Life of Elizabeth I

by Alison Weir

  In February de Spes was approached by a Florentine banker, Roberto Ridolfi, who had been sent by Norfolk and Arundel to enlist Spanish support for their scheme; Ridolfi was instructed to tell the Spanish ambassador that they intended to establish a Catholic government in England as soon as they were in a position to do so. It appears that they hoped for some kind of backing from Alva, but when this proved not to be forthcoming, they began to realise that their plan to oust Cecil might prove abortive.

  The prospect of failure made them desperate, and on Ash Wednesday, whilst attending her in her chamber as she ate her supper, Leicester dared to tell the Queen that most of her subjects were in despair because state affairs were being so badly managed by Master Secretary that either England must be endangered or Cecil must lose his head. Elizabeth erupted in fury at this, forbidding the Earl to say anything further against Cecil and making it clear that nothing could shake her loyalty to him.

  Norfolk, who was also present, then entered the fray, disclosing to the Queen the fact that many lords shared Leicester's opinion of Cecil. Elizabeth was by now in a foul temper and shouted him down. However, when Norfolk remarked to Northampton in her hearing, 'Look how Lord Leicester is favoured and welcomed by the Queen when he endorses and approves the Secretary's opinions; but now that he quite rightly wishes to state his good reasons for opposing them, she looks ill on him, and wants to send him to the Tower. No, no! He will not go alone!' Elizabeth made no comment.

  Leicester was so unnerved by this episode that he threatened Norfolk with exposure of his plot against Cecil to the Queen. But Cecil had now guessed what was afoot, and concluding that his future and even his life were in jeopardy, put himself out to be friendly towards Norfolk, taking care not to do anything to anger or provoke the Duke and his friends. He also embarked upon a campaign to win over Leicester, who was soon warning him to look out for himself. It was now very clear to those who had conspired against him that, with Elizabeth firmly behind him, Cecil was invincible.

  In April, Mary was dismayed to learn that her supporters in Scotland had failed to reach any accommodation with Moray; deeply depressed, she lost her appetite and wept constantly. Elizabeth, however, was desperate to have her contentious cousin out of her kingdom, and was still hoping to negotiate Mary's return to her own land, although she would not send her back without her safety being guaranteed. Moray's strong resistance to Elizabeth's overtures on Mary's behalf did not improve her temper. Nevertheless, she persevered.

  Mary had, however, discovered a potential escape route from her prison. Norfolk had at first dismissed the idea of marrying her as treason, but as the months went by he had given the matter deeper consideration: it seemed to him that, if her marriage to Bothwell could be annuUed, it made sense for the Queen of Scots to marry a loyal English lord who could safeguard Queen Elizabeth's interests when Mary had been restored to her throne. Added to this, of course, he would gain a crown for himself. In May 1569, Mary was overjoyed to receive a formal proposal of marriage through the Bishop of Ross, which Elizabeth was supposed to have sanctioned, and by June, she and Norfolk were exchanging the kind of letters that could only betoken a courtship. Signing herself 'Your assured Mary', the former Scots queen sent 'My Norfolk' a cushion embroidered by herself, which showed a knife cutting down a green vine said to represent Elizabeth. Neither party cherished any romantic notions: this was a union of driving ambition.

  Knowing that the Queen would be against their marriage, since she would anticipate that a man who was ambitious to be King of Scots could also covet the crown of England, the Duke attempted in June to canvass the backing of his old rival, Cecil, but Cecil, being deeply suspicious of Mary Stuart, warned Norfolk that the only way out of this tangle was to confess all to Elizabeth. Leicester, fearful of the consequences of his involvement, also confided in Cecil, who - though he may have recalled the recent conspiracy against himself - did not betray his confidence. None of the conspirators wanted to divulge the marriage plan to Elizabeth until they were certain they could convince her that it was to her advantage.

  Norfolk was too fearful of Elizabeth's anger to take Cecil's advice, but someone talked, and by the end of July the Duke's proposed marriage to Mary Stuart was common knowledge at court. In fact, most councillors were in favour of it. The Queen, who had learned of the plan as she listened to her ladies gossiping, was not, for she feared a conspiracy against herself, and on August, upon meeting him in the gardens at Richmond, she gave Norfolk the chance to make a clean breast of the whole affair by asking if there was any news from London, whence he had just arrived. The Duke, probably realising what she was hinting at, said that there was nothing.

