All the Queen's Men (4 page)

Cecil had become her land surveyor after Elizabeth inherited Hatfield, a royal residence she had lived in intermittently since early childhood. William Cecil was an extremely hard-working and conscientious individual, qualities which greatly appealed to the young Elizabeth and thus a long and fruitful relationship began.

Throughout the summer and autumn of 1558, Queen Mary's life remorselessly ebbed away. Both the Queen and her Court recognized this fact and Mary was reluctantly persuaded by her Privy Council to confirm Elizabeth as the legitimate successor to the throne. Mary died in the early hours of 17 November 1558. Sir Nicholas Throckmorton, later to be Elizabeth's ambassador in Paris, rode out to Hatfield, carrying with him the Queen's wedding ring as proof of her death. A number of courtiers had already galloped ahead and it is said that in spite of the winter's cold, they discovered Elizabeth in the garden seated under an oak tree quietly contemplating the Bible. Upon hearing the joyful news she fell to her knees and after a considerable pause was heard to murmur in Latin the words of the twentieth-third verse of the 118th Psalm, ‘This is the Lord's doing: and it is marvellous in our eyes.'
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Elizabeth had trodden a perilous path to the throne, during which time she avoided numerous fatal pitfalls. These had been formative years, that were to prove highly beneficial in later life, for although Elizabeth had acquired no proper training in the art of ruling a kingdom, she had received an excellent formal education from William Grindal and Roger Ascham, two of the foremost scholars in the kingdom. Her intense experiences of life had taught her valuable lessons, given her a penetrating insight into human nature and prepared her for the loneliness and isolation that invariably accompanies supreme power. These factors were to stand her in good stead during the long and arduous reign ahead. Elizabeth was to rule significantly longer than her father and nearly twenty years more than her grandfather. Indeed, between William the Conqueror and Elizabeth I, only two monarchs had ruled England for a greater length of time.

Elizabeth displayed a number of natural attributes which were hugely beneficial to a successful ruler: an obvious regal presence, boundless energy, great intelligence, a fund of common sense and most important of all, the ability to capture her subjects' loyalty and then retain it. She had an instinctive grasp of how to rule a kingdom and motivate its subjects to best effect. This was just as well: England was in desperate need of a charismatic ruler to repair its fortunes and its shattered prestige. The nation floundered in the reign of her father and had sunk into gloomy mediocrity during those of her half-brother and sister. The glory days lay ahead.

T
he centre of power and prestige in Elizabeth's kingdom continued to be the Royal Court, for while Parliament was becoming progressively more important than it had been in the Middle Ages, it was still those immediately around the monarch who set the political agenda and put it into practice. Thus any ambitious man seeking power and affluence came to Court in order to ingratiate himself with Elizabeth and those within her immediate circle who could be most beneficial to him in the pursuit and fulfilment of his desires. The perceptive young Queen was quick to appreciate the situation and fully exploit it for her own ends: ‘The Queene did fishe for men's souls, and had so sweet a baite, that no one coude escape hir network.'
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The upward climb to fame and fortune could often prove to be a long one: even when fortunate enough to catch the monarch's eye, the expectant courtier could well wait many years before his high hopes were fulfilled. Sometimes this never happened or the rewards proved insignificant in relation to the service rendered. Sir Henry Sidney, owner of Penshurst Place in Kent, was one of the Queen's most faithful courtiers with over twenty years' service in Ireland, first as Vice-Treasurer of the Irish Council, then as Lord Deputy of Ireland. Throughout that time Sir Henry had received little royal recognition for his efforts apart from being made a Knight of the Garter in 1564. By 1583 he was more than £5,000 in debt and complained that he possessed ‘not so much land as would graze a mutton'.
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Sir Henry even had to turn down the opportunity of becoming a lord as he felt unable to support the expense that this rank would entail. Sir Henry's plight was a typical example of the manipulative Queen taking much and giving little, one of her most regrettable characteristics. Henry's first child was Philip Sidney. Born in 1554, he was destined to become one of the most charismatic members of the Royal Court, slender and red-haired just like the Queen and with the same fiery temper. Scholar, poet and soldier, he was doomed to die young when killed in the wars in Flanders fighting the Spanish. Ironically, Sidney's godfather was the King of Spain and thus he had been christened Philip.

