Come, Muses, come, and help me to lament,
Come woods, come waves, come hills, come doleful dales, Since life and death are both against me bent,
Come gods, come men, beare witnesse of my bales. O heavenly Nimphs, come help my heavy heart; With sighes to see Dame Pleasure thus depart.
The "princely pleasures" were ended, but the progress continued—to Worcester, with its pageantry and speechifying, to Lichfield, where a "grand musical treat" was presented in the cathedral, and to Woodstock, where an elaborate display of linguistic erudition by the poet George Gascoigne—author of the Kenilworth masques and poetry—provided di-
version for Elizabeth in Latin, Italian and French. The visit to Woodstock drew forth a peculiar mixture of feelings—dreaded memories of the fear and frustration and killing boredom Elizabeth had known there as a young woman during her sister's reign mingled with a sense of triumph and power. For now she returned to that place of her captivity as a queen regnant, surrounded by pomp and poetic flattery, adored by her excited subjects and in firm command of her life and kingdom.
From Woodstock she made her way southeastward to Reading and then to Windsor, filling the autumn days with hunting and excursions to the country houses of her nobles. The formal progress was now over, and she gave thanks for its smooth course in a prayer of her own composing.
"I render unto thee, O merciful and heavenly Father, most humble and hearty thanks ... for thy mighty protection and defence over me, in preserving me in this long and dangerous journey." "Continue this thy favorable goodness toward me I beseech thee, that I may still likewise be defended from all adversity, both bodily and ghostly." 4 She prayed for sound faith, for the wisdom to lead her kingdom and the church, for defense against her enemies, that they might never prevail against her.
But it was her realm and her people that concerned her most. "Grant me grace, O Lord, that in the end I may render up and present the same again unto thee, a peaceable, quiet, and well ordered state and kingdom." It had indeed seemed peaceable as she traveled its country roads, smiling with pleasure to see the grain ripening in the fields and the trees heavy with summer fruit. As she prayed she must have had in memory the thousands of waving hands and exuberant faces she had ridden past, the laborers and farmers, country clerics and milkmaids, the schoolchildren and servants and the ragged folk who begged along the highroads. These were the people whose well-being she had preserved for nearly two decades as queen, the people who celebrated her Accession Day as if it were the chief feast of their year. "And to my subjects, O Lord God," Elizabeth prayed fervently, "grant, I beseech ye, faithful and obedient hearts."
Eliza is the fairest Queue, That ever trod upon this greene. Elizaes eyes are blessed starres, Inducing peace, subduing wanes. Elizaes hand is christal bright, Her wordes are balme, her lookes are light. Elizaes brest is that faire hill, Where Vertue dwels, and sacred skill, O blessed bee each day and home, Where sweet Eliza builds her bowre.
I
t was June, and the queen had decided to go on progress.
From the moment the announcement was made everyone in attendance at court froze into a state of apprehension: Who would be required to go along? Would the weather be oppressive? Would there be enough beds for everyone, and enough space in the wagons for clothes and furnishings? How many personal servants would each courtier and household officer be allowed? And the ultimate question, was there any possible way of being excused from attendance on the queen this time, for the duration of this progress?
For in truth, however glorious a royal journey might be to those who observed it as spectators, to those who actually took part it was a nightmare of discomfort and arduous exertion.
Nothing save war was more disruptive to the orderly well-being of court life than a royal progress. 1 All the fixed certainties of assigned quarters and familiar palaces and predictable ceremonies vanished, giving way to improvised accommodation and strange surroundings and a wearying schedule that could never be known in advance because it varied according to the queen's caprice. Everyone, from grooms to footmen to government officials and their assistants, was kept constantly on the alert, grumbling over personal inconvenience while struggling with the usual tasks of service plus the
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added demands of frequent packing and unpacking, and of spending long hours on the road.
