Elizabeth

by John Guy

  Chapter 2: Crisis and Betrayal

  1 CSPF, 1584–5, p. 79.

  2 SP 83/23, no. 28; SP 12/173, no. 65.

  3 SP 12/173, no. 94.

  4 E 351/542, m. 66v.

  5 SP 84/1, no. 56; S. Adams, ‘Elizabeth I and the Sovereignty of the Netherlands, 1576–1585’, TRHS, 14 (2004), pp. 317–19; S. Adams, ‘The Decision to Intervene: England and the United Provinces, 1584–1585’, in Europa y la monarquía católica: Congreso Internacional “Felipe II (1598–1998), Europa dividida, la monarquía católica de Felipe II” (Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, 20–23 abril 1998)’, ed. José Martínez Millán, 3 vols. (Madrid, 1998), I, pp. 19–31.

  6 BL, Lansdowne MS 43, fos. 127–8; Household Accounts and Disbursement Books of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, 1558–61, 1584–86, ed. S. Adams, Camden Society, 5th Series, 6 (1995), p. 228; Camden, pp. 306–308; J. Bossy, Under the Molehill: An Elizabethan Spy Story (London, 2001), pp. 96–9, 132–4; S. Alford, The Watchers: A Secret History of the Reign of Elizabeth I (London, 2012), pp. 139–92.

  7 BL, Harleian MS 285, fos. 123–5; BL, Harleian MS 168, fos. 102–5; SP 84/1, no. 61; Adams, ‘The Decision to Intervene: England and the United Provinces, 1584–1585’, pp. 19–31.

  8 Adams, ‘The Decision to Intervene: England and the United Provinces, 1584–1585’, pp. 23–4. For the misleading claims, see C. Read, Lord Burghley and Queen Elizabeth (London, 1965), pp. 311–15. The confusing passage is Camden, pp. 319–21.

  9 SP 103/33, no. 82; BL, Harleian MS 285, fos. 196–7v.

  10 Hakluyt, II, pp. 112–14; S. Adams, ‘The Outbreak of the Elizabethan Naval War’, in England, Spain and the Gran Armada, 1585–1604, ed. M. J. Rodríguez-Salgado and S. Adams (Edinburgh, 1991), p. 45.

  11 T. Stocker, A Tragicall Historie of the Troubles and Civile Warres of the Lowe Countries (London, 1583), sig. a.iiiv.

  12 BNF, MS FF 15970, fo. 14; S. Adams, Leicester and the Court: Elizabethan Essays (Manchester, 2002), p. 139.

  13 J. Guy, The Children of Henry VIII (Oxford, 2013), pp. 98–101.

  14 S. Adams, ODNB, s.v. ‘Mary Sidney’. Geoffrey Fenton, later Secretary of State for Ireland, dedicated his translation of the Italian novellas of Matteo Bandelli to Mary under the title Certaine Tragicall Discourses written oute of Frenche and Latin in 1567, and William Painter dedicated the first volume of his rival collection under the title The Palace of Pleasure to her brother Ambrose Dudley, Earl of Warwick, in 1566. In 1579, Fenton dedicated his final and most ambitious work, an English translation of Guicciardini’s Storia d’Italia, to Elizabeth.

  15 SP 12/159, no. 1; BL, Lansdowne MS 18, fo. 74; A. Riehl, The Face of Queenship: Early Modern Representations of Elizabeth I (New York, 2010), p. 55.

  16 A. Bryson, ‘“The Speciall Men in Every Shere”. The Edwardian Regime, 1547–1553’, University of St Andrews Ph.D. (2001), p. 198.

  17 ‘The Count of Feria’s Despatch to Philip II of 14 November 1558’, ed. M. J. Rodríguez-Salgado and S. Adams, Camden Society, 4th Series, 29 (1984), p. 316.

  18 SP 70/5, fos. 183–4.

  19 CSPSp, 2nd Series, 1558–67, pp. 57–8, 263.

  20 ‘A “Journal” of Matters of State Happened from Time to Time . . . until the Year 1562’, in Religion, Politics and Society in Sixteenth-Century England, ed. S. Adams and G. W. Bernard, Camden Society, 5th Series, 22 (2003), p. 66.

