by Tracy Borman
It is also possible that Elizabeth’s show of remorse at her cousin’s execution was at least partly genuine. When she heard of the manner of Mary’s death, she was horrified at the lack of dignity that had been accorded to her. Mary had been deprived of her servants as she made her way to the scaffold, and she had been “led like a lamb to the butchery.” The many accounts of the blundering executioner would also have appalled Elizabeth, who was already sensitive enough to female sovereigns being put to death, thanks to the experience of her mother and stepmother, both of whom, like Mary, had represented carnal femininity. Little wonder that she claimed to have nightmares about it for many years to come. What appalled Elizabeth most, however, was that she had put a fellow sovereign to death. She had an almost superstitious revulsion about doing so, convinced that vengeance would be wreaked upon her by either an earthly or heavenly force. Fear for her own future now mingled with remorse.
For all her professed anguish at the death of Mary, Queen of Scots, Elizabeth failed in the most basic duty toward her cousin. By July 1587, some five months after the execution, Mary’s corpse still lay rotting in Fotheringay Castle. The stench, which was already “noisome,” had become intolerable in the summer heat, so that none wished to enter the room where it was kept. At the end of that month, Elizabeth finally gave orders for her cousin’s body to be moved to Peterborough Cathedral for burial. Although she made a show of ordering a lavish funeral, with full royal honors and great pomp, it was too little, too late. Furthermore, while it was not customary for royalty to attend funerals, the woman whom the English queen chose to represent her as chief mourner was not even the highest-ranking member of her entourage. This fact, together with the apparent neglect over ordering the funeral in the first place, seemed like a deliberate insult to the late queen. Only after Elizabeth’s death were Mary’s remains reinterred at Westminster Abbey by her son in a rather belated show of filial loyalty. She was buried in the chapel directly facing that of her English cousin—in death, as in life, on opposing sides.
CHAPTER 13
Gloriana
If Elizabeth had hoped that by putting her cousin Mary to death she would be extinguishing her most dangerous rival for good, then she was mistaken. In a sense, the woman whom the Duke of Norfolk had referred to as the English queen’s “competitress”1 was an even more threatening adversary now than she had been in life. In executing her cousin, Elizabeth had given her an almost mythical status. Mary had made sure that in the eyes of the world she died a martyr, not a traitor. She had called upon the Catholic powers to avenge her death, and the very next year, the greatest of them took her at her word.
In May 1588, Philip II launched his armada against England, ostensibly in Mary’s name, even if he had other motives. This was the greatest threat that Elizabeth had faced in her reign, and that England had faced since the Norman invasion more than five hundred years before. Of course, it was not entirely due to Mary, but her death had given Philip the excuse he needed finally to destroy this troublesome heretical queen who had so long defied him. Just as she had when agonizing over Mary’s fate, so Elizabeth was again forced to set aside her customary prevarication and lead her country decisively into battle.
When the English queen emerged victorious, it transformed her image into one of invincible majesty that became ever more idealized as her reign progressed. Like Mary, she had attained mythical status—but in her own lifetime. In so doing, she had been compelled to abandon the hesitation and doubt born of youth and insecurity, and instead embrace a more confident, resolute vision of herself. It was in finally resolving the complex question of what to do with Mary, Queen of Scots, and in dealing with the dramatic repercussions that followed, that Elizabeth was able to mature into the Gloriana of legend.
The defeat of the Spanish Armada won Elizabeth greater popularity than ever before. Ever one to capitalize upon public opinion, she made sure that her subjects were in little doubt that the victory was thanks to God’s favor toward her, and ordered commemorative medals to be struck that carried the words: “God blew with his wind and they were scattered.” Even her most implacable adversaries were forced to acknowledge the greatness she had attained. Shortly after the victory, Pope Sixtus V exclaimed: “She is only a woman, only the mistress of half an island, and yet she makes herself feared by Spain, by France, by Empire, by all!”2 Elizabeth had apparently conquered not just Philip II’s armada but also the widely held prejudices against her ability to rule as a “mere woman.” In a marked contrast to his earlier remark, Lord Burghley declared: “There was never so wise woman born as Queen Elizabeth.”3 She had come to reign as absolutely as her father, dominating her ministers and brooking no opposition to her will. Toward the end of her reign, one contemporary marvelled that it was “a rare thing that a woman sitting in council amongst the gravest and best experienced men of her time should be able to examine and individually to control their consultations.”4
Emphasizing her divine status had enabled Elizabeth to transcend what she perceived to be the weakness of her sex. It had also won her widespread acclaim and loyalty among her subjects. She claimed that it was because she had been chosen by God that she, a “mere woman,” was able to rise above her natural weaknesses and rule over a kingdom. The divine nature of her status was stressed time and again in her speeches. When pressured by Parliament to take a husband, she told them that even though “the weight and greatness of this matter” might be considered too much for her feminine understanding, “yet the princely seat and kingly throne wherein God (though unworthy) hath constituted me … boldeneth me to say somewhat in this matter.”5
