The Men Who Would Be King

by Josephine Ross

  Gloriana’s last knight abandoned her service, to use his sword against her. All his vows of love had been empty words. He turned his eyes away from the fading woman who had been seated so long upon the throne of England towards the man who was to succeed her there, James VI of Scotland, Mary Stuart’s son. Once more Elizabeth’s acute perception was to be proved. For years she had resisted naming her successor, insisting that to do so would be to hold her winding-sheet up before her eyes, since her heir, once known, would become the focus of discontent in her realm. She knew the truth of what she said, since in her sister’s reign she had held that dangerous post, and she knew what plottings there had been then; she refused to place another in that position. Now her words were to be proved valid. Flaming with dissatisfied ambition and pride, her own beloved Essex plotted with his band of reckless, improvident friends. Elizabeth was one of those potentates who were, as Raleigh had written so bitterly, “Not loved unless they give.” Essex and his party withdrew their love and their allegiance from the queen who did not give enough. No chivalrous passion for Gloriana would move Essex if he saw a higher profit in another cause.

  His glittering charm had won him popularity such as Leicester had never enjoyed, among his contemporaries and the common people, but London did not rise in his support. The rebellion failed, just as, years before, Wyatt’s rebellion to put Elizabeth on the throne had failed. Once again, Elizabeth had seen love end in the darkness of betrayal and violence; once again a man for whom she had held romantic feelings went to the block. The headless body of Essex, who died by her command, was to lie beneath the flagstones of the chapel in the Tower, near to the headless body of her own mother, Anne Boleyn, who had died by her father’s command. Essex’s treason had at last left her no alternative but to send him to execution, to die as her first love, Thomas Seymour, had died. Love and guilt; love and fear; love and death; the conclusion was as inevitable as it had been when she was a girl of fifteen.

  But now she was an old woman of sixty-eight, and there could be no more love affairs. No more suitors would court the Queen of England with words of love, and now her own subjects were covertly turning their eyes from her, and looking northwards to James of Scotland. Burghley’s son Robert Cecil, Elizabeth’s Principal Secretary as his father had been, was communicating with James in coded letters, and sending him envoys selected for their discretion, so that the foundations of service to the next sovereign were being laid while the present sovereign yet lived. Potentates, Raleigh had warned, were “not strong but by affection”; her courtiers’ affections were beginning to slide away from Elizabeth to her successor, as she had always known they would. Essex had rebelled to put James on the throne, just as Wyatt, years before, had rebelled to put Elizabeth on the throne. Memories must have glowed and flickered through the queen’s mind in the last months before she died.

  Reassurance was what she had always craved from her suitors. Her unstable childhood and troubled adolescence had left her with insatiable need for assurances that she was loved and wanted. No protestation of passion could be too fulsome for her; as long as men sought her, with words of love and desire, she could feel reassured, though she could never dare to put their promises to the test of marriage. She could never truly give love, but she needed to receive it, and the homage of her suitors provided her with a rich diet of the emotional sustenance she craved. As a child she had cried that she would never marry, and she had had little cause as an adult to change her mind, but with her antipathy to the realities of marriage and sexual union went an intense need for the elaborate pretense of love. She would always avoid capture, but she was excited and delighted by the rituals of the chase, whether her pursuer was an unknown foreign prince such as the archduke Charles, or a well-loved companion such as Robert Dudley.

  For years Elizabeth’s subjects had expected her to marry. Parliament had urged and exhorted her to the limits of her patience, almost overstepping the bounds of their duty in their insistence that she must take a husband. For the sake of the realm, for the weal of the kingdom, they had pressed her to marry with all speed. In a different manner, though with equal conviction, the greatest of all her ministers, Cecil, had believed that the queen should accept one of her suitors, preferably a Habsburg, for her consort; he had seen “no continuance of her quietness” if she remained single. The need to keep loyal discontent at bay had played a part in Elizabeth’s courtships; after the Parliament of 1566 she had shown a livelier interest than she felt in the wooing of the archduke Charles. But as the years passed and England remained secure under its virgin sovereign, public attitudes began to alter. The coming of a foreign consort began to be regarded less as an insurance and more as a threat to England’s independence, while Elizabeth’s isolation on the throne awoke feelings of protective loyalty that involved a sense of national pride and resentment at the prospect of co-rule by a representative of a foreign power. Under the married Queen Mary, England had been torn by discontent and rebellion; under the virgin Queen Elizabeth, the realm had achieved unity and prosperity. Thus it was that when Elizabeth found herself giving serious thought to Alençon’s proposals, the mood of her subjects had changed; instead of welcoming the match, with its promise of heirs of the Tudor line, they muttered ominously against it.

