Elizabeth (19 page)

He and Elizabeth were old friends, and he came to London to see her in May 1559. The 43-year-old Pickering, a lusty, handsome, intellectual, single gentleman, was welcomed by Elizabeth. To everyone’s interest, the couple spent many hours together alone, and he was given rooms in the palace. Ambassador de Feria commented that Elizabeth saw him secretly just two days after his arrival and that ‘yesterday he came to the palace publicly and remained with her four or five hours. In London they are giving twenty-five to a hundred that he will be King.’
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Historian William Camden described Pickering as ‘… a man of good family though little wealth, and who had obtained reputation by the cultivation of letters, by the elegance of his manners and by his embassies to France and Germany …’
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Not everyone was pleased with Pickering. He began to behave as if he was already royalty, inviting people to his house and leaving them so that he could dine alone with musicians playing. On one occasion he was about to enter the Privy Chamber, which was open only to those of noble title (as a knight he was only entitled to be in the Presence Chamber outside), and Henry Fitzalan, 12th Earl of Arundel, took him to task. Pickering called him ‘an impudent, discourteous knave’.
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However, Pickering’s suit of Elizabeth would end as all her others had: as a friend, but not a husband.

With all these suits coming to nothing, the question arises how Elizabeth managed to placate the Council, who saw her marriage as a political necessity.

When Elizabeth took the throne early in 1559, the Commons had presented the Queen with an address requesting that she marry as a matter of urgency. Her reply was a masterful fudge; she would consider marriage, but not if it compromised national or religious interests. She stated:

She then went on to reassure them that a suitable successor could be found regardless of whether she had an heir, and that, in any case, a Queen’s offspring was no guarantee of a ‘fit governor’. She also took care to underline her virginity: ‘… in the end this shall be for me sufficient: that a marble stone shall declare that a Queen, having reigned such a time, lived and died a virgin …’
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One can only speculate if Elizabeth made this claim to publicly bolster her moral character, or if she truly was a virgin at this stage. Perhaps, if not, she felt that abstinence would restore her ‘pure’ state. It is reported that one of her favourite prayers included the lines:
‘… grant that I may continually have care and regard not to sully nor to abase this Thy holy image restored in me through Jesus Christ, but instead keeping it pure and untainted by any carnal affection …’
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Elizabeth may have believed that abstinence was in some way a factor in her succeeding to the throne. If she had indeed had a physical affair with Thomas Seymour and borne a child, she might have seen her subsequent years of turmoil as some kind of punishment. Both her own experiences to this point and as an observer to her father’s imbroglios may have caused her to arrive at the conclusion that the wisest path was to remain chaste in order to succeed as the Queen of England. Whether she saw this as God’s will or her free choice, or whether it was just a public front masking a different private reality, is buried with Elizabeth herself.

The other irrefutable fact was that she was openly wary about giving up her independence by marrying. In a letter to Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand I in June 1559, Elizabeth praised his son, her suitor, Charles, diplomatically acknowledging that it was a most honourable match, but stating, ‘When however we reflect upon the question of this marriage and eagerly ask our heart, we find that we have no wish to give up solitude and our single life, but prefer with God’s help to abide therein of our free determination.’
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Nonetheless, Elizabeth’s advisers, as well as nobles around Europe, ignored her forthright assertions that she did not desire to marry, putting it down to politics and maidenly modesty. Throughout 1559, Elizabeth was besieged with suitors from England, Scotland, Spain, Sweden and Saxony. In October, William Cecil wrote to the statesman Ralph Sadler, ‘I would to God her Majesty had one and the rest honourably satisfied.’
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But perhaps Elizabeth did have ‘one’ in mind – a particular suitor that occupied a place above all others in her heart.

O
ne particular gentleman had emerged as a firm favourite of the Queen by 1559 – but far from being a king, prince or nobleman with an irreproachable pedigree, Robert Dudley, the man chosen by Elizabeth, was the descendant of convicted and executed traitors. Robert Dudley’s grandfather, Edmund, had helped devise new ways of raising taxes under Henry VII’s administration. When Henry VIII came to the throne, the young King’s advisers arbitrarily selected Edmund and another officer to be scapegoats for Henry VII’s heavy taxation policies. They were both executed on 17 August 1510. Following his father’s death, sixyear-old John Dudley, Edmund’s eldest son, became the ward of royal official Sir Edward Guildford. This would be a springboard for his eventual rise to power.

