Life of Elizabeth I

by Alison Weir

  Nor did the Queen care if she inconvenienced her ministers, for she expected them to be as hard-working, efficient and devoted to duty as she was herself. If they were not, she would demand to know why; she missed nothing, and was an exacting mistress. When Lord Hunsdon outstayed leave from his official duties, the Queen raged to his son, 'God's wounds! We will set him by the feet and set another in his place if he dallies with us thus, for we will not be thus dallied withal.'

  Harington records that she would keep Cecil with her

  till late at night discoursing alone, and then call out another at his departure, and try the depth of all around her sometime. Each displayed his wit in private. If any dissembled with her, or stood not well to her advisings, she did not let it go unheeded, and sometimes not unpunished.

  After these night-time consultations, the Queen would be ready to return to business before the next dawn had broken. She seems to have needed very little sleep, and it would be no exaggeration to state that she was, in modern terms, a workaholic. Harington attests that on one occasion she wrote one letter whilst dictating another and listening to a query to which she gave a lucid answer.

  Each day she held successive private consultations with her ministers, read letters and dispatches, wrote or dictated others, checked accounts and received petitions. She kept letters, memos and notes in a 'great pouch' hung about her waist, or in her bedroom, and threw them away when they were not needed. She rarely attended the daily Council meetings, knowing that her councillors would try to impose their opinions on her - although she was perfectly capable of arguing the point with them. She preferred to keep a tight rein on affairs from behind the scenes. In the early days of her reign, Cecil tried to prevent her from dealing with matters too weighty, in his opinion, for a woman to cope with, but as the years passed he conceived a deep respect for and trust in her, both as his sovereign and as a shrewd and clever woman.

  In day to day matters, Elizabeth delegated the decision-making to her Council, taking the credit herself when things turned out well. If disaster struck, the councillors got the blame. According to Harington, Cecil would 'shed a-plenty tears on any miscarriage, well knowing the difficult part was, not so much to mend the matter itself, as his mistress's humour'. Her temper was notorious: she was not above boxing the Secretary's ears, throwing her slipper at Walsingham's face, or punching others who displeased her, and after flouncing out of a Council meeting in a rage, she would retire to her Privy Chamber and read until she had calmed down, which she invariably did after these outbursts. Nor was she reluctant to admit she was in the wrong, for she would hasten to make amends. Leicester said of her, 'God be thanked, her blasts be not the storms of other princes, though they be very sharp sometimes to those she loves the best.'

  'When she smiled', wrote Harington, 'it was a pure sunshine that everyone did choose to bask in if they could, but anon came a storm from a sudden gathering of clouds, and the thunder fell in wondrous manner on all alike.' One French ambassador, having witnessed the royal temper, confided, 'When I see her enraged against any person whatever, I wish myself in Calcutta, fearing her anger like death itself' As a young queen, in 1559, Elizabeth rebuked two of her servants so wrathfully that they claimed they would 'carry it to their graves'. A colleague ventured, on bended knees, to plead with his mistress 'to make them men again, who remain so amazed as nothing can breed any comfort in them'.

  Cecil, as the adviser closest to the Queen, learned early on how to gauge her mood, as well as how to weather the storms of her anger. All her servants, he wrote, 'must sometimes bear the cross words, as I myself have had long experience'. For over thirty years he was her chief adviser and the greatest moderating influence on the Council. 'No prince in Europe', she once said, 'ever had such a councillor as I have had in him.'

  The Queen favoured both the older aristocracy and the gentry, the 'new men' whose fortunes were founded on wealth, and picked her councillors for their abilities, as well as for their breeding. She expected the highest standards of personal service from them. Most of the men who served her were related to each other in some way, which gave the court a cohesive family atmosphere. Although Sir Robert Naunton accused her of fostering factions at court, the Sidney Papers make it clear that she 'used her wisdom in balancing the weights'.

