by John Guy
43 Birch, Memoirs, II, p. 454.
44 CKJVI , p. 105; Birch, Memoirs, II, p. 472.
45 Devereux, II, p. 125.
46 CKJVI, pp. 105–6.
47 Collins, II, pp. 134, 137, 140, 142, 143–5, 162–4, 165, 177–9, 214; HMC, De L’Isle and Dudley MSS, II, pp. 404, 407, 408, 409, 414, 415, 416, 417, 418, 420, 434, 437, 447, 451, 458, 461, 465, 466, 478, 481, 483, 487, 489.
48 F. Moryson, An itinerary written by Fynes Moryson Gent. First in the Latine tongue, and then translated by him into English (London, 1617), Pt. II, i, 1, pp. 54–94; S. J. Connolly, Contested Island: Ireland 1460–1630 (Oxford, 2007), pp. 238–54; R. Hawkins, DIB, s.v. ‘Charles Blount, Lord Mountjoy’.
49 CKJVI, p. 86.
50 CKJVI, p. 102.
51 CKJVI, p. 103.
52 CKJVI, p. 103.
53 CKJVI, p. 97.
54 CKJVI, pp. 103–4.
55 CKJVI, pp. 89, 98, 105–6.
56 CKJVI, p. 89.
57 CKJVI, pp. 89–90.
58 CKJVI, p. 89.
59 CKJVI, p. 90.
60 CKJVI, pp. 81–5.
61 SP 12/278, no. 92. The timings of these depositions are a little confused. I am following the timings given by Stow, 1631 edn, pp. 792–4.
62 SP 12/278, nos. 49–50, 92.
63 SP 12/278, no. 92.
64 SP 12/278, no. 55.
65 SP 12/278, no. 54; Folger, MS V.a.321, fos. 9v–11.
66 SP 12/278, no. 54.
Chapter 20: ‘I am Richard II’
1 It has sometimes been suggested that Essex may at this stage have crossed over into some form of mental illness. If the venereal disease for which Dr Lopez had been treating him shortly before Christmas 1593 were syphilis, then his mind could well have been affected, since the common symptoms of advanced syphilis, and the side effects of the brutal treatment by a medical procedure known as ‘salivation of mercury’, included disorientation, hallucinations and paranoia. But no proof of this hypothesis can be found.
2 SP 12/278, no. 89.
3 SP 12/278, no. 93.
4 SP 12/278, no. 84.
5 SP 12/278, nos. 84, 87, 89, 93. See also SP 12/278, no. 125.
6 SP 12/278, no. 84.
7 SP 12/279, no. 12.
8 SP 12/278, nos. 62, 72, 78; P. E. J. Hammer, ‘Shakespeare’s Richard II, the Play of 7 February 1601 and the Essex Rising’, Shakespeare Quarterly, 59 (2008), p. 25.
9 SP 12/279, no. 3.
10 SP 12/278, no. 75. See also SP 12/278, no. 51; Hammer, ‘Shakespeare’s Richard II, the Play of 7 February 1601 and the Essex Rising’, p. 15. Hammer argues persuasively that Sir Ferdinando Gorges may have been acting as a spy for Ralegh, and that he told Essex of a plot to kill him in order to push him into some action that would persuade the queen to send him permanently to the Tower.
11 SP 12/278, no. 69.
12 SP 12/278, nos. 71–2.
13 SP 12/278, nos. 47, 51, 75.
14 SP 12/278, nos. 51, 57–60; SP 12/279, nos. 6, 8–9. Sheriff Smyth would later confess that a copy of just such a letter, drafted by Essex in his own handwriting, had been prepared that very morning, because a copy was given to his wife while she was in church. See SP 12/278, no. 59.
15 SP 12/278, nos. 46–7, 97.
16 SP 12/278, no. 97.
17 SP 12/278, no. 97.
18 SP 12/278, no. 56.
19 SP 12/278, no. 46.
20 SP 12/278, no. 44.
21 SP 12/278, nos. 44, 49–50; Stow, 1631 edn, pp. 792–4.
22 SP 12/278, nos. 49–50.
23 Stow, 1631 edn, p. 792; SP 12/278, nos. 45, 91–2.
24 SP 12/278, nos. 44, 49–50; Stow, 1631 edn, p. 793.
25 SP 12/278, nos. 49–50.
26 SP 12/278, no. 84.
27 SP 12/278, no. 44; Stow, 1631 edn, p. 793.
28 SP 12/278, no. 44.
29 SP 12/279, no. 16.
30 SP 12/278, nos. 38–41, 44, 49–50; Folger MS V.b.142; Stow, 1631 edn, p. 793; Camden, p. 610.
31 SP 12/278, no. 44. Interestingly, Cecil first called it ‘this tragical accident’, but scored out ‘tragical’ and wrote in ‘dangerous’.
