Robert was one of ‘the foremost supporters of commercial, exploratory and privateering ventures’.52 These included mining calamine [zinc carbonate] in Somerset, copper in Ireland, iron in the Forest of Dean and in Northumberland, often with co-financing from Cecil and Pembroke. He also invested in mining first grade copper ore at Borrowdale in Cumbria. These projects led to the formation of the first English joint stock companies, the Mines Royal Charter Company and the Mineral and Battery Company founded in 1568, although their ventures lost money.
In 1576, Robert and Ambrose each invested £50 in Frobisher’s first voyage in search of the North-West Passage to the Pacific. In 1562, along with a syndicate of London merchants, Robert backed the first voyage of Hawkins to the Americas. This shipped African slaves to the West Indies in return for hides, pearls, ginger and sugar, proving highly profitable. On a second voyage in 1564, Robert and Pembroke chartered the Jesus of Lubeck as Hawkins’s flagship. Any Spanish colonists reluctant to trade with him were forced into it at gunpoint, ensuring that the trip was a financial success. One of Hawkins’s captains was Francis Drake; it was Robert who provided much of the funding for Drake’s circumnavigation starting in 1577. A map of the route of this voyage was retained at Leicester House. Drake was entertained there, and they became partners in many ventures. In 1581, Robert bought a fine armed merchantman, renamed The Galleon Leicester for an abortive trip to the Spice Islands, intending to take up concessions acquired by Drake. It later sailed as a privateer under Drake’s command. Other trading ventures included the Barbary Company founded in 1585 to acquire Moroccan saltpetre, in which Robert invested £3,000. When this proved too pricey for the English market, it was shipped to Mexico to be bartered for metals. Robert also had ships trading on the North African coast, but piracy made this particularly difficult.53 Pioneers looked to the merchant communities in Bristol and London for financial backing, and Robert often funded expeditions under the auspices of the Merchant Venturers and Muscovy Company. When ventures seemed particularly risky, they generally turned to Robert, Pembroke, Hatton and others to attract investors willing to take a bigger gamble; this made Robert their ‘figurehead’. The Queen had to be more circumspect; she would not be associated with piratical ventures.
Many of Robert’s protégés became his agents, enhancing his prestige both at home and abroad and providing him with intelligence as spies. One of these was Killigrew, who later became Cecil’s brother-in-law. It was important to have friends in distant places, and Robert received helpful foreign intelligence for the Council through his own contacts. Numerous young men travelling in different spheres were anxious to assist him in the hope of more permanent employment. He developed a close friendship with the third son of the Elector Palatine, Duke John Casimir. Casimir had ambitions to marry Elizabeth and had sought help in 1564 from the Scottish diplomat, Sir James Melville, to advance his suit. Melville decline the embassage, because he understood that Elizabeth was incapable of bearing children, a rumour which Robert may well have promoted.54
Robert’s charitable benefactions generally supported Puritan causes with help for distressed protégés and ‘poor, friendless suitors’ willing to be ‘the unfeigned professors … of God’s glory’.55 It resulted in two Calvinist works being dedicated to him. More permanently, he educated two scholars at University College, Oxford, and gained great local prestige by founding Lord Leycester Hospital, Warwick, to house twelve poor brethren with a hall, a master’s lodge, St John’s Chapel adjacent to the West Gate, and a number of half-timbered buildings incorporating four sides of a quadrangle, which formerly housed the town guilds.56 This was endowed to provide it with £200 per annum. In 1585, he changed this public charity to provide a means of supporting his own retainers, particularly dependents born in Warwickshire and Gloucestershire, who might have been wounded in the Netherlands campaign. Other charitable giving included one to ‘work an honourable and charitable deed to help to reform [Chester’s] decay’.
Financing his enormous investment interests, benefactions and extravagance was a huge drain. Much of his Norfolk estate had reverted to the Robsart family on Amy’s death.57 That was not to suggest that he was short of income and he benefited hugely from royal favour, sometimes gained by pleading poverty. It was said: ‘He makes gainful to himself every falling-out with her Majesty … [and] was never reconciled to [her] under £5,000.’58 He made the most of estates being lavished on him. He swapped land holdings to consolidate them into four main areas, in the Midlands near Kenilworth, in North Wales around Denbigh, in Essex around Wanstead and in Kent. Other sizeable estates included Cornbury in Oxfordshire, Middlefoy in Somerset and the wardship of the Old Palace at Maidstone, with other lordships of manors in many parts of England and Wales. Like most great landowners, he was generally an absentee, delegating management responsibility to stewards.