  21 C. Skidmore, Death and the Virgin (London, 2010), pp. 203–306, 377–8.

  22 Hartley, I, pp. 44–5.

  23 Camden, p. 27.

  24 Hartley, I, p. 45.

  25 Hartley, I, pp. 146–7, 472–3.

  26 Haynes, p. 99.

  27 Haynes, p. 99.

  28 Haynes, pp. 89–90; Guy, Children of Henry VIII, pp. 117–23.

  29 Lord Herbert of Cherbury, The Life and Reign of King Henry the Eighth (London, 1682), pp. 410–12.

  30 S. Doran, Monarchy and Matrimony: The Courtships of Elizabeth I (London, 1966), pp. 195–218. See also N. Mears, ‘Counsel, Public Debate, and Queenship: John Stubbe’s The Discoverie of a Gaping Gulf, 1579’, HJ, 44 (2001), pp. 629–50; Guy, Children of Henry VIII, pp. 49, 114–15, 186–93.

  31 SP 78/5, nos. 123–9; CSPSp, 2nd Series, 1580–86, nos. 173, 186.

  32 BNF, MS FF 15970, fo.14r–v; Adams, Leicester and the Court, p. 139.

  33 J. Harington, A Tract on the Succession to the Crown, ed. C. R. Markham (London, 1880), p. 40.

  34 BNF, MS FF 15970, fo.14r–v.

  35 Adams, Leicester and the Court, pp. 139–40.

  36 E. Goldring, ‘Portraiture, Patronage and the Progresses: Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester and the Kenilworth Festivities of 1575’, in The Progresses, Pageants and Entertainments of Queen Elizabeth I, ed. J. E. Archer, E. Goldring and S. Knight (Oxford, 2007), p. 164.

  37 LC 2/4/3, fo. 52v.

  38 ‘A Letter from Robert, Earl of Leicester, to a Lady’, ed. C. Read, HLQ, 9 (1936), pp. 15–26.

  39 HMC, Bath MSS, V, pp. 205–206; LC 2/4/3, fo. 53v.

  40 SP 12/148, no. 24; S. Adams, ODNB, s.v. ‘Douglas Sheffield’; S. Adams, ODNB, s.v. ‘Dorothy Stafford’.

  41 Adams, ODNB, s.v. ‘Lettice Knollys’.

  42 Camden, p. 227.

  43 Camden, pp. 232–3.

  44 Adams, ODNB, s.v. ‘Robert Dudley’, citing Kent History and Library Centre, MS U1475/L2/4, item 3.

  45 ‘The Letter of Estate’, ed. D. C. Peck, Notes and Queries, 28 (1981), p. 30.

  46 CSPSp, 2nd Series, 1580–86, p. 477.

  47 HMC, Bath MSS, V, p. 44.

  48 SP 12/172, no. 37.

  49 SP 12/29, no. 61; Adams, ODNB, s.v. ‘Robert Dudley’.

  50 S. Adams, ‘“The Queenes Majestie . . . is now become a great huntress”: Elizabeth I and the Chase’, Court Historian, 18 (2013), pp. 158–60.

  51 Walsingham’s letter is lost, but the contents can be inferred from Leicester’s reply, see BL, Harleian MS 285, fo. 131; for the full sequence of events, see Household Accounts . . . of Robert Dudley, ed. Adams, Appendix II.

  52 SP 12/182, no. 1.

  53 SP 12/182, no. 24.

  54 BL, Harleian MS, 285, fos. 196–7v; Household Accounts . . . of Robert Dudley, ed. Adams, Appendix II; Correspondence of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, during his Government of the Low Countries, in the Years 1585 and 1586, ed. J. Bruce, Camden Society, Old Series, 27 (1844), pp. 20, 57–63, 166, 238–9; W. T. MacCaffrey, Queen Elizabeth and the Making of Policy, 1572–1588 (Princeton, 1981), pp. 352–74.

  55 Correspondence of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, ed. Bruce, pp. 12–15, 63.

  56 For a good example of Elizabeth’s use of Heneage for a second opinion and its consequences, see Haynes, p. 602.

  57 BL, Cotton MS, Galba C.VIII, fo. 27v; Correspondence of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, ed. Bruce, p. 110.

  58 BL, Cotton MS, Galba C.VIII, fos. 22–6; SP 84/6, no. 110.

  59 Correspondence of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, ed. Bruce, p. 112.

  60 Correspondence of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, ed. Bruce, pp. 209–11.

  61 Camden, p. 328.

  62 CSPF, 1585–6, pp. 527, 570, 628, 674–5; CSPF, 1586–7 (Pt. 2), pp. 3–4, 45, 57, 143–4, 202–5.

  63 SP 84/9, no. 112.

  64 SP 77/1, no. 93 (fos. 199–200), and the draft at no. 94 (fos. 205–206). The translation of this passage in LQE, pp. 176–8, is fanciful.

