House Of Treason: The Rise And Fall Of A Tudor Dynasty

by Hutchinson, Robert

  On 25 February 1570, Pope Pius V published the Bull Regnans in Excelsis which excommunicated Elizabeth and deprived this ‘pretended’ queen of the English throne - as well as absolving her subjects from any allegiance or loyalty to her. This was a decisive tactical error by the Vatican in its campaign against Protestant England, as the Bull made each and every one of Elizabeth’s Catholic subjects potentially an individual threat to her life. The Pope had, in effect, offered up his blessing upon their treason. As far as the queen and her staunchly Protestant government were concerned - particularly after the jolt to the body politic of the northern rebellion - all English Catholics were now latent enemies within their own country.

  But with the lessons of the harsh retribution wreaked upon the north still fresh in Catholic minds, they felt safe enough to free Norfolk, after ten months of incarceration, in early August 1570, although the plague that raged in and around the fortress may have been a factor.62 There remained grave uncertainties about his trustworthiness and he was confined in his London home in Charterhouse Square, under the charge of Sir Henry Neville, and kept under close surveillance.

  Norfolk dutifully wrote to the queen acknowledging his offence ‘and by my voluntary offering to make amends for the same with a determined mind, never to offend your majesty either in the same or in any matter . . . And where I did unhappily give ease to certain motions made to me in a cause of marriage to be prosecuted for me with the Queen of Scots . . . I will also willing confess . . . I did err.’63

  In such circumstances - his narrow escape from a treason charge, his grovelling apology and his house arrest - it is simply breathtaking that the duke was so stupid as to become involved again with Mary Queen of Scots and Roberto Ridolphi.

  Only days after his release from the Tower, the audacious Florentine was back inside Howard House. One would think that a hardly more unwelcome visitor could be conceived. Nor was his mission more palatable. He asked the apprehensive Norfolk to write to the Duke of Alva, the Spanish Captain General in the Low Countries, and appeal for funds for Mary Queen of Scots. With rare perception, Norfolk shunned him - ‘I began to mislike him,’ he said later and, ‘sought ways to shift me from him.’

  Mary’s love of intrigue and her lack of any sense of reality also added to his nervousness. On 31 January 1571, she wrote to him, encouraging his escape from house arrest - ‘as she would do [herself] notwithstanding any danger’ - in order that they could be married.64

  The final chapter in Norfolk’s meteor-like life began with the arrest on or about 12 April that year of Charles Bailly, a young Fleming who had entered Mary’s service in 1564 and latterly worked for the Bishop of Ross. Cecil’s agents had detained him in Dover after finding letters and books from English Catholic exiles in his luggage. Two of the missives, addressed to the Bishop, were from the ubiquitous Ridolphi, now in Brussels.

  Brought to London, Bailly was soon strapped to the rack in the Tower of London, and, under torture, admitted tearfully that Ridolphi had departed England on 25 March with appeals from Mary to the Duke of Alva in the Low Countries, the Spanish king, Philip II, and the Pope, to fund and organise an invasion of England. The objective was to overthrow Elizabeth, replace her on the throne with Mary and return the realm to Catholicism. Earlier that month, Ridolphi had returned to Howard House and left Norfolk a document that detailed the invasion plans and listed forty nobles and officials who secretly supported Mary’s claims to the English crown. Each name was identified by a number for use in coded correspondence.65

  Meanwhile, Ridolphi had failed to convince the Spanish governor about the chances of success of the invasion plan. He talked confidently that Spain could contribute 6,000 infantry and twenty-five cannon to reinforce a populist army of English Catholics, led by Norfolk, to oust Elizabeth .66 Hard-nosed Alva was not impressed, and clearly believed the plan was founded on wild flights of military fantasy. He urged the Spanish king to provide military assistance only after the English Catholics had successfully rebelled and Elizabeth ‘was already dead . . . or else a prisoner’. He added: ‘We may tell [Norfolk] that these conditions being fulfilled he shall have what he wants.’67

  The duke was swimming in very dangerous waters indeed. He was now serenely approaching a vortex which would suck him down into oblivion. On 29 August, his two secretaries, William Barker and Robert Higford, handed over a bag purporting to contain £50 in silver coin to a Shrewsbury draper called Thomas Browne. They instructed him to deliver it to Laurence Bannister, the steward of the Dacre estates in the north. Once out of Howard House, the curious Browne opened the bag and found £600 in gold and a number of letters written in cipher. Being a cautious man, and aware of the suspicions still surrounding the duke, he took it immediately to the Privy Council.

