by John Guy
The classic version of the speech is supplied by Hayward Townshend, a young kinsman of Francis Bacon and member for Bishop’s Castle in Shropshire. In its favour is the fact that Townshend knew shorthand and so was in a position to take notes at speed.54 He had played a prominent role in the debates on monopolies.55 And, almost certainly, he was present on the day when the speech was delivered. In this version, Elizabeth, speaking exclusively in the first person and seemingly unaware that the overwhelming majority of her people were still struggling with the crippling effects of high prices, harvest failures, poverty and disease, plays more fully than ever on the trope that she has their love and support:
I do assure you, there is no Prince that loveth his subjects better or whose love can countervail our love. There is no jewel, be it of never so rich a price, which I set before this jewel, I mean your love: for I do more esteem of it than of any treasure or riches . . . And, though God hath raised me high, yet this I count the glory of my crown: that I have reigned with your loves. This makes me that I do not so much rejoice that God hath made me to be a Queen as to be a Queen over so thankful a people.56
In all the variants of this speech, Elizabeth stoutly maintains that she has never sought to pillage or oppress her subjects:
Of myself, I must say this, I was never any greedy scraping grasper, nor a straight, fast-holding prince, nor yet a waster. My heart was never set on worldly goods, but only for my subjects’ good. What you do bestow on me, I will not hoard it up, but receive it to bestow on you again. Yea, my own properties I count yours, and to be expended for your good.57
She goes to great lengths to protest that she has been misled by the evil monopolists, who, like false physicians coating their fake medicines with sugar, have persuaded her to grant them privileges by pretending that their bitter pills are sweet and beneficial cures of social ills. For condoning these deceptions, she squarely blames her privy councillors.58
Like all sixteenth-century monarchs defending their prerogative against the encroachments of representative institutions, Elizabeth stresses her accountability to God. ‘I have ever used to set the Last Judgement Day before my eyes, as so to rule as I shall be judged to answer before a higher judge.’ She has been compelled, she says, to act against the monopolists ‘for conscience’s sake’, for which reason, ingratiatingly, if demonstrably insincerely, she offers her thanks to the Commons for saving her from ‘the lapse of an error, only for lack of true information’.59
Townshend’s reconstruction of the queen’s speech concludes on a patriotic note. ‘There will never queen sit in my seat with more zeal to my country, care for my subjects, and that sooner with willingness will venture her life for your good and safety than myself. For it is not my desire to live nor reign longer than my life and reign shall be for your good.’
And there is an echo of the Tilbury speech:
Shall I ascribe any thing to myself and my sexly weakness? I were not worthy to live then, and of all, most unworthy of the great mercies I have had from God, who hath ever yet given me a heart, which never yet feared foreign or home enemy. I speak it to give God the praise, as a testimony before you, and not to attribute any thing to myself . . . That I should speak for any glory, God forbid.60
Was this the speech Elizabeth actually gave or the one Townshend thought she ought to have given? Speaker Croke gives us a clue. When he and his fellow members of the Commons returned to Parliament the following day to present their report, he gave a summary of what she had said for those who had been unable to hear it. In this version, Elizabeth rejoices to be a queen over ‘so thankful a people’. She has never been a ‘greedy griper or fast holder’. She says she ‘ever set the Last Judgement before her eyes, and never thought arose in her, but for the good of her people’. If her grants had been abused, ‘it was against her will’ and she hopes God will not blame her. ‘Had it not been for these her good subjects, she had fallen from lapse into error.’ Finally, ‘the cares and troubles of a crown are known only to them that wear it.’ She has been forced to act ‘for conscience’s sake’. She is ‘not allured with the royal authority of a King, neither did she attribute anything to herself, but all to the glory of God’.61
Croke’s report largely vindicates Townshend’s rendering. It would appear that Elizabeth had followed her usual custom in addressing Parliament. After sketching out a first draft to shape the lines of her speech, she put it aside to create the illusion of speaking off the cuff. Townshend may well have edited and improved the speech for greater impact when he turned his shorthand notes into a fuller transcript. But, as recently as July 1597, Elizabeth had put on a spectacular display of her oratorical skills. When Paul Dzialynski, a visiting Polish diplomat, criticized her in public for allowing English privateers to plunder the ships of other nations trading with Spain, the furious queen gave him a dressing-down in what Cecil called ‘one of the best answers extempore in Latin that ever I heard’.62 Public speaking was her forte: like many talented political leaders, she could rise to the occasion and speak eloquently and persuasively. Given the discovery of the queen’s first draft, however, and the considerable discrepancies between it and Townshend’s version, the reader is left to infer that she was a much finer orator than writer.
