by Alison Weir
'Why then,' smiled Smith, 'you think that M. le Due should speed?'
Catherine laughed. 'I desire it infinitely', she said, 'and I trust to see three or four at the least of my race, which would make me indeed not to spare sea and land to see Her Majesty and them.'
In June, the Queen Mother sent to London, as ambassador extraordinary, the Duke of Montmorency, with powers to ratify the Treaty of Blois and formally offer Alencon as a husband for the Queen. Elizabeth was a gracious hostess, entertaining the embassy lavishly and investing the Duke with the Order of the Garter, but she was noncommittal about the marriage proposal, citing her reservations about Alencon's age and appearance. When Montmorency left, she promised that she would consider the matter and give King Charles her answer within a month.
She then told Burghley to instruct Walsingham to submit a full report on Alencon. The response was initially favourable, with the ambassador describing the Duke as wise, stalwart, not so light-minded as most Frenchmen, and in religion 'easily to be reduced to the knowledge of the truth'. His notorious pockmarks, which many people had hastened to reassure the Queen were not as bad as rumour had it, were 'no great disfigurement on his face because they are rather thick than great and deep'. While his beard covered some of them, those on the 'blunt end of his nose are much to be disliked', although 'When I saw him at my last audience, he seemed to me to grow daily more handsome.' Nevertheless, 'The great impediment I find is the contentment of the eye. The gentleman is void of any good favour, besides the blemish of the smallpox. Now, when I weigh the same with the delicacy of Her Majesty's eye, I hardly think that there will ever grow any liking.' Burghley feared as much, and gave little credence to Fenelon's claim that he knew a doctor who could cure the Duke's pockmarks.
Throughout the next weeks Elizabeth considered the matter, blowing hot and then cold, the chief sticking point being Alencon's extreme youth. What concerned her most was 'the absurdity, that in general opinion of the world might grow'. On a more practical level, she also wondered whether the Duke's pockmarks might be sufficient excuse for her to demand the return of Calais as a condition of the marriage.
Then, in July, Catherine de' Medici sent Alencon's good friend, Monsieur de la Mole, to England, in the hope that he would be able to persuade Elizabeth to accept the Duke. De la Mole was a handsome, personable young man whose gallant charm was calculated to soften the Queen's heart. 'It seemeth the Queen Mother is come nearer to the matter than I hoped for,' observed Burghley.
Elizabeth, whilst she was not impervious to de la Mole's charms, did not trust Catherine de' Medici and was suspicious that the French were trying to manoeuvre her into joining them in a war against Alva in the Netherlands, they being as nervous as she was about the presence of a huge Spanish army on their doorstep. Charles wanted to set up Alencon as Regent of the Netherlands, but while this might have been to England's advantage in some respects, the prospect of a French army in the Netherlands was hardly more comforting to Elizabeth, who regarded the House of Valois as unstable and unreliable, than the presence of a Spanish one.
Meanwhile, in July 1572, Elizabeth, in holiday mood, set off on an extended progress through the Thames Valley and the Midlands. After staying at Theobalds with Burghley, she arrived on the 25th at Gorhambury, the recently completed Hertfordshire mansion of Lord Keeper Bacon, who warmly welcomed her with his bluestocking wife, Anne Cooke, and two scholarly sons, Anthony and Francis. The Queen was unimpressed by the size of the building.
'You have made your house too little for Your Lordship,' she commented.
'No, Madam,' replied Bacon, 'but Your Highness has made me too big for the house.'
At Coventry, the Recorder told Elizabeth that the people had 'a greedy taste for Your Majesty'. In August, she spent a week at Warwick, arriving with the Countess in an open coach so that the crowds could see her. After the town's Recorder, Mr Aglionby, had falteringly delivered a speech of welcome, Elizabeth put him at his ease.
'Come hither, little Recorder,' she said. 'It was told me you would be afraid to look upon me or to speak boldly, but you were not so afraid of me as I was of you.'
