There is unlikely to have been any truth in the rumour, but that did not matter. The fact that it was circulating is evidence enough of the malice that Elizabeth still bore Lettice. It is unclear where it originated, but the Queen’s hatred of Leicester’s wife was well known, and it did not take much for those at court to stir the situation up once more. In all probability it was a story that had been invented both to discredit Leicester and to continue the Queen’s animosity towards Lettice. Whether true or not, the Queen made it clear that she expressly forbade Lettice to leave England, but rumours continued to circulate. Even those close to Leicester believed that there was some truth in it, and in the Netherlands Sir Philip Sidney expressed the hope that ‘some way might be taken to stay my lady there’.51
LEICESTER FELT THOROUGHLY disheartened by his loss of royal favour, and he was not alone. William Davison, who had returned to England on his orders, had also been sent to visit Lettice. Presumably he conveyed letters to her from her husband, but though he had not seen her ‘these ten or twelve days’, when he visited her at the end of February he reported that ‘I found her greatly troubled with the tempestuous news she received from court.’52 Fortunately, she was in better spirits ‘when she understood how I have proceeded with her Majesty’.53 Lettice’s anxiety was understandable, but Davison had evidently managed to soothe the Queen’s fears and reassure them both. In addition, he told Leicester that he had got to the bottom of the matter:
It hath been assured unto me by some great ones, that it was put into her Majesty’s head that your lordship had sent for her, and that she made her preparation for the journey, which added to a number of other things, cast in by such as affect neither your lordship nor the cause, did not a little increase the heat of her Majesty’s offence against you.54
At least the couple had friends at court, who they were able to trust to work in their best interests.
The Queen had been assured that the gossip concerning Lettice was nothing but a baseless rumour, but by March her temper had still not cooled. She remained furious with Leicester for accepting the position of governor, and his brother Ambrose wrote to warn him. ‘Our mistress’s extreme rage doth increase rather than any way diminish and [she] giveth out great, threatening words against you,’ he wrote.55 In sentiments that doubtless reflected Lettice’s own feelings, Ambrose continued to reassure him that among all of his friends, ‘you were never so honoured and loved in your life amongst all good people as you are at this day, only for dealing so nobly and wisely in this action as you have done, so that whatsoever cometh of it, you have done your part’.56
By the end of March, much to Leicester’s relief the storm had largely passed and the Queen’s temper had subsided. She wrote to him with warmth once more, albeit formally. Nevertheless, she could not resist the opportunity of having a dig at Lettice: ‘We think meet to forbear to dwell upon a matter wherein we ourselves do find so little comfort, assuring you that whosoever professeth to love you best taketh not more comfort of your well doing, or discomfort of your evil doing, than ourself.’57 Lettice might be his wife, but the Queen wanted Leicester to be left in no doubt that it was she who loved him best, and had the greatest concern for his welfare.
WITH LEICESTER RESTORED to the Queen’s favour, he was able to breathe a sigh of relief as he continued with his mission. In July, the Queen wrote to him in her usual warm tone. Addressing him informally as ‘Rob’, she prayed that ‘God bless you from all harm and save you from all foes, with my million and legion of thanks for your pains and cares.’58 Harmony might have been restored between Queen and favourite, but elsewhere trouble was brewing. The English were hopeful of capturing Zutphen, an important town in Gelderland that had been commandeered by Spanish troops. On 13 September, Leicester’s forces began to lay siege to the town, but nine days later disaster struck. Sir Philip Sidney, ‘a most valiant and towardly gentleman’, had his horse shot from under him.59 As he was mounting a fresh one, he was ‘shot into the thigh’ by a musket ball.60 Initially, it seemed as though he would recover, and Leicester wrote confidently to Walsingham, Sidney’s father-in-law, that he was ‘well amending as ever any man hath done for so short time’.61 Aside from the injuries his nephew had sustained, Leicester would claim that at Zutphen ‘we had had a most famous day’, thanks to the defeat of the Spanish cavalry by the Earl of Essex’s force.62 His optimism for Sidney’s recovery, however, was misplaced. It was not long before gangrene set in, and on 17 October he died at the age of thirty-one, leaving his uncle devastated. Leicester expressed his sorrow to Walsingham, lamenting that ‘the grief I have taken for the loss of my dear son and yours would not suffer me to write sooner of those ill news unto you’.63 He continued to bemoan that ‘For mine own part, I have lost, beside the comfort of my life, a most principal stay and help in my service here.’64 Though Zutphen had come at a great personal cost to Leicester, his stepson Essex had excelled. He had thrown himself into the fight with bravery, and as a result was commended by his stepfather. When Lettice heard of how her son had distinguished himself, her already great motherly pride swelled. It was bolstered by the news that it would not be long before she was reunited with both her son and her husband.
