by Lisa Hilton
Elizabeth was an impressive Italian scholar. Her use of the language is widely reported, and she continued to display her skills throughout her queenship, conversing in Italian with Francesco Gradenigo in 1596, and discussing her love for the language with the Venetian ambassador Giovanni Scaramelli in 1603. One scholar speaks of Elizabeth’s “determined turning of an intellectual accomplishment into a political tool,” which she certainly did as queen, but what if Italian also provides a further clue to her connections with the “resistance” in the mid-1550s?9 Where else could Katherine Ashley have obtained such clandestine “pamphlets” other than through Castiglione? The Venetian ambassador’s report hints at his involvement:
Certain knaves in this country endeavor daily to disturb the peace and quiet and present state of the kingdom, so as if possible to introduce some novelty and insurrection … and although all diligence has been used for the discovery of the authors, no light on the subject has yet been obtained, save that an Italian has been put in the Tower, he being a master for teaching the Italian tongue to Milady Elizabeth, some suspicion having been apparently obtained of him.
The tutor was very much part of the Hoby-Cecil network; he was a known reformist close to Elizabeth. If Castiglione was trafficking in forbidden literature, it suggests that Elizabeth’s involvement in anti-Mary propaganda was more considerable than has previously been emphasized.
Somerset House was the site for the discovery of the seditious material. It was also the location of a meeting between Elizabeth and William Cecil in March 1558.10 The details of this encounter are scant, so much so that they have long been overlooked, but it is possible that Somerset House was a sort of headquarters in the capital for Elizabeth’s government-in-waiting. In February of that year, Elizabeth had installed herself in her London home with a large contingent of staff and servants. A month later, a servant recorded a boatman’s tariff totaling 5 pence for the journey by water of William Cecil to Somerset House, where he met with the princess. Cecil’s biographer concludes that “it was a meeting that helped to shape the course of her reign and his life.”
It seems, though, that there is a strong possibility that Cecil’s communications with Elizabeth, via this network, were more extensive than has been considered. The nature of the “pamphlets” which indicted Katherine Ashley appears very similar to the tracts described by the Venetian ambassador. Thus it can be posited that Elizabeth herself, via Castiglione, was consistently implicated in the Marian resistance, beyond the very public alarms of the Wyatt and Dudley plots.
7
ELIZABETH REMAINED ONLY a week in London in February 1558. As she returned to the country, Philip of Spain was attending to a report from Renard which advised him that there was little alternative other than to accept Elizabeth as Mary’s successor. Philip’s wife still had ten months to live, but a second phantom pregnancy had only confirmed her redundancy in her husband’s eyes. Elizabeth’s cautious optimism of the last four years was confirmed. She would rule. Throughout the year, as Mary’s health declined, Elizabeth began mustering her forces for the accession. In October, Mary finally brought herself to concede what everyone in the political world had already accepted, and added a codicil to her will, accepting the provision of Henry VIII’s own, that Elizabeth would succeed. Since on her death her husband would obtain “no further governance in England,” Philip sent the Count of Feria as an envoy to safeguard Spanish interests under the new regime. One of Feria’s first reports concerned William Cecil, who it was rumored would have the post of Secretary, though Feria dispiritedly viewed this endorsement of a man suspected of being a heretic (most interesting, given Cecil’s outwardly impeccable conformity) as an indication that the new queen would not be “well-disposed in matters of religion.” Officially, Elizabeth was still hedging her bets. Confronted with Mary’s wish that she would maintain Catholicism, Elizabeth replied to her sister’s envoy Jane Dormer that “she prayed God that the earth might open and swallow her up alive if she were not a true Roman Catholic.” Given that by November Feria had made a list of the men whom he believed Elizabeth would favor, which included the Earl of Bedford, Robert Dudley, Sir Nicholas Throckmorton, Sir Peter Carew, John Harington, and Thomas Parry, as well as Cecil, and that all of these men had known reformist leanings, Elizabeth can hardly have expected her sister to believe her. But then, she no longer cared.