Local lads and maidens gave a display of country dancing in the courtyard of Warwick Castle, which the Queen watched from her window; 'It seemed Her Majesty was much delighted and made very merry.' At supper in the castle one night she insisted that M. de la Mole sit with her. Afterwards he listened appreciatively as she entertained the company by playing on the spinet. They had several private talks, and one evening he escorted her to a spectacular firework display and mock water battle arranged by the Earl and Countess, in which the Earl of Oxford took part, 'whereat the Queen took great pleasure'.
Unfortunately, the occasion was marred by sparks from the squibs and fireballs setting fire to four houses in the town and completely destroying one nearby which belonged to a Mr Henry Cowper. Elizabeth personally expressed her sympathy to him and his wife and organised a collection for them amongst her courtiers.
Despite de la Mole's efforts, Elizabeth was unwilling to commit herself to accepting Alencon. She told Fenelon of her doubts and insisted she could not make up her mind until she had seen the Duke in person. The ambassador told her that the King and Queen Mother would be pleased to arrange a meeting, but only if she convinced them that she really did mean to marry. She replied that she must meet the Duke and be certain that they could love one another before giving an answer. Burghley, who, plagued by gout, had accompanied the progress in a litter, now began to doubt whether the marriage would ever take place.
By 22 August, the Queen had arrived at Kenilworth to be entertained by Leicester, who had arranged all kinds of'princely sports'. But on 3 September, while she was out hunting one day, a messenger arrived with a dispatch from Walsingham in Paris that caused her to burst into tears, cancel all further entertainments and send de la Mole back to France. A Spanish agent in London informed Alva that she had 'sent all her musicians and minstrels home, and there are no more of the dances, farces and entertainments with which they have been amusing themselves lately, as they have some less agreeable things to think about'.
The events which took place in France from 24 August 1572 almost wrecked the Anglo-French alliance. On the occasion of the marriage of King Charles's sister, Marguerite de Valois, to the Protestant Henry, King of Navarre, the zealously Catholic Guise party, backed by Catherine de' Medici, tried to murder Admiral de Coligny, the Huguenot leader, who had incurred the Queen Mother's jealousy through his increasing influence over the King. The attempt failed, but it provoked riots and panic in Paris. On 24 August, St Bartholemew's Eve, Catherine, reluctantly backed by the King, gave the order for the Huguenots to be cleared from the capital. A bloodbath ensued, since the Catholics rose and slaughtered every Huguenot they could lay hands on, to the number of 3-4000. During the next four days, similar orgies of killing erupted in the provinces, bringing the total number of dead to around 10,000.
King Philip, hearing the news, in the privacy of his bedchamber danced for joy, and Mary Stuart stayed up all night celebrating, while the Pope expressed his satisfaction at the annihilation of so many heretics. But the Massacre of St Bartholemew, as it became known, profoundly shocked Protestants throughout Europe and provoked an outcry against the French government and Catholics in general. Huguenot refugees who had fled to England brought with them dreadful tales of atrocities, of rivers of blood in the streets and streams choked with bodies. Burghley was so appalled that words failed him, and Walsingham, who had hidden during the killings and barely escaped with his life, was profoundly shaken.
However, despite her outrage, and her conviction that the blame for the massacre should be laid at the door of the Queen Mother, Elizabeth knew she could not seek to avenge the slaughtered Huguenots because she dared not compromise the French alliance, which was so necessary to her and England's security. All she could do was express her deep shock and anger, whilst secretly sending arms to the Huguenots and using her diplomatic influen
ce to protect them.
When, on 5 September, the French ambassador, Fenelon, requested an audience in order to impart to Elizabeth the official explanation for the massacre, which he referred to as an 'accident', Elizabeth kept him waiting for three days at Oxford. When he was finally admitted to her presence at Woodstock, he found the Queen and the entire court dressed in deepest mourning and standing in reproachful silence as he advanced to kiss the royal hand. With a stern countenance, Elizabeth led him to a window seat and said she hoped that King Charles would clear his name in the eyes of the world. Lying through his teeth, Fenelon explained that King Charles had uncovered a deadly Protestant plot aimed against himself and his family, and had had to act quickly to avoid assassination. However, it was not His Majesty's intention to persecute the Huguenots, nor to revoke his edicts of religious toleration.
