The first Elizabeth

by Erickson, Carolly, 1943-

  Elizabeth queen! The thought was almost too bitter to be borne, yet Mary knew she had to endure it for a few weeks longer, until Philip left. Then she would see what could be done with her unworthy sister.

  At the end of August Mary and Philip rode together through the streets of the capital to Tower Wharf, where they would embark in the royal barge for the short ride downriver to Greenwich. The queen chose to be carried in an open litter, flanked by her husband on one side and by Cardinal Pole on the other, and at the sight of her the people surged forward in curiosity and amazement. Satisfied that it was indeed Mary, alive and in at least reasonable health, they applauded their sovereign and, for the moment, forgave her for thwarting their expectation of a prince.

  But when they heard that Elizabeth had been seen on the river, on her way to Greenwich in the shabby barge her sister had assigned her, with only a few attendants to pay honor to her rank, they were "much displeased." They blamed Mary, as they blamed her for the inhuman burnings, the stunted crops, even the chill summer weather. They knew that Mary had intended to deprive them of the sight of Elizabeth, their next queen, "which they greatly desired."

  Up, said this God with voice not strange, Elizabeth, thys realme nowe guyde! My wyll in thee doo not thou hyde, And vermine darke let not abyde

  In thys thy land! Straightway the people out dyd cry, Praysed be God and God save thee,

  Quene of England!

  T

  JLhe

  he public hunger for the sight of Elizabeth was fed some weeks later when Mary, lonely for Philip and finding Elizabeth's presence at court distasteful, allowed her to return to Hatfield.

  When the princess and her modest retinue passed through the capital they caused a commotion. "Great and small followed her through the city," wrote an eyewitness, "and greeted her with acclamations and such vehement manifestations of affection that she was fearful it would expose her to the jealousy of the court." The cheering and clapping and stomping could be heard some distance away, carried on the crisp autumn air; as she rode past, tall and regal on her prancing horse, recalling her father with her fine features and blond-red hair, Elizabeth called forth a deafening burst of acclaim.

  Much as she warmed to the Londoners' support, though, she knew she must try to check it for fear of her sister's resentment. Turning her horse she rode back through the ranks of her liveried attendants and fell into place behind some of her household officers, remaining there, "as if unwilling to attract public attention and applause," until the traveling party had passed through the city and started up the high road toward Hatfield.

  Once installed in the old manor house—which she had not seen for a year and a half—Elizabeth reassembled a staff of servants and officials,

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  choosing judiciously from among the eager candidates offering to serve her, always careful to avoid selecting anyone who might offend the queen. She had to disappoint many, yet she turned their disappointment to advantage by excusing herself on grounds of poverty. She simply could not afford to keep a large establishment, she explained; the ten thousand crowns her father had left her was too meager to permit an abundance of servants. In truth, of course, she did not dare to live ostentatiously, for the same reason that she had to dampen the cheering crowds that greeted her wherever she went. But by pleading poverty she won sympathy, and at the same time made Mary look mean for keeping the second person in the realm in such reduced circumstances. 1

  There was money enough, to be sure, to keep on the beloved servants of her childhood and youth, Blanche and Thomas Parry and Kat Ashley— whose husband John was away during Mary's reign, studying in Padua. And there were newer intimates: the embattled, intrigue-loving Piedmontese Castiglione, who taught her Italian, and the young mathematician and philosopher John Dee, only recently released from imprisonment and fearing for his life.

  Dee had had the misfortune to calculate the nativities of the queen and king and Princess Elizabeth; he was suspected of attempting to enchant the queen, just at the time when her fruitless pregnancy was reaching its nerve-racking climax. He was eventually released, but only after enduring the terrors of imprisonment. His fellow prisoner Barthlet Green, who shared his cell and wretched sleeping pallet, was burned at the stake. 2

  And there was Roger Ascham, who had returned to court to serve Mary and Philip as Latin secretary and to resume his tutelage of the adult Elizabeth.

