After Elizabeth

by Leanda de Lisle

  Thomas Bilson, Bishop of Winchester, delivered the sermon, which emphasized that James’s power came from God and that his subjects were bound to serve him as he was bound to serve God. 49 Then it was time for James to take the new coronation oath. He swore to confirm to the people of England the laws and customs to them granted by the kings of England, your lawful and religious predecessors, and namely, the laws customs, and franchises, granted to the clergy by the glorious king St Edward, your predecessor according to the laws of God, the true profession of the Gospel established in this Kingdom.

  Archbishop Whitgift had rewritten the oath in favor of the Elizabethan Settlement and it struck at Puritan hopes of a return to the Protestantism of Edward VI, but also at the exercise of arbitrary royal power. The bishops then sang the litany and Whitgift opened the ceremony of the anointing with the thanksgiving “Lift up your hearts.” According to Scaramelli: “The oil was taken from a vase, enclosed in a goblet, and covered with a white cloth, standing on the altar along with other regalia.” He had heard that the oil “was consecrated long ago, and is kept in the Tower of London.” By tradition it had been delivered to St. Thomas of Canterbury by the Blessed Virgin. Mary I had nevertheless refused to be anointed with it, believing that it had lost its blessing at the Reformation. Elizabeth had, but she complained to her ladies “that the oil wherewith she was anointed was a kind of grease and that it smelt ill.” Whitgift held the oil and “the Earls then unrobed the King, leaving him in vest and hose of white satin, unlaced; he then knelt before the altar, and the Archbishop anointed him on various parts of his person, touching the skin.” 50 The Archbishop first anointed James’s palms, then his breast, spine, shoulder and head, praying:

  Let these hands be anointed, as Kings and prophets have been anointed, and as Samuel did anoint David to be King, that thou maist be blessed, and established a King in his Kingdom over this people, who the Lord thy God hath given thee to rule and govern . . . Look down Almighty God with thy favourable countenance upon this glorious King . . . Give unto him of the dew of heaven, and of the vastness of the earth, abundance of corn, and wine and oil, and plenty of all fruits of thy goodness long to continue, that in his time there may be health in our country, and peace in our kingdom, and that the glorious dignity of his royal court, may brightly shine as a most clear lightning, far and wide in the eyes of all men.

  The anointing imprinted James with God’s mark as King of England. His head was “rubbed with a white handkerchief,” then smoothed with the ivory comb of Edward the Confessor, and “he was robed again, but in other vestments: a long vest of crimson velvet lined with white, a Royal tunic over that, the Garter, the sword and collar of the order, over all a mantle of purple brocade.” These ancient robes, which had been kept in the St. Edward Chapel for this moment, had also belonged by tradition to Edward the Confessor. The purple color, James later explained to his son Charles, was intended to be redolent of the “ancient purple [which] was of a reddish colour.” It represented “the continuance and honour of their function.” The resemblance to ecclesiastical garments was also significant, for kings, “as God’s deputy—judges upon earth—sit on thrones clad in long robes . . . as mixtae personae . . . being bound to make a reckoning to God for their subjects souls as well as their bodies.” Fully robed, James was invested with what were called the Confessor’s Spurs—in fact they dated no earlier than the twelfth century. 51 He was then shown the Imperial Crown before it was replaced on the altar and was led to the gesso seat of St. Edward, containing the Stone of Scone, on which Jacob was said to have rested his head on the plain at Bethel.

  The Crown of St. Edward was lifted up. The ambassador to the Duke of Wutternberg described it as “so heavy, with large precious stones, that two bishops had to hold it on [James’s] head.” An anthem was sung and a ring was placed on the fourth finger of James’s left hand. A coronation ring—usually a ruby—had been part of the ceremony since at least the tenth century, but placing it on James’s wedding finger was new. The idea may have been inspired by the contention of Mary I and Elizabeth that they were married to their kingdom; in the future James often referred to himself as England’s groom—although this relationship was reflective of a husband’s dominance over a wife rather than the partnership suggested by Elizabeth. 52 With the ring placed on his finger James put on a pair of linen gloves—another part of the official regalia—took off his sword, and placed it on the altar. This “sword of offering” was redeemed with a payment to the Church, symbolizing the belief that the monarch’s authority came from God via the Church.

