Elizabeth
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But was Essex really a traitor to Elizabeth? Arrogant, stubborn, narcissistic and presumptuous he certainly was. He took the smallest slights as intense personal attacks and would always find it difficult to give way to the will of others, even that of the queen. In his mind, his opinions were not merely of value, they were always right. He had said as much in his Apologie: when, at various points in his career, he had flouted Elizabeth’s orders, he had always done so, he protested, on grounds of ‘necessity’ and the ‘public good’. And, in his mind, it had to be he, not his anointed sovereign, who defined such a ‘necessity’.
But defiance and treason are two very different things. Essex had always been his own worst enemy. He acted foolishly and impetuously and had crossed the line in his scheming with James. But would he go so far as to claim the throne for himself? And why was it that privy councillors, over the ensuing weeks and months, would make so much of an allegation that Essex had set out ‘to make this time seem like the time of King Richard II . . . to be reformed by him as by Henry IV’?66
What did Elizabeth have to do with Richard II, whose arbitrary rule and belief in the God-given sanctity of kingship had brought him and England to catastrophe?
20. ‘I am Richard II’
When on that fateful Sunday, 8 February, Essex led some three hundred of his supporters down Cheapside crying out that ‘the Crown of England is sold to Spain’, his actions were inspired by the fear and mistrust he felt for those he considered to be his mortal enemies. His broad intentions can be worked out from the interrogations begun once he and his key supporters were safely in the Tower. From the moment Robert Cecil began to read this sworn evidence, it was obvious that, for several weeks, the Earl had, at the very least, been plotting with his friends to regain what he saw as his rightful place in Elizabeth’s affections.1
Sir Charles Danvers confessed that, shortly before Christmas, the Earl had begun weighing up how he might gain access to Elizabeth without unduly startling her or being intercepted by Ralegh’s guards.2 Sir John Davies, who had accompanied Essex on his defiant return from Ireland and ridden with him to Nonsuch, testified to the same effect.3 Sir Ferdinando Gorges, a cousin of Ralegh knighted for his bravery at the siege of Rouen, went on to disclose that Essex had summoned a hundred or so of his supporters – among them Davies, the Earl of Southampton, Danvers and Gorges himself – to meet at Drury House off the Strand on Tuesday, 3 February to hatch a plan.4 Evidently, Essex did not want to risk such a large gathering at his own house on the Strand, as he knew it to be under close surveillance. (The carefully selected venue, on what is now Drury Lane, was the home of Sir Robert Drury, a well-trusted ally who had sailed on the Cádiz expedition and fought alongside the Earl in Ireland.)
Several of those present confessed that their discussions that day had been lengthy, often confused and increasingly heated. Broad tactics for capturing the Court had been worked out, with the various participants allocated the specific areas they should occupy while Essex and Southampton made their way to Elizabeth. Gorges claimed to have expressed doubts about what he felt was turning uncomfortably into a coup d’état. He had ‘utterly disliked that course’, he said, and expressed ‘horror’ at it. All, though, had agreed that to seize the Tower and its munitions was the only way to ‘alter the government’ and force the queen to summon a Parliament that would impeach Cecil and his minions. Where they disagreed most violently was over the timing: should they first ‘attempt’ the Tower or the Court – or both together? Or should they first ‘stir’ Essex’s many friends in the City of London?5
Essex, according to Gorges, was almost entirely motivated by an unshakeable belief in his fame and his popularity with the Londoners. Forced to cope on a daily basis with the devastating social consequences of a relentless economic recession triggered by the long war, the mayor and aldermen had been deeply uneasy about the queen’s failure to act since the summer rioting of 1595. Now, rather than attack her personally, they blamed her failings on corruption and abuses of power in high places, putting Cecil and his allies in the frame. In the meeting at Drury House, the most heated part of the argument had been over whether to centre Essex’s protest around capturing the Court or to present the queen with a petition of grievances, asking her to remove those whom Essex and many of the Londoners (if for very different reasons) called her ‘evil councillors’. At one moment, the confusion between these conflicting aims had become so intense that, in a moment of exasperation, Southampton had blurted out: ‘Then we shall resolve upon nothing, and it is now three months or more since we first undertook this.’6
What was crystal clear from the sworn testimony is that Essex had not at first planned to do anything at all on the weekend of his madcap ride along Cheapside. Instead, circumstances had changed so dramatically at the last moment, or so he had come to think, that he felt he could delay no longer.
