After Elizabeth

by Leanda de Lisle

  As one popular English verse of the next few years would have it:

  Then bonny Scot well witness can’t was England that made thee a gentleman.59

  Late in the afternoon of Wednesday 6 April Sir John Carey and his constables, captains and Gentleman Pensioners greeted James at the “liberties” of Berwick—an area about a mile north of the city walls.

  They rode on together until, a witness recalls, at about five o’clock the city of Berwick rose before them “like an enchanted castle.” As the town’s cannon fired in thunderous salute from its angled bastions the ground seemed to tremble and the houses stagger; the whole town was wrapped in a mantle of smoke. Even the garrison’s oldest soldiers, stationed at Berwick since the days of Henry VIII, swore they had never heard or seen anything like it.60

  At the city gates Mr. William Selby, Gentleman Porter of Berwick, presented James with the keys of the town. James handed them back, knighted him and rode through cheering crowds to the marketplace. As James appeared the gathered throng fell to their knees shouting and crying “Welcome” and “God save King James.” They were entreated to be quiet so that the Recorder of Berwick, Mr. Christopher Parkinson, could deliver his speech. The Mayor, Hugh Gregson, then presented James with a traditional gift of a purse of gold and the town’s charter.61 At this point Queen Elizabeth would have thanked the people for their show of devotion and as Harington recalled, her speech did win all a fections for she would say, her state did require her to command what she knew her people would willingly do from their own love to her. Herein she did show her wisdom fully; for who did choose to lose her confidence; or who would withhold a show of love or obedience, when their sovereign said it was their own choice and not her compulsion? Surely did she play her tables well to gain obedience thus without restraint.62

  James, however, took a more aggressive view. His book of instruction on kingship made it plain that he did not approve of populist speeches or being “prodigal in joking and nodding at every step.” He believed that lawful kings should be obeyed whether they were loved or not. “Your Queen did talk of her subjects love and good affections and in truth she aimed well,” Harington’s friend Lord Thomas Howard later observed; “our King talks of his subjects’ fear and subjugation, and herein he does well too, as long as it holds good.”63

  The Berwick crowds waited patiently on their knees for words of love that never came. Eventually a burst of rain exploded over them and James kicked his horse on, riding straight to the main church to thank God for the good fortune of his inheritance. Berwick was a poor town by English standards and the church was small and so structurally unsound that the congregation would often run out of the building if there was a sudden blast of wind, “even,” we are told, “at sermon time.”64 The sermon that day was to be delivered by Tobie Matthew, the powerful Bishop of Durham, who was acutely aware that his political future would depend on his saying the right thing. The first Lord Burghley had installed Matthew in the bishopric in the early 1590s, with instructions to crush Catholic resistance and keep a watchful eye on Scotland. Matthew had become renowned for his ferocious pursuit of recusants, forcing them to conform through fines, imprisonment and the threat of death. But, like the first Lord Burghley, Matthew also opposed James’s inheritance of the crown, giving credit to Catholic opinion that James “secretly hath mass and is a Catholic.” The gossips in London were certain Matthew’s career was over. All, however, was not yet lost.

  Matthew was the kind of man James admired: intelligent, witty, with a deep knowledge of theology. He had also had a stroke of good fortune: Cecil wanted something from him, namely, Durham House, the old bishopric palace in London, which Elizabeth had leased to Ralegh. It lay next to Cecil’s new house and he wanted to expand his property in that direction. Confident that Ralegh would not find favor with James, he had asked Matthew if he could take it over when it reverted to the bishopric. Matthew replied from Berwick with the tantalizing answer that he could not make any immediate promises, “not knowing the state of the house, or what recompense I should require of it.”65 For now Bishop Matthew would continue to enjoy Cecil’s goodwill and thus James’s trust.