  The chief peer, who was to bear the “sword of offering” out of the Abbey, took it up and James was asked by Whitgift to “receive the sceptre, the sign of kingly power.” The scepter of St. Edward, first seen on the coins of Edward the Confessor in 1057, was described by Scaramelli as “two spans long . . . the staff touches the ground, and has the globe and crown on the top.” James held it in his right hand as the Archbishop delivered the rod and dove into the left, saying, “Receive the rod of virtue and equity. Learn to make much of the Godly and to terrify the wicked. Show the way to those that go astray. Offer thy hand to those that fall. Repress the proud. Lift up the lowly, that our Lord may open to thee the door.” The rod appeared to be made of solid gold but at the time of the Commonwealth, when the ancient regalia were broken up, Cromwell’s men found it was iron covered in silver gilt. Its inspiration came from the biblical reference to the Messiah coming to rule with “a rod of iron.” The dove represented the gentler pastoral role of the King and was a peculiarly English insignia. Europeans preferred the imperial eagle.

  When the Archbishop’s prayer was finished he blessed James, who in turn kissed him and the assisting bishops. Finally the Archbishop, the Admiral, the Chancellor, and two bishops carrying the crown led the King to the octagonal dais and placed him on the throne. The earls then covered their heads and took the oath, then the barons, but uncovered. Finally the earls, Councilors and barons knelt before the King on a red brocaded cushion, kissed the King’s hand and touched the crown. Some kissed it, but one went still further: “The Earl of Pembroke, a handsome youth, who is always with the King and always joking with him, actually kissed his Majesty’s face, whereupon the King laughed and gave him a little cuff.” As the congregation looked on aghast, a herald shouted “Listen!” three more times. It was Anna’s turn to be anointed and crowned.

  The Queen was brought to the altar and a white veil, signifying chastity, was held above her head as the Archbishop prayed over her. She had the last of the Virgin’s ointment (new oil would have to be made for the coronation of Charles I). A scepter and an ivory rod were placed in her hands and a ring placed on a finger of her right hand. Her countesses put on their coronets and she was conducted to her throne a little beneath her husband’s. “Then the King approached the altar, and from the hands of the Archbishop he received the Lord’s Supper in bread and wine out of the chalice, which was borne before him.” Anna, however, remained seated. She had made it clear to James and the Archbishop that morning that as a Catholic she would not take their communion.

  As the service drew to an end James and Anna were once more presented to the people, this time as King and Queen of England. “They then retired to some chambers behind the altar, and the King exchanged his crown for a lighter one, and the Queen doffed her crimson mantle and remained in black. They took some refreshments, and then went back in the same order as that in which they had arrived.” It was almost four o’clock in the afternoon, five hours since they had disembarked from the royal barge. James and Anna waved to the crowd for a time before retiring at last to Whitehall. 29

  Five years later the Earl of Hertford would find the clergyman who had married him to Katherine Grey in December 1560, thereby legitimizing their children—the rightful heirs to the English throne on Elizabeth’s death under the will of Henry VIII as confirmed by Parliament. It was, of course, by then all too late. As Shakespeare’s Richard II re
minds the audience before his enforced abdication, “Not all the water in the rough rude sea, can wash the balm from an anointed King.” At the coronation James’s dream of becoming King of England came true at last and to stop any doubts he had his first Parliament lay aside Henry’s will, as well as the law precluding heirs of foreign birth.

  As soon as the coronation was over people streamed out of the capital. Some were already infected with the plague and the villages around London became packed with victims carrying their flea-ridden bedding. Sir William Waad, a clerk of the Privy Council, complained to Cecil that in Hampstead they were finding corpses every week in hedgerows, yards, outhouses and barns. As the City emptied, grass began to grow on the usually busy streets of Cheapside and those left behind found that with the City aldermen and other figures of authority gone, the regulations designed to halt the spread of the disease had collapsed.

