Elizabeth's Women

by Tracy Borman

  Elizabeth also directed her fury at Mary herself. As Melville observed, all the “inward griefs and grudges” that the issue of the Scottish queen’s suitors had caused between them now “bursted forth.”104 Throwing off the pretense of submissively acceding to her older cousin’s guidance on the matter of her marriage, Mary defiantly declared “that she thanked the Queen of England for her offers, but that, it being a particularity of ladies to choose their husbands when it is in their power, she had chosen the said Earl [Darnley], and could not now prefer another.”105 She also took the precaution of asking the Pope for aid, “in case the Queen of England should be minded to do her an evil turn by way of showing her dissatisfaction, which is extreme, at her marriage with the Earl of Lennox.”106

  Mary’s act of defiance was enough to destroy the fragile—and arguably false—harmony that existed between her and Elizabeth. “Whereupon ensued so great a coldness, that they left off for a considerable time from writing each to other, as they had formerly done by post … for in their hearts from that time forth there was nothing but jealousies and suspicions,” remarked one contemporary at the Scottish court.107 It also shifted the power balance between the two women. Prior to the marriage, Mary had played the part of a deferential supplicant for Elizabeth’s favor, eager to submit to the will and guidance of her older, wiser cousin. Now she had seized the initiative and married Darnley against the English queen’s express command. No longer the meek novice queen, she caused the English ambassador to exclaim: “a wylfuller woman, and one more wedded unto her owne opinion, withowte order, reason or dyscretion, I never dyd knowe or hearde of.”108 At a stroke, Mary had put herself on a far more equal footing with Elizabeth.

  As well as feeling piqued at being so deceived by her cousin, the English queen was also genuinely alarmed by her choice of husband. Lord Darnley’s claim to the English throne was a strong one—indeed, the fact that he had been born in England made his claim better than that of Mary, who was technically an alien according to English common law. The uniting of their claims posed a considerable threat to Elizabeth’s interests and boosted the ranks of her Catholic dissenters. But the marriage also generated significant opposition in Scotland, particularly among the Protestant lords, such as the Earl of Moray and the Hamiltons, traditional enemies of the Lennox family. Heartened by the English queen’s reaction to Mary’s marriage, this powerful enclave rebelled against it. Although they failed to win enough support, they remained troublesome opponents to Mary’s regime, and her hold on the crown began to look increasingly tenuous.

  Elizabeth was still reeling from the news of Mary’s marriage to Darnley when another scandal involving one of her cousins broke at court. Lady Mary Grey had disregarded everything she should have learned from her elder sister’s example by marrying in secret. She was an unlikely romantic heroine. Having been born with a crooked spine, as an adult she grew to only around four feet tall. The Spanish ambassador described her as “little, crookbacked, and very ugly.”109 Mary was now twenty years old, and during her twelve years of service, first to Queen Mary and then to Elizabeth, she had kept a low profile. What happened in 1565 therefore came as a complete shock, not just to Elizabeth but to the entire court. Little Mary Grey, who had been the butt of so many jibes, suddenly found herself at the center of the biggest controversy the court had seen since her elder sister’s disgrace.

  Thomas Keyes was a steady, unremarkable member of the Queen’s staff who would have warranted no more notice in the contemporary records than the entry of his wages in the account books had it not been for his part in the scandal. Each of the royal palaces in London had a river gate from which the Queen would embark for her excursions on the Thames. As her sergeant porter, Keyes’s job was to supervise the gate at Westminster. He lived on-site, having comfortable apartments above the river gate, and it was here that this convivial and popular man often gave parties for the other servants at court.

  The nature of Keyes’s duties meant that he saw the Queen and her entourage on a regular basis. Exactly when he and Lady Mary Grey became more closely acquainted is not known; she evidently shared her sister’s aptitude for clandestine liaisons. Besides, it was no doubt a good deal easier for the couple to keep their relationship a secret because of the simple fact that nobody would ever have expected it. To the casual observer, Mary Grey and Thomas Keyes were singularly ill suited. While Mary was of royal blood, Keyes was a minor gentleman from Kent—possibly related to the Knollys family but otherwise of a much lower status than the object of his affections. He was also a widower with six or seven children, which did not make him any more obvious a suitor. But the greatest difference between the couple was in their physical appearance. As well as being twice Mary’s age, Thomas was very nearly twice her height. At six feet eight inches tall—an impressive height even now—he was a giant of a man for the time, said to be the tallest in London, if not the entire kingdom. He also had a girth to match his height, while Lady Mary was petite in all respects. It was one of the most dramatic examples in history of opposites attracting.