During her husband’s absence Lettice had had plenty of things with which to occupy her mind. She remained close to both of her daughters, especially Penelope. By now she was also a grandmother, for despite the unhappiness of her marriage Penelope and Lord Rich had managed to produce children. The first of these was a daughter, named Lettice in honour of her grandmother, and born either in late 1582 or early 1583. Lettice was especially proud of her grandchildren, and as they grew would show as much interest in them as she had done with her own children. Additionally, Lettice seems to have spent some time with her sister Katherine, to whom she was close. Katherine’s first husband had died in 1580, and she was now married to Philip Boteler, by whom she had four sons. Katherine also had her daughter, Lettice, from her first marriage, and her aunt was particularly fond of her niece.
IN ENGLAND POLITICAL matters had taken a dramatic turn. The Babington Plot, which aimed to assassinate the Queen and replace her with Mary, Queen of Scots, had been uncovered, and it would have dire consequences for Mary. Hatched by a group of Catholic noblemen headed by Anthony Babington, the plot had Mary’s full knowledge and approval.65 Though the fallen queen was imprisoned at Chartley, the plotters had found a way to communicate with her by means of hiding letters in a beer barrel.66 Unbeknown to them, however, Walsingham, who was employed as the Queen’s spymaster, knew exactly what was going on. In August 1586, the conspirators were arrested, and the following month they were ‘hanged, bowelled, and quartered’ for their treason.67 Walsingham also had vital written evidence that Mary had approved of the plot, and it was this that led to her arrest and removal from Chartley. She was taken to the former royal stronghold of Fotheringhay Castle in Northamptonshire – birthplace of Richard III – and it was here that she stood trial in October.68 When word of the Babington Plot reached Leicester, his instinct was to punish Mary in the harshest possible terms, and he wrote to Walsingham, urging ‘the furtherance of justice on the queen of Scots’.69 Elizabeth herself had written to Mary, stating, ‘You have in various ways and manners attempted to take my life and to bring my kingdom to destruction by bloodshed. I have never proceeded so harshly against you, but have, on the contrary, protected and maintained you like myself.’70
On 25 October, Mary was found guilty of treason and sentenced to death. Yet the Queen hesitated when it came to implementing the sentence against her royal cousin, and her reaction was understandable: there was no precedent for the execution of an anointed monarch, and Elizabeth did not want to be the one to set it. After all, if killing Mary was legal, why should she herself not also become a target? What she needed was some persuasion, and who better than her favourite, the Earl of Leicester? It was with this in mind that, bringing the body of his dead nephew with him, Leicester began the journey home to England and
Lettice.
CHAPTER 16
A Continual Fever
LETTICE WAS DELIGHTED at being reunited with her husband, who was home in time to celebrate Christmas. There were, though, many political matters that occupied Leicester’s mind, and there was little of the merriment that the couple had enjoyed on previous occasions. Adding further tragedy to her life, Sir Philip Sidney’s widow had given birth to a dead child, and the Queen was in a quandary over the fate of Mary, Queen of Scots. Her councillors were eager to force her into a decision, and in the minds of most there was only one option. According to Elizabeth, matters were later taken out of her hands.
