Elizabeth (14 page)
By the end of June, Elizabeth was ill again, ‘daily vexed with swelling in the face and other parts of her body.’
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Her favourite doctors could not attend to her, but they recommended two others from Oxford who were never summoned. Elizabeth disliked strangers and would, she said, rather leave the outcome of her illness to God.
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Exacerbating her dire situation was that money from London was slow in coming. Wages for servants and guards did not arrive and Bedingfield had to pay for supplies out of his own pocket. This neglect by the Council may have been due in part to the fact that on 25 July 1554, Philip and Mary were married in a grand ceremony at Winchester Cathedral, with all the great nobles of Europe present. Elizabeth was not invited, of course. The couple travelled slowly back to the capital, arriving in London on 18 August. By November, Mary reported that she was pregnant. The Court did not have much time to consider Elizabeth’s well being, out of sight and mind, as she was, at dreary Woodstock.
In the months to follow, Bedingfield and Elizabeth continued to live in a state of heightened irritation with each other. She made numerous requests, many of which he believed were frivolous and meant to annoy. He refused to allow her to do even simple things without seeking permission from the Council, a process that usually took weeks. As time passed, Elizabeth’s friends and servants, particularly Sir Thomas Parry, began to appear in
Woodstock village, staying at the local inn, The Bull. Bedingfield could not prevent them from coming, so had the added worry that they might try to communicate with the princess.
In a ruined palace, short of money, constantly rubbing each other up the wrong way, Elizabeth and her governor each existed in a state little short of martyrdom. When she became Queen, Elizabeth is reported to have said to him, ‘If we have any prisoner whom we would have sharply and straitly kept, we will send for you.’
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However, as she never punished him, perhaps she recognized that his lack of malice outweighed his infuriating insistence on following rules.
Finally, in April 1555, Elizabeth was allowed to leave Woodstock to come back to Hampton Court and attend the Queen in her late pregnancy. Mary had little choice but to attempt to mend fences with her sister. Childbirth was dangerous at the time, and a new mother, bearing her first child at about the age of 40, was in particular danger. The Queen and Philip had to consider the implications of mother and child dying, since the Council and Parliament had rigorously refused to make Philip King Regnant, which would have allowed him to rule England if Mary and their child died. Mary’s successor, despite all her attempts to change the fact, was Elizabeth. Philip may also have softened Mary’s attitude towards her sister for political motives – Spain was wary of France at the time, and as the other heiress to the English throne was the French ally Mary, Queen of Scots, he may have felt that Elizabeth was the lesser of two evils.
When she arrived at Hampton Court, Elizabeth was met by Philip. Later she was confronted by Bishop Gardiner and the Council, who requested that she admit her ‘offences’ and beg the Queen for forgiveness. Elizabeth reminded them that she had not committed any offences and so had nothing to confess; she would
prefer to remain a prisoner all her life than admit to something she had never even entertained.
Finally, at 10 p.m., Elizabeth was taken to meet Mary. The Queen accused Elizabeth of conspiring against her; Elizabeth wept and swore her loyalty. The meeting ended with the Queen saying ‘God knows’ in Spanish, leading to the legend that Philip was hidden somewhere in or near the room, eavesdropping on their conversation to try to get a better understanding of his sister-in-law.
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The whole Court awaited the imminent birth of an heir. Elizabeth had very few visitors, although she was allowed to receive who she liked. She stayed in her rooms and waited with the rest. Mary, ecstatic in her pregnancy and believing the birth of a son to be only a few weeks away, felt secure enough to release Courtenay and exile him; he died in Padua in September 1556. She also released the Dudley brothers from the Tower, where they had been imprisoned with their father when he had tried to put Lady Jane Grey on the throne; Guildford had already been executed, John died shortly after his release, but Ambrose, Robert and Henry joined the English army in France.
As April progressed, there were no signs of labour, but it was not easy to calculate when the full-term of a pregnancy was due, so May came and went before it became clear that all was not well. Throughout June, Mary desperately clung to her fading hope, but by July it became obvious that, whatever this was, it was not a pregnancy. Mary was devastated.
