Elizabeth

by John Guy

  19 D. Piper, ‘The 1590 Lumley Inventory: Hilliard, Segar and the Earl of Essex II’, Burlington Magazine, 99 (1957), pp. 298–303; R. Strong, The Elizabethan Cult (Berkeley, CA, 1977), pp. 64–5, 156. For a surviving life-sized half-length version copied from the miniature, see R. Strong, Tudor and Jacobean Portraits, 2 vols. (London, 1969), I, p. 116.

  20 LASPF, 1595, pp. 126–7, 128–30, 131–3, 190, 199–200, 205, 214–15, 215–16; R. B. Wernham, The Return of the Armadas: The Last Years of the Elizabethan War against Spain, 1595–1603 (Oxford, 1994), pp. 32–40.

  21 Wernham, Return of the Armadas, pp. 25–7, 45–7.

  22 HMC, Hatfield MSS, V, pp. 127–8; Collins, I, p. 344.

  23 Wernham, Return of the Armadas, pp. 46–7.

  24 My account of the Drake and Hawkins voyage is worked out from Hakluyt, III, pp. 583–90; J. S. Corbett, Drake and the Tudor Navy, 2 vols. (New York, 1899), II, pp. 375–400; Wernham, Return of the Armadas, pp. 45–54.

  25 SP 12/256, no. 111 (I).

  26 Hakluyt, III, p. 584.

  27 SP 12/259, no. 61.

  28 LASPF, 1595, pp. 131–4

  29 SP 12/257, no. 32; Camden, p. 516.

  30 SP 78/38, fos. 33, 71–6, 77; Collins, I, p. 378.

  31 The key clauses are SP 103/8, fos. 79–80. See also SP 103/8, fos. 86–93; LASPF, 1596, nos. 181, 183, 186–95, 197–8, 200, 202–204, 207–8, 214, 217, 222, 235; Lodge, II, p. 500.

  32 SP 12/252, no. 110.

  33 SP 101/81, fos. 156–9

  34 Devereux, I, pp. 333–7; Camden, p. 516; Birch, Memoirs, I, pp. 459–60, 465.

  35 A. L. Rowse, Ralegh and the Throckmortons (London, 1962), p. 198.

  36 Devereux, I, p. 342; Birch, Memoirs, II, pp. 6–7.

  37 Hammer, Polarisation of Elizabethan Politics, p. 367.

  38 HMC, Bath MSS, V, pp. 264–5; Hatfield MSS, VI, p. 201; SP 12/259, no. 2; Birch, Memoirs, II, pp. 11–12, 15–18; Camden, pp. 515–16.

  39 Birch, Memoirs, II, p. 15; Camden, p. 515.

  40 BL, Cotton MS, Otho E.IX, fos. 343–8. See also BL, Cotton MS, Galba D.XII, fo. 48 (for the promises Elizabeth later claimed had been made by the Lords General).

  41 My account of the Cádiz expedition is worked out from SP 12/259, nos. 12, 17–18, 31–2, 50, 70–71, 114; SP 94/5, fos. 146–7; SP 84/52, fos. 250–51; HMC, Hatfield MSS, VI, pp. 205–6, 226–7, 250–51; The Letters of Sir Walter Ralegh, ed. A. Latham and J. Youings (Exeter, 1999), nos. 101–2; Stow, 1605 edn, pp. 1285–93 (a version of Hakluyt’s account censored by the Privy Council); Birch, Memoirs, II, pp. 45–59; Camden, pp. 518–22; E. Edwards, The Life of Sir Walter Ralegh, 2 vols. (London, 1868), II, pp. 139–56; J. S. Corbett, The Successors of Drake (London, 1900), pp. 56–115; Wernham, Return of the Armadas, pp. 93–113.

  42 Letters of Sir Walter Ralegh, ed. Latham and Youings, no. 101.

  43 SP 12/259, no. 12 (quotation from fo. 31r).

  44 SP 12/259, no. 12. An Apologie of the Earle of Essex against those which jealously and maliciously tax him to be the hinderer of the peace and quiet of his country (London, 1603), sigs. B2–4; L. W. Henry, ‘The Earl of Essex as Strategist and Military Organizer, 1596–7’, EHR, 68 (1953), pp. 363–93; P. E. J. Hammer, ‘Myth-Making: Politics, Propaganda and the Capture of Cádiz in 1596’, HJ, 40 (1997), p. 629; Hammer, Polarisation of Elizabethan Politics, pp. 255–64.