A death warrant for the Queen of Scots had been prepared, but at court the atmosphere was unbearable, as Elizabeth refused to sign it. As the New Year of 1587 began, the Queen was still no closer to making a decision, and tension continued to mount. Finally, on 1 February, Elizabeth summoned William Davison – the same man who had tried to defuse the situation between the Queen and Lettice while Leicester was in the Netherlands, and into whose hands the death warrant had been given for safe-keeping. According to Davison, the Queen had finally made the momentous decision to sign the death warrant of her fellow queen. He claimed that Elizabeth signed the warrant, ordering him to send word to Fotheringhay immediately that the sentence was to be carried out. Her councillors were relieved, and eager for Mary to be executed as quickly as possible in order to prevent Elizabeth from changing her mind. But there was no time for that. Lettice and Leicester were at Wanstead when, on 8 February, Mary, Queen of Scots, was executed in a shocking scene at Fotheringhay. It was a brutal death, and it took three strokes of the dull axe to sever the Queen’s head from her body.1 Her death caused shockwaves throughout Europe, and Queen Elizabeth immediately relinquished all responsibility for the demise of her cousin. Though she had signed Mary’s death warrant, her version of events unsurprisingly differed from that of William Davison. Davison, she claimed, had despatched it without her consent. Immediately, she sent Lettice’s cousin Robert Carey ‘to the King of Scots, to make known her innocence of her sister’s death, with letters of credence from herself to assure all that I should affirm’.2 The unfortunate Davison, meanwhile, was sent to the Tower, and only escaped with his life thanks to the intervention of Burghley.
For Leicester there were other matters to consider, chiefly the funeral of his nephew. On 16 February, he and his brother joined the funeral procession of Sir Philip Sidney, whose body had been returned to England for burial. It was a huge state funeral that was staged at St Paul’s Cathedral, where the young poet was later ‘honourably buried’.3 Sadly, his grave and monument were later lost when the Great Fire of London destroyed Old St Paul’s in 1666.4 Prominent among the procession was Lettice’s son, the Earl of Essex. The two young men had become great friends, and in his will Sidney had left Essex ‘my best sword’. It is likely that Lettice also mourned the passing of this bright young star, particularly given the hopes that her first husband had had of a marriage between Sidney and Penelope. It would not be long, though, before Sidney’s widow, Frances Walsingham, would become closely linked with Lettice’s family.
LETTICE MAY HAVE hoped that the return of her husband was permanent, but if this was the case then she was to be sadly mistaken. Although Leicester was in no rush to return to the Netherlands, matters there were far from resolved. Under orders from King Philip, Parma had intensified his efforts to bring the Netherlands to heel, in order to use it as a platform from which to invade England. Philip’s rage had swelled when, in April, Sir Francis Drake had burned thirty-seven Spanish ships in the harbour of Cadiz, and had plundered and acquired a whole host of Spanish treasure from ships in the Azores. That Drake dared to do so in Philip’s own realm incensed the Spanish King, who was determined to have his revenge. Thus, Leicester would need to return to the Netherlands, in order to resist Parma’s attack. By now his health was greatly troubling him, and in April he travelled to Bath in order to take the waters. Though he acknowledged to Burghley that his brother had received some benefit from doing so, he himself had failed to notice any improvement.5 It is unclear whether Lettice travelled with him, but it is certainly possible that she did. She knew that he would soon be leaving, and was eager to spend time with him before he did so. He was busying levying more men for his campaign when, in early June, news had reached him that his Master of Horse, Sir Christopher Blount, had been wounded in the hand. Blount had accompanied him on his initial trip to the Netherlands, and had remained there following his departure. Blount’s injuries were not serious, but a concerned Leicester wrote to him that he was sorry ‘for your hurt’, reassuring him that his own return to the Low Countries would be imminent. Given his place in Leicester’s household, Blount was a man who was well known to Lettice, and whom she would, in the future, become better acquainted.
