Kat Ashley, who had endured several periods of imprisonment through her loyalty to Elizabeth, was made Mistress of the Maids of Honour, Chief Gentlewoman of the Privy Chamber and Keeper of the Close Stools. She would remain in Elizabeth’s service until her death. The second Gentlewoman and Keeper of Her Majesty’s Books was Blanche Parry, who had seen the infant Elizabeth rocked in her cradle. Both of these ladies had considerable sway when it came to influencing the Queen in smaller matters.5
The trusted Blanche was devoted to the Queen. Blanche never married and had no title, but over the years she bought land in Herefordshire and Breconshire, where her family came from, and also in Yorkshire, where her beloved nephew John Vaughan lived. In Blanche’s final will, published at her death in 1590, the first item was the bequest of a large diamond to Elizabeth I, a sign of her great devotion to her former charge and Queen.
On attaining the throne, Elizabeth dismissed many of the older, staunchly Catholic ladies-in-waiting of the Court of Mary I, and replaced them with friends and family closer to her own age such as Anne Morgan (wife of Henry Carey, Lord Hunsdon), aged 29; Anne Poyntz (wife of Sir Thomas Heneage), aged about 20; Lettice Knollys (daughter of Catherine Carey and Francis Knollys), aged 19; and the legendary beauty Elizabeth Fitzgerald (third wife of Edward Fiennes Clinton), aged 31.
The greatest of the Queen’s Councillors was undoubtedly William Cecil. The Tudor historian William Camden summed Cecil up when he wrote that ‘Of all men of genius he was the most a drudge; of all men of business, the most a genius.’6
Cecil’s grandfather, David, came from the Welsh family of Sitsilt, and had started the family’s rise in royal service as one of Henry VIII’s sergeant-at-arms in Lincolnshire, Steward to Crown lands and Sheriff of Northampton. Cecil’s father, Richard, was a King’s Page, Groom of the Wardrobe and Yeoman of the Robes to Henry VIII, Constable of Warwick Castle and Sheriff of Rutland.
In 1535, Richard, wishing to advance his son sent the 15-yearold boy to St John’s College, Cambridge. Here he became friendly with such men as John Cheke, Roger Ascham, Matthew Parker (who later became Archbishop of Canterbury under Elizabeth I) and Nicholas Bacon. They became immersed in the Classics and in the Protestant New Religion.
In May 1541, Cecil left Cambridge without taking his final degree and started to study law at the Inns of Court. He had formed a relationship with John Cheke’s sister, Mary, whom his family found unacceptable as a wife (her father had been a college beadle and her mother ran a wine shop). In spite of opposition, in August, Cecil married Mary. He was given a post in the Court of Common Pleas. The next year, Mary gave birth to their only child, Thomas, in Cambridge. She died in February 1543.
In 1544, William Cecil’s career took an immense leap when his friends John Cheke and Roger Ascham received powerful appointments – Cheke became tutor to Prince Edward, and Ascham tutor to Princess Elizabeth. With influential friends at Court, the 25-year-old Cecil was able to make a significant second marriage in 1545 to 20-year-old Mildred, the eldest daughter of Sir Anthony Cooke, Governor of Prince Edward’s household.
On Henry VIII’s death in 1547, Cecil became Master of Requests. With his friends and in-laws now in the service of the King, and the King’s Protector as his patron, Cecil’s future seemed assured. In September 1548, Cecil was appointed Secretary to the Protector, thereby increasing his power and influence. In the following year, when Edward Seymour was ejected from power and replaced by John Dudley, Cecil was arrested, however, and briefly imprisoned. Dudley recognized his value and took Cecil into his own service. But by September 1550, Cecil was Secretary of State.