• • •
The queen’s speech did the trick. On Saturday, 5 December, four days after Speaker Croke had made his report to the whole assembly of the Commons, the House voted in the taxes Elizabeth had demanded, offering a formula that Cecil later calculated could yield as much as £600,000.63 But, beneath the surface, everything was not quite what it appeared to be.64 Not all members were satisfied with the relatively narrow concessions she had made, or with her promises alone. Three had already moved that what she had so far offered by way of reform of the hated monopolies should now be entered into the Journals of the House as a matter of record. One was Gregory Donhault, member for Launceston in Cornwall and Lord Keeper Egerton’s secretary, otherwise a prime candidate for a plum promotion as a Master in the Court of Chancery. For his temerity, the queen turned on him once the session of Parliament was ended and vindictively denied him his promotion.65
In a similar vein, after members had left London and returned home for Christmas, another complaint against Edward Darcy’s monopoly of the sale of playing cards would be brusquely swept aside on the grounds that Elizabeth had no intention of reforming any monopolies other than those specifically listed in her proclamation. In an unusually draconian decree, the Privy Council ruled that those ‘obstinate and undutiful persons’ who had attempted to annul Darcy’s grant were to be arrested and imprisoned if their criticisms were not immediately withdrawn. They must also pay Darcy hefty compensation for any infringement of his rights. Their only remedy would be to take the case to the Court of Queen’s Bench for trial.66
Despite this rebuff, Darcy’s critics refused to back down. No longer were Elizabeth’s subjects prepared to accept her absolute right to dictate in what goods they could trade or what products they could import or manufacture as an aspect of her God-appointed royal prerogative. Directly after the Privy Council hearing, Thomas Allen, a London haberdasher, manufactured and sold large quantities of his own playing cards and challenged Darcy to sue him, which he did.
The result was a victory for Allen. Chief Justice Popham, torn between conflicting loyalties but realizing his duty to the law of the land was greater than his obligation to defend the indefensible, ruled that Allen should be allowed to sell his cards. He then added, somewhat disingenuously, that Elizabeth had been ‘deceived in her grant’. She had meant it to be ‘for the public good’, but Darcy had used it to line his pockets by charging exorbitant prices for his cards.67
On the face of it, this was a landmark decision, except it did nothing to stop the flow of further grants. If ever from now on a genuine craftsman wished to challenge a monopoly, then on every and each occasion he would have to bring his case to court and risk expen
sive and potentially dangerous litigation. For all her smooth talk, Elizabeth was not prepared to surrender any of her most cherished ideals. She had been forced to bite her lip and issue a proclamation against monopolies to secure the taxes she needed for Ireland. But she was still determined to defend the rights and privileges of her Crown. In her proclamation, she conspicuously maintained that the twelve offending monopolies were to be made void ‘of her mere grace and favour’, and not because Parliament had compelled her to take action.68 Her father, she knew, would be shuddering in his grave at the very thought of this attenuation by Parliament of the ideal of God-appointed monarchy. She did not believe herself to be accountable to her people. The problem was that others now did.
