The first Elizabeth

by Erickson, Carolly, 1943-

  There was reason enough to be concerned, for it was not possible to seal the princess off entirely from the outside world, and no one who came and went from the gatehouse could be trusted absolutely. A former servant of Elizabeth's arrived with a gift of freshwater fish from a nearby estate. He came again, this time bringing pheasants. Both times he stayed so long talking with the other servants that Bedingfield sent for him and questioned him closely about his activities, telling him not to come again or to send any more presents, and sent him away.

  Another incident caused more concern. John Fortescue, son-in-law of Elizabeth's cofferer Thomas Parry and an Oxford scholar, sent the princess some books and letters, and Bedingfield, thoroughly distrustful (books and letters being ideal vehicles for ciphered messages), refused to let Elizabeth have them. Furthermore, Fortescue's letters used puzzling phrases "which seem to us to be ambiguous and to have some secret meaning in them," the keeper wrote to the councilors, and when the queen heard of this she sensed intrigue.

  Mary ordered Bedingfield to send to Oxford for Fortescue and to grill him about the precise meaning of those ambiguous words—and then to give him "a sharp check for his presumption." The keeper did as he was told, only to find that the impudent Oxford man talked rings around him, leaving him flatfooted and befuddled. Bedingfield did his best, but found "certain diffuse words uttered by the same Fortescue" to be "so much in the Latin phrase that they passed his Norfolk understanding." In the end he had to let the suspect go with a plain warning, and the meaning of the strange phrases remained hidden.

  That Fortescue was related to Parry made him automatically a doubtful character in Bedingfield's eyes, for the cofferer was making trouble of several kinds. He was not reimbursing Bedingfield for his expenses, he was keeping company with such disloyal men as Francis Verney, Elizabeth's former servant and a born conspirator, and he was conducting himself indecorously at the Sign of the Bull in Woodstock, the tavern where he was lodged. "By anything that I can learn," Bedingfield wrote judiciously, "I am not persuaded to have a good opinion of him." 14

  In all the skepticism and concern the books themselves were nearly-forgotten. Elizabeth languished with nothing to read, nothing to challenge her wits or improve her mind. She thrived on intellectual stimulation; more than just a taste, she had acquired a thirst for classical literature. Deprived of study she fretted, her hours as empty as they were long. Then Mary, who in her father's reign had made her own sorrow and bitter isolation more bearable by reading the classics late into the night, decided to extend the same privilege to Elizabeth. Books sent by outsiders were to be looked on with apprehension, but if Elizabeth herself asked Bedingfield "for the having of any book that is honest and sufferable to read or pass her time withal," she was to have it. Parry's books—a volume of the Psalms and other "hymns of the church" and Cicero's stoic reflections on duty, De Ojficiis —were left in limbo. 15

  The summer proved to be wet and miserable, "the greatest rain that came these two months in these parts." Torrents of rain made the orchards and gardens an unhealthy bog, and Elizabeth spent her entire day in the dark gatehouse, troubled now by a flareup of the chronic swelling of her face. Upsets in her household staff were vexing. Her gentleman usher Cornwallis developed an "unclean leg" and had to curtail his duties. Replacements were sought, but one after another they proved unsuitable; one was even more ill than Cornwallis, another was deaf (and enfeebled, Elizabeth confided to Bedingfield privately, "with a pitiful disease which I will not name"), a third was already in service to an important lady of the court. Diseased leg or no, Cornwallis had to be kept.

  Changes in the princess's serving women, though, were much harder to bear. Man had given orders that her sister be served at Woodstock "in such good and honorable sort as may be agreeable to our honor and her estate and degree." Finding one of the women, Elizabeth Sands, to be "a person of an evil opinion, and not fit to remain about our said sister's person," Man abruptly ordered her dismissed. No appeal was possible, and at two o'clock one afternoon the princess was forced to part from her favorite companion. They said their goodbyes, "not without great mourning both of my lady's grace and Sands," and the spirited young gentlewoman was delivered to Thomas Parry, who had promised to see to it that she was put into the custody of relatives.