  Matthew opened his sermon with a humble petition to James for pardon. It was obvious that it had been accepted when after the service he was asked to wait on James and say grace at his dinner table. Since Elizabeth’s death, however, James’s actions and pronouncements had left most none the wiser on his attitudes toward religious toleration. On the one hand, his letters to the Privy Council and city councils had promised to defend the rights of the Protestant religion and said nothing about allowing religious toleration. On the other, he had shown favor to leading Catholic figures such as Lord Thomas Howard, whom he announced was to replace the sickly Lord Hunsdon as Lord Chamberlain. When the letter sacking Hunsdon reached London from Berwick it triggered outbursts of fury from his servants; one was put in the Tower and racked “on his assertion as to the King’s favouring Catholics” and “his threats against the life of the King.”66

  A request from James that Elizabeth’s funeral should take place before he arrived in London also added to the confusion. It was said that he did not want to pay his respects to his mother’s killer and the Venetian Scaramelli reported that “Elizabeth’s portrait is being hidden everywhere, and Mary Stuart’s shown instead with declaration that she suffered for no other cause than for her religion.”67 Gradually, however, James’s true views were showing themselves. A Catholic priest later claimed that when an English nobleman had asked James in Scotland whether he really was going to offer toleration, he had replied: “Na Na, good faith, we’s not need the papists now!” Whether or not he used these words, they neatly summed up how he viewed the issue.68 James would tolerate Catholics but not Catholicism, a distinction that not everyone understood but which would eventually be spelled out as the invitation to hypocrisy and dishonesty that it was.

  On James’s second day in Berwick he was given a tour of the walls of the city and inspected the garrison. Berwick was considered to be one of the least desirable postings in England: the weather was often cold and damp and the storms could be terrible. In January 1595 several soldiers had been blown off the city walls. The garrison’s victualing was also a constant ground of complaint. The soldiers often went hungry despite the cheap and plentiful supplies of salmon and shellfish available in the town. 24

  James fired one of the garrison’s cannon and commended the soldiers for their actions in bringing an end to the robberies of the “Busy Week.”69 He was accompanied by large numbers of Gentlemen Pensioners and courtiers. Among them was Henry Howard, who had been sent to Berwick by Cecil “to possess the King’s ear and counter-mine the Lord Cobham.”70 It was a task in which he was proving entirely successful. Cobham was getting nowhere in his efforts to attract the King’s goodwill, and neither was his brother, George Brooke. Brooke had been pushing for the mastership of the St. Cross hospital near Winchester during the last months of Elizabeth’s life. He had only a fraction of his brother’s wealth and the added expense of keeping his wife’s sister as his mistress. The mastership was the ideal solution and although Cecil had blocked his suit with Elizabeth he hoped to have better luck with James.71 When he finally caught the King’s attention he offered to spy on any malcontents, hoping for a promise of preferment in return. None, however, was forthcoming and there were soon other suitors to take Brooke’s place.

  The king’s train had swollen to over 500. James hated the crush of strangers around him, any one of whom could have been carrying a knife and a grudge. He was also concerned that so many important figures should be away from their positions of responsibility, and questioned how the numbers already in his train could be fed and housed as he journeyed south. He had issued a proclamation two days earlier ordering all those who held office or who were of significant standing to stay in their counties and at their posts. In London, Ralegh was caught hold of as he prepared to ride north with a large group of suitors and order
ed “to spare his labour”—but others were still arriving. James ordered the issuing of a further proclamation “for attendance on the King’s person, and for receiving of him by the sheriffs of the several counties, at his first coming into England.” It demanded that the county sheriffs “take special care and regard, that all manner victuals and other provisions necessary . . . for his Majesty and his whole train, be in convenient time brought to all places where his Highness shall lodge or rest.” If anyone proved reluctant to provide what was necessary “they are to sustain such condign punishment as their offence in that behalf deserves.” 72

  James was in high spirits as he set off for Widdrington the following day, Friday 8 April. 25 After stopping briefly at the house of an old, blind soldier called Sir William Read, he galloped down the Great North Road, reportedly covering thirty-seven miles in four hours and leaving much of the train far behind him. 26 After a short rest at Widdrington Castle he left to go out hunting Carey’s deer and killed two before he returned “with a good appetite to the house, where he was most royally feasted and banqueted that night.” 27 James’s energy, generosity and bonhomie were attractive and in London Scaramelli soon received positive reports “that the King is a man of letters and of business, fond of the chase and of riding, sometimes indulging in play,” qualities that men admired and which “render him acceptable to the aristocracy.”73