Mary died towards dawn on 17 November. The news reached Hatfield even before Elizabeth was proclaimed in London. Cecil was primed at his desk, and Elizabeth had plenty of time to prepare her reaction. She did not receive Mary’s councilors under an oak tree, pausing for a few faint, feminine moments before quoting Psalm 118, “This is the Lord’s doing, it is marvelous in our eyes” (though it is quite the sort of thing one can imagine her doing); instead, having politely expressed her sorrow at Mary’s loss and her own “amazement,” she explained how she intended to begin her government. In her first speech as Queen of England, Elizabeth announced, “I am but one body naturally considered, though by His permission a body politic to govern.” In her last parliament, in 1601, Elizabeth was to say much the same thing:
I know the title of a King is a glorious title. But assure yourself that the Shining Glory of Princely Authority hath not so Dazzled the Eyes of our Understanding but that we know and remember that we also are to yield and Account of our own Actions before the Great Judge… . For myself I was never so enticed with the Glorious name of King, or Royal Authority of a Queen as delighted that God had made me His instrument to maintain his Truth and Glory.
The distinction between the “two bodies” of the monarch to which Elizabeth chose to make reference in her first regal communication was primarily a legal one. It is best explained by a statement from the crown lawyers made in connection with landholdings in the royal Duchy of Lancaster in the fourth year of her reign:
For the King has in him two bodies, viz. a Body natural and a Body politic. His Body natural (if it be considered in itself) is a Body mortal, subject to all Infirmities that come by Nature or Accident, to the Imbecility of Infancy or old Age, and to the like Defects that happen to the natural Bodies of other people. But his Body politic is a Body that cannot be seen or handled, consisting of Policy and Government … and this Body is utterly void of Infancy, and old Age, and other natural Defects and Imbecilities, which the Body natural is subject to, and for this Cause, what the King does in His Body politic, cannot be invalidated or frustrated by any Disability in his natural Body.1
That is, the body politic is immortal, as distinct from the body natural, which is material. The distinction summarized in the Lancaster case draws upon ancient tradition concerning the “angelic” quality of the royal body politic. The fifteenth-century lawyer Sir John Fortescue explains thus: “the holy sprites and angels that may not sin, wax old, be sick or hurt himself, have more power than we, that may harm ourselves with all these defaults. So is the king’s power more.” Kingship was therefore, within the division of the two bodies, possessed of both political and spiritual determinants in the belief in the sempiternity of the royal body politic. Association with “holy angels” was a consistent factor in the understanding of sacramental kingship throughout Europe by the thirteenth century, but was of particular relevance to England in the sixteenth. The fusing of the stately and the spiritual in the royal supremacy was reinforced in the recitation of the Athanasian Creed, which affirms the parity of the three elements of the Holy Trinity. In contrast with Protestant churches on the Continent, the creed was repeatedly cited at English church services (the Book of Common Prayer provides nineteen occasions for its recitation, one of three approved in the 39 Articles). Where the angelic quality of the royal body politic seems especially pertinent to Elizabeth is that angelic matter, the holy spirit of royalty, was sexless. In her very first statement to the royal councilors, then, Elizabeth is highlighting the irrelevance of her “body natural’s” femininity.
BALDASSARE CASTIGLIONE’S Il Cortigiano was one of
the most influential “mirror books” of the sixteenth century. Just as the name implies, “mirror books” offered a reflection of ideal conduct which the reader could imitate. Written at Urbino from 1508 and published in English in 1561, Il Cortigiano is half philosophical treatise, half conduct manual, delineating the ideal qualities of the courtier and also of the “perfect lady.” Dispute over women’s capacities, their intellect, their fitness for government had been a standard topic for scholars and divines for centuries, the querelle des femmes which continues today. In a statement which reflects the views of Thomas More on women’s intellectual capacities, Castiglione is in no doubt as to women’s intelligence and receptiveness to education: “I say that all the things that men can understand, the same women can understand too; and where the intellect of one penetrates, there also can that of the other penetrate.” But he also makes an interesting distinction: “Do you not believe that there are many to be found who would know how to govern cities and armies as well as men do? But I have not laid these duties on them because I am fashioning a court lady, and not a Queen.”2 That is, while Castiglione is entirely clear about ladies’ abilities (and in a text premised strongly on the importance of nobility, this is an important qualification), he knows that queens are something else, something different.
