Elizabeth (11 page)
Elizabeth’s well-reasoned pleas succeeded, and by autumn Kat was back in her service, as was Sir Thomas Parry, although Tyrwhitt was quick to note that, apart from being an indiscreet gossip, Parry was a hopeless bookkeeper and had got Elizabeth’s finances into a mess ‘so indiscreetly made that it doth well appear he had little understanding to execute his office.’
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Soon one of Tyrwhitt’s clerks took over the bookkeeping and Parry became Elizabeth’s secretary instead.
During this period, more references appear relating to Elizabeth’s poor health, mostly relating to her trouble with migraines and eye problems. She mentions in letters that she is unable to write more often because of the pain in her ‘evil head’ and complains of ‘a disease of the head and eyes’.
In spite of these ailments, Elizabeth kept up with her studies, working diligently with her tutor, Roger Ascham. In 1548, he had written to a friend that he was unable to leave Hatfield ‘because she [Elizabeth] never lets me go anywhere.’
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Nonetheless, he had only praise for his pupil. He wrote to John Aylmer, ‘I teach her words, and she me things. I teach her tongues to speak, and her modest and maidenly looks teach me works to do. For I think she is the best disposed of any in all Europe.’ In January 1550, however, he was removed from his post, as he put it, ‘overcome by court violence and wrongs’, having got on the wrong side of Thomas Parry, who did not like him.
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In April 1550, Ascham wrote a tender and laudatory letter about his erstwhile pupil to Johann Sturm at the University of Strasbourg:
She [Elizabeth] has just passed her sixteenth birthday and shows such dignity and gentleness as are wonderful at her age and in her rank. Her study of true religion and learning is most energetic. Her mind has no womanly weakness, her
perseverance is equal to that of a man, and her memory long keeps what it quickly picks up. She talks French and Italian as well as English; she has often talked to me readily and well in Latin, and moderately so in Greek. When she writes Greek and Latin, nothing is more beautiful than her handwriting. She is as much delighted with music as she is skilful in the art. In adornment she is elegant rather than showy, and by her contempt of gold and head-dresses, she reminds one of Hippolyte rather than of Phaedra … She likes a style that grows out of the subject; chaste because it is suitable, and beautiful because it is clear … I am not inventing anything, my dear Sturm, it is all true.
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Ascham remained on good terms with Elizabeth, so much so that on her later accession to the throne she appointed him her Greek Secretary, and when he died in 1568, she is reputed to have said of him, ‘I would rather have cast ten thousand pounds in the sea than parted from my Ascham.’
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Ascham’s letter mentions a valuable part of Elizabeth’s plan to rehabilitate her reputation after an anxious period as the subject of political and sexual gossip scandals. She now declined to wear elaborate, fashionable clothes, preferring her gowns to be plain and elegant. She also refused to wear ostentatious jewellery or have her hair curled and puffed in the day’s fashion.
Others also remarked on her plain dress and simple style. In 1551, Mary of Guise, Regent of Scotland, visited the English Court on her way from France to Scotland. At the time, French fashion was all the rage, but Elizabeth ‘kept her old maiden shamefastness.’
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Dr John Aylmer, tutor to Lady Jane Grey and later Bishop of London, wrote in his book
A Harbour for Faithful Subjects
:
The King left her [Elizabeth] rich cloths and jewels; and I know it to be true, that in seven years after her father’s death, she never in all that time looked upon that rich attire and precious jewels but once, and that against her will. And that there never came gold or stone upon her head, till her sister forced her to lay off her former sombreness, and bear her company in her glittering gayness. And then she wore it, as every man might see that her body carried that which her heart misliked. I am sure that her maidenly apparel which she used in King Edward’s time, made the noblemen’s daughters and wives to be ashamed to be dressed and painted like peacocks; being more moved with her most virtuous example than with all that ever Peter or Paul wrote touching the matter.
