by G. J. Meyer
Everyone associated with the venture was in disgrace, in some cases permanently. (Drake, for one, was never trusted by the queen again.) Essex’s situation was especially dangerous because he had participated in direct disobedience of Elizabeth’s orders. Nevertheless, he was rehabilitated with surprising speed. As total a failure as the attack on Lisbon had been, it had provided him with numerous opportunities to put his courage and gallantry on display. Upon arrival he had personally led an amphibious assault, wading through chest-high water onto a shore defended by armed enemies. He had challenged the Spanish governor to a duel (the invitation was declined), defiantly hurled a lance against the city’s locked gates when the siege was obviously failing, and at one point thrown his own belongings out of his carriage to make room for wounded troops. He more than any other member of the expedition had covered himself with something like glory, his praises were literally sung back in England, and Elizabeth’s anger must have been mixed with pride that her favorite had acquitted himself so well. And at court he had influential friends who were willing to speak up for him. Old Lord Burghley, who had taken a hand in Essex’s upbringing and education after the death of his father, remained one of his defenders even though the earl was becoming a rival of his own son, Robert Cecil. Among Essex’s other champions were his grandfather Sir Francis Knollys, still active on the Privy Council though nearly eighty years of age; his and the queen’s cousin Lord Hunsdon; and Ambrose Dudley’s wife, the Countess of Warwick, one of the longest-serving ladies of the privy chamber. Such support made it easier for Elizabeth to yield to her own powerful affection for the young hero. She not only allowed him to resume his place at court but conferred upon him the monopoly on sweet-wine imports that had previously belonged to his stepfather. This eased Essex’s financial problems; renewed in 1593 and again in 1597, it would become essential to his ability to maintain himself as the leader of a significant political faction.
Among the more appealing aspects of Essex’s character, and ultimately one of the key factors in his tragedy, was his unwillingness to be a courtier only, or to rely entirely on the queen’s favor for advancement and the accumulation of wealth. He could have done well for himself and restored the fortunes of his family by remaining close to the throne and wheedling offices and other streams of income from the needy, aging woman who sat on it. But he was determined to be more and do more than that, and even after his escape from being buried in the ruins of the Lisbon expedition he continued to involve himself in matters that a more prudent man—a Cecil, say—might have left alone. Just days after his return from Portugal, the French wars of religion were ignited yet again by the assassination of King Henry III, who, in spite of being decidedly Catholic in his beliefs, was stabbed to death by a Dominican friar for having arranged the murder of three leading members of the Guise clan, including the duke himself. The last of Catherine de’ Medici’s sons being thus dead, the crown passed to their cousin, the Protestant Henry of Navarre, who duly became King Henry IV but met such fierce popular opposition that he was unable to enter Paris. One after another the major pieces on the northern European chessboard went into motion, some of them sensing opportunity, others danger. For Spain especially, a divided France whose Protestant ruler was too weak to impose order seemed extravagantly rich in possibilities, and it soon became known that Philip was preparing to intervene. The English had reason to be alarmed. A new expeditionary force was hastily assembled and, under the command of Essex’s friend Lord Willoughby, sent across the Channel with a threefold mission: to assist Henry IV and his Huguenots, to discourage aggressive action on Philip’s part, and to explore any avenues that might lead to the recovery of Calais. It all happened too quickly, and too soon after Lisbon, for Essex’s participation to be possible. He considered Henry of Navarre a friend and ally, having since 1587 been sending him boyishly excited promises of support in the great struggle with the Roman Antichrist, and he followed events in France with passionate interest. At the same time, in cooperation with his sister Lady Penelope Rich (wife of the majestically wealthy grandson of the Richard Rich who had played such a villainous role in the reign of Henry VIII), Essex was secretly communicating with James VI of Scotland about the importance of an international Protestant alliance. He appears to have been calculating, more than a decade prematurely, that the aging Elizabeth and her closest, most trusted ministers were not likely to live a great deal longer. In encouraging the son of Mary, Queen of Scots to prepare for inheritance of the English throne, he appears to have been motivated at least as much by genuine religious zeal as by any wish to promote himself.
