Heretic Queen

by Susan Ronald

  The gossipy Venetian ambassador in Spain wrote in cipher to the doges that “never at any time in history has the West India fleet been so harried by the English … [than] at this present moment.”1 Nothing could be further from the truth. Philip was planning another Armada.

  * * *

  What worried Essex, however, was that England had fallen increasingly into the grasp of Robert Cecil. Only Robert and his father, Lord Burghley, shared the queen’s overview of the world’s affairs. Where his stepfather, Leicester, had been able to “pocket his pride,” Essex could not. He needed to be “in the know” at all times. At first, when Essex became a privy councillor in February 1593, he threw himself into his work in the vain hope that he could supplant Cecil and Burghley as the queen’s chief adviser. He knew as well as the next person that Burghley’s hourglass had little sand left to filter down.

  Direct means having failed, Essex’s own “secret service” seemed to be the best way to achieve his ends. Discovered Catholic plots were always a popular means to win Elizabeth’s heart; so, on the slimmest of motives, the queen’s physician Roderigo Lopez was accused of attempting to assassinate her in 1594. Lopez was a Marrano Jew, who had been converted forcibly to Catholicism before fleeing to England. Elizabeth found the allegations incredibly difficult to swallow at first, but in the end relented when Cecil joined Essex’s voice against the hapless, and most probably innocent, Lopez. Elizabeth’s physician would lose his life to Essex’s great designs.

  It was also an agent in Essex’s pay who informed the earl in June 1592 that Ferdinando Stanley (the future Lord Strange), the patron of the actors Strange’s Men, had been in contact with Cardinal William Allen and was a crypto-Catholic. Fifteen months later, a Lancashire man named Richard Hesketh brought Ferdinando a message from his exiled cousin Sir William Stanley asking him to help advance his “friends” overseas. Stanley wanted Ferdinando to press his claim to Elizabeth’s throne and promised his Catholic army from the Low Countries to back him. Ferdinando immediately informed the authorities. Hesketh was hanged as a traitor.

  Six months later, by now Lord Strange, Ferdinando fell ill, dying within forty-eight hours of “cruel pains … frequent vomitings of a dark colour, like rusty iron … that stained the silver Basins in such sort, that by no act they could possibly be brought again to their former brightness.” His body was said to run “with such corrupt and stinking humours that no man could in a long time come near the place of his burial.”2 The government presumed he had been killed by some Jesuit connivance. Catholics presumed it was the government. Still others believed it was Bess of Hardwicke, protecting her granddaughter Arbella’s claim to Elizabeth’s throne. Hugh Owen, Sir William Stanley’s coconspirator in the plot, wrote to Thomas Phelippes, Cecil’s code breaker, to clear Essex of any culpability in the death of Lord Strange, thereby implicating him. Cecil would not forgive Essex for his meddling.

  * * *

  The 1590s were marked by a change of tack between the warring parties. While one eye remained surely fixed on the present and the queen’s safety, the other roamed freely, looking toward her successor. Everyone participated. Philip II sponsored another edition of Persons’s work A Conference about the Next Succession to the Crown of England in late 1593. Going back to William the Conqueror, the book claimed that all English claimants were insignificant. James VI would still be a foreign monarch who would favor his fellow Scots. Only the Infanta Isabella could be regarded as the true queen of England. A Conference succeeded only in driving a further wedge between Catholics, with the pro-Elizabethan Appellants gaining ground.

  What no one besides Robert Cecil knew was that James VI had also been soliciting Spanish aid for his bid to the English succession. The priest-turned-informer John Cecil had informed Robert that he had been charged with canvassing James’s claim in Madrid. Cecil was keeping his superior knowledge to himself. From Cecil’s viewpoint James was the most likely successor, and as he knew England was increasingly bankrupt with each passing year at war, Cecil sought some solution to the nation’s financial, succession, and religious crises.3

  Essex’s reaction was to seek retribution against Spain for its audacity and martial glory for himself. As a man of “great designs,” it was natural for him to cast himself in the role of England’s savior. The Dutch, he reasoned, had resisted for over twenty years and still had a flourishing trade based out of Amsterdam in the 1590s. If England could cast herself in the Dutch model, then not only would England prevail, but the English—and in particular Essex—would prosper. The time was ripe to plan an excursion once again into Spanish waters.