  Parliament, however, was less easily managed than the Council, to which it was subordinate. The Queen believed that, as sovereign, she had absolute authority over Parliament, but the Puritans in the Commons could be relied upon to oppose many measures, and both Houses were jealous of their powers and privileges, seeking constantly to extend them. Clashes between Queen and Parliament were therefore inevitable, and as we have seen, Elizabeth was on occasions forced to concede defeat. Whenever possible, she managed without Parliament. In the forty-five years of her reign, it sat for only ten sessions, which lasted in total just 140 weeks - less than three years. The Queen attended only the opening and closing state ceremonies, arriving by barge or on horseback and wearing her state robes and crown; she wrote her own speeches for these occasions. If the Commons or Lords wished to speak to her, they sent a delegation to wherever she was lodging. After they had addressed her on their knees, she would rise from the throne and bow or curtsey gracefully to them. Messengers brought her news of debates, and Cecil conveyed her wishes to both Houses.

  'It is in me and my power to call Parliament', Elizabeth once reminded the Speaker; 'it is in my power to end and determine the same; it is in my power to dissent to any thing done in Parliaments.' Certain matters, such as the succession and her marriage, were considered by her to be inappropriate for discussion by Parliament, though Parliament increasingly thought otherwise.

  In her foreign policy, Elizabeth sought to preserve England's stability and prosperity in a Europe dominated by the great Catholic powers of France and Spain. She achieved this by a policy of tortuous diplomacy that was not always understood by her own advisers. War was anathema to her because it threatened her kingdom's stability and her treasury. Unlike Philip II, she had no desire to found an empire, and in 1593 told Parliament,

  It may be thought simplicity in me that all this time of my reign I have not sought to advance my territories and enlarge my dominions; for opportunity hath served me to do it. My mind was never to invade my neighbours, or to usurp over any. I am contented to reign over mine own, and to rule as a just prince.

  Queen Elizabeth was a complex personality. A studious intellectual who would spend three hours a day reading history books if she could ('I suppose few that be no professors have read more,' she boasted to Parliament), and who to the end of her life would for recreation translate works by Tacitus, Boethius, Plutarch, Horace and Cicero, she could also spit and swear 'round, mouth-filling oaths', as was the habit of most great ladies of the age. Cecil once spirited away a book presented to the Queen by a Puritan, Mr Fuller, in which 'Her Gracious Majesty' was censured for swearing 'sometimes by that abominable idol, the mass, and often and grievously by God and by Christ, and by many parts of His glorified body, or by saints, faith and other forbidden things, and by Your Majesty's evil example and sufferance, the most part of your subjects do commonly swear and blaspheme, to God's unspeakable dishonour.' Elizabeth demanded to see the book, but with the connivance of one of her ladies it had fortunately been 'lost'.

  Like her mother, the Queen revelled in jests, practical jokes and 'outwitting the wittiest'. She would laugh uproariously at the antics of the comic actor Richard Tarleton, and her female dwarf. Yet her table manners were perfect, and she ate and drank moderately, her preferred beverage being beer.

  She herself could be very witty. When a French ambassador complained about her having kept him waiting six days for an audience, she sweetly retorted, 'It is true that the world was made in six days, but it was by God, to whose power the infirmity of man is not to be compared.'

  She charmed men by her undoubted sex appeal and self-confidence, although one courtier claimed that her 'affections are not c
arved out of flint, but wrought out of virgin wax'. As the years went by, she took more and more extreme measures to recapture her lost youth, but her chivalrous courtiers continued to reassure her that she was the fairest lady at court, a fiction her inordinate vanity allowed her to swallow. 'She is a lady whom time hath surprised,' observed Sir Walter Raleigh.

  Her chief passions were riding, in which she bore herself'gallantly', hunting and dancing. A painting at Penshurst Place shows her dancing with a man thought to be Leicester; they are performing La Volta, a controversial dance in which the man lifts the woman and twirls her round with her feet swinging out, and which was universally condemned by preachers as the cause of much debauchery and even murders. Less controversial dances required a high degree of skill and grace, especially the galliards beloved by the Queen, in which dancers took five steps, leapt high in the air, then beat their feet together on landing. The Queen insisted on extra, more intricate steps being incorporated, which effectively prevented her less skilled courtiers from participating. As she grew older, she was more often than not a spectator at court dances, but her standards were rigorous. A French ambassador noted, 'When her maids dance, she follows the cadence with her head, hand and foot. She rebukes them if they do not dance to her liking, and without doubt she is mistress of the art.'

