Elizabeth's Women

by Tracy Borman

  Meanwhile, the Countess of Warwick’s sister-in-law, the widowed Katherine Hastings, had risen to prominence at court. It was observed that the Queen would keep her by her side for many hours of the day. This prompted Katherine’s nephew to seek her intervention in his perpetual quest for leave from the Netherlands. At first she was reticent to use her favor with Elizabeth in this way. She was also mindful of Robert Cecil’s growing power and, being more cautious than her sister-in-law, did not wish to alienate him. “I found a fear in her to speak for you,” reported Whyte. “All see 200 [Cecil]’s power and fear to displease.”32 He was more hopeful a few months later, when he wrote to Sidney: “her access is good, and she very gracious with her Majesty.” By February 1598, it was noted that “Lady Huntingdon is at Court and with her Majesty very privat twice a day.” Even so, she still gave little indication that she was willing to intervene on her nephew’s behalf. “I see no fruit come to you by it,” complained Whyte, “though none so fit as herself to do it … I cannot see what good she doth for her frends.”33

  Although Whyte concluded that the Countess of Huntingdon’s influence must be very limited, it is at least equally possible that she was reticent to further her nephew’s requests because she knew how much Elizabeth needed to keep him in his vitally important post. The countess had also seen at firsthand how little her sister-in-law, Lady Warwick, had benefited from persisting in furthering his suits: indeed, it had diminished her standing at court. Therefore, only when she judged both the case and the timing to be right would she agree to intervene with her royal mistress on his behalf. In the meantime, she grew so impatient with Rowland Whyte’s frequent pleas for assistance that she refused to grant him an audience. “Lady Huntingdon has been at Court these 7 days,” he whined to his master in May 1600. “I am made a stranger unto her.” Two months later, he was still complaining that “she admittes me not to her presence.”34

  Perhaps it was Katherine’s refusal to exploit her position that endeared her to Elizabeth even more. Being constantly besieged by petitions from her ladies, it must have made a refreshing change that Lady Huntingdon was apparently content to spend time with the Queen for the pleasures this brought her rather than for any more material benefits. By summer 1600, she had supplanted even Lady Warwick in Elizabeth’s affections, and it was noted that “She governes the Queen, many howres together very private.”35 The use of the word governes is interesting. It is tempting to take it literally and conclude that Lady Huntingdon had somehow succeeded where no woman—or man—had before by making Elizabeth subservient to her will. More likely, however, is that it was the Queen’s time, not her person, that Katherine dominated. She would not have been able to do so unless it was Elizabeth’s professed desire.

  The idea that Elizabeth came to prefer the company of those ladies who did not try to use their positions for their own gain is borne out by looking at the remaining members of her close entourage during these later years of her reign. They included Katherine Howard, Countess of Nottingham. Although Katherine had had five children during the course of her long marriage, she had always returned to her post as soon as possible after each birth and carried out her duties with extraordinary diligence. Elizabeth rewarded her faithful service by giving her ever-greater responsibilities. She was among a select group of ladies who were entrusted with the care of the royal jewels, including those given as New Year’s gifts to the Queen. These were as extensive as they were valuable. On one New Year’s Day alone, Katherine took charge of three heavily ornate necklaces, four precious stones, two bracelets, twenty pairs of aglets, two jewel-encrusted bodkins, a bezoar stone (a stone from the liver of animals, thought to be a cure for various diseases), a bejewelled gown, and an orange taffeta waistcoat covered in gold lace.36 She herself was not stinting in the gifts she presented to her royal mistress. Knowing Elizabeth’s fondness for animals, she once gave her “a jewell of golde being a catt and myce playing with her garnished with small diyamonds and perles,” and on another occasion a gold greyhound with a diamond-studded collar, and a gold and ruby dolphin.37

  Around 1572, Katherine had been promoted to first lady of the bedchamber, one of the most exalted offices in Elizabeth’s household. As well as being in constant personal attendance upon the Queen, she supervised her royal mistress’s extensive wardrobe, and the Spanish ambassador noted that she also presided over the table of the ladies of the privy chamber. Her prestigious position, combined with Elizabeth’s obvious affection for her and their ties of kinship, placed Katherine in an extremely influential position. Yet it is testament to her loyalty to the Queen that, for the most part, she chose not to exploit this for her own gain. In stark contrast to the numerous petitions received by the likes of Anne and Katherine Dudley, the contemporary sources contain only a handful of references to Lady Howard’s involvement in patronage.

