Life of Elizabeth I

by Alison Weir

  Moreover, when it came to it, Elizabeth could not face the prospect of parting from him. During the past year or so her moods had been more variable and her temper more volatile. Now she became clinging, and one night she besought Leicester 'with very pitiful words' not to go to the Netherlands and leave her, as she feared she would not live Iong. He found it impossible to reassure her, but a day or so later, she was cheerful again, although how long that would last was uncertain. Her behaviour suggests that at this time she was going through the menopause.

  At the end of September, the Queen had Leicester woken at midnight with a message commanding him to 'forbear to proceed' in his preparations until further notice. In despair, he told Walsingham, 'I am weary of life and all.' In the morning, however, Elizabeth revoked her order, much to his relief, but in the days that followed she showed herself so morose and irritable at the prospect of his approaching departure that his heart sank.

  She was also adamant that his role in the Netherlands be confined to that of Lieutenant General of her army, and nothing more, for she feared he would seek his 'own glory' rather than her 'true service'. Above all, he must never accept from the Dutch any title or role that would imply her acceptance of the sovereignty of the Netherlands, which she most certainly did not want.

  Dejectedly, Leicester confided to Walsingham: 'Her Majesty will make trial of me how I love her and what will discourage me from her service, but resolved I am that no worldly respect shall draw me back from my faithful discharge of my duty towards her, though she shall show to hate me, as it goeth very near, for I find no love or favour at all'

  At Richmond in October, Elizabeth issued an open 'Declaration', twenty pages long, justifying her actions to King Philip and the world at large, and sent Sir Philip Sidney to the Netherlands, appointing him Governor of Flushing, one of two ports she had the right, by treaty, to garrison. She then dispatched an army which had cost her one half of her annual income.

  On 8 December, Leicester left for the Netherlands, determined to rid England of the Spanish menace once and for all. He took with him a household of 170 persons, many of noble birth, as well as his wife, who insisted upon being attended by a bevy of ladies and taking a vast quantity of luggage, including furniture, clothing and carriages. When the Queen heard, she took 'great offence': after threatening to strip Leicester of his command, she changed her mind but affected to be no longer interested in preparations for the venture.

  With Leicester went young Essex, appointed General of the Horse, a post that would keep him safely behind the lines. However, he excelled so well at the jousts in honour of Leicester's arrival that 'he gave all men great hope of his noble forwardness in arms'. When he arrived in Flushing on 10 December, Leicester received an ecstatic welcome from the Dutch, who hailed him as their saviour and honoured him for nearly three weeks with banquets, fireworks, processions, entertainments and tournaments.

  Leicester was hoping to work out an offensive strategy for the defence of the Netherlands. However, he was to find it impossible to do so because Elizabeth, ever conscious of her purse, sent him insufficient supplies for his army. Moreover, as sovereign, she was painfully aware of the limitations of her sex and determined to remain firmly in control of the campaign, interfering at every opportunity. Leicester was not to take the offensive, nor 'hazard a battle without any great advantage'. He naturally resented this, and the further he travelled from her, the less notice he took of her injunctions.

  It was the Dutch who caused the quarrel that followed. Disappointed that Elizabeth had declined to be their sovereign, they treated Leicester as a visiting prince, much to his gratification and the Queen's chagrin, and instead of leading a military campaign, he found himself at the centre of a royal progress round the country. Before very long, his hosts warmly invited him 'to declare himself chief head and Governor General'.

  Chapter 21

  'The Tragical Execution'

  Paulet's fears about security were allayed when, on Christmas Eve 1585, Mary Stuart, having been told that the Queen had heeded her complaints, was moved at Elizabeth's instigation from Tutbury to the absent Essex's fortified and moated house at Chartley, twelve miles away, where provision was made for her laundresses to live in.

  'I cannot imagine how it may be possible for them to convey a piece of paper as big as my finger,' Paulet observed with satisfaction. Walsingham was not so sure, having had vast experience of Mary's ability to smuggle out messages, and it was at this time that he conceived the idea of using it to his advantage, in the hope that Mary would incriminate herself and give him the excuse he wanted to get rid of her once and for all.