  Elizabeth's preferred table games were cards and chess. She also enjoyed plays, jousts and the cruel sport of bear baiting, maintaining her own bear pit at Paris Garden on the south bank of the Thames.

  The study of philosophy was another abiding interest. In 593, upset over the French King Henry IV's conversion to Catholicism, Elizabeth spent twenty-six hours translating Boethius's Consolations of Philosophy into English, to calm her anger. Being 'indefatigably given to the study of learning', she kept up her scholarly interests and maintained her gift for languages throughout her life. 'I am more afraid of making a fault in my Latin than of the kings of Spain, France, Scotland, the whole House of Guise, and all their confederates,' she once declared. On another occasion she boasted that she was 'not afraid of a King of Spain who has been up to the age of twelve learning his alphabet'.

  Elizabeth cared passionately about education, and involved herself in the life of both Eton College and Westminster School. In her desire for the middle and upper classes to become literate, she founded grammar schools, continuing the work begun by Edward VI. She also founded Jesus College, Oxford.

  Music was another passion. As well as playing skilfully on the lute and virginals, the Queen 'composed ballets and music, and played and danced them'. She patronised Thomas Tallis and William Byrd, the greatest musicians of the age, and they both praised her singing voice. Her virginals, bearing the Boleyn arms, are preserved in the Victoria and Albert Museum.

  Elizabeth's continued patronage of the astrologer and reputed wizard Dr John Dee certainly protected him from those who suspected him of forbidden practices and sought his rum. Dee wrote in 1564 how the Queen 'in most heroical and princely wise did comfort me and encourage me in my studies philosophical and mathematical'. She continued to visit him at Mortlake - 111 1575 he recorded that 'The Queen's Majesty with her most honourable Privy Council and other her lords and nobility visited my library.' She even offered Dee apartments at court, but he declined because he did not wish to interrupt his studies.

  The Queen was fascinated, not only by Dee's scientific and esoteric work, but also by his predictions; being the product of a superstitious age, she took them seriously. In 1577 Dee predicted the founding of'an incomparable British Empire', and it was his vision that inspired Elizabeth to encourage explorers such as Drake, Raleigh and Gilbert in their voyages of discovery and their attempts to establish English colonies in the New World. She consulted Dee on a wide variety of subjects: a new comet, toothache, some scientific puzzle, or the interpretation of a dream.

  When moved to it, Elizabeth could be compassionate and kind. To her close friend, Lady Norris, 'mine own Crow', who had lost a beloved son in the Irish war, she sent this sensible advice: 'Harm not yourself for bootless [useless] help, but show a good example to comfort your dolorous yoke-fellow. Now that Nature's common work is done, and he that was born to die hath paid his tribute, let the Christian discretion stay the flux of your immoderate grieving, which hath instructed you that nothing of this kind hath happiness but by God's Divine Providence.' Two years later, after two more Norris sons had been killed in Ireland, the Queen wrote to the grieving parents, 'We couple you together from desire that all the comfort we wish you may reach you both in this bitter accident. We were loath to write at all, lest we should give you fresh occasion of sorrow, but could not forbear, knowing your religious obedience to Him whose strokes are unavoidable. We propose ourselves as an example, our loss being no less than yours.' When she heard of the death of the Earl of Huntingdon, she moved the whole court to Whitehall so that she herself could break the news to his widow.

  Throughout her long life, Elizabeth enjoyed remarkably robust physical health, which permitted her to indulge in rigorous daily exercise. She ate abstemiously, lived to a good age and retained her faculties and her grip on the reins of government to the last. She expended a great deal of nervous energy, and displayed an extraordinary ability to remain standing for hours, much to the discomfiture of exhausted courtiers and foreign ambassadors.