  45 SP 12/259, no. 50; Hammer, Polarisation of Elizabethan Politics, pp. 251–2.

  46 APC, XXVI, p. 7.

  47 ‘Observacions in the Earle of Essex’s example, that it is exceeding dangerous to a Favorite to bee long absent from his Prince’, BL, Egerton MS 2026, fo. 32; Hammer, Polarisation of Elizabethan Politics, pp. 367–8; Hammer, ‘Myth-Making’, p. 627.

  48 Wernham, Return of the Armadas, pp. 110–11.

  49 Letters of Sir Walter Ralegh, ed. Latham and Youings, no. 102; Edwards, Life of Sir Walter Ralegh, II, pp. 142–3; Wernham, Return of the Armadas, pp. 118–19.

  50 Birch, Memoirs, II, pp. 59, 93.

  51 Birch, Memoirs, II, pp. 121–2, 127; Hammer, ‘Myth-Making’, pp. 627–8.

  52 Birch, Memoirs, II, p. 94; S. R. Meyrick, ‘Report of the Commissioners Appointed to Inquire into the Amount of Booty Taken at Cádiz in 1596’, Archaeologia, 22 (1829), pp. 172–89; Wernham, Return of the Armadas, pp. 115–21.

  53 BL, Cotton MS, Galba D.XII, fo. 48.

  54 Birch, Memoirs, II, p. 131.

  55 Wotton, A Parallel, pp. 12–13.

  56 Birch, Memoirs, II, pp. 45, 81–2, 88–9, 95, 97; Hammer, ‘Myth-Making’, pp. 631–2.

  57 Birch, Memoirs, II, pp. 95–6; SP 12/259, nos. 109–10, 124; SP 12/260, nos. 16–17, 28–30; BL, Lansdowne MS 82, fo. 178; Hammer, ‘Myth-Making’, pp. 628, 631–2; Hammer, Polarisation of Elizabethan Politics, pp. 252–4.

  58 Birch, Memoirs, II, p. 137.

  59 Hammer, ‘Myth-Making’, p. 636.

  60 The image tallies closely with the description of Essex given by the Venetian ambassador to France a few weeks after the portrait was commissioned: ‘fair-skinned, tall, but wiry; on this last voyage he began to wear a beard which he used not to wear’. See CSPV, 1592–1601, no. 505.

  61 Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection, ref. B1974.2.75; R. Strong, Tudor and Jacobean Portraits, 2 vols. (London, 1969), I, pp. 116–17.

  62 E. Goldring, ‘Portraiture, Patronage and the Progresses’, in The Progresses, Pageants and Entertainments of Queen Elizabeth I, ed. J. E. Archer, E. Goldring and S. Knight (Oxford, 2007), pp. 163–88; R. Strong, Portraits of Queen Elizabeth I (London, 1963), pp. 5–8.

  63 Bacon’s letter is printed in full in Spedding, II, pp. 40–45.

  64 Spedding, II, pp. 42–3.

  65 Spedding, II, p. 41.

  66 Spedding, II, p. 44.

  67 J. Dickinson, Court Politics and the Earl of Essex, 1589–1601 (London, 2012), p. 110.

  Chapter 16: One Last Chance

  1 The Letters of Sir Walter Ralegh, ed. A. Latham and J. Youings (Exeter, 1999), no. 104; Collins, II, p. 18.

  2 P. E. J. Hammer, The Polarisation of Elizabethan Politics: The Political Career of Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, 1585–1597 (Cambridge, 1999), pp. 226–9, 321–2.

  3 The Egerton Papers, ed. J. P. Collier, Camden Society, Old Series, 12 (1840), pp. 215–17; Murdin, p. 809.

  4 Birch, Memoirs, II, p. 163.

  5 Chamberlain, pp. 18, 27; A. L. Rowse, Shakespeare’s Southampton (London, 1965), pp. 120–28.

  6 Birch, Memoirs, II, pp. 358–9.

  7 H. Wotton, A Parallel between Robert, Late Earl of Essex, and George, Late Duke of Buckingham (London, 1641), pp. 5–6; Birch, Memoirs, II, p. 501; L. L. Peck, Northampton: Patronage and Policy at the Court of James I (London, 1982), pp. 13–18; K. McCarthy, ‘Byrd’s Patrons at Prayer’, Music and Letters, 89 (2008), pp. 499–509; Hammer, Polarisation of Elizabethan Politics, p. 287.

  8 E 351/543 (entries for 1596–8); A Faithful Abridgment of the Works of That Learned and Judicious Divine, Mr. Richard Hooker . . . With an account of His Life, ed. I. Walton (London, 1705), p. xxi; J. E. Carney, Fairy-Tale Queens: Representations of Early Modern Queenship (London, 2012), p. 79.

