Those who hoped for a revival of the mythical glory days of the past and a monarch who could embody the old national aspirations looked to Prince Henry, the rising sun on the political horizon. Harington was one of those involved in the young Prince’s education, but it was old members of the Essex faction such as Cromwell, who held the position of Master of the Prince’s Game, who were at the center of his court. Prince Henry grew to be loved and admired for being everything that his father was not: he was gracious and elegant, a young man who enjoyed sports and soldiery. While James’s policy of peace with Spain came to be seen as a threat to national security and the national religion, Henry was held up as a future champion of Protestantism in Europe and of a sea-borne empire.
In 1612 Henry Peacham’s book Minerva Britannia had Elizabeth, the Fairy Queen, passing her scepter to Henry as Oberon, the Fairy Prince. It was to be a year of many changes. Harington’s health was deteriorating and on 18 May, “sick of a dead palsie,” he was brought to Bath, where in 1598 he had spent time with Elizabeth’s dying Treasurer, Lord Burghley. He now found himself alongside Burghley’s son, Robert Cecil, Earl of Salisbury, who was suffering from an advanced state of scurvy. Ulcerous and weeping sores covered the Secretary’s body and he endured further agony from cancerous tumors in the stomach, liver and neck.
Cecil died on 24 May, only a few days after Harington saw him, and the news was greeted with an outpouring of public loathing. Popular verses compared him to that other hunchback, Richard III, claimed that he had died of syphilis contracted from the Countess of Suffolk and recalled his theft of common land and his role in the destruction of the Earl of Essex,
And now these lecherous wretched all,
That plotted worthy Essex’s fall,
May see by this foul loathsome end,
How foully then they did offend.41
But if some of the bitterness of the past could be buried with Cecil, the hopes vested in Prince Henry were also to be snuffed out. Just as Harington was weakening during the summer months so was Prince Henry, who had contracted typhoid. He died in November at the age of eighteen. To Bishop Hacket it seemed as if so much light was extinguished that England had fallen into a darkness akin to hell. Harington was unable to make his own feelings known: he had passed away within days of Prince Henry and was buried at Kelston, leaving his “Sweet Mall” to see out James’s reign. Queen Anna never recovered from Henry’s death. She had broken the power of the Earl of Mar over Prince Henry and seen him raised by allies of her friends from the old Essex faction, but it had come to nothing. She could not bring herself to attend the ceremony in which Prince Charles was installed as Prince of Wales in 1616 and she died only three years later. James’s new heir would never prove as popular as his brother, and in part this was surely because he had never been surrounded with men of the same caliber as Prince Henry was.
The three-year-old Charles had been too weak to be brought south in 1603, and when he had finally arrived in England in August 1604 the ladies who had offered to take charge of the little Duke were so concerned he might die that they demurred from taking responsibility for him. Only the wife of Sir Robert Carey had stepped forward. The woman Carey had married “more for her virtues than her fortune” raised the future Charles I with devotion and courage. When James wanted the membrane under Charles’s tongue cut to help him speak and his legs put in irons to help him walk, she protested against it until she got her way. As the Prince flourished Carey was put in charge of his household. He kept his position until Charles was eleven and was later made the Prince’s Master of the Robes and Lord Chamberlain—extraordinary good fortune for a member of the Boleyn family, all the more so when it was the consequence of a marriage that was one of those rare acts in court life that were free of cynicism. But a man who was still despised for racing to Scotland before Elizabeth’s corpse was cold could do little political good for his young master’s image.
Despite increasing poor health James outlived Anna by six years, dying at Theobalds on 27 March 1625 after a stroke. One of Charles I’s earliest decisions was to raise Carey to the title of Earl of Monmouth, a mark, perhaps, of his poor political judgment. But the verdict of history has generally been harsher on James than on the son, who led England and Scotland into civil war. If the first Stuart King of England could defend his reign, he might point out to us that when he first arrived in London he announced that he had three specific aims: the preservation of religion, peace and the unification of his three kingdoms. He proved to be remarkably successful in the first two. Although James’s ecumenical hopes were well ahead of their time his interest in the Church of England left it in a considerably better state than he had found it, with a well-educated and confident clergy. His success in keeping his three kingdoms at peace earned some respect, even from Sir Anthony Weldon, and at his death he was lauded as “James the Peaceful and the Just.” If his biggest regret was his failure to found a united kingdom of Britain, James did help create a British identity by continuing the process of integrating the great families of his kingdoms begun with the Nottingham-Lennox marriage in September 1603.
In the end, however, we are left with Weldon’s image of the “wisest fool in Christendom.” James’s lack of dignity, his self-indulgence, his evident contempt for ordinary people and his failure to appreciate the importance of Elizabeth’s role as a symbol of national aspirations counted for more than his good intentions and high intellect. “It is a true old saying,” James informed Prince Henry in the Basilikon Doron, “that a King is as one set up a stage, whose smallest actions and gestures, all the people gazingly do behold: and therefore although a King be never so precise in the discharging of his Office, the people, who seeeth but the outward part, will ever judge of the substance, by the circumstances and according to the outward appearance.”