By presenting herself as God’s chosen queen, Elizabeth ensured that no subject—whether male or female—could oppose her will. She told another of her parliaments: “I am your anointed queen, I will never be by violence constrained to do anything.” She later wrote a prayer of thanks to God “for making me (though a weak woman) yet thy instrument to set forth the glorious gospel of thy dear son Christ Jesus.”6 She claimed that it was thanks to God’s protection that she had survived the perils of her half sister’s reign to become queen herself. “It is thou who hast raised me and exalted me through thy providence to the throne … pulling me from the prison to the palace, and placing me a sovereign princess over the people of England.” Later, in her famous “Golden Speech” to Parliament in 1601, she again drew attention to the contrast between her frailty as a woman and her power as a divinely appointed sovereign, declaring: “Shall I asribe anie thing to myselfe and my sexelie weaknes I were not worthie to live then and of all most vnworthie of the mercies I have had from god.”7
As her reign progressed, Elizabeth would invoke her divine status to devastating effect. She became not just God’s representative on earth but also a divinity herself: the peerless Virgin Queen whose powers set her apart from ordinary mortals. Presenting herself in this way was a stroke of genius, for it rendered her maidenly state something to be celebrated and admired. She was the Virgin Mary here on earth, appointed by God to bring her people to glory. Even in her own lifetime, myths and legends began to surround her, thanks in no small part to the adulatory poems and prose that were written in her honor. She was “Gloriana,” “a most royal queen and empress” to Edmund Spenser, as well as “Diana,” “Cynthia,” “Astraea,” and “Belphoebe,” “a most virtuous and beautiful lady.” The portraits of her became ever more fantastical, emphasizing her ethereal nature as an eternally youthful goddess ruling over her adoring subjects.
But this was not the only strategy the Queen employed to secure her people’s loyalty. In rallying her troops at Tilbury when the onset of the armada was imminent, she had given one of the most famous speeches of her reign, telling the assembled masses: “I know I have the body of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart and stomach of a King, and a King of England too.”8 On many other occasions, she would promote herself as a king or a prince in the speeches she gave to her subjects. “I have the heart of a man,
not of a woman, and I am not afraid of anything,” she once declared.9 Whenever she needed to stamp her authority upon overbearing councillors or ambassadors, she would often invoke a more specific male image by comparing herself to her father, Henry VIII. In one of her speeches to Parliament, she told them: “And though I be a woman, yet I have as good a courage, answerable to my place, as ever my father had.”10
At the end of Elizabeth’s reign, Sir Robert Cecil reflected that she had been “more than a man, and, in truth, sometimes less than a woman.”11 The Queen did indeed have a number of characteristics that sixteenth-century society understood to be distinctly male. For a start, she had an exceptionally sharp mind and was the intellectual superior of most of her male contemporaries. She was also remarkably brave in the face of adversity. “She had more valour in her than was fit for a woman,” remarked one of her contemporaries with a mixture of admiration and disapproval.12 Elizabeth’s remarkable energy and vigor were also viewed as masculine traits. She was a tireless horsewoman and would hunt and hawk with as much enthusiasm as her male courtiers. Unlike many women who followed the chase, she shot as well as rode, and did not flinch from cutting the throat of a deer when it had been cornered. Even in old age, she would still enjoy brisk early morning walks in the gardens of her palaces, tiring out many of her young female attendants in the process. It was said that she preferred the male steps of the galliard, a popular dance of the time, because these involved athletic leaps. She was often boisterous. When amused, she would laugh as uproariously as a man, and at other times would storm through her apartments, slapping and beating her ladies.13
Nevertheless, the fact that Elizabeth was a highly sensual woman who revelled in her male courtiers’ attentions suggests that she was far from being the one-dimensional “honorary male” that some commentators have claimed. Although she often bemoaned the weakness of her sex, this was more in terms of the limitations it threatened to place on her power. In other ways, she celebrated her femininity and used it to devastating effect in bringing her courtiers to heel.
One of her most feminine traits, at least in the eyes of her male courtiers, was her tendency to delay and procrastinate when faced with pressing issues. The question of her marriage was the most notorious example of Elizabeth’s delaying tactics, but there were many others. Whenever she was under pressure to make a decision, she would excuse herself on the basis of her “feminine weakness,” and would drive her councillors to distraction as she vacillated between one option and another. Indecision was seen as a typical female failing, so this confirmed their fears about having a queen to rule over them. Few of them realized that Elizabeth was merely playacting. The experience of her childhood and the example of Mary’s reign had taught her the danger of inflexibility. Catherine of Aragon had stubbornly refused to submit to the king’s will, and had died miserable and impoverished as a result. Mary Tudor had doggedly pursued her vision of restoring Roman Catholicism to England without realizing that in so doing she was losing the goodwill of her people. Elizabeth had learned that single-minded principles brought little but grief and suffering in the end; it was far better to be pragmatic and alter one’s policy according to the ever-shifting tides of politics.
