Tudor

by Leanda de Lisle

  Both sides of the street, from Blackfriars to St Paul’s, had wooden barricades, on which the merchants and artisans of every trade leant in their long hooded gowns of red and black cloth, standing alongside their ensigns, banners and standards. The bad weather and crowds of people and horses made the streets muddy, but sand and gravel had been laid – and just as well. The Venetian counted 1,000 horses before the queen appeared ‘in an open litter, trimmed down to the ground with thick gold brocade, and carried by two very handsome mules covered with the same material’.

  Elizabeth’s strawberry blonde hair hung loose over Mary’s old coronation mantle of cloth of gold, and she carried a pair of gloves in her fine long hands. Alongside walked ‘a multitude of footmen in crimson velvet jerkins, all studded with massive gilt silver, with the arms of a white and red rose on their breasts and backs, and laterally the letters ER for Elizabetta Regina wrought in relief’.2 Directly behind the queen rode her Master of the Horse, a handsome man in red cloth of gold, ‘of tall personage, a manly countenance, somewhat brown of visage, strongly featured, and thereto comely proportioned in all lineaments of body’.3 He was a reminder to the people pressing against the barricades, and leaning from windows, that many of the unpopular Edwardian elite were back in power. His name was Lord Robert Dudley; a son of John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, and an elder brother of Jane Grey’s husband, Guildford.

  At several points the procession stopped for the queen to admire a series of pageants that her Secretary of State, William Cecil, had helped organise. These colourful exhibitions each signalled a political message directed not only at the people, but also at the queen. The first on Gracechurch Street was a huge triumphal arch, divided into three floors. On the lower level was Henry VII, with a large red rose in front of him, and Elizabeth of York, with a white rose in front of her, both in royal robes. On the second floor was Henry VIII, with a white and red rose in front of him, and Anne Boleyn at his side, as if there had been no divorce or execution. Officially that was to be forgotten. On the third floor of the pageant was Elizabeth’s own image, standing alone as if just waiting for her pair. It was a reminder to Elizabeth that her key duty as a sovereign was the establishment of peace and harmony. A marriage would settle the direction of religious policy and, if there were children, offered the best guarantee of future security.

  The next three pageants suggested that under Queen Mary religion had been misdirected, and that the future was going to be greener, happier and more godly under Elizabeth. It was, however, the last pageant, on Fleet Street, that was of most interest to Elizabeth for this offered the official answer to John Knox’s attack on female rule. Elizabeth was depicted in parliamentary robes, with figures at her feet representing the three estates: nobility, clergy and commons. This was intended to remind Elizabeth ‘to consult for the worthy government of her people’.4 The theme was expanded in a treatise already commissioned by the council. Entitled ‘Against the Late Blown Blast Concerning the Government of Women’ it argued that Elizabeth was far superior to most women, who are by nature ‘fond, foolish, wanton, flibbergibs . . . in every way doltified with the dregs of the devil’s dunghill’. Nevertheless a godly queen always ruled with the advice of her male councillors, peers and Members of Parliament, and ‘it is not she that ruleth but the laws’.5 In other words, rule by a woman – even Elizabeth’s rule – was allowable only when it was a cipher for male government. But of Elizabeth’s response to the pageant’s message, we hear nothing. She played her role and kept her counsel. ‘Video et taceo’, as one of her mottos ran, ‘I see and say nothing’.

  The following morning Elizabeth was crowned at Westminster Abbey in a ceremony that was so discreetly handled – with Elizabeth taking Communion behind a curtain – that few could be certain how Catholic or Protestant it was. Elizabeth had no wish to institute a rapid and radical shift in religious policy against the wishes of her people, despite pressure from the returning Protestant exiles and their allies. But nor could things stay as they were under Mary. Elizabeth was the physical embodiment of the break with Rome that had followed her parents’ marriage, and she had been raised by reformers. Change there would be, albeit carefully handled.