  * * *

  While Essex pieced together his expedition with the Dutch, Cecil turned his eagle eye to the religious issues at home. Cardinal William Allen, who had coauthored the ill-conceived treatise with Robert Persons on the English succession, died in October 1594, leaving Persons vulnerable to attack from all sides. Since Allen had headed the Jesuit mission to England from the outset, and the papal and Spanish invasion plans had been deeply unpopular with English Catholics, Henry Garnet wrote to Superior General Acquaviva that year about the rapid growth in anti-Jesuit criticism in England.

  Though Robert Southwell had remained faithful to his mission, he grew despondent that the Jesuits were failing in their task to save England for Catholicism. “I have been on horseback round a great part of England,” he wrote to Acquaviva, “in the bitterest time of the year, choosing bad roads and a foul sky for my pilgrimage, rather than waiting for the fair weather when all the Queen’s messengers are on the prowl, much worse than any rainstorm or hurricane.”4 As yet unknown to the general public was Southwell’s An Humble Supplication to her Majesty. Southwell had written this from the heart as a reply to the Declaration drafted by Burghley for Elizabeth’s signature in 1591. Though not officially published until 1600, it casts a palpable shadow over the plight of the seminary priests in England at the time:

  We have been long enough cut off from all comfort, and stinted to an endless task of sorrows, growing in grief as we grow in years, one misery overtaking another, as if every one were but an earnest for a harder payment. We had some small hope, that our continued patience, and quiet effusion of our blood at your Majesty’s feet, would have kindled some sparkle of remorse towards us: But still we see that we are not yet sunk to the depth of our misfortunes.5

  An Humble Supplication was an unwise move, making the melancholy priest Southwell the top priority of Richard Topcliffe, the Queen’s pursuivant and Catholic-torturer. Southwell, Garnet, and other Jesuits had narrowly escaped Topcliffe at their conference at the resplendent moated manor of Baddesley Clinton in Warwickshire by hiding in a secret chamber constructed by Nicholas Owen in the sewer. On Sunday night, June 25–26, 1592, the much-admired Southwell was arrested at Uxendon Manor near London—the home of the Bellamy family—giving himself up so that others could escape.

  Topcliffe set out his gruesome plan for Southwell in a letter to Elizabeth. The Jesuit would be made to “stand against the wall, his feet standing upon the ground, and his hands but as high as he can reach against the wall like a trick at Trenchmore [a dance of the period].” Though it sounds innocuous enough, Topcliffe was describing a new and specially devised form of torture in which the victim would be suspended by his wrists for hours, dislocating them. After an entire day suspended by his wrists, Southwell remained mute. Elizabeth, squeamish when it came to torture though not averse to using it when required, sent two clerks of the Privy Council to assist. After two further days of torture, Southwell still remained silent. Finally, Robert Cecil came to see the prisoner.

  As Cecil came into the dark, dank cell to interview Southwell, the priest’s father was petitioning Elizabeth directly to secure his release. Richard Southwell described how his son was lice-ridden, starved, and half dead from torture. He agreed that if his son had committed a crime for which the punishment was death, then he must die, but that in any event he was a gentleman and deserved to be treated
as one.

  Elizabeth was swayed. On July 28, the Privy Council wrote to the Lord Lieutenant of the Tower of London “that her Majesty’s pleasure is you shall receive into your custody and charge the person of Robert Southwell, a priest whom Mr Topcliffe shall deliver unto you, to be kept close prisoner so as no person be suffered to have access unto him.” For the next two and a half years, Robert Southwell would remain in solitary confinement, forgotten by his enemies.6

  Cecil felt revulsion at Topcliffe’s methods. After Robert Southwell’s trial and conviction for treason in February 1595, he oversaw a prosecution of the queen’s priest-hunter for maligning privy councillors (notably himself and his father) and ordered Topcliffe into the Marshalsea. Topcliffe naturally complained directly to Elizabeth that his disgraceful treatment would make “the fresh dead bones of Father Southwell at Tyburn … executed … since Shrovetide … dance for joy.” Though he was released shortly after, and remained in the government’s employ for a further four years, Topcliffe came under Cecil’s vigilant eye once more in 1596 for his treatment of Catholic prisoners in the Gatehouse.7

