by David Field
‘But there is no such plot?’ Tom asked, horrified at the depth of deception to which Cecil was prepared to descend.
‘Not at this time, no. But how soon before such a plot exists? Previous plots have all but encompassed Elizabeth’s death and it is known that Babington has contacts with both the Court of Spain and the Catholic League in France. He will be no loss to England and hopefully Elizabeth will be so enraged when she learns of what her cousin was prepared to put her name to that she will at long last order her execution. Then England shall be rid of Catholic plots for all time.’
‘Back in Attenborough you made mention of an estate that will fall to me if we are successful,’ Tom reminded Cecil, who nodded.
‘The Babington family is extensive and has long established Yorkist roots that make them resentful of Tudor monarchs. They are Catholic to a man and they have many estates. When Babington falls, it will be necessary to arrest the family and one of their estates in Lincolnshire will then be transferred to you when all the estates fall to the Crown. I shall not require the Queen’s consent to that, although no doubt she would give it, if consulted.’
‘And then we can be married!’ Jenny reminded Tom excitedly as all thought of refusal slipped from his conscience.
Three months later Mary Stuart went on trial for what amounted to treason for agreeing to a plan, in a letter that Babington had never sent, that would involve a joint invasion of England by Spanish and French troops, the capture and execution of Elizabeth and the placing of Mary herself on the throne of England. The outcome of that trial was never in doubt, with the execution of Babington a month previously having deprived Mary of any defence witness to deny the authenticity of the fateful letter that had provoked her gleeful response and with Walsingham among those on the jury who found her guilty.
Elizabeth was seen to be reluctant to sanction the death sentence and only relented when assured that it would be done cleanly, with an axe and that her royal cousin would not be disembowelled in public like any other traitor. Mary was transferred to Fotheringhay Castle in Northamptonshire to await her execution and most of her entourage were cast out into the wilderness to find their own way back to Scotland. Mary Seton opted to remain until the very end, but graciously released Janet Spittell from her service when advised that her loyal attendant had met a local man who she wished to marry. The wedding bells duly rang out in St Mary’s Church in Attenborough a few days ahead of the new Lord and Lady of an estate less than a day’s ride from Jenny’s former home taking up residence along with her overjoyed parents. The bridegroom at the service was now ‘Sir’ Thomas Ashton by dint of a ceremony in which Elizabeth had knighted a dozen men on the urging of Cecil, without any real knowledge of what they had done to earn the honour.
It took all of Cecil’s persuasive skills to all but shame Elizabeth into signing the warrant for Mary’s execution and even then on condition that it was not to be employed until she said so. When she continually avoided the subject at one Council meeting after another, Cecil risked his own neck by convening a meeting of Council when the Queen was on one of her regular tours of royal palaces while Whitehall was being thoroughly cleansed and demanding that Council endorse the execution of the warrant. Mary was beheaded the following week and everyone ran for cover when the Queen shrieked her horror at what had happened at a volume that could be heard all over Windsor Castle.
However, she was drawn back into relying entirely on Cecil and her Council when responding to the assassination, the previous year, of Prince William of Orange, the leader of the Dutch resistance against the Spanish occupation force now commanded by the Duke of Parma and the surrender of yet more Dutch towns. When Parma laid siege to Antwerp and Philip of Spain signed an alliance with the Catholic League of France, Elizabeth was forced to be seen to do something and she had authorised Walsingham to negotiate the Treaty of Nonsuch, which committed England to supplying over six thousand foot soldiers and over one thousand cavalry to lift the siege of Antwerp. This was regarded by Philip of Spain as a declaration of war and Elizabeth now had to make good her promise. When Council agreed on the additional taxation of the nobility and merchants that would be required in order to finance the operation, Elizabeth was left with the task of selecting someone to command her forces and there was only one obvious person.
Robert Dudley had been grudgingly allowed back at Court a year previously, although his wife Lettice was still banned from attendance. Elizabeth had been touched to learn that their child had died in its infancy, but she still kept up an almost constant barrage of slights and insults whenever the name of her former Lady was mentioned. As for Robert himself, she was cool towards him, but thawed somewhat when he sought leave to introduce to Court his nineteen-year-old stepson Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, already the epitome of a fine Tudor noble and anxious to win fame and fortune in battle.
The two Roberts presented themselves somewhat apprehensively in the Audience Chamber when summoned and as usual Elizabeth made great show of favour towards the handsome and excessively gallant stepson, while treating her former childhood companion as befitted a man in his mid-fifties who was past his prime and growing somewhat portly in self-satisfied middle age. In doing so, she was either forgetting that she herself was approximately the same age, with her years of youthful freshness well behind her, or was resentful of him because he reminded her so forcefully of her own fading beauty.
‘You are presumably wondering why you have been summoned?’ she demanded imperiously and as usual it was Essex with the ingratiating response.
‘Any opportunity to be in Your Majesty’s presence is welcome,’ he oozed.
Elizabeth frowned slightly, then transferred her gaze to Robert. ‘There was a time when I would have expected that sort of oily rejoinder from you, my lord of Leicester. But for once you may be of service to the nation.’