  In giving sound advice to his son, William Cecil made one observation that might, in retrospect, have been offered to the queen; he commented that marriage was “like unto a stratagem of war, in which a man can err but once.” Had Elizabeth chosen a consort, and chosen wrongly, her error would have been final and devastating. Had she accepted a Catholic, she might have faced Protestant rebellion; had she wed a Protestant, such as Eric of Sweden, Catholic plots in favor of Mary, Queen of Scots, might have acquired overwhelming support. If she had chosen either a Habsburg or a Valois, she would have committed herself irrevocably to one side or the other, and she could not have preserved the fragile balance between the two great powers as she did, inclining freely now to one, now to the other, as her country’s need dictated. In remaining uncommitted, as a woman and thus as a queen, in dallying with her suitors and at last rejecting them all, she avoided the error of choosing wrongly, and kept herself free to exploit the asset of her marriageable status in the glittering game of her great courtships. From her weakness emerged political strength.

  The cult of Gloriana drew a shining veil over the ugly aspects of her old age. As the Faerie Queene of England she was not a wrinkled old woman who had an unsuitable craving for the flattery and caressing attentions of handsome, vigorous young men, but an eternally radiant embodiment of beauty and virtue to whom the homage of gallant knights was due by right, and for whom no praise could ever be adequate. She was living proof of the magical properties of virginity, the pure maiden of all legend; under her shining banner England won prosperity and victory. In her personal relationships at the end of her life the veil became threadbare; glimpses of an old woman who was not loved unless she gave showed through the fine network of duty and service. Essex took arms against his queen, shattering the magical looking glass that reflected her image of lovely perfection, and showing the sham and pretense to a woman whose love dealings had, almost all her long life, been founded on make-believe.

  Yet the achievements of the reign of the Virgin Queen were real and solid enough. Appalling dangers had been averted; England was a prospering, independent nation. In eluding all the suitors who had pursued her down the years of her reign, in the greatest hunt in history, Elizabeth had not erred. From the rich and glorious literature produced by her subjects under her peaceful sovereignty, one sentence in particular might stand as an epitaph for the queen who was courted from infancy to old age by the finest men in Europe, and yet rejected all her suitors to die a maid. It was the playwright Lyly, Shakespeare’s friend, who, in a panegyric on the glories of Elizabeth’s reign, wrote truly and lovingly, “This is the only miracle virginity ever wrought: for a little island, environed round about with wars, to stand in peace.”
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br />   I L L U S T R A T I O N S

  1 Elizabeth, age about thirteen.

  2 Emmanuel Philibert, Duke of Savoy and Prince of Piedmont, the disinherited prince whom Queen Mary pressed Elizabeth to marry.

  3 Edward Courtenay, Earl of Devonshire, “the last sprig of the White Rose.”

  4 Thomas, Lord Seymour of Sudeley, Lord High Admiral of England, Elizabeth’s first suitor.

  5 Henry Fitzalan, Earl of Arundel. He was of noble birth but lacked the attractions of Elizabeth’s younger suitors.

  6 Eric XIV of Sweden. He wooed Elizabeth with lavish gifts, but his suit met with mockery.

  7 Philip II of Spain. The enmity of three decades began with a marriage proposal.

  8 Archduke Charles of Austria. He was said to be “for a man, beautiful and well faced.”

  9 Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester. Elizabeth’s great love and the most persistent of all her suitors.

  10 Charles IX of France. His mother, Catherine de’ Medici, proposed him for Elizabeth when he was “but a boy.”

  11 Henry, Duke of Anjou (later Henry III of France). He proved a reluctant suitor to the aging Elizabeth.

  12 Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex. The handsome, willful favorite of the queen’s declining years.

  13 Francis, Duke of Alençon, Elizabeth’s “dearest Frog.” Their political courtship turned into a heady romance.

  14 Elizabeth I, age about forty-two.

  I N D E X

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  Adolphus of Holstein, Duke, 83

  Alençon, Francis, Duke of: appearance of, 167, 168, 173, 177, 180; death of, 200; Elizabeth’s early marriage negotiations with, 157, 167–72; Elizabeth’s emotional courtship with, 173–99, 202; Elizabeth’s garter incident and, 174, 191; Elizabeth’s nickname for, 181; Elizabeth’s poem about, 199; Elizabeth’s post-courtship relationship with, 199–200, 203; Elizabeth’s public announcement about marriage to, 195–98, 204; English resistance to, 181–85, 189, 191–92, 196, 197, 199, 217; and French mission to England, 191–93; French-Spanish relations and, 188–89, 193, 194; French succession and, 171, 178; Henry III relations with, 171; Huguenot connections of, 168, 178; picture of, 137; Simier as proxy for, 174–75; visits to England by, 169, 177–78, 180–82, 194–99