Roger Ascham, writing to his friend the German scholar, Johann Sturm, in August 1550, offered this description of Cecil:
… a young man, indeed, but mature in wisdom, and so deeply skilled, both in letters and affairs, and endued with such moderation in the exercise of public offices, that to him would be awarded … the fourfold praise: ‘To know all that is fitting, to be able to apply what he knows, to be a lover of his country, and superior to money.’7
Dudley had also apparently commented that Cecil had shown himself not just a faithful servant, but also a witty councillor ‘as was scarce the like within his realm.’8
In recognition of their role in the Court administration, in October 1550, both Cecil and Cheke were knighted. Cecil was made Joint-Secretary to the Council with Sir William Petre, who was often ill and unable to attend to his work. Now all the deliberations of the Council passed through Cecil’s hands. To be on hand for Council work, he lived in a house in Cannon Row, Westminster, while his wife managed their country house at Wimbledon.
The value of Cecil’s work was recognized even by the young Edward VI.9 When Edward VI died and Dudley was plotting to place his daughter-in-law, Lady Jane Grey, on the throne, Cecil frequently excused himself from the Council, pleading ill health. Along with the other Council officers, he was ultimately forced to sign the document changing the order of succession (cutting out Mary and Elizabeth in favour of Jane), but he was unhappy about it and made sure he had witnesses to his misgivings.
Later, when Mary came to the throne, Cecil was able to demonstrate that he had acted against her only under duress from the bullying Dudley. He had, he said, never actively supported ‘Queen’ Jane. It appears that Mary believed him – and although Cecil did not retain his post as Secretary of State under her reign, he was not sent to the Tower like Cheke.
During Mary I’s rule, Cecil remained discreet, spending much of his time looking after his growing estates. He had no interest in sport, games or such ‘pastimes’, but he was an avid book collector, and those who knew him well gave him books as gifts, particularly his favourite works on heraldry and genealogy. He also kept up his role as a benefactor to Cambridge University and St John’s College. It appears that he was also solicited for his political skills, although he had no official title. An anonymous biographer, possibly one of his servants, reported ‘that Mary had a good liking for him as a Councillor, and would have appointed him if he had changed his religion’.9
Through these years Cecil kept up his correspondence and friendship with other Protestants who stayed discreetly in England or fled into self-imposed exile. He himself chose not to swim against the tide and took his family and household to services at the newly converted Catholic parish church at Wimbledon.
Cecil’s good relations with Elizabeth, which would continue for the rest of his life, began in 1549 when she wrote to him in his role as the Protector’s Secretary about matters relating to her brother Edward VI. In 1553, she asked him to look into accusations of extortion and intimidation against one of her stewards, and also appointed him steward of her estates at Collyweston. In the last days of the reign of Mary I, Cecil was a frequent visitor to Hatfield, so much so that when members of the Council arrived to see Elizabeth, they found Cecil already in discussion with her. Therefore, he was a natural choice to become Elizabeth’s chief adviser when she became Queen. Not everyone was pleased by this decision. The Spanish Ambassador de Feria complained of Cecil’s importance in a 1559 letter to Philip II: ‘Cecil is very clever, but a mischievous man, and a heretic, and governs the Queen in spite of the Treasurer [Parry].’10
From the outset of Elizabeth’s reign, Cecil used his skills to make the transition as easy as possible. He prepared a list of 12 points to help the succession go smoothly, including the contents of the proclamation; which Heads of State should be formally notified; how Mary’s funeral should be conducted; who should arrange Elizabeth’s coronation and which preacher would be the safest choice to give the sermon at St Paul’s Cross.
In her first Council meeting with Cecil acting as her Principal Secretary of State, Elizabeth presented in writing her reasons for choosing him as her closest and most respected servant:
I give you this charge that you shall be of my Privy Council and content to take pains for me and my realm. This judgement I have of you that you will not be corrupted by any manne
r of gift and that you will be faithful to the state; and that without respect of my private will, you will give me that counsel which you think best and if you shall know anything necessary to me of secrecy, you shall show it to myself only. And assure yourself I will not fail to keep taciturnity therein and therefore herewith I charge you.11
By all accounts, she had chosen well. Throughout his life, Cecil was a respected statesman who gave the Queen sound advice. While he refrained from changing his opinion if it differed from Elizabeth’s, Cecil followed her will once she had made a decision.
