by Tracy Borman
Elizabeth knew all about the courtship between one of her leading noblemen and the pretty young Swedish girl. Although Helena could so easily have sparked the Queen’s notorious jealousy, Elizabeth seemed as fascinated by her as everyone else. Moreover, she did not object to William Parr’s attempts to secure her as his bride; indeed, she seemed just as eager to keep Helena in England as he was. In the end, it was she who came to the lovers’ rescue by offering Helena a place in her household. The young girl was overjoyed. “I can never thank God Almighty enough for the joy he has given me in a foreign land,” she wrote to her mother.18 Princess Cecilia left for Sweden shortly afterward, in April 1566, declaring that she was “glad enough to get out of this country.”19
Elizabeth had taken a big risk in interfering in the dispute among Princess Cecilia, William Parr, and Helena Snakenborg. By insisting that the latter remain in England, she was flouting the accepted protocol of the day, whereby a sovereign had authority over her own ladies—not other people’s. Given that the king of Sweden was still a contender for Elizabeth’s hand in marriage, she would not have risked causing a diplomatic incident so lightly. That she should take the risk at all seems to have been entirely due to her own attachment to Helena. In a very short space of time, the latter had endeared herself to the Queen. Although a great beauty, Helena was also disarmingly modest and had a gentle, kind disposition. She was also completely enthralled by Elizabeth and tried to emulate her in dress and manner. She even copied her signature, underlining the H with the same elaborate flourish that Elizabeth used for her E. Imitation was truly the best form of flattery in this case, for the Queen was charmed by Helena’s admiring attentions.
It is an indication of how much Elizabeth liked her new protégée that she also flouted the conventions for appointing ladies to her service. Helena Snakenborg had no family connections in England, and any diplomatic worth she might have had was offset by the fact that she had caused great offense to the Swedish princess by remaining in the country. The Queen appointed her a maid of honor, and as this post was usually unsalaried, awarded her a host of additional privileges, including a comfortable apartment, a body of servants, and a horse. She also asked Blanche Parry to make sure that Helena had everything she needed.
Helena proved as conscientious in her duties as the Queen had anticipated, and before long she was an indispensable member of the household. In recognition, Elizabeth later promoted her to gentlewoman of the privy chamber. This placed her at the very heart of the royal court, for she was now with the Queen constantly and controlled access to her by the throngs of courtiers desperate for an audience. She would often accompany her royal mistress when the latter gave such audiences or went on excursions outside the palace, and was one of the most beautiful ornaments of the court. Edmund Spenser extolled her virtues in a poem he wrote later in the reign, casting her as “Mansilia” and the Queen as “Cynthia.” It is clear that by this time, Helena had become one of the most prominent members of Elizabeth’s entourage:
No lesse praisworthie is Mansilia,
Best knowne by bearing up great Cynthia’s traine …
She is the paterne of true womanhood,
And onely mirrhor of feminitie:
Worthie next after Cynthia to tread,
As she is next her in nobilitie.20
But while Helena’s career at court had flourished, her relationship with William Parr had not run so smoothly. Although he had divorced his first wife, Lady Anne Bourchier, in 1551, he did not feel able to marry again while she was still alive, because questions had been raised about the validity of that divorce. Helena seemed to accept this with sanguinity. It no doubt helped that her suitor kept her extremely well provided for. She told her mother that he had appointed ten of his own servants to wait upon her and give her “everything I can fancy,” adding: “I cannot imagine I shall ever want for anything however beautiful or expensive that his Lordship can buy without his getting it at once for his Elin.”21
The couple were rewarded for their patience in 1571, when Anne Bourchier died. They finally married that May after a courtship that had lasted almost six years. By that time, Helena was so high in favor with the Queen that Elizabeth offered the couple her own closet at Whitehall Palace for the ceremony and further honored them by attending it herself. The fifty-seven-year-old groom and his twenty-two-year-old wife went on to enjoy a happy but all too brief marriage, dividing their time between the marquess’s houses in Guildford, Surrey, and Stanstead Hall, Essex, so that Helena could still attend court regularly. At the end of September 1571, they accompanied Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, to Warwick, but while there, the marquess fell gravely ill. He had been plagued by gout for some time, and he now took a turn for the worse. A lodging was found for him in Warwick, and Helena nursed him faithfully for several weeks. He never recovered, dying on October 28 after being married to his beloved Helena for just five months. Elizabeth bore the whole charge of the funeral and oversaw all the arrangements, even down to providing material from her own wardrobe for the mourning garments.
