Elizabeth I's Secret Lover

by Robert Stedall

  The work’s first edition was given an innocent sounding title:

  The Copy of a Letter written by a Master of Arts of Cambridge to his friend in London, concerning some talk passed of late between two worshipful and grave men about the present state, and some proceedings of the Earl of Leicester and his friends in England.8

  It followed the pattern of many religious tracts by conducting a debate between three disputants: a Cambridge teacher, a London gentleman, and a Catholic lawyer, ‘loyal educated subjects who do not support religious extremists’,9 giving all the superficial appearance of a debate on Christian dogma. They argue that extreme Puritans are just as potent enemies of the state as papists. It is ‘the great falcons for the field’,10 the court favourites, who promote discord for their own end and prevent harmony. It advocates religious toleration, entirely in accordance with establishment policy as propounded by John Whitgift, the new Archbishop of Canterbury.11 This opens the way for a vituperative attack on Robert.

  Within a year there were French and Latin versions circulating on the Continent, with titles clearly indicating the pamphlet’s true intent. One is called: A discourse on the abominable life, plots, treasons, murders, falsehoods, poisonings, lusts, incitements and evil stratagems employed by the Earl of Leicester.12 Another is: Calvinist Blossoms plucked from the life of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester. As there was an unfounded rumour that the author was the Jesuit Robert Parsons, and it had a green cover, it was also sometimes known as Father Parsons’ Greencoat, but is now better known as Leicester’s Commonwealth.13 The authorities were fairly successful in stifling printed copies arriving in England and it did not cause a huge stir, but it circulated quickly among the Catholic community, who made manuscript copies before passing it on to others. This meant that there were more manuscript versions available than printed ones.

  Thomas Lupton, a popular Puritan propagandist, wrote a short tract praising Robert, entitled A Virtuous Life, and there were several other efforts to support him.14 Although they were sent to Robert, he saw no pressing need to defend himself or to publish them. Sidney wrote a rebuttal refuting all the libellous accusations, and belittling the authors’ reputed sources as unrealistic, but it was not printed in his lifetime. He asked why they had kept their views hidden for the sake of secrecy, but now suddenly put them into print. He argued that it was ‘so full of horrible villainies as no good heart will think possible to enter into any creature, much less to be likely in so noble and well known a man as he is.’15 On 16 February 1585, James VI issued a repudiation from Holyrood as ‘a libel devised and set out by some seditious person of purpose to obscure with lewd lies the honour of our trusted cousin the Earl of Leicester’.16 Robert had by now cultivated a warm relationship with the Scottish King as a potential heir to the English throne, so James’s defence was heartfelt. Reference to Robert as ‘cousin’ related to the marriage of Guildford Dudley to Jane Grey. With the document being widely circulated in Paris, it became a considerable embarrassment to Sir Edward Stafford (now married to Douglas Howard), the English ambassador. Charles Paget, who may not, by then, have been converted into Walsingham’s agent, wrote to Mary Queen of Scots that Robert assumed she was privy to its publication and had plans to persecute her. This seems unlikely as there is no evidence of Robert making any personal effort to suppress or refute it.

  Notwithstanding that the document is patently unreliable, it was clearly written by people with a good knowledge of the court and the events of Robert’s life. Its principal thrust is to accuse him of trying to remove all the rightful Tudor claimants of the English throne so that, when Elizabeth stood alone, he could assassinate her to promote the Plantagenet claim of his brother-in-law, Huntingdon. ‘Yet it is not unlikely but that he will play the bear when he cometh to dividing the prey and will snatch the best parts for himself.’17 Robert and Huntingdon ‘needed only to persuade Elizabeth to dispose of her prisoner Mary, and then the Queen herself would be at their mercy.’18 For anyone knowing Robert, this was an outrageously far-fetched distortion and not worthy of attention. Whatever his relationship with Elizabeth, ‘hatred and distain played no part in it’.19 Nevertheless, the story plays on the awesome prospect of what would happen on Elizabeth’s death if the management of the succession were left in the hands of Robert and his cronies. Its moral is that safety lies in support for the Stuart claim.

