in England. Had her own son committed a like fault, she asserted with passion, she would have him put in the highest tower in England. The world, however, did not realise the quality of her indignation, and looked daily for his release. Even the Council had recommended it several times, on the grounds that Essex had been incompetent rather than malicious, and that his offences did not merit such severity.
But ‘Her Majesty’s anger seems to be appeased in nothing’; months later, she confided to the French ambassador that she had not revealed to her councillors the full extent of Essex’s disobedience, and although she did not elaborate further, such fragments of evidence as exist indicate she may have suspected the Earl of having been in league with Tyrone before he set out for Ireland, in which case, his offences were very serious indeed. It seems, however, that what she had learned was not sufficient to secure a conviction, for she remained unsure as to what she should do with him, and asked Francis Bacon, who wrote an account of their interview many years later, for his advice. Bacon, perceiving that Essex was ruined, had decided to abandon him in the interests of furthering his own career, and now pounced on this chance of ingratiating himself with the Queen. He told her that he thought Essex’s offences serious. He would never, he advised, send him back to Ireland.
‘Whensoever I send Essex back to Ireland, I will marry you! Claim it of me!’ Elizabeth cried. She said she meant to bring Essex to justice, but how? Had he committed treason? Was it a cause for the Star Chamber? Bacon advised her that to proceed thus would be unsafe, since, although Essex had been incompetent, there was little evidence of deliberate misconduct or treason. Were he to be convicted on such flimsy proofs, his popularity was such that there would almost certainly be a massive public backlash; already, the people were criticising her for keeping him under arrest without charge. This was not what Elizabeth wanted to hear, and, with a venomous look, she indicated that the interview was over. However, when she had thought on what Bacon had said, a public trial did seem inappropriate and provocative.
At the Accession Day tilts on 17 November, Elizabeth appeared relaxed and unconcerned, presiding over the jousts for several hours. A week later, having announced that Mountjoy was to replace Essex as Lord Deputy of Ireland, she suddenly decided that she would make public account to her subjects for her treatment of Essex. It was then the custom, at the end of the legal term, for the Lord Keeper to deliver a speech to the people in the Court of Star Chamber, and the Queen resolved to make this the occasion for the sorry catalogue of Essex’s offences to be read out, ‘for the satisfaction of the world’ and to suppress the ‘dangerous libels cast abroad in court, city and country, to the great scandal of Her Majesty and her Council’.
When he received a summons to appear, Essex pleaded that he was too sick to attend, having ‘the Irish flux’, but Elizabeth did not believe him, so, on the afternoon of 28 November, accompanied by Lord Worcester and Lady Warwick, she had her bargemen row her to York House. What transpired there is unrecorded, and there is no evidence that she even saw Essex, who was said to be at death’s door.
Nevertheless, on 29 November, before a solemn gathering of Privy Councillors, judges and laymen in the Star Chamber, Essex was accused of mismanaging the Irish campaign, squandering public funds to the tune of – 300,000, making a dishonourable treaty with Tyrone and abandoning his command against the express orders of the Queen.
Bacon was not present, and when the Queen asked him why, he claimed he had been deterred by threats of violence and worse from the people, who were calling him a traitor for betraying his friend. She did not believe him, and refused to speak to him for weeks afterwards.
After Essex’s offences had been published, the Star Chamber proceedings came to an end, and he remained in confinement, though many people thought it unfair ‘to condemn a man unheard’ without trial.
Throughout the weeks of his confinement, Essex had suffered greatly. He was in pain due to a stone in the kidney and recurring bouts of dysentery, he was allowed to see no one but his servants, he could not go out of doors, and his submissive letters to the Queen provoked no response, driving him to desperation. Even Harington, who bravely came to see him, dared not carry a letter to Elizabeth, for he had barely recovered her favour and had no wish to be ‘wrecked on the Essex coast’. The people, however, had not lost faith in Essex, and their sympathy grew when it became known how critically ill he had become: laudatory pamphlets asserting his innocence were distributed in the streets; graffiti insulting the Queen and Cecil (who was blamed for poisoning her mind against Essex and had taken to going about with a bodyguard) appeared on the palace walls; and in pulpits throughout the land, preachers offered up prayers for this champion of the Protestant faith, urging Elizabeth to show clemency. Worst of all, ‘traitorous monsters’ (the Queen’s words) had the temerity to make ‘railing speeches and slanderous libels’ against her. All this disturbed her greatly, for, having devoted her whole life to courting the love of her subjects, she could not bear to see evidence of their disaffection.
In early December, therefore, Elizabeth graciously allowed Lady Essex, who had stayed at court, conspicuously dressed in mourning, to visit her husband during the daytime, but he was so ill, both in body and spirit, that Frances concluded there was ‘little hope of his recovery’. Whyte wrote, ‘He is grown very ill and weak by grief, and craves nothing more than that he may quickly know what Her Majesty will do with him. He eats little, sleeps less, and only sustains life by continual drinking, which increases the rheum.’
Distressed to hear this, the Queen sent eight of her physicians to attend him, but their report was not encouraging: his liver was ‘stopped and perished’, and his intestines ulcerated. He could not walk, and had to be lifted so that his linen, soiled with black matter from his bowels, could be changed. All the doctors could prescribe were glisters (enemas) to cleanse his system. Elizabeth ordered that he be moved to Egerton’s great bedchamber, and with tears in her eyes dispatched a messenger with some broth and a message bidding Essex comfort himself with it, and promising that, if she might with honour visit him, she would. She also conceded that, when he was better, he might take the air in the garden of York House.
Nevertheless, she had now seen enough evidence to suggest to her that his dealings with Tyrone had verged on the treasonable, and was still insisting that he be punished for his offences. Yet her anger was underlaid with sadness, and, as she told the French ambassador later, she was still hoping Essex might yet ‘reform’, for the sake of ‘those good things’ that were in him.
On 19 December, it was rumoured that Essex had died, and several church bells began tolling. On the door of Cecil’s house, someone scrawled, ‘Here lieth the Toad’. But when the Queen heard her chaplains praying for Essex, she bade them desist, for she had heard he was not dead, but had in fact recovered somewhat. A week later, he was sitting up in bed, and soon afterwards was taking his meals at table.
Elizabeth kept Christmas that year at Richmond; the court was crowded and merry, and the Queen appeared in good spirits, playing cards with Sackville and Cecil, and watching her ladies performing country dances in the Presence Chamber. There were also ‘plays and Christmas pies’ for her delectation. There was talk of Pembroke’s heir, young William Herbert, becoming the new royal favourite, since ‘he very discreetly follows the course of making love to the Queen’, but he proved to be a dull, unambitious youth who preferred reading to jousting and was soon ‘blamed for his weak pursuance of Her Majesty’s favour. Want of spirit is laid to his charge, and that he is a melancholy companion.’
On Twelfth Night 1600, reported a Spanish agent, ‘The Queen held a great feast,’ in which the Head of the Church of England and Ireland was to be seen in her old age dancing three or four galliards.’
Essex’s sister, Lady Rich, had already incurred the Queen’s displeasure with her incessant pleas on her brother’s behalf. Before her lover Mountjoy left for Ireland on 7 February, he conferred with Southampton and Essex’s friend Sir Charles Danvers as to how they might best help Essex. It was agreed that they would enlist the support of James VI by informing him that the Cecil faction was working to prevent his succession, and that his only hope of wearing the crown of England lay in the return to favour of Essex. If James would consider a show of armed strength to bring that about, Mountjoy would back him by bringing an army of 4-5000 men over from Ireland to force Elizabeth to agree to their demands. Since all three men were in secret contact with Essex, it is almost certain that he knew of, and had approved, this treasonable plan. But James diplomatically showed little interest in the proposal, and it was shelved.
By the end of January, Essex was well again, and, Elizabeth, stiffening in her resolve, announced to her councillors that she meant to have him publicly tried for treason on 8 February in the Star Chamber. Cecil and Bacon, fearful of public opinion, dissuaded her, suggesting instead that she secure his submission privately. At Cecil’s suggestion, Essex wrote her a humble letter craving her forgiveness, beseeching her to let this cup pass from him. ‘The tears in my heart hath quenched all the sparkles of pride that were in me,’ he declared. Unwillingly, she cancelled the trial at the last minute.
On 3 March, Whyte noted that ‘Her Majesty’s displeasure is nothing lessened towards the Earl of Essex.’ After representations by Egerton, who was finding his position intolerable, Elizabeth gave permission on 20 March for Essex to return under the supervision of a keeper, Sir Richard Berkeley, to live in Essex House, which had been stripped of its rich furnishings, but he was not allowed to leave it and was only permitted a few servants. Nor were his family allowed to live with him. He was still writing plaintive letters to the Queen, pleading to be restored to favour. ‘God is witness how faithfully I vow to dedicate the rest of my life to Your Majesty,’ he assured her.
Raleigh was fearful that Cecil was not taking a hard enough line with the Queen over Essex, and warned him,
I am not wise enough to give you advice, but if you relent towards this tyrant, you will repent it when it shall be too late. His malice is fixed and will not evaporate by any [of] your mild courses. Lose not your advantage. If you do, I read your destiny. He will ever be the canker of the Queen’s estate and safety. I have seen the last of her good days, and all ours, after his liberty.
At that very moment, Essex was in correspondence with Mountjoy in Ireland, pleading with him to come to his aid with an army, even if James would not help him. But Mountjoy, having now himself seen the situation in Ireland, was less inclined to sympathise with Essex, and had rather more pressing matters to deal with, the chief of those being the overthrow of Tyrone. He therefore declared that, ‘to satisfy my Lord of Essex’s private ambition, he would not enter into an enterprise of that nature’. Essex wrote another beseeching letter to the Queen at this time, telling her he felt he had been ‘thrown into a corner as a dead carcass’.
That spring, the Queen was very downcast, obviously torn two ways over Essex. When Lady Scrope, bringing her a letter from him, expressed the hope that Her Majesty would restore to favour one who with so much sorrow desired it, Elizabeth replied wistfully, ‘Indeed, it was so.’
Public indignation at Essex’s continuing imprisonment was mounting, with many believing he had not been brought to trial because there was ‘want of matter to proceed against him’. To counteract this, on 5 June, at York House, Elizabeth had him brought before a commission of eighteen councillors, presided over by Lord Keeper Egerton. An invited audience of two hundred persons was present. This was not a formal court, but a tribunal invested with the power to mete out a punishment agreed beforehand by the Queen, who had devised the whole charade as a public relations exercise. Afterwards, many courtiers began to believe that she was paving the way for a reconciliation.
The proceedings lasted eleven hours. The prisoner, who understood very well what was required of him, was made to kneel before the board at which the lords sat, while the Attorney-General, Sir Edward Coke, read out a list of his ‘delinquencies’. Chief of these was his gross contempt and disobedience, although it was made clear to him that his loyalty to the Queen was not in doubt. Then four lawyers for the Crown condemned his misdemeanours; Essex was astonished and hurt to see his erstwhile friend Bacon among them. Bacon had, in fact, begged to be excused, but the Queen had insisted on his being there.
Thanks to the intervention of Archbishop Wmitgift, Essex was eventually permitted to lean on a chair-back and, as time wore on, to sit. After several hours of accusations, it was time for him publicly to apologise for his misdeeds and throw himself on the Queen’s mercy, but at this point the Attorney-General took it upon himself to deliver a lengthy attack on the Earl, provoking Essex to heated retaliation. The dignified hearing quickly deteriorated into a slanging match, and only when Cecil intervened did the protagonists desist and Essex, in a passionate and moving speech, freely acknowledge his culpability and express his deep remorse at having offended the Queen. ‘I would tear the heart out of my breast if ever a disloyal thought had entered it!’ he cried.
The commissioners found Essex guilty on all counts, and Egerton told him that, had this been a normal court, he would have been condemned to a huge fine and perpetual imprisonment in the Tower, but since it was not, and since he had abjectly admitted his faults and begged for mercy, he might return to his house to await Her Majesty’s pleasure. ‘It was a most pitiful sight to see him that was the minion of Fortune, now unworthy of the least honour,’ wrote Whyte, and many of the onlookers wept to see it.
Elizabeth ordered that he be dismissed from the Privy Council and deprived of his offices of Earl Marshal and Master of the Ordnance, allowing him to retain only that of Master of the Horse. She had considered releasing Essex, but both Cecil and Raleigh warned her that he was almost certain to start scheming again, so after the hearing he remained under house arrest at Essex House.
Three weeks later, the Queen decided to strip all those knighted by Essex of their knighthoods, sparking a terrible fuss, as many of the men quailed at the prospect of telling their wives they were ‘Lady’ no longer, just plain ‘Mistress’ again. Cecil intervened on their behalf, but it was some time before the Queen finally relented. Fortunately, news had come from Ireland that Mountjoy was proving himself a considerable strategist and was making headway against the rebels, which disposed the Queen to clemency.
During the summer, Elizabeth kept herself busy. She walked in Greenwich Park, rode her favourite horses, Grey Pool and Black Wilford, and danced in public on several occasions, hoping to prove that she was ‘not so old as some would have her’. She was also entertained to dinner by her nobles on several occasions, practised archery at the butts, thrilled to the daredevil performance of a French tight-rope acrobat, and watched the baiting of some bears, a bull and an ape in the tiltyard.
On 15 June, she attended the wedding of a favourite maid of honour, Anne Russell, to William Herbert at Blackfriars. At a masque performed afterwards by eight ladies of the court in allegorical guise, Mary Fitton, another of her maids, invited Elizabeth to dance. The Queen asked her what her costume represented, whereupon Mary replied, ‘Affection.’
‘Affection!’ sniffed the Queen, still keenly hurt by Essex’s betrayal. ‘Affection is false!’ But she joined the dancing, nevertheless.
During August and September, she was hunting every day and, at sixty-seven, planning a long progress to Wiltshire and Farnham, prompting groans and protests from the older members of her household, ‘but Her Majesty bid the old stay behind and the young and able to go with her’. Then she thought better of it and, with a very small train, went to Nonsuch instead, then Elvetham, and later to Oatlands, where she was reported to be ‘very merry and well’. Thereafter, instead of going on progress, she spent days out, visiting Sir Francis Carew at Beddington Park, Archbishop Whitgift at Croydon Palace, and her New Forest hunting lodge.
Her moods were changeable. At Penshurst Place in Kent, she was in low spirits, and her host, Sir Robert Sidney, told Harington,
She seemeth most pleased at what we did to please her. My son made her a fair speech, to which she did give most gracious reply. The women did dance before her, whilst the cornets did salute from the gallery, and she did eat two morsels of rich comfit cake and drank a small cordial from a gold cup. She doth wax weaker since the late troubles, and Burghley’s death often draws tears from her goodly cheeks. She walketh out but little, meditates much alone, and sometimes writes in private to her best friends. At going upstairs, she called for a staff, and was much wearied in walking about the house, and said she wished to come another day. Six drums and trumpets waited in the court and sounded at her approach and departure.
That summer saw the seventh bad harvest in a row. For some time now, the Queen had been preoccupied with trying to solve her country’s economic problems. Dearth and famine had given rise to widespread discontent and disorder, and there were angry rumblings about the dragging out of the costly war with Spain, which had curtailed much of England’s trade. No longer could Elizabeth live within her means; instead, she was forced to sell off Crown lands, jewels and even Henry VIII’s Great Seal, to pay her debts. Many of her courtiers relied on monopolies on goods and commodities to survive, but the abuse of this system led to bitter complaints from Parliament.
After the hearing in June, Bacon had written to apologise to Essex for his part in it, and had advised him to send two letters in succession both composed by Bacon, begging the Queen’s forgiveness. One read: ‘Now, having heard the voice of Your Majesty’s justice, I do humbly crave to hear your own proper and natural voice, or else that Your Majesty in mercy will send me into another world. If Your Majesty will vouchsafe to let me once prostrate myself at your feet and behold your fair and gracious eyes, yea, though afterwards Your Majesty punish me, imprison me, or pronounce the sentence of death against me, Your Majesty is most merciful, and I shall be most happy.’
This worked to a degree. In July, Berkeley was dismissed, although Essex was commanded to keep to his house, and on 26 August, on Bacon’s advice, the Queen set him at liberty. As he was forbidden, however, to come to court or hold any public office, he announced he would retire to the country. Both he and his friends were still hopeful that the Queen would forgive him, but in her opinion, he was not yet humble enough.
