Life of Elizabeth I

by Alison Weir

  'Nay, sweet Walter! Oh, sweet Walter!' she protested weakly, but 'as the danger and the pleasure at the same time grew higher, she cried in ecstasy. She proved with child.'

  Raleigh's rise to royal favour was spectacular, and it was not long before he was installed in Durham House on the Strand and appearing at court in expensive, dazzling dress; a pair of his gem-encrusted shoes cost 6000 crowns alone. He made other courtiers look, and feel, like poor relations.

  Naturally, his meteoric rise provoked jealousy and hatred in the breast of Leicester, who resented the younger man's incursion on what he regarded as his territory. Hatton also voiced his concern that the new favourite was ousting him from his sovereign's affections in a letter enclosed in a miniature bucket, symbolising Raleigh's nickname, Warter. Elizabeth reassured him, saying that, 'If Princes were like gods (as they should be), they would suffer no element so to abound as to breed confusion. The beasts of the field were so dear unto her that she had bounded her banks so sure as no water or floods could be ever able to overthrow them.' And so that he should fear no drowning, she sent him a dove, 'that, together with the rainbow, brought the good tidings and the covenant that there should be no more destruction by water'. She was her Mutton's shepherd, and he should remember 'how dear her sheep was to her'.

  In fact, Raleigh was never popular, mainly because of his conceit and his greed. 'He was commonly noted for using of bitter scoffs and reproachful taunts,' and his pride was 'above the greatest Lucifer that hath lived in our age'. 'He would lose a friend to coin a jest.' His enemies called him 'Jack the Upstart' or 'the Knave', and he was said to be 'the best hated man of the world, in court, city and country'. Perversely, he revelled in his unpopularity, deeming it the measure of his success.

  Even the Queen was not blind to the unstable, reckless streak in him, and although she used his talents in many capacities, appointed him Captain of the Gentlemen Pensioners, and knighted him in 1585, she never conferred on him high political office nor admitted him to the Privy Council. He was too fond of 'perpetually differing' for the sake of it, and was 'insolent, extremely heated, a man that desires to be able to sway all men's fancies'. Instead, Elizabeth granted him lucrative offices and monopolies on goods. He therefore had sufficient wealth and leisure to indulge his passion for adventure, study and exploration.

  John Harington, the Queen's godson, also made his court debut at this time, having completed his legal training at Lincoln's Inn. He was an immediate success, impressing people with his wit and conversational skills. Elizabeth herself was amused by his 'free speech', but she was probably not aware that he was recording for posterity a series of epigrams and anecdotes about herself and her court which would not be published for another two hundred years. There was a genuine affection between the Queen and her godson, and he never abused it by demanding favours or preferment.

  It was the offer of a further 10,000, extended by Elizabeth after he had presented her with a New Year's gift of a jewelled anchor brooch, a symbol of constancy, that finally persuaded Anjou to leave England, which was as well, for the Queen was becoming so agitated about his presence at court that she could not sleep at night and even became feverish. On 7 February 1582, after saying a 'mournful' and tearful farewell to her at Canterbury, the Duke set sail from Sandwich, with an escort of three English warships, Leicester and other nobles accompanying him. The Earl had not wanted to go, but Elizabeth warned him that he would suffer if he did not respectfully treat the man 'she loved best in the world'. She was also relying on Leicester to convey a secret message to William of Orange, asking him to ensure that Anjou never returned to England. At the same time, unknown to the Queen, Sussex had requested William to detain Leicester in the Netherlands, though Elizabeth thwarted this by demanding Leicester's immediate return.

  The Queen pretended to be grief-stricken at the loss of her lover, saying she could not lodge at Whitehall 'because the place gives cause of remembrance to her of him, with whom she so unwillingly parted'. She wept frequently, telling Leicester and Walsingham that she could not live another hour were it not for her hope of seeing Anjou again: he would, she promised, be back within six weeks, if the King of France was willing. She took to wearing at her girdle a tiny prayer book set with miniatures of herself and Anjou, a copy of which is now in the British Library. She declared to Mendoza that she would give a million pounds to have her Frog swimming in the Thames once more, and she continued to exchange affectionate letters with the Duke. Lie, in turn, kept up the pretence that they were to be married, and pressed her to name the date. Elizabeth knew it was in her interest to maintain this fiction, and kept it going for as long as possible. And it served its purpose, for she had kept Philip at bay with the threat of an Anglo- French alliance, and had also managed to avoid being involved in the war in the Netherlands.