  With the coronation ceremony concluded Elizabeth walked out of the abbey door carrying the sceptre and orb in one hand, and in the other the Imperial crown. She had ‘a most smiling countenance for everyone, giving them all a thousand greetings’. To the Venetian onlooker it seemed Elizabeth’s smiles exceeded ‘the bounds of gravity and decorum’. Mary had always shown ‘extraordinary dignity and grandeur’ in her public performance as queen, but later even Elizabeth’s enemies would admit she had ‘the power of enchantment’. She was wooing the ordinary people to whom she owed her crown and, in time, she hoped, they would help her secure it. Yet Elizabeth was still a novice queen, and less than three weeks after the coronation she made a dangerous misjudgement of the popular mood.

  On 2 February 1559, a Commons select committee presented Elizabeth with a formal request that she marry. To their horror, however, in her reply Elizabeth declared that she would be happy never to marry, and that ‘in the end this shall be for me sufficient: that a marble stone shall declare that a queen, having reigned such a time, lived and died a virgin’.6 Chastity was considered the principle virtue of womanhood and Mary I had often said she preferred the single life – but that was before she became queen. As a monarch Mary had made the point that she married because it was necessary for the stability of her kingdom. Elizabeth had seen the announcement of Mary’s marriage bring something quite other than stability. But if she wanted to kick the issue into the long grass, she had gone the wrong way about it. Her remarks shocked all who learned of them. Elizabeth offered to choose a worthy successor, but this only prompted rumours that she could not have children.7 Then another possible explanation emerged: that she was secretly in love – with a married man.

  Elizabeth’s Master of the Horse, Robert Dudley, was frequently in her company and they would often be seen touching casually and sharing private jokes. He had been married as a teenager to a gentlewoman called Amy Robsart. It had been a love match, but that love was now in the past. In April Count Feria reported ‘It is even said that her Majesty visits him in his chamber day and night. People talk of this so freely that they go so far as to say that his wife has a malady in one of her breasts, and that the queen is only waiting for her to die to marry Lord Robert.’8 They had a physical energy in common, humour and a sense of pragmatism. Both had known danger after losing their powerful, charismatic fathers. They had been in the Tower at the same time during her sister’s reign and Elizabeth claimed he had later lent her money when she needed it. But the nearest Elizabeth ever came to explaining why she loved him as she did was when, in comparing him to one of his brothers, she said she thought he had a special ‘sweetness’.

  From Feria’s perspective it remained essential for Spain to remain on good terms with England, whatever happened with Dudley. Elizabeth had signed a peace treaty with France, and if this developed into an alliance it would threaten Spain’s empire in the Netherlands.9 Feria advised King Philip to consider coming to an accommodation with Dudley, in case he ended up as King of England. He warned, however, that the unpopularity of the Dudley name was such that any future marriage to the queen could trigger unrest in England. That would open the way to an invasion by Henri II of France on behalf of his daughter-in-law, the sixteen-year-old Mary, Queen of Scots. If Elizabeth was overthrown Philip needed to have his own candidate in place. Feria suggested the best candidate for this role was Elizabeth’s heir under Henry VIII’s will – the blonde, eighteen-year-old younger sister of the executed Queen Jane: Lady Katherine Grey.

  During Mary’s reign Katherine Grey had been well treated and despite her sister Jane’s exhortations that she die a martyr, Katherine had attended Mass at court, where she had waited on the queen. She was a pretty, good-natured and romantically inclined girl, whom Feria believed (wrongly) remain
ed a Catholic. Where he was correct was in his assessment that Katherine resented her treatment by Elizabeth. The new queen had demoted her from serving in the exclusive quarters of the Privy Chamber to the Presence Chamber to which the entire upper gentry had access. This so infuriated Katherine that she had had a fit of temper one day, using ‘very arrogant and unseemly words in the hearing of the queen’. Katherine told Feria she believed that ‘the queen does not wish her to succeed’ to the crown, and this was quite true.10 Elizabeth was fearful that if she did not marry an acceptable husband and produce a son, or prove to be as Protestant as some wished, then one day they would back Katherine Grey against her, just as they had once backed Jane against Mary.