  Waad reported crowds appearing at funerals, strewing the streets with flowers for unmarried girls, “and for bachelors they wear rosemary, as if it were at marriages.” At least one victim actually was a bride who fell ill and died on her wedding day, aged twenty-one. Many other victims listed in the parish records were younger still: a “poor boy that died under St John’s wall”; a “poor child found at Mistress Bake’s door”—and not all are so anonymous. Ben Jonson lost his seven-year-old son on 6 September. People tried to protect themselves by smoking tobacco or chewing orange peel and angelica root. Others used posies of medicinal herbs. One day a “fearful pitiful coach” was seen dashing through the capital, “all hung with rue from the top to the toe of the boot, to keep the leather and the nails from infection; the very nostrils of the horses were stopped with herb grace.”30

  Outside London the court was on the run. Cecil described it as a “camp volant” driven by plague from palace to palace, “up and down so round I think we shall come to York.” In mid-September the court settled briefly at the small and ancient palace of Woodstock. “This place is unwholesome all the house standing upon springs,” Cecil wrote with a shudder; “it is unsavoury for there is no savour but of cows and pigs. It is uneaseful, for only the King and Queen, with the privy chamber ladies, and some three or four of the Scottish Council, are lodged in the house, and neither Chamberlain, nor one English Councillor have a room.”31 Instead the most powerful men in England lived in tents among which one person a week died of plague.

  Philip III’s envoy, Don Juan de Tassis, Count of Villamediana, who had finally arrived in England in August, also suffered. He had settled at first in Christ Church College, Oxford, where he made himself very popular with the ladies of the court with his gifts of gloves, hawks’ hoods, leather for jerkins and perfume, but within a week or two he had lost one of his servants to plague. He upped and moved to Southampton and to James’s disappointment the audience he had hoped to give de Tassis at Woodstock had to be delayed. The Venetian Scaramelli did, however, make an appearance that month. There had been further acts of piracy against the Republic and he was furious that William Piers had been released in the general amnesty at the coronation. What kind of message did that send out to others? That piracy was still supported by the English government?

  James, embarrassed, listened to Scaramelli “with extreme impatience, twisting his body about, striking his hands together, and tapping with his foot” before finally shouting, “By God, I’ll hang the pirate with my own hands, and my Lord Admiral as well.”32

  As soon as the meeting was over James drew up a proclamation outlawing piracy once and for all. It was issued at the end of September and became the basis of future English law on piracy. Coincidentally it also inspired the first positive example of progress on James’s dream of a British union. Admiral Nottingham needed to compensate for the drop in his income after having to forgo piracy and, as he explained to his friends, the simplest way to do so was to make a profitable marriage alliance. His first wife, Elizabeth’s cousin, Elizabeth Carey, had died in February. His second was to be a cousin of James: the young Lady Margaret Stuart, daughter of the Duke of Lennox. The marriage united two of the greatest families in England and Scotland—and James, who owed his crown to a similar Anglo-Scots match, was delighted. The age gap between the sixty-eight-year-old victor of the Armada and his young bride was, however, the source of much derision among Nottingham’s peers.

  “My Lord Admiral . . . greatly boasts of his acts the first night,” Worcester wrote to Shrewsbury: “the next day he was sick of the ague; but now holds out very well saving that my lady singeth the greatest part of the night—whether to bring him asleep or to keep him awake I leave to your Lordship’s judgement, that are more cunning than I in these matters.”33 Even Anna thought the match absurd: “You have guessed right that I would laugh—who would not laugh,” she wrote in reply to a letter from her husband; “if I were a poet I would make a song of it and sing it to the tune of three fools well met.” 34 Nottingham, however, had the last laugh. He was rewarded with a large pension, and several other Anglo-Scots unions would follow.

  Progress was also made on the matter of reform of the Church of England. James had announced that he intended to hold a conference on religion on 1 November, as soon as the winter cold subdued the plague. Meanwhile, he continued to spend most of his time hunting, accompanied by a small group of mainly Scots companions.

