38
Especial Favour
During 1584–85, a German noble named Lupold von Wedel journeyed through England and Scotland, observing the countries, its people and visiting a number of royal palaces. On 27 December 1584 he travelled down the Thames to Greenwich where the court was assembled for Christmas and New Year.1 Elizabeth was still formally in mourning for the deaths of her last suitor, the Catholic Duke of Anjou, and for her leading Protestant ally in Europe, the Prince of Orange, and was dressed in black velvet with silver and pearls. Over the top of her gown was draped a piece of diaphanous silver lace. In private her clothing was said to be simple, almost austere, but her public self was always scrupulously luxuriant.
While Elizabeth attended chapel, von Wedel watched as preparations were made for the Queen to dine. A long table was set in the Presence Chamber beneath her canopy of state. Normally, he noted, the Queen ate in private, in her Privy Chamber, and it was only on festival days when she might eat so ‘strangers may see her dine’. After Elizabeth emerged from the chapel with her ladies, forty silver gilt dishes, some large and some small, were placed on the table as she sat down ‘quite alone by herself’. As the musicians played, she was served by a young gentleman in black who carved her meat, whilst another young man dressed in green, handed her a cup and knelt while she drank watered-down wine. To the right of her table stood a small number of her senior courtiers, including the Earl of Hertford, who, von Wedel wrote, had recovered his favour having ‘deflowered one of the Queen’s ladies’ (a reference to his marriage with Katherine Grey); the Lord Treasurer William Cecil; the Master of the Queen’s Horse Robert Dudley; and Sir Christopher Hatton. Each of the men carried white wands which marked them out as officers of state. Having been in England for some months, von Wedel had heard the gossip about Elizabeth’s relationship with her favourites, and in his subsequent account wrote that ‘the Queen for a long time had illicit intercourse’ with Leicester, and Hatton whom ‘the Queen is said to have loved after Le[ice]ster’.
As Elizabeth dined she would call individual gentlemen to her, who would kneel before her until she ordered them to rise. Von Wedel was evidently struck by the ceremonious reverence of it all and described how when the gentlemen left the Queen, each would ‘have to bow down deeply, and when they have reached the middle of the room they must bow down a second time’. When the food was brought in, the officers of state marched before the gentlemen who bore the dishes. Finally, once all the dishes had been presented, and the Queen had picked at what was before her, she rose from the table and a large silver gilt basin was brought to her in which she washed her hands.
After dinner Elizabeth took a cushion and sat on the floor as the dancing began. First only the senior courtiers danced but then ‘the young people took off their swords and mantles, and in hoses and jackets invited the ladies to the galliard with them’. As Elizabeth sat watching, she summoned whom she pleased among the courtiers to talk with her and joked and laughed with them. Von Wedel noted that with one of them, whom he identified as ‘Ral’, the familiarity extended to particular tenderness and intimacy. When Elizabeth pointed to a spot of dirt on his face and moved to wipe it away with her handkerchief, he shrugged it off, rebuffed the Queen’s hand, and removed the mark himself.2
‘Ral’ was Walter Ralegh, then around thirty years of age, the son of a Devon gentleman and a nephew of Elizabeth’s favoured intimate, the late Kat Ashley. It was likely that Kat secured his position at court and therefore Elizabeth directly connected him with her affection for Kat Ashley, ‘for the especial care that we have to do him good, in respect of his kindred that have served us, some of them (as you know) near about our person’.3 Ralegh was strikingly attractive, six foot tall with a trimmed beard and piercing blue eyes and a love of extravagant clothes, jewels and pearls. His boldness, blatant ambition, vanity, and self-confidence all greatly appealed to the Queen. He had first come to court in 1581 and thereafter experienced a rapid rise in his wealth and status as a result of the Queens’ favour.
