Elizabeth (29 page)

Shortly after, relations with Spain became tense when four Spanish ships forced to take shelter in the Port of London turned out to be carrying money for a campaign to subdue Protestants in the Netherlands. Elizabeth promptly seized the cash for ‘safekeeping’. The Spanish governor of the Netherlands was furious and impounded all English goods, while, in retaliation, Elizabeth seized all Spanish goods in England. De La Mothe told her not to worry about the impact this might have on her relations with Philip: ‘… the King of Spain, being once more a widower, and in search of a suitable consort, would not for the world offend an unmarried princess like her; neither, for the same cause, should she quarrel with him who was on that pursuit.’
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Elizabeth replied that she did not doubt the friendship of Spain.

Relations with Scotland had reached another impasse. Mary, Queen of Scots, who had been forced to abdicate, had fled to England in 1568, where she was immediately imprisoned by
Elizabeth. Mary sought Elizabeth’s support in regaining her throne. Although Elizabeth was cautious, she had been persuaded to the cause on the condition that Mary ratify the Treaty of Edinburgh.

In 1570, Cecil met with Mary’s advisers to draw up a treaty between the two Queens. In the second Article it was stated that Elizabeth’s issue should have preference to the succession. Mary changed the wording to ‘lawful issue’, presumably a snide reference to the rumours that Elizabeth and Robert had had a child out of wedlock. Elizabeth agreed, but returned the insult, remarking that Mary ‘measured other folk’s disposition by her own actions’.
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In any case, the matter was moot, as Mary still refused to accept all of the conditions of the Edinburgh treaty.

With the Queen now aged 37, another drawn-out courtship began. Tentative approaches were made by the English Council to French Ambassador de La Mothe regarding a possible French husband. The Council possibly suspected that the project was doomed to failure and simply saw it as a way to flatter the French or win political influence. Elizabeth’s response to the matter seemed to be more one of resignation: ‘I am an old woman and am ashamed to talk about a husband, were it not for the sake of an heir.’
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Whether the French believed Elizabeth was sincere, it was too good an opportunity to miss. If Elizabeth fell for the charms of a handsome young Frenchman and became pregnant, England and France could be brought together by the issue of that union. Charles IX and his mother, Catherine de Medici, offered Elizabeth the elder of the King’s two brothers, the 19-year-old Henri, Duc d’Anjou. Elizabeth again claimed to be worried about the age difference, to which a perhaps defensive Robert replied, ‘So much the better for you.’
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She suggested that Henri make a brief visit to England so they could meet. Although the meeting never occurred, it was perhaps just as well that this was the case. Officially, Henri was tall, slender and handsome, with beautiful eyes and hands, but according to other reports, he was obsessed with clothes, perfume and jewellery, as well as purchasing expensive jewels with which to seduce naïve young ladies. Henri, firmly under the influence of the Guise faction, reportedly felt it would be better to lead an army to conquer England than to marry an old lady with a sordid reputation. He was said to have called Elizabeth a
putain publique
(a ‘common whore’) and ‘an old creature’.
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Perhaps inevitably his alleged comments reached Elizabeth’s ears. Although the French Ambassador reassured the Queen that the Duke had never said such things, there was also the question of religion. Henri wanted assurances that he and his courtiers could freely worship in the Catholic religion, that he rule jointly as King and receive a pension of £60,000 a year for life. The English refused to allow the devout Henri his Catholic faith. When it appeared that the whole project would fail, Catherine de Medici then suggested her son, François, Duc d’Alençon, who was even younger, as he was ‘a much less scrupulous fellow’.

When Elizabeth asked Cecil how tall François was, he replied: ‘About as tall as I am.’ She was heard to respond, ‘About as tall as your grandson, you mean’ – Cecil’s grandson was six years old at the time.
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As François was only 15 years old, 21 years younger than Elizabeth, small in stature, with a big nose and smallpox scars, the idea was quietly dropped for the time being.

Although the French King Charles IX had previously supported Mary, Queen of Scots, he now increasingly looked to England as an ally. In April 1572, France and England signed the Treaty of Blois, a pact of mutual defence. As Elizabeth had fallen
ill that month with a high fever (probably colic), once again came the panic that she might die without an heir. As she recovered – Robert and William Cecil, now 1st Baron Burghley, by her side throughout her illness – the pressure for a successor was back on the agenda. Once again, François was proposed as a husband. But in August, the St Bartholomew’s Day massacre in France occurred, in which thousands of Protestants were slain in the French Wars of Religion. This marked a low point in France’s relations with its Protestant neighbours. The marriage to François was put on hold, although he continued to write Elizabeth the wonderful and romantic love letters of a devoted suitor.

