On November 20 a rumor swept the court that Dudley had been "married to the queen in the presence of his brother and two ladies of the chamber." It was not true, but it seemed the logical outcome of events, and so it was believed—for a time. Having been convinced for so long that Elizabeth was in love with Dudley, and longed to marry him—for what woman did not long to marry the man she loved?—her subjects expected that, now that he was a widower, and cleared, officially, of wrongdoing in his wife's death, she would not hesitate to take him for her husband.
No letters or other records survive to tell us what Elizabeth was thinking or saying about her beloved during these tense months. A court messenger who saw her at about the time of the marriage rumor noted that she "looked not so heartily and well as she did by a great deal." Surely, he conjectured, "the matter of Lord Robert doth much perplex her." 9
Perplexity, extreme annoyance, above all doubt must have troubled her. Unless, as hardly seems likely, Elizabeth and Dudley were in fact accomplices in murder, Lady Dudley's death must have come as an unpleasant surprise. With Amy Dudley alive, Elizabeth could let her passions run free, leaving their outcome forever inconclusive. But with Amy dead, she would be forced to declare herself, to make good those displays of affection for Dudley which had, quite possibly, as much defiance in them as lust. She was trapped. Dudley had become, or soon would become, yet another importunate suitor, along with Arundel and the Swedes and the imperialists representing Archduke Charles.
But had he trapped her by design? Did she believe him to be completely innocent of murder when everyone else around her thought otherwise 7 After all, just as an assassin might strike at Elizabeth herself in a hundred subtle ways, so Dudley could have sent others to act for him. It was even
possible that some overzealous servant of Dudley's, eager to carry out what he thought was his master's unspoken will, had pushed Amy Dudley down the stairs. And Dudley, having communicated his desire, was in a way responsible for what happened.
Unanswered questions must have plagued Elizabeth, questions about the extent of Dudley's selfishness and ambition, about his trustworthiness, about the actual degree of harm she might do to the realm by marrying him. Or to herself: in her darkest moments Elizabeth must have forced herself to consider the wisdom of marrying a man who, just possibly, had not scrupled to kill his first wife.
In the end a great deal rested on Dudley's strength of will and character. As the new year 1561 opened he made a great effort to promote his chances by striking a bargain with Philip II. Philip would give his blessing to Dudley's marriage to the queen in return for the future consort's promise to promote Spanish interests and govern England according to Philip's guidelines. Elizabeth appeared to be well disposed toward this, up to a point. She took the necessary steps toward raising Dudley to the peerage —a prerequisite to any marriage between them—though before the patent of nobility could be delivered she slashed at it with a knife and destroyed it. And she asked De Quadra point blank what Philip's reaction might be ''if she married one of her servitors," the way several prominent ladies of the court had done. 10
But she vacillated, refusing on one pretext or another to take decisive steps toward marriage. Dudley, frustrated and perhaps surprised at his inability to control Elizabeth, became "discontented" and sought advice. Talk forcefully to her, Dudley's brother-in-law Henry Sidney told him. Convince her once and for all to "make a stand" against the offended and hostile courtiers and throw herself on the mercy of the king of Spain. Then, secure in King Philip's support, seize the moment and marry her.
Never mind the king of Spain, thundered the bluff soldier Pembroke, unlettered and untutored in the ways of courtly love. Leave her no choice. Tell her she must either marry you or release you to "go to the wars" in her service, making a complete break. 11
Though Dudley continued to insist that "it was only fear and timidity" that kept Elizabeth from making up her mind to marry him, by March his position appeared to be weakening. He had followed Sidney's advice, but not Pembroke's. ("He is faint-hearted and his favor is founded on vanity," De Quadra observed with relish. "He dares not break with the queen.")
In the battle between royal sovereignty and male authority the latter, to everyone's amazement, was losing. Cecil had been right, at least for the
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time being. The queen had decided, for now, to keep control of herself and her private affairs in her own hands.