  Fate played into his hands that same month when a trainee Catholic priest, Gilbert Gifford, was arrested at Rye on his arrival from France and brought before Walsingham. Gifford, he learned, had been sent to England by Mary's friends in Paris with a view to re-establishing contact with her. Realising that his plans were known, the weak-willed Gifford was suborned into working for Walsingham instead, and was instructed to pass on the many letters from abroad that were waiting for Mary at the French embassy. Any replies she gave Gifford were to be brought directly to Walsingham, whose secretary, Thomas Phelippes, an expert in codes, would decipher, copy and reseal the letters and send them on to their destination. In this way, Walsingham could monitor all Mary's correspondence. Thus the trap was set.

  Gifford was to inform Mary that he had organised a secret route whereby letters might be smuggled in and out of Chartley. Walsingham had discovered that Master Burton, the local brewer in Buxton, supplied the house regularly with beer in large barrels. It was Gilford's task to persuade the brewer, with the promise of substantial remuneration, to convey Mary's letters in a waterproof wooden box that was small enough to be slipped through the bung-hole of a barrel. The brewer, an 'honest man' who was sympathetic towards Mary, agreed, thinking he was doing her a service; he did not find out, until it was too late, that he had been used, and when Paulet let him in on the secret, he merely put up his prices, knowing that too much was at stake for his customer to protest.

  Using this new channel of information, Gifford sent Mary a letter introducing himself, along with letters of credence from Thomas Morgan, her agent in Paris, and described the secret channel through which she might communicate with her friends overseas. To Mary, deprived of contact with them for so long, this was an answer to her prayers, and she responded enthusiastically to Gifford's plan, never suspecting that he was not what he seemed. Soon afterwards, she was delighted to receive twenty-one packets of letters from the French embassy, and set to work to answer them.

  The only persons who knew about the framing of Mary were Walsingham, his assistants, Leicester and, almost certainly, Elizabeth, who at this time told the French ambassador, 'You have much secret communication with the Queen of Scotland, but believe me, I know all that goes on in my kingdom. I myself was a prisoner in the days of the Queen my sister, and am aware of the artifices that prisoners use to win over servants and obtain secret intelligence.' The evidence suggests that she not only knew and approved of what was going on, but followed developments closely.

  When, on 5 February, Elizabeth learned from one of her ladies (who had heard it in a private letter) that Leicester had accepted the office of Supreme Governor of the Netherlands, and been inaugurated in this 'highest and supreme commandment' at a solemn ceremony at The Hague on 15 January, she exploded with such fury as her courtiers had never before witnessed.

  'It is sufficient to make me infamous to all princes,' she raged, and she wrote castigating him for his childish dealing. We could never have imagined, had we not seen it fall out, that a man raised up by ourself and extraordinarily favoured by us above any other subject of this land, would have in so contemptible a sort broken our commandment in a cause that so greatly touched our honour. Our express pleasure and commandment is that, all delays and excuses laid apart, you do presently, upon the duty of your allegiance, obey and fulfil whatsoever the bearer shal
l direct you to do in our name. Whereof, fail you not, as you will answer the contrary at your uttermost peril.

  Leicester was deeply upset by her reaction. He believed he had acted in her best interests, and although Elizabeth thought he had not dared to tell her what he had done, he had in fact sent one of the royal secretaries, Sir William Davison, to tell her. Davison, however, had been delayed by bad weather, and when he arrived on 13 February, he had been forestalled by others. Nor would the Queen listen to what he had to say, but lectured him 'in most bitter and hard terms'. 'At the least, I think she would never have so condemned any other man before she heard him,' Leicester observed bitterly.