The ceaseless journeying must have been particularly hard on the elegant courtiers, whose fragile embroidered taffetas and Venetian velvets—not to mention their carefully arranged and dyed hair and beards—must have suffered considerably from the outdoor life. Wardrobe inventories of the period do not mention "progress clothes," so we must assume that they traveled in their customary splendor, their coiffures in windblown disarray and their fine gowns and doublets exposed to the weather. Thick felt traveling cloaks must have given a certain amount of protection, but not enough; the dandified gentlemen and ornately dressed ladies of the court must often have arrived at their destinations with their attire disastrously sun-bleached or mud-spattered or covered in a thick layer of dust.
And once they arrived, they were often subjected to further ignominy. Only the very largest of the country houses the queen visited had accommodations for all of those who traveled with her. Most of the time the majority of her attendants slept in neighboring inns or in tents erected in the open fields, like military men on campaign. For the lucky there were manorial outbuildings crammed with pallet beds, or, for those of the very highest rank, tiny rooms with narrow beds in the great houses themselves. Even these quarters had to be shared; beds were slept in in shifts. To protect the claims of rank, however, propriety as well as household regulations preserved the principle that no nobleman should ever be called upon to share his bed with a commoner.
Coordination of the vast annual migration was in the hands of the lord chamberlain, whose task it was to choose the route that would be followed and see to it that lodging and provisioning would be adequate at every stage of the journey. In completing this enormous task he had the help of the gentlemen ushers of the chamber, who rode out in advance to look over the various proposed lodgings for the queen herself and report on their suitability, and the court harbingers, who did the same thing with the needs of her retinue and provision wagons in mind. The day-to-day mapping of the route was left to the waymaker, who had to determine which roads were most likely to be passable at that season, and safe from brigands, always keeping in mind the necessity of avoiding neighborhoods where plague or smallpox had been reported recently. (It was not unknown for Elizabeth to change her route abruptly on hearing rumors of local contagion; the problem was made especially bothersome as such rumors frequently turned out to be "misinformations.")
The choice of specific routes was no easy matter, for between the time the royal harbingers made their tour and the time the queen and her
company arrived an unseasonable rainstorm might turn an inviting lane into a stinking bog. Such mischances had to be foreseen, if possible, and there was much informal communication between the waymaker and the local townspeople, intended to avoid disaster. There were other complicating factors. The court on wheels could travel no farther than ten or twelve miles in a day—less in some areas, where the terrain was difficult—and there had to be some sort of accommodation at the end of each ten- or twelve-mile stretch. Then too each full day of travel had to be broken up with a long pause for dinner at midday and possibly for a light supper, and as the queen and her favorites could not be expected to picnic in the fields this meant locating a capacious inn or wayside manor house, or, in extreme cases, having a temporary structure built for the occasion.
Once an itinerary had been drawn up, the individuals and towns selected to provide hospitality had to be informed, officially, and instructed in detail about their obligations. Sheriffs were told to provide quantities of corn and hay, and justices of the peace received notice that the royal purveyors would expect to find plenty of beef and chickens and fresh fish on hand when they came t
o buy provisions for the itinerant household. Some wine, the officials were informed, would be brought specially from London, but all of the beer to be drunk by the hundreds of thirsty travelers would have to be brewed on the spot—a sizable challenge to local brewmasters.