Essex was still deeply in debt, to the tune of 16,000; his creditors were growing restive, and he was counting on the Queen to renew his monopoly on sweet wines, which accounted for the lion’s share of his income, when it expired at Michaelmas. Elizabeth was aware of his predicament, for he had written telling her of it, but when he began inundating her with a further barrage of flattering missives, she observed shrewdly to Bacon, ‘My Lord of Essex has written me some very dutiful letters, and I have been moved by them, but’ – and here she gave an ironic laugh – ‘what I took for the abundance of the heart, I find to be only a suit for the farm of sweet wines.’ Bacon pleaded with her ‘not utterly to extinguish my Lord’s desire to do her service’, but she brushed him aside.
Unaware that she saw through him, Essex, having returned to London, was hoping she would agree to see him, and wrote again in desperation: ‘Haste paper to that happy presence, whence only unhappy I am banished; kiss that fair, correcting hand which lays new plasters to my higher hurts, but to my greatest wound applieth nothing. Say thou comest from pining, languishing, despairing SX.’ Elizabeth had consistently failed to reply to any of his letters, but to this one she sent a verbal message, ‘that thankfulness was ever welcome and seldom came out of season, and that he did well so dutifully to acknowledge that what was done was so well meant’.
Michaelmas came and went, with no word from the Queen about his monopoly. There is evidence that the government had just found out about his dealings with Mountjoy, to whom he had recently sent a further request for help, with a view to launching an assault on the court.
‘Corrupt bodies – the more you feed them, the more hurt you do them,’ Elizabeth observed grimly. ‘An unruly horse must be abated of his provender, that he may be the more easily and better managed.’
On 18 October, Essex made a final, despairing plea to her:
My soul cries out unto Your Majesty for grace, for access, and for an end of this exile. If Your Majesty grant this suit, you are most gracious. If this cannot be obtained, I must doubt whether that the means to preserve life, and the granted liberty, have been favours or punishments; for, till I may appear in your most gracious presence and kiss Your Majesty’s fair, correcting hand, time itself is a perpetual night, and the whole world but a sepulchre unto Your Majesty’s humblest vassal.
Late in October, the Queen announced that from henceforth the profits on sweet wines would be reserved to the Crown; perhaps she intended to restore them to him when he had sufficiently expiated his crimes, but for the present, Essex was ruined.
This, the culmination of months of ill-health, deep anxiety and strain, finally broke him. It would be no exaggeration to say that he lost his reason in consequence of this cruel blow, which coincided with Mountjoy’s categoric refusal to help him. He was as a man possessed, raving with anger one moment and plunged into black melancholy another. Harington, who went to see him at this time, recorded that
ambition thwarted in its career doth speedily lead on to madness. He shifteth from sorrow and repentence to rage and rebellion so suddenly as well proveth him devoid of good reason or right mind. He uttereth strange words, bordering on such strange designs that made me hasten forth and leave his presence. His speeches of the Queen becometh no man who hath a healthy mind in a healthy body. He hath ill advisers and much evil hath sprung from this source. The Queen well knoweth how to humble the haughty spirit, the haughty spirit knoweth not how to yield, and the man’s soul seemeth tossed to and fro, like the waves of a troubled sea.
One remark made by Essex was reported to Elizabeth: when someone, possibly Harington, referred to ‘the Queen’s conditions’, he interrupted, shouting, ‘Her conditions! Her conditions are as cankered and crooked as her carcass!’ She never forgave him for this.
But his anger went beyond words. From now on, spurred on by the machinations of his clever and ambitious secretary, Henry Cuffe, who was the brains behind what was to come, he was in covert rebellion. He was paranoid, convinced that his misfortunes marked the success of a masterplan by his enemies to destroy him, and that Cecil was not only plotting to murder him, but was also conspiring with Philip III to set the Infanta Isabella on the throne. It was imperative that he warn the Queen of what was going on, so that she could rid herself of such treacherous ministers and be reconciled with himself, fully restoring him to favour. If she refused to listen, he would make her: Cuffe had convinced him the only way to get back into favour would be to force his way into her presence, backed by an army of his friends and those citizens who had so often expressed their love for him. Cuffe told him that honour demanded this of him: he must save his reputation.
Essex therefore began to gather around him disaffected peers such as the Earls of Southampton and Rutland, his staunch friends, who included Sir Charles Danvers, Essex’s stepfather Christopher Blount, a Catholic recusant, Francis Tresham, Essex’s secretary Henry Cuffe, his Welsh steward, Sir Gelli Meyrick, and even his sister, Lady Rich, who was Mountjoy’s mistress. For good measure, Essex warned James VI of Cecil’s imagined efforts to promote the claim of the Infanta, and urged him to insist that Elizabeth declare him her heir. James was disturbed by this, and responded in a coded message, which Essex ostentatiously carried with him at all times in a black pouch hung around his neck.
Soon, the conspirators were meeting, not only at Essex House, but also at Southampton’s residence, Drury House. Essex was even contemplating breaking into the Queen’s apartments, placing her under restraint, and ruling England in her name. Thanks to Cecil’s agents, whose suspicions had been alerted by the number of swaggering young bucks converging on the Strand, the Secretary knew exactly what was going on, and was prepared to bide his time until Essex had woven enough rope with which to hang himself.
In November, the war in the Netherlands finally came to an end when an Anglo-Dutch army won a victory over the Spaniards at Nieuport. All that most people, including the Queen, wanted now was a safe, honourable peace with Spain.
Accession Day arrived, and there were the usual festivities at Whitehall. On this day also, Essex wrote his last surviving letter to Elizabeth, congratulating her on the forty-second anniversary of her accession and again begging to be forgiven: ‘I sometimes think of running [in the tiltyard] and then remember what it will be to come into that presence, out of which both by your own voice I was commanded, and by your own hands thrust out.’ Again, he received no answer.
By now, he had built up a wide affinity of support, which included, according to Camden, ‘all swordmen, bold, confident fellows, men of broken fortunes, and such as saucily used their tongues in railing against all men’. Outcasts, social misfits, deserters from the army, Puritan preachers, Papists, adventurers, and all manner of malcontents found the door of Essex House open to them. Nearly all, even Essex’s noble supporters, were desperately short of money, a disadvantage which they looked to the success of their revolt to remedy, and all were ready to be swept up in a fervour of misplaced patriotism. Even Mountjoy, learning of Lady Rich’s involvement, now offered his assistance, should the rebellion prove successful.
At Christmas, Essex tried again to enlist the support of James VI against the Cecil faction, urging him ‘to stop the malice, the wickedness and madness of these men, and to relieve my poor country, which groans under the burden’. The Queen, he asserted, was ‘being led blindfold into her own extreme danger’. James agreed to send an ambassador to back Essex’s complaints, but only after Essex had staged his coup.
Elizabeth kept Christmas at Whitehall; Cecil entertained her to dinner, and on 26 December there was dancing at court, she herself performing a coranto with a Mr Palmer. She also watched the eleven plays that were staged at court during the season.
During the early weeks of 1601, Essex finalised plans for his coup, which was planned for March, whilst his followers disseminated wild rumours of Catholic plots throughout London. It was decided that, once the City and the Tower had been secured, Essex would approach the Queen ‘in such peace as not a dog would wag his tongue at him’ and make her summon a Parliament, in which he would have Cecil, Raleigh and their associates impeached and himself named Lord Protector. Yet, although Essex had decreed that the Queen should not be harmed, according to Christopher Blount, ‘if we had failed of our ends, we should, rather than have been disappointed, even have drawn blood from herself.
One of Essex’s friends, Sir Ferdinando Gorges, took fright and warned Raleigh of what was going on. Raleigh, in turn, alerted the Council, but Cecil was already prepared. At the beginning of February, he himself spread a rumour that Essex was about to be sent to the Tower. Hearing this, Essex realised there was no time to lose.
His sense of urgency deepened when, on the morning of 7 February, a messenger arrived from the Queen to demand that he present himself before the Council immediately. His friends warned him not to go, as he would be arrested, and urged him to act without delay. He briefly considered fleeing, but could not bring himself to abandon his hopes of glory, nor his public, for he felt sure they would rise on his behalf. He therefore dispatched the royal messenger with a message that he was ‘in bed and all in a sweat’ after playing tennis, and could not attend the Council. Then he summoned three hundred of his followers and told them that, since he had just discovered that Cecil and Raleigh were planning his assassination, the rising would take place on the morrow. The Queen, he insisted, must not be harmed.
Later that day, in order to rouse the populace of London, Essex’s friend, Sir Gelli Meyrick, paid a reluctant Shakespeare and his company of actors, the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, forty shillings to stage a production of the inflammatory Richard II, with its banned abdication scene, at the Globe Theatre in Southwark.
Cecil was also preparing for a confrontation: he summoned levies from the nearby shires, instructed the London preachers to tell the citizens to remain indoors on the morrow, and arranged for the guard to be doubled at Whitehall. Danvers, who had been watching the palace, warned Essex that his plans were known, and warned him to escape while he could. Essex refused to listen.
On the next day, the 8th, he staged his coup. As he gathered his friends and supporters and two hundred soldiers in the courtyard of Essex House, there was so much noise and commotion that the Queen, hearing of it, sent Lord Keeper Egerton, the Lord Chief Justice, Sir John Popham, the Earl of Worcester and Sir William Knollys to find out the cause of it and insist that Essex come and explain himself to the Council. Essex invited them into his library, but the crowd swarmed up the stairs behind them, crying, ‘Kill them! Kill them!’, drowning the lords’ injunctions to disarm. Essex locked the four councillors in the library, and left with his by now unruly following for the City on foot.
Wearing his normal clothes rather than armour to signify his peaceful intent, and carrying just a sword, he marched through Temple Bar into Fleet Street, crying, ‘For the Queen! For the Queen! The crown of England is sold to the Spaniard! A plot is laid for my life!’ But he had overestimated his popularity and credibility: far from flocking to his side, the astonished citizens remained indoors and even tried, unsuccessfully, to prevent him forcing his way through Ludgate, which had been locked against his coming. By the time he reached St Paul’s Cathedral, he was forced to face the fact that there would be no popular rising in his favour. As he turned into Cheapside, his face was ‘almost molten with sweat’ and suffused with fear. When he reached the house of the Sheriff of London, Thomas Smyth, who had offered his support, he was perspiring so much that he asked for a clean shirt. But already, his followers were deserting him, covering their faces with their cloaks, and Smyth, regretting having ever got involved in such a madcap scheme, escaped out of the back door to summon the Mayor, who was busy obeying the Queen’s injunction to summon all the citizens to arms.
Meanwhile, heralds had ridden abroad proclaiming Essex a traitor, and government troops had begun erecting a barricade of coaches across the road that led from Charing Cross to Whitehall. Many citizens had hurried to the palace, one remarking that there was ‘such a hurly burly at the court as I never saw’. A force under Sir John Leveson occupied Ludgate, and every one of London’s seven gates was locked.
Around two o’clock in the afternoon, realising that all was lost, Essex abandoned his remaining followers and fled to Queenhithe, where he took a barge back to his house, only to find that Gorges had released his hostages and returned with them to Whitehall. Realising his predicament, Essex locked himself in and burned dozens of incriminating papers as well as his black pouch containing the Scottish King’s message. But it was not long before the Queen’s soldiers, under the command of Lord Admiral Nottingham, came and surrounded his house and trained their cannon upon it, demanding he give himself up.
Essex clambered up on to the roof and brandished his sword. ‘I would sooner fly to Heaven!’ he cried. Nottingham replied, very well then, he would blow the house up. Essex had no choice but to come out, just after ten in the evening, and surrender his sword. He asked only that his chaplain, Abdy Ashton, remain with him. Before long, eighty-five rebels had been rounded up and taken into custody.
During the rebellion, Elizabeth had remained coolly in control and displayed remarkable courage, giving orders to Cecil and never doubting her people’s loyalty. She took her meals as usual, stating that God had placed her on her throne and He would preserve her on it, and would not allow the normal routine of the day to be disrupted. At one stage, she received a false report that the City had gone over to Essex, but was no more disturbed by this ‘than she would have been to hear of a fray in Fleet Street’. ‘She would have gone out in person to see what any rebel of them all durst do against her, had not her councillors, with much ado, stayed her.’ Nottingham spoke admiringly of the way she had placed her reliance on God: ‘I beheld Her Majesty with most princely fortitude stand up like the Lord’s Anointed and offer in person to face the boldest traitor in the field, relying on God’s almighty providence, which had heretofore maintained her.’ Cecil spoke for many when he gave thanks for ‘the joy of Her Majesty’s preservation’.
Having demonstrated that she was still in authoritative control of her realm, the Queen expressly ordered that Essex and Southampton be taken that night under guard to Lambeth Palace rather than the Tower, ‘because the night was dark and the river not passable under [London] Bridge’. But on the next tide, at three o’clock the next morning, they were rowed to the Tower, closely followed by Rutland, Danvers, Blount and several others of gentle birth. Elizabeth would not retire to bed until she had been assured that her orders had been carried out. Cuffe and other rebels were thrown into the common gaols.
On 9 February, the Queen told the French ambassador that Essex, that ‘shameless ingrate, had at last revealed what had long been in his mind’. She had indulged him too long, she confessed, and with mounting passion, spoke scornfully about Essex parading himself through the City, making vain speeches and retreating shamefully. Had he reached Whitehall, she declared, she had been resolved to go out and face him, ‘in order to know which of the two of them ruled’.
After the rising had collapsed, however, the strain told. Harington noticed that Elizabeth was ‘much wasted’ and could not be bothered to put on all her finery.
She disregardeth every costly dish that cometh to the table, and taketh little but manchet and pottage. Every new message from the City doth disturb her, and she frowns on all the ladies. I must not say much, but the many evil plots and designs hath overcome all Her Highness’s sweet temper. She walks much in her chamber, and stamps with her feet at ill news, and thrusts her rusty sword at times into the arras [tapestry] in great rage. But the dangers are over, and yet she always has a sword by her table. And so disordered is all order, that Her Highness hath worn but one change of raiment for many days, and swears much at those that cause her griefs, to the no small discomfiture of all about her.
As Elizabeth wanted the chief offenders brought to trial without delay, the Council began examining them, uncovering the full details of the doomed plot. On 13 February, in the Star Chamber, these were made public. Four days later, indictments against Essex, Southampton and many others were laid, and it was decided that the two principals should be tried two days hence. Bacon was one of those chosen to act for the Crown, and had no qualms now about doing so. The Queen was prepared to overlook Mountjoy’s involvement, in view of his successes in Ireland, and also refrained from complaining to James VI about his support of Essex.
Elizabeth’s resolve to make an end of Essex was strengthened on 12 February, when one of his followers, a Captain Lea, who had served as his messenger to Tyrone – and in 1597 had presented Elizabeth with the severed head of an Irish rebel, much to her disgust – was arrested in the palace kitchen on his way to the chamber where she supped with her ladies, his intention being to force her at knife-point to issue a warrant for Essex’s release. Lea was tried at Newgate on 14 February, and hanged at Tyburn the following day.
On 19 February, Essex and Southampton were tried by their peers at Westminster Hall, Buckhurst presiding as Lord High Steward. They were accused of plotting to deprive the Queen of her crown and life, imprisoning the councillors of the realm, inciting the Londoners to rebellion with false tales, and resisting the Queen’s soldiers sent to arrest them. As Essex looked on smiling, Sir Edward Coke, Francis Bacon and Sir John Popham presented a devastating case for the Crown, Coke accusing him of aspiring to be ‘Robert, the first of his name, King of England’. Bacon’s defection was, to Essex, ‘the unkindest cut of all’, but Bacon pointed out to the court, ‘I loved my Lord of Essex as long as he continued a dutiful subject. I have spent more hours to make him a good subject to Her Majesty than I have about my own business.’
Essex, dressed in black and very much in control of himself, pleaded not guilty, as did Southampton, and boldly did his best to refute the charges, arguing heatedly with his accusers. He insisted that Raleigh had tried to murder him, but Raleigh, summoned as a witness, stoutly denied it. When Essex insisted that his chief intention had been to petition the Queen to impeach Cecil, whose loyalty was false, Bacon retorted that it was hardly usual for petitioners to approach Her Majesty armed and guarded, nor for them to ‘run together in numbers. Will any man be so simple to take this as less than treason?’ When Cecil demanded to know where Essex had learned that he was plotting to set the Infanta on the throne, Essex was forced to admit that this slander was based on a chance remark of Cecil’s, made two years before, and taken out of context. ‘You have a wolfs head in a sheep’s garment. God be thanked, we know you now,’ commented Cecil, vindicated.