32 SP 12/278, no. 61; SP 15/34, no. 34.
33 SP 12/278, nos. 61–2; SP 15/34, no. 34; Hammer, ‘Shakespeare’s Richard II, the Play of 7 February 1601 and the Essex Rising’, pp. 8, 16.
34 Haynes, pp. 811–12.
35 SP 12/278, no. 85. See also J. Bate, Soul of the Age: The Life, Mind and World of William Shakespeare (London, 2008), pp. 256–7.
36 Bate, Soul of the Age, pp. 249–60; Hammer, ‘Shakespeare’s Richard II, the Play of 7 February 1601 and the Essex Rising’, pp. 1–35.
37 Bate, Soul of the Age, p. 255.
38 Richard II, II, iii, ll. 166–7.
39 J. Hayward, The First Part of the Life and Raigne of King Henrie the IIII, Extending to the End of the First Yeare of his Raigne (London, 1599), sig. [A2]. After the inflammatory dedication came a ‘Preface to the Reader’, mysteriously signed ‘A.P.’, which urged Essex to consider ‘the faithful records of histories’ to be ‘precepts’ and ‘lively patterns, both for private direction and for affairs of state’ (sig. A3). See also Hammer, ‘Shakespeare’s Richard II, the Play of 7 February 1601 and the Essex Rising’, p. 9.
40 The First and Second Parts of John Hayward’s ‘The Life and Raigne of King Henrie IIII’, ed. J. J. Manning, Camden Society, 4th Series, 42 (1991), pp. 17–25. Asked by the queen if he could find treason in the book, Francis Bacon later claimed to have replied, whimsically, that he was unable to discover treason, merely felony, since Hayward had lifted whole passages and sentences word for word from Tacitus. If true, it is unlikely that she was amused. More likely, the story is ben trovato. See The Works of Francis Bacon, ed. J. Spedding, R. L. Ellis and D. D. Heath, 14 vols. (Cambridge, 2011), VII, p. 133.
41 SP 12/278, nos. 35, 54–5, 62–3, 66.
42 SP 12/278, nos. 17, 54, 63; Folger MS V.a.321, fos. 9v–11; The First and Second Parts, ed. Manning, pp. 32–4; Hammer, ‘Shakespeare’s Richard II, the Play of 7 February 1601 and the Essex Rising’, pp. 9–10.
43 CKJVI, pp. xxvii–xxviii, and Appendix, Pt. 2, nos. 1–2, pp. 80–81. See also SP 12/278, nos. 69–70.
44 CKJVI, Appendix, Pt. 2, no. 6, p. 90; SP 12/279, no. 5.
45 CKJVI, Appendix, Pt. 2, no. 1, p. 80.
46 The best contemporary accounts of the trial are SP 12/278, nos. 101–102. The second of these (pencilled fos. 183–98) is, unfortunately, incomplete. Both are superior to the version printed in State Trials, I, pp. 197–209. See also BL, Lansdowne MS 94, fos. 127–33.
47 SP 12/278, no. 125.
48 State Trials, I, pp. 207–8.
49 BL, Cotton MS, Titus C.VII, fo. 69r–v; SP 12/278, nos. 104, 125; Birch, Memoirs, II, pp. 475–81; G. B. Harrison, The Life and Death of Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex (London, 1937), pp. 315–18, 321–2, Hammer, ODNB, s.v. ‘Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex’.
50 BL, Cotton MS, Titus C.VII, fo. 125v.
51 BL, Cotton MS, Titus C.VII, fo. 68; SP 12/278, nos. 111–12, 114; BL, Lansdowne MS 94, fo. 134.
52 The classic account is L. Strachey, Elizabeth and Essex (London, 1928; repr. 1971), p. 166.
53 Camden, p. 622.
54 SP 12/278, no. 111 (pencilled fo. 218).
55 SP 12/278, no. 111 (pencilled fos. 218v–19).
56 Camden, p. 622.
57 BL, Lansdowne MS 59, no. 22; SP 12/279, no. 93; APC, XXXI, pp. 55–6, 333–6, 346–8.
58 E 351/543, m. 69; Hammer, ‘Shakespeare’s Richard II, the Play of 7 February 1601 and the Essex Rising’, p. 20; Harrison, Life and Death of Robert Devereux, pp. 322, 350.