22. On a Knife’s Edge
Elizabeth was eager to prove that age did not hinder her. After Essex’s execution, she had purposefully adopted a carefree attitude when showing herself in public to prove ‘she was not so old as some would have her’.1 Glimpses of physical weakness were first apparent in the autumn of 1600, when she made a half-day visit to Robert Sidney’s town house at Baynard’s Castle, near Blackfriars. Barely had she arrived there than she seemed visibly tired and, despite sitting down to dinner, she consumed little more than ‘two morsels of rich comfit cake’ before drinking ‘a small cordial from a gold cup’. ‘Two ushers did go before [her], and at going upstairs she called for a staff and was much wearied in walking about the house.’2
One of her favourite techniques for appearing younger, as Burghley’s former clerk John Clapham would record after her death, was overdressing. ‘In her latter time,’ he explained, ‘she was always magnificent in apparel, supposing haply thereby, that the eyes of her people, being dazzled with the glittering aspect of those accidental ornaments would not so easily discern the marks of age and decay of natural beauty.’3 Another piece of showmanship was to orchestrate her public appearances with great care. ‘She would often show herself abroad at public spectacles, even against her own liking,’ Clapham added, ‘to no other end but that the people might the better perceive her ability of body and good disposition, which otherwise in respect of her years, they might perhaps have doubted.’4
Good impressions mattered desperately to her. When the twenty-eight-year-old Virginio Orsini, Duke of Bracciano, arrived at Whitehall Palace on Twelfth Night 1601, she put on a virtuoso performance for him. The pampered nephew of Ferdinando de’ Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, whom she had memorably persuaded to burn Girolamo Pollini’s infamous book about her parents, Orsini had been chosen to escort his cousin Marie de’ Medici, with whom he had a scandalous affair, on her journey from Italy to marry Henry IV of France. After the wedding, Orsini had crossed over from Calais to stay with Filippo Corsini, his uncle’s London agent, before proceeding to Brussels to pay court to Archduke Albert.5
Keen that he should kill off reports in Brussels that she was already at death’s door, Elizabeth had ordered her councillors to fête Orsini like a prince. The Lord Chamberlain’s Men, Shakespeare’s company, were booked to put on a Twelfth Night play. To be quite sure all would go well, she gave Lord Admiral Nottingham the job of ‘taking order generally with the players’ to ensure that something was chosen ‘that shall be best furnished with rich apparel, have great variety and change of music and dances, and of a subject that may be most pleasing to Her Majesty’.6 Some have suggested that Nottingham selected Twelfth Night, but this claim is hotly disputed: it may well have been, except the only reasons for thinking so are the coincidences of the play’s title with the date of its performance, the name of one of the principal characters, Count Orsino, Duke of Illyria, and the fact that the play includes musical interludes (it does not feature dances).7
Elizabeth played her own part that day to perfection. Decked out in so many jewels that Orsini was amazed they did not weigh her down, she received him graciously, enchanting him by conversing in perfect Italian. While she dined in state, Orsini was served a delicious meal in a separate chamber, after which he accompanied her as far as her outer Bedchamber. There, she treated him to an afternoon recital by her finest musicians, the star of the show being the lutenist Robert Hales.8 Following a supper party hosted by the Earl of Worcester, Orsini was again escorted to meet the queen and to accompany her to the play. Arriving in the Great Hall to the sound of trumpets, she introduced Orsini to the women of the Court, after which the play began.9
On his second visit three days later, Orsini was amazed when the sixty-eight-year-old queen offered to dance for him. When the French envoy de Maisse had been with her three years earlier, she had told him that she had learned the art of ‘dancing high’ as a teenager, a skill for which her women nicknamed her ‘the Florentine’, adding that she danced no longer, merely moving her legs and arms to and fro in time with the music.10 But, for Orsini, she danced a galliard, ‘very comely, and like herself, to show the vigour of her old age’.11 An independent witness reports that her dances were ‘both measures and galliards’.12 The galliard, with its high leaps and jumps, was a particularly athletic dance, said to be taxing even for much younger women.