  9 Collins, II, p. 17.

  10 Collins, II, pp. 17–19.

  11 Birch, Memoirs, II, p. 218.

  12 The Letters of Lady Anne Bacon, ed. G. Allen, Camden Society, 5th Series, 44 (2014), pp. 263–4.

  13 Letters of Lady Anne Bacon, ed. Allen, p. 266; P. E. J. Hammer, ‘Sex and the Virgin Queen: Aristocratic Concupiscence and the Court of Elizabeth I’, SCJ, 31 (2000), pp. 85–8.

  14 HMC, Hatfield MSS, VII, p. 392; Collins, II, p. 43.

  15 Collins, II, p. 38; HMC, De L’Isle and Dudley MSS, II, p. 265. Hammer argues convincingly that the man concerned was Essex, see ‘Sex and the Virgin Queen’, p. 88.

  16
R. V. Schnucker, ‘Elizabethan Birth Control and Puritan Attitudes’, Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 5 (1975), pp. 656–7.

  17 Birch, Memoirs, II, p. 117; CSPV, 1592–1601, nos. 469, 473.

  18 CSPV, 1592–1601, no. 506 (where the dates are New Style).

  19 J. C. Thewlis, ‘The Peace Policy of Spain’, University of Durham Ph.D. (1975), p. 140.

  20 CSPV, 1592–1601, nos. 507–508; L. W. Henry, ‘The Earl of Essex as Strategist and Military Organizer, 1596–7’, EHR, 68 (1953)–, p. 373; R. B. Wernham, The Return of the Armadas: The Last Years of the Elizabethan War against Spain, 1595–1603 (Oxford, 1994), pp. 130–40.

  21 Collins, II, pp. 36–7 (the correct date is 19 May), 42, 44, 51, 55; Hammer, Polarisation of Elizabethan Politics, pp. 381–3.

  22 Collins, II, pp. 42, 54–5; BNF, MS FF 15974, fo. 161v (where the amount given is in livres tournois); Hammer, Polarisation of Elizabethan Politics, pp. 381–2.

  23 SP 12/264, no. 10; Letters of Sir Walter Ralegh, ed. Latham and Youings, no. 107.

  24 Collins, II, p. 52.

  25 Birch, Memoirs, II, pp. 327–8; Wernham, Return of the Armadas, pp. 151–4.

  26 SP 78/39, fo. 283.

  27 SP 84/54, fos. 243–4, 245–6, 247, 259–60; APC, XXVII, pp. 132–3; HMC, Hatfield MSS, VII, pp. 53–4, 222–3.

  28 Henry, ‘The Earl of Essex as Strategist and Military Organizer, 1596–7’, pp. 373–8; Wernham, Return of the Armadas, pp. 154–5.

  29 C 76/215A; Egerton Papers, ed. Collier, pp. 239–44 (containing a crucial misprint at the foot of p. 241); SP 12/263, nos. 102–4; Henry, ‘The Earl of Essex as Strategist and Military Organizer, 1596–7’, pp. 378–9; Hammer, Polarisation of Elizabethan Politics, pp. 264–5.

  30 C 76/215A. See also SP 12/263, nos. 102–4.

  31 SP 12/263, no. 103.

  32 An Apologie of the Earle of Essex against those which jealously and maliciously tax him to be the hinderer of the peace and quiet of his country (London, 1603), sig. B3v.; Hammer, Polarisation of Elizabethan Politics, p. 265.

  33 Devereux, I, p. 414.

  34 SP 12/264, nos. 19–20, 25; Letters of Sir Walter Ralegh, ed. Latham and Youings, nos. 108–9.

  35 SP 12/264, no. 14 (undated, wrongly dated in CSPD, 1595–7, p. 452).

  36 SP 12/264, no. 57.

  37 SP 63/200, no. 61; Hammer, Polarisation of Elizabethan Politics, pp. 265–6.

  38 SP 12/45, fos. 64–6; SP 12/264, nos. 74, 77; E 351/543 (entries for 1596-7); Letters of Sir Walter Ralegh, ed. Latham and Youings, no. 111; Collins, II, p. 59; Devereux, I, pp. 441–2; Henry, ‘The Earl of Essex as Strategist and Military Organizer, 1596–7’, pp. 382–4.

  39 Hammer, Polarisation of Elizabethan Politics, p. 265.

  40 Birch, Memoirs, II, p. 360.

  41 SP 15/36, no. 94; SP 12/264, no. 110; Letters of Sir Walter Ralegh, ed. Latham and Youings, no. 112; Collins, II, p. 68; Henry, ‘The Earl of Essex as Strategist and Military Organizer, 1596–7’, pp. 386–7.

