Raleigh was never a rival to Robert Dudley, who returned Elizabeth’s love until his death. He did, however, have a serious rival in Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, who is discussed in more detail in the last chapter.
As rivals for the Queen’s attentions, Devereux and Raleigh were often on bad terms. However, in 1584, the year in which Devereux arrived at Court, a rather pleasant picture emerges of life for Elizabeth, surrounded by those both formerly and presently devoted to her.
A German visitor, Lupold von Wedel, wrote of the Queen dining in state at Greenwich, dressed in black and silver and attended by, among others, ‘my lord of Leicester, the Master of the Horse, who is said to have had a love affair with the Queen for a long time. Now he has a wife. Then there was the Lord High Treasurer and the Keeper of the Privy Purse, my lord Hertford [Edward Seymour, Catherine Grey’s son], who they say of all Englishmen has the most right to the throne.’
He noted Sir Christopher Hatton as being another of the Queen’s former lovers, and ended, ‘All of them … were handsome old gentlemen.’3
In 1585, Elizabeth sent troops to the Netherlands to aid the Protestant Dutch rebels who were striving to throw off the rule of Philip II. Spain had been extending its influence there and in France, posing a greater threat to England.
The Netherlands force was under the command of Robert Dudley, but they disagreed on the expedition’s strategy. She wanted to avoid direct confrontation with Spain and try to engage in negotiations, while he supported active military intervention and Dutch independence from Spain. As a result of Robert’s military campaign, the Dutch Council of State offered him the post of Governor General of the United Provinces, which he duly accepted.
Elizabeth was furious with this direct contradiction of her wishes and made no attempt to control her anger. She wrote to Sir Thomas Heneage, his friend and her own representative in the Netherlands, saying that Robert had greatly offended her by going expressly against her orders. Elizabeth also wrote to Robert directly:
How contemptuously we conceive ourselves to have been used by you, you shall by this bearer understand; whom we have expressly sent unto you to charge you withal. We could never have imagined, had we not seen it all out in experience, that a man raised up by ourself and extraordinarily favoured by us above any other subject of this land, would have in so contemptible a sort broken our commandment in a case that so greatly toucheth us in honour.4
Robert duly and humbly apologized to the Queen, saying her words had caused him such misery that he had fallen ill. It was an old but effective ploy that he had used over the years to show his repentance and regain the Queen’s favour, and after a few months Elizabeth forgave him. Even direct disobedience could not truly come between them, it seemed. By August 1585, Elizabeth promised support to the Dutch in the Treaty of Nonsuch, an event that triggered the Anglo-Spanish War, a conflict that would continue for the next 19 years.
At the same time, Elizabeth was facing another threat closer to home. Mary, Queen of Scots, who had been in English custody for 18 years, had become involved in a plot to dispose of Elizabeth and have herself placed on the English throne. The plot was discovered while Mary was being held at Chartley Castle in Staffordshire under the strict surveillance of the Puritan Sir Amyas Paulet, who worked with Elizabeth’s spymaster Francis Walsingham to monitor all Mary’s communications. They intercepted letters containing details of the conspiracy, which involved six gentlemen assassinating Elizabeth, while a second group rescued Mary.
On discovering the plot, the Council arrested the conspirators and seized Mary’s papers, thereby providing proof of her involvement. The Council met and pronounced a sentence of death, which needed Elizabeth’s agreement. She procrastinated, wishing for any other outcome than the one facing her. It took the combined powers of Robert Dudley, William Cecil and Francis Walsingham to persuade Elizabeth that there was no alternative if she wanted to be safe from assassination.
On 4 December, the death warrant was drawn up, but Elizabeth still resisted signing it. Then in January, details of another plot against her emerged, giving Elizabeth, it seemed, no choice, but still she waited. Finally, on 1 February, Elizabeth approved the warrant. Worried that she might change her mind, Cecil had the warrant despatched immediately, and on 8 February 1587, Mary, Queen of Scots was beheaded at Fotheringay Castle in Northamptonshire.
