by Tracy Borman
The rumors proved to be true. On August 7, 1592, Elizabeth committed both Sir Walter and Bess to the Tower. The scandal was the talk of the court. The poet Edmund Spenser wrote of it in The Faerie Queene, casting Bess as “Amoret” and Sir Walter as “Timias,” who suffered at the “wrathful hand” of “Belphoebe.” Ralegh himself resorted to poetry in an attempt to win back the Queen’s favor, but to no avail. He and Bess continued to languish in that fortress with no prospect of release.
But while Sir Walter lamented his wretchedness, Bess remained unrepentant. She never showed any remorse for her actions and indeed seemed to revel in the fact that she had married one of the most desirable men of the court. Rather than seeking the Queen’s pardon, she tried to use her network of contacts to secure her release. The fact that she signed all her letters to them “Elizabeth Ralegh” is an indication of her defiance. When Elizabeth heard of this, she was highly affronted and resolved to keep her wayward gentlewoman in the Tower for perpetuity. By contrast, she soon forgave Ralegh. On September 15, he was released from the Tower and permitted to go to Dartmouth, where one of his fleets had recently returned bearing riches from the Azores. Although technically still a prisoner, Ralegh was permitted to share in the spoils. As ever, the Queen had proved much more inclined to forgive the man than the woman.
Meanwhile, Bess remained a prisoner in the Tower, abandoned by her friends and unacknowledged by her husband, who was more concerned with clawing his way back to favor. In October 1592, London was hit by an outbreak of the plague, and it may have been this that killed her young son, Damerei, who subsequently disappears from the records. By now, Elizabeth’s heart was so hardened toward Bess that she showed no sympathy at this tragic event. It was not until two months later, on December 22, that she finally granted her release.
Bess expected to be invited back to court, but her confidence was borne more of arrogance than insight, for the Queen made it clear that she would never again be admitted to her presence. Lady Ralegh was therefore obliged to join her husband at his Dorset estate of Sherborne, where they enjoyed a life of peaceful domestic harmony for the next few years and had another son, Walter, in 1593. Four years later, Sir Walter was finally allowed back to court, but his wife was bitterly disappointed to find that her banishment still stood. She continued to besiege her friends and contacts there with requests for them to speak to the Queen on her behalf. She soon realized, though, that for every person who did so, there would be at least another who stoked Elizabeth’s antipathy against her. In 1602 she complained bitterly to Robert Cecil: “I understand it is thought by my Lady Kelldare that you should do me the favour to let me know how unfavourably she hath dealt with me to the Queen … I wish she would be as ambitious to do good as she is apt to the contrary.”11
At the end of Elizabeth’s reign, Lord Henry Howard, an enemy of the Raleghs, gloatingly remarked that although “much hath been offered on all sides to bring her into the Privy Chamber of her old place,” the Queen was still determined to exclude her from it. “His [Ralegh’s] wife, as furious as Prosperpina,12 with failing of that restitution in court which flattery had led her to expect, bends her whole wits and industry to the disturbance of all motions.”13 According to Howard, in her fury Bess had sought revenge by conspiring with the Queen’s enemies and holding secret meetings with the associates of James VI in an attempt to ingratiate herself with the future king of England.14
Bess Throckmorton’s betrayal was one of many to occur in the Queen’s household during the later years of her reign. Anne Vavasour, a gentlewoman of the bedchamber, fell pregnant by the Earl of Oxford and actually gave birth in the maidens’ chamber. Her baby’s cries gave the game away, and when news of it reached the Queen, she ordered that Mistress Vavasour be conveyed at once to the Tower, even though she was still recovering from the birth. For some considerable time afterward, it was reported that “Her Majesty is greatly grieved with the accident.”15 A later controversy involved Mary Fitton, a maid of honor whom some believe was the “dark lady” of Shakespeare’s sonnets.16 She would steal out of her apartments at night disguised as a man in order to meet her lover, William Herbert, eldest son of the Earl of Pembroke. Her misdemeanor was discovered when she was “proved with chyld,” and she was banished from court.17