While Mary kept to her rooms, praying for a child, her husband Philip began to get to know his sister-in-law. He and Elizabeth spent a lot of time together, not without comment. In 1557, Giovanni Michiel, the Venetian Ambassador, would write to the Doge, ‘at the time of the Queen’s pregnancy, Lady Elizabeth … contrived so to ingratiate herself with all the Spaniards, and
especially with the King, that ever since no one has favoured her more than he does.’ He also thought that Philip did ‘not only … not permit, but opposed, and prevented the Queen’s [Mary’s] wish to have her [Elizabeth] … declared a bastard by Act of Parliament … and consequently ineligible to the throne, which, besides affection, argued some particular design on the part of the King with regard to her.’
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Philip himself later acknowledged that while his wife waited to give birth, he flirted with her younger, more attractive sister, and that Elizabeth did nothing to stop him. Thomas Cecil, William Cecil’s eldest son, reported that he heard Philip say ‘whatever he suffered from Queen Elizabeth was the just judgement of God, because, being married to Queen Mary, whom he thought a most virtuous and good lady, yet in the fancy of love he could not affect her; but as for the Lady Elizabeth, he was enamoured of her, being a fair and beautiful woman.’
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Mary’s anguish and the desperate need of her Catholic supporters for her to have a son led to a strange rumour surfacing. It is recorded in Foxe’s
Book of Martyrs
in the section ‘Concerning the Child-bed of Queen Mary’:
There came to me whom I did both hear and see, one Isabel Malt, a woman dwelling in Aldersgate street in Horn Alley … who before witness made this declaration unto us, that she being delivered of a man-child upon Whitsunday in the morning, which was the 11th day of June 1555, there came to her the Lord North [Edward North, Baron North of Kirtling, a member of Mary’s Council], and another lord of her unknown, dwelling then about Old fifthstreet, demanding of her if she would part with her child, and would swear that she ne’er knew nor had any such child.
Which, if she would, her son (they said) would be well provided for, she should take no care for it, with many fair offers if she would part with the child. After that came other women also … but she in no wise would let go her son, who at the writing hereof being alive and called Timothy Malt, was of the age of thirteen years and upward. Thus much I say, I heard from the woman herself.
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On 3 August, after the fiasco of the false pregnancy had died down, Mary, Philip and the Court moved to Oatlands in Surrey. Elizabeth was not with them. Despite Mary’s pleas, on 29 August, Philip left her and returned to Spain. The despairing Queen went to Greenwich where she stayed with Cardinal Reginald Pole, an old friend. Elizabeth joined her and attended Mass at her side. There, she was reunited with an old friend, Ascham, who had also ‘embraced’ Catholicism and had been allowed to return to Court as the Queen’s Latin Secretary. He and Elizabeth took pleasure in reading Greek texts together.
In October, the sisters separated, Mary going to St James and Elizabeth to her beloved Hatfield. Kat Ashley was allowed to return to Elizabeth’s service, as was Sir Thomas Parry, while Ascham found time to drop in every now and then. Life resumed a gentler pace, this time with Philip as Elizabeth’s friend rather than her enemy. It had become clear that Mary was as unlikely to have a child as she was to enjoy a long life; Philip was covering his bets, making sure he was on good terms with the next Queen of England. Now when Mary railed against Elizabeth, her Spanish advisers tried to calm her down. Renard was replaced as Ambassador, and in November 1555, Bishop Gardiner, Elizabeth’s greatest opponent, died.
In March 1556, there was a minor uprising, referred to as Dudley’s Rebellion, led by Henry Dudley, a distant relation of John
Dudley. The plotters gave their aim as ‘to send the Queen’s Highness over to the King [to Spain] and to make the Lady Elizabeth Queen and to marry the Earl of Devonshire to the said Lady.’
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The rebellion was betrayed early on and came to nothing. Elizabeth was never convincingly implicated.