Such provocation, Elizabeth pointed out, did not excuse widespread violence. She had wept, she said, when she read reports of the killings. However, because he was a monarch and a gentleman, she was bound to accept Charles's explanation, and was comforted by Fenelon's assurance that nothing was more important to His Majesty than the alliance with England. She hoped that, in the weeks to come, Charles would do everything in his power to make amends for so much blood so horribly shed, if only for his own honour, now blemished in the eyes of the world.
She would not, however, discuss the matter of her marriage to Alencon, even though the Duke had had nothing to do with the massacre and had spoken out against it.
'How should we think His Majesty's brother a fit husband for us, or how should we think that love may grow, continue and increase, which ought to be betwixt the husband and wife?' she demanded of Walsingham. For a time, therefore, negotiations were left in abeyance, although the French were desperate to revive them. When the Queen Mother suggested that Elizabeth meet with Alencon on neutral ground, perhaps in Jersey, the Queen declined. She would reach no decision, she declared, until she was satisfied that King Charles meant to treat his Huguenot subjects well in future.
In October, relations began to thaw somewhat when Charles IX sent a special envoy, the Sieur de la Mauvissiere, to London to ask Elizabeth, an excommunicate, to be godmother to his new baby daughter. After much procrastination she agreed, even though the baby was to be baptised into the Catholic faith. However, she deemed it too dangerous for Leicester, a well-known champion of the Protestant faith, to go to France to represent her, and sent the Earl of Worcester instead with the gift of a gold salver, which was regrettably looted from his ship by pirates on the Channel.
Not surprisingly, the Massacre of St Bartholemew had provoked cries for Mary's head from those of Elizabeth's subjects who saw it as part of a Catholic plot. Elizabeth, however, did not want to provoke Philip or the Pope by executing Mary herself, so on 10 September, on her instructions, her councillors secretly requested the Earl of Mar to demand Mary's return to Scotland and there try her for the murder of Darnley, a trial that would almost certainly lead to Mary's execution. Mar, however, would only agree if English soldiers were present at the scaffold, and since this would implicate Elizabeth in Mary's death, the Queen was obliged to abandon the idea.
By October, when the crisis had passed, it was clear that there would be no repercussions from the massacre in England. It was as well for Mary, since when the Earl of Mar died that autumn, he was replaced as regent by the Earl of Morton, one of Mary's most implacable enemies.
At this time, Burghley attempted to revive England's trade with Spain and the Low Countries, which had been under an embargo since 1569, to the loss of both sides. Despite the state of cold war which existed between England and Spain, the pragmatic Alva could see that the restoration of trade would bring benefits to everyone, as well as a lessening of tension, but Philip was unconvinced.
'Sometimes, Sire, it is necessary for Princes to do what displeases them,' Alva pointed out. Still Philip could not bring himself to treat with the English, and it was not until March 1573 that the embargo was lifted.
After thirteen years, the relationship between Elizabeth and Leicester was no longer the passionate affair it had once been, although there were still scandalous rumours. Elizabeth and Leicester behaved, in fact, like a long-married couple, sharing interests and offering each other affection and support. Their mutual devotion and loyalty had fostered deep bonds that would never be severed, although it was at last becoming clear even to Leicester himself that she would never marry him. For a man in his position, this was difficult to accept, because like all his class, he greatly desired to have heirs to whom he could bequeath his vast wealth and title. On the surface, however, he played the part of adoring suitor, along with Hatton and Oxford.
Hatton, who was prone to expressing his resentment in tears or sulks, deeply resented the favour shown by the Queen towards Oxford, because he had recently apparently been given cause to believe that he himself stood higher I her affections than anyone else. His enemies claimed he had 'more recourse to Her Majesty in her Privy Chamber than reason would suffer, if she were so virtuous and well-inclined as some noiseth her', and there was probably some truth in this.
In fact, matters may have gone further than either of them intended. There is possible evidence for this in a letter written to Hatton in October 1572 by his friend, Edward Dyer, the poet, in whom he seems to have confided. Dyer wrote: 'Though, in the beginning, when Her Majesty sought you (after her good manner), she did bear with rugged dealing of yours until she had what she fancied; yet now, after satiety and fullness, it will hurt rather than help you. Never seem deeply to condemn her frailties, but rather joyfully commend such things as should be in her, as though they were in her indeed.'