Having endured so many scandals, Elizabeth became deeply embittered against any of her ladies who dared to have affairs or marry in secret. Her punishments, even for minor misdemeanors, became ever more severe as she desperately tried to regain control. Her godson, Sir John Harington, noticed that she “doth not now bear with such composed spirit as she was wont; but … seemeth more forward than commonly she used to bear herself towards her women; nor doth she hold them in discourse with such familiar matter, but often chides for small neglects.”18 Leicester’s “base son,” Robert Dudley, was exiled from court in 1591 for merely kissing Mistress Cavendish, a lady of the household. Meanwhile, Elizabeth Bridges and Elizabeth Russell received a sharp reprimand for stealing a glimpse of the Earl of Essex as he played at sports. “The Queen hath of late used the faire Mrs Bridges with words and blowes of anger, and she with Mrs Russel were put out of the coffer chamber,” reported Rowland Whyte in April 1597.19 They were permitted to return three days later, but had to endure their royal mistress’s sour looks and sharp reproofs for many weeks afterward. A short while later, when the Queen suspected Lady Mary Howard of having an affair with Essex, she lashed out in fury at her maids, reducing them to tears. “She frowns on all the ladies,” remarked Harington in October 1601.20
The fact that Essex was already married had done nothing to restrain his licentiousness with the Queen’s ladies. This marriage itself had been the source of some scandal. The earl had secretly married Frances, widow of Sir Philip Sidney, much to the Queen’s anger. Although she forgave him sooner than she did his new wife, Mistresses Bridges and Russell had found to their cost that she was still highly sensitive to any transgressions involving her favorite. As well as still smarting over his secret marriage, the Queen was painfully aware that age had ravished her own looks, and her insecurity led to a jealous possessiveness. Perhaps she also knew that for all his flattery, Essex secretly mocked her as “an old woman … no lesse crooked in minde than in body,” much to the amusement of the “Ladies of the Court, whom he had deluded in love matters.”21
Essex’s remark was due to more than mere mockery. He had once burst into the Queen’s bedchamber unannounced and was aghast to find her stripped of her courtly finery, her grey hair and deeply wrinkled face rendering her virtually unrecognizable from the carefully constructed image she presented to the world. Elizabeth was no less horrified, and it was said that the episode played as great a part in the earl’s downfall as his failed insurrection some time later.
It is little wonder that the Queen took such care to shield her true appearance from all but her closest ladies. The ritual of dressing her had become increasingly elaborate as age began to overtake her. She had originally worn wigs that matched her own coloring, but as she grew older, these were used to conceal her greying hair.22 At the same time, ever more layers of makeup were applied to complete the so-called “mask of youth.” Her face, neck, and hands were painted with ceruse (a mixture of white lead and vinegar), her lips were colored with a red paste made from beeswax and plant dye, and her eyes were lined with kohl. Ironically, most of these cosmetics did more damage to the skin than aging ever could. Ceruse was particularly corrosive, and one contemporary observed with some distaste: “Those women who use it about their faces, do quickly become withered and grey headed, because this doth so mightily drie up the naturall moisture of their flesh.”23 But Elizabeth insisted that she continue to be adorned with this and other dangerous cosmetics, and only ever let her closest ladies see what lay beneath.24
This was more than mere vanity on the Queen’s part; it was essential that a sovereign be presented in as magnificent a style as possible in order to emphasize his or her divinely appointed status an
d authority. One contemporary described Elizabeth as “most royally furnished, both for her persone and for her trayne, knowing right well that in pompous ceremonies a secret of government doth much consist, for that the people are naturally both taken and held with exteriour shewes.”25 For Elizabeth, it was also imperative that she appeared as youthful and attractive as possible—on the surface at least—in order both to uphold her marriage prospects and to show no sign of bodily weakness that her enemies could seize upon.
At the end of each day, in the privacy of her bedchamber, Elizabeth’s ladies would remove her dark red wig, jewels, and other accessories, and gently wipe off the thick makeup that covered her face, bosom, and hands. Thus divested of her queenly adornments, Elizabeth would become the private woman once more. As the gulf between her public persona and what lay beneath grew ever greater, so did the fierceness with which she guarded these secluded hours with her ladies.