The contrast between the vulgar James and the iconic Elizabeth was so startling and the perceptions of him so negative that the political nation never learned to trust him. The respect in which the English crown was held was thus diminished and the nation that shaped and worshiped Gloriana has never forgiven him for it.
NOTES
BIBLIOGRAPHY
LEANDA DE LISLE took a master’s degree in history at Oxford University before embarking on a highly successful career as a journalist and writer. She returned to her first love, history, to write After Elizabeth, her first book. She lives in Warwickshire, England.
Elizabeth’s witty godson, Sir John Harington, supported James’s accession but was in prison when he was crowned.
Mural of Henry VIII, Henry VII, Elizabeth of York and Jane Seymour, boasting the continuity of the Tudor dynasty.
Lady Katherine Seymour, Countess of Hertford (née Grey), and her son Edward Seymour, Lord Beauchamp—Elizabeth’s heir under the will of Henry VIII, as backed by the Act of Succession.
In 1602 the Spanish planned to invade England and place the Infanta Isabella Clara Eugenia on the throne. This portrait was sent as a gift to James after his accession in 1603.
The last favorite: Robert Devereux, second Earl of Essex, led a revolt to force Elizabeth to name James VI her heir. His continuing popularity after his execution left Elizabeth fearful and depressed. In 1603 James called Essex his “martyr,” but the memory of Essex as a warrior against the Spanish would come to haunt him.
Robert the Devil: Principal Secretary to Elizabeth, Sir Robert Cecil, in 1602–3.
John Speed’s Prospect of Edinburgh, 1610.
James VI. This portrait of 1595, attributed to Adrian Vanson, gives a much better sense of the watchful, clever young King who came south in 1603 than later portraits painted in England.
John Speed’s map of Scotland is framed with portraits of James, Anna and their sons Henry and Charles in 1610.
Anna, the first Queen of Scots and Queen of England. James’s remarkable wife is wearing pearls that had belonged to Queen Elizabeth I. (John de Critz, c. 1605)
Robert Persons, SJ, the most dangerous enemy
of James’s accession as King of England.
Sir Walter Ralegh and his son Wat in 1602, when Ralegh put his estates in the boy’s name, apparently to avoid them being lost should he be attainted of treason.
Richmond Palace, where Elizabeth spent her last traumatic weeks.
The dying Elizabeth in February/March 1603. The subject of this portrait by Nicholas Hilliard is a matter for debate, but the face resembles portraits of Elizabeth from this period, notably the Rainbow portrait. Above her head are the Latin words for “By the love of virtue,” an attribute that in women was associated with chastity.
Arbella Stuart tried to flee Hardwick Hall in Derbyshire in December 1602 and March 1603, in what many believed was an attempt on the crown.
Arbella Stuart at age thirteen, with her books at her hand.
Elizabeth’s cousin Sir Robert Carey, who carried her blue ring to James in Scotland as proof of her death. His wife later had the charge of raising the future Charles I.
The Essex rebel, Henry Wriothesley, third Earl of Southampton, in the Tower in 1603. The Latin inscription proclaims he is “in chains but unconquered.” The cat is symbolic of a desire for liberty, and one of James’s first acts on the death of Elizabeth was to free him.
As James arrived at Berwick the town rose before him “like an enchanted castle.” Plan of Berwick by John Speed.
As James was being given an explanation of the Lumley family lineage, carved on the west side of Lumley Castle, he burst out impatiently, “Oh mon . . . I did na ken Adam’s name was Lumley.”
The Bishop of Durham and a hundred gentlemen in tawny livery coats met James at Durham Castle. The Tudors had never visited the city.
The citizens of York had their houses painted for James’s arrival, and a fountain ran with wine.
James refused to see Sir Walter Ralegh when he arrived at Burghley House.
A statue of King James in the hall at Apethorpe, Northamptonshire, where in 1603 he was feasted by Lady Mildmay, “one of the most excellent confectioners in England.”
At Elizabeth’s funeral many in the crowds felt that whatever the future held, “they could not lightly be in worse state than they were.” As the hearse passed by the people wept.
Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland, was one of James’s most powerful supporters in March 1603, but by June he was an angry enemy.
Dingley Hall, Leicestershire, where Anna was entertained on her progress south by the recusant Catholic Sir Thomas Griffin. The archway was engraved with “God save the King 1560”—meaning King Philip of Spain. Elizabeth had then been on the throne for two years.
The crossbow in Anna’s hair was taken from Elizabeth’s wardrobe in May 1603 and sent to her in Scotland as a gift from James. The portrait depicts her in 1617, when she was in late middle age, but shows her persisting love of jeweled ciphers. The crowned “S” pinned to her left collar refers to her mother, Sophia of Mecklenberg, and the crowned “C” on the right to her brother, Christian IV of Denmark. The jeweled “IHS” monogram and crucifix are prominent symbols of the Catholic faith, to which she converted and which her husband persecuted.
Henry, Prince of Wales, wearing the robes and collar of the Order of the Garter, c. 1603.