  On his dismissal from the princess's household some years earlier he had traveled to Germany in an ambassadorial party, then returned to Cambridge—where he was miserable—and finally he had received his court appointment. With this had come financial solvency and the lease of a farm in Essex, and Ascham badly needed both, for he had just married a gentlewoman, Margaret Howe. His Protestantism was, surprisingly, no hindrance at Mary's court; she favored him in spite of it, and Cardinal Pole treated him "familiarly," their bond as humanists stronger than the doctrinal views that divided them. All in all he had never been happier; his life was complete. "I would not change it," he wrote a close friend, "so help me Christ, for any other way of life that could be offered me." 3

  And as before, a particular joy in Ascham's life was reading Greek with Elizabeth. They were working their way through Demosthenes' oration On the Crown. "She reads it first to me," Ascham wrote in a description of

  their hours together, "and at first sight understands everything, not only the peculiarity of the language and the meaning of the orator, but ... the decrees of the people, the customs and manners of the city, in a way to strike you with astonishment." 4

  Elizabeth's political insight was becoming keener year by year, sharpened by her experience living on the razor's edge of Marian politics. She had never been trained to govern, yet her reading of the classics taught her a good deal about the workings of ancient governments and societies, while her searching observation of her sister's rule and court was a sobering, practical lesson—albeit a negative one—in queenship.

  Mary, she noted, had begun her reign in a frenzy of conscientious labor, yet her efforts had been undermined by others' perceptions of her as womanly and therefore weak. She had underscored those perceptions by marrying, and by treating her husband with elaborate deference, almost abdicating her authority to him even while continuing to bear a heavy burden at her desk and at the council table. And she had been subjected to all the humiliations and privations of a royal wife—which had undermined not only her appearance of majesty but her sane temper and self-confidence as well.

  Ascham took full cognizance of the refinement of Elizabeth's political sophistication even as he praised her linguistic accomplishments and, inseparable from these, her oratorical skill. Years later she herself was to look back on these years and remark that by the time she reached her mid-twenties "she knew six languages better than her own." 5 She was, quite simply, a marvel. Responding both to her learning and to her commanding presence at about age twenty-two, a visiting scholar whom Ascham referred to merely as "Metellus" wrote that "it was more to him to have seen Elizabeth than to have seen England." 6

  At Hatfield, surrounded by her most trusted servants, Elizabeth might have been tempted to savor the illusion of freedom. But it was only an illusion; Mary's spies were everywhere. Guards and royal agents patrolled the roads and haunted the villages in the vicinity, keeping watch on everyone who came and went, and reporting all that they saw and heard to the queen. Elizabeth had not after all been freed, merely transferred to a larger prison, and her jailer, Mary, looked in more than once to check on her during the fall.

  Early in the new year 1556 the most widespread and potentially dangerous of the plots against the queen began to come to light, its central aim the forcible removal of Mary, with Elizabeth to take her place. As before, no matter how damning the circumstantial evidence the princess could not be directly implicated. Her rebellious supporters might cry defiantly that

  Elizabeth was "a liberal dame, and nothing so unthankful as her sister," and look to "th
eir neighbor of Hatfield" to restore their lands and show gratitude for their service. But no one produced treasonous letters she had written, or repeated messages in which she had betrayed her sister.

  The danger lay not so much in Elizabeth herself as in the escalating popular support she commanded. With Mary apparently barren, and presiding, in bitter cruelty, over a reign of fire her subjects were deserting her and looking eagerly toward Elizabeth's accession. Some thought Elizabeth now had the loyalty of a majority of Mary's subjects, and to judge from the breakneck pace of the couriers that passed between the English court and Brussels, where Philip and his father were, the crown was indeed in peril. 7

  Mary was convinced that her sister had to be sent out of the country, perhaps to Spain, where she would be betrothed, should Mary prove childless, to the boy Don Carlos, Philip's son by his first wife. In April the queen "earnestly canvassed" the matter in person, attempting to win the support of the council for her policy and sending off extraordinary messages to Brussels anxiously requesting Philip's permission to act. 8

  The greatest secrecy shrouded these plans, which gathered urgency as the stain of conspiracy spread closer and closer to the princess herself. By June dozens of traitors had been seized and imprisoned, many of them linked to the princess by bonds of service or by family ties. William Howard, lord admiral, Francis Verney, a servitor under suspicion since Elizabeth's Woodstock days, Castiglione, survivor of several prison stays, and, finally, Kat Ashley were all ordered to London in the queen's name.