  Elizabeth was under immense strain as a result of the Netherlands war, and Walsingham noticed that she was becoming 'daily more unapt to bear any matter of weight'. In March, Warwick told Leicester that 'our mistress's extreme rage doth increase rather than in any way diminish. Her malice is great and unquenchable.' She was even withholding pay for Leicester's soldiers in order to teach him a lesson. Leicester tried to blame Davison for his acceptance of the governor generalship, saying Sir William had urged him to it, but the Queen did not believe this, and soon afterwards appointed Davison a councillor.

  The Council was alarmed lest the Queen's anger should prompt her peremptorily to recall Leicester and thus expose the rift between them, for it was unthinkable that the Spaniards should see the English divided. They therefore exerted their combined talents to pacify the Queen and tried to make her understand why Leicester had apparently defied her; it was only after a messenger had brought her news that Leicester was ill that she grudgingly conceded that the Earl had acted in what he perceived to be her best interests.

  On T4 March, in Leicester's presence, Sir Thomas Heneage informed the Dutch Council of State that the Earl would have to resign his office - 'matter enough to have broken any man's heart'. The Dutch wrote begging the Queen to reconsider, but it was Burghley's threat to resign that in the end moved her unwillingly to agree that Leicester might remain Governor General for the time being, provided it was made clear that in this respect he was not her deputy and that he remained aware of his subordinate position.

  Leicester complied with these conditions. In April, when he celebrated St George's Day with a state banquet in Utrecht, an empty throne was set in the place of honour for the absent Queen, and food and drink were laid before it.

  'The Queen is in very good terms with you,' Raleigh informed him after this, 'and, thanks be to God, well pacified, and you are again her Sweet Robin.' Exhausted and demoralised, the Earl wrote to Walsingham, am weary, indeed I am weary, Mr Secretary.'

  In March 1586, Philip of Spain wrote to Pope Sixtus V, asking for the Church's blessing on the Enterprise of England. It was readily given, along with financial support. The planned invasion now assumed the nature of a crusade against the Infidel, a holy war that was to be fought on a grand scale.

  On 20 May, Mary wrote to Mendoza, revealing her intention to 'cede and give, by will, my right to the succession of [the English] crown to your King your master, considering the obstinacy and perseverance of my son in heresy'. Philip, however, informed the Pope that he himself had no desire to add England to his already vast dominions, and had decided to resign any claim to the English succession to his daughter, the Infanta Isabella Clara Eugenia.

  Late in May, Gifford sent Walsingham two letters from Mary Stuart: the first was to Mendoza, assuring the Spaniards of her support for the invasion and promising to enlist James VI's help. The second was to a supporter, Charles Paget, asking him to remind Philip II of the need for urgency in invading England. Paget's reply, which also arrived on Walsingham's desk, described how a priest, John Ballard, had recently arrived from France to orchestrate a Catholic rebellion against Elizabeth, timed to coincide with the Spanish invasion which was expected that summer.

  Father Ballard was soon under the surveillance of Walsingham's spies. Like many other Catholics who had spent time abroad, this misguided priest had an exaggerated concept of the level of Catholic support for Mary in England. Full of zest for his mission, he visited a rich Catholic gentleman, Anthony Babington of Dethick, who had been a supporter of the Queen of Scots for two years. The handsome and zealous Babington was twenty-five, came from an old and respected Derbyshire family, and had once served in Shrewsbury's household as Mary's page. However, it was known to the authorities that the previous autumn he had been involved in a harebrained plot to assassinate the entire Council when it met in the Star Chamber.

  In June, Ballard and Babington were overheard discussing King Philip's projected invasion and plotting the murder of the Queen, who was to be struck down either in her Presence Chamber, or while walking in the park, or riding in her coach. Babington undertook to do the deed himself, with the aid of six of his friends, who proved, like Babington himself, to be gently-born, idealistic young men blessed with very little common sense and carried away by chivalrous fervour inspired by the Queen of Scots.

  Walsingham, whilst keeping Babington under the strictest surveillance, decided to turn his plotting to the government's advantage. It was fortunate that Thomas Morgan, Mary's Paris agent, had heard of Babington and had written to her commending his loyalty and pointing out that 'there be many means to remove the beast that troubles the world'. It was a simple matter for Walsingham to ensure that this letter reached Mary.

