Life of Elizabeth I

by Alison Weir

  Elizabeth was still keeping up the pretence that she was contemplating marrying the Duke of Alencon, if only to give Philip pause for thought, but by the spring of 1576, even she had to concede that the project was moribund. 'No one thing hath procured her so much hatred abroad as these wooing matters,' observed an exasperated Walsingham.

  Elizabeth had by then decided to turn down the sovereignty of the Netherlands. When, in the summer, Spanish troops there mutinied and rioted over non-payment of their wages, their behaviour caused Dutch Catholics and Protestants to unite against a common enemy under the leadership of William of Orange. Later in the year, the rebels agreed at Ghent that they should elect their own assembly and fight for independence. Philip reacted angrily to this rebellion and appointed a new Regent, his half brother Don John of Austria, the most renowned soldier in Europe, who had commanded his forces at a recent naval victory over the Turks at Lepanto.

  Elizabeth, whilst remaining outwardly friendly towards Philip, was still sending money to the rebels, while Leicester, possibly without her knowledge, had offered to support William of Orange with an English army if need be. The Dutch rebels, meanwhile, were urging that England and the Netherlands should combine their military forces to form a Protestant army with Elizabeth as its leader. The Queen rejected this proposal because she did not want to finance such a costly venture. She had already given the Dutch - 20,000, and loaned them another _ 106,000 - almost half her annual income. Furthermore, she feared that, if she joined them in this war, she would risk losing her throne.

  Elizabeth had offered to act as mediator between the Dutch and Don John of Austria, though in January 1577 the Dutch rejected this, being more interested in Leicester's offer of military assistance. However, when, later in the year, Don John offered them favourable terms for a peace, they wrote to the Earl to say that his help was no longer needed. This was perhaps as well, since Leicester had not served in a military capacity for over twenty years. He was now forty-four, 'high coloured and red-faced', and, having grown portly through good living, no longer even jousted. He was nevertheless bitterly disappointed not to have been given the chance to earn international renown as the armed champion of Protestantism.

  'I am melancholy,' he wrote to a Dutch associate. 'I have almost neither face nor countenance to write to the Prince [William of Orange], his expectation being so greatly deceived.'

  During the early months of 1577, Walsingham's spies gradually exposed a Catholic conspiracy masterminded by Don John of Austria, who, assisted by the Duke of Guise, was plotting to invade England with ten thousand troops, depose Elizabeth and return the kingdom to the Catholic fold. Don John then planned to marry Mary Stuart and rule jointly with her. Walsingham urged the Queen to take punitive measures against Mary, but once again she refused. She did, however, knight Walsingham that year for his services to the state. Fortunately, Don John was too preoccupied with affairs in the Netherlands to put into effect his plans for England.

  In May, 1577, the Queen visited Gorhambury again. Mindful of his sovereign's remarks during her earlier stay in 1572, Lord Keeper Bacon had enlarged his house to twice its original size, and had added a Tuscan colonnade for good measure. The Queen was impressed by the changes and also by the lovely gardens and the 'noble' standard of living enjoyed by Bacon, who 'at every meal had his table strewed with sweet herbs and flowers'. Her Majesty stayed for five days, taking picnics in the little banqueting house in the orchard, or feasting on food prepared by twelve cooks specially brought from London. Although the Puritanical Lord Keeper considered courtly revels to be sinful, he swallowed his principles and laid out 20 for performers for his sovereign's sake. Altogether the visit cost him 577.

  Gorhambury, like many other noble palaces of the age, is no more. It was a ruinous, ivy-shrouded shell by the end of the eighteenth century, and was pulled down soon afterwards.

  The summer of 1577 brought with it a particularly bad outbreak of plague, which prevented the Queen from going on her usual progress. Instead she remained at Greenwich, although she is recorded as having spent two very pleasant days at Loseley House near Guildford in Surrey.

  In June, Leicester, whose health was no longer so robust, travelled north to Buxton to take the waters. On the way he stayed as the guest of his friends the Earl and Countess of Shrewsbury. The Countess, Bess of Hardwick, was now back in favour after her spell in prison, and the Queen had already written in mischievous vein to warn her of Leicester's voracious appetite.