  Katherine was one of the most faithful and longest serving of all Elizabeth’s attendants. She was also one of the few women left at court who had known Elizabeth before she became queen, and she represented the traditional values of loyalty and selfless devotion that her royal mistress had come to prize so highly. The same was true of Mary Radcliffe, who had served the Queen for more than thirty years and had never lost her good opinion. As a result, she enjoyed some prestige, but it is to her credit that she too chose never to exploit it.

  By contrast, Helena Snakenborg had suffered a temporary loss of favor in 1576 when she had married Thomas Gorges, a groom of the privy chamber, even though the Queen had refused her permission. Helena had been distraught when her royal mistress had dismissed her from court, and she had written to beg forgiveness for “a poure, desolat, and banished creture.”38 Elizabeth soon forgave her, and even when she was obliged to leave court again two years later in order to give birth to her first child, her royal mistress was so far from resenting it that she agreed to act as godmother, and presented Helena with a beautiful silver-gilt bowl at the christening. Helena repaid the Queen’s trust by refusing to exploit her position to further the causes of friends or associates, and she came to enjoy a great deal of influence because of it.

  Elizabeth would have need of companions such as Helena Gorges, Katherine Howard, and Katherine Dudley during the later years of her reign. They represented a precious link with the past in a court that was increasingly looking to the time when this aging queen would no longer be at its apex.

  CHAPTER 15

  “Flouting Wenches”

  Sir Francis Knollys, the aged vice chamberlain of the Queen’s household, found his duties at court ever more tiresome in the later years of the reign thanks to the boisterous antics of the ladies and maids of honor whose chamber adjoined his own. An old man in need of his sleep, he complained that they would “frisk and hey about in the next room, to his extreme disquiete at nights, though he had often warned them of it.”1 Elizabeth herself was growing increasingly impatient with the young girls who served her, preferring the company of her faithful old friends and servants. As she grew into old age, she became ever more intolerant of their audacious antics and often “swore out [against] such ungracious, flouting wenches,” making them “cry and bewail in piteous sort.”2 Her anger was perhaps born of frustration at losing her grip on the formerly strict moral standards at her court, and of bitterness that she herself was no longer young and desirable, no matter how much her fickle courtiers might flatter her so.

  More often than not, Elizabeth’s outbursts at the “flouting wenches” of her household were prompted by her discovery that they had married or had affairs in secret. This had always been a source of friction between Elizabeth and her women, but as her reign progressed, it became an increasingly frequent occurrence. It seemed that almost every year, there were scandals involving clandestine seduction, unwanted pregnancies, or elopements. By the late 1590s, this had become so prevalent that one courtier disapprovingly noted: “Maides of the court goe scarce xx [20] wekis with child after they are maryed, wherein man hath lybertie of cons
cience to play the knave.”3

  One of the most notorious scandals of the 1590s involved Elizabeth (Bess) Throckmorton. Bess had entered the Queen’s service as a gentlewoman of the privy chamber in 1584, at the age of nineteen. The Throckmorton family had long been connected to the court, although not always to their advantage. Bess’s mother, Anne, had been imprisoned with Lady Jane Grey and had suffered mental torture from witnessing her fate. Her father, Sir Nicholas Throckmorton, had had a checkered relationship with the Tudors. Under Henry VIII he had been appointed to the household of his cousin, Katherine Parr, where he had become acquainted with the young Princess Elizabeth. However, during Mary I’s reign, he had been implicated in the Wyatt rebellion, only narrowly escaping with his life and fleeing to exile on the Continent. He returned upon Elizabeth’s accession, and she demonstrated her regard by appointing him to several important posts, including that of ambassador to France. It was there that he became acquainted with Mary, Queen of Scots, and he was so beguiled by her that he would often take her side against his royal mistress, which earned him a sharp reprimand. In 1569 he was suspected of involvement in the Duke of Norfolk’s plot to marry the Scottish queen and was thrown into prison. Although he was subsequently released, he never regained Elizabeth’s trust.