Parr had left his young widow so well provided for that she could have retired to a life of comfort. But Helena was anxious to continue her service to the Queen, and therefore returned to court as soon as her late husband’s affairs had been settled. Elizabeth was overjoyed to have her back, particularly as there would now be no distractions to her service as a result of domestic affairs. Helena was equally glad to be with her royal mistress once more, and before long it was as if she had never been away.
Rather less favor was shown toward Lady Mary Sidney. Despite the enormous personal sacrifice she had made by nursing Elizabeth through smallpox and being permanently disfigured by it herself, Elizabeth was slow to appreciate her virtues. Yet Mary had all the qualities that Elizabeth looked for in the ladies of her household. At heart selfless and obliging, she had a patient, uncomplaining disposition and was eager to serve her royal mistress in whatever capacity she desired.
No matter how conscientious Lady Mary was in her attendance, she was hampered by the Queen’s increasingly volatile relationship with her brother, Robert Dudley. The 1570s proved a difficult time for Lady Mary at court, thanks to the various scandals in which Lord Robert was involved. Regardless of how faithful, loyal, and devoted she proved herself to be, her royal mistress seemed to scorn her efforts and find her more of an irritation than a comfort. When Lady Mary appeared at court wearing a gown made from some velvet that her husband had sent her from Ireland, the Queen immediately demanded that he send her some of the same. There was a note of hysteria in Mary’s letter to her steward in July 1573, urging him to procure the material at any cost. She insisted: “You may not slake [slack] the care hearof for she will tack it ill and it is now in the wourst tyem for my lord for divers consyderacions to dislyek her for souche a trifle.”22
The Queen gave Lady Mary scant reward for her services, and the latter soon found herself in financial difficulties. As an unsalaried member of the privy chamber, she was dependent upon annual stipends from her husband, Sir Henry Sidney. But he too was sinking further into debt, thanks to the huge sums he had had to lay out in Ireland, and now in his Welsh estates. When he was offered a barony in 1572, he could scarcely afford the expenses that went with it, and his wife therefore begged William Cecil, Lord Burghley, that he might be excused from the honor unless it was accompanied by an increase in his estate.23
Although unsalaried, Lady Mary was entitled to free board and lodgings at court, but even here there were complications. After a brief absence from court, she found that her accustomed rooms (which, thanks to her brother’s intervention, were spacious and comfortable) had been given to somebody else, and instead she had been allocated a rather shabby apartment that lacked heat and basic furnishings. After putting up with these uncomfortable conditions for more than two years, she eventually resolved to write to the Lord Chamberlain, Thomas Radcliffe, third Earl of Sussex, who was also her husband’s brother-in-law. “Her Ma
jesty hath commanded me to come to the courght and my chamber is very cold and my owne hangings very scant and nothynge warme,” she complained. Her health had been irreparably damaged by the smallpox, and her living conditions at court had aggravated her various ailments. She told Sussex that her “great extreamyty of syknes” meant that she dare not “aventure to lye in so cold a lodginge without some forther healpe.” She might have reflected just how much things had changed: In her brother’s heyday, she had not only had luxurious rooms herself but also had been able to procure others for her friends and family.24 Now she was forced to humbly beg for “3 or 4 lyned peacis of hangings” to keep out the drafts, and assured Sussex that as soon as the weather turned warmer, “they shalbe safely delivered agayne. And I shall think my sealfe most bownde unto yow yt your pleasure be to shew me this favour.”25
Lady Sidney’s pleas fell upon deaf ears. Eventually, worn down by such petty humiliations as much as by ill health, she left for her Welsh estates in the summer of 1579. Despite the often spiteful treatment her royal mistress had inflicted upon her, she had served her faithfully to the end. Her departure apparently prompted no acknowledgment on the part of the Queen, and it might have slipped from the records altogether had it not been for a remark made by Don Bernardino de Mendoza, the Spanish ambassador, on July 6 that a sister of the Earl of Leicester “of whom the queen was very fond and to whom she had given rooms at court” had retired to her own home.26
The changes in Elizabeth’s household during the 1560s and early 1570s were distracting enough on their own, but they served merely as a backdrop to the issue that had come to dominate her life. Mary Stuart’s arrival in England threw her relationship with Elizabeth into sharp relief. As queens of neighboring countries, their rivalry had been intense enough; now that they were in the same kingdom, that rivalry assumed a different intensity altogether. Elizabeth’s bewitching cousin, the woman who had by turn fascinated and repelled her, was suddenly tantalizingly close. There was no longer any obstacle to their meeting. But rather than bringing them closer together—emotionally as well as geographically—the Queen of Scots’ fateful decision to flee south of the border would set the two cousins on a collision course that could end only in death.