The verdict was a foregone conclusion, the peers having asked the advice of senior judges beforehand, and taken into account the wishes of the Queen: after an hour’s debate, they found Essex guilty of high treason, whereupon Buckhurst sentenced him to the appalling barbarities of a traitor’s death – a sentence which, in the case of a peer of the realm, was invariably commuted by the monarch to simple beheading.
After being sentenced, Essex, who remained calm, dignified, and unmoved by the terrible fate awaiting him, was allowed to address the court: ‘I think it fitting that my poor quarters, which have done Her Majesty service in divers parts of the world, should now at the last be sacrificed and disposed at Her Majesty’s pleasure.’ He asked for mercy for Southampton, but said he would not ‘fawningly beg’ for it for himself, and, looking at the peers, added, ‘Although you have condemned me in a court of judgement, yet in the court of your conscience, ye would absolve me, who have intended no harm against the prince.’ The condemned were generally expected to express humble submission, and Essex’s speech was reckoned by many of those present to be unfittingly arrogant for one on the brink of Divine Judgement, and whose guilt was so manifest.
Southampton, who declared he had been led away by love for Essex, was also condemned to death, but the Queen was merciful, and later commuted his punishment to life imprisonment in the Tower. After her death, he was released by James I.
Many people at court believed that, if Essex begged the Queen for mercy, she would spare his life, but Essex remained true to his word and proudly refrained from making any ‘cringing submission’. Despite the efforts of the Dean of Norwich, who had been sent to him by the Council, he would not acknowledge his guilt. Even had he done so, he would have posed too great a threat to the Queen’s security to be allowed to live. On the day after the trial, without her usual prevarication, Elizabeth signed his death warrant in a firm hand; it may still be seen in the British Library.
On 21 February, Cecil, Nottingham, Egerton and Buckhurst were requested to attend on Essex in the Tower. His chaplain, having conjured up a terrifying vision of the punishment that awaited him in Hell if he did not own up to his sins, had succeeded where the Dean had failed and, in an agony of remorse, Essex had asked to make a full confession of his crimes in the presence of the Council. With great humility, he declared he was ‘the greatest, most vilest and most unthankful traitor that has ever been in the land’, and admitted that ‘the Queen could never be safe as long as he lived’. He then rehearsed all his misdeeds, implicating most of his friends, and even his own sister, without a qualm. He asked to see Henry Cuffe, and when the secretary was brought in, accused him of being the author ‘of all these my disloyal courses into which I have fallen’.
Lady Essex had written begging Cecil to intercede with the Queen for her husband’s life, saying that if he died, ‘I shall never wish to breathe one hour after’. Cecil was in fact grieved to see Essex brought so low, but the Queen was implacable. Later, she told the French ambassador that, had she been able to spare Essex’s life without endangering the security of the realm, she would have done so, but ‘he himself had recognised that he was unworthy of it’. She did, however, grant Essex’s request for a private execution.
On 23 February, having been delayed to give the prisoner time to make his confession, Essex’s death warrant was delivered to the Lieutenant of the Tower, but the Queen sent a message after it, ordering that the execution be postponed until the next day.
Shrove Tuesday fell on 24 February; the Queen attended the customary banquet at court, and watched a performance of one of Shakespeare’s plays. That night, she sent a message commanding the Lieutenant of the Tower to proceed with Essex’s execution on the morrow, ordering that two executioners be summoned to despatch the prisoner: ‘If one taint, the other may perform it to him, on whose soul God have mercy.’ Then she retired to the privacy of her apartments and remained there throughout the following day.
There is a legend, often repeated, that Elizabeth had once, in happier times, given Essex a ring, saying that, if ever he was in trouble, he was to send it to her and she would help him. A gold ring with a sardonynx cameo of the Queen, said to be this one, is in the Chapter House Museum in Westminster Abbey. In the seventeenth century, it was claimed that, whilst in the Tower, Essex leaned out of his window and entrusted the ring to a boy, telling him to take it to Lady Scrope and ask her to give it to the Queen; however, the boy mistakenly gave it to Lady Scrope’s sister, the Countess of Nottingham, wife of Essex’s rival, the Admiral, who, out of malice, made her keep the ring to herself. The story went that she only revealed its existence to the Queen when she herself was on her deathbed in 1603, whereupon Elizabeth is said to have told her bitterly, ‘May God forgive you, Madam, but I never can.’
The story is a fabrication. It is first referred to in 1620 in John Webster’s The Devil’s Law Case, and later recounted in detail in The Secret History of the Most Renowned Queen Elizabeth and the Earl of Essex, by a Person of Quality, a work of fiction published in 1695. Camden, Elizabeth’s usually well-informed biographer, knew of the tale, and condemned it as false, and this is borne out by the fact that Elizabeth, who did attend the death-bed of her great friend, Lady Nottingham, was so devastated with grief at her death that her own health was fatally undermined.
During the night of 24 February, Essex prepared for death, apologising to his guards for having no means of rewarding them, ‘for I have nothing left but that which I must pay to the Queen tomorrow in the morning’.
In the early hours of the 25th, a select company of lords, knights and aldermen arrived at the Tower. They had been invited to watch the execution, and took their seats around the scaffold, which had been built in the courtyard of the Tower in front of the Chapel of St Peter ad Vincula. When Raleigh appeared, being required, as Captain of the Gentlemen Pensioners, to attend, there was a frisson of disapproval, for it was known that he had been Essex’s enemy, and several people, seeing him position himself near the block, accused him of having come to gloat. He therefore withdrew to the armoury in the nearby White Tower, and watched the proceedings from a window. Later, he claimed he had been moved to tears.
Supported by three clergymen, Essex was brought to the scaffold just before eight o’clock; he was dressed in a black velvet gown over a doublet and breeches of black satin, and wore a black felt hat. Having ascended the steps, he took off his hat and bowed to the spectators. It was traditional for the condemned person to make a last speech before departing the world, and Essex’s was abject in tone; ‘he acknowledged, with thankfulness to God, that he was justly spewed out of the realm’. Then he continued:
My sins are more in number than the hairs on my head. I have bestowed my youth in wantonness, lust and uncleanness; I have been puffed up with pride, vanity and love of this wicked world’s pleasures. For all which, I humbly beseech my Saviour Christ to be a mediator to the eternal Majesty for my pardon, especially for this my last sin, this great, this bloody, this crying, this infectious sin, whereby so many for love of me have been drawn to offend God, to offend their sovereign, to offend the world. I beseech God to forgive it us, and to forgive it me – most wretched of all.
He begged God to preserve the Queen, ‘whose death I protest I never meant, nor violence to her person’, and he asked those present ‘to join your souls with me in prayer’. He ended by asking God to forgive his enemies.
His speech over, he removed his gown and ruff, and knelt by the block. A clergyman begged him not to be overcome by the fear of death, whereupon he commented that several times in battle he had ‘felt the weakness of the flesh, and therefore in this great conflict desired God to assist and strengthen him’. Looking towards the sky, he prayed fervently for the estates of the realm, and recited the Lord’s Prayer. The executioner then knelt, as was customary, and begged his forgiveness for what he was about to do. He readily gave it, then repeated the Creed after a clergyman. Rising, he took off his doublet to reveal a long- sleeved scarlet waistcoat, then bowed to the low block and laid himself down over it, saying he would be ready when he stretched out his arms. Many spectators were weeping by now.
‘Lord, be merciful to Thy prostrate servant!’ Essex prayed, and twisted his head sideways on the block. ‘Lord, into Thy hands I commend my spirit.’ A clergyman enjoined him to recite the 51st Psalm, but after two verses, he cried, ‘Executioner, strike home!’ and flung out his arms, still praying aloud. It took three strokes to sever his head, but he was probably killed by the first, since his body did not move after it. Then the headsman lifted the head by its long hair and shouted, ‘God save the Queen!’
Of the other conspirators, Blount, Danvers, Meyrick and Cuffe were executed. Otherwise, the Queen, on Cecil’s advice, was disposed to be merciful. Some forty-nine were imprisoned or fined – some of whom would become involved in the Gunpowder Plot of 1605 – while Lady Rich and thirty others were allowed to go free. Lady Essex remarried twice, and Lettice Knollys, Blount’s widow, lived to the age of ninety- four. Anthony Bacon, broken by the loss of his old friend, died three months after the rebellion. His brother Francis was rewarded by the Queen for his services with a grant of ,12,000.
Essex’s passing was mourned by many of the common people, who commemorated his deeds in popular ballads such as Essex’s Last Good Night, and Sweet England’s pride is gone, well-a-day, well-a-day, but the Queen, who had sent him to his death yet grieved for him on a personal level, had no doubt that he had deserved it, and that England was a more stable and secure state without him.
Page 8 of 11
Chapter 26
Elizabeth never showed any sign of regret for having executed Essex. As far as she was concerned, she had been justified in doing so. Yet she remembered him with sadness, and for the rest of her life wore a ring he had given her.
With Essex dead, the most powerful man in England was Cecil, that able and consummate statesman. However, he was not popular, and the people blamed him and Raleigh for Essex’s death. ‘Little Cecil trips up and down, he rules both court and crown,’ ran a contemporary rhyme. This was not strictly true, for, although the public thought otherwise, the Queen remained firmly in control of affairs. ‘I know not one man in this kingdom that will bestow six words of argument, if she deny it,’ Cecil testified. The only man who would have done so was dead, and there was at last an unusual peace at court which not even Raleigh’s pretensions could ruffle. Elizabeth knew he was jealous of Cecil’s power, but was also aware that his ‘bloody pride’ would ensure he was never a serious rival.
In March 1601, Cecil began paving the way for James VI’s succession, and his own continuance in office, by instituting a private correspondence with the Scots King, which was to be conducted in the strictest secrecy, Cecil insisting that James could expect nothing from him that was prejudicial to Elizabeth’s estate. If James would accept his advice and guidance, however, he could rest assured that the crown would pass peacefully to him when the time came. James was only too pleased to co-operate.
In May, he sent envoys to Elizabeth to request that she openly acknowledge him her heir, but, as Cecil informed England’s ambassador in Edinburgh, ‘Her Majesty gave nothing but negative answers, the matter being of so sour a nature to the Queen.’ By now, she had a pathological aversion to any discussion of the succession question, and even the news that the Scottish King, angry at her response, was doing his best to enlist foreign support for his claim, did not encourage her to settle the matter. Hence, relations between herself and James were tense for the rest of the reign; once, she informed him that she knew that all was in readiness for her funeral. Nevertheless, it is clear from her letters that she favoured him above all others as her successor. What she dared not do was acknowledge him openly as such. Yet she told Harington in private that ‘they were great fools that did not know that the line of Scotland must needs be next heirs’.
For months after Essex’s death, Elizabeth was weary and sad, suffering bouts of depression that drove her to seek sanctuary in her darkened bedchamber, where she would give way to fits of weeping. Drained of energy, she grew careless and forgetful when attending to state affairs. The last two years had broken her spirit, and there were few left of her generation to understand her terrible isolation. That summer, she confessed to the French ambassador that ‘she was tired of life, for nothing now contented her or gave her any enjoyment’. She referred to Essex ‘with sighs and almost with tears’, but insisted that he had not heeded her warnings and had brought his own doom upon himself. ‘Those who touch the sceptre of princes deserve no pity,’ she declared.
In consequence of her mood, ‘the court was very much neglected, and in effect the people were generally weary of an old woman’s government’. After the fall of Essex, Elizabeth’s popularity had declined, despite government efforts to set the record straight. ‘To this day’, wrote Camden in the next reign, ‘there are but few that thought [Essex’s] a capital crime.’ The country was burdened by economic hardship, the war with Spain still dragged on interminably, and a need for change was making itself felt. Elizabeth was criticised, somewhat unfairly, for making savage cuts in her expenditure, by courtiers who could not meet the rising cost of living and looked to her successor to remedy matters. Bribery and corruption were now endemic at court, and the Queen was powerless to stamp them out. ‘Now the wit of the fox is everywhere on foot, so as hardly a faithful or virtuous man may be found,’ she complained.
In August, Elizabeth received the antiquary William Lambarde, Keeper of the Records in the Tower, who had come to present her with a copy of his catalogue of the documents in his care. Elizabeth showed great interest, reading some aloud and telling him ‘that she would be a scholar in her age and thought it no scorn to learn during her life’. But when she turned to the papers documenting the reign of Richard II, it was obvious that Essex’s rebellion was still on her mind, for she turned to Lambarde and said, ‘I am Richard II; know ye not that? He that will forget God will also forget his benefactors. This tragedy was played forty times I open streets and houses.’ Lambarde was in no doubt as to what she was referring. But she dismissed him graciously, saying, ‘Farewell, good and honest Lambarde.’ He died two weeks later.
The Queen’s progress that summer took her to Reading and then into Hampshire, where she stayed with the Marquess of Winchester at Basing before moving on to Lord Sandys’s mansion, The Vyne, where she entertained Marshal Biron, the French ambassador, in whose honour she had the house adorned with plate and hangings brought from Hampton Court and the Tower. She was heard to boast that none of her predecessors had ever, during a progress and at a subject’s house, ‘royally entertained an ambassador’.
Biron’s associate, the Due de Sully, was much impressed by Elizabeth’s acute insight into matters of state:
I was convinced this great Queen was truly worthy of that high reputation she had acquired. She said many things which appeared to me so just and sensible that I was filled with astonishment and admiration. It is not unusual to behold princes form great designs, but to regulate the conduct of them, to foresee and guard against all obstacles in such a manner that, when they happen, nothing more will be necessary than to apply the remedies prepared long before – this is what few princes are capable of. I cannot bestow praises upon the Queen of England that would be equal to the merit which I discovered in her in this short time, both as to the qualities of the heart and the understanding.
It was during this progress that Elizabeth’s courtiers, noticing that the handsome young Irish Earl of Clanricarde bore a passing resemblance to Essex, tried to bring him to the Queen’s notice in order to revive her spirits, but she betrayed no interest whatsoever in him, anci made it clear that anything that reminded her of Essex only brought her pain.
On returning to London, she visited the Middle Temple, where, in the great hall, which had been built using timbers from the Golden Hind, she presided over a banquet at a table which is still there today, and watched a performance of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night.
The thirteenth and last Parliament of Elizabeth’s reign met in October in a surly mood, being determined to break the wretched system of monopolies that was causing such financial distress to many.* When the
*Monopolies were royal grants bestowing the sole right to make or sell consumer goods such as salt or starch, but these privileges were frequently and scandalously abused by their holders, and there was much ill feeling against the system.
Queen went in state to open Parliament, few offered the customary greeting, ‘God save Your Majesty’. There was momentary alarm when, as she addressed the assembly, weighted down in her heavy robes and crown, she suddenly swayed, prompting several gentlemen to rush forward and catch her before she sank to the ground. She recovered, however, and the ceremony proceeded as planned.
After she had left the Parliament house, the antechamber was so full there was ‘little room to pass, [and] she moved her hand to have more room, whereupon one of the gentlemen ushers said, “Back, masters, make room.” And one answered stoutly behind, “If you will hang us we can make no more room,” which the Queen seemed not to hear, though she lifted up her head and looked that way towards him that spoke.’
To add to the problems of dearth and famine, the population of England had increased considerably during Elizabeth’s reign. The practice of enclosing common land only added to the burgeoning numbers of the destitute, who would once have been cared for by monks and nuns, but the Dissolution of the Monasteries in the 1530s had dispossessed many in the religious life, placing an added burden upon the state. By the end of Elizabeth’s reign, beggars had become a serious problem.
In 1598, Parliament had passed the famous Poor Law Act, which was published in November 1601, consigning beggars to the care of their native parishes, who were bound by law to provide relief for them. Each city or corporate town was to have its poor house – later known as the workhouse – and the system was to be paid for by local taxation.
The Commons, determined to end the abuse of monopolies, were resolved to block a subsidy Bill until the Queen had agreed to the passing of an Act limiting her powers to grant them. Before they could do so, and in order to avoid a dispute over the royal prerogative, Elizabeth issued a proclamation announcing that she would put an end to the present system immediately. There was a jubilant response to this in the House, with members weeping with emotion and fervently echoing ‘Amen!’ when the Speaker, John Croke, offered up a prayer for Her Majesty’s preservation.