  On Saturday James left for Newcastle upon Tyne, the most important commercial center in Northumberland and one already famous for its coal trade. The city walls were reputed to be the most impressive in England, but Newcastle was also notorious for the numbers of its poor and for the tenacious Catholicism of its citizens. Bishop Matthew complained he had found it almost impossible to get its officers to enforce the law on “an infamous recusant” called Nicholas Tempest, adding: “That town is of great privilege and small trust in these affairs; upon my word, I am sorry and ashamed to say it.” 74 The people of Newcastle nevertheless greeted James with even more enthusiasm than Berwick. According to tradition the shouting and crying reaching such a pitch that a shocked Scotsman in James’s entourage was heard to mutter: “These people will spoil a gude king.” The journal of Captain Millington, who was with the train, records that they also expressed their loyalty in practical terms:

  So joyful were the townsmen of Newcastle of his Majesty being there, that they thankfully bare all charges of his household during the time of his abode with them, being from Saturday till Wednesday morning. All things were in such plenty, and so delicate for variety, that it gave great contentment to his Majesty.75

  The truth, however, was a little more complex than these stories suggest. The description of the shocked Scotsman, which first appears in a history written a generation later, was based on a real event, but it was not one that took place in Newcastle. A diary entry written by the London-based lawyer John Manningham during the period that James was in Newcastle records that James’s envoy Edward Bruce, now Lord Kinloss, was in London and that he “told our nobles that they shall receive a very good, wise, and religious King, if we can keep him so; if we mar him not.”76 These comments were not prompted by the behavior of ordinary people in Newcastle, or anywhere else, but by continuing concerns about the corrupting influence of flattering courtiers. Captain Millington’s remarks on the willing generosity of the people of Newcastle also paint a distorted picture, as they were written for the King to read at a later date. The reality was that behind the scenes arguments were raging over who should pay for what and how much they should pay.

  At the end of March Lord Burghley had asked the city officials of York—a much larger and richer city than Newcastle—to loan the King £3,000 to cover his expenses (James had already had to declare Scots money valid tender in England in order to save his Scots entourage from financial embarrassment). After some debate the York city officials sent £1,000 to Newcastle, “by way of loan towards the defraying of some small part of his present occasions.”77 And Alderman Askwith, who delivered the loan, was instructed to ensure that the King knew where the money had come from and to “procure such warrant as you think sufficient for the repayment thereof.” The instructions continued: “If any demand be made of the wealth of the town, you may allege that it is very poor.”78 The people of Newcastle, like those of York, were doing no more than was expected and, indeed, demanded of them.

  James used some of his new money to buy Newcastle’s debtors out of prison and ordered the release of all other prisoners “except those that lay for treason, murder” and, significantly, “papistry.” 79 It was the first solid evidence of his attitude toward Catholics and it sent a shiver through the north. As Bishop Godfrey Goodman later explained, although Catholics were persecuted under Elizabeth, “they did live in some hope that after the old woman’s life they might have some mitigation, and even those who did then persecute them were a little more moderate, as being doubtful what times might succeed.” If James was determined to continue with the persecution, their situation was now far worse, for he was young with sons to follow him and Catholics could expect “the utmost rigour of the law should be executed.”80

  James, however, saw only unalloyed delight at his accession, not only in the faces of the welcoming crowds but in the seemingly endless flow of petitions given to him requesting reforms in the Church and the corrupt Elizabethan state. James wrote to the Privy Council from Newcastle asking that they announce his intention “to hold our Parliament at our City of Westminster as soon as conveniently may be . . . and that the same shall be chiefly assembled for the relief of all grievances of our people.” 81 He could now reflect that this was the moment when the prophecy of the cradle king marked with a lion was being fulfilled:

