by Lee Miller
And call them to account in haste, that close in corners lurk:
And ask in open place, how they would spend their time,
And if they say they have no mind the lofty clouds to climb,
Yet would you wish they should see what on earth is found,
And search the proof, and sail by art, about the world so round.
At home to tarry still, but breeds gross blood and wit;
Then better with the falcon fly, than here on dunghill sit.4
Despite such promising beginnings, the accolades and frivolity, the brothers, with their boundless energy and intellect, will learn something on this expedition about jealousy. Some people happy think a greedy hope of gain, And heaps of gold you hope you find, doth make you take this pain, chortles Churchyard. Let the world now speak the worst, and babble what they please.5 Their detractors are cheered when news that a leaking ship, storms, and desertions have plagued the expedition. It ends in failure and Gilbert’s fortune is lost.
Life at Court
1580. Rebellion breaks out in Ireland against England’s rule. Raleigh, now twenty-eight, tries his hand as a soldier of fortune, captaining troops at the front. Autumn 1581. Raleigh, highly critical of the handling of Irish affairs by Deputy Lord Grey of Wilton, boldly counsels a different approach. It is rumored that the Queen summons them both to Court to air their differences on Irish policy. Raleigh had much the better in the manner of telling his tale, insomuch that the Queen and the Lords took no slight mark of the man and his parts, for from thence he came to be known and to have access to the Lords and then we are not to doubt how such a man could comply to progression.6 Raleigh quits his post in Ireland and remains at Court.
After the rigors of the Irish campaign, the leisurely pace of Whitehall must be overwhelming. Inside, the hallways and bedchambers are luxurious, strewn with sweet herbs and nosegays of perfumed flowers whose smell, visitor Levinus Lemnius remarked of English homes in general, cheered me up and entirely delighted all my senses.7 Outside, the grounds boast a magnificent flower garden, full of walks, and an orchard for more solitary retreats. From the palace is a very stately passage to the Thames where the Royal barge is moored, manned by a staff of forty-two, in which Elizabeth can pass at her pleasure the pleasant stream8
Pleasant indeed. The Thames is very clear and teeming with an infinite plenty of excellent, sweet, and pleasant fish sporting near the riverbank. And if the Queen or her legion of courtiers grow weary of this sight, they may retire to the tennis courts, the bowling allies, cockpits, and other places of exercise on the palace grounds. Or play a card game of primo. Summer entertainments include fireworks and water pageants featuring nymphs and mechanical dolphins.9
Old Nobility and the Nouveau Riche
If Raleigh’s arrival in royal society were sudden and unexpected, his subsequent rise was meteoric. He quickly adapts to this world, and cuts a dashing figure. He is a tall, handsome and bold man (six feet tall, a good nine inches above average), with a most remarkable aspect. Black hair, exquisitely trimmed. His beard, noted Aubrey, turned up naturally.10Queen Elizabeth is clearly taken with this fascinating newcomer from the West Country. And truth it is that she took him for a kind of oracle, which nettled them all.11
To understand the fear Raleigh generates, one must understand the times. In Tudor England, merchants and lesser gentry are on the rise, becoming rich and powerful while older landed families find their influence eroding. A revolution is occurring.12 Peers no longer fill the highest levels of government, while income from service at Court fails to rise with an inflated economy. Meanwhile, London and an urban merchant class balloons. Certainly the making of new gentlemen bred great strife sometimes amongst the Romans, I mean when those which were “novi homines “ were more allowed of for their virtues newly seen and showed than the old smell of ancient race.13
Their exalted position threatened, the nobility bitterly close ranks. Gentlemen, once defined solely by wealth, are now judged according to how their money is made. Merchants, who work in worldly trades, are hardly of the same cut. The opinion of nobility rejoice much in their own conceit, because it was their fortune to come of such ancestors whose stock of long time hath been counted rich. … And though their ancestors left them not one foot of land, or else they themselves have pissed it against the walls, yet they think themselves not the less noble therefore of one hair.14