Parliament decided to send a deputation to the Queen to express her subjects’ deepest gratitude and joy. When it came to choosing which MPs were to go, there were cries of’All! All! All!’, prompting Elizabeth to send word that although space was limited, she would be pleased to see them all. 1 50 members accepted her invitation.
On 30 November, she received them enthroned in the Council Chamber at Whitehall, where she proved that the old magic could still have its effect by making what would ever afterwards be known as her ‘golden speech’, and would, in effect, be her farewell words to her beloved people. The MPs knelt before her and the Speaker, who headed the delegation, began to express their gratitude, but the Queen was determined to have her say. ‘Mr Speaker,’ she said,
we perceive your coming is to present thanks unto us. Know that I accept them with no less joy than your loves can have desired to offer such a present. I do assure you, there is no prince that loves his subjects better. There is no jewel, be it of never so rich a price, which I set before this jewel: I mean your love. For I do more esteem it than any treasure or riches, for those we know how to prize; but loyalty, love and thanks – I account them invaluable; and though God hath raised me high, yet this I account the glory of my crown, that I have reigned with your loves. This makes me that I do not so much rejoice that God hath made me to be a queen, as to be a queen over so thankful a people and to be the means under God to conserve you in safety and to preserve you from danger.
Bidding them rise, for she had more to say to them, she thanked them for making her aware of her people’s resentment of the system of monopolies.
Mr Speaker, you give me thanks, but I am more to thank you, and I charge you, thank them of the Lower House from me that I take it exceeding grateful that the knowledge of these things have come unto me from them; for, had I not received knowledge from you, I might have fallen into the lapse of an error, only for want of true information. That my grants shall be made grievances to my people, and oppressions be privileged under colour of our patents, our princely dignity shall not suffer. Yea, when I heard it, I could give no rest unto my thoughts until I had reformed it, and those abusers of my bounty shall know I will not suffer it.
Of myself, I must say this: I never was any greedy, scraping grasper, nor a strict, fast-holding prince, nor yet a waster; my heart was never set upon any worldly goods, but only for my subjects’ good. What you do bestow on me, I will not hoard up, but receive it to bestow on you again; yea, mine own properties I account yours, to be expended for your good, and your eyes shall see the bestowing of it.
She assured them that she did not ‘desire to live longer days, than that I may see your prosperity, and that is my only desire. Since I was Queen, yet did I never put my pen to any grant, but that upon pretext or semblance made unto me that it was both good and beneficial to the subjects in general, though a private profit to some of my ancient servants who deserved well.’ If they had abused the system, she prayed
God will not lay their offence to my charge. To be a king and wear a crown is more glorious to them that see it than it is a pleasure to them that bear it. And for my own part, were it not for conscience’s sake to discharge the duty that God hath laid upon me, and to maintain His glory and keep you in safety, in mine own disposition I should be willing to resign the place I hold to any other, and glad to be free of the glory with the labours; for it is not my desire to live nor reign longer than my life and reign shall be for your good. And though you have had and may have many mightier and wiser princes sitting in this seat, yet you never had nor shall have any that will love you better.
I was never so much enticed with the glorious name of a king, or royal authority of a queen, as delighted that God hath made me His instrument to maintain His truth and glory, and to defend this kingdom from peril, dishonour, tyranny and oppression. I speak it to give God the praise, as a testimony before you, and not to attribute anything to myself; for I – O Lord, what am I? – O what can I do that I should speak for any glory? God forbid!
And thus concluding, she invited every delegate forward to kiss her hand, then rose from her throne and left the chamber to the sound of trumpets.
Her speech, it was unanimously agreed, had never been bettered; one MP said it was worthy to have been written in gold. Moreover, her magnanimous and prompt assent to Parliament’s wishes restored her flagging popularity, enshrined her in her people’s affections more than ever before, and inspired the Commons to vote her an unprecedented quadruple subsidy without one dissenting voice.
When Elizabeth dissolved Parliament on 19 December, the Speaker reminded the Lords and Commons that England, alone in Europe, had known stable government throughout the Queen’s reign, and he thanked her on their behalf for ‘the happy and quiet and most sweet and comfortable peace we have long enjoyed and, blessed be God and Your Majesty, do still enjoy.’
Elizabeth replied that they should go home and tell their people ‘that your sovereign is more careful of your conservation than of herself, and will daily crave of God that they who wish you best may never wish in vain’.
It was an unusually quiet Christmas, with so few people at court that the guards ‘were not troubled to keep the doors at plays and pastimes’. Yet there was to be cause for celebration, for on 24 December Mountjoy had achieved a great victory over Tyrone at Kinsale, leaving 1200 rebels dead on the field. Tyrone himself had escaped, but the commander of the Spanish army that had arrived the previous autumn to assist him had given up his cause for lost and sued for peace. On 2 January 1602, the Spaniards surrendered to Mountjoy and sailed back to Spain. The English were now in control of Ireland.
This was, wrote the Queen, ‘one of the most acceptable incidents that hath befallen us’; she would have preferred the Spaniards to have been killed, but that was a minor detail. Mountjoy’s offences had been forgotten; already, Elizabeth was writing regular and affectionate letters to him, signing herself ‘Your loving sovereign’. Once, after he had complained she was treating him like a scullion, she responded with a lengthy and supportive letter in her own hand, but began with the greeting, ‘Mistress Kitchen Maid . . .’ Now, after his victory, she wrote, ‘We have forgotten to praise your humility, that, after having been a queen’s kitchen maid, you have not disdained to be a traitor’s scullion. God bless you with perseverance.’
In June 1602, it seemed as if the great seafaring age of Drake was about to flourish once more, when a small fleet under Sir Richard Leveson captured a great Portuguese carrack, laden with treasure, despite its being protected by eleven galleys and 10,000 troops. But an expedition sent by the Queen to plunder the Spanish coast returned empty-handed. These were to be the last major maritime ventures of the reign.
There was an epidemic of smallpox in 1602, which claimed many lives, but the Queen was nevertheless planning a long progress to Bristol. However, the weather was again wet and stormy, and she was persuaded that entertaining her would cause hardship to her people, who had already suffered seven years of famine. In the event, the weather improved and the harvest was a good one, signalling the end of the period of dearth. Trade began to revive, and the people’s spirits with it.
In August, Elizabeth announced that she was in better health than for the past twelve years. In a single day, she rode ten miles on horseback, then went hunting. She arrived home shattered, but took care to go for a long walk on the following day, lest her courtiers guessed she had been exhausted by her activities. At this time, Cecil presented her with a jewel set with rubies and topazes to match ‘the life of her eyes and the colour of her lips’; it was still the fashion for men to maintain the fiction that she was some eternally youthful goddess of beauty.
That month, Elizabeth left Greenwich for Chiswick, then visited Lord Keeper Egerton at Harefield Park in Middlesex, where, despite constant rain, she was lavishly entertained and lauded as ‘the best housewife in all this company’. There were banquets, masques, musical interludes, a rustic feast, allegorical pageants and a lottery which was rigged so that the Queen would win the prize. Printed pamphlets describing the festivities were on sale days later and avidly bought by the public. Because of the rain and the smallpox, however, the progress was curtailed, and the Queen settled for a time at Oatlands.
In September, she celebrated her sixty-ninth birthday, and was observed by the Duke of Stettin walking in the garden at Oatlands ‘as briskly as though she were eighteen years old’. He was told she had been ‘never so gallant many years, nor so set upon jollity’. Lord Worcester informed Lord Shrewsbury, ‘We are frolic here at court; much dancing in the Privy Chamber of country dances before the Queen’s Majesty, who is exceedingly pleased therewith.’ Only rarely did she herself dance in public nowadays, although she was occasionally espied in her private apartments, dancing to pipe and tabor when she thought she was not observed.
That September, Fulke Greville informed Lady Shrewsbury, ‘The best news I can yet write Your Ladyship is of the Queen’s health and disposition of body, which 1 assure you is excellent good. I have not seen her every way better disposed these many years.’
Her sense of humour was still lively. She noticed that the Countess of Derby was wearing a locket containing Cecil’s portrait, and, snatching it away, laughingly tied it on his shoe, then his elbow, so that all could see it. He took it in good part, commissioned some verses about it, and had them set to music and sung to the Queen, who was much amused. She could be alarmingly familiar with her subjects. When an Englishman who had lived abroad for some years was brought before her, kneeling, she ‘took him by the hair and made him rise, and pretended to give him a box on the ears’.
Yet there were signs that her memory was failing. On 8 October she moved to Greenwich, where, four days later, some courtiers arrived to pay their respects to her. Although she could remember their names, she had to be reminded of the offices she herself had bestowed upon them. She was finding it harder to concentrate on state business, and this was exacerbated by failing eyesight. Cecil warned the Clerk of the Council that he must read out letters to her.
On T7 November, Elizabeth celebrated Accession Day at Whitehall ‘with the ordinary solemnity and as great an applause of multitudes as if they had never seen her before’. Her fool, Garret, rode into the tiltyard on a pony the size of a dog, and ‘had good audience with Her Majesty and made her very merry’. On 6 December, she dined with Cecil at his new house on the Strand, and afterwards watched a ‘pretty dialogue’ between a maid, a widow and a wife on the respective advantages each enjoyed; predictably, the virgin was deemed the most fortunate. When the Queen left, she appeared ‘marvellously well contented, but at her departure she strained her foot’. We hear no more of this, so it cannot have been serious. Later in the month she was entertained by both Hunsdon and Nottingham at their London houses.
Around this time, a deep depression descended on Elizabeth, who was beginning to realise that she would not win this constant battle with advancing age. It became obvious to all that time was running out for her. Harington, up for Christmas, was shocked at the change in her, and wrote to his wife:
Our dear Queen, my royal godmother and this state’s most natural mother, doth now bear show of human infirmity; too fast for that evil which we shall get by her death, and too slow for that good which she shall get by her releasement from pains and misery. I find some less mindful of what they are soon to lose, than of what they may perchance get hereafter. Now, I cannot blot from my memory’s table the goodness of our Sovereign Lady to me: her affection to my mother, her bettering the state of my father’s fortune, her watching over my youth, her liking to my free speech and admiration of my little learning and poesy, which I did so much cultivate on her command. To turn aside from her condition with tearless eyes would stain and foul the spring and fount of gratitude.
Because the Queen was ‘in most pitiable state’, and hardly eating anything, he tried to cheer her by reading out some of his humorous verses, but although she managed a weak smile, she bade him desist, saying, ‘When thou dost feel creeping time at thy gate, these fooleries will please thee less. I am past my relish for such matters.’
Harington was startled when she asked him if he had ever met Tyrone. ‘I replied with reverence that I had seen him with the Lord Deputy [Essex]; she looked up with much grief and choler in her countenance saying, “Oh, yes, now it mindeth me that you was one that saw this man elsewhere.'” But she was very distressed by the lapse, and ‘dropped a tear and smote her bosom’. Harington was concerned about the implications of her failing memory. ‘But who shall say, Your Highness hath forgotten?’ he asked his wife.
The Queen kept Christmas at Whitehall with her former accustomed splendour, and seemed in better spirits. ‘The court hath flourished more than ordinary. Besides much dancing, bear-baiting and many plays, there hath been great golden play’ – Cecil lost 800 at cards. Then came further heartening news from Ireland: Tyrone had offered to surrender if the Queen would spare his life. Mountjoy urged her to accept this condition, and so bring the Irish war to an end.
Although Elizabeth refused to name her successor, speculation on the matter had increased as she grew older. Most people wanted James of Scotland because he was a Protestant and a married man with two sons. Despite their affection for, and admiration of, Elizabeth, few members of the nobility and gentry desired another female sovereign: the feeling still persisted that it was shameful for men to be subject to a woman’s rule. It was also feared that ‘we shall never enjoy another queen like this’. As for the claims of the Infanta Isabella or any of the other European descendants of John of Gaunt, such as the Dukes of Braganza and Parma, nobody in England took them seriously, nor was Philip III sufficiently interested to pursue them.
Of the English claimants, most people discounted the claims of Katherine Grey’s son, whose legitimacy was questionable, nor were they interested in Arbella Stewart, mainly on account of her sex.
Arbella had come to court in 1587, but Elizabeth, offended by the girl’s arrogance, had promptly sent her home to her grandmother, Bess of Hardwick, with whom she had lived ever since. She was now twenty-eight, neurotic and unstable, and still unmarried. She hated Bess, who was a harsh and critical guardian, and by the end of 1602 was so desperate to escape from what she regarded as a prison, that she sent a message to Lord Hertford, Katherine Grey’s widower, offering herself as a bride for his grandson. Hertford, who had recently been in trouble for attempting to have his marriage to Katherine declared valid, informed the Council at once, knowing that on no account would Elizabeth have permitted these two young people, in whom flowed the blood royal of England, to marry each other.
When a royal deputation came to question Arbella, an enraged Bess, who had known nothing of her granddaughter’s scheme, could hardly refrain from beating the girl; instead, she lashed out with her tongue. She also wrote to Elizabeth, assuring her that she had been ‘altogether ignorant’ of Arbella’s ‘vain doings’ and pleading to be relieved of the responsibility of the girl, adding, ‘I cannot now assure myself of her as I have done.’ But Elizabeth insisted that Arbella must remain with her grandmother, who must make a better effort to control her. Two months later, Arbella was caught trying to run away, but Elizabeth was by then beyond such concerns.
Yet although her people of all classes were uniced in their anxiety as to what would happen after Elizabeth’s death, the succession remained a taboo subject. ‘Succession!’ exclaimed one gentleman. ‘What is he that dare meddle with it?’
On 17january 1603, Elizabeth, who was looking ‘very well’, dined with Lord Thomas Howard, her ‘good Thomas’, younger son of the executed Norfolk, at the Charterhouse, and created him Lord Howard de Walden. Four days later, on the advice of Dr John Dee, who had cast Elizabeth’s horoscope and warned her not to remain at Whitehall, the court moved from Whitehall to Richmond, ‘her warm winter box’, stopping on the way at Putney so that the Queen could have dinner with a clothier, John Lacy, whom she had known for years. The weather was wet and colder than it had been for years, with a sharp north-easterly wind, but the Queen insisted on wearing ‘summer-like garments’ and refused to put on her furs. Thomas, Lord Burghley, warned his brother Cecil that Her Majesty should accept ‘that she is old and have more care of herself, and that there is no contentment to a young mind in an old body’.
During the journey to Richmond, Nottingham, riding beside the royal litter, presumed upon Elizabeth’s familiar manner towards him and asked her bluntly if she would name her successor. She answered, ‘My seat hath been the seat of kings, and I will have no rascal to succeed me; and who should succeed me but a king?’ Nottingham, and others, took this to mean that she wanted James VI to succeed her, but she would neither confirm nor deny it.
On 6 February, the Queen, now suffering badly from rheumatism, made her last public appearance when she received Giovanni Scaramelli, an envoy from Venice, the first ever to be sent to England during her reign. Seated on a dais, surrounded by her courtiers, she was wearing an outdated, full-skirted, low-necked gown of silver and white taffeta edged with gold, and was laden with pearls and jewels, with her hair ‘of a light colour never made by Nature’ and an imperial crown on her head. Scaramelli noticed in her face traces of her ‘past, but never quite lost, beauty’. When he bent to kiss the hem of her dress, she raised him and extended her hand to be kissed.
‘Welcome to England, Mr Secretary,’ she said in Italian. ‘It is high time that the Republic sent to visit a Queen who has always honoured it on every possible occasion.’ She rebuked the Doge and his predecessors for not having acknowledged her existence for forty-five years, and said she was aware that it was not her sex that ‘has brought me this demerit, for my sex cannot diminish my prestige, nor offend those who treat me as other princes are treated’. Aware that she had pulled off a brilliant diplomatic coup by overcoming the prejudices of the Doge, who had hitherto been tearful of offending the Papacy, the ambassador accepted her reproaches in good part, and expressed his delight at finding her ‘in excellent health’, pausing to give her a chance to agree with him, but she ignored this and angled instead for another compliment, saying, ‘I do not know if I have spoken Italian well; still, I think so, for I learnt it when a child, and believe I have not forgotten it.’
Ten days later, after much bullying on Cecil’s part, the Queen wrote to Mountjoy, agreeing that he might accept Tyrone’s submission and offer him a pardon, on the strictest terms. She might be an old, ‘forlorn’ woman, but she was going to end her reign with this final triumph.