Elizabeth was heartbroken at her cousin’s death, despite their mistrust of each other over the years. She was also worried about the consequences of the execution and how her European rivals might perceive it and consequently react. She told her Court that she had not meant the warrant to be served so quickly. The secretary who had carried it to Fotherhingay was arrested and imprisoned in the Tower.
The execution of Mary, Queen of Scots set off a sequence of events that would lead to Spain’s attempted invasion of England. With Mary’s death, Philip realized he could no longer rely on her to install a Catholic on the English throne. He acknowledged the Pope’s decision to excommunicate Elizabeth and stated that he himself was heir to the throne on the grounds that firstly, Mary had named him her heir in her will, denying her Protestant son, James VI of Scotland, and, secondly, that he himself had a direct, lawful descent from the two daughters of John of Gaunt, the father of Henry IV: Philippa of Lancaster, Queen of Portugal, and Catherine of Lancaster, Queen of Castile. Philip wanted to conquer England, ending the problems that the island was causing him. Apart from conspiring with the Dutch Protestant rebels, during the 1580s England was also pursuing a policy of piracy against Spanish ships, attempting to plunder their treasure.
Just months after Mary’s execution, Sir Francis Drake raided Cadiz, destroying a fleet of war ships. In response, Philip assembled an enormous fleet under the command of the Duke of Medina Sedonia and ordered his admiral to invade and conquer England, taking the Queen alive at all costs. This was not a reflection of his affection for her – instead, Philip planned to send the captive Queen to Rome where she would be triumphantly exhibited before being handed over to the Pope and his inquisitors for punishment.
These grandiose plans would, in the end, come to nothing. The giant Spanish Armada set out with 22 warships from the Spanish Royal Navy and 108 converted merchant vessels, but ended up limping back to Spain in a disastrous retreat after being harried by the English fleet and hit by storms. Elizabeth proved to be a rousing and fearless leader, planning to ride at the head of her army to wherever along the coast the enemy might seek to land, while her fleet went out to battle. Robert, in command of the ground forces, managed to dissuade her from this:
Now for your person being the most dainty and sacred thing we have in this world to care for, a man must tremble when he thinks of it; specially finding your Majesty to have the princely courage to transport yourself to the utmost confines of your realm to meet your enemies, and to defend your subjects. I cannot, most dear Queen, consent to that, for upon your well doing consists all the safety of your whole kingdom and therefore preserve that above all.5
He recommended instead that Elizabeth address her troops at Tilbury on the Thames, where she gave a defiant and patriotic speech that has become one of the key moments in English history. Standing in front of her soldiers Elizabeth uttered some of her most famous words: ‘I know I have the body but of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart and stomach of a king, and of a king of England too.’6
The defeat of the Spanish Armada in July 1588 heralded the highest point in Elizabeth’s rule, and was a victory that lent England not only a strong sense of national pride, but also the sense that God was on the side of a Protestant victory against the Catholic enemy.
Elizabeth’s moment of triumph at this great victory was soon overshadowed by great personal tragedy - the death of the Queen’s great love, Robert Dudley. After the Armada was defeated, Robert, who had been the Lieutenant and Captain General of the Queen’s Armies and Companies during the crisis, was lauded as a hero. His health had been poor, so he retir
ed to take the waters at Buxton, and on his way there stopped off to visit friends in Rycote, where he wrote his last letter to Elizabeth. Later, on the Queen’s death, it was found in a cabinet by her bed. It reads in part:
At Rycote, August 29, I most humbly beseech your Majesty to pardon your poor old servant to be thus bold in sending to know how my gracious lady doth, and what ease of her late pain she finds, being the chiefest thing in this world I do pray for, for her to have good health and long life. For mine own poor case, I continue still your medicine, and find it amend, much better than with any other thing that hath been given me. Thus, hoping to find perfect cure at the bath, with the continuance of my wonted prayer for your Majesty’s most happy preservation, I humbly kiss your foot, from your old lodging at Rycote, this Thursday morning, ready to take on my journey. By your Majesty’s most faithful, obedient servant R Leycester.7
Six days after this letter, on 4 September 1588, Robert died at the age of 56. Elizabeth was devastated. Their mutual affection and trust had lasted until the end.