  Norfolk must have been either an innocent babe in matters of espionage and subversion, or supremely incompetent. Not only could the cash be linked directly to him - worse, it could be traced back to its source, de la Mothe Fénelon, the French ambassador in London. In reality, it was to be sent to Scotland to be used by the faction supporting Mary Queen of Scots.

  Cecil’s agents were soon hotfoot to Charterhouse Square, to search Howard House. Their efforts were quickly rewarded:The cipher, or key to his [Norfolk’s] correspondence on this subject, [was] found under the tiles of the roof of the Charterhouse and some particular papers deciphered by the duke’s secretary Higford and which he had ordered him to burn, [were] discovered under the mat leading to the duke’s bedchamber.68

  On 4 September, Sir Ralph Sadler checked on new tightened security measures imposed at Howard House, arriving there at eight o’clock in the morning. He found that Neville had ‘discreetly ordered all things’.

  The duke is committed to his chamber, all his servants secluded from him out of the house, saving two to attend upon him in his chamber and four or five necessary officers to provide and dress his meat.

  Sadler expected to be ‘on the spot all day’ and at night, when he departed to his lodgings in the Savoy, he would leave at least six men to secure the house. He stressed that ‘Neville guards so wisely and well that my presence is not needful’.69

  He was back three days later to warn the duke that ‘for his obstinate dealing and denial of his great faults, her majesty was sore offended with him and had determined to use him more severely’.

  Sadler told a ‘submissive’ Norfolk that he was to be ‘removed to another place by her highness’ command’ and took him, between four and five o’clock in the afternoon, by ‘footcloth nag’ to the Tower. Their journey across the city was troubled by a ‘number of idle rascal people, women, men, boys and girls, running about him and . . . gazing at him’. The Spanish ambassador, however, reported that ‘the concourse of people was so large and the shouts so general, that a very little more, and he would have been liberated’.

  Sadler and his companions left Norfolk in the custody of the Lieutenant of the Tower, with two servants to attend to his needs.70 The queen instructed his jailer in the ‘strict keeping’ of the duke, and ordered: ‘You shall do well presently to shut up in close prison for a time, all prisoners that are thither committed for obstinacy in religion or such as you may conjecture will deal for intelligence in favour of the duke.’71

  Norfolk’s secretaries were arrested and questioned. Old William Barker was ‘three or four times examined but hitherto showed [himself] an obstinate and a fool’ reported Sadler.72 Then, threatened with the rack, his resistance crumbled. The secretary said that many English nobles favoured the duke’s marriage with the Scottish queen; he doubted the Earl of Derby’s support ‘for he was but a soft man’. Fatally, he talked of Ridolphi’s invasion plans: Spanish military assistance would land at Dumbarton ‘if from Flanders’, at Leith [and at] Harwich in Essex.

  Last Lent he brought Ridolphi to the Duke of Norfolk, who talked with him. Ridolphi found no great good disposition in the duke because he would not write to Alva, which the duke afterwards told him, saying: ‘I do
not like it, nor will not write.’73

  The keeper of Howard House, John Sinclair, alias John Gardener, who had served the duke for a decade, was also caught up in the inquiry and found himself in the Tower. He denied everything, but his inquisitors produced a man called Archie Inglis, who recounted a conversation with him that proved damning:He knew from Sinclair how the Queen of Scots should have got away before it was known in England . . . After several knights and gentlemen had resorted to the duke by one or two together, certain men should have gone and taken her away where she should have been at hunting and companies of men should have been laid to have received her every ten or twelve miles.

