The Council was split on the Irish question. One group, led by Devereux, wanted war at any cost, and the other, led by William Cecil and his son Robert, favoured peace if it could be honourably achieved. By this time, William Cecil was terminally ill. Elizabeth came to the bedside of her ‘Spirit’ and fed him herself. Although he never played the lover with her, and had never fitted her picture of ideal male beauty, they were closer than most couples. He had always been honest with her and had been her chief adviser since she had assumed the throne – in turn, she had never betrayed him. Cecil had groomed his son, Robert, as his successor in the matters of gently and tactfully guiding the Queen. William Cecil died on 4 August 1598. Coincidentally, Philip II of Spain died a month later. Elizabeth had lost both her dearest Councillor and her dearest enemy.
With William Cecil gone, Devereux used his influence to gain the post of Lord Deputy of Ireland in 1599 and convinced the Council to let him lead a huge expeditionary force to put down the rebellion. A vast army of 16,000 troops and 1,000 horses was assembled to take down Hugh O’Neill, Earl of Tyrone, who had defeated the previous English forces sent against him. Devereux had a war chest in excess of £250,000 and a host of young Court gentlemen who wished to follow him to fame and glory and win wealth and position.
Not fully trusting Devereux after his debacle in the Azores, the Queen arranged for John Harington to go as Master of the Horse, telling him to report directly back to her about the campaign. Devereux, however, was confident of success, believing he had been given the power to make whatever commands he felt necessary and sure that he would win a great and unsurpassed victory for Elizabeth. As he put it in a letter to John Harington: ‘I have beaten Knollys and Mountjoy in the Council, and by God I will beat Tyrone in the field; for nothing worthy her Majesty’s honour hath yet been achieved.’16
But by July 1599, it seemed clear that Devereux was ignoring the list of instructions he had been given to pacify Ireland. Elizabeth wrote to him complaining that his letters were vague as to what he had actually achieved. He seemed to be spending a lot of money, but not one rebel had been challenged. Indeed, the rebels seemed to be enjoying the fact that they could abuse the Queen of England with impunity. She claimed that Devereux seemed to always lay the blame elsewhere, ‘that you are deceived, that you are disgraced from hence in your friends’ fortune, that poor Ireland suffers in you – still exclaiming against the effects of your own causes.’17
Devereux dissipated his troops’ strength in campaigns in the south and west of Ireland, losing many to illness and disastrous engagements, and in the end he was forced to make a truce with the rebel O’Neill rather than beating him in battle. To make matters worse, he took the liberty of conferring a huge number of knighthoods to secure the loyalty of his soldiers, which he was expressly forbidden to do.
By September, the Queen had had enough. She wrote another letter; he had promised so much and done nothing, despite being granted all the men and provisions he requested. She demanded that he write to the Council giving ‘a true declaration of the state to which you have brought our kingdom, and what be the effects which this your lordship’s journey hath produced’.18 The letter finished with a scathing criticism of his last report, in which he must have tried to defend his command: ‘We have received a letter in form of a cautel [crafty trick], full of challenges [that are impertinent] and of comparisons that are needless, such as hath not been before this time presented to a state, except it hath been done with hope to terrify all men from censuring your proceedings.’19
Realizing he was on the verge of permanently alienating his greatest ally, Devereux left Ireland, against orders, to go back to London and make his case to the Queen in person. He arrived at Nonsuch Palace on 28 September. Fortunately he had been persuaded not to return with a large part of his army, which he had considered in order to intimidate his enemies. However, he did make the rash decision to go straight to Elizabeth’s bedchamber, even though she had only just got out of bed, where he found her in a loose robe, without make-up or wig. She sent him off to gain the time to prepare herself. When he returned and tried to explain his Irish campaign, Elizabeth refused to be placated. He was put under arrest and sent to the Lord Keeper at York House.