On May 17, 1568, Elizabeth received news that her cousin had arrived at Workington and had been lodged at nearby Carlisle Castle. She immediately wrote to congratulate her upon her escape and instructed the bearer to convey certain messages relating to Mary’s “estate and honour.” Apparently not being able to resist spelling out some of these messages herself, she chided her cousin that if she had had “as much regard to her honour as she had respect for an unhappy villain, every one would have condoled with her misfortunes, as to speak plainly not many have.”27
Despite this inauspicious beginning, Mary apparently had no doubt of her cousin’s support. Indeed, she had given little thought to other options as she had lain exhausted at Dumfries. Yet these did exist. She could have remained there for long enough to muster the considerable number of supporters who still existed in Scotland. Or she could have fled to France, where, despite the recent disapproval of her actions, she would have been assured of at least a safe exile. Nevertheless, it was Elizabeth’s outspoken support that convinced Mary that she would be the surest means of restoring her to her throne. As Melville later observed: “She never rested till she was in England, thinking herself sure of refuge there, in respect of the fair promises formerly made to her by the Queen of England.”28
In reality, Mary’s arrival in England had thrown Elizabeth into a dilemma. It had been comparatively easy to pledge her support when her cousin had been in her own kingdom, but now that she was under the English queen’s jurisdiction, it was an entirely different matter. All the powers of Europe, not to mention the newly formed Scottish council, would expect her to take decisive action one way or the other: either to support Mary and send an army to Scotland to fight for her restoration, or to side with the regent Moray, who had long proved a good friend to England. Such a situation was not at all to Elizabeth’s taste. She much preferred to manage diplomatic affairs from a distance, maintaining England’s fragile alliances with the kind of “fair promises” that she had given Mary. Now the latter’s presence in her own country had effectively forced her hand.
While she debated with her council over what to do, Elizabeth ordered that Mary should be kept under close guard at Carlisle. It was not made clear whether this was for her protection or imprisonment; indeed, Elizabeth herself did not yet know the answer to that. In the meantime, there were more immediate practical matters to see to. Upon her arrival in England, Mary had written to her cousin, pleading: “I have nothing in the world, but what I had on my person when I made my escape.”29 She therefore urgently needed fresh garments. With very bad grace, Elizabeth agreed to provide them, and selected some of the shabbiest gowns from her own wardrobe. When an embarrassed Sir Francis Knollys arrived at Carlisle with these, he first claimed that the clothes had been chosen for “lightness of carriage,” but upon noting Mary’s frosty silence, he changed his story and pretended that the Queen had misunderstood her request, assuming that the clothes were needed for her maidservants. Elizabeth clearly resented the dilemma in which her cousin had placed her and was determined to make her grateful for any charity—no matter how meagre—that she showed toward her. Mary’s failure to write a letter of thanks is entirely understandable, but Elizabeth had the audacity to berate her for ingratitude and demanded to know how her gifts had been received. A hapless Knollys admitted: “her silence argues rather scornful than grateful acceptance.”30
Before a decision had been reached over what to do with this “daughter of debate,” as Elizabeth termed her, the Queen was anxious to assure the French king that she would do everything in her power to further Mary’s cause. She instructed her ambassador in France, Sir Henry Norris, to “let the French King know she has provided all things for Mary’s safety and means speedily to proceed in consideration how she may reduce her honourably in concord with her subjects.”31 Although subsequent events would prove the falseness of her words, they were enough to convince many at court that she was genuinely resolved to support her cousin. Even the ever-critical Spanish envoy, de Silva, believed that Elizabeth was doing everything she could to persuade her council to restore Mary. He told Philip II: “It is said that this Queen took the part of the queen of Scotland, but her views did not prevail as a majority of the Council was of a different opinion.” He went on to summarize the dilemma that Elizabeth faced: “If this Queen has her way now, they will be obliged to treat the Queen of Scots as a sovereign … If they keep her as if in prison, it will probably scandalise all neighbouring princes, and if she remain free and able to communicate with her friends, great suspicions will be aroused.”32