  On 10 February, Anjou docked at Flushing, fully intending to take up arms on behalf of the Dutch Protestants. Leicester, however, described the future conqueror to the Queen as looking like 'an old husk, run ashore, high and dry'; Elizabeth screamed at him for his insolence and mockery, and called him a traitor, like all his horrible family. As it turned out, Anjou found his liberty severely curtailed by the constraints imposed by his new subjects, and he was also hampered by his own incompetence. He ended up playing tennis and hunting while Parma took city after city and Elizabeth fumed impotently at the lack of support given by the rebels to the Duke and his own fatal inertia. 'My God, Monsieur, are you quite mad?' she thundered in one letter. 'You seem to believe that the means of keeping our friends is to weaken them!'

  In January 1583, Anjou turned on the Dutch rebels who had imposed such intolerable constraints on him, and launched attacks on several of their cities. 'France never received so great a disgrace,' wrote an English envoy to Walsingham. In consequence of this, the Duke was obliged to leave the Netherlands and return to France, his ambitions in shreds, while Parma was able to consolidate his position. The Dutch, disillusioned with the French intervention, began to turn to William of Orange as their leader and their best hope of salvation against the Spanish threat.

  Anjou's departure from England had signalled the end of Elizabeth's courting days, and she knew it. 'I am an old woman, to whom paternosters will suffice in place of nuptials,' she told her courtiers sadly. The Tudor line would end with her, and for the rest of her reign she would have to contend with the ever-present problem of the unresolved succession. Furthermore, she had lost perhaps her greatest bargaining counter: her hand in marriage. No longer was she 'the best match in her parish': she was ageing, and too old to bear children. All her councillors could hope for now was that she would outlive the Queen of Scots.

  In May 1582, a Catholic conspiracy against Elizabeth involving the Guises, the Pope, Philip of Spain and the Jesuits was hatched in Paris, its object being to place Mary Stuart on the English throne.

  It was apparent by now to the government how successful the Jesuit missions to England had been, yet still the Queen would not sanction sterner measures against her Catholic subjects. 'Her Majesty is slow to believe that the great increase of Papists is a danger to the realm,' commented Leicester. 'The Lord of His mercy open her eyes!'

  In October, Walsingham's spies seized a cipher letter written by the Queen of Scots, which indicated that she was involved in some new conspiracy. From then on, her correspondence was carefully vetted and her servants watched more closely.

  By the spring of 1583, Mary Stuart and her Catholic allies had conceived a plan whereby she would be reinstated in Scotland as joint ruler with her son, James VI. The plan was doomed to failure because Mary herself was insisting that sovereign power devolve chiefly upon her, which would certainly be resisted by James. Nor would the Scots be likely to welcome a Catholic queen. However, Elizabeth, who was aware of what had been proposed, toyed with the idea, anxious to reach a settlement whereby the problem of the Queen of Scots could be solved without recourse to bloodshed. Mary herself believed that James's filial loyalty
to the mother he had not seen since babyhood would ensure his co-operation in the plan, but although the young King declared that he desired her to be set at liberty, his chief concern was to preserve his own interests and position, not only in Scotland, but also with regard to the English succession.

  Walsingham was still on Mary's trail. At this time, he found out that Sir Nicholas Throckmorton's nephew, Francis, a Catholic, was paying secret nocturnal visits to the French embassy. As he was known to be sympathetic to Mary's cause, the conclusion was correctly drawn that he was working as her agent. In fact he was in communication with the Duke of Guise and the Jesuits. However, Walsingham had little idea of what the object of this activity was at that time, and he therefore had Throckmorton and the French ambassador watched over the next six months.

  In May, whilst staying at Theobalds, Elizabeth heeded the pleas of Burghley and Raleigh and, after 'bitter tears and speeches' at an emotionally charged audience, forgave Oxford for his liaison with Anne Vavasour and allowed him to return to court.