Yet the aristocracy cannot fail to notice the large numbers of new men rising rapidly to the top. The old moneyed families respond by abruptly shifting focus. Near-fanatical emphasis is now placed on education and appropriate behavior as indications of status. Honours should change manners, or so they say.15 Nobility is a way of living, a sharing of tastes, a mastering of social graces. For new nobility is but the act of power, but ancient nobility is the act of time.16
Status
A clamor is raised, demanding the enforcement of laws that legally define the clothing styles allowed each class. Though merchants wear fine and costly garments, their wives are prone to outlandish display both in attire and costly housekeeping, and cannot tell when and how to make an end…. I might here name a sort of hues devised… to please fantastical heads, as gooseturd green, pease-porridge tawny, popinjay blue, lusty gallant, the devil-in-the-head (I should say “the hedge “), and suchlike.17
Diet is another status symbol. The number of dishes served by the nobility (whose cooks are for the most part musical-headed Frenchmen and strangers) is staggering. Each day they have not only beef, mutton, veal, lamb, kid, pork, cony, capon, pig … but also some portion of the red or fallow deer, beside great variety of fish and wildfowl… so that for a man to dine with one of them… is rather to yield unto a conspiracy with a great deal of meat.18
Gentlemen and merchants battle it out at the table, their banquets often comparable herein to the nobility of the land. Although, admittedly, spiced with a fondness for the ridiculous: jellies of all colours molded into flowers, trees, animals and fruits; marzipan wrought with no small curiosity, tarts of diverse hues… sugarbread, gingerbread, florentines, and sundry outlandish confections, altogether seasoned with sugar.19
Pedigree
As the lesser gentry begin to rival the aristocracy in extravagance, pedigree is seized upon as the ultimate determinant. Old blood outranks new. Genealogists map out impressive family trees — fabricated or otherwise. Suddenly everyone must boast and vaunt themselves of their ancestors… saying, and crying with open mouth: I am a gentleman, I am worshipful, I am honourable, I am noble, and I cannot tell what: my father was this, my father was that: I come from this house, and I am come ofthat.20
The College of Heralds is deluged with thousands of petitions for coats of arms, despite uproar over suspected bribery, forgery, and the granting of fake heraldry. True is the saying that every Cock is proud on his own dunghill21
The Centrifugal Tudor Force
Such rivalry, on a national level, centers around the Crown. The most influential in the land are no longer the most wealthy, but those with the closest ties to Elizabeth. A friend in Court is worth a penny in purse.12Younger nobility resort to the city to curry favor, hoping to make their mark.
It is an expensive gamble, requiring a massive outlay of funds to create a competitive image amid a Court obsessed with physical appearance, novelty, and foreign tastes. Little wonder that the young hopefuls who fly to London find money flowing through their hands like water.23 There are few openings at Court, the odds far greater for failure than success. With such lofty stakes, he that is afraid of every grass, quips Camden, must not piss in a meadow. Excellent advice. Many lose their fortunes. With interest rates soaring at 10 percent and above, others are forced to sell off manor lands to pay London debts, thereby accelerating their downfall.24
Maintaining a Competitive Edge
Into this elite world Raleigh steps with apparent ease. With no connections, without years of struggle, he enters the Court and at the very top. He is soon in Elizabeth’s
most intimate circle: true it is, says Naunton, he had gotten the Queens ear in a trice and she began to be taken with his elocution and loved to hear his reasons to her demands.15
Yet Raleigh’s position is exceedingly precarious. His staying power has yet to be determined, and there is no one to protect him but the Queen. Should he lose his footing, there will be no one to protect him at all. It is said that on the windowpane of Greenwich Palace, Raleigh etches the lines: Fain would I climb, yet I fear to fall. And the Queen’s coy answer: If thy heart fail thee, climb not at all.16
Raleigh will climb. After all, faint heart never won fair lady.11 Yet what kind of stout heart is necessary to win a Queen? And, once there, to keep her? For those fortunate enough to be admitted into Elizabeth’s circle, the worries are far from over. There is continual pressure among the courtiers to maintain position, to distinguish themselves in order to keep from being supplanted. The rising unto place is laborious, and by pains men come to greater pains…. The standing is slippery, and the regress is either a downfall, or at least an eclipse, which is a melancholy thing.28