"Lord Robert's recent discontent has ended in her giving him an apartment upstairs adjoining her own," De Quadra reported drily in April, "as it is healthier than that which he had downstairs. He is delighted."
Adew, derlyng,
Adew, swettyng,
Adew, all my welfare!
Adew, all thyng
To god perteynyng,
Cryst kepe yow frome all care.
Q
n August 19, 1561, a French ship anchored off Leith in southeastern Scotland, and a royal passenger stepped into a longboat and came ashore. She was Mary Stuart, Queen of Scotland and the Isles and widowed queen of France; since 1558 she had claimed, at least tacitly, to be queen of England as well.
She was not quite nineteen, with glowing auburn hair and almond-shaped hazel eyes, and her complexion—the sovereign mark of beauty— was as white and unblemished as fine linen. Her portraits reveal less than classic features; eyes set somewhat too close together, nose too large and too long. And her expression has more in it of determination than of sensuality or seductiveness. Yet to contemporaries Mary Stuart was a captivating, ensorceling beauty—"personally the most beautiful in Europe," a Venetian wrote—and to the undeniable charms of her person and manner was added the delight of a 'Very sweet, very lovely" speaking voice.
She had one startling drawback—at least to vulgar eyes. She was nearly six feet tall, and in an age when men over six feet were giants and a woman of five feet was of average height Mary stood out as a marvel of nature. But the poets who praised her snowy bosom and exquisite hands were too tactful to refer to her lofty stature, and her queenly authority was enhanced rather than weakened by the fact that she towered over a good many of
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her male relatives and courtiers and looked all but the tallest of them squarely in the eye.
Mary came ashore with some trepidation, for the people of Leith had not prepared an elaborate welcome for her and no doubt most of them stared rudely at this tall, pale woman with the elegant clothes and extensive retinue. France had been home to Mary for most of her life; its sunny skies and green countryside, its farms and prosperous villages were the only world she knew. Scotland, on this August day at least, was enshrouded in thick fog. The country looked barren and treeless, the people ragged. And though there was nominal peace both within the realm and with England, turbulent factions locked in uneasy truce threatened to renew open warfare on any pretext.
Scotland had been a bleeding wound since the start of Elizabeth's reign, with religious and political quarrels converging in the entangled strife of rebellion, civil war and conflict with foreign powers. And England, inevitably, had become deeply and inextricably involved.
The threat of a French invasion of England through Scotland became graver than ever when King Henry II died suddenly in July of 1559. The throne went to the sickly adolescent Francis II, Mary Stuart's husband, but power rested in the hands of Mary's uncles, the cardinal of Lorraine and the duke of Guise. Now both Scotland and France were Guise regencies, with the cardinal and the duke ruling in France and their sister, Mary of Lorraine, mother of Mary Stuart, regent in Scotland. Such a situation invited French aggrandizement as never before, yet strong countercurrents were gaining force in Scotland which were working to undermine the authority of the regent.
Scots Protestants, animated by the fervor of John Knox, rose in righteous opposition to the Catholic church in Scotland and the French-controlled government that supported it. At the same time, the Scots nobles, their power shackled by ever tighter restricti
ons from the court, merged their political and confessional grievances and joined with the Protestant clerics to form the "Congregation," a body committed to reform of the church and government.
Warfare between the Congregation and the royal forces soon showed that the rebels were at a severe disadvantage, despite clandestine financial support from England, and by December of 1559 Elizabeth had to make a painful decision. Would she intervene openly on the side of the Protestants, and risk bringing in the full might of France in opposition? Or would she stop short of committing her army and treasury on so large a scale, knowing that without her aid Knox and his coreligionists were doomed, and leaving the Guises more firmly entrenched than ever?
Cecil, a veteran of the English wars against the Scots in the 1540s (he fought at the battle of Pinkie) and warm advocate of forceful, undisguised English intervention, was exasperated beyond measure when Elizabeth held back. Her decision was wrong, her view of the situation ruinously ill-advised; he made up his mind to resign. "With a sorrowful heart and watery eyes," he wrote her, he found himself unable to continue in her service as secretary. He would be glad enough to serve her in any other capacity—"though it were in her majesty's kitchen or garden"—but his conscience would not permit him to remain in the council unless the queen agreed to pursue an aggressive policy in the north.
