by Derek Wilson
The Archbishop’s intransigence and the queen’s support largely and permanently checked Dudley’s ecclesiastical patronage. For the first time in years he lost control of an important area of government policy. His appointees were not presented to benefices. Puritan sympathizers on the episcopal bench were replaced, on death or retirement, by Whitgift’s men. Some radicals were driven into separatism, though the majority resentfully conformed. Early in 1586 Whitgift was appointed to the Council and he was joined there by Lord Buckhurst, both of whom were enemies of Dudley. Another unfriendly influence was Sir Walter Raleigh, who had engaged Elizabeth’s fancy in 1581 and was soon well established as one of her favourite gallants.
With his prestige in the court and the country generally waning, and with the queen pursuing policies he could only regard as disastrous, Dudley might well have concluded that the time had come to withdraw from public life. He was no longer the man he had once been. He was heavy of build and had the high colour which suggests soaring blood pressure. In addition, he suffered from an intestinal disorder which brought frequent bouts of pain. He was obliged to diet often and to take the Buxton waters whenever he could. The complaint, gleefully described in Leicester’s Commonwealth as ‘a broken belly on both sides of his bowels whereby misery and putrefaction is threatened to him daily,’ may have been severe stomach ulcers or the beginnings of a malignant growth. Whatever his ailment, it combined with his frustrations and anxieties to change his character. The easygoing extrovert now became prey to bouts of bad temper. He resented anything that appeared like criticism, could not tolerate opposition, saw enemies and back-stabbers everywhere and pursued those who offended him with quite uncharacteristic persistence and spite. The change was noticed by one of his old friends, John Aylmer, in November 1583. Writing to patch up a quarrel, he remarked:
I have ever observed in you such a mild, courteous and amiable nature, that you never kept as graven in marble, but written in sand, the greatest displeasure that ever you conceived against any man. I fear not, therefore, my good Lord, in this strait that I am in to appeal from this Lord of Leicester . . . unto mine old Lord of Leicester, who in his virtue of mildness and of softness . . . hath carried away the praise of all men.8
If Robert became tetchy in his fifties, Elizabeth was more so. Events at home and abroad were forcing her into a corner and she hated the reality of not being fully free to choose her policies. Philip II had once again gone on the offensive in the Netherlands, now under the Regency of Alexander Farnese, Duke of Parma. If he succeeded in establishing his mastery there and continued to enjoy his dominance at sea there would be nothing to stop him launching an invasion across the Narrows. Although all her instincts still opposed aiding rebels against their rightful sovereigns, the logic of sending military aid to the Low Countries to thwart Parma’s advance was inescapable. That did not prevent Elizabeth trying to escape it. Her indecision and her tantrums when pressed threw her councillors into despair. In the summer of 1585 she finally agreed to send an army.
Dudley begged permission to lead it. Active support for his coreligionists was a cause he had always argued but he had his own reasons for desiring this office. It would be, he must have sensed, his last chance to make a real contribution to the global struggle against Antichrist. It would also give him a reason for prolonged absence from court where he found the atmosphere increasingly oppressive and uncongenial. It was his misfortune that he overestimated his own ability and underestimated the intricacies of Dutch politics and the infinite capacity of the queen for tergiversation. It was twenty-nine years since he had been on campaign and he had never held field command of a large army. The United Provinces were far from united. Their representatives squabbled among themselves, and Parma was accomplished in dividing the rebels by promise of gold as well as threat of military action. As for Elizabeth, not only was she an unwilling principal in all this, but she was at odds with her general as to the purpose of his expedition. Dudley was setting out as a Protestant champion leading a crusade. Elizabeth was sending a force to defend the Dutch from further Spanish encroachment. Her allies wanted, not a mere condottiere who could be withdrawn at a moment’s notice, but a powerful permanent leader and were prepared to trade their sovereignty for it. Elizabeth was only prepared to offer limited support and had no desire to be lured into provocative acceptance of permanent authority in the Netherlands.