  'No?' asked the Queen, feigning astonishment. 'You come from London and can tell no news of a marriage?' Norfolk was saved from having to answer by the inadvertent arrival of Lady Clinton with some flowers for Elizabeth, and seized his opportunity to flee to Leicester's apartments. When the Earl returned there from hunting at Kingston, Norfolk asked what he thought he should do, whereupon Leicester offered to soften the Queen when occasion offered.

  Supporters of the marriage were dismayed when, early in August, Moray finally informed Elizabeth that neither he nor the other Scottish lords would accept Mary back as their queen. This angered Elizabeth, who vowed that she would continue to work for Mary's restoration anyway, although the only way to force the issue was by going to war, which Moray knew she would wish to avoid at all costs.

  On 5 August the court left for Oatlands on its annual summer progress, and on the nth came to Loseley Park near Guildford, the seat of Sir William More, where the room in which the Queen slept is still on view. The next morning, as Elizabeth sat on a step by the front door, listening to one of More's children strumming a lute and singing, Leicester, kneeling beside her, raised the subject of Norfolk. Elizabeth promised to speak to the Duke within the next few days.

  Two days later, at Farnham, Elizabeth invited Norfolk to dine in private with her - a rare honour - but during the meal, although she gave him every opportunity to do so, he could not find the courage to say anything about his proposed marriage to Mary Stuart. When they had finished, he recorded, 'she gave me a nip', saying 'she would wish me to take good heed to my pillow' - echoing his own words the previous summer. 'I was abashed at Her Majesty's speech, but I thought it not fit time nor place there to trouble her.' Even so, Elizabeth gave him several further chances to confess to her, and still he did not take them. He was determined to pursue the marriage project, confiding to a friend that 'before he lost that marriage, he would lose his life'.

  In June, the Duke of Alva, acting on Philip's behalf, had made it quite clear to de Spes that Spain would not be going to war with England and that he was under no circumstances to enter into any conspiracy against Queen Elizabeth or her government, but was to remain strictly neutral.

  De Spes was an incurable intriguer, and on 8 August Alva was complaining to Philip that the ambassador would not obey instructions: he was now plotting with disaffected northern magnates to liberate Mary and make her Queen of England, and was also encouraging Norfolk to marry her.

  The mood of the court on progress was tense. Elizabeth was on edge because she suspected treason, and maddened by thoughts of Mary Stuart's likely involvement, complaining to Bertrand de la Mothe Fenelon, the French ambassador, that, although she had acted the part of a good mother to her cousin, Mary had repaid her by involving herself in intrigues. A person 'who did not wish to treat her mother well deserved a wicked stepmother'. The ambassador expressed disbelief that anything sinister was afoot, but Elizabeth shook her head.

  'I know the identity of the troublemakers well enough,' she declared, 'and I would like to cut off a few heads.'

  At the Earl of Southampton's house in Titchfield in Hampshire in early September, she was in a savage mood, snapping and snarling at both Cecil and Leicester, and accusing them of plotting on Mary's behalf. Leicester fled to his bed, feigning illness. On the 6th, he begged the Qu
een to visit him, and when she was seated beside his bed, he told her that Norfolk still cherished dreams of marrying Mary.

  Elizabeth commented that, if their marriage were allowed to take place, she herself would be a prisoner in the Tower within four months of the ceremony. Abjectly, Leicester begged forgiveness for his involvement in the earlier scheme, explaining that he had been convinced he was acting in her best interests. Worried about the state of his health, for she believed that he really was ill, the Queen readily pardoned him.