  Bedingfield had disapproved of Elizabeth Sands, and even after she left he feared her. He wrote to the queen's council about her, calling her "a woman meet to be looked unto for her obstinate disposition." So mercurial and volatile a personality as Elizabeth Tudor's required placid, good-natured gentlewomen around her—or else those who shared the queen's sympathies intimately. The princess took the initiative in suggesting two

  women to replace the friend she had lost. Mary refused them. Then could she at least have one of them 7 Elizabeth asked. No, came the reply: she was to have Elizabeth Marbury, Mary's particular choice and one that was "clearly against her [Elizabeth's] desire." 16

  Frustrated and lonely, increasingly "vexed with the swelling in the face and other parts of her body," Elizabeth confronted Bedingfield with angry accusations.

  Responding to her summons, the keeper found her "in the most unpleasant sort that ever I saw her since her coming from the Tower."

  "I have at divers times spoken to you to write to my lords of the council" certain of my requests," she said sharply, "and you never make me answer to any of them. I think you make none of my lords privy to my suit, but only my lord chamberlain"—John Gage, whose forgetful ways she had learned to know in the Tower.

  Bedingfield asserted, as deferentially as he could, that he always wrote to the full council and not to any individuals privately, and reminded her that the councilors were at present preoccupied with the coming of Prince Philip and might have to be approached more than once before they gave a reply.

  "Well," she said, "I require you to do thus much for me, to write unto my said lords and to desire them on my behalf to be means unto the queen's majesty, to grant me leave to write unto her highness with mine own hand. And in this," she added peremptorily, "I pray you let me have answer as soon as you can."

  "I shall do for your grace that I am able to do," Bedingfield said gravely, "which is to write to my said lords, and then it must needs rest in their honorable considerations whether I shall have answer or none."

  So Bedingfield reported their conversation. Within a few days he received word that Mary would allow her sister to write to her, "according to her desire."

  At this juncture, Elizabeth's powers of charm and ingratiation failed her utterly. Instead of appealing to Man's charity, soothing her fears and disarming her with soft and subservient language, Elizabeth wrote a letter that was harshly argumentative, cerebral and legalistic. She tried again, as she had in the "tide letter" written on the day she was to be taken to the Tower, to refute all that the conspirators had confessed against her.

  But as she might have predicted, this approach brought the same reaction from Mary that the earlier letter had. Far from being persuaded by her sister's raw denials Mary felt offended and ill used. Elizabeth had not only insulted Mary's intelligence by her crude refutations, she had shown ingratitude for the "clemency and favor" Mary had so far shown her—

  clemency far greater, Mary claimed, than was customary under the circumstances. After all, Mary did not need "plain direct proof" to be convinced of her sister's guilt; she already had "probable conjectures and other suspicions and arguments" enough.

  Further letters from Elizabeth would be futile, Mary wrote to Beding-field, until she had squared her conscience with God and ceased to entrench herself further in defensive lies. "Wherefore our pleasure is not to be hereafter any more molested with such her [sic] disguised and colorable letters." 17

  The keeper's heart must have sunk as he read the queen's letter. He would have to deliver Mary's icy reply, and he could imagine Elizabeth's stormy reaction. To protect himself he copied out Mary's letter, word after difficult word, in his own crabbed handwritin
g, and when he went to read it to Elizabeth he took along his better educated servant Tomio, just as he had when he faced the supercilious Fortescue.

  Together they knelt before the princess, and Bedingfield read the letter in full.

  Elizabeth cried out in dismay, and asked him to read it again. Still on his knees, he did so.

  The final sentence stung. "I note especially," Elizabeth remarked ruefully, "to my great discomfort (which I shall nevertheless willingly obey) that the queen's majesty is not pleased that I should molest her highness with any more of my colorable letters, which, although they be termed colorable, yet, not offending the queen's majesty, I must say for myself, that it was the plain truth, even as I desire to be saved afore God almighty, and so let it pass."