In the middle of February, Elizabeth’s cousin and closest woman friend, the Countess of Nottingham, who had been the late Lord Hunsdon’s daughter, died at Richmond. The Queen was present at the deathbed, and her grief was such that she ordered a state funeral and sank into a deep depression from which she never recovered. At the same time, her coronation ring, which had become painfully embedded in the swollen flesh of her finger, had to be sawn off- an act that symbolised to her the breaking of a sacred bond, the marriage of a queen to her people. She knew her own death could not be far off, and wrote sadly to Henry IV of France, ‘All the fabric of my reign, little by little, is beginning to fail.’
On 26 February, when the French ambassador, de Beaumont, requested an audience, the Queen asked him to wait a few days on account of the death of Lady Nottingham, ‘for which she has wept extremely and shown an uncommon concern’. Nor did she appear again in public. ‘She has suddenly withdrawn into herself, she who was wont to live so gaily, especially in these last years of her life,’ observed Scaramelli.
There arrived at court at this time the Queen’s cousin, Robert Carey, youngest son of the late Lord Hunsdon and brother to Lady Nottingham. Being a relative, he was admitted one Saturday night to the private apartments, where he found Elizabeth
in one of her withdrawing chambers, sitting low upon her cushions. She called me to her. I kissed her hand and told her it was my chiefest happiness to see her in safety and in health, which I wished might long continue. She took me by the hand and wrung it hard, and said, ‘No, Robin, I am not well,’ and then discoursed with me of her indisposition, and that her heart had been sad and heavy for ten or twelve days; and in her discourse she fetched not so few as forty or fifty great sighs. I was grieved at the first to see her in such plight, for in all my lifetime before I never knew her fetch a sigh but when the Queen of Scots was beheaded.
The next day would be Sunday, and she gave command that the Great Closet should be prepared for her to go to chapel the next morning. The next day, all things being in readiness, we long expected her coming. After eleven o’clock, one of the grooms came out and bade make ready for the Private Closet; she would not go to the Great. There we stayed long for her coming, but at last she had cushions laid for her in the Privy Chamber, hard by the Closet door, and there she heard service. From that day forwards, she grew worse and worse.
The main trouble seemed to be slight swellings – probably ulcers – in the throat, accompanied by a cold. By the beginning of March, a fever had developed, and she could not sleep or swallow food easily. On 9 March, according to de Beaumont, ‘she felt a great heat in her stomach and a continual thirst, which obliged her every moment to take something to abate it, and to prevent the hard and dry phlegm from choking her. She has been obstinate in refusing everything prescribed by her physicians during her illness.’ These problems, which may have been symptomatic of influenza or tonsillitis, were exacerbated by her depression, although when her courtiers asked what the matter was, she told them ‘she knew nothing in the world worthy to trouble her’.
Cecil, realising that the Queen might die, knew that it would fall to him to ensure James VI’s peaceful and unchallenged succession to the throne. At the end of February, he ordered Robert Carey to hold himself in readiness to take the news of his accession to the Scottish monarch the moment the Queen ceased to breathe.
On 11 March, the Queen rallied for a day, then had a relapse, descending into ‘a heavy dullness, with a frowardness familiar to old age’. She was, according to de Beaumont, ‘so full of chagrin and so weary of life that, notwithstanding all the importunities of her councillors and physicians to consent to the use of proper remedies for her relief, she would not take one’. With a flash of her old spirit, she told Cecil and Whitgift, who had begged her on their knees to do as her physicians recommended, ‘that she knew her own strength and constitution better than they, and that she was not in such danger as they imagine’. Nor would she eat anything, but spent her days lying on the floor on cushions, lost in ‘unremovable melancholy’ and unwilling to speak to anyone. It was obvious that she had lost the will to live.
‘The Queen grew worse and worse, because she would be so, none about her being able to persuade her to go to bed,’ recorded Robert Carey.
Cecil insisted, ‘Your Majesty, to content the people, you must go to bed.’ But she retorted, ‘Little man, the word “must” is not to be used to princes. If your father had lived, you durst not had said so, but ye know that I must die, and that makes thee so presumptuous.’
Her throat felt as if it were closing up. Nottingham came to see her: having retired from court to mourn his wife, he had returned to cheer the Queen. He told her to have courage, but she said, ‘My Lord, I am tied with a chain of iron around my neck. I am tied, I am tied, and the case is altered with me.’ She complained of’a heat in her breasts and a dryness in her mouth, which kept her from sleep frequently, to her disgust’. This suggests that she had now developed either bronchitis or pneumonia.
Nottingham tried also to get her to retire to bed, but she refused, telling him, ‘If you were in the habit of seeing such things in your bed as I do when in mine, you would not persuade me to go there.’ She added that ‘she had a premonition that, if she once lay down, she would never rise’.
One day, she had herself lifted into a low chair. When she found herself unable to rise from it, she commanded her attendants to help her to her feet. Once in that position, by a supreme effort of will and a determination to defy mortality, she remained there unmoving for fifteen hours, watched by her appalled yet helpless courtiers. At length, fainting with exhaustion, she was helped back on to her cushions, where she remained for a further four days.
By 18 March, her condition had deteriorated alarmingly; de Beaumont reported that she ‘appeared already in a manner insensible, not speaking sometimes for two or three hours, and within the last two days for above four and twenty, holding her finger continually in her mouth, with her eyes open and fixed to the ground, where she sat upon cushions without rising or resting herself, and was greatly emaciated by her long watching and fasting’. She had now been lying there, in her day clothes, for nearly three weeks.
On 19 March, she was so ill that Carey wrote informing James VI that she would not last more than three days; already, he had posted horses along the Great North Road, ready for his breakneck ride to Scotland. On the following day, Cecil sent James a draft copy of the proclamation that would be read out on his accession. All James hoped for now was that Elizabeth would not linger, ‘insensible and stupid, unfit to rule and govern a kingdom’.
In order to avoid any public demonstrations or panic, Cecil vetoed the publication of any bulletins on the Queen’s health, but the French ambassador deliberately spread word of her condition. ‘Her Majesty’s life is absolutely despaired of,’ reported Scaramelli. ‘For the last ten days she has become quite silly [i.e. pitiable]. London is all in arms for fear of the Catholics. Every house and everybody is in movement and alarm.’ Camden recorded that, ‘as the report now grew daily stronger and stronger that her sickness increased upon her’, it was astonishing to behold with what speed the Puritans, Papists, ambitious persons and flatterers posted night and day, by sea and land, to Scotland, to adore the rising sun and gain his favour’.
At last, on 21 March, ‘what by fair means, what by force’, Nottingham persuaded Elizabeth to go to bed. After lying there for some hours, an abscess or ulcer in her throat burst and she declared she felt better, and asked for some of her restorative broth to be made. Scaramelli reported that rose water and currants were also placed on a table by her bedside, ‘but soon after she began to lose her speech, and from that time ate nothing, but lay on one side, without speaking or looking upon any person, though she directed some meditations to be read to her’. Archbishop Whitgift and her own chaplains were from then on in constant attendance on her, whilst her musicians played softly in the background to soothe her.
Her councillors knew she could not last much longer. On the 23rd, her chaplain Dr Parry held a special service of intercession in the royal chapel, offering such fervent prayers for Her Majesty ‘that he left few dry eyes’. The diarist John Manningham learned in the Privy Chamber that the Queen
hath been in a manner speechless for two or three days, very pensive and silent, yet she always had her proper senses and memory, and yesterday signified [to Dr Parry], by the lifting of her hand and eyes to Heaven, that she believed that faith which she had caused to be professed, and looked faithfully to be saved by Christ’s merits and mercy only, and by no other means. She took great delight in hearing prayers, would often at the name of Jesus lift up her hands and eyes to Heaven. She would not hear the Archbishop speak of hope in her longer life, but when he prayed or spoke of Heaven and those joys, she would hug his hand.
It seems she might have lived if she would have used means, but she would not be persuaded, and princes must not be forced. Her physicians said she had the body of a firm and perfect constitution, likely to have lived many years.
That day, Nottingham, Egerton and Cecil asked Elizabeth to name her successor, but she was beyond speech. Instead – as was afterwards alleged- she used her hands and fingers to make the sign of a crown above her head, which they took to mean that she wanted King James to succeed her.
Scaramelli, returning to Richmond ‘found all the palace, outside and in, full of an extraordinary crowd, almost in uproar and on the tiptoe of expectation’. It was now known that the end could not be far off.
At six o’clock, feeling her strength ebbing away, the Queen signed for Whitgift to come and to pray at her bedside. Robert Carey was one of those kneeling in the bedchamber on this solemn occasion, and was moved to tears by what Whitgift’s arrival portended.
Her Majesty lay upon her back, with one hand in the bed and the other without. The Archbishop kneeled down beside her and examined her first of her faith; and she so punctually answered all his questions, by lifting up her eyes and holding up her hand, as it was a comfort to all the beholders. Then the good man told her plainly what she was and what she was come to: though she had been long a great Queen here upon Earth, yet shortly she was to yield an account of her stewardship to the King of Kings. After this, he began to pray, and all that were by did answer him.
Whitgift remained at her bedside, holding her hand and offering her spiritual comfort until his knees ached, but as he made to rise, blessing the Queen, she gestured to him to kneel again and continue praying. He did so for another ‘long half hour’, but still Elizabeth would not let him go. So he prayed for half an hour more, ‘with earnest cries to God for her soul’s health, which he uttered with that fervency of spirit, as the Queen, to all our sight, much rejoiced thereat, and gave testimony to us all of her Christian and comfortable end. By this time it grew late, and everyone departed, all but her women who attended her.’
Around ten o’clock that evening, with heavy rain pattering against the windows, Elizabeth turned her face to the wall and fell into a deep sleep from which she would never wake. With Dr Parry, who ‘sent his prayers before her soul’, and her old friends Lady Warwick and Lady Scrope by her side, she passed to eternal rest, ‘mildly like a lamb, easily, like a ripe apple from a tree’, shortly before three o’clock in the morning of Thursday, 24 March, ‘as the most resplendent sun setteth at last in a western cloud’.
Page 9 of 11
As soon as she realised that her mistress had died, Lady Scrope, as prearranged, removed a sapphire ring from the late Queen’s finger and dropped it through a window to her brother, Robert Carey, who was waiting below, ready saddled to ride to Scotland. King James knew that, when he received that ring, he would be King of England in truth.
Later that morning, the accession of King James I was proclaimed at Whitehall and in Cheapside. There was ‘no great shouting’, and Manningham felt that ‘the sorrow for Her Majesty’s departure was so deep in many hearts, they could not so suddenly show any great joy’. Nevertheless, that evening saw some muted celebrations, as bonfires were lit and bells rung in honour of a new king, a new dynasty, and a new era. Slowly, it was beginning to dawn on people that the great Elizabethan age was over.
Three days later, Carey arrived in Edinburgh, just as the King had retired for the night. Muddied and dusty as he was after his long ride, he fell to his knees and saluted James as King of England, Scotland, Ireland and France. Then he gave him Queen Elizabeth’s ring.
At Richmond, now virtually deserted after the court had returned to London, ‘The Queen’s body was left in a manner alone a day or two after her death, and mean persons had access to it.’ No post mortem was carried out, and it was left to three of her ladies to prepare the corpse for burial. Then it was embalmed, wrapped in cere-cloth and ‘enshrined in lead’.
After five days, the coffin was taken at night, on a barge lit by torches, to Whitehall, where it lay in state in a withdrawing chamber, attended round the clock by many lords and ladies. It was then moved to Westminster Hall, where it lay ‘all hung with mourning; and so, in accordance with ancient custom, it will remain, until the King gives orders for her funeral’.
On 28 April, more than a month after her death, Elizabeth’s body was taken in procession to Westminster Abbey. It was an impressive occasion: the hearse was drawn by four horses hung with black velvet, and surmounted by a life-sized wax effigy of the late Queen, dressed in her state robes and crown, an orb and sceptre in its hands; over it was a canopy of estate supported by six earls. It was followed by her riderless palfrey led by Elizabeth’s Master of Horse, and the Marchioness of Northampton, who as the senior noblewoman acted as chief mourner and led the peeresses of the realm in their nun-like mourning hoods and cloaks, and a thousand other black-clad people: lords, councillors, gentlemen, courtiers, heralds, and servants, as well as 276 poor persons. The Lord Mayor and his brethren were there, as were the Children of the Chapel Royal, and in the rear marched Raleigh with the Gentlemen Pensioners, their halberds pointed downwards. The solemnity was overlaid with gorgeous pageantry as colourful banners and standards fluttered in the breeze and trumpets sounded.
Thousands lined the funeral route: Stow says that ‘Westminster was surcharged with multitudes of all sorts of people in their streets, houses, windows, leads and gutters, that came to see the obsequy, and when they beheld her statue lying upon the coffin, there was such a general sighing, groaning and weeping as the like hath not been seen or known in the memory of man, neither doth any history mention any people, time or state to make like lamentation for the death of their sovereign.’
With Whitgift officiating, Elizabeth 1 was buried in the north aisle of the Henry VII Chapel in the Abbey; after her coffin had been placed above that of her sister Mary in the vault, the chief officers of her household, as was customary, broke their white staves of office and cast them down on the coffin, to symbolise the termination of their allegiance. The vault was then sealed.
James I ordered a magnificent tomb to be erected to his predecessor’s memory. It was designed by Maximilian Colt, at a cost of 765, and was completed in 1606. Colt’s white marble effigy of the Queen portrays an old woman, and it has been conjectured that he may have worked from a death mask. The effigy was painted by Nicholas Hilliard and gilded by John de Critz, although all traces of colour and gilding have long since disappeared. A Latin inscription on the tomb would have pleased Elizabeth greatly, for it describes her as ‘The mother of this her country, the nurse of religion and learning; for perfect skill of very many languages, for glorious endowments, as well of mind as of body, a prince incomparable.’
For forty-five years, ‘though beset by divers nations’, Elizabeth had given her country peace and stable government – her greatest gift to her people. During that time, England had risen from an impoverished nation to become one of the greatest powers in Europe. Bolstered by the fame of her seamen, her navy was respected and feared on the high seas, and not for nothing had Elizabeth been lauded as ‘the Queen of the Sea, the North Star’.
The Queen had also brought unity to her people by effecting a religious compromise that has lasted until this day, and making herself an enduring focus for their loyalty. She had enjoyed a unique relationship with her subjects, which was never seen before and has never been seen since. Few queens have ever been so loved. Under her rule, her people grew ever more confident in the belief that they were a chosen nation, protected by Divine Providence, and this confidence gave rise, in the years after the Armada, to the flowering of the English Renaissance.
Of course, there had been failures. A careful housekeeper, she had striven throughout her reign to live within her means, but towards the end, even she had been defeated by economic forces, and she died 400,000 in debt. Ireland was not fully subdued, Calais remained in French hands, and the English had so far been unable successfully to found a permanent colony in the New World. Yet, under Elizabeth, England had defeated the might of Spain, won the respect of the rest of Europe, and established a lasting peace with Scotland through the union of the crowns. Elizabeth had also been extremely fortunate in her advisers, which was due in part to her having an uncanny ability to choose those men of the greatest merit as her chief servants.
By constantly shelving or avoiding problems, such as the royal finances, the resurgence of Puritanism, or Parliament’s attempts to limit the royal prerogative, Elizabeth passed on to her successor the potential for future conflict, but she had managed as best she could, even when she had been beset on all sides by seemingly insurmountable threats and concerns.
Many of her contemporaries bore witness to her abilities. Lord Burghley had said of her, ‘She was the wisest woman that ever was, for she understood the interests and dispositions of all the princes in her time, and was so perfect in the knowledge of her own realm, that no councillor she had could tell her anything she did not know before.’
‘Our blessed Queen was more than a man’, wrote Cecil, ‘and, in troth, something less than a woman.’ Then he added wistfully, ‘I wish I waited now in her Presence Chamber, with ease at my foot and rest in my bed.’ Life under James was less easy than he had imagined it would be.
Yet it was not until some years later that most people came to realise what they had lost. ‘When we had had experience of a Scottish government, the Queen did seem to revive,’ recalled Godfrey Goodman, Bishop of Gloucester. ‘Then was her memory much magnified: such ringing of bells, such public joy and sermons in commemoration of her, the picture of her tomb painted in many churches, and in effect more solemnity and joy in memory of her coronation than was for the coming of King James.’ Within a generation of her death, the unity she had fostered in her realm would have disappeared, a casualty of an unavoidable clash between Crown and Parliament. Then, people would look back on the reign of Good Queen Bess with nostalgia, and the legends would become embellished and pass into popular folk-lore: Drake playing bowls before the Armada, Raleigh spreading his cloak for Elizabeth to walk on, Elizabeth herself playing at the marriage game and giving rise to centuries of speculation.