  'We think it meet to prescribe unto you a diet which we mean in no case you shall exceed,' she advised, 'and that is to allow him by the day for his meat two ounces of flesh, referring the quality to yourselves, so as you exceed not the quantity, and for his drink the twentieth part of a pint of wine to comfort his stomach, and as much of St Anne's sacred water as he listeth to drink. On festival days, as is meet for a man of his quality, we can be content you shall enlarge his diet by allowing unto him for his dinner the shoulder of a wren, for his supper a leg of the same, besides his ordinary ounces.'

  History does not record whether Bess attempted to follow the royal advice, but what is certain is that, while at Chatsworth, Leicester was presented to the Queen of Scots. Their conversation was limited mainly to pleasantries, although when Mary complained about her continuing confinement, Leicester expressed polite sympathy. Afterwards he wrote an account of the meeting for Burghley, which prompted the Lord Treasurer to ask the Queen if he might visit Mary himself. But she refused, having heard too often how her cousin's beauty and charm were capable of making the wisest men act foolishly.

  Bess of Hardwick also produced her infant granddaughter, Arbella Stewart, for Leicester's inspection, hoping he would agree with her that Arbella's claim to the throne was better than Mary's and that he would try to persuade Elizabeth to name the child as her successor. Arbella was the great-granddaughter of Henry VII, and was being brought up in England in the Protestant faith, untainted by treason and scandal: in every respect she would be a better candidate than the Queen of Scots. Urged by her grandmother, Leicester could see that this was sound reasoning, and also perceived that there might be some advantage to himself in it. He was now resigned to the fact that he would never wear the crown matrimonial, but his ambition would be satisfied if his descendants were to occupy the throne of England. With this in mind, he suggested that Bess marry her granddaughter to his 'base son', a suggestion which the formidable matriarch accepted with alacrity, since the Earl, with his considerable influence and wide net of patronage, could do much for her and her family.

  The Elizabethan age was one of discovery and geographical expansion. During the century before Elizabeth's accession, Spain had established colonies in the Americas and the Indies, whilst Portugal had colonised large parts of Africa and what is now Brazil. New trade routes meant wider markets and better opportunities for plunder, and there were several English privateers who, succumbing to the lure of adventure and easy spoils, ventured upon the high seas in a quest for riches, new markets for English goods, the chance to discountenance the Spaniards, or even the opportunity to found new colonies in the Queen's name.

  Such a man was Francis Drake, a Devon mariner, who, on 24 May 1572, had sailed from Plymouth to the New World, his purpose being to exact retribution from the Spaniards, who had attacked and harried his ships during earlier voyages. Fifteen months later he returned from the Americas with a fabulous horde of treasure looted from Spanish ships. This was not the first time that English privateers had seized Spanish treasure, but it was the greatest haul.

  News of Drake's booty and his colourful adventures soon reached the Queen, who was jubilant at the thought of how maddened King Philip would be by such blatant piracy, and fascinated by Drake's exploits. Overnight, he became famous throughout England, and notorious in Spain, where he was called 'El Draque' - the Dragon. Naturally, the Spaniards complained to Elizabeth, but while she was vaguely conciliatory, or affected to be concerned, she did nothing to stop these act
s of piracy, and indeed benefited from them, since much of the looted treasure went into her coffers.

  At the end of 1577, Francis Drake set off in his ship, the Pelican, on what was to be an epic world voyage. His priority, however, was not exploration but to harry the Spaniards, who had retaliated for his seizure of their treasure by attacking English ships. There was a great deal of public interest in the venture, and Walsingham arranged for Drake to be presented to the Queen before he left.

  'Drake!' she greeted him effusively. 'So it is that I would be revenged on the King of Spain for divers injuries that I have received.' Drake answered that the most effective way to do this would be to prey on Philip's ships and settlements in the Indies, with which Elizabeth wholeheartedly agreed. Burghley, however, was not to be told about the expedition until it had sailed, since he felt it unwise to provoke the Spaniards any further. According to Drake, the Queen invested 1000 marks (nearly 665) in the voyage; other backers included Leicester, Walsingham and Hatton.