59 BL, Stowe MS 543, fos. 55–8v; Nichols, III, pp. 542–3; J. Scott-Warren, ‘
Was Elizabeth I Richard II? The Authenticity of William Lambarde’s “Conversation”’, Review of English Studies, New Series, 64 (2012), pp. 208–30. Discussion of this topic has been transformed by the discovery of Kent History and Library Centre, MS U350/C2/15, edited and collated with other versions of the text by Scott-Warren in op. cit., pp. 228–30.
60 Scott-Warren, ‘Was Elizabeth I Richard II?’, pp. 225–6, 228.
61 Scott-Warren, ‘Was Elizabeth I Richard II?’, pp. 228–9.
62 For a sceptical view, see Bate, Soul of the Age, pp. 282–6. For its refutation, see Scott-Warren, ‘Was Elizabeth I Richard II?’, pp. 211–14.
63 My interpretation both agrees with, and is informed by, Hammer, ‘Shakespeare’s Richard II, the Play of 7 February 1601 and the Essex Rising’, pp. 23–5.
64 APC, XXXI, pp. 155, 157.
65 Richard II, V, vi, ll. 38–52.
Chapter 21: The Queen’s Speech
1 Collins, II, pp. 128, 130.
2 SP 77/6, fo. 46; A. J. Loomie, ‘Philip III and the Stuart Succession in England, 1600–1603’, Revue Belge de philologie et d’histoire, 43 (1965), pp. 492–514; J. C. Grayson, ‘From Protectorate to Partnership: Anglo-Dutch Relations, 1598–1625’, University of London Ph.D. (1978), pp. 35–9; R. B. Wernham, The Return of the Armadas: The Last Years of the Elizabethan War against Spain, 1595–1603 (Oxford, 1994), pp. 321–34.
3 SP 77/6, fo. 59; SP 84/59, fos. 164–8; Collins, II, p. 155; Grayson, ‘From Protectorate to Partnership’, p. 35.
4 J. C. Thewlis, ‘The Peace Policy of Spain’, University of Durham Ph.D. (1975), pp. 61–2; Grayson, ‘From Protectorate to Partnership’, pp. 35–41; A. Gajda, ‘Debating War and Peace in Late-Elizabethan England’, HJ, 52 (2009), p. 858.
5 Collins, II, p. 177.
6 Collins, II, pp. 175–6. The play of Sir John Oldcastle watched by Verreycken was renamed Henry IV, Part I at some time early in the play’s maiden run after furious protests from the Cobham family, the descendants of Oldcastle. At the same time, Sir John’s name was changed from Oldcastle to Falstaff.
7 L. Duerloo, Dynasty and Piety: Archduke Albert (1598–1621) and Habsburg Political Culture in an Age of Religious Wars (Farnham, 2012), pp. 116–17. The English sources, chiefly Collins, II, pp. 175–7, create the impression that Verreycken was sumptuously received as well as treated to a special performance of Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part I, but the Flemish sources give a very different impression.
8 SP 12/274, no. 49; SP 77/6, fo. 241; Birch, Hist. View, pp. 195–8.
9 SP 77/6, fos. 164, 168–70; Winwood, I, pp. 171–5.
10 BL, Cotton MS, Vespasian C.VIII, fos. 379–83v; SP 77/6, fos. 264–70; Winwood, I, pp. 186–226.
11 Thewlis, ‘The Peace Policy of Spain’, pp. 144–6 (citing AGS, E2511/3).
12 Thewlis, ‘The Peace Policy of Spain’, pp. 145–9.
13 SP 63/209, Pt. I, stamped fo. 257; CSPSp, 2nd Series, 1587–1603, no. 699; D. Goodman, Spanish Naval Power, 1589–1665: Reconstruction and Defeat (Cambridge, 1997), p. 207.