‘How so, my Lady?’ Robert asked with a studied failure to refer to ‘Your Majesty’.
Elizabeth leaned towards her side table, lifted a document from it and waved it in the air. ‘Walsingham, as you know, recently made this agreement with the Dutch, which requires us to lend them military aid and with particular reference to the re-taking of Antwerp from the Spanish oppressors. You are well known and for some reason highly regarded, by our friends in the Low Countries and I am in the process of assembling a force to oppose the arrogance of the Duke of Parma. You may recall that it was on your insistence in Council that we offered aid to our Protestant friends in their time of need and it is therefore appropriate that you lead that force, along with your eager stepson here. The fleet that will transport you across the Channel is already assembling at Greenwich under your good friend Captain Hawkins and you will leave whenever you have set your affairs in order.’
‘Your Majesty does me great honour,’ Robert replied coldly as he bowed, while Essex was almost quivering with excitement. ‘We shall bring great glory for England, Your Majesty,’ he cooed, ‘and my father shall govern the Low Countries in your name.’
‘He will do no such thing!’ Elizabeth yelled, then glared back at Robert. ‘I am well aware that you have already so ingratiated yourself with those who represent the United Provinces that they see you as their Governor-General. Be under no illusion that you are being dispatched over there to assume that role. Your duty to me will be solely to maintain a strong English military presence over there, to discourage any further inroads by the Spanish. I have no wish to rule over the Netherlands and even less do I wish to do so through the agency of yourself. Are we clearly understood on that point?’
‘Indeed, my Lady,’ Robert confirmed as he only half bowed. ‘But,’ he continued, ‘has not Philip of Spain proclaimed that the signing of the Treaty of Nonsuch was a declaration of war against his nation? If that be the case and if we are to risk our lives in taking on the might of Spain, would it not be appropriate for me to assume some sort of generalship of the lands we shall be defending?’
‘No it would not!’ Eliz
abeth retorted hotly. ‘Simply engage your men as a bulwark against further Spanish encroachment and do nothing to suggest that we are claiming the Netherlands for ourselves. Understood?’
‘Understood,’ Robert echoed, but Elizabeth’s brow remained furrowed.
‘Good. See to it that I am scrupulously obeyed in this. You are both now dismissed the presence.’
As they disappeared through the double doors that led back into the hallway her heart felt a pang of regret. She might well be sending Robert to his death and her last words to him had been curt and unloving. She took a deep breath and stiffened her resolve. Cecil had advised that they use the presence of English forces in the Low Countries as a bargaining counter with Philip of Spain and no more. She was obliged, for England’s sake, to follow the sage advice of her tried and trusted adviser and not to fall prey to the urgings of her heart. She only hoped that Robert would return alive.
When he ultimately returned, it was in disgrace. The United Provinces were so heartened by the arrival at The Hague of a senior English noble with an armed force sent by Elizabeth that they persuaded Robert to accept the title of ‘Governor-General’. He would always maintain that he had done so in Elizabeth’s name, but even that ran contrary to her express instructions and she was furious. She expressed her fury in a letter to Robert personally, in which she reminded him of how he had been ‘extraordinarily favoured by us above any other subject of this land’ and went on to express her disbelief that he had ‘in so contemptible a sort broken our commandment in a cause that so greatly touches us in honour.’ This letter was hand delivered by an emissary, Sir Thomas Heneage, sent directly from London to The Hague and contained the command that Robert obey other instructions with which Heneage had been supplied, or ‘you will answer the contrary at your utmost peril.’
Robert knew the wild rages of Elizabeth to be as dangerous as they sounded and was obliged to stand by meekly and deeply embarrassed, as Heneage read out, to a full assembly of the Council of State of the United Provinces, a further blast from the Queen of England dissociating herself and her nation from any form of governorship over the Netherlands and leaving no one in any doubt that the Earl of Leicester did not act with her authority. It was little wonder that Robert never again enjoyed any meaningful status in the region and after several military failures that were costing England money it did not have, during which Robert was obliged to pay and victual his troops at his own personal expense, he resigned his commission and returned to England greatly humiliated, but glad not to have been executed, such was Elizabeth’s ire.
She was even more incensed when obliged to make peace terms with the Duke of Parma, thereby further revealing England’s critical weakness on the ground. This gave further incentive to Philip of Spain to invade England and put paid for all time to the Protestant thorn in the Habsburg side. He would finally revenge himself on the woman who had arrogantly rejected his hand in marriage and at the same time could return England to the Pope. All it needed was a naval force sufficient to ferry Parma’s land force across the Channel in pursuit of England’s ragged, dysfunctional and demoralised army.
XX
England was now in greater peril than it had been since the Norman invasion. Elizabeth’s grandfather Henry VII had put an end to private armies in the hope of preventing any further dynastic wars among the Plantagenets and her father Henry had all but bankrupted the nation by maintaining a royal army during his bitter squabbles with Francis of France. Cecil and others had constantly warned against the burden of taxation that would be imposed on the nobility were England to keep professional warriors in reserve against the prospect of wars that could be avoided with the appropriate diplomacy — another of Henry VII’s policies — but the net result of such parsimony was that England had no well drilled and experienced force with which to ward off any Spanish invaders.