  42 BNF, MS FF 15974, fo. 164v; HMC, Hatfield MSS, VII, pp. 438–9; J. S. Corbett, The Successors of Drake (London, 1900), pp. 194–207.

  43 A. J. Loomie, ‘An Armada Pilot’s Survey of the English Coastline, October 1597’, Mariner’s Mirror, 49 (1963), pp. 288–300.

  44 SP 12/264, no. 148; Corbett, Successors of Drake, pp. 212–25.

  45 APC, XXVIII, pp. 50–53; A. J. Loomie, ‘The Armadas and the Catholics of England’, Catholic Historical Review, 59 (1973), pp. 398–400.

  46 Corbett, Successors of Drake, pp. 217–24.

  47 Birch, Memoirs, II, p. 361; Hammer, Polarisation of Elizabethan Politics, p. 268.

  48 HMC, Hatfield MSS, VII, p. 433.

  49 HMC, Hatfield MSS, VII, p. 433.

  50 BNF, MS FF 15974, fo. 218.

  51 Collins, II, pp. 74–5.

  52 BNF, MS FF 15974, fo. 161v–2v; Birch, Memoirs, II, p. 361.

  53 Troilus and Cressida, 1, iii, ll. 113–14.

  54 Collins, II, p. 77; Birch, Memoirs, II, p. 365.

  55 Collins, II, p. 77.

  56 Hammer, Polarisation of Elizabethan Politics, pp. 386–7.

  57 BNF, MS FF 15974, fo. 162; Birch, Memoirs, II, p. 361.

  58 Collins, II, p. 75.

  59 Hammer, Polarisation of Elizabethan Politics, p. 385.

  60 BNF, MS FF 15974, fo. 204; Collins, II, p. 77; HMC, De L’Isle and Dudley MSS, II, p. 305.

  61 Collins, II, p. 77; Hammer, Polarisation of Elizabethan Politics, p. 386.

  62 BNF, MS FF 15974, fo. 204.

  63 BNF, MS FF 15974, fos. 229v, 249v; Birch, Memoirs, II, p. 365.

  64 SR, III, pp. 729–30.

  65 HMC, Hatfield MSS, VII, pp. 520, 527; Hammer, Polarisation of Elizabethan Politics, pp. 386–8.

  66 Camden, pp. 555–6; Birch, Memoirs, II, p. 384.

  67 W. Ralegh, The Prerogative of Parl[i]aments in England (Hamburg [i.e. London], 1628), p. 43. A similar account is given by Edward Hyde in ‘The Difference and Disparity between the Estates and Conditions of George, Duke of Buckingham and Robert, Earl of Essex’, in Reliquiae Wottonianae (London, 1654), p. 51.

  68 SP 12/45, fos. 60v–61v; Birch, Memoirs, II, pp. 384–6 (printed with inaccuracies). Other versions are SP 12/268, nos. 43–4.

  69 SP 12/45, fos. 61v–62v; Birch, Memoirs, II, pp. 386–8 (printed with inaccuracies). Other versions are SP 12/268, no. 45–6.

  Chapter 17: Seeking Détente

  1 M. Steele, ‘International Financial Crises during the Reign of Philip II, 1556–1598’, London School of Economics Ph.D. (1987), p. 345; I. A. A. Thompson, ‘L’Audit de la guerre et de la paix’, in Le Traité de Vervins, ed. J. F. Labourdette, J. P. Poussou and M. C. Vignal (Paris, 2000), p. 401.

  2 J. C. Thewlis, ‘The Peace Policy of Spain’, University of Durham Ph.D. (1975), pp. 74–6.

  3 Lettres de Henri IV, IV, pp. 847–8.

  4 SP 78/40, fos. 113–16, 128–9; R. B. Wernham, The Return of the Armadas: The Last Years of the Elizabethan War against Spain, 1595–1603 (Oxford, 1994), pp. 194–6.

  5 Lettres de Henri IV, IV, pp. 877–8.

  6 SP 12/253, no. 37; SP 12/257, no. 105; SP 12/260, no. 27; SP 12/261, no. 60.

  7 SP 12/266, no. 3; Annals of the Reformation, ed. J. Strype (4 vols., London, 1824), IV, pp. 451–64.

  8 The grant of sovereignty was bestowed four days after the signature of the Treaty of Vervins. The grant was for the whole of the Netherlands, but the power of the Archdukes (as Albert and Isabella came to be known) lay only in the obedient southern provinces.