  65 See EAC, no. 1; Guy, Children of Henry VIII, pp. 111, 113, 139, 178.

  66 BL, Cotton MS, Galba C.IX, fo. 200; printed in LQE, pp. 175–6.

  67 SP 84/9, no. 38; Adams, Leicester and the Court, pp. 147–8.

  68 CSPF, 1586–7, pp. 164–5, 168, 202.

  69 Camden, p. 330; Adams, ODNB, s.v. ‘Robert Dudley’.

  70 SP 12/198, no. 19.

  Chapter 3: Brave New Wor
ld

  1 Ralegh’s ‘blackamore’ is from Household Accounts and Disbursement Books of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, 1558–61, 1584–86, ed. S. Adams, Camden Society, 5th Series, 6 (1995), pp. 178, 210.

  2 CSPSp, 2nd Series, 1580–86, p. 501.

  3 ‘Journey through England and Scotland made by Lupold von Wedel in the Years 1584 and 1585’, ed. G. von Bülow, TRHS, 2nd Series, 9 (1895), pp. 250–55; J. Arnold, Queen Elizabeth’s Wardrobe Unlock’d (Leeds, 1988), p. 6.

  4 H. Nicolas, Memoirs of the Life and Times of Christopher Hatton, K.G. (London, 1847), pp. 16–30; Murdin, p. 588.

  5 Correspondence of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, during his Government of the Low Countries, in the Years 1585 and 1586, ed. J. Bruce, Camden Society, Old Series, 27 (1844), p. 113.

  6 CKJVI, p. 18; A. L. Rowse, Ralegh and the Throckmortons (London, 1962), pp. 175–8.

  7 J. Guy, The Children of Henry VIII (Oxford, 2013), pp. 98–100, 109, 111, 117–22, 137–8, 155, 166, 169–71, 178, 189; C. Merton, ODNB, s.v. ‘Katherine Astley [née Champernowne]’.

  8 Haynes, p. 100.

  9 R. Rapple, Martial Power and Elizabethan Political Culture (Cambridge, 2009), pp. 51–85, 82–4.

  10 SP 63/80, no. 82.

  11 R. Rapple, ODNB, s.v. ‘Sir Humphrey Gilbert’.

  12 P. E. J. Hammer, ‘“Absolute and Sovereign Mistress of Her Grace”? Queen Elizabeth I and Her Favourites, 1581–92’, in The World of the Favourite, ed. J. H. Elliott and L. W. B. Brockliss (London, 1999), p. 43.

  13 H. Nicolas, Memoirs of the Life and Times of Christopher Hatton, K.G. (London, 1847), pp. 275–8.

  14 APC, XI, pp. 384, 388–9, 421; SP 12/219, no. 33; Hammer, ‘“Absolute and Sovereign Mistress of Her Grace”?’, p. 46.

  15 Hakluyt, III, pp. 4–5.

  16 E. T. Jones, ‘Alwyin Ruddock: “John Cabot and the Discovery of America”, HR, 81 (2008), pp. 224–54.

  17 Hakluyt, I, pp. 231–2.

  18 Hakluyt, I, pp. 232–3, 245–6; CSPV, 1555–6, no. 269.

  19 Hakluyt, I, pp. 246–7.

  20 Hakluyt, III, pp. 135–7; M. Nicholls and P. Williams, Sir Walter Ralegh in Life and Legend (London, 2011), pp. 12–13; K. R. Andrews, Trade, Plunder and Settlement (Cambridge, 1984), pp. 187–90.

  21 Hakluyt, III, pp. 143–54; J. LeHuenen, ‘The Role of the Basque, Breton and Norman Cod Fishermen in the Discovery of North America from the 16th to the End of the 18th Century’, Arctic, 37 (1984), pp. 520–27.

  22 Hakluyt, III, p. 154.

  23 G. Parry, The Arch-Conjurer of England: John Dee (London, 2011), pp. 41, 84–6, 88–90, 111.

  24 Hakluyt, III, pp. 151–61; Andrews, Trade, Plunder and Settlement, pp. 193–7.

  25 Hakluyt, III, pp. 243–5.

  26 The Letters of Sir Walter Ralegh, ed. A. Latham and J. Youings (Exeter, 1999), p. xliii and nos. 6, 8, 14.

  27 SP 12/169, nos. 36–7; CSPC, America and West Indies, Addenda 1574–1674, pp. 24–5; Hakluyt, III, pp. 135–7, 243–5.

  28 D. B. Quinn, ‘Preparations for the 1585 Virginia Voyage’, William and Mary Quarterly, 9 (1949), pp. 209–10.

  29 C. Read, Mr Secretary Walsingham and the Policy of Queen Elizabeth, 3 vols. (Oxford, 1925), III, pp. 370–71.

  30 A. Thevet, The New-Found Worlde or Antarctike, trans. T. Hacket (London, 1580), sig. *ij–*iijv; R. Kuin, ‘Sir Philip Sidney and the New World’, Renaissance Quarterly, 51 (1998), pp. 149–85.