  Having uttered this rather ragged counter-refutation, Elizabeth asked Bedingfield to take down in writing her verbal reply to the privy council, and when he begged to be excused, she exploded.

  Even the prisoners in the Tower were allowed to send word to the council, she insisted angrily, yet he had the audacity to refuse. They were at an impasse, and the keeper, having had enough of his unpleasant duties for one day, made an excuse and left.

  But Elizabeth would not leave him be. The next morning, even though the sky was heavy with rain clouds, she summoned him to escort her on her morning walk. She had a speech ready.

  "I remember yesterday you refused utterly to write on my behalf unto my lords of the council," she began, "and therefore if you continue in that mind still, I shall be in worse case than the worst prisoner in Newgate, for they be never gainsaid in the time of their imprisonment by one friend or other to have their cause opened and sued for." She went on, ticking off

  her points one by one as she made the rounds of the sodden garden with Bedingfield in tow. It was beginning to rain, yet she argued on, emphasizing that without the keeper's advocacy she would be bereft of help.

  "I must needs continue this life without all hope worldly, wholly resting to the truth of my cause, and that before God to be opened, arming myself against whatsoever shall happen, to remain the queen's true subject as I have done during my life."

  Both Elizabeth and the long-suffering Bedingfield were getting damp, and she seemed to be getting nowhere.

  "It waxeth wet," she said, impatiently and abruptly, "and therefore I will depart to my lodging again." Without making a reply, he escorted her back to the gatehouse. 18

  On through the summer Elizabeth went on wrestling stubbornly with her obstinate keeper and her mistrustful sister, refusing to resign herself to what was becoming a semi-permanent captivity. She was not accustomed to staying in one lodging for very long; normally the household moved on at intervals of a few weeks so that the palace or manor could be sweetened by a thorough airing and a fresh carpeting of rushes. By early fall the gatehouse must have reeked like a London street—only worse, for the house was shut as tightly as possible against the rain and the occupants had nowhere else to go. To Elizabeth, who hated stale air and bad odors, the stench was a cruel punishment. She redoubled her efforts to free herself.

  She persuaded Bedingfield to write on her behalf, in a more fervent, personal tone, beseeching the council "upon very pity, considering her long imprisonment and restraint of liberty," to either grant her a formal trial with specific charges or to allow her to see the queen. She arranged an impressive display of piety, calling Bedingfield into the chapel and swearing in his presence, before receiving the sacrament, that she had never taken part in any scheme dangerous to Mary's person. She had her chaplain Young declare to Bedingfield that her religious observances were Catholic in every respect, and her love for the mass beyond question.

  For a time, Elizabeth allowed herself to be—or to seem—optimistic. Bedingfield reported that she was "in quiet state," and that she told him she had hope that Mary's "clemency and mercy toward her" would soon bring a reprieve. But though the queen unbent slightly and allowed her sister to write to her, another source of irritation soon arose. Elizabeth's chaplain, Mary discovered, was repeating the litany in English instead of Latin; this unorthodox practice must stop. Still, in all, Mary did appear to be mellowing slightly, made more compassionate, it seemed, by her happiness as a new bride. She was "not unmindful" of Elizabeth's cause, Mary wrote, early in October. If Elizabeth's deeds bore out her words of fidelity

  and religious devotion, there would be a "further consideration" of her current plight.

  By this time, though, Mary's own deeds were belying her words. She had given orders that Woodstock be provisioned for the winter. She was looking after the fuel supply (wood in sufficient quantity to warm the servants and soldiers was simply not to be had in the immediate neighborhood of the palace, whatever the cost), and had agreed to undertake badly needed repairs to the gatehouse. Clearly she meant her sister to remain in this uncomfortable establishment for many months to come.

  The nights were now so long and cold that the soldiers could not stand watch as they had during the summer. Elizabeth and her servants shivered in their lodgings, even during the day, for the wind gusted through the tattered roof and broken windowpanes until "neither she nor any that attend upon her could abide for cold." At times, she confessed, her fingers were so chilled she could not seal a letter.