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Plans to marry off Elizabeth and send her out of England were still raised from time to time and after the rebellion in April 1556, the question arose again. In the previous year Mary’s husband, Philip, (Philip II, 1556–98) had suggested that 23-year-old Elizabeth marry his 10-year-old son and heir, Prince Carlos (Philip's first wife, before Mary, was Princess Maria of Portugal, who had died giving birth to Carlos). There was an attempt to resurrect this plan. The Venetian Ambassador was less sure, recording that Elizabeth had openly said she did not want to marry.
Elizabeth’s efforts to stay out of trouble could not always protect her. When a random search was carried out at Somerset House, a quantity of anti-Catholic literature was found. Kat Ashley admitted that it was hers; she spent three months in the Fleet Prison for ‘having writings and scandalous books against the [Catholic] religion and against the King and Queen’
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and on her release she was removed as Elizabeth’s Lady Mistress and told to stay away from the princess. She was replaced by ‘a widowed gentlewoman’, and a new Governor was appointed, Sir Thomas Pope (founder of Trinity College, Oxford, in 1556), ‘a rich and grave gentleman of good name both for conduct and religion.’ Elizabeth knew and liked Pope, so found her new Governor a pleasure to have in her household. They frequently talked about the new University College he was founding and general issues relating to education.
Pope told Elizabeth when, in July 1556, there was a ridiculous uprising in Suffolk led by a local teacher named Mr Cleobury, who pretended to be Courtenay. His rallying cry was ‘the Lady Elizabeth Queen and her beloved bedfellow, Courtenay, King.’
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This caused Elizabeth to write to Mary on 2 August, not so much pleading her loyalty, but rather wondering how such evil people could exist.
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In late November, Elizabeth arrived to stay at Somerset House in London to spend Christmas at Court. Her first meeting with Mary, accompanied by Cardinal Pole, was amicable. The next was less so. On 2 December, Mary summoned her sister to tell her that Emmanuel Philibert, Duke of Savoy, had renewed his offer of marriage and that she and Philip wanted her to accept. Elizabeth broke down in tears, swearing that she had no wish to marry anyone and would be happy to spend her life single.
According to the Venetian Ambassador, Elizabeth told Mary that ‘the afflictions suffered by her were such that they had … ridded her of any wish for a husband.’
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Mary accused her of treachery and lies, shouting that Elizabeth was just waiting for Mary to die so she could seize the Crown. Mary ordered her to leave the Court. On the following day, Elizabeth returned to Hatfield.
Philip, who was still in Spain, was determined that Elizabeth marry Emmanuel Philibert to get her out of the way. The plan had the additional benefit that if she did inherit the throne, his cousin would rule as her husband and King of England. In March 1557, Philip returned to Mary for four months, primarily to win the support of England in Spain’s war with France.
As a secondary concern, he was accompanied by his sister Margaret, Duchess of Parma, and his cousin Louise, Duchess of Lorraine, who were to befriend Elizabeth with the aim of taking her back to Spanish territory to marry Emmanuel Philibert. The
French Ambassador de Noailles warned Elizabeth of a plot to trick her into visiting Flanders where she would be married, sending a message to her via Elizabeth Parr, Marchioness of Northampton. Elizabeth replied to the Ambassador to thank him for the warning and reaffirmed that she would never marry. In this instance, her resolve was not tested. Jealous of the attention Philip paid to the two duchesses, Mary made it clear she did not like them and they never actually got to meet Elizabeth. Philip then tried to order Mary to force Elizabeth into the marriage.
With Spain at war with France and Mary, Queen of Scots, the Dauphine of France and a possible heir to the English throne, it was imperative for Spanish foreign policy that England remain firmly under Spanish influence, but Mary refused. This time Mary again raised her belief that Elizabeth was not the child of Henry VIII. A second husband was offered, Alexander Farnese, son of Ottavio Farnese, Duke of Parma, and Margaret, the illegitimate daughter of Charles V (Philip’s half-sister).
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As with the others, these marriage plans failed to materialize, but Philip did win support for the war with France, and in July, he went back to Spain, never to return.