Soon after, others who had served the Queen since the beginning of her reign began to pass away. In 1590, Robert’s brother Ambrose Dudley died, as well as the spymaster Francis Walsingham and Elizabeth’s Household Controller Sir James Crofts. Then in 1591, Sir Christopher Hatton died at Ely Place in Hatton Gardens. Of her suitors, he alone had remained unmarried. Other deaths followed swiftly: Henry Carey, her most loyal cousin; Francis Knollys, her treasurer; Henry Hastings, a possible heir to the throne; and Elizabeth’s beloved Blanche Parry, who was buried with the honours due to a baroness. Then, in August 1598, William Cecil fell ill, retiring to his house at Theobalds. As he lay dying, Elizabeth came to feed him broth with her own hand, chatting to take his mind off his ailment. With his death, she lost her first and best servant.
The last 15 years of Elizabeth’s reign were not only peppered with personal losses, but with political difficulties. With the passing away of her old advisers and officials, a new generation was vying for control and her Privy Council suffered from factionalism, particularly between Robert Cecil, the son of her most trusted adviser, and the ambitious Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex. The conflicts with Spain and Ireland were costly and the kingdom’s economy suffered. Repression against Catholics intensified. Elizabeth’s popularity became slightly tarnished by all these factors, and her personal power and acuity weakened with age.
The Queen’s health began to decline late in 1602. In February 1603, she received yet another blow – the death of Catherine Howard (née Carey), Countess of Nottingham, her cousin and one of her dearest friends – which left Elizabeth in a state of deep depression. In March, she fell ill and became extremely melancholic. Catherine Howard’s brother, Robert Carey, came to Court and found a frail and sad Elizabeth seated on cushions on the floor, unable or unwilling to move. He recorded later that he heard ‘forty or fifty great sighs … for in all my lifetime before, I never knew her fetch a sigh, but when the Queen of Scots was beheaded.’8
Robert Cecil, trying to rouse Elizabeth, told her she must go to bed. The Queen replied, ‘Little man, little man, the word must is not to be used to Princes.’9 On 21 March, Catherine Howard’s grieving widower, Charles Howard, 1st Earl of Nottingham, another valued old friend, was summoned. He persuaded her to retire to the comfort of her bed.
The end was slow and terrible. Elizabeth developed a throat infection that meant she could hardly talk, eat or drink. When Robert Cecil, obliged to plan the succession, asked her if James VI of Scotland was to succeed her, she simply lifted her hand in agreement. Elizabeth I died on 24 March 1603 at the age of 69 at Richmond Palace, with her old friend Archbishop Whitgift by her bedside. He knelt and prayed, staying with her through the last day. Some time after 2 a.m. she finally slipped away ‘mildly like a lamb, easily like a ripe apple from the tree.’10
In the end, after all the years of wrangling with her government about the succession, the solution that was found was relatively trouble-free. As Elizabeth had no lawful heirs, James VI of Scotland had a strong claim by the line of Henry VIII’s older sister, Margaret Tudor. If Elizabeth did have illegitimate children, none of them came forward to claim the throne and the transition went smoothly. James VI of Scotland took a second crown, becoming James I of England and Ireland.
Despite all the rumours and scandals over the years, the possible illegitimate child Elizabeth was suspected to have had with Robert Dudley did not become the next King of England – neither did any of the other children she was alleged to have borne out of wedlock.
Robert Dudley’s
alleged child
Introduction
Robert Dudley’s Alleged Child
Throughout Elizabeth’s long reign, the question of her heir was a matter of great concern and the cause of consternation both at home and abroad among her various Councillors, Europe’s royalty and aristocracy and her own favourites. Who would the Queen marry? And, if she failed to marry, who would be the next King or Queen of England?