  In other respects, the book has huge attraction. It is full of racy gossip and scandal written in a vivid style. This has allowed it greatly to influence our understanding of historical events, with its content being taken as fact without any test of its sources. It makes the conflicting suggestions that Amy Robsart was poisoned; that her neck was found broken on the stairs without her hood having being disturbed; that she was first buried at Cumnor before being exhumed for burial at Oxford (which is definitively untrue); that Robert had thwarted every noble match proposed to the Queen, telling envoys that he was already betrothed to her; that Throckmorton (his close ally Sir Nicholas) was poisoned by a salad at Leicester House after reporting that Mary Queen of Scots had referred to Robert as Elizabeth’s groom; that Robert had procured the deaths of Essex, Margaret Lennox and Sussex by poison; that Dr Julio administered poison with a delayed effect, and with differing side effects to suit the circumstances (as Dr Julio was Italian and Italians were considered experts in the use of poison, this was a plausible dart to aim); that Robert had made three unsuccessful attempts to murder Simier; that he had conspired with Ambrose to prevent the Anjou match by force if necessary; that an abortion was performed on Lettice by Dr Julio before Essex’s death; that he first married Lettice at Kenilworth, before their official marriage at Wanstead (which is probably true); that Lettice raged for many months at Elizabeth’s anger at her marriage to Robert; that Douglas and Lettice were known as ‘his Old and New testaments’; that he kept ‘a void place for a new subcontract with any other when occasion shall require’ (which is very unlikely given Lettice’s hold over him); that Robert’s enormous power and wealth had been established through ‘the gracious and sweet dispositions of her Majesty … he is better furnished at this day than ever any subject of our land’ (which his need for extensive borrowings shows is not true); that he had committed high treason by attempting to place Huntingdon on the throne (which is certainly untrue); that he had conspired to achieve supreme power by supporting the claims of Arbella Stuart to the throne; that he had disrupted good order as Chancellor of Oxford University (which is the opposite of the truth); that he is guilty of private infamy as a murderer, a lecher ‘of omnivorous appetite’,20 whose failing powers were revived by Italian preparations. It claims:

  No man’s wife can be free from him whom his fiery lust liketh to abuse … kinswoman, ally, friend’s wife or daughter, or whatsoever female sort besides doth please his eye … must yield to his desire … There are not (by report) two noblewomen about her Majesty … whom he hath not solicited by potent ways; neither contented with this place of honour, he hath descended to seek pasture among the waiting gentlewomen of her Majesty’s Great Chamber … if three hundred pounds for the night will make up the sum … even in the laundry itself, or other place of baser quality.21

  He is seen as a covetous tyrant and ‘an atheist who [has] exploited both Catholics and Protestants to serve his turn’, an implacable enemy of Archbishop Grindal and Sir John Throckmorton. Although Grindal certainly suffered a rift with Elizabeth, it was Robert who defended him, but Leicester’s Commonwealth implies that Robert hounded Grindal to death. There is also a claim that Robert brought Sir John Throckmorton (a Catholic brother of Sir Nicholas) ‘pitifully to his grave before his time by continual vexations’.22 Yet, Dr A.L. Rowse confirms that Sir John was:

  a disagreeable man, a harsh landlord, an indifferent Royal servant, a papist, and something of a rogue. In 1576 he fell foul of the Council, was stripped of his offices and was confined for a spell in the Fleet prison. He died soon after.23

  There is no indication that
Robert was particularly responsible for his comeuppance, and he appears to have received only his just rewards.