There has been much conjecture as to what Dyer was referring. Had Elizabeth at last set aside her scruples and surrendered her much-vaunted virginity? Or had she, which is more likely, gone so far as to obtain sexual satisfaction while remaining, technically, a virgin? If it was Hatton's body that had drawn her, and she had surrendered in some way to him, it seems that she had regretted it, and wished him to behave towards her as if she were still the Virgin Queen. It has been claimed that Hatton's letters to her are platonic and do not support such a theory, but, as we have seen, they are intensely passionate. However, he himself later swore to Sir John Harington that he had never had any carnal knowledge of the Queen.
At the end of the year, the Queen moved to Hampton Court for the Christmas season and Shrovetide; on Twelfth Night, Leicester gave her two glittering collars set with precious stones. Soon afterwards, however, she fell out with Burghley for reasons that are not clear. Leicester offered to intercede for him, and fortunately encountered the Queen in a forgiving mood. 'I assure you I found Her Majesty as well disposed as ever', the Earl wrote, 'and so I trust it shall always continue. God be thanked, her blasts be not the storms of other princes, though they be very sharp sometimes to those she loves best. Every man must render to her their due, and the most bounden the most of all. You and I come in that rank, and I am witness to your honest zeal to perform as much as man can. Hold, and you can never fail.'
In May 1573, Shrewsbury's son reported to his father:
My Lord of Leicester is very much with Her Majesty, and she shows the same great good affection to him that she was wont. Of late, he has endeavoured to please her more than heretofore. There are two sisters now in the court that are very far in love with him, as they have been long: my Lady Sheffield and Frances Howard.
They (of like striving who shall love him better) are at great wars together and the Queen thinketh not well of them, and not the better of him. By this means, there are spies over him.
The indications are that Leicester and Douglas, Lady Sheffield had been romantically involved for months, if not years, but had kept their love secret for fear of incurring the Queen's wrath.
Lady Sheffield was now twenty-five and acclaimed a great beauty. She was the daughter of the recently dead William, Lord Howard of Effingham, the Queen's great-u
ncle and councillor, and had been married, whilst still very young, to Lord Sheffield, who had died in 1568, leaving Douglas a widow at twenty. Shortly afterwards, she had been appointed a Lady of the Bedchamber and had come to court, and some time after that had attracted Leicester's attention. It is possible that resentment of Hatton's influence with the Queen led Leicester to begin the affair.
The court gossips later alleged that it had even begun in Sheffield's lifetime, and had become adulterous during a visit by Leicester to Belvoir Castle. It was said that Sheffield had found a letter which incontrovertibly compromised the couple, but that, when he had ridden to London to petition Parliament for a divorce, Leicester had had him poisoned. No other evidence corroborates this tale, and as Leicester was invariably accused by his enemies of poisoning those about him, even such a friend as Throckmorton, little credence can be given to it.
In time, Douglas had indeed become Leicester's mistress, and was soon demanding marriage, though he repeatedly made it clear to her that his relationship with the Queen precluded such a commitment. In a letter to an unknown lady, whom internal evidence strongly suggests was Douglas, he explained his position and offered her two alternatives: she could either remain his mistress, or he would help her to find a suitable husband. Needless to say, neither was acceptable to the lady, even though she had been assured of his continuing affection: 'I have, as you know, long both liked and loved you. Albeit I have been and yet am a man frail, yet am I not void of conscience towards God, nor honest meaning toward my friend, and having made special choice of you to be one of the dearest to me, so much the more care must I have to discharge the office due to you.'
By the spring of 1573, people had begun to gossip about the affair, and rumour had it that in 1571 or 1572, Douglas had become pregnant by Leicester, and had given birth secretly at Dudley Castle, the home of her sister, who was married to Leicester's cousin, Edward, Lord Dudley. The baby was a girl, who died before she could be baptised. Douglas would later deny the rumours, but many believed them.