14 CSPSp, 2nd Series, 1587–1603, no. 699.
15 SP 63/209, Pt. I, stamped fos. 222–37, 243, 295; SP 63/209, Pt. 2, stamped fos. 43, 50–51, 52–3v; APC, XXXII, pp. 222–7, 233–46, 257–8, 260–62, 273–86; Chamberlain, p. 119; Wernham, Return of the Armadas, pp. 377–81; S. J. Connolly, Contested Island: Ireland 1460–1630 (Oxford, 2007), pp. 250–51 (where all dates are New Style).
16 SP 63/209, Pt. II, stamped fo. 257.
17 SP 63/209, Pt. II, stamped fos. 101–2, 366–7; F. Moryson, An itinerary written by Fynes Moryson Gent. First in the Latine tongue, and then translated by him into English (London, 1617), Pt. II, ii, 2, pp. 176–8; Connolly, Contested Island, pp. 251–2.
18 SP 63/209, Pt. II, stamped fos. 366–7.
19 SP 63/209, Pt. II, stamped fos. 394–5, 404–405; Connolly, Contested Island, pp. 251–3.
20 Secret Corr., p. 25.
21 Townshend, pp. 183–5; HMC, Hatfield MSS, XV, pp. 1–2; SP 12/273, nos. 35–7; SP 12/275, nos. 10, 87, 143; SP 12/287, no. 59.
22 J. E. Neale, Elizabeth I and Her Parliaments, 2 vols. (London, 1969), II, p. 372.
23 Townshend, pp. 188, 224.
24 D’Ewes, pp. 632–3.
25 D’Ewes, p. 623; Townshend, p. 183.
26 Folger MS V.a.459, fos. 7–27v, 43, 67, 91v–2v; Folger MS V.a.460, fo. 58; E 192/3/1–5; HMC, Hatfield MSS, III, pp. 311–12, 377; C. Coleman, ‘Artifice or Accident? The Reorganization of the Exchequer of Receipt, c.1554–1572’, in Revolution Reassessed: Revisions in the History of Tudor Government and Administration, ed. C. Coleman and D. Starkey (Oxford, 1986), pp. 181–91; J. Hurstfield, The Queen’s Wards: Wardship and Marriage under Elizabeth I (London, 1958), pp. 227–8; J. Pennington, ODNB, s.v. ‘Sir Thomas Sherley’; P. E. J. Hammer, The Polarisation of Elizabethan Politics: The Political Career of Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, 1585–1597 (Cambridge, 1999), pp. 354–5.
27 D’Ewes, pp. 632–3; Hartley, III, p. 338; Townshend, pp. 203–204; F. C. Dietz, English Public Finance, 1485–1641, 2 vols. (London, 1964), II, pp. 384–8.
28 Hartley, III, p. 338; Townshend, p. 204.
29 D. H. Sacks, ‘The Countervailing of Benefits: Monopoly, Liberty and Benevolence in Elizabethan England’, in The Tudor Monarchy, ed. J. Guy (London, 1977), pp. 135–55.
30 D’Ewes, p. 650; Townshend, pp. 238–9, 243–5; Murdin, p. 811; Lodge, III, pp. 6–10; APC, XXXI, pp. 55–6; Hartley, III, pp. 387–90; A. Dimock, ‘The Conspiracy of Dr Lopez’, EHR, 9 (1894), pp. 440–41.
31 D’Ewes, pp. 158, 554, 555, 558, 567–8, 570, 573, 582, 586; Hartley, III, pp. 203–4, 241, 242; A. F. Pollard and M. Blatcher, ‘Hayward Townshend’s Journals’, BIHR, 12 (1934), p. 25; T. B. Nachbar, ‘Monopoly, Mercantilism and the Politics of Regulation’, Virginia Law Review, 91 (2005), pp. 1328–30; Neale, Elizabeth I and Her Parliaments, II, pp. 352–6, 365–7; Sacks, ‘Countervailing of Benefits’, p. 136.
32 SP 12/279, no. 93; SP 12/282, no. 8; APC, XXXI, pp. 55–6, 333–6, 346–8; APC, XXXII, pp. 132–3; Sacks, ‘Countervailing of Benefits’, pp. 136–7.