  Angoulême, Charles, Duke of, 11–12, 13

  Anjou, Duke of. See Henry III (King of France)

  Anne of Cleves, 8, 20, 87

  Armada, Spanish, 202, 208, 209, 210

  Arran, Earl of, 98

  Arundel, Henry Fitzalan, Earl of, 47, 52, 67–68, 69–70, 75, 133

  Ascham, Roger, 10, 39, 58

  Ashley, Katherine, 21, 22–23, 24, 28, 31–33, 34, 38, 39, 58, 94, 96–97, 179

  Bayonne: Queens of Spain and France meeting in, 149–50, 151

  Bedford, Earl of, 69, 90–91

  Blois, Treaty of, 168

  Boleyn, Anne: as the “Concubine,” 2, 5, 13; Elizabeth compared with, 51, 52; Elizabeth’s memories of, 8, 9, 14, 38–39; execution of, 3–4, 5–6, 8, 9, 14, 17, 34–35, 38–39; grave of, 215; Henry VIII break with Catholicism and, 13; Henry VIII relationship with, 5, 11, 13, 17, 54; Henry’s children and, 3, 5–6; Henry’s relationship with, 2–3, 155; nullification of Henry’s marriage to, 13; personality of, 3; pregnancies of, 2, 3; Wyatt and, 2, 3

  Bothwell, Lord, 155

  Breuner, Caspar (Baron von Rabenstein), 85, 86, 87–88, 89, 96

  Burghley, Lord. See Cecil, William

  Canterbury, Archbishop of, 183

  Carlos, Don (son of Philip of Spain), 55, 58, 78, 120

  Catherine of Aragon, 4, 7, 13, 47, 54

  Catholicism/Catholic Church: Adolphus of Holstein as suitor and, 83; Alençon as suitor and, 177, 178, 181–84, 187, 189; Angoulême-Elizabeth relationship and, 12; Anjou-Charles IX relationship and, 166; Anjou as figurehead for, 158, 166; Anjou as suitor to Elizabeth and, 158, 160, 163, 164, 165, 166; Archduke Charles as suitor and, 120, 146, 153–54; Archduke Ferdinand as suitor and, 86; Bayonne meeting between Queens of Spain and France and, 149–50; Darnley-Mary Stuart and, 124; Dudley-Elizabeth relationship and, 105, 107; Dudley-Mary Stuart negotiations and, 119; Elizabeth’s denial of, 77; Henry VIII and, 12–13; Mary Stuart and, 127, 156, 217; of Mary Tudor, 9, 15–16, 40, 45, 47, 61, 145, 167; Mary Tudor-Elizabeth relationship and, 45; Philip II as suitor and, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77–78; Philip of Spain-Elizabeth of France marriage and, 78; plots against Elizabeth and, 156; St. Bartholomew’s Eve massacre and, 170; succession to throne and, 13, 15–16; as threat to Elizabeth, 149–50; unpopularity among English of, 61, 65, 167, 170, 217; views about Elizabeth in, 76

  Cavalcanti, Guido, 163–64

  Cecil, Robert (son of Burghley), 215

  Cecil, William (Lord Burghley): Alençon as suitor and, 167, 168, 175–76, 186, 190; Anjou as suitor and, 163; Archduke Charles as suitor and, 129, 130–31, 151, 152, 154–55; comparison of Dudley and Archduke Charles by, 130, 139; and Darnley-Mary Stuart marriage, 155; Dudley-Elizabeth relationship and, 100–101, 102, 103, 104, 107, 108, 111, 129–31, 209; and Elizabeth as childbearer, 142, 186; Habsburg archdukes as suitors and, 86; Spanish-French relations and, 79, 80; as supportive of marriage for Elizabeth, 86, 88–89, 216, 217; sworn in as Secretary of State, 94

  Chapuys, Eustace (French ambassador), 2, 3, 5, 9, 11, 12, 17

  Charles, Archduke of Austria: appearance of, 90–91, 139–40; Bavarian marriage of, 157; Dudley compared with, 130, 139; French concerns about, 147; picture of, 134; religion and, 120, 146, 153–54; as suitor to Elizabeth, 80, 83, 85, 86, 87, 90–91, 120, 121, 127–30, 139–43, 146, 147, 148, 151, 152, 153–54, 156, 157, 216

  Charles IX (King of France): Anjou’s relationship with, 165–66; appearance of, 148–49; death of, 171; as Elizabeth’s suitor, 147, 148–49, 150–51, 152–53, 157; Habsburg marriage of, 157; picture of, 136; Spain and, 166; St. Bartholomew’s Eve massacre and, 169, 170