The Princess Royal, later Elizabeth, Queen of Bohemia, from whom the current royal family is descended. Behind her is a hunting party. (Robert Peake the Elder, dated 1603)
Anna’s lifelong English favorite, Lucy, Countess of Bedford, in her robes for the coronation, c. 1603. Elizabeth I’s cousin, friend and servant, Charles Howard of Effingham, Earl of Nottingham, High Admiral of England, in his robes for the coronation, c. 1603. It was said that Nottingham began the Union between England and Scotland with his marriage to James’s young cousin Lady Margaret Stuart, but their sex life was the source of much mirth at court.
James couldn’t resist flirting with Sir Philip Herbert, even amid the solemnity of the coronation.
James I, by Paul Van Somer.
Mary Rogers, the beloved wife of Sir John Harington, age twenty-three. Her dress, with its crisscross pattern and the knots of pearls in her left hand, reflects the Harington arms. (Marcus Gheeraerts the Younger, c. 1592)
The Round Table of King Arthur, which hung in the great hall at the castle in Winchester when Sir Walter Ralegh was tried there and does so today. Constructed in the fourteenth century, it bears the names of the twenty-four legendry knights of the table and a portrait of Arthur, whom James hoped to co-opt as a symbol of British Union.
Electrotype of the tomb of Elizabeth I. Even in death she wears a low-cut dress in accordance with the tradition for unmarried girls.
Designs for a new British flag made by the Earl of Nottingham. But James’s hopes of union were not to be fulfilled until the next century.
1 Elizabeth, who was conservative in religious matters, wanted a single man as her senior cleric. After Whitgift’s appointment Harington recalled how Whitgift had always cut a dashing figure. When he was Bishop of Worcester, he would arrive at Parliament attended by large numbers of retainers in tawny livery. When another bishop asked how he could afford so many menservants Whitgift quipped, It was by reason he kept so few women—a reference to the fact he had remained unmarried (Harington, State of the Church, pp. 7–8).
2 Thomas Wilson had also observed that the law against foreigners inheriting the English throne need not apply to James if it “be alleged that the King of Scots is no alien, neither that Scotland is any foreign realm, but a part of England, all be it the Scots deny it” (Wilson, State of England in 1600, p. 8).
3 It was, perhaps, because Elizabeth was seriously ill with smallpox in 1562 that she did not think to ensure that Edward and Katherine were kept apart in the Tower. In consequence another “illegitimate” child, Thomas, was born on 10 February 1563. Edward was fined £15,000 and Elizabeth made sure that he never saw Katherine again.
4 Mary Grey married in 1565. Within months it was discovered, and she was placed in custody until her husband died, after which she lived an impoverished and childless life until her own death in 1578.
5 The subsequent ruin of many Catholics was remembered in the 1930s as the Vatican considered how best to confront Adolf Hitler. Voices recalled the terrible effects of the bull and the Pope backed off from issuing a condemnation of Nazism (Diarmaid MacCulloch, Reformation: Europe’s House Divided, p. 334).
6 Puritans wanted to see the restitution and continuation of Edward VI’s reforms, dispensing with “papist” rituals such as the cross in baptism, and instituting sermons in order to achieve a more godly church and society.
7 Though the bleeding from the stomach might equally have been caused by stomach cancer or an ulcer, or a result of porphyria inherited through his mother, Eleanor Brandon.
8 The Earl’s followers had approached the King as early as 1589, but James had not shown any interest in Essex’s offers of loyalty until he had his place on the Privy Council.
9 The name probably represented a team of writers.
10 One of Philip II’s last actions had been to create the new kingdom of the Netherlands. The Spanish had been fighting the Dutch rebels in the Netherlands for twenty-five years without making progress. Philip hoped that a sovereign state that included the Franche-Comté of Burgundy, as well as the Netherlands south of the Maas and Waal, would be better able to defeat the Dutch rebels and would remain allied to Spain. He planned to marry Isabella to her first cousin, the Archduke Albert, who was already Governor of the Netherlands. The Act of Cession creating the kingdom was made on 6 May 1598 and that autumn, shortly after Philip’s death, the Infanta married Albert.
11 His daughter, Frances Devereux, Duchess of Somerset, wore it along with his ruby earring when she sat for a portrait by Vandyke, both of which are still preserved at Ham House. Her husband was Lord Beauchamp’s younger son, William Seymour.
12 The Treaty of Berwick, signed in July 1586, entitled James to an annual pension of £4,000; James seems to have interpreted it as recogniti
on of his claim to the English throne.
13 The dialect of northern English spoken in the south and northeast of Scotland. This was not the uneducated brogue some English appeared to think, but rather the language of some of the most beautiful poetry of the day.
14 The improvement followed the employment of a committee of eight Exchequer auditors known as the Octavians. They had taken control of all areas of royal finance and reduced James’s handouts to courtiers. A group of disappointed courtiers had, un-surprisingly, united in determination to get rid of them and James had eventually done so—but for a price. The legislation he had sought to encourage the resolution of feuds through the royal courts was passed in June 1598 by the courtiers in exchange for his getting rid of the Octavians. After this the tradition of the feud began to die out.
15 John Gowrie’s elder brother, James, the second Earl, died in 1588.
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