Fashion is public statement, and courtiers engage in a fierce competition of outlandish display. A gentleman, Harrison remarks, once trying to describe English attire at last gave up and only drew the picture of a naked man, unto whom he gave a pair of shears in the one hand and a piece of cloth in the other, to the end he should shape his apparel after such fashion as himself liked, since he could find no kind of garment that could please him any while together; and this he called an Englishman.29
Starched cambric, holland, and lawn are mounted layer upon layer into ponderous ruffles, segregating shoulders from head, whereof some be a quarter of a yard deep, yea some more. Should a gust of wind or storm chance to hit upon them, reports an incredulous Philip Stubbes, then they go flip flap in the wind, like rags flying abroad, and lie upon their shoulders like the dishcloth of a flute. Their origin is equally baffling, though perhaps the Devil, in the fullness of his malice, he proposes, first invented these great great ruffs.30
Farthingale dresses, popular at Court in the 1580s, are hooped with whalebone and exploded out by twenty yards of expensive cloth, making it difficult to sit down. Elizabeth’s gowns, as one might expect, are spectacular, generously dusted with pearls and precious gems. One royal dress glitters with 365 diamonds, one for each day of the year. Such is our mutability that today there is none to the Spanish guise, tomorrow French toys are most fine and delectable… and by and by the Turkish manner is generally best liked?1
So too with men’s attire: the short French breeches make such a comely vesture that, except it were a dog in a doublet, you shall not see any so disguised as are my countrymen of England, notes Harrison dryly. Indeed, adds an overwhelmed Stubbes, the doublets are no less monstrous than the rest. For now the fashion is to have them hang down to the midst of their thighs, or at least to their privie members, being so hard-quilted, and stuffed, bombasted and sewed, as they can very hardly either stoop down, or decline themselves…. Now what handsomeness can be in these doublets which stand on their bellies… (so as their bellies are thicker than all their bodies beside) let wise men judge?2
Courtiers frantically compete for the Queen’s affection in dancing, poetry, and other accomplishments. Truly it is a rare thing with us now to hear of a courtier which hath but his own language. And to say how many gentlewomen and ladies there are that, beside sound knowledge of the Greek and Latin tongues, are thereto no less skilful in the Spanish, Italian, and French, or in some one of them, it resteth not in me. … Though the cynic might detect a certain superficiality to it all. Would to God the rest of their lives and conversations were correspondent to these gifts! cries Harrison. For as our common courtiers (for the most part) are the best learned and endued with excellent gifts, so are many of them the worst men when they come abroad that any man shall either hear or read of33
The Queen’s Favorite
Raleigh is different. Along with a handsome physique and splendid appearance, none can deny that he is also blessed with a brilliant intellect. He is the wonder of the world for wit. A keen observer, he soaks up everything. He was no slug; without doubt he had a wonderful waking spirit, and a great judgment to guide it.34 An original thinker, he could make everything he read or heard his own, and his own he could easily improve to the greatest advantage. He seemed to be born to that only which he went about, so dexterous was he in all his undertakings, in Court, camp, by sea, by land, with sword, with pen 35
To vie with the nobility, and indeed to ridicule them, Raleigh cuts a figure to rival a prince. He dresses magnificently (some say flamboyantly) amid a resplendent court, his clothes glittering with rubies, diamonds, and pearls. His palace footwear is so bespattered with jewels, exclaims Drexelius, a visiting Flemish priest, that they are computed to be worth more than six thousand, six hundred gold pieces. Raleigh is, Drexelius adds, the darling of the English Cleopatra36 He plays the perfect courtier, mocking the role, doing all by extremes. And is hated because of it. He was, said Aubrey, damnable proud37