  Sir Nicholas died in 1571, when Bess was just six years old. If she understood little of his fall from grace at that time, she would have learned his fate as she grew into adulthood. Later events would prove that it had not imbued her with the same sense of caution that her royal mistress had learned from her own childhood experiences.

  Bess’s appointment to the privy chamber was a prestigious one for a girl of her age. She was one of the few salaried members of Elizabeth’s household and was also granted bouge of court (food from the royal kitchens), as well as three of her own servants. Bess soon proved an asset to the Queen. She was already well used to the etiquette of the court, having been introduced there at the age of seven. As a result, she needed little training for her role in the privy chamber. Elizabeth appreciated the speed at which Bess learned her duties, and she soon became one of her most trusted ladies.

  Intelligent, witty, passionate, and forthright, Bess Throckmorton was by all accounts also something of a beauty. A description of her written some years later praised her as “a fair handsome woman,” whose “charms” beguiled many men at court.4 She had an exquisite sense of style and embellished the black-and-white gowns that she and her companions were obliged to wear with as many jewels as she could get away with under the Queen’s jealous scrutiny.

  Among Bess’s many admirers was Sir Walter Ralegh, the man who had succeeded Leicester as the Queen’s great favorite. Born in 1554, Ralegh was some twenty-one years Elizabeth’s junior, but he paid court to her like a lover, showering her with romantic poems and letters, all praising her beauty and allure. Ever the gallant, he treated his royal mistress like a precious jewel and went out of his way to fulfil her every desire. According to popular legend, on one occasion he threw down his cloak over a “plashy place,” so that the Queen might walk over it without getting her feet wet.5 Ralegh’s looks were those of the eponymous romantic hero. Tall, dark, and handsome, he was also athletic and brave, having embarked upon various daring voyages to far-flung corners of the globe. Elizabeth was delighted by his attentions, and before long their relationship was a source of much gossip at court. In December 1584, a foreign visitor was astonished to see the obvious intimacy that existed between them, and described how the Queen had pointed “with her finger at his [Ralegh’s] face, that there was a smut on it, and was going to wipe it off with her handkerchief; but before she could he wiped it off himself.”6

  Elizabeth was not the only woman at court to be beguiled by this handsome adventurer. Many of her ladies fancied themselves in love with him. A natural flirt, Ralegh encouraged their attentions with tales of daring escapades in faraway lands. Like Leicester, he was discreet in his flirtations and no doubt bedded many more women at court than he admitted to. He certainly had the opportunity. As captain of the gentleman pensioners, he was sworn to protect the Queen’s ladies and had a key to their chambers. He was always careful to keep any liaisons from the Queen in order to maintain the pretense that she was the sole object of his devotion. But when the seductive young Bess Throckmorton caught his eye, he was so desperate to have her that he abandoned his accustomed discretion—with catastrophic results.

  The antiquarian John Aubrey provides a salacious account of Ralegh’s seduction of a “maid” at court, who was almost certainly Bess. He wrote that Sir Walter “loved a wench well: and one time getting up one of the maids of honour aginst a tree in a wood … who seemed at first boarding to be something fearful of her honour, and modest, she cried, ‘Sweet Sir Walter, what you me ask? Will you undo me? Nay sweet Sir Walter! Sweet Sir Walter!’ At last, as the danger and pleasure at the same time grew higher, she cried in the ecstasy ‘Swisser Swatter! Swisser Swatter!’ ”7

  It is not clear exactly when the affair began, but it was likely to have been in 1590 or 1591, by which time Bess had fallen in with the Earl of Essex’s circle of wild friends, which included his sister, Penelope, and Sir Walter Ralegh. They would hold wild parties at Essex’s house, long after the Queen had retired, donning raunchy clothes and eating suggestively shaped food “to stir up Venus.” Their debauched gatherings formed a stark contrast to the strictly controlled etiquette of the court, and Bess revelled in them. No matter how late she stayed out, she would always be back in her chambers by six o’clock the following morning, ready to serve her mistress.