  Mary's guardsmen came to Hatfield to arrest Kat, riding with grim expressions onto the grounds and demanding that Mistress Ashley surrender herself. Elizabeth, no doubt angry that her sanctuary had been violated yet fearful for her beloved governess, made no recorded protest. Yet Kat's guilt was of a sort to drag her mistress down with her. In a coffer at Elizabeth's London residence, Somerset House, Kat had assembled a library of scurrilous pamphlets and libels and other writings against the queen and Philip. For the royal agents to accuse Elizabeth herself of possessing, or at least reading, these treasonable works would have seemed the natural next step, and no one who was at Hatfield on the day Kat was taken into custody could avoid that troubling thought.

  The arrest caused "great general vexation," Michiel reported, but it was to be the last blow the queen directed against her sister in this round of their perpetual conflict.

  For Mary was slowly losing ground to the enmity and feigned fidelity that surrounded her. Wherever she looked she saw treachery. Many of the important men in the countryside—royal officials, gentry and prominent

  landholders—had supported the rebellion. Courtiers who had once defended Man and had sworn to die in her cause now turned against her, and even members of her council were known to have given tacit encouragement to the conspirators. There were assassins among her personal attendants; her chaplain, it was reported, had made an attempt on her life. 9 She avoided appearing in public, and those few who saw her were taken aback by how troubled she looked, and said privately that she had aged ten years.

  Her anger still smoldered, to be sure, especially against her sister, but here Philip stayed her hand. Man's bitter desire for revenge must not be allowed to jeopardize Philip's own suave cultivation of Man's heir, the next queen of England. For Man was barren, that was tacitly understood; Elizabeth would in time succeed her. It was only a question of when, and how. When Elizabeth began her reign, Philip would need her good will— and the good will of all those who would resent any harsh treatment of her now by the queen and her husband.

  So instead of being committed to strait imprisonment Elizabeth received a gracious message from the queen (shaped, we may presume, by Philip . "consoling and comforting" her on the shock of having her servants arrested and offering, as a palliative to her dejection, a ring worth four hundred ducats. 10

  As the most oblique of rebukes Elizabeth's household was reorganized, with new servants assigned who were unshakably loyal to Man. Yet lest Elizabeth take this amiss she was assured that, "provided she continue to live becomingly," she would retain Man's "good will and disposition." Of course, she would have to accept a new governess, a "widow gentlewoman" whom Man trusted completely, and, as guardian of her wayward establishment, the "rich and grave" Sir Thomas Pope. The princess agreed though Pope himself, like Bedingfield before him, "did his utmost to decline." 'Pope's guardianship was as brief as it was uneventful; the fanciful pageantry long associated with his care for Elizabeth is based on forgeries traceable to the eighteenth-century antiquary Thomas \ arton. 11

  What Elizabeth needed, all were agreed, was not a guardian but an iron-fisted husband. It went without saying that Mary was barren; Elizabeth and her husband would sooner or later rule England—unless, as some feared, Philip invaded the country with an army and annexed it permanently to the Hapsburg empire. But though he may have held this in reserve as a contingency plan, his preferred policy was to find a bridegroom for Elizabeth who would also serve as his lieutenant in England.

  None of the English candidates was suitable. Courtenay's brief exile ended in tragedy in the fall of this year, 1556. when he caught a fever while

  hawking and died. Young Lord Maltravers—at one time the most likely, for his virtues and "handsome presence," of the English suitors—was also dead, at only twenty-two, bringing grief not only to his young widow but to his father, for Maltravers was an only son and with his death the line became extinct. 12 The death of the young nobleman must have given Elizabeth pause. Had Mary forced her to marry him, she would now be a widow. She might even have a child.