As is the case today, “femininity” invoked engagement with an intricate fascia of cultural expectations and social norms which were nonetheless fluid and transient. European treatises from the fifteenth century emphasize that the woman born to rule be granted educational rights denied to others, that her conduct and judgment be those of a man. Mary Tudor may have been England’s first Queen Regnant, but, alongside her sister’s legacy, Elizabeth I could also draw on a five-hundred-year tradition of English queenship, a sacred office replete with ritualized and actual authority.
Practically, English queens had always been exceptional in terms of their legal status. Common law recognized three states of female existence, each of which was defined in relation to male authority, that is, maiden, wife, and widow. It was only as widows that women could be officially released from male guardianship—or ownership—and conduct their own affairs. In reality, de facto, women could and did command a considerable degree of power, but their de jure, that is, legal status, remained technically limited. Queens, however, were more independent before the law than other women, as they had the status of femme sole even while their husbands were living. They could sue and be sued, acquire property and land, and witness its granting or other legal transactions; they could hear oaths, appoint ecclesiastics, preside over court cases, and make wills. In the Anglo-Norman realm, the spread of crown territories between England and France made shared rule between a king and his spouse a practical necessity, and one which accorded naturally with the legal status of queen. Hence, for example, we find Matilda of Flanders acting as regent for William I in Normandy, or Matilda of Scotland, the wife of Henry I, presiding over the first known assembly of the Court of the Exchequer at Winchester in 1111.
If a queen functioned practically in a different fashion from other women, might this not reflect a slippage of categorization in other respects? Early Scandinavian (as distinct from Christian European) culture attests to a more flexible status for “woman” which is, in part, connected as much with activity as with sex. Linguistically, activities, rather than individuals, were gendered in Old Norse; thus, a woman who practiced organized piracy (and a remarkable number did) was viking, what she did determining who she was. The gap between de jure and de facto status was contemplated by Scandinavian law as an area in which, in the case of necessity, the principle of sex could be overridden. In the wergild system, a compensation structure for men who had been murdered, an unmarried daughter could legally function as a son if there were no other direct male relatives. Female exception could be institutionalized, as it subsequently was in Tudor England.
Anglo-Saxon culture was equally typified by a much more fluid conception of gender roles. Sexual difference, it is argued, was less a consequence of biological distinction than of the way in which an individual accessed and interacted with power. Effectively, sex was dependent on status. As Anglo-Saxon culture was permeated by Christianity, such power could be acquired and used in spiritual terms, and here many of the traits which contributed to the mystical power of English queenship begin to emerge. Women had traditionally been seen as “peaceweavers,” able to negotiate truces or alliances verbally, in contrast to the violent forms of resolution demanded by a warrior society. This role evolved into the motif of intercession, whereby a queen might prevail upon a king to be merciful, persuading him to gentleness through her femininity without compromising his masculine status. Intercession became increasingly ritualized throughout the medieval period, as the idea of “peaceweaving” melded with Christian humility and pity. To be a hero was no longer predicated on aggression; it also required a degree of spiritual militancy, which in turn meant that gender could be transcended. In Anglo-Saxon culture, a woman could be geworht werlice (made male) through faith. The early hagiographies of Christian England feature frequent examples of “transvestite saints,” that is, women who have overcome biological femininity by achieving spiritual masculinity. Aelfric, a tenth-century divine, explained this: “If a woman is made manfully and strong in accordance with God’s will, she will be counted among the men who sit at God’s table.” As the soul became an arena of battle, so gender distinctions could meld into a form of heroic femininity, an anticipatory form of a new feminine power, as confirmed in the sixth-century Life of the Holy Radegund:
He [Christ] wins mighty victories through the female sex and despite their frail physique He confers glory and greatness on women through strength of mind. By faith, Christ makes them strong who were born weak so that … they garner praise for their creator who his heavenly treasure in earthen vessels.