The most fitting epitaph to this extraordinary woman is to be found in the pages of Camden’s biography: ‘No oblivion shall ever bury the glory of her name; for her happy and renowned memory still liveth and shall for ever live in the minds of men.’
Page 10 of 11
The source from which each quotation is taken will in many cases be clear from the text or the Bibliography. Where a quote is unattributed, it will in every case have been drawn from one of the many collections of contemporary documents, the chief of which are:
Acts of the Privy Council
Archaeologia
Calendar of the MSS at Hatfield House
Calendar of the MSS at Longleat
Calendars of State Papers, Foreign and Domestic
The Cecil Papers
Collection of State Papers relating to the Reign of Elizabeth, edited by William Murdin
The Devereux Papers
The Dudley Papers
The Egerton Papers
Simonds D’Ewes: Journals of all the Parliaments during the Reign of Queen- Elizabeth
N. Fourdinier: Amy Robsart
Lives and Letters of the Devereux Earls of Essex
Memoirs of the Reign of Elizabeth, edited by Thomas Birch
Sir Robert Naunton: Fragmenta Regalia
Original letters: several collections
Proceedings and Ordinances of the Privy Council
Progresses and Public Processions of Elizabeth I, edited by . Nichols
Queen Elizabeth and Some Foreigners, edited by Victor von Klarwill
Queen Elizabeth and her Times, edited by Thomas Wright
The Rolls of Parliament
I. Rymer: Foedera
The Sidney Papers
State Papers: various collections
Full details of these and the many other works consulted are listed in the Bibliography
Page 11 of 11
Primary Sources
Acts of the Privy Council of England (32 vols., ed. John Roche Dasent, HMSO, 1890-1918)
Allen, Cardinal William: Letters and Memorials (ed. T.F. Knox, 1882) L’Ambassade de France en Angleterre sous Henri IV, I5g8-i605 (4 vols., ed.
Laffleur de Kermaingant, 1886-95) Anecdotes and Traditions Illustrative of Early English History and Literature
(ed. W.J. Thomas, Camden Society, 1839) The Antiquarian Repertory: A Miscellany intended to Preserve and Illustrate
several Valuable Remains of Old Times (4 vols., ed. Stephen Perlin and
Francis Blyth, 1775-84; ed. F. Grose and I. Astle, r8o8) Archaeologia, or Miscellaneous Tracts relating to Antiquity (102 vols., Society
of Antiquaries of London, 1773-1969) ‘Archives of the English Tournament’ (ed. Sidney Anglo, Journal of the
Society of Archivists, 2, 1960) Ascham, Roger: English Works (ed. W.A. Wright, 1904) Ascham, Roger: Opera (1703) Aubrey, John: Brief Lives (ed. Andrew Clark, 1898; ed. Anthony Powell,
1949, and Oliver Lawson Dick, 1962)
Bacon, Sir Francis: Collected Works (ed. . Spedding, R.L. Ellis and D.D.
Heath, 1857-74) The Bardon Papers: Documents Relating to the Imprisonment and Trial of
Mary, Queen of Scots (ed. Conyers Read, Camden Society, 3rd Series,
XVII, 1909) Barthlet, .: The Pedigree of Heretics (1566) Brantome, Sieur de: Oeuvres Completes (1823) Buchanan, George: Detection of the Doings of Mary, Queen of Scots (1572)
The Cabala sive scrinia Sacra: Mysteries of State and Government in Letters of
Illustrious Persons (1654, 1691) Calendar of Carew MSS, 1575-1588 (ed. J.S. Brewer and W. Bullen,
1868) Calendar of Letters, Despatches and State Papers relating to Negotiations
between England and Spain, preserved in the Archives at Simancas and
Elsewhere (17 vols., ed. G.A. Bergenroth, Rhiann. de Goyangos, Garrett
Mattmgly, R. Tyler etc., HMSO, 1862-1965) Calendar of the Manuscripts of the Marquess of Bath at Longleat (Historical
Manuscripts commission, 1904-1980) Calendar of the MSS of the Marquess of Salisbury. . . preserved at Hatfield
House (18 vols., Historical Manuscripts Commission, 1883-T940) Calendar of Patent Rolls: Elizabeth I (Public Record Office) Calendar of the Pepys MSS in Magdalene College, Cambridge (Historical
Manuscripts Commission) Calendar of State Papers: Domestic Series: Edward VI, Mary, and Elizabeth,
1547~15So, 1581-0.0, 1591-1603 (12 vols., ed. Robert Lemon and
M.A.E. Green, 1856-72) Calendar of State Papers: Foreign Series, Elizabeth 1 (23 vols., ed. Joseph
Stevenson and W.B. Turnbull etc., 1863-1950) Calendar of State Papers: Ireland (11 vols., ed. H.C. Hamilton and R.P.
Mahaffy, 1860-1912) Calendar of State Papers and Manuscripts existing in the Archives and
Collections of Milan, Vol. 1 1385-1618 (ed. A.B. Hinds, 1912) Calendar of State Papers and Manuscripts relating to English Affairs preserved
in the Archives of Venice and in the other Libraries of Northern Italy 7 vols.,
ed. Rawdon Brown etc., HMSO, 1864-1947) Calendar of State Papers relating to Border Affairs (ed. Joseph Bain, 1894-6) Calendar of State Papers relating to English Affairs, preserved principally at
Rome in the Vatican Archives and Library, 1558-78 (ed. J.M. Rigg,
T916-26) Calendar of State Papers relating to Scotland, 1509-1589 (ed. M.J. Thorpe,
1858) Calendar of State Papers: Scotland, 1547-1603 (12 vols., ed. Joseph Bain,
W.K. Boyd and M.S. Guiseppi, 1898-1952) Calendar of State Papers: Spanish, Elizabethan, 1558-1603 (4 vols., ed.
M.A.S. Hume, 1892-9) Camden, William: Annales Rerum Anglicarum et Hibernicarum Regnante
Elizabetha (1615; 3 vols., tr. Thomas Hearne, 1717; tr. . Norton,
1630, 1688; also published as Annals of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth in
‘The Complete History of England’ ed. White Kennett, 1706) Camden, William: Britannia (ed. R. Gough, 1789) Camden, William: The History of the Most Renowned and Virtuous Princess
MlL
Elizabeth, late Queen of England (1630); later published as The History
of the Most Renowned and Victorious Princess Elizabeth (1675) Carey, Sir Robert: Memoirs of the Life of Robert Carey, written by Himself (ed.
John Boyle, 1759; ed. Sir Walter Scott, 1808; ed. G.H. Powell, 1905) Carleton, Dudley: Memorials of Affairs of State in the Reigns of Queen
Elizabeth and King James 1 (3 vols, 1725) Castelnau, Michel de: Mcmoires de Michel de Castelnau, Seigneur de la
Mauvissiere (3 vols, ed. L. Laboureur, T731) Castiglione, Balthasar: The Courtier (tr. G. Bull, 1967) The Cecil Papers: A Collection of State Papers Relating to Affairs from the Year
1552 to 1570, left by William Cecil, Lord Burghley, at Hatfield House (15
vols., ed. Samuel Haynes and William Murdin, 1740-59) Cecil, Sir Robert: Letters from Sir Robert Cecil to Sir George Carew (ed John
Maclean, Camden Society, LXXXVIII, T864) Chamberlain, John: Letters (ed. Sarah Williams, Camden Society,
LXXIX 1861; 2 vols., ed. N.E. McClure, American Philosophical
Society, Vol. XII, 1939) Chettle, Henry: The Order and Proceeding at the Funeral of Elizabeth (1603) Churchyard, Thomas: The Service of Sir John Norris in Brittany in 1591
(1602) Clapham, John: Elizabeth of England: Observations concerning the Life and
Reign of Queen Elizabeth (ed. E.P. Read and Conyers Read, 1951;
Pennsylvania University Press, 1951) Clifford, Lady Anne: Diary (ed. V. Sackville West, 1923) Coleccion de Documentos ineditos para la Historia de Espaha (112 vols.,
1842-95, and the Nueva Coleccion, 6 vols., 1892 catalogued byj. Paz,
1930-1)A Collection of Ordinances and Regulations for the Government of the Royal
Household, made in Divers Reigns (Society of Antiquaries of London,
1790)A Collection of State Papers relating to Affairs in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth,
1571-96 (ed. William Murdin, 1759) A Complete Collection of State Trials (ed. D. Thorn, William Cobbett, and
T.B. Rowel I, 1809-98; reissued 1972) Correspondance de Philippe 11 (5 vols., ed. L.P. Gachard, 1848-79) The Correspondence of King James VI with Sir Robert Cecil and Others in England during the Reign of Queen Elizabeth (ed. . Bruce, Camden
Society, LXXVIII, 1861) ” Correspondence van Robert Dudley, graaf van Leycester (3 vols, ed. .
Brugmans, 193 1) Cotton MSS (British Library) The Devereux Papers (Collection of the Marquess of Bath, Longleat
House) (ed. Rhiann. Broughton, Camden Miscellany XIII, 1924)
Diary of Philip Julius, Duke of Stettin, Pomerania, through England in 1602 (ed. Gottfried von Bulow and Walter Powell, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 2nd Series, VI, 1892)
Digges, Dudley: The Compleat Ambassador (1655; contains many documents relating to the Duke of Anjou’s courtship of Elizabeth I)
Documents from Simancas relating to the Reign of Queen Elizabeth (ed. Tomas Gonzalez, tr. and ed. Spencer Hall, 1865)
Dudley Carleton to John Chamberlain: Jacobean Letters, 1603-1624 (ed. M. Lee, 1972)
The Dudley Papers (Collection of the Marquess of Bath, Longleat House)
The Edmondcs Papers (ed. G.G. Butler, Roxburghe Club, 1973)
The Egerton Papers (ed. J.Payne Collier, Camden Society, XXII, 1840)
Elizabeth and Mary Stuart (ed. F.A. Mumby, 1914)
Elizabeth I: A Book of Devotions composed by H.M. Elizabeth R. (ed. J.P.
Hodges and Adam Fox, 1977) England as seen by Foreigners in the Days of Elizabeth and James I (ed. W.B.
Rye, 1865) D’ Ewes, Sir Simonds: The Journals of all the Parliaments during the Reign
of Queen Elizabeth (revised and published by Paul Bowes, 1682, 1693)
The Folfambe Papers (Historical Manuscripts Commission, 15th report,
Appendix, Part V, 1987) Fourdinier, N.: Amy Robsart, the Wife of Lord Robert Dudley, the Favourite
of Queen Elizabeth I. Her Life, Ancestry and the True Cause of her Tragic
Death (MS. MC5/29, Norfolk Record Office) Foxe, John: Acts and Monuments of the Church (1563; 8 vols., ed. G.
Townshend and S.R. Cattley, 1837-41) Fuller, Thomas: The Church History of Britain (1665) Fuller, Thomas: The Worthies of England (1662; ed. Rhiann. Nuttall, 1890) A Full View of the Public Transactions in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth (ed.
Rhiann. Forbes, 1740-41)
Gascoigne, George: The Princely Pleasures at the Court at Kenilworth ( 575)
The Girlhood of Queen Elizabeth (ed. F.A. Mumby, 1909)
Gleanings after Time (includes ‘An Elizabethan Schoolboy and his Book’
by A.M. Bell; ed. G.L. Apperson, 1907) Golding, A.: A Confutation of the Pope’s Bull against Elizabeth (1572) Goodman, Dr. Godfrey, Bishop of Gloucester: The Court of James the
First (ed. J.S. Brewer, 1839) Grafton, Richard: Abridgement of the Chronicles of England (1563) Greville, Fulke: The Life of the Renowned Sir Philip Sidney (1652; ed. N.
Smith, 1907)
.JlL
Grey friars Chronicle (ed. . Nichols, Camden Society, Old Series,
XLXIV, 1852) Grindal Edmund: Remains (ed. W. Nicholson, Parker Society, 1847) Guide to the Manuscripts preserved in the Public Record Office (2 vols., ed. M.
G. Guiseppi; 2 vols. 1923-4)
The Hamilton Papers (ed. . Bain, 1890-92)
The Hardwick Papers: Miscellaneous State Papers, 1501-1726 (2 vols., ed.
Philip Yorke, 2nd Earl of Hardwicke, 1778) Harington, Sir John: Letters and Epigrams (ed. N.E. McClure, 1930) Harington, Sir John: A New Discourse of a Stale Subject called the
Metamorphosis of Afax (1596; ed. Elizabeth Story, 1962) Harington, Sir John: Nugae Antiquae, Being a Miscellaneous Collection of
Original Papers in Prose and Verse, Written in the Reigns of Henry VIII,
Queen Mary, Elizabeth, King James, etc. (3 vols., ed. Rev. Henry
Harington, 1769-79; 2 vols., ed. Thomas Park, 1804) Harington, Sir John: A Tract on the Succession to the Crown (1602; ed.
C.R. Markham, Roxburghe Club, t88o) Harleian MSS (British Library)
Harleian Miscellany (1746; 10 vols, ed. I. Park 1808-13) Harrison, William: An Historical Description of England (4 vols., 1908) Hayward, Sir John: Annals of the First Four Years of the Reign of Elizabeth
(ed. John Bruce, Camden Society, VII, T840) Hayward, Sir John: The First Part of the Life and Reign of King Henry IV
(1599) Hearne, Thomas: Remarks and Collections (Oxford Historical Society, 1898) Hearne, Thomas: Syllogue Epistolarum (1716) Hentzner, Paul: A Journey into England in the Year 1598 (tr. Horace
Walpole, 1757; 188T-2) Hentzner, Paul: Travels in England (1889)
Heywood, Thomas: England’s Elizabeth (Harleian Miscellany, X, 1813) Hilliard, Nicholas: The Art of Limning (Walpole Society, 1912) Historical Collections of the Last Four Parliaments of Queen Elizabeth (ed.
Heywood Townshend, t68o) History of Queen Elizabeth, Amy Robsart and the Earl of Leicester (ed. F.J.
Burgoyne, 1904) Hoby, Sir Thomas: The Book of the Courtier (1561) Holinshed, Raphael: Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland (1577; 6
vols., ed. Henry Ellis, 1807-8)
Illustrations of British History in the Reigns of Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary,
Elizabeth and James 1 (3 vols., ed. E. Lodge, 1838) Intimate Letters of England’s Queens (ed. Margaret Sanders, 1957)
496
Jonson, Ben: Conversations with William Drummond (Shakespeare Society
1842)Journals of the House of Commons (ed. Vardon and May, 1803) Journals of the House of Lords (1846)
The Kenilworth Festivities (ed. F.J. Furnivall, New Shakespeare Society, 1890)
Laneham, R.: A Letter, wherein part of the Entertainment unto the Queen’s
Majesty at Kenilworth Castle in Warwickshire in this Summer’s Progress,
1575, is signified (1575) Lansdowne MSS (British Library)
Leti, Gregorio: Historia 0 vero vita di Elizabetta, regina d’lnghilterra (survives only in an abridged French translation published as La Vie
d’Elisabeth, Reine d’Angleterre, traduite d’ltalien (1692; 1696) The Letter Books of Sir Amias Paulet (ed. John Morris, 1874) ‘A Letter from Robert, Earl of Leicester, to a Lady’ (ed. Conyers Read
Huntington Library Quarterly, April, 1936) The Letters of Queen Elizabeth (ed. G.B. Harrison, 1935 and 1968) The Letters of Queen Elizabeth and James VI of Scotland (ed. John Bruce,
Camden Society, XLVI, 1849) Letters of Royal and Illustrious Ladies (ed. M.A.E. Wood, 1846) Lettres de Catherine de Medicis (10 vols, ed. . Fernere-Percy, 1880-1909) Lettres de Marie Stuart (ed. A. Teulet, 1859) Lettres, Instructions ct memoires de Marie Stuart, Reine d’Ecosse (7 vols., ed.