  Philip Sidney was now high in the Queen's favour, and in 1583 she knighted him and sanctioned his marriage to Frances, only daughter and heiress of Sir Francis Walsingham, a match that was a source of great pride to Walsingham.

  In July, Archbishop Grindal died, still in disgrace, and the Queen chose in his stead John Whitgift, formerly Bishop of Worcester, to be her third and last Archbishop of Canterbury. Whitgift, who became a personal friend, supported Elizabeth in her insistence on religious uniformity, and his consecration struck a blow at the Puritan movement, since he dealt with those who refused to conform with ruthless severity. A strict Protestant of Calvinist leanings, he was hard-working, dogmatic and inflexible, as well as being an astute politician - he was appointed a Privy Councillor in 1586 - and a religious disciplinarian. Thanks to Whitgift's influence, within ten years, Puritanism would lose its bite, and no longer pose a threat to the Anglican communion.

  That July, Leicester found himself 'in great disgrace about his marriage', for he had presumed to refer to it 'more plainly than ever before' in the Queen's presence. He may even have dared take Elizabeth to task over her reaction to the recent elopement of Lettice's daughter, Lady Dorothy Devereux, with Thomas Perrot, son of Sir John Perrot, a future Lord Deputy of Ireland and reputed bastard of Henry VIII. The Perrots were a family of notorious adventurers, of whom the Queen did not approve. Sir John was to die in the Tower in 1592 under suspicion of treasonable dealings with Spain. Elizabeth had never liked him, nor did she consider his son a fit match for Essex's sister, who had moreover dared to marry without royal consent, for which the Queen predictably blamed the influence of Dorothy's mother. Elizabeth's wrath had been terrible to behold: she had banished Dorothy from court, clapped Perrot into the Fleet prison, and reviled Lettice as a 'she-wolf whom she would expose in all the courts of Christendom for the bad woman she really was, even proving Leicester a cuckold. However, by the end of August, peace was restored, and the Earl was described as having 'grown lately in great favour with the Queen's Majesty, such as this ten years he was not like to outward show'.

  Leicester lost his greatest enemy when Sussex died that year. Even on his deathbed in his house at Bermondsey, Sussex gave vent to his loathing for the favourite, and croaked to his fellow-councillors, 'I am now passing into another world, and must leave you to your fortunes and to the Queen's graces, but beware of the Gypsy, for he will be too hard for you all. You know not the beast so well as I do.' With Sussex gone, Leicester's opponents lost their voice; in future, attacks on him would come from more subtle, hidden enemies.

  In fact, though, his power was waning. Elizabeth frequently ignored his advice, especially where the Netherlands were concerned. Leicester believed that England would not be safe until the Spaniards were expelled from the United Provinces, and he still favoured military intervention to accomplish this.

  Leicester was now fifty, a corpulent, balding man with the ruddy colour that betokens high blood pressure. He was not well, and suffered intermittent stomach pains that may have been caused by advancing cancer; in vain did he eat a careful diet, and take the healing waters at Buxton. His poor health made him short-tempered and rather paranoid, perceiving criticism where there was none, and taking every man to be his enemy. His friends deplored the change in him, and one, John Aylmer, wrote, 'I have ever observed in you such a mild, courteous and amiable nature. I appeal from this Lord of Leicester unto mine old Lord of Leicester, who hath carried away the praise of all men.'

  Leicester still occupied a special place in the Queen's heart, but he found it hard to compete with her younger favourites, Raleigh or even young Charles Blount, the twenty-year-old brother of Lord Mountjoy, who had recently visited Whitehall to see the Queen at dinner. Espying the attractive stranger, she had asked his name, at which he blushed. She beckoned him over and said, 'Fail you not to come to the court, and I will bethink myself how to do you good.' When Blount finished his training as a lawyer, he took her at her word, and was gratified to be admitted to her charmed circle of handsome male favourites.

  In September, 1583, Elizabeth celebrated her fiftieth birthday; she had now reigned for nearly twenty-five years.