There were always pressures to increase income by land reclamation and enclosure. When time-honoured customs were broken, landlords became unpopular. Robert’s estates round Denbigh, acquired in 1563, had suffered from years of neglect and he appointed a commission to report on more efficient management.59 This involved him in recovering barony lands after what he claimed was tenant encroachment and a failure to enforce rental increases. He argued that forests in Anglesey were part of his estates because a stag being hunted by a king in years past had swum the Menai Straits. The freeholders – from whom Robert was now demanding increased rents – took him to court, but the members of the jury were wearing Robert’s livery with the silver bear and ragged staff on their sleeves and gave their verdict in his favour. The resultant local rioting called for ‘brutal efficiency’ from Robert’s agents. He had the advantage that his brother-in-law, Sir Henry Sidney, by now President of the Council of Wales, took Robert’s side.60 The freeholders also had a powerful ally in Sir Richard Bulkeley who, as a boy, had been a member of Elizabeth’s household before her accession and remained on affectionate and trusted terms with her. He was a dignified local figure, honest and independent with estates in Cheshire and at Beaumaris, where he lived. He came to London to explain the predicament and Elizabeth granted a charter confirming the freeholders ‘in the quiet possession of their lands’.61 This made Bulkeley Robert’s lifelong enemy, but Elizabeth always protected her former retainer. Despite this reverse, Robert increased his income from lands in North Wales to £1,500 per annum. He was not alone in having difficulties with tenants. Ambrose faced a riot in Hertfordshire after enclosing common land. This required Hatton to come to his support.62
Robert received income from offices held from the Crown. He was the Constable of Windsor Castle and Keeper of its Park, Steward of Warwick, Chancellor of Oxford University, High Steward of Cambridge University, Chamberlain of the County Palatine of Chester, Warden of the New Forest, Steward of Snowdon Forest, and Ranger of Wychwood Forest. In addition to annual fees, he could sell minor offices and receive ‘considerations’ for the placements of contracts. He held several stewardships from ecclesiastical bodies that brought in fees for administrative work which he sub-contracted. He received a consideration for nominating candidates for membership to the Inner Temple and was also permitted to erect buildings with gardens on their land, which he used for entertainment. He was the most honoured member of their exclusive club.
With Robert’s access to the Queen, suitors who arrived seeking an audience seldom came empty-handed and provided gifts or money. He also benefited from trade concessions and the rights to farm import duties. In 1564, he sold his licence for transporting finished cloths to a consortium of Merchant Venturers for £6,267. He subcontracted his rights to farm the duties on sweet wines, oils, currants, silks and velvets, receiving £2,500 annually for the sweet wines’ concession alone. In 1566, he was granted a twenty-year licence to export timber from Shropshire.
Despite his huge income, Robert spent massively to maintain his interests and lifestyle. His extravagance always left him short of ready money. During 1558 and 1559, his perso
nal expenditure, when he was acutely impoverished, was £2,589, much of it spent on clothing and gifts for the Queen. In January 1565, he wrote to his Netherlands agent, Baroncelli, seeking two bodices worked in gold and silver for the Queen, and ‘two white mares in good condition’ for her.63 At New Year 1572, he presented her with a gold bracelet set with emeralds, diamonds and pearls, which opened to reveal a tiny timepiece. This is one of the earliest recorded wrist-watches.64 He provided her with lavish presents each year. Her fondness for emeralds was well-known; on New Year’s Day 1576, Robert presented her with a gold cross containing five great emeralds, with three pearls hanging from it.65
It was not just gifts for the Queen. On 16 May 1566, Robert gave 3¼ yards of crimson satin to the Mayor of Abingdon for a doublet, and 7 yards of black satin to make doublets for two of the Mayor’s brethren. Such munificence left him heavily in debt. Between December 1559 and April 1561, he repaid £3,726 to William Byrd, a London Mercer. On 17 December 1576, he had to repay the balance of a debt of £15,000 lent to him by Elizabeth. He prepared a bond to borrow £10,000 from Ambrose, Huntingdon and Pembroke, assigning to them the income from his Denbigh estates. In the end, he raised £16,000 by mortgaging these estates to a consortium of London merchants. These were huge sums of money, and at his death his debts exceeded the value of his chattels by £20,000.66
Chapter 15 Flirtation with Lettice Knollys designed to provoke Elizabeth