What her ministers took to be indecision or procrastination was actually political shrewdness and a determination to wait and see which way the tide would turn. The Queen was also deliberately unpredictable and made it impossible for her councillors to judge what she was really thinking. “Hir wisest men and beste counsellors were oft sore troublede to knowe hir wyll in matters of state: so covertly did she pass hir judgemente,” recalled Sir John Harington.14 The wisdom of this policy was proved time and again. By keeping her various suitors in play with “answers answerless,” she navigated England through the turbulent waters of international politics. And by refusing to act precipitately against Mary, Queen of Scots, she was rewarded when that same woman was delivered into her clutches after fleeing from Scotland. Few, if any, of her male contemporaries seemed to realize that this was a deliberate ploy. “It is very troublesome to negotiate with this woman, as she is naturally changeable,” complained the Count de Feria.15
More positively, Elizabeth was capable of showing a very tender kindness and sympathy for her subjects. She wrote a heartfelt letter of condolence to her friend Lady Margery Norris, whom she affectionately called “My Old Crow,” upon the death of the latter’s two sons in the Irish wars. “Harm not yourself for bootless help, but shew a good example to comfort your dolorous yoke-fellow [husband],” she began. “Nature can have stirred no more dolorous affection in you as a Mother for a dear Son, than a gratefulness and memory of his service past, hath wrought in Us his Sovereign.”16 She showed a similar sensitivity when the Countess of Huntingdon’s husband died, and also wrote a kind letter to Elizabeth Drury upon the death of hers, assuring her: “a queen for her love, who leaves not now to protect you when your case requires care.”17
During the early part of her reign, Elizabeth had drawn more attention to her masculine than her feminine attributes. As it progressed and she grew more confident as a queen regnant, she allowed both sides of her character to shine through. She also interchanged them as the situation demanded. She was the belle dame sans merci to her courtiers, an infuriatingly indecisive and parsimonious woman to her councillors, a mother to her people, and the Virgin Queen to all. But when it suited her, she would suddenly invoke her “kingly” majesty in order to show courage in the face of battle, assert her intellectual and political acumen, and lambast her recalcitrant councillors if they refused to do her will.
In her Golden Speech of 1601, Elizabeth claimed “the glorious name of a King” but added that she had the “royall authoritie of a queene.”18 This interchanging of imagery was what made her such a brilliant monarch. It set her apart from all her predecessors—kings and queens alike—and created a unique identity that would assume iconic status both during her own lifetime and over the centuries that followed.
The armada was a pivotal point in this development of the so-called Cult of Elizabeth, giving her the confidence to experiment with and promote her image. Her confidence was matched by that of her kingdom: England had faced down the might of Spain and begun to establish itself as a world power. But the year 1588 was also one of immense sorrow for the Queen. Just a few short weeks after her victory over Philip II’s fleet, her closest male favorite, Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, died. Elizabeth was grief stricken at the loss of the only man whom she had truly loved. For the rest of her life, she kept in a locked casket by her bed a note that he had written her shortly before his death. The Queen inscribed it “His last letter.”19 In the days immediately after his death, she kept to her rooms, unable to face her court or council, and she would often fetch a tear at the mention of his name.
By contrast, Leicester’s widow was preoccupied by more material concerns. Although he had in theory left Lettice well provided for with an annual income of £3,000 per year, together with £6,000 worth of plate and furniture, he had bequeathed her the unenviable task of acting as executor to his estates. “The question is whether she would be wise in the circumstances to accept the office,” observed one of her associates.20 She would have done well not to, for in the ensuing years, she was beset by a series of costly legal battles over her late husband’s estates. The most serious of these involved Robert Dudley, his son by Lady Douglas Sheffield, whose inheritance of Kenilworth caused Lettice considerable difficulties, for the adjoining manors had been bequeathed to her.
The greatest problem Lettice faced, though, was how to settle Leicester’s debts. These were substantial, totaling some £50,000, of which £25,000 was owed to the Crown. It was in vain that she pleaded with the Queen to release her from these debts. This was Elizabeth’s chance for revenge, and she grabbed it with both hands, ordering a minute examination of Leicester’s estate so that she could recover every last penny that was owed to her. She pursued her old rival relentlessly over the ensuing mon
ths until the latter was forced to sacrifice a large part of her jointure, including Leicester House, as well as a number of her jewels.21
But the countess “was of a light, easy, healable nature” and refused to be bowed by either Elizabeth’s persecution or her own increasing penury.22 This fact was proved when, in July 1589, she married again, barely ten months after Leicester’s death. Her new husband, Christopher Blount, was a friend of her son, Robert, and was some seventeen years her junior. The marriage shocked society, and even Lettice’s adoring son lamented her “unhappy choyce.” She defended her action by claiming that she needed the support of a husband in her troubles, but few people believed her.
For the next few years, Lettice retreated into the background—much to Elizabeth’s relief. The execution of Mary, Queen of Scots, the previous year had removed another rival. But Elizabeth had learned that there would always be others to take their place. In late summer 1588, a young woman arrived at court who would plague the English queen for the rest of her days.