A particularly sensitive issue was the brewing of the queen's ale. She liked it light and tart, and was very particular about it. If the ale of the country district was not satisfactory, then a London brewer would have to be found to set up a temporary brewery near the progress site. Sometimes the arrangements went awry, and the royal ale cup failed to please. In 1575, Elizabeth was at Grafton, and Leicester, who was with her, recorded her fury when she arrived hot and thirsty and found the ale provided for her to be undrinkable. "It did put her far out of temper," he wrote, to discover the oversight. Ale had been laid down specially for her, but the "marvellous hot" weather had spoiled it, so that it had turned as thick and sweet as malmsey wine, and no one would touch it. There was a hurried scramble to find better ale; servants were dispatched to London and to neighboring houses with empty bottles, and eventually a fresh supply was brought in. Tempers cooled, and Elizabeth became "perfectly well and merry" once more, ready to take up her travels again and to hazard the cellars of her next lodging. 2
From a governmental standpoint, there was more than a little recklessness about a royal progress. It was an act of daring, in which the queen flaunted her trust in her people and their love for her by making herself particularly vulnerable to kidnapping or assault, and ignoring the risk. Her
councilors suffered agonies of worry, and attempted to dissuade her from making the hazardous journeys, but she refused to listen. But beyond her personal risk there was a broader political one. Though the royal council might move with the queen the seat of government remained in the capital, and during progress season that, meant that a reliable and efficient system of communication had to be established between London and the countryside, with scores of messengers ready to ride with news or instructions or documents at a moment's notice. For as long as the long courtly holiday lasted the everyday work of the queen and council—work which often involved weighty deliberations and difficult decisions—had to go on under improvised circumstances allowing little margin for inexactness or thoughtful changes of mind. Urgent business must often have had to be postponed, to the frustration of everyone involved, because the coffers of papers and records needed to carry it through had been sealed and loaded onto carts and sent ahead to the next lodging.
By far the most unwelcome members of the queen's traveling retinue were the court purveyors and their deputies, men authorized to buy food and rent carts and horses for the queen. Purveyance was a time-honored feudal right; since medieval times monarchs had demanded that their subjects sell them goods and provide services at fixed prices, set by the clerk of the market in consultation with a group of local men. The purveyors fanned out through the countryside in their hundreds, commandeering horses and carts and announcing the minimal rates that would be paid for them and the length of time they would be needed. (Only the most naive of the farmers and villagers took these promises at face value; most knew that, once they let their horses and carts go, it would be long months before they were returned, if ever. It was better to bribe the purveyor than to trust him to keep his word.)
Despite the publishing of official prices dishonesty flourished. Poultry and cattle, butter and eggs and fruit were seized and paid for at rates so low they amounted to theft, with the corrupt officials pocketing the difference between the money actually paid out and the amount given them to spend by their superiors. The abuse was scandalous. ''Her majesty's poor people are many times molested to their great travail and expenses," a Commons bill regulating purveyance read. Purveyors were notorious for giving "untrue information" about authorized prices, and were no better than "thieves and spoilers." 3 Even when they paid the true price—which was rare—they bought more than was in fact needed by the court and resold the surplus elsewhere at a profit. The system invited fraud and led to deep grievances against the court, if not against the queen herself; in truth she too found the purveyors odious and referred to them as "harpies."
The arrangements complete, the day of departure finally came, and the overloaded carts and wagons began to roll slowly out through the palace courtyard and onto the highroad. Among them rode the officers of the bakehouse and cellar, the men of the stable and woodyard, the cooks and assistant cooks and scullery boys and pantrymen. With the menials en route, the household officers mounted to ride, and with them the yeomen and grooms and ushers who occupied the higher ranks in the huge household population. The procession lengthened, and began to string out and bunch up as the individual carts and riders gathered speed or encountered obstacles. There were minor delays; wagons spilled their loads, horses went lame, riders were overcome by heat or became seasick in the swaying carts. Far to the rear, hours after the parade began, the secretaries and clerks and government officials took to the road, then the guardsmen and the queen's personal servants, and Elizabeth herself, perhaps exhilarated at the prospect of country air and country pastimes, perhaps exasperated already by the hundred petty difficulties of travel.
Within a few miles of London the road began to deteriorate. The wide way grew narrow, and the smooth, even surface gave way to deeply carved ruts between steep and slippery banks. The travelers began to curse the "foul and ragged" path, and to fidget uncomfortably in their hard saddles. There was worse to come: roads so pitted they made the horses stumble and slowed the entire caravan to a crawl, high passes with "dangerous rocks and valleys," lanes full of loose stones, making for "careful and painful riding." The riders went on anyway, "up the hill and down the hill," becoming bored and saddlesore and longing for food and rest.