  The harsh weather did nothing to help her swollen face and limbs. The disease had become unusually troublesome during the summer, but Mary's physician Dr. Owen had recommended nothing more than a carefully restricted diet, summer being the wrong season for administering medicines. In October she had been bled from her arm and foot, but she continued to suffer. The longer she was exposed to the chill, the doctors said, the longer her "cold and waterish humors" might be expected to vex her.

  In November a cri de coeur from Woodstock arrived at Man's court. Bedingfield, who had long since begun to ask that he be relieved of his responsibilities, begged for aid. He had hardly left the palace for more than a few hours since his service began, and needed badly to get away. Besides, the job threatened to bankrupt him. The soldiers had not been paid for nearly three months, and the people of Woodstock who were quartering them, "being very poor persons," could not feed them on their own; Bedingfield had been paying the town victualers out of his own pocket, and had recently begun to borrow from a London moneylender. The weather was becoming worse and the entire establishment was a shambles. The thought of spending an entire winter there must have increased Beding-field's "care of mind and travail of body" tenfold.

  Elizabeth added her own message to the keeper's despairing letter. Could Mary not move her, she pleaded, to a palace nearer London, or to one of her own houses where she might be kept under guard? If not for her sake, then for the sake of "the poor men which are daily sore travailed with extreme long journeys this winter weather and days, in making the carriage

  of provisions to serve here." 19 One severe storm and there would be flooding so great no carts could come through at all.

  The need was urgent. What would happen if one day the provisions ceased? But Mary, miles away in the milder southeast, had even more pressing thoughts. After twenty years of apostasy, England was being reunited with the church of Rome. And after four months of blissful marriage, she herself was about to become a mother.

  ^^hen I was fair and young and favour graced me, Of many was I sought their mistress for to be, But I did scorn them all and answered them therefore, Go, go, go, seek some other where, Importune me no more.

  A

  11 was happy confusion at Hampton Court when Elizabeth arrived "very privately" at the end of April, 1555. The palace was filling with ladies and gentlewomen, summoned to be present at the queen's delivery, and each of them brought with her personal servants, maids, lapdogs, and trunks of voluminous finery. Above the hubbub of female voices came the urgent sounds of household servants carrying linens and candles and other necessities for the guests and for the royal nursery; the storehouses and attics of the palace had been ransacked to provide enough chests and tabl
es and candlesticks that were not "old and broken" to make the ladies comfortable.

  The queen's time was near. She had made her formal withdrawal from court weeks earlier, and had taken to her bed (with brief periods of exercise allowed each day) to rest and pray for a liveborn son. In the opinion of the midwives—whose opinion, suddenly, had become more precious than gold —the child would assuredly be born before the ninth of May.

  There was no question why Elizabeth had been brought to court. Her status as heir to the throne, her vulnerability as the object of rumors, plots and counterplots lent great consequence to her presence. Yet amid all the excitement surrounding the queen's impending delivery Elizabeth's arrival was unheralded, and with her tiny retinue of three or four women and the

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  same number of menservants she settled into her assigned apartments— which happened to be those of the duke of Alva, King Philip's mentor, then away in London—to await, with everyone else, the birth of the prince.

  She saw no one at all, not even the resident of the neighboring apartments, her cousin Reginald Pole. They had never met, Pole having been out of the country studying and then in exile since long before Elizabeth was born. Yet their lives were closely intertwined, for it was through Pole's opposition to Henry VIII's marriage to Anne Boleyn that the cardinal had lost his brothers, his aged mother, even his innocent young nephew to imprisonment or the executioner's axe. It was no wonder Pole avoided Elizabeth; she, on the other hand, may well have been curious to see the celebrated cousin whom Queen Mary counted on to bring the English back to the Roman faith. For he was very much a celebrity, whose melancholy features, tinged with beatific simplicity, were well known in humanist circles. He was also, so many said, a living saint, and had missed becoming pope by the narrowest of electoral margins.