by Tracy Borman
The Queen refused to allow her former maid of honor ever to return to her service, and the latter therefore spent the rest of the reign flitting between her father’s and husband’s estates, and the London home of their ally, the Earl of Essex. Unusually, neither did her husband ever recover the Queen’s favor. In June 1599, his friends at court informed him that she was still “possessed with a very hard conceit” against him. When Essex found him employment in Ireland as general of the horse, Elizabeth “sharply chided” her favorite and told him to remove the earl forthwith, for she had “taken displeasure against Southampton, because he had without acquainting her, contrary to that which noblemen were wont to doe, secretly married Elizabeth Vernon.”39
Essex had also made an unsuccessful attempt to rehabilitate his mother, Lettice, the Queen’s old adversary. Even though Lettice was still in theory a member of Elizabeth’s household, having never been formally dismissed, the Queen made it plain that, highly though she esteemed Essex, his mother would never be forgiven. Lettice, who had retired to her house at Drayton Bassett in Staffordshire, declared herself to be on strike until such time as her royal mistress might relent. However, in private she complained to her son that this exile only added “greater disgrace” to her situation.40
After languishing there for two years, the countess was heartened by news from her friends at court that “her majesty is very well prepared to hearken to terms of pacification,” and assured her son that she would journey there with all haste, even in the depths of winter.41 She duly made her way to Essex House in January 1598 and awaited a summons. Meanwhile, the court was buzzing with anticipation at the thought of witnessing the reunion of these two old adversaries. “The greatest newes here at Court is an expectation that my Lady Lester shall come to kisse the Queen’s hands,” reported Rowland Whyte, adding that “yt is greatly labored in, and was thought shuld have bene yesterday, but this day a hope is yt wilbe.” Four days later, he wrote again to say that “her Majesty will not yet admyt my lady his [Essex’s] mother to come to her presence, having once given some hope of yt.”42
The Queen was in no hurry to summon back to court the woman whom she still referred to as the “she-wolf.” In fact, she seemed to enjoy keeping her on tenterhooks. On March 1, it was arranged that Elizabeth would meet Lettice at the home of Lady Chandos. A “great dinner” was duly prepared, and the countess hastened to the house with “a faire jewell of £300” to present to her royal mistress. However, “upon a soddain she [Elizabeth] resolved not to goe, and soe sent word.” Essex was furious when he heard of this slight to his mother and went at once to the Queen, not stopping to change out of his “night gown.” For once, he found his way barred, and even when he tried to access her apartments by “the privy way,” he failed to gain admittance and was forced to go back to his bedchamber.43
Just as Lettice had given up hope and was preparing to leave for her country estates, she finally received the long-awaited summons. The meeting between these two great rivals was courteous but brief. “My Lady Lester was at Court, kissed the Queen’s hands and her brest, and did embrace her,” reported Whyte, noting that Elizabeth had kissed Lettice in return before drawing the audience to a close. The countess was far from forgiven, however, and the Queen had no intention of repeating the encounter. When Lettice, who was “very contented” by the event, tried to push home her advantage by expressing a wish “to kiss the Queen’s hands” again, her request was summarily dismissed.44 Within days, Elizabeth was referring to the countess with “some wonted unkind words,” and made it clear that she would never again grant her an audience. When Essex pleaded with her to relent, she snapped that she had no wish “to be importuned in these unpleasing matters.” Thenceforth, if ever he sulked or proved disobedient (which was often), she would say that he had inherited his difficult nature from his mother.45
The countess either did not realize that her royal mistress had reverted to her former antipathy or set little store by it, because two years later she was again petitioning to meet her. This time, it was on her son’s behalf, for he had fallen from favor as a result of having flouted the Queen’s orders while serving in Ireland. Lettice tried everything to try to persuade Elizabeth to receive her and even sent a “most curious fine gown” worth £100. Elizabeth admitted that she “liked it well, but did not accept nor refuse, only answered, that things standing as they did it was not fit for her to desire what she did.”46 The countess did not give up. She came to stay with her daughter, Lady Penelope Rich, in order to be closer to the court and her son, who was by now under house arrest. In February 1600, the two women moved to a house that overlooked Essex’s prison, but when Elizabeth heard of this, she was incensed. “The Earl of Essex is little spoken of at Court,” reported Whyte. “Mislike is taken that his mother and friends have been in a house that looks into York garden where he uses to walk, and have saluted each other out of a window.”47 Undeterred, Lettice subsequently moved to her son’s own house in the hope of seeing him when he was released, but this only made Elizabeth more determined not to grant him his liberty.