After dinner the procession re-formed, and the carts and riders resumed the languid pace. There were distractions—the sight of green fields and flowering hedges, gossip and flirtation, welcome drafts of wine passed in leather wineskins from hand to hand. No doubt the travelers sang. But the road, with its bumps and jolts, seemed to lead endlessly on, hour after hour, and when at last the riders halted at their destination they were hardly in a condition to behave as they did at Greenwich or Hampton Court, dining and dancing and frolicking with lighthearted abandon. Yet they attempted to do so, following the queen's tireless example, and were granted only a few hours' uncomfortable sleep before beginning their journeying again.
A week or two of this exhausting pace—broken by longer stays at the larger houses or towns along the route—might have been tolerable, but when it was a matter of months only the hardiest of the courtiers and officials could keep up. "I am old, and come now evil away with the inconveniences of progress," one middle-aged man wrote. "I followed her majesty until my man returned and told me he could get neither fit lodging
for me nor room for my horse," he explained; at that point he gave up and went home.
If progress time was hard on those who followed the queen, it was equally hard on those who entertained her. During the 1560s and 1570s dozens of outsize mansions rose on country estates, monuments to self-importance and affluence but witness also to the obligation of nobles and gentry to show lavish hospitality to the queen. Some, like Kenilworth, were royal gifts, ancestral manors or castles requiring only extensive renovation and additions to make them worthy to receive the royal party. But many others were built by their owners from the ground up, entailing truly prodigious labor and expense. Christopher Hatton's new house of Holdenby, a sprawling structure not much smaller than Elizabeth's enormous palace of Hampton Court, put Hatton hopelessly into debt—and to little purpose, for it stood unused, full of furnishings and waiting servants, for ten years without receiving a visit from the queen.
Holdenby's rival for size and sumptuousness was Theobalds, Cecil's magnificent, multi-colored country seat whose palatial dimensions dwarfed those of every other noble house in England. Pink brick and white stone formed the facades, which were b
roken by high windows and crowned with turrets of blue slate. Fanciful chimneys and domed cupolas adorned the roofline, and there were gilded weathervanes and gleaming painted frescoes to complement the eclectic charm of the overall design. In the remarkable gardens of Theobalds the walks stretched for miles along fragrant avenues lined with blossoms and flowering trees. A narrow waterway ran around the perimeter of the grounds, ''large enough for one to have the pleasure of going in a boat, and rowing between the shrubs," and there were fountains and wooden columns and pyramids and a challenging maze. In a summer-house water was piped into lead cisterns so that guests could swim on hot days, while contemplating the noble sight of twelve marble busts of Roman emperors.
The taste for massive houses spawned a diversity of structures, some mock medieval, with towers, turrets and keep, some Italianate and classical, with columns and pilasters and friezes, some recalling the fanciful, fairytale style of the 1520s and 1530s. Mansions that were not also military fortifications were a new thing in England, and if some, such as Audley End, "shone forth like a diadem by the decoration of the cupolas and other ornaments to the pavilions," others were overornamented, crudely proportioned monstrosities.
Even the worst of them, though, had their delights, for if the overall form was flawed there were certain to be interior features carried out by gifted craftsmen whose taste surpassed that of their employers. Plasterers created
ribbed ceilings of intricate design and friezes with raised medallions and pendants and hunting scenes. Carvers and joiners built wide wooden staircases that curved grandly upward at a stately angle, and fashioned molded paneling for the walls. Elizabethan fireplaces were a splendor of colored marble and alabaster, their high overmantels decorated with allegorical figures or the queen's arms. At night candlelight shone on polished wood and glowing tapestries; during the day the light poured in through huge windows, lit "like so many suns." In their luxury and originality, the great houses paid tribute to the growing ambition and energy of English society, and to that society's focus on its unique monarch.
The first Elizabeth Page 36