The Willoughby expedition ended soon and badly, more because of insufficient support and the diseases that invariably afflicted armies attempting to operate in wintertime than because of any failure on the part of its commander. Nothing had been accomplished that might prevent the Spanish from moving in; by early 1590 everyone could see that such a move was in fact impending; and clearly England was going to have to either do more or leave France at Philip’s mercy. The result was two new theaters of conflict. An English force commanded by John Norris (Essex had begged for the assignment and been refused) was sent to Brittany in France’s northwest to block the army that Philip had placed there. Almost simultaneously the governor-general of the Netherlands, the Alessandro Farnese who was now Duke of Parma, led a Spanish army from the Low Countries into Normandy. This last move was a boon to the Dutch rebels, easing the pressure on them just at the point where Parma appeared to be on the verge of victory. With the Spanish now in Brittany and Normandy, Henry IV (who was at war with his own country’s Catholic League as well) faced the danger of being caught in a vise and crushed. Regardless of the fate of the Huguenots, for England it was unthinkable that the French Channel ports should fall into Parma’s, and Philip’s, hands. Yet another expeditionary force, this one responsible for dealing with Parma, had become imperative. Elizabeth asked Willoughby to take command once again. But both his health and his finances had been impaired by the campaign of the previous year—Willoughby, like Dudley before him, paid dearly for the privilege of fighting the queen’s wars—and he begged off. He recommended that the assignment be given to his friend Essex, who was lobbying to the same purpose on his own behalf. The queen finally consented, if reluctantly, and once again the earl was eagerly off to war.
At about this same time, in another echo of the career of his stepfather, Essex secretly married Frances Walsingham Sidney, who was both the daughter of Elizabeth’s recently deceased secretary and (what is likely to have mattered more to the romantic young earl) the widow of his late friend Sir Philip Sidney. Sidney had left his sword to Essex when he died; now Essex had his wife as well. The marriage would remain secret until the birth of the couple’s son, news of which drove Elizabeth into the vengeful rage that had to be expected whenever one of her favorites or some member of the privy chamber became seriously involved in an affair of the heart. Essex was able to save himself from banishment only by pledging to keep his wife away from court. He was helped by the fact that his great rival Sir Walter Ralegh now impregnated and married one of Elizabeth’s maids of honor. Ralegh had the worst of it by far: he and his bride were imprisoned in the Tower.
Essex’s marriage was happy enough by all appearances, producing a number of children over the next decade, but it brought none of the political or financial advantages that a more calculating man might have sought in a wife. Sir Francis Walsingham had left a surprisingly modest estate aside from tens of thousands of pounds owed him by the Crown for expenses incurred in the performance of his varied duties—a debt that would remain unpaid to the end of Elizabeth’s life. The banishment of Essex’s bride meant that he could never possess that most valuable of political weapons, a spouse whose position at court enabled her to serve as an advocate and a trustworthy set of eyes and ears. Young Robert Cecil, by contrast, was newly and wisely married to a goddaughter of the queen and lady of the privy chamber, and he had had the good sense to get
the queen’s approval before marrying.
Ambrose, Earl of Warwick, the last of the Dudleys, died in 1590. The next year brought the death of one of Elizabeth’s oldest and closest favorites and friends, Sir Christopher Hatton, a kind of tame Robert Dudley who had devoted himself so unreservedly to the queen’s service that he never married or is even known to have considered marriage. He had been first brought to court because he amused the queen with his talent for dancing and theatricals, but as their friendship developed he was made a gentleman of the privy chamber; this was the rarest of honors, affording access to the innermost royal sanctum, a place otherwise off limits except to women. He also became a member of the Privy Council, then finally lord chancellor and chancellor of Oxford University. He receives scant attention in histories of the reign, perhaps because unlike the other men in Elizabeth’s life he never provoked her to jealousy or anger and was unfailingly satisfied to do her bidding. His passing must have been a painful loss; one by one the people who had long been closest to the queen—ladies of the chamber as well as veterans of the council—were dropping away. Now only one was left, really—William Cecil, Lord Burghley, who was growing so feeble that increasingly he had to be carried about in a chair but still kept his hands on the levers of power. The circle around Burghley and Elizabeth was growing both younger and smaller. The question of who might ascend to Burghley’s supreme position when he too died remained as unresolved as the royal succession. The most obvious possibilities were the dashing young favorites—Essex and even Ralegh in spite of his current eclipse. A somewhat darker horse was the distinctly unglamorous Robert Cecil. A faintly grotesque little man, bent of back and spindly of leg, Cecil was the antithesis of Essex, following his father’s example in working quietly but tirelessly to make himself indispensable, patiently maintaining a focus on the big picture and the long term.