  Just before Drake sailed, a royal messenger arrived bearing gifts from the Queen, an embroidered sea cap and a silk scarf on which she had stitched the words, 'The Lord guide and preserve thee until the end'.

  Morton's regency in Scotland came to an abrupt end in March 1578, when the lords mounted a coup against him, which resulted in James VI, now nearly twelve, being declared of an age to assume personal rule.

  On 4 April, Mary Stuart's husband, the Earl of Bothwell, died, mad and chained to a pillar in the dungeons of Dragsholm Castle in Denmark, where he had been held prisoner since soon after his flight from Scotland in 1567. The rigours of his imprisonment and the ever- present fear of imminent execution had unhinged his mind, although there were still those among Mary's supporters who claimed that, at the last, he had dictated a confession which cleared her of all complicity in Darnley's murder. This is unlikely, however, given his mental state at the time. Bothwell's mummified body may be seen today, under glass, at Faarevejle Church near Dragsholm.

  Chapter 18

  Frenzied Wooing'

  In January 1578, news came that the Protestant Dutch armies had suffered a crushing defeat at the hands of Don John of Austria, which gave Elizabeth cause to point out to Leicester that she had been right all along about not wanting to involve England in a war it might lose. Instead, she now hoped to use her diplomatic influence with Philip II to bring about a settlement that was not only acceptable to both sides but also to English interests. Thanks to the provocation given to King Philip by English privateers and the help supplied to the Dutch by Elizabeth, the peace with Spain now seemed to be on a very precarious footing, and fears were expressed that Philip might yet invoke the Pope's interdict and make the rumoured Enterprise of England a reality.

  Elizabeth had for some time been worried about reports that Alencon, now Duke of Anjou, was intending to meddle in the affairs of the Netherlands. The last thing she needed was the undermining of her negotiations for a peace that would safeguard England's security and economic prosperity, nor did she want any French military presence in the Netherlands. By the spring of 1578, when it had, to her relief, become clear that Anjou was acting without the backing of the French government, it occurred to her that the best way of controlling his activities to her advantage would be to revive negotiations for their marriage and a new treaty with France. She did not know it, but this was to be her last venture into the European marriage market.

  The same idea had occurred to Anjou, whose ambition had found no outlet at the court of France, where he was regarded as a troublesome nuisance, and who still dreamed of a crown. This was why he had looked to find fame and glory in the Netherlands, though it now seemed unlikely he would achieve it without the backing of a powerful ruler such as the Queen of England. With her as his bride and the wealth of her kingdom behind him, matters would be very different. The evidence suggests that it was he who made the first approach: he certainly wrote to Elizabeth to assure her of his entire devotion and his willingness to be guided by her in all his doings. It was astonishing, he added, 'that after two years of absolute silence, he should wake up to her existence'. Elizabeth was gratified to hear from him and by the realisation that his letter gave her the perfect excuse to revive the courtship.

  Walsingham, however, was not deceived by Anjou's flowery sentiments, believing that 'he entertaineth Her Majesty at this present only to abuse her', so that she would not protest when he marched at the head of an army into the Netherlands. Elizabeth was not pleased when she heard this, and instructed Leicester to inform Walsingham that it was not in the least surprising that Anjou should have fallen in love with her. He was, she asserted, only going to the Netherlands to give himself'better means to step over hither'.

  Since the death of her husband, Lettice, Countess of Essex, had struggled to pay her debts. Ambitious and still beautiful, she was determined not to waste her assets, and, being a confident, opportunistic woman, saw no reason why her lover, the Earl of Leicester, should not be persuaded to marry her. It is not known how much Lettice knew of the circumstances of Leicester's union with Douglas Sheffield, although it is clear that both she and the Earl regarded him as a free man.