They were glumly considering their options as they sat around the Council table and as usual Her Majesty seemed to be assuming that someone had the answer and was keeping it from her out of personal animosity. She glared up the table to its far end, where Cecil and Walsingham sat like old men at a funeral party.
‘Well, Cecil? What have you to suggest?’
The tired old man shook his head. ‘I am no soldier, Your Majesty, but it would seem that if Philip of Spain succeeds in transporting the Duke of Parma’s forces across the Channel, we would be hard put to beat them back.’
‘I am no soldier either, Cecil,’ Elizabeth replied coldly, ‘but even I could have reached that conclusion. Does no-one have any idea as to how we might meet this threat?’
‘Clearly they cannot be allowed to cross to England,’ Walsingham offered, to a responding snort from Elizabeth. ‘Perhaps one of my Counsellors could advise me of something of which I was not already aware,’ she added.
It fell silent until Robert Dudley cleared his throat in Walsingham’s defence. ‘He speaks truer than you give him credit for, Your Majesty. The defence of this realm must be by sea.’
‘Your pirate friends Hawkins and Drake?’ Elizabeth asked. ‘They have served England well by plundering Spanish treasure ships, but can they take on those massive floating cities that the Spanish employ to transport their soldiers?’
‘We will not know until they are commanded to try, Your Majesty,’ Robert pointed out. ‘I would undertake to carry your commission down to Plymouth, assess the number of ships they have, along with their armament capability, then report back to this Council.’
‘And sneak safely out of England on one of their vessels?’ Robert Cecil asked with raised eyebrows.
‘Silence, Pygmy!’ Elizabeth retorted instinctively as she heard her beloved Robert being depicted as a coward. ‘When you begin to demonstrate that you have inherited your father’s wisdom, you may then — and only then — cast aspersions on others. My lord of Leicester is one of the few fighting men that this nation may call upon in its hour of dire need and I am minded to appoint him to command such land forces as we may still possess. Robert, consider yourself England’s ‘Lieutenant and Captain-General of the Royal Armies and Companies’. As for you, Pygmy, if you would prefer your head to remain on your shoulders, no more from you.’
‘The matter of a naval force to prevent Philip’s forces arriving here?’ Walsingham asked in the hope of steering matters back to something more immediate and practical and Elizabeth nodded. ‘Do you carry out the actions that Leicester proposed and bring us back the latest intelligence on the readiness of our ships to do battle with Spain.’
Walsingham nodded his agreement and shortly afterwards the Council was dismissed, with instructions to reconvene whenever Elizabeth commanded it.
Ten days later Walsingham was back seeking audience, which he was granted within minutes of it being requested. Elizabeth sat anxiously awaiting his report and waved her hand for him to sit next to her as she granted permission to speak. Walsingham was smiling, which was not only unusual, but hopefully a good sign.
‘There is heartening news from Plymouth, Your Majesty. Sir John Hawkins, as your Navy Treasurer, has commissioned and equipped a whole new fleet of sleeker, faster ships that can come alongside the taller Spanish galleons and below the level of their gunsights. He hopes by this means to go among the enemy’s vessels and send them to the bottom before the men they carry can grapple his ships and leap aboard, which is apparently the way the Spanish fight.’
‘Good news indeed, Walsingham,’ Elizabeth replied. ‘But are we still outnumbered?’
‘We will probably always be outnumbered, Majesty, but it is not the number of ships that will be crucial, or so Hawkins advises me. It is how they are deployed and to what purpose. In addition, Sir Francis Drake has already set sail for Spain, where he plans to attack those ships that Philip has already assembled in the port of Cadiz. He has in mind setting fire to vessels of his own and steering them into the port of Cadiz, where Philip’s ships will be tightly packed and unable to cast off in time to prevent the fire from s
preading.’
To Walsingham’s surprise and consternation, Elizabeth frowned. ‘There must be no suggestion that Drake does this on my command. We are still hopeful of negotiating our way out of this threat posed by Spain and Drake’s actions — whether successful or not — would not assist those negotiations were it believed that the destruction of Spanish warships was anything other than an act of personal and piratical revenge by Drake.’
Walsingham’s face fell. ‘I doubt that Drake’s fleet could be called back at this late stage — he was three days gone when I left Plymouth.’
‘I did not say that I wanted his venture called off, Walsingham — simply that I do not wish my name associated with it. Now, say you that Hawkins has the main fleet commissioned? Is it adequately equipped? Men? Victuals? Gunpowder?’
Walsingham swallowed hard and chose the most diplomatic answer that came to him. ‘The Navy revenues are all but depleted by the need to build the ships, Your Majesty. They have no shortage of men, but as for victuals — and particularly gunpowder — perhaps more taxation?’
‘Out of the question! They must fight with what they have.’
‘Yes, Majesty. I forgot to add that I have ordered the strengthening of the defences at Dover, although my lord of Leicester inclines towards the opinion that should the Spanish evade our sea defences, they will come at us up the Thames.’