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Elizabeth lived quietly, moving from house to house, with a particular preference for Hatfield and Ashridge. Now that she had been vindicated of any part in Thomas Seymour’s plans, she was able to resume her visits to Court to see her brother. Elizabeth and Edward had remained close, frequently writing to each other when they were apart. When Edward asked for a portrait of her, Elizabeth sent one with this accompanying letter:
For the face, I grant, I might well blush to offer; but the mind I shall never be ashamed to present. For though from the grace of the picture the colours may fade by time … yet the other nor time with her swift wings shall overtake, nor the misty clouds with their lowerings may darken … And further I shall most humbly beseech your Majesty that when you shall look on my picture you will witsafe to think, that as you have but the outward show of the body afore
you, so my inward mind wisheth, that the body itself were oftener in your presence.
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Keeping abreast of Court activity, in early 1550 Elizabeth became friendly with the new leader of the Council, John Dudley, now 2nd Earl of Warwick. He was given Hatfield, her favourite house, and when she wrote to the Council in June offering to exchange a manor in Lincolnshire for Hatfield, Dudley was pleased to agree. Elizabeth and the King’s Protector, Edward Seymour, had not always been on the best terms, and she found Dudley much easier to deal with. Their good relations were well known, so much so that Jehan Scheyfve, the Imperial Ambassador, wrote in his dispatches, ‘I have heard from a safe source that my Lord Warwick is about to cast off his wife and marry my lady Elizabeth, daughter of the late King, with whom he is said to have had several secret and intimate personal communications; and by these means he will aspire to the Crown.’
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While it was a fascinating piece of gossip, there were other plans afoot for the 17-year-old Elizabeth to marry – and not to an English nobleman. Preliminary negotiations were taking place for her to marry into a powerful European family: either a French Duke or Frederick, Crown Prince of Denmark.
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Neither plan would progress very far, but political observers would have been aware that, as a Protestant, Elizabeth’s position in the royal line was strong.
When Elizabeth visited London in January 1551, Ambassador Scheyfve wrote that she ‘was most honourably received by the Council who acted thus in order to show the people how much glory belongs to her who has embraced the new religion and is become a very great lady.’
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There is no doubt that the 13-year-old Edward loved his sister Mary, but the question of her unyielding Catholicism was souring relations between them. Elizabeth
worshipped according to the King’s royal decree, made no great public shows of her faith and stayed discreet. Edward was said to have called her ‘his sweet sister Temperance’.
During this period of her quiet life in the country, Elizabeth was to develop what would become one of the key relationships of her reign. In 1550, Elizabeth hired William Cecil as Surveyor for her lands and properties at a salary of £20 a year, a post that was quite a valuable sinecure at the time. A letter dating from 1548 suggests that Elizabeth and Cecil were already known to each other, probably through his post as Secretary to the Protector. He was a skilled administrator and was eventually appointed as one of the principal secretaries to the Council and its leader, John Dudley. His position allowed Cecil privileged access to the Council members, making him a valuable ally to anyone who wished to keep abreast of the political mood of the Court. As his power grew, he would become a powerful connection for Elizabeth.
At this time, the kingdom was in difficulty. Royal finances had been depleted by war with Scotland and France, and in 1549, social unrest at home culminated in several armed revolts spurred by religious and agrarian issues. The blame was placed on the government of the Protector, Edward Seymour. On 22 January 1552, he was executed, and the leader of the Council, John Dudley, became the major force in the English Court. Before long, he was granted the title of 1st Duke of Northumberland and, although he never took up the title, he became Protector in all but name.
Dudley gave Edward VI more apparent freedom than his predecessor had, letting him take part in ‘manly’ pursuits such as hunting and jousting, and was better liked by the King. But Edward’s new liberty would be brief. In April 1552, he fell ill with
measles, and then recovered. He spent a strenuous summer, and by late autumn was ill again. By January 1553, he was bedridden with a terminal illness, probably tuberculosis.