  9 BNF, MS FF 15974, fo. 236v.

  10 BNF, MS FF 15974, fos. 157–268. Paraphrased French extracts may be found in M. Prévost-Paradol, Élisabeth et Henri IV (1595–1598): Ambassade de Hurault de Maisse (Paris, 1855), pp. 137–89. An English translation is De Maisse, pp. 1–118. Its accuracy was criticized by L. Jardine, ‘“Why should he call her a whore?” Defamation and Desdemona’s Case’, in Addressing Frank Kermode: Essays in Criticism and Interpretation, ed. M. Trudeau-Clayton and M. Warner (Urbana and Chicago, 1991), pp. 124–53.

  11 BNF, MS FF 15974, fo. 192.

  12 Harington, II, pp. 139–40, 232–6; J. Arnold, Queen Elizabeth’s Wardrobe Unlock’d (Leeds, 1988), p. 104.

  13 Harington, II, pp. 140–41.

  14 BNF, MS FF 15974, fo. 235v.

  15 BNF, MS FF 15974, fos. 181v–2; Queen Elizabeth and Some Foreigners, ed. V. von Klarwill (London, 1928), pp. 376–7; Arnold, Queen Elizabeth’s Wardrobe Unlock’d, pp. 7–8, 128–33.

  16 De Maisse, p. 25. Among those recently trusting the translation are A. Whitelock, Elizabeth’s Bedfellows: An Intimate History of the Queen’s Court (London, 2013), p. 297.

  17 BNF, MS FF 15974, fos. 181v–2. This important point was first made by Lisa Jardine, but on the basis of the paraphrased extracts in
Prévost-Paradol’s Élisabeth et Henri IV and without reference to the French manuscript of de Maisse’s diary, leading to unjustified criticism. See Jardine, ‘“Why should he call her a whore?”’, pp. 146–7; S. Mullaney, ‘Mourning and Misogyny: Hamlet, The Revenger’s Tragedy and the Final Progress of Elizabeth I, 1600–1607’, Shakespeare Quarterly, 45 (1994), pp. 145–8. All meanings of sixteenth-century French words have been verified from R. Cotgrave, A Dictionarie of the French and English Tongues (London, 1611).

  18 BNF, MS FF 15974, fo. 182.

  19 Arnold, Queen Elizabeth’s Wardrobe Unlock’d, pp. 131–2; for examples of this style of neckline, see the illustrations in C. Vecellio, Habiti antichi e moderni di tutto il mondo (Venice, 1598), pp. 97, 98, 101, 102, 104, 105, 106, 111, 112. See also F. Moryson, An itinerary written by Fynes Moryson Gent. First in the Latine tongue, and then translated by him into English (London, 1617), Pt. III, iv, 1, pp. 172–3.

  20 De Maisse, pp. 36–7.

  21 BNF, MS FF 15974, fos. 192v–3; Arnold, Queen Elizabeth’s Wardrobe Unlock’d, pp. 9, 128–9. The costume issues were first fully explained by Arnold, who had access only to an unreliable transcript of de Maisse’s diary among the Baschet transcripts at the NA, but her conclusions are fully justified by the new BNF manuscript.

  22 BNF, MS FF 15974, fo. 210v.

  23 BNF, MS FF 15974, fo. 210v. I am heavily indebted here to Arnold, Queen Elizabeth’s Wardrobe Unlock’d, p. 9, who first argued this case on the strength of the Baschet transcripts.

  24 BNF, MS FF 15974, fo. 182r–v; De Maisse, pp. 25–6.

  25 Paul Hentzner’s Travels in England during the Reign of Queen Elizabeth, ed. H. Walpole (London, 1797), p. 34.

  26 L. E. Tise and S. N. James, ‘The Manteo Portrait of Queen Elizabeth I’, paper presented at a National Portrait Gallery/Courtauld Institute conference on Tudor and Jacobean Painting: Production, Influences and Patronage (London, 2010). Published at www.npg.org.uk/research/programmes.

  27 A. Riehl, The Face of Queenship: Early Modern Representations of Elizabeth I (New York, 2010), p. 167.

  28 R. Strong, Gloriana: The Portraits of Queen Elizabeth I (London, 1987), p. 147; see also Whitelock, Elizabeth’s Bedfellows, p. 268.

  29 PC 2/21, p. 337; APC, XXVI, p. 69. The order condemned ‘the abuse committed by divers unskilful artisans in unseemly and improperly painting, [en]graving and printing of her Majesty’s person and visage, to her Majesty’s great offence’. In future, new images were to be vetted by the queen’s Serjeant-Painter, George Gower, before they were used.