And yet, despite doing her utmost to live up to the image her more sycophantic courtiers chose to promote of a goddess incarnate ‘whose beauty adorns the world, and whose wisdom is the miracle of our age’, there were soon worrying signs that Elizabeth really was ageing.13 And, with the succession unresolved, these were perilous times. Her confidence in the men around her had been shattered by Essex’s treachery. If he could betray her, then who next? As John Harington confided to a friend, ‘Every new message from the city disturbs her, and she frowns on all the ladies.’ She ‘disregardeth every costly cover [dish] that cometh to the table’, preferring to eat ‘manchet and succory potage [fine white bread and chicory soup]’. She ‘walks much in her Privy Chamber.’ She ‘stamps with her feet at ill news, and thrusts her rusty sword at times into the arras in great rage’.14
More seriously, as she went to open Parliament in October 1601, she stumbled as she alighted from her coach. She would have fallen over ‘if some gentlemen had not suddenly cast themselves under that side that tottered and supported her’.15 Who was to succeed her if she suddenly died? Thomas Wilson, one of Robert Cecil’s protégés, identified no fewer than twelve competitors. Chief among them, he declared, were James VI, Lord Beauchamp (the Earl of Hertford’s elder son), Arbella Stuart and the Infanta. ‘Thus you see’, he concluded dryly, ‘this crown is not like to fall to the ground for want of heads that claim to wear it.’16
Gossip in the streets and taverns of London mingling with justified fears for the future were a toxic combination. In the Star Chamber, Lord Keeper Egerton complained of the ‘railing open speeches [and] false, lying, traitorous libels’ circulating in the metropolis and of ‘divers vile persons, seditious in religion and factious in disposition’.17 A key destabilizing factor was the queen’s own unrelenting refusal to allow even her privy councillors to discuss the taboo topic. This prevented them from mounting any sort of effective counter-propaganda to Robert Parsons, who continued to churn out tracts in favour of the Spanish Infanta, and had the perverse effect of driving the debate underground. ‘I am in fear to write of it to discover such a great secret of state’, Harington confided in a note to himself, ‘and yet I smile at mine own fear . . . My study walls may accuse me. But “over shoes, over boots” as they say: as long as I do not print nor publish it, I break no law.’18
Harington, like many, favoured James. Not least because, in addition to their eldest son, Prince Henry, James and his wife now had two other children: Elizabeth, born in 1596, and Charles, born in 1600. If James were to become king, the future of the monarchy appeared secure. Harington indicated just how widespread the preference had become for James:
God hath blessed our sovereign with a prosperous reign and a long life . . . Long may she live to his glory: but when so ever God shall call her, I perceive we are not like to be governed by a lady shut up in a chamber f
rom all her subjects and most of her servants, and seen seldom but on holy days; nor by a child that must say as his uncle bids him . . . but by a man of spirit and learning, of able body, of understanding mind, that in the precepts he doth give to his son shows what we must look for, what we must trust to. Thus [say] friends that dare [to] talk one to another.19
But nothing was decided, and thus nothing could be presumed, certainly not after Elizabeth summarily imposed a sentence of indefinite imprisonment on a certain Valentine Thomas, an itinerant English Catholic said to be a professional horse thief. As early as 1598, he had been captured near Morpeth in Northumberland and brought to London, where in a fit of derangement he accused James of inciting him to kill the queen.20 Thomas’s case raised the tricky issue of the Bond of Association and the Act for the Queen’s Surety. By their terms, any claimant to the throne who could be proved to have been the instigator or intended beneficiary of a plot to assassinate the queen was to be disqualified. Although introduced when fears about Mary Queen of Scots were at fever pitch, the legislation still stood. James had been sufficiently anxious about this to write to his ambassador in England, requesting an accurate copy of the Act.21
What worried him even more as time went by was that Elizabeth obviously thought the allegation might be true.22 James sent her a strongly worded protest, only to receive a frosty reply in which she denied ever giving credit to the accusation. ‘[I] charge you in God’s name to believe’, she retorted, ‘that I am not of so viperous a nature to suppose or have thereof a thought against you, but shall make the deviser have his desert more for that than for aught else.’ All the same, after Cecil learned of Essex’s little black taffeta bag purportedly containing a ciphered message from James about Ireland and the succession, she meant to keep Thomas on ice in the Tower as an insurance policy against James until she died.23