It was only after the marriage of Mary Queen of Scots to Darnley in July 1565 that Elizabeth’s close relationship with Robert seemed to become more fragile. De Silva noted: ‘Lord Robert seems lately to be rather more alone than usual, and the Queen appears to display a certain coolness towards him.’1 It has been suggested that she blamed Robert for failing to support her proposal for him to marry Mary, but it has been shown that she also pulled back from the plan. In August, Cecil wrote to Sir Thomas Smith in Paris: ‘The Queen’s Majesty is fallen into some misliking of my Lord of Leicester, and he therewith much dismayed.’2 Elizabeth had been extremely distressed by the death of Kat Ashley, which occurred in the same month. Kat had been her foster-mother and was her only real mentor, so she felt the loss keenly. She suddenly seemed to be much attracted by Thomas Heneage, who had been a Gentleman of the Privy Chamber since 1560 and a close friend of Robert. He was ‘a thorough courtier, yet he was kind and eminently good hearted’.3 He was married and, despite her attentions, showed little more than ‘reverence’ to the Queen, but held posts of increasing importance until his death, becoming Vice Chamberlain and a member of the Council. Although de Silva did not expect the affair to become serious, it was the first time since Sir William Pickering in 1559 that Elizabeth had shown an interest in anyone other than Robert. Robert was thoroughly piqued, complaining to her of his rival’s insolence, but rumours that he was ready to duel with Heneage were dismissed by Robert. Robert absented himself for three days, until Heneage left court allowing him to enjoy ‘an exquisitely delightful reconciliation’ with Elizabeth.4
Heneage was soon recalled and patched up his former friendship with Robert. Sidney confided to de Silva that it did not seem that Elizabeth intended to marry, and Robert ‘had lost hope of his business’.5 This left England in ‘a most troublous state … If the Queen were to die, there would not be found three persons in one opinion as to who was to succeed.’6 De Silva wrote to Philip II:
I do not think that anything is more enjoyable to this Queen than treating of marriage, though she herself assures me that nothing annoys her more. She is vain and would like all the world to be running after her, but it will probably end by her remaining as she is, unless she marries Lord Robert who is still doing his best to win her.7
With the growing realisation that Elizabeth was unlikely to marry unless she were persuaded to espouse Robert, Throckmorton offered to try to assist him. He suggested that Robert should pretend ‘to fall in love himself with one of the ladies in the palace and watch how the Queen took it’.8 The lady chosen for this subterfuge was Lettice Knollys, the wife of Walter Devereux, Viscount Hereford (created Earl of Essex in 1572). She may have been chosen because she was six months pregnant and unlikely to be receptive to any amorous attention. Nevertheless, in other respects she would be perceived as a threat. She was famously beautiful with great ‘sexual magnetism’ and was ten years younger than the Queen. Perhaps more importantly, she was the daughter of Elizabeth’s cousin, Catherine Carey, and a granddaughter of Mary Boleyn. Catherine had been Elizabeth’s most favoured lady-in-waiting and was married to Sir Francis Knollys, one of Elizabeth’s most trusted advisers and an ally of Robert. Portraits demonstrate that she showed an uncanny likeness to Henry VIII, and it can be assumed that Henry was her father, conceived during his relationship with Mary Boleyn. If so, Lettice was also Elizabeth’s niece, a matter that both would have known. Certainly Elizabeth always favoured Catherine, making grants to her for clothing from the Wardrobe.
Elizabeth was understandably jealous at Robert’s attention to Lettice, who was no doubt flattered. ‘He deepened the impression of a romance by a request that he might be temporarily released from his attendance at court “to stay at his own place as other men did”.’9 ‘The Queen was in a great temper and upbraided him … [for] his flirting with the Viscountess in very bitter words.’10 As was Robert’s usual practice:
he went down to his apartments and stayed there for three or four days until the Queen sent for him, the Earl of Sussex and Cecil having tried to smooth the business over, although they are no friends of Lord Robert in their hearts. The result of the tiff was that both the Queen and Robert shed tears, and he has returned to his former favour.11
Although it is clear that Robert found Lettice very attractive, it was, at this time, nothing more than a harmless flirtation. There is no mention of Elizabeth showing any hostility to her close relation, but it was probably the cause of future animosity between Robert and Hereford.12
Such was the reconciliation between Elizabeth and Robert that, at the end of 1565, she granted him the use of Durham Place, previously occupied by de Quadra. She also appointed him as Chamberlain of the County Palatine of Chester. This made him the Crown’s representative within its jurisdiction with almost royal status.13 In 1578, he felt obliged to write to reproach the Mayor and Justices of Chester that prisoners in their jails had died of starvation. This was a neglect of their legal obligation to provide relief to those in their custody.