  Charles V (King of Spain), 10, 12, 13, 72

  Courtenay, Edward (Earl of Devonshire), 43–45, 46, 49–51, 52, 53, 58, 69, 132

  Cromwell, Thomas, 6, 12

  Culpeper, Thomas, 9

  Dannett, Thomas, 139–40

  Darnley, Lord, 12, 123–24, 127, 155

  de Foix, Paul, 149, 150

  de’ Medici, Catherine: Alençon-Elizabeth marriage negotiations and, 167–68, 170, 171, 194; Alençon’s death and, 200; Anjou-Elizabeth marriage negotiations and, 157–58, 161–62, 163, 164, 165, 166, 167–68; Bayonne meeting with Queen of Spain and, 149–50; Charles IX-Elizabeth negotiations and, 147, 148, 149, 150, 151, 152; Philip II-Elisabeth of France marriage and, 78; picture of, 136; Spain and, 78, 166, 188; St. Bartholomew’s Eve massacre and, 169

  Devereux, Robert. See Essex, Robert Devereux, Earl of

  Devonshire, Earl of. See Courtenay, Edward

  Discourse on the Succession (Hales), 121

  Drake, Sir Francis, 174, 191, 211

  Dudley, Amy. See Robsart, Amy

  Dudley, Guildford, 41, 42, 53

  Dudley, John. See Northumberland, Duke of

  Dudley, Robert (Earl of Leicester): Alençon as suitor and, 175, 176, 178–79, 181, 188, 191, 192, 195, 196, 197, 202; ambitions of, 99, 103–4, 106; Anjou as suitor and, 158, 160, 161, 163–64; appearance of, 94, 97; Archduke Charles compared with, 139; Archduke Charles as suitor and, 139, 152, 154; death of, 113, 208–9, 210; Edward VI and, 41, 93; and Elizabeth as virgin, 197; Elizabeth’s nickname for, 204; Elizabeth’s relationship with, 14, 53–54, 92–113, 115–16, 119, 121, 123, 126–31, 139, 140, 143, 144, 151–52, 154–55, 158, 159, 178–80, 185, 188, 202, 203–4, 207–9, 216; family background of, 41; gifts/honors for, 94, 95, 97, 103, 115–16, 121, 122, 123; influence on Elizabeth of, 99, 103, 110, 112, 116, 154–55; Lettice Knollys courtship/marriage to, 111, 176, 179, 180, 203; Mary Stuart and, 102, 118–20, 121, 122–23, 126–27, 129; Mary Tudor’s reign and, 93–94; as Master of
the Horse, 94, 210; Norfolk and, 99, 100, 109; picture of, 135; popularity of, 215; preference for French as suitors of Elizabeth and, 151–52; as protector of the realm, 115–16; reputation of, 41, 99, 107, 139, 179; Robsart marriage/death and, 94, 100, 101–2, 103, 108, 139, 155; Simier attacks and, 178–79; succession to the throne and, 115–16; in Tower of London, 53–54, 93

  Edward III (King of England), 115

  Edward VI (King of England), 7–8, 10, 14, 15–16, 17, 20, 26–27, 34, 38, 40–41, 92, 93

  Elisabeth of France, 78–79, 149–50, 189

  Elizabeth Tudor (Queen of England): achievements of, 218; appearance of, 15, 39, 74, 125, 128, 148, 201; aversion to marriage of, 14, 54–55, 58, 59–60, 77, 85, 117, 124, 141, 148, 151, 155, 156, 172, 185, 216; birth of, 2; childbearing concerns about, 115, 117, 141–42, 143, 144, 149, 159, 161, 163, 167–68, 175, 185, 186, 187, 194, 198; childhood of, 1–14; coronation of, 63–64, 68; education of, 10, 38, 39; first suitor of, 11–12, 13; health of, 6, 38, 42, 50, 51, 103, 109, 115–16, 142; Henry VIII relationship with, 4–5, 14; interrogation of, 52; legitimacy of, 4, 6, 13–14, 16, 54, 61, 75; as “Little Bastard,” 13; during Mary Tudor’s reign, 42–61, 143–45; mythology/cult of, 201–3, 204, 217–18; pictures of, 131, 138; popular support for, 42, 61, 63–64, 217; power of, 79; “pregnancy” of, 35, 39, 51–52; public image of, 35, 51; reputation of, 22, 24, 35, 38–39, 51, 96–97, 103, 161; succession to throne and, 4, 6, 7, 13–14, 16, 40, 41–42, 45, 49, 56, 59, 61, 62, 77, 82, 93, 114–46, 155, 214–15; in Tower of London, 51–54, 63, 67, 93–94; as virgin, 2, 81–82, 83, 85, 95, 114, 122, 124, 128, 157, 160, 197, 199, 201–2, 218; youth of, 15–36, 131