The first most important issue facing Elizabeth was that of the coronation. The date for the event, so symbolically vital, was placed in the hands of the internationally famous mathematician, astronomer and astrologist Dr John Dee, who had studied at St John’s and Trinity Colleges in Cambridge with Cheke.
In 1551, Dee returned to England from Charles V’s court, where he had been teaching Ambassador Sir William Pickering mathematics and astronomy. Dee offered two of his books on mathematics to the young Edward VI, who awarded him a pension. The Dee family also gained the favour of John Dudley, although this turned out to be an unfortunate turn of events when Dudley’s fall from power also led to Dee’s arrest in May 1555 for ‘calculating’, ‘conjuring’ and ‘witchcraft’ in illegally casting horoscopes for Mary I, Philip and the Lady Elizabeth.12
With his studies deemed part of the so-called ‘Black Arts’, he ended up in the custody of the fearsome Bishop Edward ‘Bloody’ Bonner, Mary’s most aggressive inquisitor. But, by November 1555, Dee had embraced Catholicism and was not only one of Bonner’s chaplains, but his close friend, a relationship he maintained even after Elizabeth I removed Bonner from office and he was imprisoned in the Marshalsea for debt, where he later died.
Safe in Bonner’s esteem in January 1556, Dee wrote a supplication to Mary I asking for the preservation of old writings and monuments, many of which had been destroyed or thrown away during the Reformation and Dissolution of the Monasteries under Henry VIII. He wanted to create a national archive, a Library Royal. Although he did not get royal backing, Dee acquired and preserved a number of old texts; he also wrote original papers on mathematical and scientific subjects. At the same time, he appears to have kept in touch with Elizabeth, and may have acted as her eyes and ears in Bonner’s court. Certainly when she became Queen, Elizabeth called upon Dee’s skills, though he would later leave England to travel widely – teaching, learning and collecting.13
For Elizabeth’s coronation date, Dee chose 15 January 1559 (Jupiter was in Aquarius, giving a ruler crowned on that day impartiality, independence and tolerance; Mars was in Scorpio, giving the ruler passion and commitment).
In anticipation of the event, Elizabeth moved by barge from Whitehall to the Tower on 12 January. On 14 January, she made her formal entrance into the City of London and on to Westminster. She wore a dress of gold tissue and a mantle of gold cloth lined with ermine. Crowds thronged the streets, where tableaux showing Elizabeth as the natural heir of Edward IV, Henry VII and Henry VIII were displayed, depicting her as the bringer of peace, harmony and prosperity through the Protestant religion. That evening there was a fireworks display.
Elizabeth’s coronation took place on Sunday 15 January 1559, in Westminster Abbey. First came 1,000 members of her household mounted on horseback, followed by the Queen in an open litter decked with gold brocade, surrounded by her footmen and Gentlemen Pensioners. Behind her litter came Robert Dudley, mounted and leading her white hackney. Then came the Lord Chamberlain and the Lords of the Privy Chamber. At the gate to the city were effigies of Henry VII (holding a red rose) and Elizabeth of York (holding a white rose), Henry VIII (holding both a red and a white rose) and Anne Boleyn, as well as a Queen that represented Elizabeth herself.
After the coronation ceremony, a great banquet was held in Westminster Hall, where each course was announced by nobles riding into the hall on horses. Elizabeth retired to bed at 1.00 a.m. completely exhausted. The next day it was planned she would attend a joust, but the combination of the previous day’s exhaustion and a heavy cold caused the event to be cancelled.
As Elizabeth settled into forming her Council, busy minds were already occupied with her potential marriage. Among her Councillors, at least one felt that he had a greater role to play than just a political one. Almost at once, Henry Fitzalan, 12th Earl of Arundel, let it be known that he was a willing suitor for the Queen’s hand in marriage. He reasoned that, after the unpopularity of Mary’s foreign marriage to Philip of Spain, Elizabeth would want an English husband. With Edward Courtenay no longer a contender (he had died in exile in Italy), who better than one of the country’s most senior and well-connected noblemen? One, moreover, who had a family line that could be traced back to William d’Aubigny, the first Earl of Arundel? Only time and Fitzalan’s efforts would tell, it seemed.