In 1583, Elizabeth granted him one of her favourite palaces, the handsome London dwelling Durham Place on the Strand. Elizabeth’s pet name for Ralegh was ‘Water’, given his ties to the sea and his West Country pronunciation of his name. Ralegh wooed her with poetry and after the departure of Anjou, Elizabeth and Ralegh spent increasing amounts of time together, talking, playing cards and riding out. He was frequently in the Privy Chamber by day and night, and would often be at the door of the bedchamber, waiting for Elizabeth to emerge in the morning. A letter from the courtier Maurice Brown reported, ‘Mr Water Rawley is in very high favour with her Majesty, neither my Lord of Leicester nor Mr Vice-Chamberlain [Hatton] in so short time ever was in the like, which especial favour hath been but this half-year. But the greatest of all hath been within this two months.’4
Having observed Elizabeth and Ralegh together, von Wedel concluded ‘that she loved this gentleman now in preference to all others; and that may be well believed, for two years ago he was scarcely able to keep a single servant, and now she has bestowed so much upon him that he is able to keep five hundred servants’.5 Ralegh was knighted on 6 January 1585. In May, one of Mendoza’s spies reported that Ralegh and Dudley were, unsurprisingly, on bad terms, as they both vied to dominate the Queen’s affections.
* * *
Following William of Orange’s assassination and the Duke of Parma’s military advance, a Spanish victory in the Low Countries looked a near certainty. Now, with the Catholic League in France allied to Philip II, Elizabeth faced the possibility of Spanish domination of both France and the Low Countries, leaving England dangerously exposed to invasion. A Catholic enterprise against England seemed imminent. In the Treaty of Nonsuch in August 1585, Elizabeth agreed to send money and troops to support the Protestant rebels in the Netherlands and resolved to appoint Dudley Captain-General to lead the expeditionary force. But as the date of his departure loomed nearer Elizabeth began to have doubts about letting him ago. After spending the night of 27 September with the Queen, Dudley sent Walsingham what is perhaps his most revealing description of their relationship:
Mr Secretary, I find her Majesty very desirous to stay me, she makes the cause only the doubtfulness of her own self, by reason of her oft disease taking her of late & this last night worst of all. She used very pitiful words to me of her fear she shall not live & would not have me from her. You can consider what manner of persuasion this must be to me from her.6
But by the end of the year, Dudley had entered the Netherlands as head of the English army. He was hailed as the Prince of Orange’s successor and shortly afterwards took the fateful decision to accept an appointment as Governor-General of the Netherlands without consulting Elizabeth. In her letter to him she did little to disguise her fury:
How contemptuously we conceive ourselves to be used by you … We could never have imagined (had we not seen it fall out in experience) that a man raised up by ourselves and extraordinarily favoured by us, above any other subject of this land, would have in so contemptible a sort broken our commandment in a cause that so greatly toucheth us in honour … And therefore our express pleasure and commandment is that, all delays and excuses laid apart, you do presently of your allegiance obey and fulfil whatever the bearer hereof shall direct you to do in our name. Whereof fail you not, as you will answer the contrary to your utmost peril.
Whilst many of the Queen’s councillors supported Dudley’s position, believing that a show of strength in the Low Countries was necessary, Elizabeth ‘would not endure to hear speech in defence’ of him. Cecil thought her attitude, as he said on several occasions, to be ‘both perilous and absurd’.7
Thomas Heneage, once Dudley’s rival for the Queen’s affection, was now sent as Elizabeth’s emissary to tell the earl that he must, at once, relinquish his office. When Heneage at first objected to the task, Elizabeth upbraided him, ‘Jesu! What availeth wit when it fails the owner at greatest need? Do that you are bidden and leave
your considerations to your own affairs … I am assured of your dutiful thought but I am utterly at squares with this childish dealing.’ Heneage was dispatched with the order for Dudley to resign. But when the States-General protested, Elizabeth was persuaded to allow the earl to keep his title and, in time, grudgingly accepted that he ‘had no other meaning and intent then to advance our service [and] to think of some way how the point concerning the absolute title may be qualified, in such sort as the authority may, notwithstanding, remain’. 8
Elizabeth’s initial rage at Dudley’s actions was doubtless also provoked by gossip that Lettice was planning to join her husband, ‘with such a train of ladies and gentlewomen, and such rich coaches, litters and side saddles as her Majesty had none such, and that there should be a court of ladies as should far pass her Majesty’s court here’. Elizabeth was furious: she ‘would have no more courts under her obeisance than her own’.9 In fact, Lettice was most likely innocent of this ambition and was ‘greatly troubled with the tempestuous news she received from the court’.10
39
The Deed Shall Be Done
In the summer of 1585, an English Catholic exile and mercenary soldier in Rheims named John Savage plotted to assassinate Elizabeth. The conspiracy’s architect was once again Thomas Morgan, Mary Queen of Scot’s chief agent in Paris. In England, Savage had met up with Gilbert Gifford, a young man from a family of Staffordshire Catholics who had been working as a courier carrying letters between Mary and Guillaume de l’Aubépine, Baron de Châteauneuf, the new French ambassador in London. Unbeknown to Morgan, Mary and the other Catholics, Gifford was a double agent working for Walsingham. He had defected from Catholicism and having become known and trusted among Catholic exiles, was drawn close in to the conspiracy.