  Lady Mary knew full well that unless she took matters into her own hands, she would be highly unlikely ever to marry. Even if the Queen had once been prepared to consider an alliance for her, Katherine’s disgrace would have changed her mind for good. Moreover, unlike her elder sister, Mary had at least chosen a husband without any political pretensions whatsoever. On his own, Keyes posed no threat to the Crown, and Mary might have thought this would be enough to win the Queen’s forgiveness—even approval—for the match. But she, like Katherine, had gravely miscalculated.

  On August 10 or 12, 1565, after the wedding at court of his kinsman Henry Knollys, some of the household guests adjourned to Thomas Keyes’s apartments to carry on the celebrations. Later that evening, after the guests had departed, Mary and Keyes seized their chance and were married in those same apartments. It has been suggested that Keyes was drunk; certainly both he and Mary must have been out of their senses to take such a risk. But Mary had at least learned enough from her elder sister’s example to insure that there were several witnesses, including her new brother-in-law, Edward Keyes.

  Perhaps it was this fact that caused the secret to break much quicker than it had with Katherine Grey’s marriage. A little over a week later, it had reached Elizabeth’s ears. “Here is an unhappy chance and monstrous,” reported William Cecil, “the Sergeant Porter, being the biggest gentleman in the Court, hath married secretly the Lady Mary Grey, the least of all the Court.”110 It was the talk of London that Mary should have so “forgotten herself in her hasty concluding of marriage.”111 But while most saw it as a huge joke, Elizabeth was consumed with rage. “They say the Queen is very much annoyed and grieved thereat,” reported the Spanish ambassador, while Cecil noted ominously: “The offence is very great.”112 Far from seeing it as a harmless, even comic union, she was convinced that this was yet another plot by a Grey sister to take the throne. She railed that she would have no bastard of Keyes succeeding her.

  The Queen’s sergeant porter was thrown into Fleet prison, while Mary was committed to the custody of Mr. William Hawtrey at his Buckinghamshire house, Chequers.113 All the witnesses of their “unequal match” were arrested and interrogated. Elizabeth put pressure on Archbishop Grindal to declare the marriage unlawful, but he refused, much to her annoyance. At least she could prevent the newlyweds from producing any children—she had learned her lesson from the fiasco with Katherine Grey. She therefore insured that they would be kept forever separate.

  Elizabeth seemed to have a lot of prisoners to deal with that summer. The Countess of Lennox was not taking kindly to being incarcerated in the Tower a second time. She bombarded the Queen and her council with furious letters, insisting that she had “not deserved” such treatment and demanding to be released. Elizabeth was said to be “greatly offended” by one such letter, and this no doubt strengthened her resolve to keep Margaret where she was.114 Besides, her cousin was the only bait she had t
o entice the Earl of Lennox and Darnley back to England. Far from contemplating Lady Margaret’s release, she had all her properties confiscated and searched. Her acquaintances were also kept under close surveillance, and it was found that in her absence they had been acting as informants to Mary, Queen of Scots.

  On August 12, 1565, just days after the countess had been incarcerated in the Tower, Mary, Queen of Scots, urged Elizabeth to set “hir moder in law the Lady Margaret” at liberty, considering that she was “alsua [also] sa [so] tender of blude to hir majestie.” She was still insisting upon this the following February, when she appealed to her English cousin’s better nature by claiming that she had heard that Lady Margaret’s health was suffering from her “strict imprisonment.” Mary also questioned “whether she merits punishment for desiring the welfare of her child”—not an argument that was likely to win favor with the Queen.115