The Queen loved men of wit, charming, attentive, crowding around her to amuse, to entertain, to provide a welcome distraction from the often all-too-tedious affairs of state – men such as Lord Robert Dudley, Master of the Queen's Horse, who later became the Earl of Leicester, Sir Christopher Hatton, Sir Walter Ralegh, young Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford, and towards the end of her reign, Dudley's stepson Robert Devereux, the 2nd Earl of Essex. All of these men were cast in the same mould, tall, dark and handsome, all jostling for her attentions and favours, a place in the royal sun. ‘When she smiled, it was a pure sunshine, that everyone did chose to bask in if they could',
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noted Sir John Harington, a brilliantly witty, long-serving courtier and the Queen's godson. Yet Elizabeth's mood swings could be swift and notoriously unpredictable: ‘but anon came a storm from a sudden gathering of clouds and the thunder fell in wondrous manner on all alike', wrote the same courtier. It was on these occasions that even the most eminent or well-regarded courtier could be publicly humiliated by the Queen, having their ears boxed like William Killigrew, her Groom of the Chamber, a fate that was also suffered by Essex. Others like Francis Walsingham had shoes thrown at them or were dismissed from her presence amid a barrage of oaths – there was never a dull moment at the Royal Court.

Elizabeth had inherited her father's commanding presence, his red hair and devastating temper. She used this last characteristic as an effective instrument of her authority. As a child she had seen how her father's outbursts could make strong men weep and she astutely realized that the risk of incurring the royal wrath, along with the distinct possibility of a speedy one-way ride to the Tower, could provide her with an effective control mechanism in the predominately male world she ruled. Though they were among her major royal favourites, Sir Walter Ralegh and the Earl of Essex were consigned to the Tower by an angry Queen. Essex never came out alive. Nevertheless, being a courtier in the reign of Elizabeth I endangered one's health far less than it had done when her father was on the throne. ‘In King Henry the Eighth's time his doings for sure would have cost him his pate,'
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remarked Dudley of Sir John Norris after one of their many disagreements – Queen Elizabeth invariably agonized long and hard before signing a courtier's death warrant.

The life of an Elizabethan courtier was an expensive business, even long-time royal favourites, such as Dudley and Hatton, were destined to die heavily in debt. Keeping up royal appearances inevitably proved to be a costly affair, as even those of minor rank needed to spend considerable amounts of money on themselves, particularly their clothing. The aspiring young courtier, eager to make an impression, could run up excessive bills with the tailor as well as those who fashioned the elaborate hats and intricate handmade boots that were so
de rigueur
at the Royal Court. It was an age of opulence and conspicuous consumption, one in which style was considerably more important than substance; indeed, so extravagant were the outfits on parade in the Court that visitors from the country sometimes found it difficult to distinguish between the sexes. Not that Elizabeth's Court ever became so outrageous as its counterpart across the Channel, where Prince Henry, Duke of Anjou, who later inherited the French throne, was accustomed to wafting about the French Court amid clouds of perfume, attired as a woman in low-cut dresses.

Vying for attention and possible advancement in Elizabeth's Court was a highly competitive affair – even the most expensive attire could suddenly become outmoded as the latest fashion swept in from continental Europe. A young Elizabethan courtier also needed to expend considerable sums of money in order to bribe court officials to gain entry into the exclusive circle of those who might be useful to him, and for gifts once he had successfully gained access to that inner sanctum.

Those who had achieved success found that the expense increased further, particularly if required to entertain the Queen at their home, a prestigious yet hugely costly affair, which at best could prove daunting, and at worst lead to bankruptcy, depending on the length of time Elizabeth chose to stay, or the size of the retinue which came in her wake and also expected to be royally entertained.