Despite all her efforts, the onset of old age was becoming increasingly obvious to everyone at court. Sir John Harington noticed that Elizabeth had started to let herself go, and described her as being “much disfavourd, and unattird.” The Venetian envoy, Scaramelli, agreed that she who had once been such a leader of fashion was now sadly out of touch: “Her skirts were much fuller and began lower down than is the fashion in France,” he reported, adding: “her hair is of a light colour never made by nature.”26 As she tried desperately to stop the “mask of youth” from slipping, Elizabeth appeared as a grotesque parody of her former self. Reporting on his visit to court in 1597, Monsieur de Maisse sniggered that she was “strangely attired” in an elaborately decorated dress that was so low cut that “one could see the whole of her bosom,” which he added was “somewhat wrinkled.”
On another occasion, de Maisse reported with a mixture of amusement and disgust that “she often opened this dress and one could see all her belly, and even to her navel.” Her hair, which had long since turned grey, was covered by a “great reddish-coloured wig, with a great number of spangles of gold and silver, and hanging down over her forehead some pearls, but of no great worth.” Meanwhile, her face “appears very aged … and her teeth are very yellow and unequal, compared with what they were formally, and on the left side less than on the right. Many of them are missing so that one cannot understand her easily when she speaks quickly.” In desperation, Elizabeth tried to maintain the pretense, fooling herself and others that she was still the most desirable woman in Europe. “When anyone speaks of her beauty she says she was never beautiful, although she had that reputation thirty years ago. Nevertheless, she speaks of her beauty as often as she can.” John Chapman, who had served in Lord Burghley’s household, also saw through the Queen’s attempt to “dazzle” her subjects by her ever more outrageously ostentatious clothes, so that by “those accidental ornaments [they] would not so easily discern the marks of age and decay of natural beauty.” Lorenzo Priuli, the Venetian ambassador in France, was more brutal, describing Elizabeth as being of an “advanced age and repulsive physical nature.”27
Elizabeth’s fading looks were mirrored in the loosening of her grip on the affairs of the court, where the formerly strict moral standards now began to decay rapidly. As new generations of young ladies joined her household, they were frustrated by what they perceived to be the Queen’s old-fashioned attitudes, and they were unwilling to make the sacrifices of their predecessors in order to serve her faithfully. “Now there was much talk of a Mask which the Queen had at Winchester, & how all the Ladies about the Court had gotten such ill names that it was grown a scandalous place, & the Queen herself was much fallen from her former greatness and reputation she had in the world,” reported the Countess of Warwick’s niece.28 Meanwhile, William Fowke observed: “The talk in London is all of the Queen’s maids that were,” and related how the real cause of Mrs. Southwell’s absence from court was found to be not a “lameness in her leg,” as she claimed, but her having fallen pregnant by a “Mr. Vavisor.”29 A contemporary verse poked fun at the widespread licentiousness that now existed within Elizabeth’s household:
Here lyeth enterred under this Mound,
A Female of Sixteen yeares old.
More men than yeares have been upon her
And yet she died a Maid of Honor. 30
Another of the Queen’s ladies who put sexual gratification ahead of service was Elizabeth Vernon, a cousin of the Earl of Essex. She succeeded in attracting one of the most notorious rakes at court, Henry Wriothesley, third Earl of Southampton. Strikingly attractive, with bright blue eyes, long auburn hair, and a lithe figure, the earl had many admirers at court, both male and female. In a veiled reference to his sexual ambiguity, Thomas Nashe paid him the following dubious compliment in 1594: “A dere lover and cherisher you are, as well of the lovers of Poets, as of Poets themselves.” The earl was a great patron of poets and playwrights (including William Shakespeare), and many of his closest companions were male. Nevertheless, he also displayed a fondness for ladies at court, and in the late 1590s he began an affair with the alluring Elizabeth Vernon, a maid of honor who was then, like him, in her midtwenties.