  Elizabeth’s concerns were all the more acute as she faced the complex issues of shaping her religious settlement. The queen is sometimes depicted as an essentially secular figure. She was not. Like Henry VII, she believed that it was the ‘exceeding goodness of God’ that had protected her ‘through difficult times’ until ‘coming to this, our crown’.11 She was not doctrinaire, however, and was now trying hard to shape a religious settlement that would appeal to as broad a Protestant constituency as possible – Lutherans and Swiss reformed Protestants – with some Catholic dressing that would ease the change for her conservative subjects. Although there was to be a return to the Protestant 1552 Book of Common Prayer, she forced through some concessions against the wishes of Cecil and his former Edwardian friends. These included distinctive vestments for priests at Communion and sentences on the administration of the bread and wine that could be taken as implying Christ was present, at least in some spiritual sense, in the elements. Like her father’s church, it was an idiosyncratic creation, and like her father she intended to keep a personal grip on religious policy.

  There would be relentless pressure on Elizabeth – especially from the returning Protestant exiles – to go further, not least in banning vestments, and in facing them down the queen deemed it vital that Katherine not become a more attractive candidate by marrying and producing a male heir. Shunning Katherine was Elizabeth’s way of making Katherine as unattractive a bride as possible. The Spanish, hoping to take advantage of Katherine’s frustration, and having been told by Feria that she was Catholic, began to discuss how she might be smuggled out of the country. These plans were dropped after 30 June, when Henri II of France was involved in a fatal jousting accident.12 The new king, Francis II, husband of Mary, Queen of Scots, was only fifteen and too young to take on an invasion of England. Innocent of the plot to take her to Spain, Katherine instead accompanied the queen on the first of the summer progresses of her reign.

  Elizabeth intended to visit several palaces and private houses, be seen by the people, and enjoy herself balling, masking and hunting. That summer proved to be everything she hoped, with Robert Dudley constantly at her side. His wife Amy had expected to spend more time with him. She wrote on 7 August to their agent apologising for failing to discharge a debt, explaining ‘I forgot to move my lord thereof before his departing, he being much troubled with weighty affairs, and I not being altogether in quiet for his sudden departing.’13 Such weighty affairs had included his ensuring that the queen had the best horses for her progress, and his ‘sudden departing’ was so that he did not miss a moment with her.

  On the day that Amy was writing her letter, Dudley was with Elizabeth enjoying some of the most expensive entertainments ever to be staged in England. Hosted by Henry Fitzalan, Earl of Arundel, at the intimate palace of Nonsuch in Surrey, they included banquets, masques and parties that went on until three in the morning. The forty-seven-year-old earl was hoping that Elizabeth would see him as an acceptable king consort. He had an ancient lineage, but he too was rather ancient, in Elizabeth’s eyes at least, as well as ‘loutish’ and flabby. He struck diplomats as ‘a flighty man of small ability’ and Elizabeth had told Feria already that she did ‘not get on with him’. Elizabeth’s eyes remained on her ‘Sweet Robin’, although she had not entirely forgotten the warnings her late stepmother, Katherine Parr, had given on guarding her reputation, not least where married men were concerned.

  To counter the growing rumours that she had a sexual relationship with Dudley, Elizabeth and her former governess, Kat Astley, conspired to produce a piece of public theatre. In an act of supposed spontaneity Astley threw herself at her mistress’ feet, begging Elizabeth to end the malicious gossip about her relationship with Dudley; Elizabeth was then able to respond by pointing out that she could not possibly behave dishonourably when she was always surrounded by her ladies, and to explain that she needed Dudley’s company as she had ‘so little joy’ in her life.14

  Amongst Elizabeth’s greatest pleasures was to ride with Dudley, and the ‘gallopers’ he ordered from Ireland were spirited, beautiful horses with names like Bay Gentle and Great Savoy. He noted nervously that ‘she spareth not to try as fast as she can go. And I fear them much, but she will prove them’, as indeed she did, often wearing out everyone who tried to keep up. She loved the sensation of escape.