Prince A. Labanoff, T844) The Leycester Correspondence: Correspondence of Robert Dudley, Earl of
Leicester, during his Government of the Low Countries, 1585-6 (ed. John
Bruce, Camden Society, XXVII, 1844) Leycester’s Commonwealth (ed. F.J. Burgoyne, 1904) De Lisle and Dudley MSS at Penshurst (Historical Manuscripts
Commission, Report, t934-46) (Now in the Kent County Archive
Office at Maidstone) Lives and Letters of the Devereux, Earls of Essex (2 vols., ed. Walter
Bourchier Devereux, 1853) The Loseley MSS (ed. A.J. Kempe, 1825) ‘Lost from Her Majesty’s Back’ (ed. Janet Arnold, The Costume
Society,1980)
Machyn, Henry: The Diary of Henry Machyn, Citizen and Merchant Tailor of London, from A.D. 1550 to A.D. 1563 (ed. J.G. Nichols, Camden Society, XLII, 1848)
Maisse, Andre Huralt, Sieur de: A Journal of all that was Accomplished by M.
de Maisse, Ambassador in England from King Henry IV to Queen Elizabeth,
1597 (tr. and ed. G.B. Harrison and R.A. Jones, London, 193 1) Manningham, John: Diary (ed. John Bruce and W. Tite, Camden
Society, 1858) Melville, Sir James, of Halhill: Memoirs of his own Life, 1549-93 (ed.
Thomas Thomson, Bannatyne Club, 1829, and A. Francis Steuart,
1929)Memorials of the Rebellion of 1569 (ed. Cuthbert Sharpe, 1840) Memoirs of the Life and Times of Sir Christopher Hatton (ed. N.H. Nicholas,
1847) ‘ Memoirs of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth (2 vols., ed. Thomas Birch, 1754)
(drawn chiefly from the Bacon MSS in Lambeth Palace Library) Merbury, O: A Brief Discourse on Royal Monarchy etc. (1581) Monarchs and the Muse: Poems by Monarchs and Princes of England, Scotland
and Wales (ed. Sally Purcell, 1972) Moryson, F.: An Itinerary (4 vols., 1907) La Mothe Fenelon, Bertrand de Salaignac de: Correspondance
Diplomatique (7 vols., Bannatyne Club, 1838-40)
Naunton, Sir Robert: Fragmenta Regalia, or Observations on the Late Queen Elizabeth, Her Times and Her Favourites (1653; Harleian Miscellany II, 1744; ed. Edward Arber, 1870, 1896) Newdigate, Lady: Gossip from a Muniment Room (1898) Notes of Conversations with Ben Jonson by William Drummond of Hawthornden (ed. G.B. Harrison and R.F. Patterson, 1923)
Original Letters Illustrative of British History (ir vols., ed. Henry Ellis, 3rd
Series, 1824-1846) Original Letters relative to the English Reformation (ed. . Robinson, Parker
Society, 846-7)
Parker, Matthew: Correspondence, 1535-75 (ed. . Bruce and T.T.
Perowne, Parker Society, 1853) Parsons, Robert: A Conference about the Next Succession to the Crown of
England (1594) Peck, Francis: Desiderata Curiosa (2 vols., 1732-5; 2 vols., ed. I. Evans,
1779 ) Perlin, E.: Description d’Angleterre et d’ Ecosse (1558) The Poems of Queen Elizabeth (ed. Leicester Bradner, 1964) Proceedings and Ordinances of the Privy Council of England (ed. . Nicholas,
Records Commissioners, 1834-7) The Progresses and Public Processions of Queen Elizabeth (3 vols, ed. .
Queen Elizabeth and some Foreigners (ed. Victor von Klarwill; tr. T.N
Nash, 1928) Queen Elizabeth and her Times (2 vols., ed. Thomas Wright, London
1838) The Queen’s Majesty’s Passage through the City of London to Westminster the
Day before her Coronation (ed. James M. Osborn, 1960; ed. J.E. Neale,
1960)
Raleigh, Sir Walter: The History of the World (1614, 1677)
Raleigh, Sir Walter: Letters (ed. E. Edwards, 1868)
Raleigh, Sir Walter: Poems (ed. Agnes Latham, 1929)
Raleigh, Sir Walter: Works (8 vols., 1829)
Relations Politiques de France . . . avec TEcosse (5 vols, ed. A. Teulet, 1862)
Relations Politiques des Pays Bas et de 1’Angleterre sous la Regne de Philippe
If 1555-79 ( IL vols., ed. Kervyn de Lettenhove etc., 1882-1900) Rotuli Parliamcntorum (The Rolls of Parliament) (7 vols., ed. . Strachey
etc., Records Commissioners, T767-1832) Royal MSS (British Library) MSS of the Duke of Rutland at Belvoir Castle (Historical Manuscripts
Commission, 12th Report, Appendix, Part IV, t888) Rymer, Thomas: Foedera (20 vols., 1704-35 ed. I. Hardy, Records
Commissioners, 1816-69)
The Sadler Papers (2 vols., ed. A. Clifford, 1809)
Sanders, Nicholas: De Origine ac Progressu Schismatis Anglicani 1585; ed. D. Lewis and printed as The Rise and Growth of the Anglican Schism,
1877) The Sayings of Queen Elizabeth (ed. F. Chamberlin, 1923) Secret Correspondence of Sir Robert Cecil and James I (ed. Lord Hales, 1766) The Secret History of the Most Renowned Queen Elizabeth and the Earl of
Essex. By a Person of Quality (1695) The Sidney Papers: Letters and Memorials of State (2 vols., ed. Arthur
Collins, 1746) Sidney, Sir Philip: Works (4 vols., ed. A. Feuillerat, 1922-26) The Somers Tracts (13 vols., ed. Sir Walter Scott, 1809-15) State Papers, Foreign Series, Elizabeth I, 1589-90 (ed. R.B. Wernham, 1964) State Papers relating to the Defeat of the Spanish Armada (ed. J.K. Laughton,
Navy Record Society, 1894) The Statutes, A.D. 1235-1770 (HMSO 1950)
Statutes of the Realm (11 vols., Records Commissioners, 1810-28) Stow, John The Annals of England, or a General Chronicle of England (1592;
ed. E Howes, 163 1) Stow, John: The Chronicles of England, from Brutus unto this Present Year of
Christ (1580; 1605) Stow, John: A Survey of London (2 vols., ed. C.L. Kingsford, 1908; ed.
Henry Morley, 1994.) Stubbs, John: A Gaping Gulf, with Letters and other Relaxant Documents
(ed. Lloyd E. Berry, 1968) Strype, John: Annals of the Reformation (4 vols., 1820-40) Strype, John: Ecclesiastical Memorials (3 vols., 1721-33; 1822; 1823)
Thomas Platter’s Travels in England, 1599 (ed. Clare Williams, 1937) Tomkyns, .: A Sermon preached on the 26th day of May 1584 (1584) Tothill, R.: The Passage of our Most Dread Sovereign Lady, Queen Elizabeth
through the City of London to Westminster (1559) Tudor Royal Proclamations (3 vols., ed. P.L. Hughes and J.F. Larkin,
1964-9) Tudor and Stuart Proclamations (2 vols., ed. R. Steele, 1910) Tudor Tracts (ed. A.F. Pollard, 1903)
Unton, Sir Henry: Correspondence (ed. Joseph Stevenson, Roxburghe Club 1848)
Walsingham, Sir Francis: Journal, 1570-83 (ed. C.T. Martin, Camden
Miscellany, IV, 1871) Wilbraham, Sir Robert: Journal (Camden Miscellany, X, 1902) Wilson, Thomas: The State of England, Anno Domino 1600 (ed. F.J.
Fisher, Camden Miscellany, CVI, 3rd Series, LII 1936) Wriothesley, Charles, Windsor Herald: A Chronicle of England in the
Reigns of the Tudors, from 1485 to 1559 ( 1581; 2 vols., ed. William
Douglas Hamilton, Camden Society, 2nd Series, X, XX, 1875-7)
The Zurich Letters (ed. . Robinson, Parker Society, 1842)
Secondary Sources
Abbot, Edwin A.: Bacon and Essex (1877)
Abbot, Edwin A.: Francis Bacon (1885)
Adams, Simon: ‘Faction, Clientage and Party, 1550-1603’ (History
Today, XXXII, 1982) Adlard, George: Amye Robsart and the Earl of Leicester (1870) Aikin, Lucy: Memoirs of the Court and Times of Queen Elizabeth (1818) Aird, Ian: ‘The Death of Amy Robsart: Accident, Suicide or Murder –
or Disease?’ (English Historical Review, 1956) Andrews, K.R.: English Privateering Voyages 1588-95 (Hakluyt Society,
Arber, E.(ed.): An English Garland (1877-96)
Armstrong Davison, M.H.: The Casket Letters (1965)
Arnold, Janet: Queen Elizabeth’s Wardrobe Unlock’d (1988)
Ashdown, Dulcie M.: Ladies in Waiting (1976)
Auerbach, Erna: Nicholas Hilliard (1961)
Auerbach, Erna: ‘Portraits of Queen Elizabeth I’ (Burlington Magazine,
1953) Auerbach, Erna: Tudor Artists (1954) Axton, M.: The Queen’s Two Bodies: Drama and the Elizabethan Succession
(1977)
Bagwell, Richard: Ireland under the Tudors (1885)
Bainton, R.: The Reformation in the Sixteenth Century (1953)
Bassnett, Susan: Elizabeth I: A Feminist Perspective (1988)
Bayne, C.G.: ‘The Coronation of Queen Elizabeth’ (English Historical
Review, XII, 1907) Beckinsale, B.W.: Burleigh, Tudor Statesman (1967) Beckinsale, B.W.: Elizabeth / (1963)
Bekker, E.: Elisabeth und Leicester (Giessener Studien, V, 1890) Benson, E.F.: Sir Francis Drake (1927) Bindoff, S.T., Hurstfield, . and Williams, C.H. (eds.): Elizabethan
Government and Society (1961) Bindoff, S.T.: Tudor England (1950) Black, J.B.: Elizabeth and Henry IV (1913) Black, J.B.: The Reign of Elizabeth (1959) Bloch, M.: Les Rois Thaumaturges (1924) Bloch, Michael: The Duchess of Windsor (1996) Boas, F.S.:University Drama in the Tudor Age (1913) Boyd, M.C.: Elizabethan Music and Musical Criticism (1940) Bradbrook, Muriel: Drama as Offering: The Princely Pleasures of Kenilworth
(Rice Institute, XLVI, 1960) Bradford, C.A.: Blanche Parry (1935)
Bradford, C.A.: Helena, Marchioness of Northampton (1936) Bradley, E.T.: The Life of the Lady Arabella Stuart (1869) Bromley, J.S. and Kossman, E.H.: Britain and the Netherlands (1961) Brook, V.J.K.: Wliitgift and the English Church (1957) Brooke, Ins:English Costume in the Age of Elizabeth (1950) Brookes, E. St. John: Sir Christopher Hatton, Queen Elizabeth’s Favourite
(1946) Brushfield, T.N.: The History of Durham House (Devon Association,
XXV) Buxton, John: Elizabethan Taste (1965) Buxton, John: Sir Philip Sidney and the English Renaissance (1966)
Chamberlin, Frederick: Elizabeth and Leicester (1939)
Chamberlin, Frederick: The Private Character of Queen Elizabeth (1921)
Chambers, E.K.: ‘The Court’ in Shakespeare’s England (1925)
Chambers, E.K.: The Elizabethan Stage (4 vols., 1923)
Chambers, E.K.: Sir Henry Lee (1930)
Chantelauze, M.R.: Marie Stuart, sa Proces et son Execution (1876)
Chapman, F.: Ancient Royal Palaces in or near London (T902)
Chapman, H.W.: Two Tudor Portraits (1960)
Christy, M.: ‘Queen Elizabeth’s Visit to Tilbury in 1588’ (English
Historical Review, 34, 1919) Clark, G.N.: The Wealth of England, 1496 to 1720 (1946) Collins, A.J: ‘The Progress of Queen Elizabeth to Tilbury, 1588’ (British
Museum Quarterly, X, 1936) Collinson, Rhiann.: The Elizabethan Puritan Movement (1967) Cook, Greville: ‘Queen Elizabeth and her Court Musicians’ (Musical
Times, 79, 1918) Cowan, S.: The Last Days of Mary Stuart (incorporating a translation of the
Journal of Burgoyne) (1907) Creighton, Mandell: Queen Elizabeth (1899) Cross, O: The Puritan Earl: Henry Hastings, Third Earl of Huntingdon
(1966) Cust, L.: Notes on the Authentic Portraits of Mary, Queen of Scots (1903)
Davenport, O: English Embroidered Book bindings (1899)
Dawley, A.: John Whitgift and the Reformation (1955)
Dawson, Giles E. and Kennedy-Skipton, Laetitia: Elizabethan
Handwriting: A Guide to the Reading of Documents and MSS (T968) Dent, John: The Quest for Nonsuch (1962)
Dewar, Mary: Sir Thomas Smith: A Tudor Intellectual in Office (1964) Dictionary of National Biography (22 vols., ed. L. Stephen and S. Lee,
1885-1909 ) Dimmock, Arthur: ‘The Conspiracy of Dr Lopez’ (English Historical
Review, July, 1894) Dodd, A.H.: Life in Elizabethan England (1961) Dorsten, J.A. Van and Strong, Roy: Leicester’s Triumph (1964) Dowsing, James: Forgotten Tudor Palaces in the London Area (undated) Dunlop, I.: Palaces and Progresses of Elizabeth I(1962) Dutton, Ralph: English Court Life from Henry VII to George II (1963)
Eccles, Audrey: Obstetrics and Gynaeocology in Tudor and Stuart England
(1982) Edwards, Edward: The Life of Sir Walter Raleigh, together with his Letters
Edwards, R. and Ramsey, L.G.G. (eds.): The Tudor Age (1956)
Elton, G.R.: England under the Tudors (1955)
Elton, G.R.: The Parliament of England, 1559-1581 (1986)
Elton, G.R.: The Tudor Constitution (1960)
Emmison, F.G.: Tudor Secretary (1961)
Erickson, Carolly: The First Elizabeth (1983)
Evans, Joan: English Jewellery from the 5 the Century A.D. to 1800 (1921)
Evans, Joan: A History of Jewellery, 1100-1870 (1953) I
Fairbank, A. and Wolpe, B.: Renaissance Handwriting (1960) I
Falls. O: Elizabeth’s Irish Wars (1950)
Falls. O: Mountjoy: Elizabethan General (1955) I
la Ferriere, C.F.H. de: Les Projects de Marriage de la Reine Elisabeth (1882) I
Finch, Peter .: John Dee: The World of an Elizabethan Magus (1972)
Firth, C.H.: The Ballad History of the Late Tudors (Transactions of the
Royal Historical Society, 3rd Series III, 1909) Fisher, F.J. (ed.): Essays on the Economic and Social History of Tudor and
Stuart England (T961) Fleming, David Hay: Mary, Queen of Scots: From her Birth to her Flight into
England (1898) Fox Bourne, H.R.: Sir Philip Sidney (1891) Fraser, Antonia: Mary, Queen of Scots (T969) Freedman, Sylvia: Poor Penelope: Lady Penelope Rich, an Elizabethan
Woman (1983) Froude, J.A.: A History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Defeat of
the Armada (12 vols., 1856-70) Furnivall, F.J.: Shakespeare and Mary Fitton (1897)
Gaunt, William: Court Painting in England (1980)
Gardiner, D.: English Girlhood at School (1929)
Gee, Henry: The Elizabethan Prayer Book and Ornaments (1902)
Geyl, V.:The Revolt of the Netherlands, 1555-1609 (1932)
Goodall, W.: An Examination of the Letters said to be written by Mary,
Queen of Scots to James, Earl of Bothwell (2 vols., 1754) Grew, J.H.: Elisabeth d’Angleterre clans la Litterature Francaise (1932) 1
Grun, Bernard: The Timetables of History (1991) ‘
Hadfield, A.M.:Time to Finish the Game (1964)
Haigh, Christopher: Elizabeth I (1988)
Haigh, Christopher (edf.The Reign of Elizabeth I (1984)
Hale, H.M.: ‘The English Historic Portrait: Document and Myth’
(Proceedings of the British Academy, 1963) I
Hampden, John (ed.): Francis Drake, Privateer (1972) 1
Hand over, P.M.:77/c Second Cecil: The Rise to Power, 1563 to 1604 of Sir
Robert Cecil (1959) Harrison, G.B.: The Life and Death of Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex
(1937) Haynes, Alan: ‘The Islands Voyage’ (History Today, XXV, 1975) Haynes, Alan: Robert Cecil, Earl of Salisbury (1989) Haynes, Alan: ‘Supplying the Elizabethan Court’ (History Today
XXVIII, 1978) Haynes, Alan: The White Bear: The Elizabethan Earl of Leicester (1987) Headlam Wells, Robin: Spenser’s Faerie Queen and the Cult of Elizabeth
(1983) Hearne, Karen (ed.): Dynasties: Painting in Tudor and Jacobean England
1530-1630 (1995) Henry, L.W.: The Earl of Essex and Ireland (British Institute of Historical
Research, XXXII, 1959) Henry, L.W.: ‘The Earl of Essex as Strategist and Military Organiser
1596-97’ (English Historical Review, LXVIII, 1953) Hibbert, Christopher: The Court at Windsor (T964) Hibbert, Christopher: The Tower of London (1971) Hibbert, Christopher: The Virgin Queen: The Personal History of Elizabeth
I (1992 edn.) Hosack,J.: Mary, Queen of Scots and Her Accusers. (2 vols., 1870-74) Hotson, Leslie: Queen Elizabeth’s Entertainment at Mitcham (1953) Howard, Philip: The RoyalPalaces (1960) Howarth, David: The Voyage of the Armada. (1981) Hughes, Rhiann.: The Reformation in England, Vol. 3 (1950-56) Hume, M.A.S.: The Courtships of Queen Elizabeth (1898, 1904) Hume, M.A.S.: Treason and Plot (1901) Hurstfield, .: Elizabeth land the Unity of England (1960) Hurstfield, .: Freedom, Corruption and Government in Elizabethan England
(1973) Hurstfield, Joel: The Queen’s Wards (1958)
Jackson, E.: ‘Amye Robsart’ (Wiltshire Archaeological Magazine, XVII,
1898) Jardine, David: Criminal Trials, Vol. /(1832) Jardine, David: A Reading on the Use of Torture in the Criminal Laws of
England (1837) Jebb, S.: Life of Robert, Earl of Leicester (1727) Jenkins, Elizabeth: Elizabeth the Great (1958) Jenkins,’ G.: ‘Ways and Means in Elizabethan Propaganda’ (History,
1941) Johnson, Paul: Elizabeth I: A Study in Power and Intellect (1974)
504
Kendnck, T.D.: British Antiquity (1950) Kenny, RAW.: Elizabeth’s Admiral (1970)
Kingsford, C.L.: ‘Essex House, formerly Leicester House and Exeter Inn’ (Antiquaries Journal, Archaeologia, LXXIII, 1-54, Oxford, 1923)
Lacey, Robert: Robert, Earl of Essex: An Elizabethan Icarus (1971)
Lacey, Robert: Sir Walter Raleigh (1973)
Lamont-Brown, R.: Royal Murder Mysteries (1990)
Law, Ernest: The History of Hampton Court Palace (1890)
Leader, J.D.: Mary, Queen of Scots in Captivity (1880)
Lee, A.G.: The Son of Leicester (1964)
Lees-Milne, .: Tudor Renaissance (195T)
Lever, I.: The Herberts of Wilton (1967)
Levine, M.: The Early Elizabethan Succession Question, 1558-68 (1966)
Levine, M.: Tudor Dynastic Problems, 1460-1571 (1973)
Lewis, Michael:, The Spanish Armada (1951, 1960)
Lloyd-Howell, A.:The Rouen Campaign, 1590-92 (1973)
Long, J.H.(ed.): Music in English Renaissance Drama (T968)
Luke, Mary M.: A Crown for Elizabeth (1971)
MacCaffrey, Wallace: ‘Elizabethan Politics: The First Decade, 1558-1568’
(Past and Present, April, 1963) MacCaffrey, Wallace: The Making of the Elizabethan Regime (1968) MacDonald, .: Portraits in Prose (1946)
MacNalty, Arthur S.: Elizabeth Tudor: The Lonely Queen (1954) Mahon, R.H.: Mary, Queen of Scots (1924) Marshall, Rosalind K.: Elizabeth I (1991) Mattingly, Garrett: The Defeat of the Spanish Armada (1959) du Maurier, Daphne: The Golden Lads (The Bacon brothers) (1975) Mercer, Derek (ed.): Chronicle of the Royal Family (1991) Meyer, OS.: Elizabeth I and the Religious Settlement of 1559 (1960) Meyer, A.O.: England and the Catholic Church under Queen Elizabeth (tr.