Elizabeth, with characteristic stubbornness, resisted all attempts to marry or to name an heir. Even more frustratingly, over the years she wavered between steadfastly refusing to consider marriage and encouraging various members of the European royalty to pursue her, only to change her mind. Meanwhile, her Council feared that she would marry one of her favourites, Robert Dudley, for many years the most likely candidate. In the end, however, Elizabeth remained unmarried to the last, the Virgin Queen of legend.
For the first part of her reign, though, it seemed likely that Elizabeth would marry at some point and give birth to a legitimate heir. Why she chose not to do so is a matter of conjecture and has been the subject of a great many books, plays and films. One of the questions frequently raised is whether or not Elizabeth was able to have children. There certainly seems to be no firm evidence to support the idea that Elizabeth was incapable of conceiving. Indeed, throughout her life – even before she was Queen – there were rumours that she had had sexual liaisons with men such as Thomas Seymour and later Robert Dudley, and had given birth to an illegitimate child – possibly even children . Yet, if the rumours were true, why did she keep any child secret? It would not have been unprecedented for Elizabeth to disclose the existence of a child and for that child to be accepted as her heir. In 1571, her ministers even changed the wording of the Act of Succession, which had stated that the throne should go to the ‘issue of her body lawfully to be begotten’ to read ‘the natural issue of her body’. This meant that any child whom the Queen acknowledged as her own, even one born outside wedlock, could potentially become the future King or Queen of England.
This decision no doubt resulted from the rumours at the time that Elizabeth had conceived a child with her favourite Robert Dudley during their inseparable years at Court when both were in their twenties or early thirties. In the same way as the child Elizabeth was reported to have had with Thomas Seymour, it could have been born in secret and placed with suitable foster parents.
But if this were the case, who would be the most likely candidate to be the offspring of Elizabeth and Robert? Looking at the evidence, four men stand out as possible contenders: Francis Bacon (1561–1626), Arthur Dudley (1561–?), John Harington (1560–1612) and Robert Devereux (1566–1601).
10
The Case of Sir Francis Bacon
According to the records of the time, Francis Bacon was born on 22 January 1561 at York House on the Strand in London, to Sir Nicholas Bacon and his second wife, Anne Cooke.
Sir Nicholas had graduated from Corpus Christi College, Cambridge and entered Gray’s Inn (one of the Inns of Court); he was called to the Bar in 1533. During the Dissolution of the Monasteries under Henry VIII, Sir Nicholas acquired several estates, including Gorhambury near St Albans, which became the family seat. He held several posts under Edward VI, as Member of Parliament, Attorney of the Court of Wards and Liveries, and Treasurer of Gray’s Inn. He was a highly skilled lawyer and a brilliant speaker. During t
he reign of Mary I, he lost his posts as he was a staunch Protestant, only to resume his career on the succession of Elizabeth I. The Queen immediately appointed him Lord Keeper of the Great Seal, a post in which he worked closely with his brother-in-law, William Cecil (they had married two of the learned and intelligent daughters of Sir Anthony Cooke). Francis was the youngest of all of Nicholas Bacon’s children.
The date of Francis’s conception tallies with the period during which Elizabeth and Robert Dudley were most rumoured to have engaged in a physical relationship – in anticipation of the imminent death of Robert’s wife, Amy Robsart. If Elizabeth had conceived an illegitimate child, placing it within a family such as the Bacons, where there were children by two different mothers and family characteristics were less marked, would have been an inspired idea. Additionally, Sir Nicholas and Anne were suitable in so many other ways: he was a Protestant who had maintained his religion, as Elizabeth had done, even through the reign of Mary I, while his wife was one of Elizabeth’s ladies-in-waiting and a fellow scholar in Greek, Latin, French and Italian. Conversely, however, the Bacon household was only a stone’s throw from the royal palaces and the alleged foster parents were a daily part of Court life, which might not have been the best way to keep the true identity of such an important baby a secret.
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