  On 25 June, as he had expected, the Queen of Scots wrote to Babington, who replied on 6 July with an outline of his conspiracy, asking for her approval and advice. Addressing Mary as 'My dread Sovereign Lady and Queen', he told her that 'six noble gentlemen, all my private friends', would 'despatch the usurper' Elizabeth, while he himself would rescue Mary from Chartley, and then, with the help of the invading Spanish forces, set her on the throne of England. All Babington asked of Mary was that she would extend her protection to those who carried out 'that tragical execution' and reward them.

  His letter was delivered to Chartley by Thomas Phelippes. Walsingham now waited in suspense to see how Mary would respond. On 9 July, he informed Leicester that something momentous was about to happen: 'Surely, if the matter be well handled, it will break the neck of all dangerous practices during Her Majesty's reign.'

  On to July, Phelippes reported, 'You have now this Queen's answer to Babington, which I received yesternight.' However, this proved to be merely a brief note, in which Mary promised to write more fully within the next few days. 'We attend her very heart at the next,' observed Phelippes.

  The letter that he and Walsingham had so eagerly awaited was written in code on 17 July by Mary's two secretaries, who transcribed it from notes in her own hand which she burnt immediately afterwards. The original letter does not survive, presumably having been destroyed by Babington, only the copy made by Phelippes, which was rushed with all speed to Walsingham, adorned with a sketch of a gallows drawn by Phelippes himself.

  In this lengthy communication, Mary incriminated herself by endorsing the Babington plot and Elizabeth's murder: 'The affair being thus prepared, and forces in readiness both within and without the realm, then shall it be time to set the six gentlemen to work; taking order upon the accomplishment of their design, I may be suddenly transported out of this place.'

  This letter was just what Walsingham wanted, for it enabled Mary to be dealt with under the 1585 Act of Association, and it is almost certain that, in order to discover the names of Babington's co-plotters, he forged a postscript to the 'bloody letter', asking for their names, before forwarding it to Babington on 29 July. Later, Mary's supporters would claim that Walsingham had forged other passages in the letter, particularly that endorsing Elizabeth's assassination; however, Mary's complicity is corroborated by Mendoza, who informed King Philip that she was fully acquainted with every aspect of the project.

  By now, the conspirators were openly bragging of their enterprise and toasting its success in London inns. Babington had also commissioned a group portrait of himself and the future regicides 'as
a memorial of so worthy an act'.

  On 5 July, Elizabeth and James VI concluded the Treaty of Berwick, which provided for each monarch to help the other in the event of any invasion. This meant that Philip would not be able to invade England through its northern border. The news of her son's ultimate betrayal reached Mary just as Babington was asking her blessing on his plot; it caused her 'the greatest anguish, despair and grief and gave impetus to her endorsement of the conspiracy.

  During July, Leicester put it to Elizabeth that the surest way to winning the Dutch war would be for her to accept the sovereignty of the Netherlands. Horrified at the prospect of such a drain on her treasury, and fearful of provoking Philip too far, she reacted hysterically. Then, having calmed down, she wrote to him, rationally explaining her reluctance, and adding: 'Rob, I am afraid you will suppose by my wandering writings that a midsummer moon hath taken large possession of my brains this month, but you must take things as they come in my head, though order be left behind me . . . Now will I end, that do imagine I talk still with you, and therefore loathly say farewell, Eyes, though ever I pray God bless you from all harm, and save you from all your foes, with my million and legion thanks for all your pains and cares. As you know, ever the same, E.R.'

  There was to be no more talk of her accepting the Dutch crown.

  By August, Walsingham had gathered together most of the evidence he needed to bring the Queen of Scots to her death, and he now decided that it was not worth waiting for Babington to reply to Mary; he must strike now, before either of them got wind of what was going on and burned their correspondence, which Walsingham meant to produce in court.