Cecil was essential to Elizabeth's government: she gave way. In February of 1560 she was reportedly seen every day riding abroad on a swift jennet or a great Neapolitan courser, "making a brave show and bearing herself gallantly." She was showing herself off as a superb horsewoman—something the people enjoyed—while at the same time making good on her military intentions. She had ordered an army mustered to go northward under Lord Grey, with Norfolk in supreme command at Berwick.
The campaign proved to be costly and militarily wasteful, but the diplomatic efforts which accompanied it succeeded, thanks to Cecil. His shrewd bargaining, coincident with several pieces of unexpected good fortune—the regent died, and a political conspiracy in France loosened the stranglehold of the Guises—led to a vital and far-reaching agreement. The Treaty of Edinburgh, negotiated at the low point of French influence in Scotland, removed the threat of invasion from the north and, as it proved, insulated England from this time forward against the danger of war on two fronts.
The following year, 1561, brought a dramatic change in Scots fortunes. The Protestant party was in control, and the young queen Mary Stuart, distant in France, was mourning the deaths of her mother and her feeble young husband King Francis. With her once-powerful Guise relatives now out of power, Mary returned to her kingdom of Scotland, sobered by bereavement and variable fortune, prepared to play the difficult role of a Catholic queen ruling aggressively Protestant subjects. To rule effectively Mary would need the help of her royal cousin in England; without that help she could hardly hope to hold on to her throne.
Yet Elizabeth's friendship had a price, as Mary found to her inconvenience when she asked for a safe conduct through England on her way north. If Mary ratified the Treaty of Edinburgh—which she had so far refused to do—then Elizabeth would be glad to guarantee her safe passage through England, and no doubt would give her a royal reception as well. But the treaty contained a clause calling for Mary to renounce her claim to the arms and style of England—a claim she had been making for three
years. Amend that clause and she would ratify the treaty, Mary countered. They were at a stalemate: eventually Elizabeth sent the safe conduct without winning what she sought from Mary, but it was too late. By the time it arrived Mary had already set sail for Scotland, remarking melodramatically that if her ship chanced to run aground in England and Elizabeth chose to take her captive, even to execute her, then so be it. She might even be better off dead.
It was just this sort of reckless bravado that made Mary appealing to Elizabeth as a successor. Of course, there were numerous obstacles to such an arrangement: Henry VIII's will, which designated the line of succession excluding the Stuarts, Mary's Catholicism, above all Elizabeth's distaste for any formal succession scheme, which would only promote rebellion by officially designating the next heir to the throne. Elizabeth, remembering vividly what it had meant to be "second person" in the realm, with all the temptations and intrigues that went along with that unenviable position, hesitated to name her successor. Yet there was much that she could do short of a final designation that would indicate her preference and secure Mary's interests—provided Mary was cooperative.
In fact Mary was looking more and more suitable as an heir, given the principal alternative.
Of the seven women named to succeed, after Edward VI, in Henry VIII's will, one (Mary Tudor) had reigned, one (Elizabeth) was reigning, two (Jane Grey and Frances Brandon) had died and three (Catherine Grey, Mary Grey and Margaret Clifford) were still living. Catherine Grey, elder of Jane Grey's two surviving sisters, was looked on as heir presumptive.
Catherine was twenty-three in 1561, a solemn young woman with a long face, rosebud lips and a long, prominent nose like Elizabeth's. There was a definite family resemblance between them, and Catherine, like Elizabeth, had known something of the perils of political intrigue. At fifteen she had been a pawn in Northumberland's scheme to seize power; when her sister Jane married Northumberland's son Guildford Dudley, Catherine married Henry Herbert, Pembroke's son, though the marriage was never consummated and Herbert eventually divorced her. This humiliation was the capstone of a miserable childhood in an unloving family, and by the time Elizabeth became queen Catherine felt ill-used and undeservedly neglected.