The enterprise on which Dudley embarked was, thus, doomed from the start. His difficulties began before he even left England. As soon as he received his commission he dictated letters to 200 friends and dependants asking them to meet him with men and harness ready for embarkation at the end of October. He raised a loan from a consortium of London merchants, then went with Ambrose to the Tower to requisition armour and weapons. Two days were thus filled with hectic activity. He had scarcely tumbled into bed around midnight on 26/27 September when his servants admitted a messenger bearing a depressing letter from Walsingham: ‘My very good Lord, her majesty sent me word . . . that her pleasure is you forbear to proceed in your preparations until you speak with her. How this cometh about I know not. The matter is to be kept secret. These changes here may work some such changes in the Low Countries as may prove irreparable. God give her majesty another mind and resolution.’9 Dudley sat up in bed to scribble a reply. ‘What must be thought of such an alteration! For my part, I am weary of life and all. I pray you let me hear with speed.’10
It was 4 December before he was able to march his 7,000 men out of London. Even then he had grave misgivings, expressed in a letter of farewell to Cecil.
Her majesty I see, my Lord, often times doth fall into mislike of this cause . . . but I trust in the Lord, seeing her highness hath thus far resolved and grown also to this for execution as she hath and that mine and other men’s poor lives and substances are adventured for her sake and by her commandment, that she will fortify and maintain her own action to the full performance of that she hath agreed upon . . . I beseech your Lordship have this cause even to your heart . . . for this I must say to you, if her majesty fail with such supply and maintenance as shall be fit, all she hath done hitherto will be utterly lost and cast away and we her poor subjects no better than abjects. And, good my Lord, for my last [appeal], have me thus far only in your care that in these things which her majesty and you all have agreed and confirmed for me to do, that I be not made a metamorphosis, [so] that I shall not know what to do . . . no men have so much need of relief and comfort as those that go in these doubtful services. I pray you, my Lord, help us to be kept in comfort, for we will hazard our lives for it.11
Dudley was received rapturously by the States General and the people of the United Provinces. Immediately the Dutch leaders pressed him to accept a title implying supreme rule. He was eager to accept but wrote home for instructions. Contrary winds prevented him receiving Elizabeth’s firm ‘No’ and on 25 January 1586 he allowed himself to be invested with ‘highest and supreme commandment’. The messenger entrusted with the report of these events was the seasoned diplomat, William Davison. Davison was one of the most unfortunate of men. He seems to have suffered from a personality trait which made him veer from hesitancy to rashness. He had, or so Dudley would claim, actively encouraged him to accept the Dutch offer. But he then delayed his return to England with the news. The result was that Elizabeth heard about her general’s elevation from one of her ladies who had the information in a private letter from the Hague. It was embellished with malicious rumour: Lettice Dudley was about to go to her husband ‘with such a train of ladies and gentlewomen, and such rich coaches, litters and side-saddles as her majesty had none such’ and she would establish ‘such a court of ladies as should far pass her majesty’s court’.12 It is little wonder that Elizabeth flew into a rage. She immediately dictated a blistering letter to Dudley:
How contemptuously we conceive ourself to have been used by you, you shall by this bearer understand, whom we have expressly sent unto you to charge you withal. We co
uld never have imagined had we not seen it fall out in experience 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 toucheth us in honour; whereof, although you have showed yourself to make but little accompt, in most undutiful a sort, you may not therefore think that we have so little care of the reparation thereof as we mind to pass so great a wrong in silence unredressed: and, therefore, 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 hereof shall direct you to do in our name: whereof fail you not, as you will answer the contrary at your uttermost peril.13
The depth of Elizabeth’s anger took all her people by surprise. Dudley did not hesitate to write grovelling letters but, as Ambrose reported in March, the queen’s rage seemed to increase rather than diminish. He suggested that if she summoned him home Robert should ‘go to the farthest part of Christendom rather than ever come into England again’.14 Cecil remarked that in all his years as a councillor he had not seen the queen so completely out of control. She threw sudden tantrums. For days on end she refused to receive reports from the Netherlands or to allow the Council to discuss the situation there. It was high summer before she came to a calmer frame of mind and that was only after Cecil had persistently pointed out that she was being unreasonable. It was news that Robert was ill which finally brought a return of her old affectionate concern.