• • •
Essex had spent Saturday morning playing tennis, which hardly suggests he was planning a coup for the next day.7 That same afternoon, several of his supporters, including his steward, Sir Gelly Meyrick, had eaten together around noon at the home of a man called Gunther near Temple Bar beside the Strand. They were then rowed across the Thames to attend a performance by the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, whose resident playwright was William Shakespeare, at the Globe Theatre. A latecomer, Captain Thomas Lee, one of Essex’s kinsmen who had served under him in Ireland, just managed to slip in before the play began.8
That afternoon, Cecil had convened a secret emergency meeting of the Privy Council at Lord Buckhurst’s house. He was deeply uneasy, as his spies watching Essex House had reported muskets being oiled, ready for use.9 The councillors decided to bring the Earl in for questioning, ostensibly to discuss rumours that a fifth Spanish Armada was in preparation. As suspicious of them as they were of him, Essex refused to go. Summoned for a second time, he refused again, declaring that he would be murdered on Ralegh’s orders before even reaching Buckhurst’s house.10
The same evening, Essex had invited his sister Penelope, his stepfather Sir Christopher Blount, Southampton, Davies and Danvers to a private supper party.11 Afterwards, he called Blount and Davies separately into his bedchamber. He also spoke privately with Sir Gelly Meyrick, whom he summoned to Essex House and away from his own supper before a morsel had even touched his lips. Then, everyone was told to assemble in the Earl’s ‘withdrawing chamber’, where they were joined by Sir William Constable, whose testimony to Cecil eight days later set his ears tingling. For Constable testified how Essex had declared that a plot had been laid by his enemies to draw him to Lord Buckhurst’s house and assassinate him. As a result, the guards on Essex House would be doubled that night.12
Essex’s conviction that he was about to be murdered was the immediate reason for his unbelievable act of folly. By six o’clock on Sunday morning, he was mustering an armed following at Essex House, indignantly protesting that there was a plot to kill him and that he meant to ‘stand upon his strength’.13 He intended to raise the city, where he believed his fame would guarantee him mass support and where he thought one of the sheriffs, Sir Thomas Smythe, would supply him with trained soldiers to face down Ralegh and his guards. It is a little-known fact that Essex would personally visit Smythe’s house in Gracechurch Street early that morning: Smythe was seen talking to him in the street outside. What passed for a plan in the turmoil of Essex’s consciousness was that the city’s officers would go to Elizabeth to petition her on his behalf. He had drafted a template that he wanted the mayor and sheriffs to sign.14
Already, Cecil’s spies had reported the mustering of armed men at Essex House. The queen’s principal secretary could only assume that an armed insurrection was about to be attempted. Shortly before ten o’clock, therefore, a delegation of four officials from Whitehall – Lord Keeper Egerton, the Earl of Worcester, Sir William Knollys and Chief Justice Popham – arrived at Essex House. Egerton afterwards wrote a graphic
eyewitness account of what they found there. The place, he said, was heavily defended and it was only possible to gain entrance through a small wicket gate. Brought directly to Essex in the courtyard, Egerton, the delegation’s spokesman, told him that if he stated his grievances they would be reported to the queen, who would consider them and do him justice.15
Essex would have none of it. He suspected a trap and called for his bodyguards, loudly expostulating that he was to be murdered in his bed. When Egerton proposed that they withdraw and discuss the matter privately, things turned ugly. The Earl’s supporters cried out, ‘Away, my lord, away!’ ‘They abuse you, they betray you, they undo you, you lose time.’16
True to his office as Lord Keeper, Egerton ordered Essex’s followers to lay down their weapons and disperse if they considered themselves loyal subjects of the queen. At this, the men in the courtyard shouted back ‘All, all, all!’ But as Essex began to lead the delegation into the safety of the house, the clamour intensified, some of the men shouting ‘Kill them!’ and ‘Let us shop them up!’17
Once indoors, Essex took the four officials into his library (‘book-chamber’) and locked the door, which was immediately patrolled by heavily armed soldiers. It was clear they were now prisoners.18 Leaving the room, Essex said he would be back in half an hour but, in reality, they would be locked up until almost four o’clock in the afternoon.19 During that time, Essex would make his frantic attempt to raise the city.