The Queen, in high good humor, flirtatiously nicknames him Water: pun on the Devon pronunciation of his own name. He is her Water, her Shepherd of the Ocean. And she is Cynthia, goddess of the ocean’s fate.38 Master Water Rawley is in very high favour with the Queens Majesty; neither my Lord of Leicester nor master Vice-Chamberlain in so short time ever was in the like…. I have heard it credibly reported, said Maurice Browne, that Master Rawley hath spent within this half year above 3000 pounds. He is very sumptuous in his apparel, and I take it he hath his diet out of the privy kitchen, but all the vessels with which he is served at his table, is silver with his own arms on the same. He hath attending on him at least thirty men. … The whole Court doth follow him39
Raleigh’s rooms within the palace are luxurious. His bed, it is avidly reported, is draped with a green velvet spread bordered with silver lace, and the four posts are garnished with white feather plumes. He is provided with all worldly pleasures yet, it is said, conducts himself well toward everyone. He was such a person (every way) that… a Prince would rather be afraid of than ashamed of He had that awfulness and ascendency in his aspect over other mortals.40
The Queen grants Raleigh further favors, subsidizing his Roanoke ventures indirectly through privileges and estates. 1587: Raleigh receives his greatest honor, the coveted Captain of the Queen’s Guard.41 The head of Elizabeth’s private bodyguard, he will defend her in these turbulent times from countless assassination attempts, standing watch at her chamber door and accompanying her on walks about the grounds. On summer progresses and journeys, he will ride at the front of the corps in shining silver armor, spangles of jewels sewn on shoes, sleeves, and cap. He will be closest to her always.
Deadfalls and Traps
Life at Court promises glamor, stimulation, and social accomplishment. But all the skills in the world cannot hide a certain ugliness permeating the palace halls. A desperation is visible in the courtiers swarming over Whitehall, scrambling for office. Too few positions to fill. Sir Philip Sidney, having received a military appointment in the Low Countries, is stung by evil words spoken at Court behind his back. understand I am called very ambitious and proud at home, he writes from the field, but certainly if they know my heart they would not altogether so judge me.42 His uncle, the illustrious Earl of Leicester, as reward for being the Queen’s longtime favorite, finds himself the object of a scurrilous volume entitled Leycesters Common-Wealth: a libel accusing him of plots, poisonings, sexual perversion, and political intrigue.
Raleigh’s own rise has been too rapid. Too dramatic. He is denounced as a manipulator, a fraud, a deceiver. The palace walls swell with cutting jibes about his low birth. Once, when the Queen was playing a song on the virginals, the Earl of Oxford, eyeing the vertical movement of the hammer mechanism, loudly remarked within her hearing that when Jacks went up, heads went down — when knaves such as Raleigh are elevated to favor, the old aristocracy is thrust
down, out of the way. The joke circulates around Court. Raleigh, the Jack of an upstart.
Jealousies develop into cliques, nowhere more evident than in the Queen’s own Privy Council. Lord Burghley versus Sir Francis Walsing-ham and the Earl of Leicester; the Earls of Sussex and Arundel versus Leicester, Leicester versus Burghley; Sir Nicholas Throckmorton versus Burghley; Sir Nicholas Throckmorton versus Leicester, then Walsingham. The principal note of her reign, says Naunton, will be that she ruled much by faction and parties, which she herself both made, upheld, and weakened as her own great judgement advised.45
Both Hatton and Leicester are accused of doing away with their opponents. Leicester, in particular, maintains two physicians on his payroll — the Italian Julio Borgarucci and the Portuguese Roderigo Lopez, both expert in poisons.46 Sir Nicholas Throckmorton died at Leicester’s house after eating a salad; Margaret Tudor, the Queen’s relative, succumbed to poison after his visit. Walter Devereux, the Earl of Essex, passed away believing Leicester poisoned him. Amy Robsart, Leicester’s first wife, died from a fall down the stairs. Rumor had it that his assassins first broke her neck and poisoned her. His second wife, Lady Douglas Sheffield, whose husband he poisoned, accused him of poisoning her too — her hair and nails falling out as evidence.47
When a royal marriage between Queen Elizabeth and the French Duke of Alençon appeared imminent, sniper shots were fired at his representative. A deviation from form, still all indications point to Leicester.48 Yet reckless as he is, the Court harbors far deadlier foes. Were one to have an enemy, one could only hope it were not Burghley or Walsingham. Steady, quiet, and lethal. It is they who wield the greatest power.