In July 1559, Elizabeth set out on her first progress (the visits that she made to towns and aristocratic homes in southern England). Going first to her own property in Dartford in Kent, and then onto Cobham Hall, home of her friend Lord William Cobham, who later became an ambassador to the Low Countries, a Knight of the Garter and a Privy Councillor, she continued on her travels, ending up at Nonsuch in Surrey, which had been built by Henry VIII, but was now Henry Fitzalan’s property.
On Sunday night, Fitzalan held a banquet, a masque (a court pageant) and a concert in the new Queen’s honour. On Monday, she watched coursing from a stand in the park, after which the children of St Paul’s performed a play, which was followed by another banquet. When Elizabeth left Nonsuch, Fitzalan gave the Queen not just the usual gift of a few pieces of gold, silver or gilded plate, but an entire cabinet full. But would Elizabeth be so easily impressed by such measures?
Although Fitzalan was a 47-year-old widower who had married twice, he might have proved a suitable candidate had he not been a staunch Catholic and also unimaginative and physically unprepossessing. Ambassador de Feria was pleased to report to Spain that he didn’t hold out much hope for Fitzalan’s suit: ‘Arundel has been going about in high glee for some time and is very smart … but I did not lose hope, as the Earl is a flighty man of small ability.’14
As would become clear as more time passed, Elizabeth set her sights high, demanding youth, intelligence and a high degree of physical beauty in any man whom she favoured. Within a relatively short time, Fitzalan realized that his suit would be unsuccessful.
Elizabeth, already accustomed to being a focus for offers of marriage, had frequently stated that she had no wish to marry. She made light-hearted reference to marrying on occasions such as in 1560 when she visited the 75-year-old William Paulet, 1st Marquis of Winchester, a skilled and experienced politician married to Lady Elizabeth Seymour (the sister of Queen Jane Seymour), saying, ‘by my troth, if my Lord Treasurer were but a young man, I could find it in my heart to have him for a husband before any man in England.’15 As Elizabeth was still young, most of those around her believed that the Queen would eventually give in and choose a husband. It was considered inconceivable that she would wish to remain a maid and never marry.16
With the coronation completed and Elizabeth now lawfully Queen, she was faced with a number of urgent problems. In February 1559, she held her first official Parliament in which three critical issues were raised. The first was to create a ‘uniform order of religion’, finally settling the sensitive religious question after the violently turbulent years of Henry VIII, Edward VI and, particularly, Mary I. The second was to review statutes ‘contrary or hurtful to the commonwealth’, that is, to end the war with France that Mary’s Spanish husband, Philip II, had foisted on the English people. The third was the question of the succession: both Edward VI and Mary I had died without heirs, and if Elizabeth should die in the same state, there could well be civil war as rival factions fought to place their candidate on the throne.
Another major problem that took several years to sort out was the currency, which had been t
horoughly debased under Edward VI and Mary I. As a step to lower the costs of the Court, in her first six months Elizabeth reduced the Crown’s expenditure from £267,000 to £108,000.17 She sent Sir Thomas Gresham, a financial expert, to the Netherlands to arrange to repair English credit, which he carried out with considerable success. The debased coinage was eventually recalled and new money reissued, making English currency once more respected in the European money markets. This was a major achievement that re-established England’s supremacy as a trading nation.
On the question of religion, Elizabeth sought a pragmatic solution that would address Protestant concerns but avoid offending Catholics. She legislated for a Protestant church with the monarch at its head, but refused her father’s title of Head of the Church, which, it was argued, could only be held by a man (since men could not be ruled by a woman in matters of religious doctrine). In a masterly act of compromise, Elizabeth agreed to become ‘Supreme Governor as well in spiritual and ecclesiastical causes as temporal’.18
A Royal Commission passed the Act of Supremacy in which the authority of the Pope was solemnly renounced and the whole government of the church vested in the Queen, her heirs and successors. An important clause enabled them to delegate their authority to commissioners of their own appointment.19 The Act of Uniformity was also passed, which made compliance with Protestant worship compulsory and allowed the Queen to appoint all bishops.20
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