From the beginning, it was clear that the passion was more on her side than his, and the earl soon tired of her cloying affection. In January 1598, Rowland Whyte reported that there had been “some unkindness” between them.31 Seeking a way out of the relationship, the earl declared his intention to travel abroad, at which “his faire mistress doth wash her fairest face with to many tears.” He secured Robert Cecil’s agreement that he should accompany him on a mission to France, and when he left a few weeks later, Mistress Vernon was described by Rowland Whyte as “a very desolate gentlewoman that hath almost wept out her fairest eyes.”32 With shrewdness born of many years at court, Whyte had already guessed that her grief was due to more than just pining for her absent love. As he rightly predicted, the fair Elizabeth had fallen pregnant.
Mistress Vernon attempted to conceal her “grave condition” for as long as possible. Eventually, though, her increasing girth caused tongues to wag. Ever one for gossip, Sir John Chamberlain gleefully observed: “Some say that she hath taken a venue [a thrust, in fencing terms] under the girdle, and swells upon it,” adding: “yet she complains not of foul play but says the Earl of Southampton will justify it.”33 When news of his mistress’s pregnancy reached the earl, he was predictably reluctant to return home and do his duty. Elizabeth Vernon had anticipated this, however, and persuaded the Earl of Essex to intercede with him on her behalf. Essex proved as good as his word, and arranged for Southampton to be conveyed back to England in the strictest secrecy. He then provided his own house in London as a venue for the wedding. That Elizabeth Vernon was desperate to marry, despite the many examples of other ladies at court falling foul of the Queen in this way, suggests that she—like they—wished her child to be legitimate.
Soon after the ceremony, which took place in August, the Earl of Southampton returned to France, while his new wife stayed on for a while at Essex House. She had found a trusty protector in its owner, for when the time came for her to be delivered, he sent her to stay with his sister, Lady Rich, who was well used to hushing up scandals, having had various extramarital affairs of her own. On November 8, 1598, Elizabeth was delivered of a baby girl, whom she christened Penelope after her hostess.
By now, the affair was one of the worst-kept secrets at court, and it soon reached the Queen’s ears. When she was told of the “Lady of Southampton and her adventures,” she was furious at being deceived yet again. “Her patience was soe muche moved that she came not to ye Chapple,” reported one of Essex’s servants. It was bad enough that another of her ladies had been embroiled in such a scandal, but what made it worse was the involvement of the Queen’s chief favorite, whose enemies were quick to inform her that he had organized the wedding. “She threatenethe them all to the tower, not only the parties but all that are partakers of the practize,” reported the same servant, adding with some irony: “I now understand that
the Queen hathe Commanded that there shalbe provided for the nouille [new] Countesse the sweetest and best appointed lodgings in the fleet [prison].”34
Meanwhile, Sir Robert Cecil had written to Southampton on the Queen’s behalf, ordering him back to England “with all speed.”35 “I must now put this gall in my ink, that she knows that you came over very lately, and returning again very contemptuously; that you have also married one of her maids of honour without her privity, for which with the circumstances informed against you, I find her grievously offended; and she commands me to charge you expressly (all excuses set apart) to repair hither to London, and adventure your arrival without coming to Court, until her pleasure be known.”36 Southampton wrote at once to his friend the Earl of Essex, lamenting “her Majesty’s heavy displeasure conceived against me.” He added, rather optimistically: “My hope is that time (the nature of my offence being rightly considered) will restore me to her wonted good opinion.”37
His confidence was misplaced. Upon returning to London, Southampton was consigned immediately to the Fleet prison, where his new wife was languishing in one of the most unpleasant lodgings. They remained there until Elizabeth considered that they had learned their lesson. Still hopeful of being restored to the Queen’s household, after their release the new Countess of Southampton went to court with her husband to request an audience. They joined the throngs of people waiting to petition the Queen as she made her way to chapel, but Elizabeth walked straight past them as if they were invisible. After waiting for a further two hours, the Countess sent a message to her former royal mistress via Lady Scudamore “that she desired her Majesty’s resolution.” Elizabeth angrily retorted “that she was sufficiently resolved but that day she would have a talk with her [the Countess’s] father.”38 She duly spoke to Sir John Vernon and instructed him to take his daughter home in disgrace.