  Leicester’s Commonwealth concludes with ‘a heap of enormities: theft; simony [the buying and selling of ecclesiastical benefices]; embezzlement; treachery; treason of all kinds; private malice; covetousness; niggardliness; attempts to throttle free speech in Parliament; and encouragement to all honest men to put him down’.24 It provides the first clearly expressed, but highly doubtful, evidence that he had murdered Amy Robsart, despite the coroner’s verdict of accidental death. It claims that while he was conducting his liaison with Lettice before their marriage, she followed the court ‘by privy ways’, moving from house to house out of sight of the Queen. As a punishment for his lascivious way of life, it says that ‘he had developed abscesses on his stomach – ‘a broken belly on both sides of his bowels whereby misery and putrefaction is threatened to him daily’.25 It claims that the Noble Imp had falling sickness (epilepsy – which is a fabrication) ‘as a consequence of the parents’ sins’.26

  Perhaps more potently, Leicester’s Commonwealth also criticises Robert’s Dudley ancestry, with both his father and grandfather having died on the scaffold. It claims:

  He has nothing of his own, either from his ancestors or himself, to stay upon in men’s hearts or conceits; he hath not ancient nobility as others of our realm have, whereby men’s affections are greatly moved. As for valour: ‘He hath as much as hath a mouse.’27

  It was this criticism that so greatly incensed Philip Sidney, and the implication that his grandfather, Northumberland, was not a gentleman born. Sidney considered it an honour, through his mother, to be a Dudley. He assumed that the libellers’ motive was to ‘backbite boldly so that, though the bite were healed, so the scar would remain’.28 He offered to challenge the author in single combat anywhere in Europe. His motive for defending his uncle from anonymous libellers has been questioned, but there was huge importance being attached to Leicester’s Commonwealth by Robert’s enemies.

  The Queen avoids criticism, but the document claims she is ‘“of no strong or robustious constitution” but harassed by Robert until she acceded to his demands however unreasonable … and in actual danger from his resentment because she thwarted his ambition by refusing to marry him’.29 The authors call on her to act against Robert. Far from this, she provided a signed report to disassociate herself from its findings, ‘of which most malicious and wicked imputations her Majesty in her own clear knowledge doth declare and testify his innocency to all the world’.30 She saw the implied criticism of her government as highly damaging. Copies of her report were distributed through the Lord Mayor in London and in the northern counties. The Privy Council also closed ranks behind Robert, denouncing the document as having ‘proceeded of the fullness of malice’.31 They ridiculed it: ‘As though her Majesty should … want either good will, ability or courage (if she knew these enormities were true) to call any subject of hers whatsoever and to render sharp account of them, according to the forces and effects of her laws!’32

  If the authors’ aim was to ‘spread discord throughout the realm and within the government’, causing Elizabeth ‘to remove [Robert] from his pedestal’,33 they were disappointed. There is no evidence that it ‘had any great impact upon public opinion at the time’.34 She was far more loyal than her father, and it never crossed her mind. In 1584, Robert was officially designated to the important role of Lord Steward of the Household, the central position at court. This has to be seen as an attempt by Elizabeth to demonstrate her contempt for Leicester’s Commonwealth. She had considered relieving Robert from his role as Master of the Horse in view of the workload involved in both appointments, but this would have sent out the wrong message and Robert strongly objected to losing a position that kept him in close contact with her. This remained particularly important, given Lettice’s continued banishment from court.

  The only person found guilty was Ralph Emerson, who was caught circulating the pamphlet. He and a Jesuit, John Weston, brought copies from France provided by Robert Parsons, who seems to have been a distributor, but not an author. The Bishop of Hereford’s son, Sylvanus Scory – a notorious papist – was arrested but later freed by Walsingham. He admitted having heard of the book but claimed never to have seen it. Other names mentioned were generally within the circle of Mary Queen of Scots’ supporters in Paris, but there was insufficient evidence to accuse anyone.