Shortly afterwards, Lettice bade farewell to her husband once more. She was relieved to find that her son was not to accompany him on this occasion, for he was needed elsewhere. When Essex returned home from the Netherlands in triumph following his bravery at Zutphen, Leicester had done his best to push his stepson to the forefront at court in order to catch the Queen’s eye. By May, Lettice and Leicester were gratified to see that Essex had firmly established himself as the Queen’s new favourite. His rise put Sir Walter Ralegh’s nose firmly out of joint, as was Leicester’s intention. Essex was utterly devoted and wholeheartedly loyal to his stepfather, referring to himself as ‘your son’ in his letters, and Leicester could therefore be confident that while he was away, Essex would do all that he could to safeguard his and his family’s interests. He could not have chosen better. Essex and the Queen began to spend an increasing amount of time with one another; they danced, hunted, and the Queen whispered intimately to her favourite. With his charm and good looks, he made her feel youthful, and he in turn grew in confidence. A contemporary observed that the Queen was constantly in Essex’s company, for ‘at night my Lord is at cards, or one game or another with her, that he cometh not to his own lodging till birds sing in the morning’.6
The Queen seemed to be oblivious to the fact that Essex was the son of her rival, and this did not prevent her from heaping favours upon him. With the intervention of his stepfather, on 18 June Essex succeeded him as the Queen’s Master of Horse. This position brought with it a healthy income to help boost the young Earl’s dwindling finances, and was a remarkable sign of favour. But just weeks later, his whole position would be in jeopardy.
While Leicester returned to the Netherlands and Lettice remained at home, throughout the summer Essex remained by the Queen’s side, loyally doing all that he could in order to boost the superiority of his own faction and family. However, it was not long before it became clear that he had inherited many of his parents’ traits; unlike his mother, there was only so much of the Queen’s attitude and tantrums that he would tolerate.
IN JULY, ESSEX joined the Queen and court when they visited Northaw, the Hertfordshire home of Leicester’s brother Ambrose. Ambrose and his third wife, Anne Russell, had always been in great favour with the Queen – according to the diarist Lady Anne Clifford, the Countess was ‘more beloved and in greater favour with the said Queen than any other lady or woman in the kingdom’.7 She and her husband must, therefore, have been disappointed when their home became the scene of an eruption between Essex and their royal visitor.
Lettice’s younger daughter, Dorothy, had been married to Sir Thomas Perrot for several years. Like her mother before her, the Queen’s attitude towards Dorothy had not warmed, and she was still furious about her marriage. Essex admitted that initially he ‘knew not at first’ that his sister was the Earl and Countess of Warwick’s guest at Northaw, ‘yet to prevent the worst, I made my Aunt Leighton [Elizabeth Knollys] signify so much unto the Queen’ when she planned to visit the house from Theobalds.8 He did so in order that ‘this matter might not seem strange unto her. She seemed to be well pleased and well contented, and promised to use her we
ll.’9 The Queen’s promises, though, were quickly forgotten. When she arrived at Northaw, although she ‘knew my sister was in the house, she commanded my Lady of Warwick that my sister should keep her chamber’.10 Essex was greatly troubled by this, and after supper he confronted the Queen. ‘Her excuse was, first, she knew not of my sister’s coming’, but Essex was not satisfied.11 Perceiving the Queen’s refusal to meet with his sister as a great insult that had been encouraged by his rival, Sir Walter Ralegh, Essex was incensed. He berated the Queen, demanding to know ‘why she would offer this disgrace both to me and to my sister, which was only to please that knave Ralegh’.12 Knowing of the Queen’s anger at Dorothy’s marriage, Ralegh had indeed encouraged her to believe that Dorothy’s presence at Northaw was a deliberate slight from Essex. Family honour was integral, and the petulant Essex was not prepared to let the Queen’s slight pass. Like his father, he was hot-headed, and like his mother, he had spirit. And as such, he always found it difficult to curb his temper.
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