  . . . Arthur I am, of Britain King,

  Come by good right to claim my seat and throne,

  My kingdoms severed to rejoin in one,

  To amend what is amiss in everything

  —WALTER QUIN, 1595

  As James’s progress continued to Durham he stopped briefly at the medieval Lumley Castle. Lord Lumley had been involved in the plot to marry the Duke of Norfolk to Mary, Queen of Scots, and Cecil had chosen to send his son William to live with the Lumley household after his removal from the care of the Raleghs. It was an excellent way for Cecil to mark the break with his father’s role in the death of James’s mother. In Lumley’s absence Dr. James, Dean of Durham, showed the King around the castle. Lumley had carved his ancient lineage on the west side of the castle courtyard in the form of a double pile of sixteen shields. As they reached it the Dean launched into a long-winded explanation of its details. Members of the nobility had often complained that under Elizabeth they had lost much of their former power and influence to families such as the Cecils. Here was an opportunity for James to demonstrate his respect for them. But as the Dean droned on James exploded, “Oh, mon, gang na further; let me digest the knowledge I have gained, for I did na ken Adam’s name was Lumley.” It was a minor incident but it did indicate that James was not going to be too reverent in his future treatment of them.

  Durham itself provided the kind of company James preferred and as the brilliant Bishop Matthew entertained the King at Durham Castle with “his merry and well seasoned jests,” the King’s favor was sealed.82 James assured Matthew he could do what he wished with Durham House in London, currently occupied by Ralegh. Matthew in turn agreed that Norham Castle, which also belonged to the bishopric, should be taken from Robert Carey and passed to Lord Home, who had cared for Carey so tenderly in Edinburgh. Before James left Durham he issued another general pardon from which Catholics were again excluded—this time despite the pleading of Scots Catholics such as Home.

  The country on the road to York was growing richer. The views of the Tees with its woodlands, pastures and fields were so beautiful that James is said to have stopped for a time at Haughton-le-Side to gaze at the panorama from a spot that became known as the Cross Legs. The houses of the local gentry also gave him some insight into the we
alth of his new kingdom. In Scotland they still lived in ancient manses furnished only by a few basic necessities. In England, by contrast, they had new, light, airy houses embellished with elaborate plaster ceilings and carved chimneypieces and furnished with wall hangings, carpets and furniture, crystal and silks.

  On the night of 14 April James stayed at High Walworth Manor, whose large mullioned windows were decorated with painted glass representing the arms of important figures—a show of loyalty that was particularly important for James’s hostess, a widow called Elizabeth Jenison. Three of her sons were Catholic converts who had spent time in prison for recusancy—proof to James of the dangers of allowing priests to remain in England. 28

  Mrs. Jenison paid for the entertainment of James and his train, something that must have represented an almost intolerable financial burden. Despite the orders for officials to stay at their posts, courtiers continued to stream northward and the pressure on the country had driven up the price of provisions to exorbitant levels. Officials were sent south to turn people back on the roads and James issued another proclamation telling courtiers to stay away. Only those on government business were allowed access and some “of great name and office” were sent home.83

  James’s mood was not improved when he reached the town of Topcliffe. When James was in Berwick he had written to the Privy Council asking that Anna be sent “such jewels and other furniture which did appertain to the late Queen.”84 He wanted Anna to share in the pleasure he was having on his progress and to be well prepared for her journey south. They had now replied that they were not prepared to send any of Elizabeth’s possessions into Scotland. It suggested that despite James’s announcement in Edinburgh that the two kingdoms were now one, the Councilors still regarded Scotland as a foreign and potentially hostile country. Significantly, the man in charge of the Great Wardrobe was Sir John Fortescue, believed to have supported Grey of Wilton’s motion that James be given the crown with conditions. James was further angered when the Council announced that they would greet him in York rather than farther south, as he had wished (he had suggested Burghley House, the extravagant palace built by William Cecil). It set a bad example to the rest of the court and James penned them an acid letter: