by Alison Weir
By the spring of 1589, Essex was living well beyond his means and in debt for more than 23,000. When the Queen demanded immediate repayment for a loan, he reminded her that 'love and kindness' were more important than money. Relenting, she agreed to give him, in exchange for a manor, the right to all the customs on sweet wines imported into England during the next ten years, which would bring him a sizeable income at public expense.
That spring, determined to break Spain's naval strength for good and ensure that Philip would never be able to send another Armada against England, Elizabeth decided to dispatch Drake, Sir John Norris and Raleigh, with 150 ships and 20,000 men, on an expedition to Portugal to destroy the remnants of the enemy fleet and, in concert with a rebellion by Portuguese patriots, place Don Antonio, the illegitimate Portuguese pretender, on the throne.
Essex, hoping for rich pickings to clear his debt, was desperate to go, and when, early in April, the Queen, fearing his rashness, forbade it, he defied her and, slipping away from court without leave, rode determinedly to Falmouth, covering 220 miles in less than forty-eight hours. When Elizabeth learned what he had done, Essex was already at sea, having persuaded Sir Roger Williams to let him join his force. Enraged, she dispatched Knollys and Hunsdon in pinnaces to search the Channel for him, and when that proved fruitless, condemned Williams's behaviour in a furious letter to Drake:
His offence is in so high a degree that the same deserveth to be punished by death. We command that you sequester him from all charge and service, and cause him to be safely kept until you know our further pleasure therein, as you will answer for the contrary at your peril, for as we have authority to rule, so we look to be obeyed. We straitly charge you that you do forthwith cause [Essex] to be sent hither in safe manner. Which, if you do not, you shall look to answer for the same to your smart, for these be no childish actions.
She also wrote to Essex, complaining of his 'sudden and undutiful departure from our presence and your place of attendance; you may easily conceive how offensive it is unto us. Our great favours bestowed on you without deserts hath drawn you thus to neglect and forget your duty.'
Her letters took two months to reach their destination, and Essex was still with the fleet when it reached Lisbon, where Drake launched an assault but was driven back thanks to the failure of the Portuguese to rise in revolt as planned. Then, ignoring Elizabeth's express orders, the English made for the Azores, hoping to intercept the Spanish treasure fleet, but were driven back home at the end of June by severe gales. Estimates vary, but between four and eleven thousand men had died of disease, and the Queen was the poorer by 49,000: the expedition had been an unmitigated disaster.
Elizabeth vented her anger on Drake, whom she would not entrust with another such expedition for some time, and also Norris. Raleigh and Essex had fought well at Lisbon, and Essex was now playing the part of a returning hero, but the Queen, aware that Raleigh had distinguished himself more, rewarded him with a medal. She even forgave Essex and Williams for their disobedience, dismissing Essex's headstrong behaviour as 'but a sally of youth', and peace was for a time restored, the court being given over to feasting, hunting and jousting and Essex growing 'every day more and more in Her Majesty's gracious conceit'.
But the toils in which she bound him only exacerbated his discontent, prompting him to begin writing secretly to James VI, while his sister, Penelope Rich, told the Scottish King that Essex was 'exceedingly weary, accounting it a thrall he now lives in', and wished for a change of monarch. James remained non-committal.
In July came the news that Henry III of France had been assassinated by a fanatical monk, in revenge for his murder of the Duke of Guise. Having no son, he was the last of the Valois dynasty, and was succeeded by his brother-in-law, the Protestant Henry of Navarre, who became Henry IV, the first king of the House of Bourbon.
Philip of Spain immediately put forward a Catholic pretender to the French throne, but Elizabeth, fearing the consequences of this, stood stoutly by the new king. Her dispatch of an army under the gallant Lord Willoughby to Normandy in October, and her continuing financial support over the next five years, undermined the opposition and helped to establish Henry firmly upon his throne.
Worn out with overwork, Sir Francis Walsingham died on 6 April 1590, having almost bankrupted himself in the Queen's service: he was buried at night in order to foil creditors who might impound his coffin. He had served Elizabeth faithfully, and with a rumoured fifty agents in the courts of Europe, had preserved her from the evil intentions of her Catholic enemies. He was much mourned in England, but 'it is good news here', commented Philip of Spain.
Elizabeth did not appoint anyone to co-ordinate Walsingham's spy network, nor did she immediately replace him; for the next six years, the Secretary's duties were shouldered by Robert Cecil, whose ability the Queen had come to recognise. Burghley had groomed his son to take over, and was much satisfied by his advancement.
Born in 1563, Robert Cecil had allegedly been dropped by a nursemaid in infancy and consequently had a deformed back and was of short and stunted build. Naunton wrote: 'For his person, he was not much beholding to Nature, though somewhat for his face, which was his best part.' The Queen called him her 'Pigmy' or her 'Elf. 'I mislike not the name only because she gives it,' Cecil commented, but in fact he resented it, being deeply sensitive about his deformity, of which his enemies cruelly made much.
Being delicate, he had been educated by tutors before going to Cambridge, after which he had served on diplomatic missions in France and the Netherlands, and been elected an MP in 1584. He had a quick intelligence and excellent powers of concentration. As well as being an astute politician he was a gifted administrator with a limitless capacity for hard work, who was often to be seen with 'his hands full of papers and head full of matter'. 'A courtier from his cradle', he had beautifully modulated speech, a charming manner and a good sense of humour. He was not devoid of cunning and was less principled than Burghley. Although she was never as close to him as to his father, the Queen trusted him implicitly.
It now seemed as if Elizabeth, by promoting the son of Burghley and the stepson of Leicester, was trying to recreate the court of her youth, but while Cecil was content to share the limelight with Essex, the latter, aware that he himself was relegated to the role of court favourite, was resentful of Cecil's political position and determined to undermine it. He saw no reason why he should not fulfil the dual role of favourite and chief political adviser, and never understood why Elizabeth would not allow such 'domestical greatness' to be invested in one man.
Essex's insistence on regarding Cecil as his rival led to the formation of the factions which were to dominate the last years of Elizabeth's reign and lead to so much squabbling, bribery and opportunism. Essex and his younger followers were avid for military glory and the continuance of the war with Spain, while the faction headed by Cecil and Burghley stood for peace and stability. From 1590 onwards, Essex began building an aristocratic following at court and in the country. Those who had been excluded from office by Cecil, as well as those who agreed that the war against Spain should be aggressively pursued, hastened to offer him their allegiance. He also courted the support of the London Puritans. Cecil, meanwhile, kept a vice-like grip on court appointments and political offices, and in Parliament his father led the House of Lords while he led the Commons.
The Queen, seeing her own generation of friends and councillors gradually disappearing, had to adjust to a court under the influence of a younger, less congenial generation, whose ideas and tastes were unlike her own, and who were becoming increasingly dismissive of the attitudes of their elders. She had also to keep the peace, and preserve a balance between the new factions that had sprung up, a taxing task for a woman moving towards old age.
That summer, the Queen's progress took her, amongst other places, to Bisham Abbey, where she was entertained by the daughters of Lady Russell, and to Mitcham, Surrey, where her host was Sir Julius Caesar, who presented her with 'a
gown of cloth of silver, richly embroidered; a black network mantle with pure gold, a taffeta hat, white, with several flowers, and a jewel of gold set with rubies and diamonds. Her Majesty removed from my house after dinner, the 13 September, with exceeding good contentment.'
In reality it was a sad time for the Queen. During 1590, death took Ambrose Dudley, Earl of Warwick, Mary Stuart's former gaoler the Earl of Shrewsbury, and eighty-two-year-old Blanche Parry, Chief Gentlewoman of the Privy Chamber, who had served Elizabeth since her birth.
In the autumn, Elizabeth found out that, back in April, Essex had secretly married Walsingham's daughter and heiress, Frances, the widow of Sir Philip Sidney. The Queen, thinking Frances not good enough for him with no dowry or beauty to speak of, raged and sulked for two weeks before allowing herself to be persuaded that the Earl had only done what every other man of rank and wealth did, namely, married to beget heirs. Essex himself used every gallant trick in his repertoire to induce her to forgive him, and at length she began to relent.
On Accession Day, 17 November, a black-clad Essex entered the tiltyard at Whitehall in a funeral procession, to symbolise his disgrace, but it was soon obvious to all those watching that the Queen had forgiven him, although she would never agree to receiving Frances as his countess. Two days later he gave a splendid performance in the lists.
This was the last occasion on which the Queen's Champion, Sir Henry Lee, stage-managed the Accession Day jousts, and to mark it he put on a magnificent pageant of vestal virgins, set to music by John Dowland. Lee then retired to Ditchley Park in Oxfordshire with his mistress, the notorious Anne Vavasour.
Around this time the Queen's godson, Sir John Harington, foolishly circulated the manuscript of his bawdy translation of the twenty-eighth book of Ariosto's poem Orlando Furioso amongst the Queen's maids of honour. Elizabeth, demanding to know what book it was that was provoking such merriment, was shocked when she read it, and declared that it was an improper text for young maidens to read. The 'saucy poet' was severely reprimanded and commanded not to come to court again until he had translated Ariosto's entire work - a monumental commission which would take him the best part of a year.
During 1591, Essex came increasingly under the influence of Francis Bacon, one of the brilliant sons of the late Lord Keeper, whose elder brother Anthony had been working for the last ten years as one of Walsingham's agents in France and become a friend of Henry IV. Their mother had been Burghley's sister, but the Lord Treasurer had little time for his nephews, whom he suspected of working to undermine his own son's influence, and he had consistently refused to extend his patronage to them. This led to a bitter family rift, so it was not surprising that the Bacons should side with the opposing faction.
Francis Bacon was a thirty-year-old lawyer and MP of great erudition, who in his time would publish works of history, philosophy and legal theory. 'Of middling stature, his countenance had indented with age before he was old; his presence grave and comely,' wrote the seventeenth-century historian, Arthur Wilson. This future Lord Chancellor was cleverer than both Cecil and Essex, but the Queen never liked him and never appointed him to the high office he deserved. Both Francis and his elder brother Anthony were homosexual, and this may have had something to do with her aversion.
Francis Bacon quickly struck up a rapport with Essex, who soon perceived that, by obtaining advancement for his new friend, he could strike a blow at Cecil. The proud and calculating Bacon in turn saw in what he termed Essex's 'rare perfections and virtues' a means whereby he might use him to achieve political prominence and himself discomfit the Cecils. But it had already been noticed at court that, while Elizabeth might give Essex anything he wanted within reason for himself, she would not allow him to dispense patronage to anyone else, and that those who came to him looking for favours usually went away unsatisfied. It was obvious that she feared he might build up a large affinity of support.
The astute Bacon quickly sized up the situation and sent a letter offering Essex his candid advice, trying to make him see how he must appear to the Queen: 'A man of a nature not to be ruled; of an estate not founded on his greatness; of a popular reputation; of a military dependence: I demand whether there can be a more dangerous image than this represented to any monarch living, much more to a lady and of Her Majesty's apprehension.' He urged Essex to abandon his military ambitions in order to set the Queen's mind at rest, and seek advancement by peaceful means. It was sensible, sound advice, but the wilful Essex ignored it.
Nor did he do anything to allay Elizabeth's jealousy of his growing popularity. Not only was the Queen jealous of his rapport with the people, but she could not bear to see him paying attention to other women. Once, when she caught him flirting with Katherine Bridges and Elizabeth Russell, two of her ladies, she shouted at him in disgust, slapped Mistress Bridges (who later became Essex's mistress), and banished the girls from court for three days. But Essex himself could be jealous too: let the Queen smile upon a rival courtier, and there would be tantrums and sulks.
In May, Elizabeth spent ten days with Burghley at Theobalds, where the Cecil family staged a play in which it was intimated that she should formally appoint Robert, whom she knighted during her visit, to the secretaryship. She failed to take the hint, but three months later admitted him to the Privy Council. It was at this time also that the seventy-year- old Burghley, a martyr to gout, begged leave to retire. Elizabeth merely asked, in jest, if he wished to become a hermit, and refused to let him go on the grounds that he was 'the chief pillar of the welfare of England'.