33 Townshend, pp. 224, 230–33.
34 Townshend, p. 233.
35 Townshend, p. 234.
36 Townshend, pp. 234–46.
37 Hartley, III, p. 391 (from BL, Stowe MS 359, fo. 285v).
38 Hartley, III, p. 391; Neale, Elizabeth I and Her Parliaments, II, p. 383.
39 Townshend, pp. 248–9.
40 Townshend, pp. 249–50.
41 D’Ewes, pp. 652–3; Townshend, pp. 248–52.
42 The Letters and Epigrams of Sir John Harington, ed. N. E. McClure (Philadelphia, 1930), p. 90.
43 TRP, III, no. 812.
44 Townshend, p. 259.
45 BL, Lansdowne MS 94, fo. 123; Letters Relating to the Family of Beaumont of Whitley, Yorkshire, from the Fifteenth to the Seventeenth Centuries, ed. W. D. Macray (London, 1884), p. 10; Hartley, III, p. 250; Neale, Elizabeth I and Her Parliaments, II, pp. 392–3, 427–8. Next day, the queen sent a groom of the Privy Chamber to Savile’s house, ordering him to allow nobody to see or to copy this version of the speech, though perhaps for no other reason than to uphold the royal printer Robert Barker’s privileged commercial position.
46 D’Ewes, pp. 658–9.
47 Hartley, III, pp. 288–91, 294–7; Queene Elizabeth’s Speech to Her Last Parliament (London, 1628), sigs. A2–[4].
48 Camden, pp. 635–6.
49 This survives as a fair copy in BL, Lansdowne MS 94, fo. 123, where it is endorsed ‘Her Majesty’s speech to the Speaker and knights and burgesses of the Lower House’. See also Hartley, III, pp. 292–3.
50 SP 12/282, no. 67 appears to be a proof copy from Cecil’s papers. It is not clear whether, as Neale suggested, the printed speech referred to by Sir Dudley Carleton in his letter to John Chamberlai
n of 29 December refers to the ‘Golden Speech’ or the speech the queen gave at the close of the session. See SP 12/283, no. 48; Neale, Elizabeth I and Her Parliaments, II, p. 392.
51 SP 12/282, no. 67 (title page); Hartley, III, pp. 292–3.
52 Whether all copies, including reprints, had the royal arms is an open question. The proof copy in SP 12/287, no. 67 certainly did.
53 SP 12/282, no. 67 (pp. 2–4); Hartley, pp. 292–3.
54 The House of Commons, 1558–1603, ed. P. W. Hasler, 3 vols. (London, 1981), III, pp. 516–17.
55 Townshend, p. 239.
56 Townshend, p. 263.
57 Townshend, p. 264. For commentary on these themes, see Sacks, ‘Countervailing of Benefits’, pp. 139–41.
58 Townshend, p. 265.
59 Townshend, pp. 264–5. For Elizabeth’s earlier failure to act on information of abuses of the royal prerogative, see Neale, Elizabeth I and Her Parliaments, I, pp. 218–19, 221–2; II, pp. 352–6, 365–7.
60 Townshend, p. 266.
61 Townshend, pp. 271–2.
62 SP 12/264, no. 57 (I); J. M. Green, ‘Queen Elizabeth’s Latin Reply to the Polish Ambassador’, SCJ, 31 (2000), pp. 987–1008; R. B. Wernham, After the Armada: Elizabethan England and the Struggle for Western Europe, 1588–1595 (Oxford, 1984), pp. 199–200.
63 D’Ewes, p. 668; HMC, Hatfield MSS, XV, p. 2.
64 D’Ewes, pp. 656–7; R. C. Munden, ‘Government and Opposition: Initiative, Reform and Politics in the House of Commons, 1597–1610’, University of East Anglia Ph.D. (1985), pp. 128–9.
65 House of Commons, ed. Hasler, II, pp. 45–6.
66 SP 12/284, no. 47.
67 SP 12/286, nos. 47–8; The Reports of Sir Edward Coke, Knight, in English, in Thirteen Parts Complete, 7 vols. (London, 1777), VI, fos. 84–8v; D. H. Sacks, ‘Parliament, Liberty and the Commonweal’, in Parliament and Liberty from Elizabeth I to the Civil War, ed. J. H. Hexter (Stanford, CA, 1992), pp. 85–121.
68 TRP, III, no. 812.
Chapter 22: On a Knife’s Edge
1 Chamberlain, p. 99.
2 Harington, II, pp. 256–7. Baynard’s Castle was on loan to the Sidneys from Henry Herbert, Earl of Pembroke.
3 J. Clapham, Certain Observations Concerning the Life and Reign of Queen Elizabeth, ed. E. P. Read and C. Read (Philadelphia, 1951), p. 86.