  Decades later James was remembered on this summer progress dressed in clothes “as green as the grass he trod on, with a feather in his cap, and a horn instead of a sword at his side.”35 To Arbella the endless hunting had seemed “everlasting.” They galloped across the farmers’ crops, uncaring that famine was following hard on the heels of the plague, and the goodwill that had been extended to James on his journey south continued to vanish. Through the late summer and autumn individuals were indicted for speaking against the King in Sussex, Kent, Essex and Hertfordshire. A saddler complained that “no foreign prince should inherit the crown,” a tailor declared that “there were as wise men in England to be king as the King of Scots” and Henry Collyn of Writtle in Essex announced bluntly that he did not “care a turd neither for the king nor his laws.” 36 Their feelings, however, were of little consequence while the “better sort” remained loyal and the English court had more sycophants in its ranks than rebels.

  Courtiers began imitating James’s dismissive attitude to their poorer countrymen, leaving Arbella to complain to her uncle Gilbert Shrewsbury that “if ever there were such a virtue as courtesy at the court I marvel what is become of it? For I protest I see little or none of it but in the Queen.”37 The late Earl of Essex was once praised for stopping in the street to “vail his bonnet to an oyster wife,” but that time was now well and truly past.38 The old tradition that James saw many times on his journey from Scotland, where the lord of a great house invited all comers to a feast, would die out with the Stuarts. Instead a new courtly extravagance took hold. The entertainments James had been offered in April had convinced him that England was rich enough to support his every whim and Shrewsbury learned from Cecil that “our Sovereign spends £100,000 yearly in his house, which was wont to be but £50,000,” and how the Lord Treasurer Buckhurst was “much disquieted how to find money to supply the king’s necessities.” 39

  Desperate attempts were made to stop the flow of gifts to the Scots but hardly a day passed that autumn without the same men receiving more money or land: a manor in Yorkshire for Sir Thomas Erskine, a pension and a grant for Ramsay, manors and parks in Suffolk for Mar, grants and manors for Sir George Home, a trading license for Argyll. James may have felt that he had to compensate the Scots for failing to find them more places on the Council—something about which they complained loudly—but his munificence was such that Anna was even able to persuade him to grant £2,000 to Barbara Ruthven “in commiseration of her late distress; because, although her family is hateful on account of their abominable attempt against the King, she has shown no malicious disposition.”40 It was particularly remarkable given the fate of her survivin
g brothers.

  When James was at Burghley on 25 April he had issued a royal proclamation accusing them, without any evidence, of “contriving dangerous plots, and desperate attempts against his royal person” and warning that anyone who helped them escape arrest would “answer to the contrary to their uttermost peril.”41 William Ruthven had already escaped to Europe but Patrick was captured and put in the Tower, where he would remain for the next twenty years. 53 Even that was not the end of the matter. James had insisted that the English court dedicate 5 August to celebrate his escape from the Gowries and it was commemorated in the sermons at court every Tuesday. He may have hoped that this would be taken as warning to future enemies, as he had intended in Scotland, but instead it was taken as evidence that he had failed to grow beyond his role as King of Scotland.

  In late September the court moved to Winchester and de Tassis at last had his audience. It proved to be a prickly affair. The envoy kept his hat on until he was halfway down the chamber and then addressed James in Spanish instead of a language they had in common, such as French or Italian. Two days later, however, James arranged for them to meet in private. He was disappointed to discover that de Tassis was not instructed to treat for peace but he was to make preliminary investigations, and it was clear that the Spanish Council had come around to the viewpoint of the Archduke and wanted peace; better still, they would not demand toleration of religion in return. Catholics had poured in to see de Tassis in Oxford and at Southampton, all trying to persuade him that it was in Spain’s interest to insist on toleration before they signed any peace settlement, just as Robert Persons suggested they should. One such was Thomas Wintour, the soldier who had been offered money by the Spanish in 1602 to buy the loyalty of discontented Catholics. Unfortunately, once de Tassis had learned the details of the Bye plot he concluded that the English Catholics were too fearful and disunited to be worth supporting, and in October he advised Philip III to ignore their situation in any subsequent negotiations.