John Dudley possessed extraordinary talents as both a soldier and administrator. As a favourite of Henry VIII, he was granted several positions and titles, but he became even more powerful under Edward VI, when he became Edward’s first minister after ousting Edward Seymour from the position in 1549. In this position, he effectively ruled the country. In 1551, he was also made 1st Duke of Northumberland, but less than two years later, he fell rather spectacularly from grace, executed for high treason after plotting to place his daughter-in-law Lady Jane Grey on the
throne after Edward VI’s death. His abilities as a shrewd politician would become legendary. Sir Richard Moryson, Ambassador to the Court of Charles V, said that Dudley ‘had such a head that he seldom went about anything but he conceived three or four purposes beforehand.’
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John Dudley married Sir Edward Guildford’s daughter, Jane, with whom he had 11 children that survived infancy: 7 sons and 4 daughters. Robert Dudley was their fifth son, and according to historian William Camden, he shared his birth date, 7 September 1533, with Elizabeth I.
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However, there are no existing records of Robert's actual birth date. Robert was placed in the household of Edward VI as one of the ‘King’s Children’ – the young King’s companions – and his father hoped that he and Edward would become friends. However, there is nothing to indicate that Edward felt more than mild friendship for Robert.

Robert’s relationship with Elizabeth prior to her becoming Queen is largely the subject of conjecture. They were roughly the same age, and as members of the Royal Court, both were pupils of Roger Ascham, although they were probably never taught together. Ascham reported that whereas Elizabeth preferred history and languages, Robert was more interested in mathematics, an interest that carried on into his adult life.
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In order to strengthen his own position, Robert’s father negotiated politically or financially advantageous marriages for his children. In 1550, the 18-year-old Robert married Amy Robsart, who was 17 at the time. The couple had most probably met when Robert stayed in Wymondham as part of the force, under his father’s command, that went North to put down Kett’s rebellion.

Edward VI attended the marriage, which took place the following year, on 4 June 1550, at the royal palace in Sheen (Richmond, Surrey), as did the King’s half-sister, Lady Elizabeth.
Although it was obvious to all present that the couple held each other in great affection, the marriage was also financially advantageous. Amy was the only legitimate child and heiress of Sir John Robsart, Lord of the Manor of Syderstone in Norfolk.

At that time, there were different schools of thought concerning marriage matches. Some argued in support of there being at least some affection between a couple, if not love, given that a marriage was for life. On the other hand, William Cecil would present the opposite case when drawing up a list of points for and against marriage in 1566 (the question in hand was Robert Dudley’s suitability as a husband for Elizabeth). One point read
nuptiae carnales a laetitia incipient et in luctu terminantur
, meaning ‘marriages of physical desire begin with happiness and end in grief’.
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After their marriage, Robert and Amy went to live in Norfolk, where he became Constable of the Castle. However, it was not John Dudley’s plan to have his son live so far away from the centre of power for long. From 1551, Robert was given a series of Court posts, thanks largely to his father, including Chief Carver to the King, joint Commissioner for the Lord Lieutenant of Norfolk, and Master of the Royal Buckhounds.

By 1553, John Dudley, now 1st Duke of Northumberland, was at the zenith of his power and Robert was dividing his time between London and Syderstone, Norfolk, where he had been elected a Justice of the Peace and Member of Parliament. He also received lands near Yarmouth, as well as in Northamptonshire and Leicestershire, by grace of his father and also Edward VI. But the family’s fortunes would change with the death of Edward VI in July 1553.

As soon as the King died, John Dudley started to plot to cut Mary and Elizabeth out of the succession and secure the Crown for Lady
Jane Grey, who had recently married his son, Guildford. Mary and her supporters resisted, marching on the capital, and most of John Dudley’s men deserted him for Mary’s side, leaving John and Robert to flee. They continued their campaign, with Robert taking part, but soon realized the futility of their struggle, as the rest of the Council supported Mary and proclaimed her Queen.

Although John Dudley pledged that he was the servant of the Council and, therefore, to Mary I, he and his sons were arrested and taken to the Tower of London. On 18 August, John Dudley was tried for treason, along with his eldest son, John, 2nd Earl of Warwick, and both were found guilty.

Despite the ruthless reputation she would later acquire for her religious persecutions, Mary I was surprisingly lenient with the Dudleys. She seized the lands given to Robert by his father and Edward VI, but John Dudley was the only one to be executed on 22 August 1553 on Tower Hill. Even Jane Grey and her husband Guildford Dudley were spared, remaining prisoners in the Tower.

Unfortunately for Jane Grey, Thomas Wyatt’s rebellion against Mary I in January 1554 led the Queen to reassess her position. Mary’s advisers won out, arguing that as long as Lady Jane Grey lived she would always be a focus for discontent and, therefore, a threat to Mary. On 12 February 1554, Jane and Guildford were executed. The other Dudley brothers, John, Ambrose, Robert and Henry, remained prisoners in the Tower.