Although Essex was eventually released and restored to some measure of favor with the Queen, he was highly aggrieved by his diminished influence at court, which his enemies (in particular, Sir Robert Cecil) had orchestrated in his absence. His nature was marked by a dangerous combination of arrogance and intemperance, and, in 1601, blind to the consequences, he launched a rebellion to oust his enemies from the council. His friend and stepfather, Christopher Blount, was among the rebel force, along with several other high-ranking noblemen. But it failed to gain more widespread support and was easily quashed by the royal forces. Although Essex claimed that his revolt had not been against the Queen but her ministers, he was convicted of high treason and sentenced to death. While he languished in the Tower, his mother was at her house in Drayton Basset, frantic with worry. She adored her “Sweet Robin” with a clinging, possessive love that bordered on the incestuous.48
Lettice left no trace of her feelings upon hearing of her son’s rebellion and conviction. There are no touching last letters to her son, or to her husband, who had also been condemned to death. Neither did she go to plead with the Queen for his life. She had apparently finally realized just how much Elizabeth despised her and had no wish to make matters worse. When the axe severed the heads of her son and husband on February 25, 1601, she might have reflected, in the torment of her grief, that her old rival had finally wreaked her revenge. Yet it was a revenge that destroyed Elizabeth just as much as her despised adversary, for she had loved Essex with a fierce possessiveness that rivalled his mother’s, and the agony of having to order his death was said to have hastened her own. In the long-running battle between the two women, it was not clear who had won.
The Queen and Lettice would never meet again. After her son’s death, the countess had no wish to return to court, even if she had been welcome. Robert Cecil later recalled that she had been “long disgraced with the Queene” and their rift would never be healed. When Lettice died in 1634 at the remarkable age of ninety-three, at her request she was buried at Warwick “by my deere lord and husband the Earle of Leicester.”49 In death, as in life, she was determined to gain the upper hand over her rival.
It looked certain that the Queen would take the same revenge upon Elizabeth Vernon as she had upon Lettice Knollys. The Earl of Southampton had been arrested for his involvement in Essex’s rebellion and sent to the Tower to await his fate. Meanwhile, his wife wrote frantic letters to Sir Robert Cecil, begging him to secure a pardon from the Queen, who now held her husband’s life in her hands. Lamenting the “miserable distress of my unfortunate husband,” and declaring her “infinite and faithful love unto him,” she ventured “humble petitions to His holy anointed [the Queen], prostrate at her feet if it might be, to beg some favour.” Bitterly regretting having lost her royal mistress’s favor when it might have saved her husband, she described herself as “the most miserable woman of the world … And
in that through the heavy disfavour of her sacred Majesty unto myself, I am utterly barred from all means to perform those duties and good to him I ought to do.”50
It seemed that her pleas had fallen on deaf ears, for on February 17, the Earl of Southampton was found guilty of high treason and sentenced to death. Beside herself with panic and grief, the countess again wrote to Cecil. “The woeful news to me of my Lord’s condemnation passed this day makes me in this my most amazed distress, address myself to you. I do beseech you to conjure you by whatsoever is dearest unto you that you will vouchsafe so much commiseration unto a most afflicted woman, as to be my means unto her sacred Majesty that I may by her divine self be permitted to come to prostrate myself at her feet, to beg for mercy for my Lord.”51 Still Elizabeth refused to grant her former maid an audience. However, her heartfelt plea may have had some effect, for the Queen eventually commuted Southampton’s sentence to life imprisonment.