  * * *

  The year 1596 brought further battles for the hearts and minds of the English. Essex led the raid on Cádiz with Raleigh and the Dutch. Despite landing and occupying the port, and wounding Philip’s bruised pride once more, it achieved little to replenish the exchequer’s coffers—a major aim of the exercise. Worse still, the chain of command had broken down; Raleigh and Essex were often at daggers drawn, and Cecil as well as Elizabeth had been disappointed not to receive their forecast profits from the expedition.

  Nonetheless, Elizabeth and Cecil encouraged English pamphleteers like Henry Roberts to sing the praises of Essex and Raleigh to boost national pride in these troubled days. Though Drake and Hawkins had been killed in action in the Caribbean that year, the average Englishman could puff out his chest with pride that tiny, vulnerable England had taken on the greatest empire in the world—not once or twice but three times—with the second and third armada attempts dubbed the “invisible” armadas unlike the “invincible” Armada of 1588.

  While Essex sailed to glory at Cádiz, Elizabeth formally appointed Cecil secretary of state. He was put in charge of the Admiralty on behalf of the Privy Council and plugged the leaks wherever he found them. Cecil ensured that gold, spices, and jewels did not disappear to mud-larkers waiting to catch stolen riches from newly docked vessels.

  The 1590s, though half finished, was already proving a decade of high inflation, failed harvests, and severe plague. Elizabeth was aging rapidly, though no one at court dared to remark on that demonstrable fact. The succession needed to be assured and a smooth transition put in place.

  * * *

  Nothing convinced Cecil more about the need for a smooth succession than the shock and sudden conversion to Catholicism of Henry IV of France, who famously remarked that “Paris is worth a Mass.” The Franco-Spanish Treaty of Vervins concluded in 1598 brought peace to France at last, and a long overdue burying of the hatchet with Spain. Philip recognized Henry IV’s kingship, and Henry, in turn, pronounced religious toleration with the Edict of Nantes.

  That left England and the Dutch out in the cold, and Elizabeth reaching metaphorically for her sword. Ireland was in revolt against English rule once again—though this time for dynastic rather than religious differences. Essex was itching for intervention, albeit always suggesting someone other than himself to go fight.8 Soon enough, Elizabeth would put him to the test and send him to Ireland to put down the rebellious province once and for all.

  * * *

  Then, at the beginning of August 1598, the most steadfast light in Elizabeth’s firmament was extinguished. The death of William, Lord Burghley, who had advised the queen since she was a teenager, was a bitter blow to Elizabeth. He had, however, ensured his succession through his able son Robert. Though Cecil never became Lord Treasurer, he did obtain his father’s office as Master of the Court of Wards, which in turn provided Cecil with his fortune. The only area in which Cecil was unable to maintain his father’s influence was in the religious arena. Perhaps it was because Archbishop Whitgift simply wouldn’t accept the younger man’s advice. The more likely reason was, however, that Cecil had not inherited his father’s evangelical soul.

  * * *

  The Essex expedition to Ireland ended in disaster, despite being the best-equipped expeditionary force ever to cross the Irish Sea. His defeat at the Battle of Yellow Ford on August 14, 1598, where he lost over two thousand men, was proof positive that he was no military commander. Essex raced back to London after signing a six-week truce with the rebellious Tyrone so that he could explain himself to the queen. Sadly, Essex had become unhinged, and he forced his way into the queen’s dressing room to tell her that his failure in Ireland was the fault of his enemies, and in particular Robert Cecil. Ranting that Cecil was in the pay of the Spaniards, Essex was eventually taken away and put under house arrest.

  Cecil had, in fact, opened peace negotiations in June 1599 with Spain. Elizabeth’s bitter enemy Philip II had finally died in 1598, only weeks after signing the peace treaty with Henry IV. Cecil’s opposite number Dr. Jerome Comans, commissioned by Philip’s heir, Philip III, arrived in London on August 20 to “treat the peace.” The main condition imposed by the new king was that all English trade should return to the Spanish-held port of Antwerp from the Dutch-held port of Amsterdam. However, Cecil saw that such a compromise would permanently weaken England’s Dutch ally, particularly as Dr. Comans also made clear that Philip III would never give in to religious toleration in the Dutch breakaway provinces. The negotiations were over before they began.