As if to rub salt in his wounds, Devereux’s previous rival (though now friend) and one of his junior officers, Charles Blount, was given the task of carrying out the campaign in Ireland. He proved astonishingly good at it, so that in December 1600, Elizabeth wrote him a jokey letter of appreciation. In a previous note, Blount had likened himself to a young servant girl trying to clean out a kitchen. Elizabeth carried on the theme, including a snide reference to Devereux: ‘Mistress Kitchenmaid … with your frying pan and other kitchen stuff have brought to this last home [imprisonment or death] more rebels, and passed greater breakneck places than those that promised more and did less.’20
She went on to say that he had pleased her by following her orders to the letter. He proved himself worthy of her trust. In March 1603, just after the Queen’s death, Blount, now 8th Baron Mountjoy, finally defeated the Irish rebels and received the submission of O’Neill.
Meanwhile, Devereux, stuck in York House, belatedly realized that he had pushed the Queen too far and claimed he was ill. Elizabeth, as she had done with Robert Dudley when he had a diplomatic illness after they argued, sent doctors. A reconciliation seemed possible – Devereux wrote a grovelling letter of apology, which she accepted, but rather than being freed he was placed under house arrest at Essex House on the Strand. It was three months before he was allowed to move about freely, although he could still not come to Court.
Denied access to the Queen and stripped of his posts, Devereux faced financial ruin. He had lost his monopoly in sweet wines – Elizabeth decided to keep it for herself; if he deserved well of her, he might get it back. Devereux could not accept this. Her actions were, he said, ‘as crooked as her carcase’.21
His friends, chiefly his sister, Penelope Devereux, Lady Rich (who, despite being married, was having an affair with Charles Blount), Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton, and Sir Christopher Blount, his stepfather, encouraged him to plan a coup d’etat whereby he would seize the Queen, declare James VI of Scotland the official heir, dismiss and imprison all those advisers he believed were his enemies, place his own men as Elizabeth’s Council, and rule as her chief minister and adviser – a sort of Lord Protector. As Devereux’s supporters were all in debt, a successful coup would assure them of much-needed patronage.
In a Shakespearian show of hubris, on 7 September 1600, Devereux’s supporters hired the Globe theatre and paid to have the Shakespeare play Richard II performed, with its message that a noble man might overthrow a weak and corrupt king. Elizabeth heard of this and on 8 February 1601 sent some of her Councillors to Essex House to try to ascertain Devereux’s plans. In a moment of panic, he ordered that the delegation be locked in the library.
With Elizabeth at Whitehall, he then tried to start an uprising, riding through Temple Bar shouting that there was a plot against the Queen and him, and beseeching Londoners to rise and support him. Unfortunately for his plans, a royal herald rode after him, proclaiming him a traitor. No one rose in support of the usurper. He retreated to Essex House, where he was arrested that evening by Charles Howard (Lord Howard of Effingham).
On 19 February 1601, he was tried for treason in the Star Chamber, and despite Elizabeth’s fluctuating fondness for him, the outcome was a foregone conclusion and he was condemned. Elizabeth signed his death warrant, and on 25 February 1601, Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, was executed at the Tower at the age of 35. Devereux’s death seemed to cause a change in the Queen. Although he had often been frustrating, foolhardy and pig-headed, Elizabeth never completely recovered from his loss. Now nearly at the end of her life, it was said she complained that she had no one she could trust. She lost interest in her clothes and began to lose weight, lose her temper over nothing and swear more frequently. A gentleman of t
he Court wrote, ‘Her delight is to sit in the dark and, sometimes with shedding of tears, to bewail Essex.’22
Elizabeth and Devereux had a turbulent relationship, but he clearly had a special place in her heart. Given the events of his life, it seems unlikely that he was Elizabeth’s child, but the timing of his birth does not exclude the idea. It is known that on 12 April 1566, seven months before Robert Devereux was born, Robert Dudley rode into London with 700 footmen wearing his livery and that of the Queen. He went to the house of Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, opposite St Swithin’s churchyard, where he waited. At the same time, Elizabeth left Greenwich by water in a small boat, attended by two of her ladies-in-waiting, and landed at the Three Cranes on the riverbank by St Paul’s Cathedral. There a coach was waiting to take the Queen to St Swithin’s.