  31 Read, Walsingham, III, pp. 400–404; Kuin, ‘Sir Philip Sidney and the New World’, pp. 572–5; CSPSp, 2nd Series, 1580–86, pp. 384–5; CSPC, America and West Indies, Addenda 1574–1674, pp. 22–3.

  32 CSPSp, 2nd Series, 1580–86, pp. 384–5.

  33 Read, Walsingham, III, pp. 404–10.

  34 J. W. Shirley, Thomas Harriot (Oxford, 1983), pp. 60, 80; P. Honan, Christopher Marlowe, Poet and Spy (Oxford, 2005), pp. 235–7.

  35 CSPC, East Indies, China and Japan, 1513–1616, nos. 31, 35, 37, 42.

  36 SP 12/167, no. 7; SP 12/170, no. 1; The Original Writings and Correspondence of the Two Richard Hakluyts, ed. E. G. R. Taylor, Hakluyt Society, 2nd Series, 76, 77 (1935), I, pp. 1–66; R. Hakluyt, Divers Voyages touching the Discoverie of America (London, 1582), sig. ¶–¶4.

  37 Kuin, ‘Sir Philip Sidney and the New World’, p. 575.

  38 SP 12/167, no. 7.

  39 D. H. Sacks, ‘Discourses of Western Planting: Richard Hakluyt and the Making of the Atlantic World’, in The Atlantic World and Virginia, 1550–1624, ed. P. C. Mancall (Chapel Hill, 2007), pp. 410–53.

  40 Household Accounts . . . of Robert Dudley, ed. Adams, pp. 180–81.

  41 Original Writings . . . of the Two Richard Hakluyts, I, pp. 33–4.

  42 D. H. Sacks, ‘Cosmography’s Promise and Richard Hakluyt’s World’, Early American Literature, 44 (2009), pp. 161–78.

  43 Original Writings . . . of the Two Richard Hakluyts, II, pp. 214–18.

  44 Original Writings . . . of the Two Richard Hakluyts, II, pp. 257–65; ‘Discourses of Western Planting’, pp. 426–7. See also M. Guasco, ‘“Free from the Tyrannous Spaniard?”: Englishmen and Africans in Spain’s Atlantic World’, Slavery and Abolition, 29 (2008), pp. 1–22.

  45 For example, The Spanish Colonie (London, 1583), sig. A3v–4; Original Writings . . . of the Two Richard Hakluyts, II, p. 261. My thanks to David Sacks for this information.

  46 Original Writings . . . of the Two Richard Hakluyts, II, pp. 218–39, 268–73; ‘Discourses of Western Planting’, pp. 423–7.

  47 Original Writings . . . of the Two Richard Hakluyts, II, pp. 239–46; ‘Discourses of Western Planting’, pp. 420–21.

  48 Original Writings . . . of the Two Richard Hakluyts, II, pp. 283–9.

  49 Original Writings . . . of the Two Richard Hakluyts, II, pp. 287, 289.

  50 Original Writings . . . of the Two Richard Hakluyts, I, p. 34.

  51 ‘Journey through England and Scotland’, ed. von Bülow, p. 251.

  52 Hakluyt, III, pp. 246–51; A. T. Vaughan, ODNB, s.v. ‘American Indians in England’.

  53 Original Writings . . . of the Two Richard Hakluyts, II, pp. 313–26; Quinn, ‘Preparations’, pp. 214–18.

  54 Original Writings . . . of the Two Richard Hakluyts, I, p. 39.

  55 Original Writings . . . of the Two Richard Hakluyts, I, p. 34.

  56 Quinn, ‘Preparations’, pp. 231–2; Chambers, IV, pp. 101, 160; Rowse, Ralegh and the Throckmortons, p. 142.

  57 CSPSp, 2nd Series, 1580–86, p. 532.

  58 Quinn, ‘Preparations’, pp. 232–3.

  59 Hakluyt, III, pp. 251–62; The Roanoke Voyages, 1584–1590: Documents to Illustrate the English Voyages to North America under the Patent Granted to Walter Ralegh in 1584, Hakluyt Society, ed. D. B. Quinn, 2nd Series, 104–5 (1955), I, pp. 158–99.