  It was not until 1641 that the book was republished as Leicester’s Commonwealth. By then, Thomas Wentworth, Earl of Strafford, was facing impeachment by Parliament after acting as a hatchet man for Charles I. His power and unpopularity bore similarities to Robert’s status as an ‘over-mighty subject’. The Regicides grasped on this earlier tale to justify Strafford’s execution, from which Charles I was in no position to defend him.35

  Chapter 25 Governor of the Netherlands

  In 1585, Elizabeth was again asked by a commission of the Netherlands States to accept the Dutch Crown, but she refused, as to do so would be seen as a declaration of war on Spain. Nevertheless, she agreed to send an English force with both money and men, while expecting repayment when the war was over. As a pledge, she was to hold one town in each province.1 Although she wanted her assistance provided secretly, the Council told her that this would deprive her aid of its effect. In August, she realised that she had no further option but to send English troops. There were several contributory factors: the assassination of William of Orange; the refusal by Henry III to provide French support for the rebels; and Parma’s conquest of the south.2 She agreed to send 4,000 (later increased to 6,000) foot and 1,000 horse and to provide a loan of £125,000 for their maintenance. She retained Brill and Flushing in English control as pledges against repayment.3 It was later agreed that Burghley’s eldest son, Sir Thomas Cecil, would become governor of Brill, and Sidney would take charge of the garrison at Flushing.

  With Robert spending the summer recuperating at Kenilworth and Buxton, it was Walsingham, who argued the case for intervention, but Robert confirmed his willingness to lead the expeditionary force and saw his appointment as a means of making a name for himself. Elizabeth continued to vacillate on whether to give him the command, as she wanted him beside her. He had not been involved in military conflict since fighting for the King of Spain in 1557, and his understanding of military strategy was outmoded. He undoubtedly overestimated his own abilities – and was overweight, but both Walsingham and Burghley agreed on his suitability, particularly as he would be prepared to spend his own money in support of the venture. He would also have experienced lieutenants such as Sir John Norreys and the Welsh veteran Sir Roger Williams beside him. Although Burghley had always been ambivalent about taking a hawkish stand, even he was supportive, but wanted expenditure kept within reasonable bounds. Walsingham saw it as the opportunity he had been waiting for to pitch a Protestant alliance into conflict against Spain’s Catholic aggression. Elizabeth vacillated. After signing the covenant to provide aid, she stayed its dispatch. ‘The danger of provoking a declaration of war from Spain was so great that it threw [her] into almost unbearable agitation.’4 When Robert returned to court in September, he found her ‘on the verge of nervous collapse’.5 He sat up with her through several sleepless nights, while she complained that she did not want him to go. By now he was finding her appeals to him tedious and frustrating. He wrote to Walsingham:

  I find her Majesty very desirous to stay me. She makes the cause only the doubtfulness of her own self, by reason of her oft disease taking her of late and this last night worst of all. She used very pitiful words to me for fear that she shall not live and would not have me from her. You can consider what manner of persuasion this must be to me from her … I would not say much for any matter but did comfort her as well as I could, only I did let her know how far I had gone in preparation. I do think for all this that if she be well tonight, she will let me go, for she would not have me speak of it to the contrary to anybody … pray you send
my wife word in the morning that I cannot come before Thursday to London.6

  By 24 September, Elizabeth had accepted that Robert would lead the expedition as requested by the States General, but could not bring herself to sign the order. On her instruction, Robert had retired to Leicester House to write to 200 friends and dependents to muster at the end of October with men and harness. He raised a loan from his bankers and took Ambrose to requisition armour at the Tower of London.7 Two days later, she again called everything off. He received a message from Walsingham telling him that he would need to speak to her. Although his official response to the Queen, written at 2.00 am, submitted to her will, his private message to Walsingham complained at the irreparable damage of any delay to England’s standing in the Netherlands. The Dutch had implored him to make haste, and he had told them that he would ready himself to set out within fifteen days.8 It seems that Elizabeth’s hesitation at this late stage was in part caused by her concern that Lettice would accompany him. Although initially Lettice had planned to go, this was scotched by the Queen. As far as is known, Lettice made no further attempt to do so, even though other wives, including Frances Sidney, accompanied their husbands. Robert was fed up and retired to Wanstead, asking for Sidney to come to him. Later the same day, Walsingham was able to confirm that Elizabeth had withdrawn her objections and the expedition was on again.