  * * *

  Meanwhile, James VI of Scotland was hedging his bets for his succession to Elizabeth’s throne. Both Essex and Cecil had been taken into his confidence. By 1598, James had had copious correspondence with Essex, which would certainly have been considered treasonable by the queen had she known about it. Cecil, on the other hand, remained at one remove in his secret correspondence with James. On Essex’s return from Ireland, there is little doubt that the king’s representatives in London kept James fully informed of the earl’s volatility. By 1601 James had steadily turned his attentions to Cecil, remarking to his envoy Edward Bruce in London, “Ye must so deal with Mr Secretary … if in these points I be satisfied, that ye have power to give them full assurance of my favour, especially to Mr Secretary who is king there in effect.”9

  The ill-fated Essex Rebellion of February 1601, which only lasted eight hours (thanks in part to the betrayal of Essex by his “friend” Francis Bacon), gave James great cause for alarm, as he had no idea what Essex had done with their correspondence. Visions of the queen’s searchers poring over Essex’s papers threw James into a panic. He dashed off a note to Bruce explaining that “things were so miscarried by that unfortunate accident [the Essex Rebellion] that I was out of all hope that ye could come any speed at the Queen and council’s hand, anent [concerning] the main point: to give out a plain declaration, which must be enacted in her own records, that I am untouched in any action or practice that ever hath been intended against her, especially in this last [Essex]; wherein I wonder that, according to your former letter, ye have written nothing in this last.”10

  James needn’t have feared. Robert Cecil had long before decided that only James should become England’s next monarch. Any incriminating evidence against the Scots king was destroyed or put away safely. By April 1601, negotiations for the smooth transition from Elizabeth upon her death to James VI had been set in train, so long as their correspondence remained entirely secret. For Cecil, the thought of the Spanish infanta or Arbella Stuart as England’s next queen sat badly after the half century of service his father had given to Elizabeth.

  Significantly, Cecil had also won the trust of the Appellants, who had given him their potential solution to ally the forces of English Catholicism to the new English nationalism thus reducing the power of the papacy. The Cecil-influenced P
rotestation of Allegiance given to Elizabeth at the end of January 1603 was the result. It proposed that the Appellants would swear and acknowledge Elizabeth as their true and lawful queen and defend her life and England against any and all plots or invasions made in the name of the restoration of the “Romish religion.”11

  The potential solution came too late. Elizabeth was already ailing. At the beginning of March 1603, she took a turn for the worse. The sixty-nine-year-old Elizabeth, queen for over forty-four years, was dying. She had stood at her privy chamber window embrasure for two solid days, refusing food, running her index finger along her sore gums, staring blankly. Worn out by the burdens of office and age, disappointed by the loss of all those who had died before her, and stricken by the execution of Essex forced upon her, Elizabeth had simply given up the will to live.

  In the gray morning hours of Thursday, March 24, 1603, Tudor England expired with Elizabeth. Too weak to name her successor, she pointed her hand to her head and nodded as the name of James VI of Scotland was read out by Sir Robert Cecil. James VI of Scotland, the only child of Mary Queen of Scots, was duly proclaimed James I of England. Satisfied, Elizabeth Tudor finally allowed herself to slip away.

  TWENTY-SIX

  Epilogue

  The King of Scotland has succeeded quietly.

  —Venetian ambassador to the doge

  James VI of Scotland, now James I of England, waited until after Elizabeth’s state funeral to make his progress into England. With him came his Danish wife, the daughter of Frederick II, Queen Anne, and his son and heir, Prince Henry. His younger son, Charles, remained at home in Scotland for the time being. Two months earlier, Father Henry Garnet, who had been the soul of the Jesuit mission to England since 1586, had written to James assuring England’s new king that he would never have cause to distrust his fellowship or the Jesuits’ “love, fidelity, duty and obedience.”1