As 1592 opened, Essex appeared to have the advantage. In January he returned from Normandy, where his first experience of independent command had left a bitter aftertaste but done him no grievous political harm. The Normandy campaign is sometimes described as a farcical affair in which Essex marched his four-thousand-man army hither and yon to no purpose except to impress Henry IV and to no effect beyond the wasting of the queen’s money. In fact it was a failure and an expensive one, but that Essex should be blamed is not clear. His instructions were to remain in France for only two months, and upon landing his little army at Dieppe he was to be met by and begin joint operations with Henry. The French king was not at Dieppe, however, so that to effect a union Essex had to move his troops a hundred miles in bad weather. He soon learned what Dudley, Norris, and Willoughby had learned before him about what it was to command an army in the name of Elizabeth Tudor: the queen, too far away to have much grasp of the realities on the ground, barraged him with instructions, criticism, and complaints. Also characteristically, she refused to provide enough troops or money to reap the benefits of her initial investment. Twice Essex hurried back to England to explain his situation and beg for more time and resources. He attempted repeatedly to put spirit into his demoralized and disease-ridden troops with daring attacks in which he exposed himself unnecessarily to danger. None of it was enough. By year-end he and Henry IV were bogged down in what seemed certain to be an interminable siege of the city of Rouen. Lashed by the queen’s angry letters, annoyed to learn that while he was fighting in France Robert Cecil had been appointed to the Privy Council, he finally gave up and returned home. He had been shown something about the importance of being physically at court if one wanted to keep the queen’s affection and influence her thinking. He had not, unfortunately for himself, taken the lesson sufficiently to heart.
Background
WINNING BIG
THOMAS WOLSEY, THOMAS CROMWELL, EDWARD SEYMOUR, John Dudley, Thomas Cranmer—the history of the Tudor era is littered with the wreckage of more or less briefly brilliant careers. To rise too high or too swiftly, clearly, was to tempt the fates.
Slow and steady was the way to win the race. This is the lesson of the Cecils, who entered our story at its beginning, stayed in the background through two generations, and finally during Elizabeth’s long reign not only attained the political, financial, and social heights but managed to entrench there two distinct branches of their family tree.
We noted in passing, in dealing with the first Henry Tudor’s invasion of England in 1485, that among those who joined him on his march from Wales into England was a young man named David Cecil. Little is known of his background except that he appears to have been the son of a minor gentry family from the Welsh marches. After the victory at Bosworth Field he shows up in the records as a member of Henry VII’s bodyguard, a yeoman of the chamber (which means he had access to the king’s private quarters), and finally sergeant at arms (a kind of security officer with authority over others). He became a landowner, though not an important one, in Lancashire in the north.