With Robert restored to Elizabeth’s favour, the hopes for Maximilian’s suit waned. It was the less attractive proposition of the Archduke Charles, which remained on the table. Significantly, Elizabeth appointed Robert and Throckmorton to handle the negotiations. Cecil immediately revived the prospect of Eric of Sweden, who again sent valuable presents of sable and plate. Eric’s suit was spearheaded by none other than the Princess Cecilia. She had always been anxious to visit the Queen of England and had agreed to marry Christopher II, Margrave of Baden-Rodemachern, only on condition that he would bring her on a visit. Their journey was hampered by Sweden’s war with Denmark, but after an eleven-month journey fraught with adventure, she arrived with her husband in England, heavily pregnant. This was the first visit of a member of a European reigning house during Elizabeth’s reign and, although she was at Windsor, she prepared a welcome on a grand scale. With her long pale hair loose under a crown and in a black velvet dress with a mantle of cloth of silver, Cecilia caused a sensation. With Bedford being absent in the north, Elizabeth housed her with her entourage at Bedford House in the Strand. Cecil arrived to greet her with his wife, bringing with them Lady Sussex and Lady Bacon.
Within two days, Cecilia was delivered of a prince, and Elizabeth spent a day with her and agreed to stand godmother at the baptism held on 11 November 1565 in the Chapel Royal at Whitehall Palace. This was a magical ceremony overseen by the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishops of London, Salisbury and Rochester, with the Queen in attendance. The Queen deputed Catherine Carey, Countess of Nottingham (a
niece of her namesake married to Sir Francis Knollys), to carry the child to the font where he was baptised as Edward Fortunatus. Catherine needed assistance from Thomas Butler, 10th Earl of Ormonde (of whom more later), to bear the weight of the child’s jewelled mantle.
On the same day, Robert’s brother – the twice-widowed Ambrose – married Ann Russell, Bedford’s daughter. Given his past differences with Robert, Bedford had been nervous of the match, but Robert assured him of his friendship – confirmed by his backing of his brother’s suit – and was able to confirm the Queen’s support. It seemed that no one could act without Robert’s intervention. Not only was it a very happy marriage, but Ann Russell proved ‘mild natured, honest and sweet’, becoming one of the closest female companions to the exacting Queen. Robert was given the opportunity as Master of the Horse to demonstrate his skills in presenting pageantry. With Bedford stationed in Berwick, he did not attend the wedding, but Elizabeth and Robert managed everything. The events surrounding both it and the christening of Prince Edward of Baden were ‘celebrated by tournaments of extraordinary magnificence lasting two days’.14 They ended with a great dinner hosted by Robert at Durham Place.15 Robert’s standing continued to grow. Hume has commented: ‘Probably Elizabeth’s marriage with her favourite was never nearer than at this juncture, when she was carrying on a serious negotiation with the Austrian and was still making an appearance of dallying with de Foix.’16 De Foix arranged for Catherine de Medici and Charles IX to send a cordial invitation for Robert to visit France, which he understood that Robert would enjoy. Nevertheless, when it arrived, Robert’s position at court was assured, and Elizabeth did not want him to be away. With typical teasing she claimed that she could hardly send ‘a groom, a horsekeeper’ to wait upon so great a King. Then she continued: ‘I cannot live without seeing you every day. … You are like my little dog. As soon as he is seen anywhere, people know that I am coming, and when you are seen, they say I am not far off.’17 Robert no doubt had to bite his lip. Even de Silva and de Foix urged Elizabeth, if she married any subject, to marry Robert.18 As they found him thoroughly meddlesome in the suits they were promoting, this shows their sense of desperation to avoid a rival European marriage. Elizabeth told de Foix that:
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