  When Lettice discovered that she was pregnant, Leicester, desperate for a legitimate heir, agreed to marry her; the ceremony took place secretly in the spring of 1578 at Kenilworth. He then purchased the house and manor of Wanstead in Essex so that he could visit Lettice there when his duties at court permitted. Their union was undoubtedly happy, for the Earl 'doted extremely upon marriage'.

  After the wedding, Leicester came up to London to stay at Leicester House, giving out that he was ill and unable to come to court. He may, in fact, have been enjoying a brief honeymoon with Lettice, or the 'illness' may have been tactical, for the evidence suggests that, on 28 April, Elizabeth found out what he had done. Mendoza reported that,

  The Queen had fixed the 28th for my audience with her, but as she was walking in the garden that morning she found a letter which had been thrown into the doorway, which she took and read, and immediately came secretly to the house of the Earl of Leicester, who is ill here. She stayed there until ten o'clock at night, and sent word that she would not see me that day as she was unwell. I have not been able to learn the contents of the letter, and only know that it caused her to go to Leicester's at once.

  There were two likely possibilities: either Leicester himself had written asking the Queen to visit him, giving good reasons why she should do so as a matter of great urgency, or someone else had found out about his marriage and had informed the Queen. Of course, her visit could have related to another matter entirely, but, given the circumstances and her behaviour afterwards, this is the likeliest version of events. If the letter had come from Leicester himself, it was in character for him to feign sickness in order to soften Elizabeth's heart and mitigate her anger.

  In May, possibly prompted by Leicester's betrayal, the Queen sent an envoy to France to open negotiations for her marriage to Anjou. Around the same time, Leicester travelled north again to Buxton to take the waters, insisting he was still unwell. It may also have been politic for him to go away to give Elizabeth time to adjust to the situation and perhaps make her realise how lonely she would be if she cut him out of her life, as she may have threatened to do. Whatever the reason, he stayed away for more than two months, which was unusual, since the Queen normally hated to have him out of her sight.

  While Leicester was away from court, Elizabeth took out her frustration on Hatton, apparently giving him to understand that she could not bear it if he were to betray her as Leicester had by marrying someone else, especially after he had sworn undying loyalty to her, who, if she were able, would leap at the chance of marrying him.

  In perplexity, Hatton wrote to Leicester on 18 June:

  Since Your Lordship's departure, the Queen is found in continual and great melancholy; the cause thereof I can but guess at, notwithstanding that I bear and suffer the whole brunt of her mislike in generalit
y. She dreameth of marriage that might seem injurious to her: making myself to be either the man, or a pattern of the matter. I defend that no man can tie himself or be tied to such inconvenience as not to marry by law of God or man, except by mutual consents on both parts the man and woman vow to marry each other, which I know she hath not done for any man, and therefore by any man's marriage she can receive no wrong. But, my Lord, I am not the man that should thus suddenly marry, for God knoweth, I never meant it.

  In fact, Elizabeth seems to have been broken-hearted rather than angry at Leicester's desertion, and when, during the next week or so, she received from him several letters, which have not survived, Hatton was able to inform the Earl, on 28 June, that she had been overjoyed to have them 'because they chiefly recorded the testimony of your most loyal disposition from the beginning to this present time'. She was now impatient for Leicester's return, and thought 'your absence much drawn in too length, and especially in that place, supposing indeed that a shorter time would work as good effect with you, but yet [she] chargeth that you now go through according to your physician's opinion. For if now these waters work not a full good effect, Her Highness will never consent that you cumber yourself and her with such long journeys again.'

  Subtly, Elizabeth had set the tone for her future relationship with Leicester: in return for his behaving towards her as if nothing had happened and continuing as her favourite, she was prepared to ignore his unfortunate marriage, as long as he put her needs first. Relieved to have got off so lightly, Leicester played along with this fantasy, but he soon found that there was a heavy price to pay, for Elizabeth, who had once been so affectionate towards her cousin Lettice, now developed an implacable hatred for her and behaved as if she did not exist. Aside from her marriage to Leicester, Lettice had offended the Queen by not seeking her permission to marry, which, as the widow of an earl, she was obliged to do.