Back at court, Elizabeth’s ladies were growing increasingly impatient with their mistress’s authority and showed little respect toward her. Lady Mary Howard was typical of this new breed of courtier. Tired of the strictures that Elizabeth had imposed with regard to her ladies’ dress, Lady Mary one day appeared at court in an ostentatious gown made from a rich velvet and “powdered with golde and pearle.” Harington recalled that this had “moved manie to envye; nor did it please the Queene, who thoughte it exceeded her owne.” Elizabeth was so jealous that a few days later she ordered a servant to steal the gown from Lady Mary’s chamber and bring it to her. She duly put it on herself and paraded it in front of her ladies, demanding to know “How they likede her new-fancied suit?” None of them dared to admit that it was “far too shorte for her Majesties heigth.” At length the Queen addressed Mary Howard herself, who resentfully snapped that it was “too short and ill becoming.” “Why then,” Elizabeth purred, “if it become not me, as being too shorte, I am minded it shall never become thee, as being too fine; so it fitteth neither well.” According to Sir John Harington: “This sharp rebuke abashed the ladie, and she never adorned her herewith any more.” The dress was carefully packed away, never to be seen again while Elizabeth was on the throne.52
Far from being “abashed,” Lady Mary deeply resented this humiliating reprimand, and thenceforth she refused to carry the Queen’s cloak or serve her drinks at mealtimes, as her duties required. When Elizabeth upbraided her for insolence, she “did vent such unseemly answer as did breed much choler in her mistress.”53 It is a sign of how much things had changed that a lady should dare to show such disrespect.
Mary Howard was by no means the only one of Elizabeth’s ladies to flout her authority. It was said that they often laughed at her behind her back for “trying to play the part of a woman still young.”54 The Earl of Essex’s rebellion in 1601 had seriously destabilized the Queen, making her ever more fearful and paranoid. “These troubles waste her muche,” reported Harington. “Every new message from the city doth disturb her … the many evil plots and designs have overcome all her Highness’ sweet temper. She walks much in her privy chamber, and stamps with her feet at ill news, and thrusts her rusty sword at times into the arras in great rage … the dangers are over, and yet she always keeps a sword by her table.”55
According to another observer: “the court was very much neglected, and in effect the people were generally weary of an old woman’s government.”56 Increasingly, they looked north of the border to James VI, anxious to ingratiate themselves with the Queen’s likely successor. As Camden noted: “They adored him as the Sunne rising, and neglected her as now ready to set.”57 Elizabeth was well aware of this and was tormented that “the question of the succession every day rudely sounded in their ears.”58
Although it seemed ever more likely that James would succeed, another potential claimant to the throne was causing the English queen a great deal of unease. Thanks to her royal blood, Arbella Stuart’s name had been linked to a whole host of suitors during the 1590s and early 1600s. It was even rumored “that Sir Robert Cecil intends to be king, by marrying Arabella, and now lacks only the name.”59 Arbella had paid a third visit to court in 1592, accompanied by her grandmother. Bess of Hardwick had been determined to secure Arbella’s place in the succession, and despite all the previous setbacks, she had confidently anticipated that Elizabeth would use the occasion to name Arbella her heir. She had therefore planned their journey south as a triumphal procession, and they had arrived at court in magnificent state that June. Arbella had again attracted attention at court, but Elizabeth had stopped short of acknowledging her as the next Queen of England. Bitterly disappointed, the girl later reflected: “What fair words I have had of courtiers and councillors, and so they are vanished into smoke.”60
Even though her visit to court had not been a success, Arbella was far from glad to leave. She was becoming increasingly frustrated with her grandmother’s oppressive regime, and the latter no doubt added to her misery by chastising her for her conduct at court, which seemed to have well-nigh ruined her hopes for the succession. Once back at Chatsworth, things went from bad to worse. Now in her late teens, Arbella became increasingly rebellious, and one of Bess’s stewards reported that she was neglecting her studies and refusing to go to bed at the accustomed hour, preferring to stay up late making “merry.”61