In August 1585, Savage travelled to England to murder the Queen as planned, but apparently lost his nerve and made no attempt to do so. The following year he was introduced by John Ballard, an exiled Catholic priest, to a number of other disaffected young Catholics. The group included Anthony Babington, a twenty-five-year-old nobleman from Derbyshire who was developing another conspiracy to free Mary Queen of Scots and assassinate ‘the usurper’ Elizabeth, in advance of what they hoped would be a Catholic invasion sponsored by France and Spain.1
On 11 August, Mendoza, at the Spanish embassy in Paris, reported to Philip that he had been ‘advised from England by four persons of account, who have entry to the Queen’s court, that they have plotted her assassination for more than three months’. Mendoza’s dispatch continued:
at last they have all four unanimously agreed and sworn to do it. [They] also [say] that they will inform me as soon as possible, whether it is to be done with poison or the sword, and at what time, in order that I may write to his Majesty about it, and beg him to succour them, when the deed shall be done. They will not tell any other person but myself, to whom they are much obliged, and in whose secrecy they confide.2
Such was Babington’s confidence in their plan and his vainglorious vanity, that he had the conspirators’ portraits painted as a group to celebrate their forthcoming mission.
Babington and his accomplices had no idea that Walsingham had infiltrated the plot and had successfully planted two of his agents at the very heart of the conspiracy. Meanwhile his network intercepted Mary Queen of Scots’s secret correspondence, which was smuggled in ale barrels and sealed in a leather pouch. Each of the letters was opened, decyphered and then resealed. Elizabeth was kept closely briefed about the plot as it unravelled and was shown the conspirators’ portraits. In Richmond Park one day she spotted one of the men, an Irishman called Robert Barnwell, watching her. Elizabeth asked her Captain of the Guard, Hatton, ‘Am I not fairly guarded, that have not a man in my company with a sword about him?’ But she said nothing to suggest she had recognised Barnwell, choosing to bide her time and let the conspiracy run its course.3 There seemed to be threat and danger everywhere, even within Elizabeth’s own lodgings. At the end of June, the Spanish ambassador described how, ‘when the Queen was going to chapel the other day, as usual in full magnificence, she was suddenly overcome with a shock of fear, which affected her to such an extent that she at once returned to her apartment, greatly to the wonder of those present’.4
In early July, Babington wrote to Mary to fully apprise her of the plotters’ plans. He had been approached by John Ballard, who had informed him of the great preparations by the Catholic princes of Europe ‘for the deliverance of our country from the extreme and miserable state wherein it hath too long remained’. England would be invaded, Mary freed and Queen Elizabeth, the ‘usurping competitor’, would be killed. Babington proceeded to explain how Elizabeth would be murdered by his men: for ‘the dispatch of the usurper, from the obedience of whom we are by excommunication of her made free, there will be six noble gentlemen, all my private friends, who for the zeal they bear to the Catholic cause and your Majesty’s service will undertake that tragical execution.’5
Ten days later, Mary responded. She took care to ensure that no evidence was left in her own handwriting and so dictated the letter to one of her secretaries who wrote it in cypher. She acknowledged Babington’s ‘zeal and affection’ to Catholicism and to her cause, and commended his efforts to prevent the ‘designments of our enemies for the extirpation of our religion out of this realm with ruin of us all’. She urged him to consider carefully what he had proposed and to confer with Mendoza, Philip’s ambassador in Paris. Only once in the letter did she directly refer to the conspiracy: ‘By what means do the six gentlemen deliberate to proceed?’ She instructed Babington ‘fail not to burn this present quickly’ once he had read it.6
The letter was quickly intercepted and within twenty-four hours, Thomas Phelippes, Walsingham’s agent, had decyphered it and notified his master: ‘It may please your honour. You have now this queen’s answer to Babington which I received yesterday.’ He was confident that this would now be enough to condemn Mary and he hoped that God would inspire Elizabeth, ‘with that heroic courage that were meet for avenge of God’s cause and the security of her self and this state’.7
On Thursday 28 July, Phelippes met with Walsingham in person at Greenwich to show him the original letter. They discussed whether it was sufficient proof against Mary and decided that in order to provide definitive evidence against her they would doctor the letter. Mary’s letter was carefully reopened and a postscript added in the same cypher that she had used, asking for the names of the accomplices:
I w[ould] be glad to know the names and qualities of the six gentlemen which are to accomplish the designment, for that it may be I shall be able, upon knowledge of the parties, to give you further advice necessary to be followed therein; and as also from time to time particularly how you proceed, and as soon as you may for the same purpose who be, already, and how far every one privy hereunto.8
The faked postscript was intended to prove beyond doubt Mary’s connection with Babington’s treasonous conspiracy. It was a risky business; if the fabrication was discovered the whole plot to ensnare Mary would fail. In the event, on receipt of the doctored letter, Babington grew suspicious and promptly burned it.