J.R. McKee, 1916) Meyer, E.H.: English Chamber Music (1946)
Montagu, W.: Court and Society from Elizabeth to Anne (2 vols., 1864) Morley, . (ed.): Ireland under Elizabeth and James I (1890) Morris, O: The Tudors (1955) Mumby, F.A.: The Fall of Mary Stuart (1921)
Neale, J.E.: ‘The Accession of Queen Elizabeth’ (History Today, May,
1953) Neale, J.E.: ‘The Elizabethan Acts of Supremacy and Uniformity’ (English Historical Review, 1950)
Neale, J.E.: The Elizabethan House of Commons (1949)
Neale, J.E.: Elizabeth I and her Parliaments, Vol. 1: 1559-1581 (1953) Vol.
1 : 1584-1601 (1957) Neale, J.E.: Essays in Elizabethan History (1958) Neale, J.E.: ‘Parliament and the Succession Question in 1562/3 and
1566’ (English Historical Review, 1921) Neale, J.E.: Queen Elizabeth I (1934; revised edn.1965) Neale, J.E.: ‘Sayings of Queen Elizabeth’ (History, X, October 1925) Neale, J.E.: ‘Sir Nicholas Throckmorton’s Advice to Queen Elizabeth’
(English Historical Review, LXV, 1950) Needham, R. and Webster, A.: Somerset House, Past and Present (1905) Nicholas, N.H.: The Life of William Davison (1823)
Orwell, G. and Reynolds, R.: British Pamphleteers (1948)
Osborne, June: Entertaining Elizabeth I: The Progresses and Great Houses of
her Time (1989) The Oxford Book of Royal Anecdotes (ed. E. Longford, 1989)
Paston-Williams, Sarah: The Art of Dining (1993)
Peck, D.C.: ‘Government Suppression of English Catholic Books: The Case of “Leicester’s Commonwealth”‘ (Library Quarterly, XLII, 2,
1977) Percival, Rachel and Allen: The Court of Elizabeth I (1976) Perry, Maria: The Word of a Prince: A Life of Elizabeth I (T990) Picard, B.L.: The Tower and the Traitors (1961) Plowden, Alison: Elizabethan England (1982) Plowden, Alison: Elizabeth Regina, 1588-1603 (1980) Plowden, Alison: Marriage with my Kingdom: The Courtships of Elizabeth
I(i91l) Plowden, Alison: Two Queens in One Isle (1984)
Pollen, J.H.: The English Catholics in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth (1920) Pollen, J.H.: Mary, Queen of Scots and the Babington Plot (Scottish
Historical Society, 3rd Series, itt, 1922) Porter, H.C.: Reformation and Reaction in Tudor Cambridge (1958) Prior, T.M.: The Royal Studs of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries
(1935)
Quinn, D.B.: Raleigh and the British Empire (1947)
Rait, R.S. and Cameron, .: King James’s Secret (1927)
Read, Conyers: Lord Burghley and Queen Elizabeth (1960)
Read, Conyers: Mr. Secretary Cecil and Queen Elizabeth (1955)
Read, Conyers: Mr. Secretary Walsingham and the Policy of Queen Elizabeth
(3 vols., 925; reprinted 1967) Read, Conyers: The Tudors: Personalities and Politics in Sixteenth Century
England (1936) Read, R.R.: The Rebellion of the Earls, 1569 (Transactions of the Royal
Historical Society, 2nd Series, XX, 1906) Reese, M.M.: The Royal Office of Master of the Horse (1976) Rice, G.P.: The Public Speaking of Queen Elizabeth (1951) Rich, E.E.: ‘The Population of Elizabethan England’ (Economic History
Review, 1949) Richardson, A.: The Lovers of Queen Elizabeth (1907) Ridley, Jasper: Elizabeth I (1987) Robinson, Agnes M.F.: ‘Queen Elizabeth and the Valois Princes’
(English Historical Review, 11, 1887) Rosenberg, Eleanor: Leicester, Patron of Letters (1955) Roulstone, M.: The Royal House of Tudor (1974) Rowse, A.L.: An Elizabethan Garland (1953)
Rowse, A.L.: The Elizabethan Renaissance: The Life of the Society (1971) Rowse, A.L.: ‘Elizabeth’s Coronation’ (History Today, III, 1953) Rowse, A.L.: The England of Elizabeth (1950) Rowse, A.L.: The Expansion of Elizabethan England (1955) Rowse, A.L. and Harrison, G.B.: Queen Elizabeth and her Subjects (1955) Rowse, A.L.: Raleigh and the Throckmortons (1962) Rowse, A.L.: Shakespeare’s Southampton (T965) Rowse, A.L.: The Tower of London in the History of the Nation (1972) Rowse, A.L.: Windsor Castle in the History of the Nation (1974) The Royal Encyclopaedia (ed. Ronald Allison and Sarah Riddell, 199T) Rye, W.B.:, England as seen by Foreigners (1865) Rye, W.B.: The Murder of Amy Robsart (1 885)
Scarisbrick, Diana: Tudor and Jacobean Jewellery (1995)
Seymour, William: An English Family in the Shadow of the Tudors (1972)
Simpson, A.: The Wealth of the Gentry, 1540-1640 (1961)
Simpson, R.: Edmund Campion (1896)
Sitwell, Edith: The Queen and the Hive (1963)
Smith, A.G.R.: The Government of Elizabethan England (1967)
Smith, Lacey Baldwin: The Elizabethan Epic (1966)
Smith, Lacey Baldwin: Elizabeth Tudor: Portrait of a Queen (1976)
Soden, Geoffrey: Godfrey Goodman, Bishop of Gloucester, 1583-1656
(i953) Somerset, Anne: Elizabeth I (1991)
Spedding, James: The Letters and Life of Francis Bacon (2 vols., 1890) Stafford, Helen G.: James VI of Scotland and the Throne of England (1940) Starkey, David (ed.): The English Court from the Wars of the Roses to the Civil War (1987) Stebbings, W., Sir Walter Raleigh (1899) Strachey, Lytton: Elizabeth and Essex (1928) Strickland, Agnes: Life of Queen Elizabeth (1906) Strong, Roy: Artists of the Tudor Court (1983) Strong, Roy: The Cult of Elizabeth (1977) Strong, Roy and, Oman, Julia Trevelyan: Elizabeth R(1971) Strong, Roy: The English Icon: Elizabethan and Jacobean Portraiture (1969) Strong, Roy: ‘Federigo Zuccaro’s Visit to England in 1575’ (Journal of
the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 1959) Strong, Roy: Gloriana: The Portraits of Queen Elizabeth 1 (1987) Strong, Roy: ‘The Popular Celebration of the Accession Day of Queen
Elizabeth I’ (Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 1947) Strong Roy: Portraits of Queen Elizabeth I (1963) Strong, Roy: Splendour at Court (1973)
Strong, Roy: Tudor and Jacobean Portraits (2 vols., HMSO, 1969) Sugden, John: Sir Francis Drake (1990) Summerson, John: The Building of Theobalds (Archaeologia, CVII, 1954)
Tanner, Lawrence E.: The History and Treasures of Westminster Abbey
(i953) Taylor, W.F.: The Charterhouse of London (1912) Tenison, E.M.: Elizabethan England, I to XIIA (1933-61) Thompson, G.S.: Lords Lieutenant in the Sixteenth Century (1923) Thompson, J.V.P.: The Supreme Governor (1940) Thurley, Simon: The Royal Palaces of Tudor England (1993) Tighe, R.R. and Davis, J.E.: Annals of Windsor, Being a History of the
Castle and Town (t858) Tillyard, E.M.W.: The Elizabethan World Picture (1944) Tillyard, E.M.W.: Shakespeare’s History Plays (1944) Tudor and Stuart Portraits (The Weiss Gallery, 1995) Turton, Godfrey: The Dragon’s Breed: The Story of the Tudors, from Earliest
Times to 1603 (1969)
Wallace, M.W.: Philip Sidney (1915)
Wallace, W.M.: Sir Walter Raleigh (1959)
Waldman, Milton: Elizabeth and Leicester (1945)
Walpole, Horace: Anecdotes of Painting in England (1876)
Waterhouse, E.: Painting in Britain, 1530-1790 (1953)
Waters, D.W. ‘The Elizabethan Navy and the Armada Campaign’
(Marin’er’s Mirror, 1949) Welsford, Enid: The Court Masque (1927) Wernham, R.B.: Before the Armada: The Growth of English Foreign Policy
1485-1588 (1966) Wernham, W.B.: ‘Queen Elizabeth and the Portugal Expedition of
1589’ (English Historical Review, 1951) Westminster Abbey: Official Guide (various edns.) White, F.O.: Lives of the Elizabethan Bishops (1898) Wiesener, L.: Lajeunesse d’Elisabeth d’Angleterre (1878; 2 vols., tr CM.
Yonge, 1879) Williams, E. Carleton: Bess of Hardwick (1959) Williams, Neville: All the Queen’s Men (1972) Williams, Neville: ‘The Coronation of Queen Elizabeth I’ (Quarterly
Review, 597, 1953) Williams, Neville: Elizabeth I, Queen of England (1967) Williams, Neville: The Life and Times of Elizabeth I (1972) Williams, Neville: Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk (1964) William, Rhiann. ‘The Fall of Essex’ (History Today, 1957) Williams, Penry: Life in Tudor England (1964) Williamson, Hugh Ross,: Historical Enigmas (1974) Williamson, J.A.: The Age of Drake (1960)
Wilson, O: Queen Elizabeth and the Revolt of the Netherlands (1970) Wilson, Derek: Sweet Robin: A Biography of Robert Dudley, Earl of
Leicester, 1533-1588 (1981) Wilson, E.C.: England’s Eliza (1939) Wilson, J.D.: Life in Shakespeare’s England (19T1) Wilson, Jean: Entertainments for Elizabeth (T980) Wilson, Jean: ‘The Harefield Entertainment and the Cult of Elizabeth I’
(AntiquariesJournal, LXVI, 1986) Wilson, V.A.: Queen Elizabeth’s Maids of Honour (1922) Woodfill, W.L.: Musicians in English Society from Elizabeth to Charles 7(1953) Woodworth, W.: A Purveyance for the Royal Household under Queen
Elizabeth (Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, 35,
1945-6) Wormald, Jenny: Mary, Queen of Scots: A Study in Failure (1988) Wright, W.B.: Middle Class Culture in Elizabethan England (1935)
Yates, F.A.: Astraea: The Imperial Theme in the Sixteenth Century (1975) Yates, F.A.: ‘Elizabethan Chivalry: The Romance of the Accession Day
Tilts’ (Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 1947) Yates, F.A.: ‘Queen Elizabeth as Astraea’ (Journal of the Warburg and
Courtauld Institutes, 1947) Young, Alan: Tudor and Jacobean Tournaments (1987) Youngs, F.A.: The Proclamations of the Tudor Queens (1976)
Removed Picture captions:
Elizabeth I at her accession ‘An air of dignified majesty pervades all her actions.’
Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, attr. to Steven van Meulen ‘Lord Robert does whatever he likes with affairs.’ William Cecil, Lord Burghley
‘No prince in Europe hath such a counsellor.’ Lord Darnley and Mary Queen of Scots
‘The Queen of Scots is a dangerous person.’ Philip II of Spain and Mary
‘Sometimes it is necessary for princes to do what displeases them.’
Lettice Knollys, Countess of Leicester ‘One of the best-looking ladies of the court.’
Sir Christopher Hatton by Nicholas Hilliard ‘One of the goodliest personages of England.’
Sir Francis Walsingham by John de Critz the Elder He set himself ‘to break the neck of all dangerous practices’
Francis, Duke of Alencon ‘He seemed to grow daily more handsome.’
Sir Philip Sidney ‘That inconsiderate fellow, Sidney’
Sir Francis Drake ‘Drake! I would be revenged on the King of Spain.’
Sir Walter Raleigh ‘The best-hated man of the world.’
Elizabeth I; The Armada Portrait ‘She is our God in Earth.’
Sir Robert Cecil ‘The greatest councillor of England.’
Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex ‘He carries his love and his hatred on his forehead.’
James VI of Scotland and I of England ‘Succession? Who is he that dares meddle with it?’
Elizabeth I in old age ‘There is no contentment to a young mind in an old body’
end of captions.
saeedkhansite 