The medieval construct of the virago, a “third sex” category for women whose power exceeded the conventional confines of gender, evolved from the heroic femininity of the early Christian period. The term was applied to Henry I’s queen, Matilda of Scotland, in recognition of her learning and piety, yet its potentially subversive ambiguity can be discerned in contemporary reactions to Matilda’s daughter, known as the Empress, who represented the possibility of an English Queen Regnant for the first time. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle reports that when Henry I’s court was at Windsor for Christmas 1127, the king “caused archbishops and bishops and abbots and earls and all the thegns [thanes] that were there to swear to give England and Normandy after his death into the hand of his daughter.” Henry subsequently reviewed the accession and the resulting confusion plunged England into civil war, but it is crucial to note that Matilda’s failure to achieve the crown was not simply a consequence of her sex. Initially, many magnates had found the idea of a woman ruler hard to swallow, but several, including the Empress’s half-brother Robert of Gloucester, changed their minds, and therefore their side, under the influence of a passage from scripture: “It seemed to some that by the weakness of their sex they should not be allowed to enter into the inheritance of their father. But the Lord, when asked, promulgated a law, that everything their father possessed should pass to the daughters.”
The civil war of the twelfth century was not fought to prevent England being governed by a woman; indeed, the Empress’s rival, King Stephen, owed his claim to his matrilineal descent as grandson of William I through his daughter Adela. Among the many factors which contributed to Empress Matilda’s failure, that of her conduct is highly relevant. As we have seen, Scandinavian and Anglo-Saxon culture recognized gender as a fluid category which depended to a great extent upon action in relation to power. As many of the male protagonists on either side spent much of the civil war as hostages, the conflict was directed to a considerable extent by two women, Henry I’s daughter the Empress Matilda and the wife of her rival, Matilda of Boulogne. What each did was quite similar; how they did it, and how this was perceived, affected th
e success of their respective causes.
As queen, Elizabeth I consistently emphasized her status as the daughter of Henry VIII, in both words and images. This was a counter not only to the disputed legality of her parents’ marriage, and to the allegations that she was not even the king’s child (receiving visitors before a great swagger portrait of Henry, highlighting her notable resemblance to him, was one way of making the point), but a means of channeling female power through patrilineal authority. Previous English queens had demonstrated that power-wielding women could be “lauded, rather than perceived as transgressive, provided that power was modified within a context of appropriately feminine piety and submissiveness.” One pro-Empress writer tried to ground her attempt at the crown within such a context, emphasizing that she acted on her father’s wishes, “meekly,” “submitting” to his will.3 Matilda of Boulogne was careful always to present herself in a similar manner, as the defender of her son’s rights, or as the dutiful wife prosecuting her husband’s wishes; she was conciliatory rather than confrontational. Empress Matilda might have styled herself “Lady of the English,” but to her critics, her comportment was anything but ladylike. She was “above feminine softness,” discourteous, stubborn and demanding, refusing petitioners and demanding money from the citizens of London, who briefly harbored her at Westminster.4 The same source which criticized the Empress, however, praised Matilda of Boulogne as astute pectoris virilisque constantiae femina—having the virile, courageous breast of a man but the constancy or fortitude of a woman. That a queen might be possessed of the heart and stomach of a king was not entirely Elizabeth Tudor’s idea. Where Matilda of Boulogne succeeded and the Empress so conspicuously failed was in manipulating the concept of the virago in displaying a “manlike” courage tempered by conventional femininity. Or as Elizabeth herself was to put it, “though I be a woman, I have as good a courage answerable to my place as ever my father had.” The nexus of gender and power was a net of intersecting tightropes, the strength of one affecting the purchase gained on the other. Militarily and tactically, Empress Matilda was never possessed of sufficient power to permit her to forget her femininity, an error her successor rarely committed.