  It is to Mary’s credit that she continued to plead for her mother-in-law’s release, even though her marriage to Lord Darnley had already started to unravel. Arrogant, feckless, and vain, he was a singularly unsuitable choice as consort. He was crowned by Mary shortly after their marriage, and although he was still only a king consort, this newfound status gave him an even more inflated sense of his own importance. Rather than making conciliatory moves toward Moray and the Hamiltons, he seemed set upon doing everything he could to inflame their hatred of him still further. Yet initially, at least, Mary remained blind to his faults. Randolph reported: “This Queen in her love is so transported, and he grown so proud that to all honest men he is intolerable.”116 Mary had been little more than a child during her first marriage; now, a fully grown and very desirable woman, she succumbed to her sexual impulses with reckless abandon, refusing to heed the trouble her husband was causing. To her, he was “the lustiest and best proportioned long man that she had ever seen.”117 By contrast, a growing number of her subjects could see him for the worthless wretch that he was. Even Sir James Melville, who was usually effusive in his praise of Mary, decried: “No woman of spirit would make choice of such a man, who more resembled a woman than a man. For he was handsome, beardless and lady-faced.”118

  But even Mary, passionate, romantic, and in love though she was, could not long ignore her new husband’s increasingly volatile behavior. When he turned his cruelty and aggression upon her, she realized with horror what a mistake she had made in marrying him. Within months of the wedding, Elizabeth’s ambassador in Scotland reported: “I know now for certain that this Queen repenteth her marriage, that she hateth Darnley and all his kin.”119 But it was too late. Marriage was a virtually unbreakable bond for women in the sixteenth century. There was also a more compelling reason for Mary to stay with her husband: by October 1565, she knew herself to be pregnant.

  How Elizabeth received the news of this is not recorded in the surviving sources. She would certainly have been all too conscious that without any heirs from her own body, this child would have a strong claim to her throne. Darnley appeared to have no such awareness, and showed an ever-greater contempt for his pregnant wife. This reached a horrifying climax when, in March 1566, he executed a plot to assassinate her Italian secretary, David Rizzio, whose influence with the Queen of Scots he bitterly resented. As Mary was conversing with Rizzio at Holyrood Palace on March 7, she was aghast when Darnley and a group of armed men suddenly burst into the chamber. Before she knew how to act, she was seized by her husband and forced to look on in horror as he ordered his men to assassinate her secretary. Rizzio was dragged screaming into the adjoining room and stabbed to death. Mary was now a prisoner of her own husband.

  Reacting with a courage and resourcefulness that won her the admiration of many—including her cousin Elizabeth—the heavily pregnant Queen of Scots staged a daring midnight escape to Dunbar after four days of captivity. There, with the help of the Earl of Bothwell, she assembled an army and marched upon Edinburgh, immediately seizing back power. Most of the rebels fled to England, while Darnley remained in deep disgrace with his subjects. Mary now loathed him with an intensity that far exceeded her earlier love.

  At first, Elizabeth seemed disposed to believe the stories relayed by the plotters who had fled to England. Mary wrote a furious letter, marvelling that “she credits the false speaking of her unworthy subjects, whom she will hereafter know never deserved her favor or assistance to their mischievous enterprises.” She went on to condemn their murder of her “most special servant” and their treasonable actions toward her, and demanded to know if her cousin was minded “to support them against her as she boasts, for she is not so disprovided but that other Princes will help her to defend her realm.”120 Perhaps this latter consideration prompted Elizabeth to change her stance, for her attitude rapidly underwent a complete transformation. She took to wearing her cousin’s miniature portrait on a chain about her waist, clearly visible to everyone at court. She also proclaimed: “Had I been in Queen Mary’s place, I would have taken my husband’s dagger and stabbed him with it.”121 But this apparent display of female solidarity did not last, and before long, relations between the two women were as testy as they had been before.

  In April 1566, Mary took up residence at Edinburgh Castle in order to await the birth of her child, an event that took place some two months later. After a long and difficult labor, she was delivered of a son, Prince James. The news that her greatest rival had given birth to a male heir was said to have thrown Elizabeth into a deep depression. According to Melville, the Queen was dancing and “in great mirth” after supper when Cecil, who had received a note from the Scottish ambassador, discreetly whispered its contents to her. At once “all her mirth was laid aside for that night; all present marvelling whence proceeded such a change; for the Queen did sit down, putting her hand under her cheek, bursting out to some of her ladies, that the Queen of Scots was mother of a fair son, while she was but a barren stock.” The following day, Sir James went in person to Greenwich with his brother, Robert. In his memoirs, he noted that they “were met by some friends who told us how sorrowful her Majesty was at my news; but that she had been advised to show a glad and cheerful countenance; which she did, in her best apparel, saying, that the joyful news of the Queen her sister’s delivery of a fair son … had recovered her out of a heavy sickness which she had lain under for fifteen days.”122