  Then if not an Englishman, a foreigner (or a near-foreigner like Pole, whom Protestants sarcastically urged to "cast aside the abomination of his red [cardinal's] hat," marry Elizabeth and make himself king, since he ruled all anyway). 13 At one time the king of Denmark's son had been suggested, the future Frederick III, at another a Catholic German prince. Much as he might have favored it, Philip could not risk marrying Elizabeth to a Spanish grandee. Being "defiled with English sects," the princess or her servants "might meddle in matters that the Inquisition would take seriously." Then there would be scandal, embarrassment, and possibly even danger, for in the 1550s Protestantism was alive in Spain as it was all over Europe. 14

  By the fall of 1556 the field of eligible men had been narrowed to three. One was Don Carlos, now eleven years old, who could become betrothed to Elizabeth but could not marry her for five or six years, and could hardly be expected to master her even then. Another was Archduke Ferdinand, then twenty-seven. He was a Hapsburg, and the right age, but his suitability was marred by the existence of his common-law wife, his "proud and haughty" temperament, and his envy of Philip and especially of Philip's Flemish possessions. 15 Besides, he was known to have an understanding with the French.

  Much the best alternative was Emmanuel Philibert, duke of Savoy, a twenty-seven-year-old paragon who in addition to being a valorous soldier had a "pleasing presence" and fine Italian manners which the English prized. Though he was at present without a dukedom (the French had despoiled Savoy) the duke had royal blood, both Spanish and French, and his family was said to be "of Saxon origin, like the English themselves." Emmanuel Philibert was Philip's first cousin, and loyal to that tie of blood. Beyond this, though, he was a staunch Catholic, and could be counted on to enforce Elizabeth's conformity to the church of Rome. Once they were married, Elizabeth's secret Protestantism would cease to encourage the heretics, for even if she became queen her Catholic husband would prevent her from practicing her faith or changing the official faith of England. 16

  If Elizabeth were to marry, Savoy was Mary's preferred choice for her. Yet Elizabeth herself was extremely reluctant to marry, and when in late

  November of 1556 the two sisters met face to face to discuss the issue the meeting ended in a stalemate. 17 But Elizabeth's trip to court resulted in one other meeting: at long last the princess came face to face with Cardinal Pole. They spoke together in Pole's chambe
r, and no witness took down their words or noted them afterward. Yet some things about their encounter may be imagined—the cardinal's wean- kindliness, the sharp exchange of wits, the unspoken acknowledgment that, in Pole, Elizabeth was addressing the queen's alter ego and, in Elizabeth, Pole was addressing England's next ruler.

  Whether or not Pole urged Elizabeth to marry—which, given his conviction of women's frailties, he undoubtedly thought best—Mary herself must have been more than a little ambivalent. Philip had commanded her to persuade her sister to take a husband, but Mary herself dreaded it, for to negotiate a marriage contract with a foreign prince or nobleman would mean recognizing Elizabeth as heir to her throne, and as the trueborn daughter of Henry VIII. So Elizabeth's obstinacy was almost welcome to Man'; it allowed her to procrastinate, to put her sister out of her mind for a time, to indulge her own dwindling hopes.

  These hopes lived again when Philip returned to England in March of 1557. He came not out of loneliness for his wife but on a practical errand. The imperial forces were at war; he needed men and, especially, money to finance an assault against the Franco-Flemish border. Man agreed, as the price of her husband's visit, to demand these from her unwilling councilors, and after three months of arguments and admonitions—Man was not above threatening her advisers with death and confiscation of their property —they gave in. England was at war.

  But Man found, to her chagrin, that Philip had come to demand more than this. He had not given up on Elizabeth's marriage, and now asked Man's trusted confessor Fresneda to use even possible persuasion on the queen to induce her consent. Fresneda complied. Religion, piety, the security of the kingdom all pointed to the need for Man's presumed successor to many, he argued. What if Elizabeth, feeling abused, were to choose a husband for herself, and what if the man she chose "convulsed the whole kingdom into confusion 7 " She was unpredictable, capricious; she might take it into her head to marry any time. Before the worst happened, a match must be made for her.