Now Dudley was faced with a dilemma. If Henry VIII’s will was followed to the letter, the heiress to the throne was to be Princess Mary, a formidable Catholic who would doubtless put an end to the Protestant Reformation in England. He considered the option of Elizabeth as a viable alternative to the next queen, perhaps even with himself as the power behind the throne. Sources indicate that Dudley was considering marrying Elizabeth to his eldest son or even ‘that he might find it expedient to get rid of his own wife and marry Elizabeth himself.’
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However, Dudley may have suspected that if Elizabeth was monarch, she would be unlikely to play the puppet; she would choose her own ministers and marry whom she wanted, with the result that he would cease to wield any real power. An even more bizarre plan by Dudley was alleged in a book published around 1584. A passage suggests that Dudley intended to wed Mary to seize power: ‘… the Duke of Northumberland had strange devices in his head … for bringing the crown to his own family. And among other devices it is thought that he had most certain intention to marry the Lady Mary himself ...’ As to the fact that John Dudley was married at the time: ‘These great personages, in matters of such weight as is a kingdom, have privileges to dispose of women’s bodies, marriages, lives and deaths, as shall be thought for the time most convenient.’
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Another alternative was to find Elizabeth a husband outside of England, getting rid of her so that she and Mary could be removed from the succession more easily. Dudley considered the possibility of Elizabeth marrying Francesco d’Este, Prince of Massa Lombarda and son of Alfonso d’Este, Duke of Ferrara and Lucrecia Borgia. There was, however, little support for the marriage.
Early in 1553, Dudley opted for a different approach and began working to persuade the King to change the succession. Edward VI was reminded that Mary and Elizabeth were both illegitimate, and more importantly, that Mary would bring Catholicism back to England. Dudley reasoned that if Mary were to be struck out of the succession, how could Elizabeth, her equal, be left in? Futhermore, he argued that both the princesses would seek foreign husbands, jeopardizing English sovereignty.
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As part of his plan, Dudley determined to keep the dying Edward away from Elizabeth, in case he decided to exclude Mary but insist on making Elizabeth his heir out of love and respect. Dudley made sure Elizabeth’s and Edward’s letters to each other were never delivered. A letter survives from Elizabeth to Edward, showing that she was on her way to visit him when she heard he was seriously unwell, but was turned back by a messenger who said he had been sent by the King:
Two chief occasions moved me much and grieved me greatly – the one, for that I doubted your Majesty’s health – the other, because for all my long tarrying I went without that I came for. Of the first, I am relieved in a part, both that I understood of your health … Of my other grief I am not eased … For if your Grace’s advice that I should return (whose will is a commandment) had not been, I would not have made the half of my way the end of my journey …
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By April, Edward was vomiting phlegm, black bile and blood, and Dudley’s desperate search for a Queen he could control and manipulate intensified. He persuaded the dying Edward to name his cousin Lady Jane Grey (Henry VIII’s great-niece, who also happened to be married to Dudley’s youngest son, Guildford
Dudley) as his successor, thereby excluding his two half-sisters, Mary and Elizabeth. Finally, after months of agony, the 15-year-old Edward VI died on 6 July 1553, leaving the throne to the Protestant Lady Jane and her sons.
Dudley immediately put his plans into action, withholding the official notification of the death of the King and sending messages to Mary and Elizabeth to summon them to London, presumably to take the two princesses into custody. But the luckless Lady Jane, proclaimed Queen on 10 July, would rule for only nine days.
As Elizabeth avoided trouble by taking to her bed at Hatfield and claiming to be too ill to travel, Mary set off for London, but was warned of the plot at Hoddesdon and fled to Kenninghall to plan her strategy. So loyal were the people of England to Henry VIII’s daughter, she was able to raise an army from her base at Framlingham and march on London. With her base growing, Parliament proclaimed Mary as Queen, and Lady Jane was placed under arrest.