  This carefree existence came to an abrupt end in July 1591, when Bess discovered herself to be with child. In panic, she fled to her lover and begged him to marry her. No doubt aghast at the prospect of their secret being discovered, Sir Walter nevertheless did the honorable thing and made Bess his wife. Theirs had been more than just a thoughtless affair, for they seemed to share a genuine love for each other. Even so, Ralegh was taking a considerable risk in marrying the girl, knowing how his royal mistress would react if she found out. Meanwhile, Bess continued with her duties in the privy chamber, hiding her swelling stomach as best she could. She finally secured a leave of absence from court at the end of February 1592, when she was more than eight months pregnant, and went to the house of her brother Arthur, who had enlisted the services of a midwife.

  Bess may have succeeded in concealing her pregnancy from the Queen, but rumors had begun to circulate about her relationship with Ralegh, and her sudden departure from court set tongues wagging even more. Sir Walter had also absented himself and was at Chatham docks supervising preparations for an expedition to Panama. When he heard that his secret was being whispered throughout the court, he wrote with some alarm to Robert Cecil, who had been no great friend to him in the past, and denied any involvement with Bess. “I mean not to come away, as they say I will, for fear of a marriage and I know not what,” he assured him. “And therefore I pray believe it not, and I beseech you to suppress what you can any such malicious report. For I protest before God, there is none on the face of the earth that I would be fastened unto.”8

  Thus betrayed by her husband, Bess was forced to endure the ordeal of childbirth alone. On March 29, she gave birth to a son. A messenger was dispatched straightaway to Chatham, and Ralegh responded by sending £50 to his wife. However, he continued to prepare for his voyage, and two days later he travelled to Portland in Dorset to gather men and munitions. In his absence, Essex attended the secret baptism that Bess had arranged for her son, who was christened with the curious name of Damerei, after one of Ralegh’s Plantagenet forebears, the royal dynasty that preceded the Tudors. She was back at court just four weeks later and, with some audacity, resumed her duties to the Queen as if nothing had happened.

  But as had so often been proved in the past, no secret could remain hidden for long at court. In late May the scandal broke, and the Queen discovered her gentlewoman’s betrayal. The scale of Bess’s trea
chery was staggering. Not only had she married Elizabeth’s closest favorite, but she had also broken the vows of loyalty that she had sworn upon entering the privy chamber. Her illusions about Ralegh’s ardent affection shattered, the Queen lashed out at the perpetrators, her fury stoked by humiliation at being so deceived. Bess’s first reaction was one of defiance. She collected her baby son from his wet nurse and went to her husband’s London home, Durham House. He joined her there shortly afterward, and they enjoyed a brief day together as a family before Elizabeth’s men came to haul Bess away to the custody of Sir Thomas Heneage, one of the Queen’s most trusted spymasters. Both she and Ralegh, who remained under arrest at Durham House, were subjected to fierce interrogation, along with Bess’s brother and his wife.

  Ralegh desperately tried to clamor his way back to favor by sending urgent messages to the Queen—his “nymph” and “goddess”—lamenting his misery at being deprived of her presence and assuring her of his undying love. Upon hearing that Elizabeth was leaving for Nonsuch Palace, he wrote to Cecil: “My Heart was never broken till this Day, that I hear the Queen goes away so farr of, whom I have followed so many Years, with so great Love and Desire, in so many Journeys, and am now left behind her in a dark Prison all alone … I, that was wont to behold her riding like Alexander, hunting like Diana, walking like Venus, the gentle Wind blowing her fair Hair about her pure Cheeks, like a Nymph, sometime siting in the Shade like a Goddess, sometimes singing like an Angell, sometimes playing like Orpheus: behond the Sorrow of this World!” Apparently despairing of life now that he was deprived of his sovereign’s presence, he begged Cecil to “Do with mee now therfore what yow list,” for he was “wery of life.”9

  Such melodrama did Ralegh few favors. Having learned the extent of his betrayal, which had involved not just a secret courtship but also a marriage and birth, the Queen was in no mood to be seduced by his overblown romantic sentiments. As she tried to make up her mind what to do with him, rumors began to circulate that he and his new wife would be thrown in the Tower as common traitors. On July 30, 1592, Sir Edward Stafford, husband of Lady Douglas Sheffield, wrote to Anthony Bacon about “the discovery of Sir Walter’s having debauched that lady,” and told him: “If you have … anything to do with Sir Walter Ralegh, or any love to make to Mrs Throckmorton, at the Tower tomorrow you may speak with them.”10