Sadly, Robert Dudley and his entourage, having waited for her, had already gone. The Queen’s carriage set off for Greenwich and passed Robert and his men waiting at the roadside. It was reported, ‘… she came out of her coach in the highway and she embraced the Earl and she kissed him three times.’23 He got into the coach with her and they went to Greenwich together. One explanation for this odd outing to meet privately at a church could be that Elizabeth had found herself pregnant and they had agreed to enter into a form of marriage that would protect and legalize their child.
Whether or not Robert Devereux was the child of the Queen, it is quite plausible that his stepfather, Robert Dudley, was actually his father. His mother, Lettice Knollys, had an affair with Robert in 1566, which preceded their later affair in the 1570s. They later married after her first husband died. It may be notable that Walter Devereux called his eldest son Robert, which was not a family name, saving the name Walter for his second son. Robert Devereux’s secretary, Henry Wotton, indicated not only that relations between Walter and Robert Devereux were not particularly warm, but that the son had been warned against Robert Dudley:
I must not smother what I have received by constant information, that his [Robert Devereux’s] own father died with a very cold conceit of him, some say through the affection to his second son, Walter Devereux … The said Earl of Leicester betrayed a meaning to plant him [Robert Devereux] in the Queen’s favour; which was diversely interpreted by such as thought that great Artisan of Court [Leicester] to do nothing by chance … Yet I am not ignorant there was some good while a very stiff aversion in my Lord of Essex from applying himself to the Earl of Leicester, for whatever conceit I know not, but howsoever that humour was mollified by time; and by his Mother, and to the Court he came under his lee.24
The young Devereux would have heard the whispers that Robert Dudley favoured him for a reason that slandered his mother’s morals, but in time Lettice managed to win him round and he accepted Robert’s patronage.
For his part, Robert did his best to promote Devereux during his life (he died when Devereux was 22 years old). The year before his death, Robert Dudley asked Elizabeth if his post of Master of the Horse could be given to Devereux. The Queen refused, as she said she had no greater post for Robert to take in exchange. He cheerfully told her that he desired no such post, just that his protégé should take his place (with the attendant £1,500 per year salary). When Robert died, Elizabeth followed his wishes and gave his stepson, or son, the post of Master of the Horse, with all its associations that were so dear to her heart.
Conclusion
Virgin Queen or Secret Mother?
Although in the later years of her rule and after her death Elizabeth’s virginity attained an almost mythical status, contributing to an image of a pure queen devoted to her people, evidence seems to support the fact that the Virgin Queen image was a myth. In reality, Elizabeth may have enjoyed sexual relations with at least one man out of wedlock. She may have flirted with her numerous suitors, including Thomas Seymour at an early age, but her extremely close relationship with Robert Dudley when they were both in their twenties seems to point to something deeper and more intimate between them.
Given the flurries of rumours, the fact that their rooms were adjoining wherever they stayed and that they were often together alone, it is hard to imagine that Robert and Elizabeth did not consummate their relationship. It is, of course, a matter of speculation as to what that exactly might have entailed – perhaps they stopped short of vaginal intercourse. However, as certain evidence also points to the existence of a secret child borne of their relationship, it is likely that Elizabeth was not only sexually active, but a mother as well.
In Hampton Court Palace hangs a portrait of a lady with long auburn hair worn loose on her shoulders. She is dressed in Persian costume, with a tall hat, a gold scarf and a full gown embroidered with fruits, flowers and birds. She is pregnant. Around her neck is a fine chain, from which hangs a ring. She stands in front of a tree with one hand resting on the crowned head of a weeping stag. On the tree trunk are the words Iniusti justa querla (‘A just complaint to the unjust’) and Mea sic mihi (‘Mine thus to me’), and beside the head of the stag, Dolor est medicina ad(ju)tori (‘Grief is the medicine for help’). The artist was Marcus Gheeraerts, court painter to Elizabeth from 1568 to 1577, or possibly his successor and son who bore the same name. At the bottom is a painted panel with a verse:
The restless swallow fits my restless mind / In still reviving, still renewing wrongs;
Her just complaints of cruelly unkind / Are all the music that my life prolongs.