  While the progress continued visitations were taking place in the parishes to ensure the royal articles and injunctions on religion were being carried out. The enthusiastic Protestants of Rye had taken their altar down already, but more often it was found that Catholic sacred objects were being concealed. In part this was because people liked them. But it was also because no one could be sure if Elizabeth and her religious settlement would survive long. In France Elizabeth’s ambassador reported Mary, Queen of Scots had been overheard saying that ‘As God has so provided that . . . she is Queen of France and Scotland, so she trusts to be Queen of England also.’15 Instead of destroying altars, parishioners were placing simple boards on them to make temporary Protestant Communion tables.16 One day the altars could be used again. To prevent this happening, and Mary, Queen of Scots ever coming to the throne, was to be William Cecil’s life’s work, and while Elizabeth enjoyed her summer, he was busy considering how best to take advantage of a rebellion that had broken out in Scotland.

  A band of Protestant lords had moved to overthrow the Catholic regent, the Queen of Scots’ mother, Mary of Guise. Cecil saw an opportunity to create a Protestant Britain that would help secure England’s northern border, and he pressed Elizabeth to agree to giving military support to the rebels. Elizabeth was extremely loath to give any support to men fighting against a rightful sovereign, but after months of Cecil’s pleas and threats of resignation she gave way.

  The English contribution in favour of the Scottish rebels proved decisive and, in July 1560, shortly after Mary of Guise died, a peace treaty was signed. A Protestant reformation was then pushed through the Scottish Parliament repudiating the Pope, suppressing monasteries and prohibiting the Mass. But the future for a Protestant England could only be secured if Elizabeth had a son, and to Cecil’s dismay Dudley was closer to the queen than ever.

  Elizabeth knew she could not just have Dudley’s marriage annulled and marry him in the same way her father had annulled his marriage to Katherine of Aragon and married Anne Boleyn. She had already been warned that a queen was expected to take counsel, not take control. She would never be able to impose her will in the way her father had done. But where she could not take positive action, she could stall, and this is what she was doing on the vital issue of her marriage. Her claim that she wished to remain a virgin had backfired, and she understood that she needed to put on a convincing pretence that she was looking for a suitable husband. This was proving impossible while she was so clearly smitten with her handsome Master of the Horse. A murderous resentment was now growing at court against the royal favourite. Even Cecil freely admitted he wished Dudley were dead.17

  34

  DANGEROUS COUSINS

  ELIZABETH RETURNED TO HAMPTON COURT FROM THE HUNT ON the morning of 7 September 1560 with dramatic news. The latest Spanish ambassador, Bishop Alvarez de Quadra, was astonished to learn from her that Robert Dudley’s wife, Amy, ‘was dead or nearly so’. The man s
he loved would be free to marry – but they would need powerful support to be able do so. If Elizabeth now hoped that Quadra would immediately offer Spanish backing she was disappointed. He thought it a ‘shameful business’, and although he did not voice this, she saw enough in his reaction to ask him to keep the news secret for the time being. Her own feelings were better hidden and to Quadra it seemed impossible to tell whether she would now marry Dudley or not.1

  Later that day Elizabeth confirmed publicly that Amy was dead, explaining in Italian that the twenty-eight-year-old ‘broke her neck’.2 It emerged that Amy’s body had been found the previous evening at the bottom of a flight of stairs at a house which belonged to a friend of Dudley. She had never been ‘almost’ dead, as Elizabeth had told Quadra. What made the news all the more shocking to the ambassador was that only the day before William Cecil had confided his fears that Dudley’s supporters were thinking of killing Amy to free him to marry Elizabeth. It was also clear that while some courtiers believed the official line, that Amy’s death was an accident, many others suspected Dudley had ordered his wife’s murder.

  The recent discovery of Amy’s post-mortem reveals she had head injuries. These could have resulted from a fall in which she hit the edge of the stone steps. There were reports she had been unwell, and she might have fainted. Equally, they could be the result of deliberate blows inflicted on her. The coroner’s jury, who later viewed the body, brought in a verdict of death by misadventure, which suggests the further possibility of suicide. Amy and Dudley had married as love-struck teenagers, and there had been signs that she had grown unhappy during his absences: Cecil summed up the course of events sourly as ‘a carnal marriage’ which had ‘begun for pleasure and ended in lamentation’. Significantly for Elizabeth and Dudley, however, it had also ended in scandal and the consequence was uproar.