Elizabeth could prove markedly reluctant in granting honours or favours, even to those members of her Court who had provided outstanding service. Compared with other Tudor and Stuart monarchs, she granted remarkably few new peerages, less than a dozen throughout her entire reign, while at the same time she was both chary and capricious in handing out financial rewards, such as a share in custom dues, or a control over one of the numerous trade monopolies that proliferated during Tudor times. Sir Walter Ralegh began to prosper when the Queen rewarded him with the ‘Farm of Wines', a device whereby every wine merchant in the country was obliged to pay Sir Walter one pound in return for an annual retail licence.

It was tacitly understood that a person was fully entitled to make as much as he could out of any particular government office which he had been granted – thus Sir William Cecil, Elizabeth's long-time Privy Councillor, was to benefit considerably out of the lucrative post of Master of the Wards, which the Queen had awarded him as a mark of her favour in 1561. The word ‘sleaze' may have been unheard of in the Royal Court at that time, yet the practice was widespread. Conversely, other highly capable men such as Sir Francis Walsingham, the Queen's Secretary of State for many years, was never lucky enough to attract such favourable largesse and destined to die extremely poor. It could prove to be a thankless task even after becoming a highly successful member of the Court. Furthermore, what the monarch had given could just as easily be taken away: the Earl of Essex faced financial ruin when, as a result of falling out of royal favour, his right to collect import duty on sweet wines was not renewed.

The English Royal Court was traditionally divided into the Household, under the Lord Steward, this being the Hall and all the service areas, then the Chamber under the Lord Chamberlain, which included the Chapel Royal, Guard Chamber, and all the remaining areas of the Court that were open to the public. Finally, the monarch's private quarters were the domain of the intriguingly named Groom of the Stool. Henry Norris had been Henry VIII's Groom of the Stool and was executed after being accused of making love to Anne Boleyn, Elizabeth's mother. Under these august senior courtiers came an army of retainers: Yeomen of the Guard, Gentlemen Pensioners, carvers, cup bearers, ushers and grooms, right down to the humble, yet highly necessary, royal rat catcher, who, because of the constant risk of bubonic plague, had a vital full-time task to perform. The majority of these Court retainers were paid for their services and could expect to be fed and housed, even the most minor member of the Court. Another category of keen enthusiastic young men were the Esquires of the Body Extraordinary, unemployed and unpaid, invariably from a good family, in receipt of a good education, ceaselessly roaming the Court like so many well-bred marauding sharks, constantly seeking to be noticed and given a full-time position. In the meantime they ran errands, escorted visitors around the Court and generally helped with official Court correspondence. The most important rule for all courtiers to observe, from the most eminent Privy Councillor downwards, was to engage in the rather farcical game of appearing to be hopelessly in love with their highly desirable but unobtainable sovereign, something that was to become progressively more ridiculous as Elizabeth aged.

The fast track to success at the Royal Court could be considerably enhanced by patronage, the result of attaching oneself to a far larger fish in the golden pond. Ralegh had arrived at Court as an unknown soldier fresh from the Irish wars and had been fortunate enough to find favour with Sir Robert Dudley, by then the Earl of Leicester, an ageing yet still highly influential royal favourite. ‘Leicester had then cast in a good word for him to the Queene, which would have done him no harme'.
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wryly noted a contemporary historian. A more romantic account of how Ralegh came to the Queen's attention first came to light some forty years after his death:

This Captain Ralegh coming out of Ireland to the English Court in good habit . . . found the Queen walking, till, meeting with a plashy place, she seemed to scruple going thereon, presently Ralegh cast and spread his new plush cloak on the ground. Whereon the Queen trod gently, rewarding him afterwards with many suits.
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Well, it makes a good tale.

Francis Walsingham's political ambitions were greatly assisted by Sir William Cecil, later Lord Burghley, who in turn ensured the rise and rise of his son Robert Cecil. Nepotism and favouritism were both familiar and acceptable in the Royal Court, representing a comfortable tradition practised by everyone from Elizabeth downwards, in which sons followed fathers down the corridors of power, while friends provided favours amid a warm glow of wealth and happiness for the privileged few in the inner circle of power and affluence.