Elizabeth hated her, whether for her rivalry in the succession, for her bitterness, or perhaps because Catherine hated her first. In any event Catherine was brought to court but kept in a relatively inferior post. (When Mary was queen Catherine had served in the privy chamber, among the women of highest rank, despite Mary's rumored antipathy to her; now she
served among the lower-ranking women of the presence chamber.) Thus when she saw a chance to advance herself and began to receive the respectful treatment she felt she deserved—albeit from a questionable source— Catherine seized her chance.
In the spring of 1559 she had been befriended by Count Feria, before he returned to Spain. Feria had won her trust by listening sympathetically to her complaints. Catherine had told Feria candidly that Elizabeth, should she die childless, did not want her to succeed, which together with her demeaning position among the gentlewomen "dissatisfied and offended" her. Feria had lost no time in informing his master of this unlooked-for opportunity, and contingency plans were made to involve Catherine in Hapsburg designs on the English succession. In the following months English agents abroad reported hearing of plots to kidnap Catherine Grey —who because of her discontent would most likely aid her kidnappers— and to marry her either to Philip's son Don Carlos or some other Hapsburg candidate. Feria had won from her a promise not to marry anyone without his consent, and his successor De Quadra continued to cultivate her good will. 1
To counteract this potential subversion Elizabeth pretended suddenly to discover her cousin's merits and appeal. She flattered Catherine, paid the greatest attention to her, and took to calling her "her daughter"—"although the feeling between them can hardly be that of mother and child," De Quadra noted wryly. Catherine had once again been placed among the distinguished ladies of the privy chamber, and even this had not seemed to satisfy Elizabeth, who talked freely of adopting her cousin to make her her daughter in fact.
Hypocritical though it was, Elizabeth's extravagant attention seemed to appease Catherine for a time. But in mid-August of 1561, just at the time that Mary Stuart was stepping off the boat at Leith, it was once again discovered that Catherine had been led into dangerous indiscretion.
The sharp eyes of the chamber women detected a telltale swelling at her waist; Catherine was unmistakably pregnant. And, so she claimed, she was married to the child's father: the young earl of Hertford, son of the late Protector Somerset, who was
away in France.
Elizabeth, "not well quieted" with this startling proof of treachery, ordered Catherine committed to the Tower and summoned the earl home to imprisonment as well. No doubt she took out her anger on the mother of the maids, Kat Ashley, for her lax supervision of the girl and on the rest of her women for shielding Catherine in her deception and betrayal.
For secret though it had been, the marriage had clearly taken place with
the connivance of at least some of the courtiers. Eight months earlier, while Elizabeth herself had been away from court hunting, the couple had exchanged vows, hurriedly, at Hertford House in Westminster. They had not acted on their own; intriguers calculating that Elizabeth would before long marry Dudley had urged them to it. These intriguers had located a priest to perform the ceremony (now nowhere to be found), had witnessed it, and had, as custom and law required, witnessed its consummation as well.
Such treason, such monumental disrespect shook Elizabeth's strained nerves. "She is extremely thin and the color of a corpse," De Quadra reported. Her women told the ambassador that she was in a "dangerous condition," and was becoming dropsical, like her sister Mary. To others, ever mindful of her intimacy with Dudley, her pallor and weakness were easily explained. She "looked like one lately come out of childbed," Lady Willoughby muttered. She was no better than Catherine Grey—indeed she was worse, for Catherine had at least been married. 2
The scandal surrounding the death of Dudley's wife was a year old, yet from time to time it continued to flare into prominence. Just at this time Arundel and others, bent upon injuring Dudley (who was more in favor than ever), were said to be drawing up copies of the transcript of the inquest into his late wife's death. If De Quadra is to be trusted, their scrutiny was not entirely fruitless. "More is being discovered in that affair" than Dudley wished, the ambassador wrote. Yet what the discoveries were he did not say. 3
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