Meanwhile, Walsingham watched and waited. John Scudamore, the stepson of the Queen’s bedfellow Mary Scudamore, was employed as a confidential secretary to Walsingham, and was sent to watch Babington. Believing Scudamore was sympathetic to the plot, Babington invited him to dinner at a local tavern. As they ate, a note arrived for Scudamore. Babington managed to get a surreptitious look at it and saw enough to see that it was an order for Scudamore to arrest him. He stood up, walked to the counter as if to ‘pay the reckoning’ and then, once out of John Scudamore’s sight, he fled, leaving his cape and sword on the back of the chair. 9
Walsingham now swung into action. A proclamation was issued on 2 August ordering the arrest of the Babington conspirators, including Chidiock Tichborne, John Ballard and Babington himself, whose pictures were to be displayed around London and other parts of
the realm. No one was allowed to leave the country until they were captured:
whereas certain persons, natural born subjects of their realm, whereof A.B [Anthony Babington]., C.T. [Chidiock Tichborne] etc. are principal parties, finding their consciences charged with guilt of matter by them practiced tending both to the peril of her Majesty’s person and to the disturbing of and altering of the present quiet state of this realm by way of force and arms, have lately withdrawn themselves from their ordinary houses and lodging, and by removing from place to place keep themselves hidden and remain lurking in corners, sometimes within the city and suburbs of the sane and sometimes in other places not far distant from the city, as of late hath been discovered …10
The conspirators’ families and servants were interrogated, watchmen patrolled the villages and towns near London and houses throughout the city were searched.
John Savage, priest and conspirator, was arrested on Thursday 4 August; Babington and his accomplices remained free. Savage was brought before Walsingham and Sir Christopher Hatton to be interrogated.11 It was reported that Savage had confessed ‘that the Queen of Scots was made acquainted with the designs as well of invasion as attempt against her Majesty’s person by the letters of Babington and that there came an answer from her touching her assent and advice but what it was the contents particularly knew he not’. He also admitted that ‘by means of Gilbert Gifford’ they had intelligence with the French ambassador.12
After ten days on the run, on 14 August, Babington and two other conspirators were arrested. They had been in hiding in St John’s Wood, to the north of London, having disguised themselves by cutting their hair and staining their complexions with green walnut shells. Across the city, bonfires were lit and bells rang out as Babington and the others were paraded through the streets and taken to the Tower for questioning.13 A most Joyful song made in the behalf of all her Majesty’s faithful and Loving subjects of the great joy which was made in London at the taking of the late traiterous conspirators was published in 1586, illustrated with images of heads of the ‘traitorous conspirators’, and described the many thousands who ran to see the captured felons, crying after them, ‘there go ye traitors false of faith’ and ‘there go the enemies of England’.14 wrote to the Lord Mayor of London asking that her letter be read aloud at the Guildhall on 22 August. In it she informed her people that she did not so much rejoice at her escape from death, but at the happiness manifested by her subjects at the capture of the conspirators.15
The Queen's Bed: An Intimate History of Elizabeth's Court Page 27