Her grandmother reacted by imposing even more limitations upon her freedom. She ordered that Arbella was to be kept under strict surveillance at all times, and more often than not, she herself was the custodian. “She was under very strict custody of her grandmother, Lady Shrewsbury,” reported Marin Cavalli, the Venetian ambassador in France, “and was never allowed to be alone or in any way mistress of her actions.”62 Being forced to spend so much time with her aging, overbearing grandmother, and having no company of her own age, Arbella grew ever more resentful. James VI would later recall “that unpleasant life which she hath led in the house of her grandmother with whose severity and age she, being a young lady, could hardly agree.”63
In 1597 Bess took her granddaughter to live at her magnificent new home, Hardwick Hall. Although a change of scene might have provided a temporary relief from her oppression, Arbella was soon just as miserable as she had been at Chatsworth. Blinded by her own ambition, Bess failed to see the effect that her domineering influence was having on the girl. Arbella’s behavior became increasingly erratic, but the more she lashed out against her grandmother’s strictures, the more severe these became. Even though she was now well into her twenties, Arbella was still treated like a child, and complained of “being bobbed and her nose played withal” if she disobeyed her grandmother. John Starkey, the chaplain at Hardwick, noted with some sympathy that the girl’s misery “seemed not feigned, for oftentimes, being at her books, she would break forth into tears.”64
Eventually it became too much to bear, and in late 1602 Arbella hatched a plan to escape. Frustrated by the many negotiations for her marriage, all of which had come to nothing, she resolved to find a husband for herself. The man that her hopes alighted upon could hardly have been a less appropriate choice. Edward Seymour was the grandson and namesake of the first Earl of Hertford, who had caused such a scandal all those years ago by marrying Lady Katherine Grey. Allying herself to a family that had long been tainted by treachery was a disastrous move. Moreover, Edward Seymour was himself of royal blood, so the Queen was sure to suspect a conspiracy.
It was no easy matter for Arbella to make contact with her intended husband, for her grandmother continued to watch her like a hawk. But a number of Bess’s servants sympathized with her plight and hated to see how harshly she was treated. One of them, John Dodderidge, risked his position by agreeing to convey a message from Arbella to the Earl of Hertford, who was then living at his house in London, which proposed that she marry his sixteen-year-old grandson.
When Dodderidge reached the earl’s house and handed over his young mistress’s urgent message, it did not elicit the response that she had expected. The earl ha
d only recently been in trouble with the Queen for trying to prove the validity of his marriage to Lady Katherine Grey, so he was horrified when he learned of Arbella’s scheme, knowing that even to have received her message was enough to implicate him. With “many bitter reprehensions,” he chastised Dodderidge for thus coming to him and immediately informed the council. The hapless messenger was duly placed under armed guard and questioned before being sent to the court for further interrogation by Sir Robert Cecil. In the meantime, he managed to send a secret message to Arbella, warning her: “My reception here is contrary to all expectation.”65 She never received it.
When Elizabeth learned of Arbella’s plan, she was outraged. This haughty young woman, whom she had never liked, had confirmed all her prejudices by trying to marry a scion of the most traitorous family in England. That her choice of husband was himself of royal blood made it certain, in the Queen’s mind, that Arbella had been plotting to seize the throne. In fact, this had probably been far from the foolish young woman’s mind: her primary motivation had been to escape her miserable life at Hardwick, and she had probably not thought beyond that. But Elizabeth was convinced that it was part of a greater conspiracy and was determined to punish the perpetrators.
News of the controversy spread like wildfire, and before long it had reached the courts of Europe. In France, Cavalli reported “the uproar, which has happened in England recently, about Arbella.” When the perpetrator herself heard that she had been discovered, she “went down on her knees and implored pardon; declaring that she had taken this step to induce the Queen to change her prison, for she knew that any other must be much milder than the one she was in.”66 But Elizabeth’s suspicions would not be dispelled so easily, and she dispatched one of her trusted officials, Sir Henry Brouncker, to Hardwick in order to interrogate Arbella. She instructed him to talk to the young woman alone, without the overbearing presence of her grandmother, who would no doubt attempt to answer the questions herself.