• • •
At Whitehall, the Court was stricken by panic. Not even Cecil had expected Essex to act so rashly or so precipitately. Elizabeth was just about the only person in authority who kept her nerve. (It was said she managed to create the impression that she felt no more vulnerable than she would have done on hearing of a pub brawl in Fleet Street. Given that this was a credible alarm, it was an impressive piece of showmanship.)20
Ralegh’s soldiers scurried to and fro, gathering up as many weapons as they could find in the Guard Chamber and storerooms of the armoury. Barricades of upturned coaches and carts were thrown across the main access routes to the palace and the back entrances. Nearby householders were ordered to hand over any weapons they had stockpiled and to reinforce the guards until help arrived.21
Essex’s attempt to rouse the city, meanwhile, failed miserably. He was dismayed when everything fast descended into chaos. His aim had been ‘to apprehend’ the mayor and aldermen at St Paul’s, where they would be attending the usual Sunday-morning civic sermon, meaning to ask them to carry his petition to the queen. But because he was delayed by the delegation, he arrived to find that Cecil had already mobilized the city’s militia and instructed the mayor to send armed men to reinforce Ralegh’s guards.22
When Essex and his followers then made their way along Fleet Street, past St Paul’s and into Cheapside, shouting out their slogans, the astonished citizens had done nothing to prevent them, but nor had they assisted them. Essex largely met a bemused silence, occasionally interrupted by cries from some of the wilier citizens, who chose to pretend that he was reconciled to the queen and so cried out ‘God save Your Honour!’23 Catastrophe struck when the gates of the city were bolted and Essex and his men found themselves locked in.
By two o’clock in the afternoon, their number was fast dwindling as they realized their cause was lost. When the rump of a hundred or so approached Ludgate and St Paul’s, hoping to return to Essex House, they were prevented by a heavy iron chain strung across the street, behind which stood a row of pikemen and soldiers armed with muskets. In the ensuing melee, Sir Christopher Blount was badly wounded in the head and his page killed, and still the way was blocked. Essex’s only remaining option was to force a path down to the wharf at Queenhithe and flee to Essex House by river, which is exactly what he did.24
Essex rushed back into Essex House shortly before four o’clock, just a few minutes too late to prevent Sir Ferdinando Gorges from releasing the Whitehall delegation and so ending any chance that they might be used as bargaining counters.25 As the Earl had left unambiguous instructions that the officials were to be held under guard until he personally sanctioned their release, Gorges’s actions aroused considerable speculation, with ‘remorse’ or ‘cunning’ being assumed. Because Gorges was Ralegh’s cousin and Ralegh was Captain of the Guard, ‘cunning’ seems the likelier explanation, especially since Gorges would later avoid the death penalty by turning queen’s evidence.26
Essex’s freedom would be short-lived. Although Essex House was not designed to withstand a siege, some fifty or so of his diehard supporters managed to hold it until a little before six o’clock, when two cannon were brought on carts from the Tower.27 Then, Elizabeth intervened. She demanded that the stand-off end at once and said she would not go to bed until it had. She sent Lord Admiral Nottingham along the Strand to take charge. He had no compunction in threatening to blow up the house unless Essex surrendered.28 Sir Gelly Meyrick went up on the roof, heavily armed, ready to fire at anyone who came near the front gate. But such gestures were futile: no one could resist the sheer firepower of the cannon.29
Nottingham agreed to offer a two-hour truce only when informed at the last moment that Essex’s sister Penelope and his wife, Frances, were in the house. After that, he would wait no longer. The queen must be obeyed. Essex briefly considered going down fighting, ‘the sooner to fly to heaven’, but was eventually persuaded to surrender. The Thames, often treacherous at night and at high tide, was impassable downriver, so he was taken to Archbishop Whitgift’s house at Lambeth, then escorted the next morning to the Tower in a closed barge. A hundred or so of his followers were then arrested and sent to prison.30
• • •