  60 Hakluyt, III, pp. 263–6; The Roanoke Voyages, ed. Quinn, I, pp. 200–313; Andrews, Trade, Plunder and Settlement, pp. 207–11; Nicholls and Williams, Sir Walter Ralegh, pp. 45–70.

  Chapter 4: Armada of the Soul

  1 SP 12/174, no. 1.

  2 SP 12/173, no. 85; see also Lodge, II, pp. 250–52.

  3 SP 12/176, nos. 22, 28–31; CP 205/128; CP 210/17; HEH, Ellesmere MS. 1192, annotated and corrected by Burghley; BL, Additional MS 48027, fos. 248–51v; J. E. Neale, Elizabeth I and Her Parliaments, 2 vols. (London, 1969), II, pp. 44–57; G. R. Elton, The Parliament of England, 1559–1581 (Cambridge, 1986), p. 362; P. Collinson, ‘The Monarchical Republic of Queen Elizabeth I’, Bulletin of the John Rylands Library of Manchester, 69 (1987), pp. 394–424; P. Collinson, ‘The Elizabethan Exclusion Crisis’, Proceedings of the British Academy, 84 (1993), pp. 51–92.

  4 SR, IV, i, pp. 704–5.

  5 Sotheby’s sale of 7 Dec. 2010, lot 11. My warmest thanks to Dr Gabriel Heaton of the Books and MSS department for allowing
me to see this astonishing cache of letters and documents in advance of the auction.

  6 Sotheby’s sale of 7 Dec. 2010, lot 11.

  7 Sotheby’s sale of 7 Dec. 2010, lot 11.

  8 Sotheby’s sale of 7 Dec. 2010, lot 11.

  9 SP 11/4, no. 2; ECW, pp. 41–2; J. Guy, The Children of Henry VIII (Oxford, 2013), p. 156.

  10 Sotheby’s sale of 7 Dec. 2010, lot 11.

  11 Sotheby’s sale of 7 Dec. 2010, lot 11.

  12 S. Alford, The Watchers: A Secret History of the Reign of Elizabeth I (London, 2012), pp. 193–209.

  13 SP 53/18, no. 55.

  14 Alford, The Watchers, pp. 210–32.

  15 CSPSp, 2nd Series, 1580–86, p. 623; Alford, The Watchers, pp. 232–4; J. Guy, ‘My Heart is My Own’: The Life of Mary Queen of Scots (London, 2004), pp. 490–91.

  16 Murdin, p. 785.

  17 Hamlet, 4, v, l. 138.

  18 The proceedings at Fotheringhay and in the Star Chamber are from BL, Additional MS 48027, fos. 492–510, 540–54, 557v–68; BL, Cotton MS, Caligula C.IX, fos. 477–95; State Trials, I, pp. 143–64; HMC, Hatfield MSS, III, pp. 208–9; Alford, The Watchers, pp. 236–40; Guy, ‘My Heart is My Own’, pp. 487–94.

  19 SP 12/195, no. 64.

  20 SP 12/197, no. 5; E 351/542 (entries for 1588).

  21 SP 12/194, no. 30.

  22 The Fugger News-Letters, ed. V. von Klarwill, 2nd Series (London, 1926), nos. 155–8.

  23 SP 12/197, nos. 6–7, 10, 15–18, 21–3; SP 15/30, nos. 2–6; Murdin, pp. 578–83.

  24 For Burghley’s early drafts envisaging either a public execution or an assassination under the terms of the Bond, see Murdin, pp. 574–5, 576–7. Copies of the final version of the warrant are from BL, Additional MS 48027, fos. 645–6; Lambeth, Fairhurst MS 4769.

  25 The reports of the clandestine Council meeting, dispatch of the warrant and Davison’s trial in the Star Chamber are from BL, Harleian MS 290, fos. 218–40; BL, Additional MS 48027, fos. 398–403, 636–50v, 666–90v; M. Taviner, ‘Robert Beale and the Elizabethan Polity’, University of St Andrews Ph.D. (2000), pp. 215–43.

  26 BL, Additional MS 48027, fos. 639v–40; The Letter-Books of Sir Amyas Paulet, ed. J. Morris (London, 1874), pp. 359–62; Taviner, ‘Robert Beale’, pp. 210, 217–18.