Elizabeth’s changeable conduct was not the only difficulty he had to deal with. The States General were equally impossible. He described that body as ‘a monstrous government where so many heads do rule’, peopled by men for whom he had nothing but contempt. They were, he said, mere ‘churls and tinkers’. They refused to meet their financial obligations. They opposed his policies and appealed behind his back to the queen. Yet, instead of being able to dominate them as their sovereign, he was obliged ‘to use flattery to those that ought to have sought me’.15 The quarrels among the representatives of the states were of many kinds, political, religious and economic. Nor could they agree among themselves on the extent of Dudley’s authority. At a popular level there were frequent altercations between the English soldiers and the citizenry. There were so many conflicting interest groups involved that every major decision Leicester took was almost bound to offend somebody. When he banned the export of grain to the Spanish-held southern states the merchants of the coastal towns protested. When he backed the Calvinists of Utrecht more moderate Protestant groups accused him of favouritism.
The kind of frustration Dudley and his men experienced may be illustrated by the exigencies they were forced to in order to garrison Deventer. The local council, lacking confidence in their allies and frightened of giving offence to Parma refused to allow English troops into the town. Sir Henry Killigrew, of Dudley’s diplomatic staff, had to devise a ruse to gain possession of the town. He kept the town council busy with protracted discussions for the space of two days while Edward Stanley sent his men into the town in groups disguised as citizens. When some 300 soldiers were concealed within the walls, Dudley’s personal representative, Sir William Pelham, addressed the council with a final demand for the new garrison to be installed. He requested an answer by eight o’clock the following morning. The panic-stricken burghers immediately made preparations to resist their allies: they trebled the watch and threw chains across the streets. But long before the appointed hour Stanley’s troops were assembled in the market place, and at 7.00 a.m. Pelham burst in upon the council. One of the Dutchmen tried to slip away to raise the alarm. At this Pelham unleashed his fury. ‘Do you think,’ he shouted, ‘you have a people that are come over to spend their lives, their goods, and leave all they have, to be thus used of you and to be betrayed amongst you?’ He ordered the guard to be disbanded and the gates of the town surrendered. ‘This done, he sent them to prison, appointed new officers, and brought this stubborn town in one day to a good safety.’16
Such high-handed actions by his captains won them no friends but it was only by coercing his hosts that Dudley was able to put the early months of stalemate behind him and go onto the offensive. Parma moved cautiously northwards during the summer, choosing to garrison towns rather than offer pitched battles, because he knew that Leicester’s force was ill-equipped for siege warfare. But the English proved to be more determined than he had expected and the campaigning season of 1586 ended with him withdrawing and leaving several captured towns to their fate. So far the war had not produced brilliant generalship on either side but the Spanish conquest of the northern provinces had been halted. English losses had not been heavy but one loss in particular was a serious blow to morale and to Dudley personally. Sir Philip Sidney, courtier, soldier, poet, the ‘very flower of chivalry’, was fatally wounded before the walls of Zutphen. He lingered several weeks, tended by his wife, who had a miscarriage shortly afterwards. This was another severe blow to Dudley’s dynastic plans. He had designated and groomed Philip as his heir, an arrangement only set aside during the brief life of the Noble Imp. Now he had been deprived of both his legitimate son and also the young man who might have continued his policies even if he did not bear the family name. It was more than conventional condolence that Dudley expressed when he wrote to Walsingham. ‘For my own part I have lost, beside the comfort of my life, a most principal stay and help in my service here, and, if I may say it, I think none of all hath a greater loss than the queen’s majesty herself.’17
Dudley was now anxious to return home for the winter and his conciliar colleagues were no less eager to have him back at court to help them handle the latest crisis. Davison, now joint Secretary with Walsingham, wrote on 4 November, ‘Your lordship’s presence here were more than needful for the great cause now in hand, which is feared will receive a cold proceeding than may stand with the surety of her majesty and necessity of our shaken estates.’18 The ‘great cause’ was ridding the realm of Mary, Queen of Scots.