  In October 1583, an insane young Catholic, John Somerville of Warwickshire, swayed by Jesuit propaganda, was arrested for bragging that he intended to march on London and shoot the Queen with a pistol and 'hoped to see her head on a pole, for she was a serpent and a viper'. He was thrown into Newgate prison and condemned to death, but hanged himself in his cell before the sentence could be carried out.

  The publicity given to this event provoked an upsurge of national affection towards Elizabeth, and in November, the French ambassador reported that, when she travelled to Hampton Court, huge crowds of people knelt by the wayside, wishing her 'a thousand blessings and that the evil-disposed who meant to harm her be discovered and punished as they deserved'. The Queen made frequent stops to thank them for their loyalty, and told the ambassador 'she saw clearly that she was not disliked by all'.

  Chapter 20

  'Practices at Home and Abroad'

  In November 1583, Francis Throckmorton was arrested at his London house, a search of which revealed 'infamous pamphlets' and lists of papist lords and harbours where foreign ships could land in safety. More sinisterly, it became apparent that Mendoza was heavily involved in the plot, which surprised Walsingham, whose suspicions had centred upon the French ambassador, who, if he had been aware of what was going on, had managed to avoid being implicated.

  Under torture in the Tower, Throckmorton gave nothing away, but after the Queen had authorised him to be racked a second time, his courage failed him: 'Now I have disclosed the secrets of her who was the dearest thing to me in the world,' he lamented. He revealed that the conspiracy's aim had been to prepare for King Philip's Enterprise of England, the object of which was to set Mary on the English throne. The Pope, the Guises and the Jesuits were involved, and there were to be four separate invasions, centred upon Scotland, Ireland, Sussex and Norfolk, co-ordinated by Catholic activists at home and abroad. Plans were so far advanced that all that remained to be done was stir up rebellion in England. Both Mary and Mendoza had been fully involved at every stage, but Walsingham had already guessed at Mary's complicity, for she had given herself away in several letters that had come under his scrutiny.

  'All this shows that her intention was to lull us into security,' Elizabeth concluded, 'that we might the less seek to discover practices at home and abroad.'

  The government were in no doubt that this was a very dangerous plot indeed, and set about hunting down the Catholic lords on Throckmorton's list. Some were committed to the Tower, but several had already fled abroad. The Queen was pressed to bring Mary to justice, for there was enough evidence to convict her, but she refused out of hand. She agreed, however, that Throckmorton be executed at Tyburn and that Mendoza be expelled in disgrace. His parting shot was that his master would avenge this insult with war. For the rest
of Elizabeth's reign, Spain would never send another ambassador to England.

  Both Parliament and the Council were in militant mood, fiercely protective of their queen, and urging that a 'final' policy towards Mary Stuart be settled. However, Elizabeth again baulked at this, and this time was backed by Leicester, who wanted Mary kept in honourable and comfortable captivity, a strategy dictated by self-interest, for if Mary ever ascended the throne of England, she would remember to whom she owed her life. Yet his was a lone voice, for most of his colleagues wanted Mary's head.

  On 10 June 1584, the Duke of Anjou died of a fever at Chateau-Thierry in France. His death meant that there was now no direct Valois heir to the French throne, Henry III having no sons, and that the succession would pass to a cousin, Henry of Bourbon, the Huguenot King of Navarre.

  Elizabeth was greatly grieved when she heard of Anjou's death, and wept in public every day for three weeks, leaving observers in no doubt that she had felt a genuine affection for her 'Frog'. The court was put into mourning, the Queen herself wearing black for six months. 'Melancholy doth possess us', wrote Walsingham to a friend, 'as both public and private causes are at stay for a season.'

  To Catherine de' Medici, Elizabeth wrote:

  Your sorrow cannot exceed mine, although you are his mother. You have several other children, but for myself I find no consolation, if it be not death, in which I hope we shall be reunited. Madame, if you could see the image of my heart, you would see there the picture of a body without a soul, but I will not trouble you with sorrows, for you have too many of your own.

  Not everybody was convinced of her sincerity. When Elizabeth told the French ambassador, 'I am a widow woman who has lost her husband,' he commented that she was 'a princess who knows how to transform herself as suits her best'.