With pensive thoughts my weeping Stag I crown / Whose melancholy tears my cares express;
His tears in silence, and my sighs unknown / Are all the physic that my harms redress.
My only hope was in this goodly tree / Which I did plant in love, bring up in care:
But all in vain, for now too late I see / The shales [husks] be mine, the kernels others’ are.
My Music may be plaints, my physic tears / If this be all the fruit my love tree bears.
There have been attempts to identify the lady as Elizabeth I on the grounds that the picture has been in the royal collection since certainly the time of Charles I and, more importantly, that it may have originally been titled ‘Queen Elizabeth in Fancy Dress’. That the lady in the picture resembles some of the portraits of Elizabeth also seems to support this thesis. However, if that is the case, it seems to contradict Elizabeth’s normal behaviour in every way – to commission a portrait while pregnant is hardly the act of a lady, moreover a member of royalty, desiring to keep that pregnancy a secret.
The imagery of the painting is typical of the Tudor period, when various elements of the picture had symbolic importance: the chosen costume, plants, animals and colours all had significance. Here one of the main items of interest is the verse. The speaker is deeply disturbed by something that has gone wrong in their life; the silent tears of a crowned and weeping stag mirror their sighs. They have not been able to place ‘fruit’ in the family tree, and will continue to mourn that ‘… this be all the fruit my love tree bears’.
Yet the woman in the portrait does not look particularly sad – and she is clearly well advanced in pregnancy. Unless the sitter chose to have a portrait made showing her in the late stages of an imagined pregnancy or one of a number of pregnancies that ended in the death of the child, there has to be another explanation.
The imagery and verse could work together if the author of the poem was a man, one who had been married several times, but who has failed to have any children by his first wife or wives. The crowned stag represents his manhood, silently weeping despite his rank (symbolized by the crown), and lacking an heir. Still he rails against his unjust fate. In his grief, he marries again to the lady in the portrait – the ‘medicine’. In the tree, to the right of the woman’s face, at least two fruits hang. In this interpretation, the portrait is a celebration of the wife who was able to give her husband an heir after many years of childlessness.
The portrait, which is almost certainly not of Elizabeth, typifies much of the kind of ‘evidence’ put forward to support t
he idea that Elizabeth bore an illegitimate child. However, this type of evidence neglects to bear in mind that Elizabeth would have strove hard to keep such a child’s existence secret rather than draw attention to it.
In my opinion, the easiest to justify are the candidates for a child born in 1548 to Elizabeth and Thomas Seymour. The Bisham baby (or babies) died in infancy, while Hester Harington and Hugh Bethell lived and died away from the glaring public eye of the Court. If one of them really was Elizabeth’s child, then they went to the grave with that secret.
The more usually touted candidates for a secret child, fathered by Robert Dudley, are far less ‘secret’. These individuals lived more in the limelight: Francis Bacon and Robert Devereux were major figures in Elizabethan politics, and very much part of the comings and goings of the Court. Arthur Dudley was placed humbly, but was later brought to Court and then ‘told’ of his origins, which in itself is difficult to believe. Of all the four men discussed in the last section of this book, John Harington is the most likely to be the son of Robert and Elizabeth, raised, as he was, far from Court until his own ebullient charm and talent pushed him onto the royal stage.
But if there was an illegitimate child, would it be possible to recognize him or her from his or her resemblance to Elizabeth or the presumed father? Finding definite proof of a family resemblance in a portrait is extremely difficult. It is often impossible to determine how true a portrait may be to the person it represents. However, one portrait of Sir John Harington languished for some time mistitled as ‘Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester’. If only the lost portrait of Hester Harington could be found, perhaps it could be determined if they look like brother and sister, or even if their resemblance was based on Tudor or Harington blood.
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