But not everyone was so anxious to see Mary restored. When her mother-in-law heard of her flight to England, she and her husband hurried at once to court. Dressed in deepest mourning, they went down on their knees before Elizabeth and begged her to avenge their son’s killer. The countess’s face was said to be “all swelled and stained with tears,” and her wailing was so loud and so prolonged that the Queen lost patience and dismissed the couple from her presence, telling them that she would not condemn Mary unheard. She was now in the midst of a delicate diplomatic situation that had wide-reaching ramifications, both in her kingdom and across the Continent. She would not be bullied into acting precipitately by a cousin whom she had never liked. Besides, Mary had already complained that Lady Margaret had been allowed to voice her allegations to the Queen, whereas she had been denied the chance to defend herself in person.
As the weeks dragged on, Mary grew increasingly impatient with her cousin’s apparent inaction. She had expected to be immediately invited to court, where the two queens could discuss the best way to restore her to her throne. In her impatience, she wrote an indignant letter to Elizabeth, complaining of her failure to meet her. The English queen wrote an equall
y indignant reply, chastising Mary for her impatience and urging: “Pray do not give me occasion to think that your promises are but wind.” The fact that it was Elizabeth’s promises, not Mary’s, that were the issue was conveniently ignored. She ended on a more conciliatory note: “I assure you I will do nothing to hurt you, but rather honour and aid you,” and signed the letter “Your good sister and cousin Elizabeth.”33 Not content with her response, Mary proceeded to bombard her cousin with a series of long and impassioned letters, all pleading with her to honor her promise of support.
Mary was not the only one who began to doubt the English queen’s motives and those of her council. “They have their signs and countersigns, and whilst they publicly unite and do one thing, they secretly order another; and as this Scotchman says, the Queen of England uses towards his mistress fair words and foul deeds,” reported de Silva in July.34 Eventually, pressured into action, Elizabeth convened a conference to inquire into Mary’s grievances and those of her chief adversary, the Earl of Moray, in order to resolve their differences. The plan was that Mary would then be restored to her throne, although her powers would be strictly limited by the Scottish Council. If Elizabeth thought this would appease her cousin, she was soon proved wrong. Mary was highly affronted at having to prove the justice of her cause, having been sure that Elizabeth would defend her unquestioningly as a fellow sovereign. Nevertheless, she had little choice but to go through with the conference.
This was convened at York in October 1568. While she had no doubt hoped that she would be able to present her case in person and, better still, finally meet her English cousin, Mary was forbidden to attend and instead had to content herself with sending commissioners to represent her. Moray, however, was present, which was an ominous sign for Mary. After a month of presentations and debate, the conference was moved to Westminster, where the Queen could play a more active part in proceedings. However, by now it had ceased to be an assessment of the relative merits of each side and had become an investigation into Mary’s guilt. Desperate to convince Elizabeth of this, Moray produced a series of correspondence that has since gained notoriety as the “Casket Letters.” These purported to prove that Mary had had an adulterous affair with Bothwell while she was still married to Lord Darnley, and that she and her lover had plotted the latter’s death. The letters have since been proved almost beyond doubt to be fakes, but at the time they were sufficient to condemn Mary in the eyes of most of Elizabeth’s council and to destroy any hope of a compromise with Moray.