For most of the time that Dudley had been away Walsingham had been operating a very successful ‘sting’ which tricked Mary into exchanging letters with the French ambassador who acted as a staging post for the members of a new conspiracy against the queen and her government. This correspondence was intercepted by Walsingham’s agents, decoded, then sent on its way. What emerged from this operation was the details of the so-called Babington Plot, which entailed the assassination of Elizabeth, Dudley, Cecil and others and the placing of Mary on the throne with the help of foreign troops. By mid-August Walsingham was ready to pounce. Anthony Babington, the principal agent in the conspiracy, was arrested and most of his accomplices rounded up. It was a major coup for the Secretary. The evidence he had gathered clearly involved the Queen of Scots in high treason and, in the view of most of the Council, demonstrated beyond a peradventure that Elizabeth could not be secure as long as Mary lived. At the end of September the royal prisoner was moved once more, this time to Fotheringay Castle, Northamptonshire, described by Leland as ‘meetly strong with double ditches and hath a keep very ancient and strong. There be very fair lodgings in the castle.’19 Set in open, low-lying, marshy ground it made a comfortable but very secure jail. Here it was that Catherine of Aragon had spent her last unhappy years. And here it was that thirty-six commissioners gathered for Mary’s trial which began on 14 October.
Dudley was kept fully informed of all these developments and he made his position very clear. He had come round to a hard-line opinion on Mary. The Babington business was, in his view, a plot too far. As a field commander he had seen brave men die defending the true faith against the advance of the Counter-Reformation. He himself had had a providential escape before the walls of Doesberg at the end of August. He had been inspecting some trenchwork with Sir William Pelham when they came under sniper fire. Pelham happened to be standing in front of the earl and took a bullet in the stomach. Fortunately the wound did not prove fatal bu
t Dudley was, understandably, moved by the incident and was not prepared to see such sacrifices invalidated by Catholic intrigue at home. His chief concern was that Elizabeth would find reasons to delay the necessary dispatch of the Queen of Scots. The Council had decided to call a new parliament to show wider support for Mary’s death. Dudley thought this a mistake: the government should proceed to trial and execution without delay. To stiffen their resolve he wrote to Elizabeth and all the leading councillors:
. . . if you shall defer it, either for a parliament or a great [Council] session, you will hazard her majesty more than ever, for time to be given is [what] the traitors and enemies to her will desire . . . I do assure myself of a new, more desperate attempt if you shall fall to such temporising solemnities [ie. the summoning of parliament], and her majesty cannot but mislike you all for it. For who can warrant these villains from her if that person live, or shall live, any time? God forbid: And be you all stout and resolute in this speedy execution or be condemned of all the world forever. It is most certain if you will have her majesty safe it must be done, for justice doth crave it besides policy . . .20
Dudley set out for home on 23 November. He returned to find the queen desperate for his company and support. Never had she been more alone and under pressure. Political England clamoured for her to shed Mary’s blood – a thing utterly repugnant to her. Catholic Europe and the Scottish king urged her to resist her people – a course of action she could not take. The Netherlands campaign was draining the treasury and making havoc of her careful finances. The international peace she had worked so hard to preserve was on the point of being shattered: Philip was known to be mustering his fleet for an invasion of England. As she tried to turn back the inevitable tide no one stood beside her or sympathized with her predicament. As she wrestled with her doubts, fears and moral dilemmas and possibly came close to a breakdown, Elizabeth had advisers in plenty: preachers reminding her of her duty; parliamentarians urging her to be revenged on her enemies; councillors steeling her arm for battle, but there was no one who understood her or realized that the policy she was being urged to pursue represented for her a deep personal failure.