  The duke should have gone away that same day and met her.

  The queen’s [Elizabeth’s] power had been nothing to the duke’s; he would have had so many partakers.

  He who is the duke’s keeper is of the duke’s counsel and privy to this enterprise.

  The duke might leap on horseback at his back door, ride his way and send the queen word that he was gone and she should not be able to fetch him again.74

  Sinclair acknowledged that ‘there was talk among the yeomen of the house that the duke and the Scottish queen were assured together; that their goodwill remained still and that he would marry if he might’.75

  Elizabeth Massey, wife to the parson of the Tower, was also questioned. She related that during Norfolk’s first imprisonment there, ‘one Jervis, serving there, sent his little daughter of seven years, almost daily unto the duke’s chamber with nosegays’ and she returned ‘sometimes with a golden groat [4d]’. She did not like these visits and had seen Jervis talking to papists.

  And now lately on All Hallows night he counselled her husband to put her away with many evil words betwixt them . . .

  That same evening, about eight of the clock, Jervis met her, saying: ‘Whither goest thou?’ She answered: ‘To go to the Lieutenant to complain of him.’ Then he struck her upon the arm with his halberd and did overthrow her into the myute [moat].

  She suspected also my Lady Eleanor because she spoke diverse times at the window with the duke at his first imprisonment and sent one of her children to him almost every day.

  Further, the said Elizabeth says that she . . . was procured by certain signs to deliver and receive letters from the duke secretly by his [underlined ] laundress. The same said to her that she should serve God and pray for the duke, whereby she should lack nothing for ‘he thinks well of you’.

  As for the queen, [she] shall not be long queen, being a bastard.76

  Of course, Norfolk faced a barrage of questions on many occasions.77 At times, his memory conveniently failed him on tricky issues, but on others he was remarkably frank. On 13 October, he confirmed his knowledge of no less than three plots to free Mary Queen of Scots - but he denied any knowledge of Ridolphi’s invasion plans.

  By January 1572, the Council had different concerns. Catholic supporters of Norfolk had come up with a series of harebrained schemes to rescue him from the Tower, using a portable canvas bridge across the moat, and also planned to murder Cecil, now created Lord Burghley. Kenelm Berney and his accomplice Edmund Mather planned to assassinate the minister - ‘the chief cause of [Norfolk’s] trouble’ - at Charing Cross with an arquebus (or musket), the killer crossing the Thames by waiting boat and then fleeing by horse into Surrey. They also plotted to rescue the duke at his arraignment, armed only with pistols.78

  Another plan was to take Burghley’s sons hostage, ‘for pawns for us, which should be sent to the Duke of Alva . . . that if we miscarry here, they might die the same death’. They would communicate with Norfolk by writing on some Holland cloth and then get his Italian tailor to line his breeches with the fabric. A new pair had recently been delivered and Norfolk had mournfully told his tailor: ‘It is said, I shall not live to wear these hose out.’

  He might well be dejected. Burghley was now planning his trial, prudently placing great emphasis on security. His roughly scribbled notes estimated how many men would be necessary to thwart any rescue attempt or to subdue disorder:The Lieutenant [Sir Owen Hopton] with the guard of the court.

  Sir Peter Carew with fifteen of the guard.

  Sir William Drury, with ten . . . Sir Humfrey Gibbon with six; Henry Knollys with ten of the guard; The Knight Marshal with twenty of the guard to attend [Norfolk]; Mr Ireland - thirty of the Pensioners.79

  Norfolk knew he was doomed. He was tried by his peers at Westminster Hall on 16 January 1572, with George Talbot, sixth Earl of Shrewsbury, sitting as Lord High Steward. Just after half past eight, the court went into session and Norfolk was brought to the bar with Hopton and Carew on each arm, preceded by the headsman’s axe, now appearing at another Howard’s trial for treason. Thenthe Duke, with a haughty look and oft biting his lip, surveyed the lords on each side of him

  as the indictment was read out to him:That Thomas, Duke of Norfolk, as a false traitor . . . not having the fear of God in his heart or weighing his due allegiance but seduced by the instigation of the Devil . . . [intended] to cut off and destroy Queen Elizabeth on the 22 September at the Charterhouse.