  Norfolk, however, was another matter. That afternoon, Elizabeth summoned him to attend her in the great gallery, and in a royal temper, castigated him for his disloyalty and made him swear on his allegiance 'to deal no further with the Scottish cause'. Quaking, the Duke tried to make light of his plans by claiming he had only 'a very slight regard for Mary' and that he did not rate marrying her very highly. Elizabeth was unimpressed and made her disfavour so plain that Norfolk found himself shunned by most people at court, including Leicester. On 16 September he returned to London without leave, and defiantly continued his pursuit of Mary, having, he felt, become too deeply involved to withdraw with honour now. Deeply suspicious, the Queen sent a summons from Lord Sandys's house, The Vyne, near Basingstoke, ordering the Duke to return to court. Meanwhile, Cecil had arranged for de Spes to be placed under observation and his correspondence to be vetted; as a precaution, orders went out to loyal subjects in all areas of the country to prepare for any emergency.

  On 23 September, Elizabeth returned to Windsor, where she learned that Norfolk, pleading that he had taken purgatives to cure an ague and was unable to venture outdoors, had ignored her summons and gone that day to Kenninghall, his stronghold in Norfolk. Alarmed, she concluded that his intention was to rouse his tenantry and affinity in rebellion against her, and on 25 September she sent him a categorical command to present himself at Windsor without delay. Again, he was too terrified to do so, despite Mary urging him, in a letter, to deal boldly with her cousin and be valiant.

  It so happened that, at that time, another serious conspiracy against the Queen was brewing in the north of England, prompted by local feuds, resentment of royal interference in the region, a desire to restore the old faith as the official religion of the state, resentment of Cecil and other Protestant councillors, and - above all - anger at the Queen's failure to settle the succession upon the Queen of Scots. Norfolk had not initially been involved, but the Spanish ambassador had been active in inciting the rebels.

  Elsewhere in England, most Catholics were loyal to Elizabeth, but the north had never entirely reconciled itself to the religious changes of the last few decades, and the great northern magnates, the Catholic earls of Northumberland and Westmorland, had begun to organise large gatherings of the local gentry, supposedly for field sports. Their real purpose was rebellion, and their plan was to murder all royal officials in the north and liberate Mary Stuart, with whom they had been in contact since the spring. Some merely wanted to oust Elizabeth's 'ill-disposed advisers', but others hoped to depose Elizabeth in favour of Mary. The King of France was involved, having promised aid to the rebels, and Roberto Ridolfi, the Florentine banker, was funding the enterprise. There is no doubt that this rebellion constituted the most dangerous threat to her throne that Elizabeth had encountered since her accession. It seemed as if eleven years of peace were about to be violently brought to an end.

  Cecil and Elizabeth were aware almost from the first that the Catholic lords in the 'inly-working north' were preparing to revolt against her. What they could not risk was Norfolk raising the eastern counties and joining forces with them, which there is little doubt he was contemplating at that time. According to William Camden, 'AH the whole court hung in suspense and fear, lest the Duke should break forth into rebellion, and it was determined, if he did so, to put the Queen of Scots to death.'

  It soon became clear that Norfolk would obtain little support in East Anglia. Nor did he make much effort to raise it, being too ill and demoralised to do so. His chief concern was to try and limit the damage and write to the Queen, begging that she would pardon him and excuse him from attending on her at Windsor. He knew, he continued, that he was 'a suspected person' and he feared being sent to the Tower of London - 'too great a terror for a true man'.

  The Queen replied tartly that she did not mean 'to minister anything to you but as you should in truth deserve', and dispatched two further summonses, insisting that the Duke must travel to court even if he was ill, if need be in a litter. Cecil and other councillors wrote urging him to obey her.

  At last Norfolk capitulated. He was aware of what was being planned in the north and, fearful of being implicated, sent a messenger to Westmorland to beg him to call off the rising: 'If not, it should cost me my head, for that I am going to court.'

  On 3 October Norfolk was arrested on the way to Windsor. Cecil had assured him that, if he submitted to her, the Queen would not deal harshly with him, but ten days later, as he had feared, he was committed to the Tower. Elizabeth's rage was truly majestic, and she was resolved to make him suffer in return for the months of anxiety and worry he had caused her. At the same time, Throckmorton was questioned about his part in the conspiracy, and confined to his farmhouse at Carshalton in Surrey; Arundel and Pembroke were likewise placed under house arrest. Pembroke was quickly released, only to die the next year, while Arundel remained under guard at Nonsuch Palace until the following March, when he was released at Leicester's instigation.