  The nervous ailments of her youth had probably resulted from stress, insecurity and the tragic events of her childhood. The traumatic shocks she suffered then, particularly on learning of the fate of her mother, may well have permanently damaged her nervous system. Some of these nervous problems abated on her accession, and only reappeared with the menopause. Thereafter, she was subject to anxiety states, hysterical episodes, obsessiveness and attacks of increasingly profound depression. She hated loud noise, and her intolerance of closed windows and people crowding her suggests she was also claustrophobic. She suffered intermittent panic attacks: once, whilst walking in procession to chapel, 'she was suddenly overcome with a shock of fear', according to the Spanish ambassador, and had to be helped back to her apartments.

  These ailments were almost certainly neurotic. The stresses and strains of the responsibilities she carried, and her constant awareness of threats to her security would have overwhelmed a lesser person. Her contemporaries believed that by denying herself the fulfilment of marriage and children, she was living a life against nature. In Cecil's opinion, marriage and childbearing would have cured all her nervous complaints.

  By the standards of her time, Elizabeth was a fastidious woman, and very fussy. She loathed certain smells, especially that of scented leather. When one courtier came into her presence in scented leather boots, she turned down the petition he submitted to her, wrinkling her nose, whereupon he quipped, 'Tut, tut, Madam, 'tis my suit that stinks!' The Queen at once relented. She was not so forbearing when it came to bad breath. After receiving one French envoy, she exclaimed, 'Good God! What shall I do if this man stay here, for I smell him an hour after he has gone!' Her words were reported back to the envoy, who at once betook himself back to France in shame.

  Elizabeth also hated kitchen odours, which was unfortunate because her privy kitchen at Hampton Court was immediately beneath her apartments, and 'Her Majesty cannot sit quiet nor without ill savour.' Attempts to perfume the air with rosewater failed to disguise the smell, and in 1567 a new kitchen had to be built. It survives today, as a tearoom within the palace.

  As she grew older, Elizabeth became plagued with headaches, which may have been migraines or caused by eye-strain, and rheumatism. 'An open ulcer, above the ankle' was first mentioned in July 1569 and on several occasions thereafter prevented her from walking: in 1570 she was obliged to travel in a litter whilst on progress. Although the ulcer had healed by 1571, the Queen was left with a slight limp, about which she was very sensitive. It did not, however, prevent her from taking the long, early morning walks in which she so delighted.

  Although they were legion, her complaints were chronic
rather than serious, and she refused on many occasions to give in to them. Like her father, she had an abhorrence of illness, and she could not bear people thinking she was ill. In 1 577, she commanded Leicester to ask Cecil to send her some of the spa water from Buxton, where he was staying. When he did so, however, she would not drink it, on the grounds that 'It will not be of the goodness here it is there.' The real reason for her reluctance was that people were saying - with truth - that she had a 'sore leg', and that she would never admit to; in fact, she gave Leicester a dressing down for having written to Cecil.

  The following year she suffered the 'grievous pangs and pains' of toothache, but because she 'doth not or will not think' that the offending tooth needed to be extracted, her doctors dared not suggest it. Various methods of relief were essayed, but all failed, and still the Queen would not 'submit to chirurgical instruments', despite the remonstrances of her Council. A heroic Bishop Aylmer of London, to demonstrate that it was not such a terrible process, offered to have one of his own decayed teeth pulled out in her presence. In December 1578, he underwent the operation, whereupon Elizabeth, after nine months of agony, finally allowed the doctors to take out her own tooth. After that, the subject of teeth became a taboo one with her, and she resolved to keep hers and suffer, rather than have them out as they decayed, for she had heard that King Philip had done so and now had to live on slops. This decision condemned her to years of intermittent pain from toothache, gum disease and resultant neuralgia in the face and neck. Contemporary sources refer to swellings in her cheeks which may have been abscesses. Her increasing preference for sugary confections, custards and puddings did not help matters, but she nevertheless succeeded in keeping some of her teeth, although a foreign observer who saw her in old age noticed that they were 'very yellow and unequal, and many of them are missing'.