  Melville’s account is not corroborated by any other source. Indeed, Philip II’s envoy reported that “the Queen seemed very glad of the birth of the infant.”123 Given her notorious jealousy of her cousin, however, it is likely that for all her declarations to the contrary, she was bitterly aggrieved by the news that Mary had borne a son. She had good reason to be so politically, for the arrival of a male heir created a dangerous new dimension to England’s relations with Scotland. But her resentment may have gone deeper than that. At the age of thirty-three, and with no apparent prospect of marrying or begetting an heir herself, Elizabeth was intensely jealous of her younger, more beautiful cousin, who was already on her second husband and had proven her fertility by becoming pregnant almost immediately after the marriage. She had given in to her desires and been rewarded for it. Meanwhile, Elizabeth had fought a long battle with her own feelings, eventually conceding—with great reluctance—that she must sacrifice her love for Robert Dudley to the interests of her crown. And for what gain? Little but ongoing hostility from both within and outside her kingdom, together with the ever-present threat of invasion by a Catholic potentate. Small wonder that she felt so bitter toward Mary.

  The Scottish queen’s insensitivity did not help matters. Even before the birth, she had taken every opportunity to gloat about her own fertility. In April 1566, she had sent a letter to Elizabeth, excusing her poor handwriting, which she claimed was due to her being “in her seventh month.”124 In fact, Mary’s handwriting was always rather untidy, because she had none of Elizabeth’s reverence for the written word and tended to scrawl her letters in haste. To use the rather dubious excuse of pregnancy was therefore mo
re likely intended to provoke her cousin’s jealousy. How much greater was Mary’s pride when she gave birth to a male heir. She had fulfilled her duty as a woman and a queen. In the eyes of many of her contemporaries, Elizabeth had failed on both counts.

  As a gesture of courtesy, Mary invited her cousin to be godmother to the new prince. Elizabeth made a show of being flattered, and sent the Queen of Scots a lavish gold font for the christening. Mary was apparently so enraptured upon receiving it that she declared that if she were to die, she wished her cousin to raise the boy. But Elizabeth’s true feelings were soon revealed, when Melville suggested that acting as James’s godmother would provide her with an ideal excuse to visit Mary in person—something that she had long claimed was her dearest wish. “Whereat she smiled, saying she wished that her estate and affairs might permit her.”125 Realizing that she had no intention of doing so, Melville urged her to appoint either William Cecil or Robert Dudley, her two closest advisers, to make the journey on her behalf. But again Elizabeth demurred, refusing to give him a direct answer. Eventually the Earl of Bedford was appointed for the task. This may have been a studied insult on the part of his royal mistress, for he was one of the staunchest Protestants at court and therefore rather unsuited to attend the christening of a Catholic prince.126

  The birth of a male heir to the Queen of Scots intensified the pressure on Elizabeth to name her successor. By now, both her council and Parliament were fiercely divided between the supporters of Mary Stuart and Katherine Grey. “Although the Scotch Queen has a large party in the House of Lords, it is thought that Catherine would have nearly all the members of the lower Chamber on her side,” reported the Spanish ambassador, de Silva. “It seems, therefore, that everything tends to disturbance.”127

  Mary was unable to push home her advantage, for she was beset with the increasingly volatile situation in her own country. The problem of what to do with her troublesome husband was becoming ever more acute. Hatred of Lord Darnley among the people, the nobles, and above all Mary herself had reached fever pitch. There was talk of putting him on trial for the murder of Rizzio and the imprisonment of the Queen, and also of using his fiendish practices as an excuse to secure a divorce from his wife. Mary sought the counsel of various Scottish lords, including Moray, Argyll, and Maitland, as well as the man with whom she was forming an increasingly close attachment: James Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell. It was later claimed that among the solutions they discussed was to murder Lord Darnley. Unless new evidence comes to light, this can never be proved beyond doubt. However, subsequent events suggest that Mary was at least aware of, if not an active proponent for, plots to do away with her estranged husband for good.