  That [he intended] to make and raise sedition in the kingdom of England and spread a miserable civil war . . . and to endeavour a change and alteration in the sincere worship of God.

  That [he knew that] Mary Queen of Scots had laid claim and pretended a title and interest to the present possession and dignity of the imperial crown of England . . . [and] traitorously sought and endeavoured to be joined in marriage with Mary and had writ diverse letters to her and sent [her] several pledges and tokens . . .

  That [he] procured Roberto Ridolphi, a foreign merchant, to send to the Bishop of Rome and to the Duke of Alva to obtain . . . certain sums of money towards the raising . . . of an army to invade this kingdom.80

  Norfolk asked for legal representation but was refused, and the duke answered bitterly: ‘I am brought to fight without a weapon.’ After pleading not guilty to the charges, he appealed for justice and a fair trial and admitted: ‘My memory was never good. It is now much worse than it was, before troubles, before cares, before closeness in prison, evil rest, have much decayed my memory, so as I pray God, that this day it will not fail me.’ He added: ‘Another time I will forgive it.’

  Written evidence was produced from his servants which included some testimony that had been falsified. They were not called into court, so Norfolk had no opportunity to cross-examine them. The duke admitted:Touching Ridolphi’s coming, I have indeed confessed that he came to me. In [the] summer, I was twelve month bound in recognisance for £1,800 to Ridolphi, for my lord of Arundel . . . the day was passed whereby I stood in danger of my recognisance.

  I sent to Ridolphi to entreat him to cancel my recognisance and I offered to give him twenty yards [18.2 m.] of velvet. Ridolphi would not be persuaded but desired to speak with me himself.

  I was very loath that he should come to me . . . [as] I thought [it] would be suspicious.

  So Ridolphi came to me and I did what I could to entreat him about my recognisance and I could not persuade him, than to promise he would not sue me.

  The banker spoke to Norfolk of his imprisonment at Walsingham’s home; about Mary Queen of Scots and that he should ‘treat with the Duke of Alva for money for her’.

  He prayed [for me to write] letters in the Scottish queen’s favour to the Duke of Alva. I began to mislike him and was loath to write. I sought ways to shift me from him.

  I said I was not well at ease, I could not write - it was late - and I would not deal.

  Norfolk had been trapped in a web partially of his own foolish making. There is little doubt that Ridolphi was a government agent provocateur who formed the bait for a trap and the duke’s lack of foresight, or common sense, allowed him to be ensnared. The peers took an hour and a quarter to find him guilty of treason. Sentence was passed, and the axe blade was turned towards him. Norfolk had few words left to say:This is the judgement of a traitor and I shall die a true man
to the queen as any man that lives.

  Beating his chest he told his peers: ‘I will not desire any of you to make any petition for my life. I will not desire to live. And my lords, seeing you have put me out of your company, I trust shortly to be in better company.’81

  Norfolk, expecting imminent execution, scribbled a last letter to the queen on 21 January, signing the note ‘with the woeful hand of a dead man’.82 He also wrote a poignant letter to his children from the Tower, including, for their enlightenment, some final lessons about life. To his eldest son, Philip, Earl of Arundel, he insisted: ‘Serve and fear God above all things. I find the fault in myself that I have been too negligent in this point.’

  Love and make much of your wife, and therein, considering the great adversity you are now in by reason of my fall, is your greatest comfort and relief.

  Though you be very young in years, yet you must strive to become a man. When my grandfather died, I was not much above a year older than you are now, and yet, thank God, I took such order with myself . . .

  Beware of high degree! To a vainglorious, proud stomach it seems at the first sweet. Look into all chronicles and you shall find that in the end, it brings heaps of cares . . . and most commonly, utter overthrow.

  Assure yourself, as you may see by my books of accounts, and you shall find that my living did hardly maintain my expenses . . . I was ever a beggar.

  Beware of the court, except it be to do your prince service . . . for that place has no certainty.