  On 16 October, Cecil warned Elizabeth that the real threat to her throne lay with Mary Stuart, and used this information to remind her where her duty lay.

  There are degrees of danger. If you would marry, it should be less; whilst you do not, it Will increase. If her person be restrained, here or in Scotland, it will be less; if at liberty, greater. If found guilty of her husband's murder, she shall be less a person perilous; if passed over in silence the scar of the murder Will wear out, and the danger greater.

  Elizabeth announced in Council that she wanted Norfolk tried for treason, but Cecil did not consider the Duke's actions to be 'within the compass of treason. Whereupon I am bold to wish Your Majesty would show your intent only to inquire into the fact, and not to speak of it as treason.' In fact, there was scant evidence that Norfolk's intentions had been treasonable, and certainly not enough to convict him.

  The Queen, however, was out for his blood, and threatened that, if the laws of England did not provide for the Duke's execution, she would proceed against him on her own authority. She was so overcome with anger that she fainted, which brought her councillors running with vinegar and burnt feathers.

  As usual, when her rage had cooled, she realised that Cecil had been right: to proceed against Norfolk without recourse to law was tyranny, pure and simple, and she was no tyrant. Eventually, she conceded that the Duke might not have had treasonable intentions and agreed to leave him to cool his heels in the Tower for a time, whereupon Cecil suggested that she divert Norfolk from ideas of marrying Mary Stuart by finding another, more suitable, bride for him.

  On 26 October, Elizabeth dispatched to Sir Henry Norris, her ambassador in Paris, an eight-page draft in which she had written down her version of recent events, which Norris was to communicate to Charles IX and Catherine de' Medici. Elizabeth insisted that, 'By our means only, [Mary's] life was saved in her captivity, and since her flying into our realm, she hath been honourably used and entertained and attended upon by noble personages, and such hath been our natural compassion towards her in this her affliction, that we utterly set apart all such just causes as she had given us of sundry offences, whereof some were notorious to the whole world.' Regarding the inquiry into Darnley's murder, 'such circumstances were produced to argue her guilty'. The Queen now wished, however, that she had not authorised the inquiry. She had been 'fully determined to see Mary restored', but then she haci discovered 'a disordered, unhonourable and dangerous practice', which had been going on since the inquiry opened at Yo
rk.

  According to Elizabeth, her cousin had bombarded her 'with frequent letters, tears and messages', promising 'She would never seek nor use any means to be helped but by us, nor would attempt anything in our realm but by our advice.' Instead, she had intrigued behind Elizabeth's back to marry Norfolk. Contrary to what Mary's supporters had been spreading about, Elizabeth had 'never thought' of naming Mary as her successor. She was 'right sorry, yea, half ashamed, to have been thus misused by her, whom we have so benefited by saving of her life'. Norris should emphasise that Mary's complaints about the conditions she was held under were simply untrue.

  In November, having learned of Norfolk's fate and received a promise of Spanish aid, the northern earls mobilised their rebel forces, numbering over 2500 men, and marched southwards, sacking Durham Cathedral and moving on towards their ultimate goal, Tutbury, where Mary Stuart was held - 'her whom the world believed to be the hidden cause of these troubles'. Elizabeth shared this view, and for the first time gave serious consideration to her councillors' exhortations that Mary be executed. She even allowed them to draw up a death warrant to be used if her cousin was discovered to be behind the rebellion, or in the event of its appearing likely to succeed.

  There were simultaneous smaller risings in other northern districts. On 25 November, at the Queen's command, Mary was removed to Coventry in the Protestant Midlands, and the Earl of Huntingdon was appointed to assist Shrewsbury, who was ill, in his task of guarding her. All ports were closed and the militia placed on alert. Windsor was prepared for a siege.

  Realising they had no hope of reaching Mary at Coventry, the rebel earls lost heart, for her liberation had been central to their plans. By 20 December the rising had collapsed, and the rebels were fleeing in all directions in order to escape the avenging royal army, 28,000 strong, sent northwards, under the command of Sussex at Elizabeth's order. Sussex pursued the leaders, Northumberland and Westmorland to the Scottish border, whence they escaped into Scotland. 'The vermin are fled to foreign cover,' observed Cecil on Christmas Day.