During the summer, Raleigh, who as Captain of the Gentlemen Pensioners was sworn to protect the Queen's ladies and held a key to the Maidens' Chamber, secretly seduced, or was seduced by, the eldest of the maids of honour, Elizabeth (Bess) Throckmorton, daughter of Sir Nicholas. By July, she had conceived a child, but Bess was not like Raleigh's other conquests: she began to insist on marriage, although it was certain that the Queen would not have considered her a good enough match for him. That autumn, in great secrecy, Raleigh and Bess Throckmorton were married. Bess remained at court, attending to her duties and doing her best to conceal her pregnancy.
There were still rumbles over the succession, a taboo subject with the Queen which wise men avoided. Elizabeth had a greater aversion than ever now towards naming her successor, fearing that the factions at her court would be easy prey for would-be conspirators. As she grew older, she was apprehensive in case there were moves to replace her with a younger, preferably male, sovereign. Already, several of her courtiers were secretly ingratiating themselves with James of Scotland, the likeliest candidate for the succession. Therefore, that August, when the hotheaded Peter Wentworth, MP, impertinently published a tract entitled A Pithy Exhortation to Her Majesty for Establishing the Succession he was summarily clapped into prison.
That month, the Queen embarked on her greatest progress for years. She visited Farnham, then was the guest of Lord and Lady Montague at Cowdray Castle in Sussex, where her hostess was so overcome by the honour of having the Queen to stay that she threw herself into Elizabeth's arms and wept, 'O happy time! O joyful day!' Here the pageants and novelties in her honour were reminiscent of those staged at Kenilworth sixteen years before. One picnic was laid out on a table forty-eight yards long.
Afterwards, she proceeded to Petworth, Chichester, Titchfield, Portsmouth and Southampton, before returning via Basing and Odiham to Elvetham, Hampshire, where the Earl of Hertford had excelled himself in an attempt to regain the royal favour that he had lost after his marriage to Lady Katherine Grey thirty years earlier. Three hundred workmen had enlarged and adorned the house and erected temporary buildings in the park to accommodate the court. A crescent-shaped lake had been specially dug on the lawn, with three ship-shaped islands with trees for masts, a fort and a Snail Mount, from which guns fired a salute at the Queen's arrival. It was beside this lake, seated under a green satin canopy, that Elizabeth watched a water pageant, whilst musicians in boats played for he
r. She stayed four days, during which time there were banquets, dances, games of volleyball (which the Queen 'graciously deigned' to watch for ninety minutes), fireworks, songs and allegorical entertainments. When she left, it was raining heavily, and one poet asked, 'How can summer stay when the sun departs?' The Queen told Hertford, from her coach, that she would never forget her visit. As she rode out of the park, she saw some musicians playing for her and, ignoring the rain, 'she stayed her coach', removed the mask she wore whilst travelling, and gave them 'great thanks'.
For months now, Henry IV had been sending Elizabeth urgent appeals for aid, for the Spaniards were fighting as allies with the Catholic French forces and had occupied parts of Brittany and Normandy. Elizabeth had stalled, not wishing to involve herself in another costly foreign war. Yet she had no desire to see another threatening Spanish army just the other side of the Channel, and that summer reluctantly consented to send 4000 men to Normandy, although she meant to spend no more money than was absolutely necessary.
Essex had been one of those who had repeatedly urged her to act, and eagerly requested command of her army, but she turned him down. He asked again, but the answer was still no. Even after he begged a third time, pleading with her for two hours, on his knees, with Burghley supporting his pleas, she remained adamant: he was 'too impetuous to be given the reins'. Only when Henry IV personally intervened did she reluctantly change her mind and say he might go after all, warning Henry that he would 'require the bridle rather than the spur'. Some believed she could not bear to let him go, nor the thought of him being killed.
Essex landed with his army in France in August and rode to meet King Henry at Compiegne, where he was received with great honour. It soon -became clear that he regarded war as some superior sport: he revelled in his role of commander, exploiting his powers to the full. But he spent the first month doing virtually nothing, waiting for the King to reduce Noyon. Essex was supposed to be besieging Rouen, but could not do that without French assistance. He therefore entertained, held parades and went hawking in enemy territory, needlessly putting himself at risk and earning a rebuke from the Council. The Queen was in a fury of frustration at such a waste of time and money, and the fact that Essex did not see fit to inform her of his plans.