This David Cecil used his position at court to secure an appointment for his son Richard as a page in Henry VIII’s privy chamber. Richard in his turn rose to become a groom of the chamber and yeoman of the wardrobe, a position of sufficient respectability to permit him to make an advantageous marriage, get himself appointed to various offices in Nottinghamshire, and add to the landholdings accumulated by his father. Obviously he understood that the world was changing and the route to advancement was changing with it: though he brought his son William to court at an early age as page of the robes, the boy was later sent off to Cambridge University, an expensive undertaking. In six years at Cambridge young William, while somehow failing to take a degree, became proficient in Latin, Greek, Italian, French, and Spanish, thus making himself capable of dealing on equal terms with the Tudor court’s elite. While still at university he married the sister of John Cheke, a rising star among England’s classical scholars and a prominent young Protestant. Richard Cecil is not likely to have been greatly pleased with this marriage; union with the Cheke family offered no financial advantages and few if any political ones. Nevertheless, upon leaving Cambridge William was permitted to take up the study of law at Gray’s Inn in London; obviously his father remained willing to invest heavily in his preparations for a career. The investment began to pay dividends as early as 1542, the year William became twenty-two. Thanks no doubt to his father’s access to Henry VIII as well as his own attainments, William was not only appointed to the Court of Common Pleas but made a member of Parliament. His wife died the following year, having given birth to a son, and after two years of widowhood he married the eldest daughter of Sir Anthony Cooke, a leading courtier, humanist scholar, and educator. This marriage should have pleased Richard mightily; the Cookes, being exceptionally well connected, provided William with entry to the circle led by Edward Seymour, uncle to the little Prince Edward and leader of the evangelical faction at court.
Cecil, with his intelligence and education and understanding of court life, was soon noticed and put to use. He became secretary to Seymour—now the Duke of Somerset—in 1548. The following year he spent two months as a prisoner in the Tower in the aftermath of Somerset’s fall, negotiating that crisis with all the skill that Cromwell had shown after the fall of Wolsey almost two decades before. In 1550 he became a member of the Privy Council, one of King Edward’s two secretaries, and “surveyor” (general business manager) of Princess Elizabeth’s estates. Having definitely arrived, he allied himself with Archbishop Cranmer and so impressed Lord Protector John Dudley that he was knighted.
The religious restoration that came with the accession of Mary I created grave difficulties for the evangelical party and everyone connected with Dudley, as we have seen, but Cecil does not appear ever to have been in danger. The queen respected him, he continued to sit in Parliament, and Cardinal Pole used him in diplomatic missions to the continent. In all likelihood he could have played a substantial role in the new regime, but he chose instead to withdraw to his estate at Wimbledon, maintaining contact with Elizabeth and like her go
ing to occasionally ridiculous lengths (ostentatiously displaying his rosary beads, for example) to demonstrate that he was a faithful and practicing Catholic. Elizabeth was fortunate, when Mary died, to have close at hand an experienced politician who was also as dependable a friend as Cecil. In immediately appointing him her principal secretary, she was showing her basic good sense.
Cecil used his new position to take control of all communications to and from the queen and make himself head of the Privy Council and minister-in-chief. He and Elizabeth were, in important respects, a strangely matched pair. Cecil, once in power, showed himself to be a statesman of some vision, capable of formulating strategic objectives and acting decisively when presented with opportunities to achieve them. Elizabeth, with her focus on trying to maintain a stable status quo, on surviving, was chronically reluctant to make irrevocable commitments. The difference between the two became manifest almost at the beginning, when Cecil correctly saw his opportunity to drive the French out of Scotland but had to threaten to resign before the queen would allow him to act. This set the pattern for the next forty years: Cecil generally knew what he wanted to do next and why, and he repeatedly found it difficult or impossible to get a decision out of the queen. In no way, however, can the partnership be dismissed as a failure for either party. The shrewd and patient Cecil, himself a cautious man but able to take carefully calculated risks, learned to swallow his frustration and wait. In the end he accomplished more than a little. And Elizabeth got what she wanted: she survived, and rather handsomely.
Cecil had been born too late to get in on the great scattering of wealth triggered by the suppression of the monasteries, but his father had benefited in a small way, and during the reign of Edward VI both were able to buy up church lands at insider prices. He was already a fairly rich man when Elizabeth became queen, but the best was yet to come. In the aftermath of his great success in Scotland he was given the lucrative post of master of the Court of Wards and granted extensive tracts of land in Lincolnshire, Rutland, and Northamptonshire. Elizabeth also gave him licenses to trade in beer and cloth—licenses that he could then sell to eager merchants. For the rest of his life he was able to put himself first in line whenever royal largesse was being dispensed.