The event Cecil called ‘this dangerous accident’ was not yet quite over.31 Four evenings later, Captain Thomas Lee, Essex’s kinsman and the man who had just managed to slip into the Globe Theatre before the play began, would be caught loitering in the lobby outside the entrance to Elizabeth’s Privy Chamber, armed with a dagger. His manner was said to be very strange, ‘with a stern countenance, his colour very pale, yet so sweating as very many drops of sweat appeared on his face’.32 When he asked if the queen was yet at supper, he was arrested, tried the next day and found guilty of high treason. The fact that Essex had employed him as an intermediary with Tyrone helped seal his fate.33
After that, things looked bleak for Essex. But they were not yet bleak enough in the eyes of Cecil or Ralegh. Due process of law would have to be observed and, if Essex were to be tried for treason, Cecil would have to construct a watertight case for the prosecution. The jurymen would be Londoners, many of whom did not think Essex should die, even if they had conspicuously failed to back his uprising. Such men would need convincing. Writing to Cecil, Ralegh did not mince his words. ‘If you take it for a good counsel to relent towards this tyrant, you will repent it when it shall be too late. His malice is fixed, and will not evaporate by any [of] your mild courses, for he will ascribe the alteration to Her Majesty’s pusillanimity, and not to your good nature.’34 Ralegh still bitterly remembered his showdown with Essex at Faial in the Azores after Sir Gelly Meyrick had accused him of mutiny and demanded that he be hanged.
Cecil’s final round of interrogations began with Augustine Phillips, one of Shakespeare’s fellow actors and the company manager. His darkest suspicions were stirred by what Gelly Meyrick had confessed about the play performed at the Globe Theatre, which would now become the chief focus of the investigations. Phillips confirmed that, a day or so before the play’s performance, a group of Essex’s followers had been to find the players and asked them to put on a bespoke performance of ‘the play of the deposing and killing of King Richard the Second to be played the Saturday next’.35 When the actors protested that the play was ‘so old and so long out of use’, they were overruled. It was to be that or nothing, and they were offered forty shillings to perform it on top of their ‘ordinary’ rate for a command performance of £10.
The play Essex’s supporters had requested was Shakespeare’s Richard II, first written and performed in 1595 or 1596, during the furore over the publication of Robert Parsons’ A Conference about the Next Succession to the Crown.36 The play opens with Henry Bolingbroke, Earl of Derby and Duke of Hereford, challenging Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk, to trial by single combat. At the very last moment, Richard intervenes and forbids the fight, sending both combatants into exile. Bolingbroke goes to France. From there, he returns unexpectedly with an army, and then deposes and later murders Richard, along with his corrupt minions and parasites, Bushy, Bagot and Green. Whether Bolingbroke consciously orders Richard to be murdered or does so more insidiously, by dropping broad hints, is left ambiguous. Finally, Bolingbroke has himself proclaimed King Henry IV.
Superficially, to insist on seeing a play portraying the dethroning and killing of a God-appointed king on the day before mounting an armed insurrection at the heart of England’s capital city was evidence of a dastardly conspiracy. The inconvenient fact for Cecil was that the trigger for Essex’s ride into the streets came only after the show. On both the day the special performance was commissioned and the day it was given, no specific rising had yet been planned by Essex or by anyone else.37
Neither had Essex been in the audience, but Cecil ignored that, too. For him, the resonances between Essex and Bolingbroke had become just too alluring. Both were descended from John of Gaunt, Edward III’s eldest surviving son. Essex had been known as Viscount Hereford until his father’s death in 1576. Bolingbroke, like Essex, had been keen to cultivate fame and popularity in London. And there was more: when Elizabeth had promoted Lord Admiral Howard to the earldom of Nottingham in 1597, Essex had challenged him to a duel. Howard was directly descended from Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk. Most crucially of all, Bolingbroke and Essex had both returned home unexpectedly from overseas, Bolingbroke with an army from France, and Essex, it was alleged, with the intention of summoning one from Ireland. As for the corrupt parasites Bushy, Bagot and Green, ‘the caterpillars of the commonwealth/ Which I have sworn to weed and pluck away’, as Bolingbroke puts it in the play, substitute Cecil, Ralegh and the young Lord Cobham, Cecil’s brother-in-law.38