The Queen also had her admirers in the English Court. Sir Christopher Hatton was appointed captain of Elizabeth’s bodyguard in 1572, and was also a Member of Parliament. Well-educated, handsome and accomplished, this elegant dancer was said to be Robert’s main rival at the time. Stories circulated about Elizabeth and Hatton, including that he ‘had more recourse to Her Majesty in her Privy Chamber than reason could suffice, if she were virtuous and well inclined as some noiseth her.’
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Over the years, he would be a favourite of Elizabeth’s, owing his place at Court to his never-ending adoration of the Queen, which he recorded in letters and poems. He would write, ‘Your heart is full of rare and royal faith, the writings of your hand do raise me to joy unspeakable.’
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Like Robert, Hatton was always near her; she nicknamed Robert her ‘Eyes’, and Hatton her ‘Lids’. Each man added a cipher to his letters to the Queen; Robert signed with ôô (eyes) and Hatton with ∆∆. In 1573, ill with a kidney problem, Hatton would write to Elizabeth from a Dutch spa, ‘to serve you is heaven, but to lack you is more than hell’s torment … Your Lids that are so often bathed with tears for your sake. A more wise man may seek you, but a more faithful and worthy can never have you.’
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Hatton also sent Elizabeth a jewel shaped like a lover’s knot, ‘the kind she most likes, and she thinks can not be undone.’
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He would remain a devoted follower of the Queen, the only one of her professed lovers who never married, maintaining that he never found anyone else more worthy of his love. He did, however, keep discreet mistresses a long way from Court, at least one of whom provided him with a daughter named Elizabeth.

In the early 1570s, the young Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, had also become a courtier in the Queen’s Court. As a child, he had been placed in Cecil’s household as a royal ward, and he married Cecil’s 15-year-old daughter in 1571. By 1573, he appeared to be emerging as a favourite of Elizabeth’s. In May, the Court correspondent Gilbert Talbot, 7th Earl of Shrewsbury, wrote that de Vere had lately grown in great credit with the Queen, and ‘… were it not for his fickle head he would pass any of them shortly.’
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Although de Vere was the kind of handsome young nobleman who amused the Queen, there is some debate about the true nature of her affections. Some historians have suggested that de Vere was actually the son born of Elizabeth and Thomas Seymour,
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while others claim that he and Elizabeth themselves had an affair and had an illegitimate child.
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He did receive some patronage from Elizabeth over the years, including an annual pension of £1,000, despite flirting with Catholicism and mismanaging his estates. He would also become a leading patron of Elizabethan arts.

Elizabeth’s were not the only dalliances going on at Court in 1573. At around the same time, Robert’s attentions were taken by Douglass Howard, Baroness Sheffield. The affair seems to have started in earnest with the death of her husband in December 1568. Robert stated that he loved Douglass, but could not publicly marry because it would ruin his position with the Queen. Douglass would later give testimony that she had been his secret wife,
entering into a contracted marriage with him. Whatever the truth of this, what is indisputable is that she bore Robert’s son, Robert Dudley, in August 1574. Robert would take custody of the boy when Douglass later married in 1579, and cared for his education and upbringing. He also made provision in his will for his ‘base son’, who later unsuccessfully tried to establish his legitimacy in court.

In the same year, the Court was alive with rumours that Douglass’s sister Frances Howard was also in love with Robert and that the sisters were ‘at great wars’ over his affections. Robert is also thought to have rekindled his affair with Lettice Knollys in 1573, when her husband Walter Devereux, 1st Earl of Essex, was sent to Ireland. Despite these romances, Elizabeth maintained her close friendship with Robert. Other favourites might share her affection, but only one man seemed to hold her heart. His gifts were always lavish and personal. In 1572, he gave her a gold bracelet set with diamonds and rubies and a tiny clock mounted in gold. Two years later, he gave her a fan of white feathers with a gold handle decorated with a bear (his arms) and a lion (hers).

In September 1578, matters changed significantly for both Robert and Elizabeth when Robert married Lettice Knollys. Robert and Lettice’s relationship had already been the subject of scandal in 1575, when her husband had returned to England and discovered their affair. When he died of dysentery in 1576, there were rumours that Robert had poisoned the man.

Initially, Robert did not inform the Queen of his marriage. Many months later, when Elizabeth discovered the news, she was devastated. Robert was sent away for a time, while his wife was banished from Court and forbidden to return during the Queen’s lifetime. Elizabeth heartily disliked Lettice and never forgave her.
In the end, Robert and Lettice would have one child in 1581, Robert Dudley, Lord Denbigh, but he died at the age of three.

Thus it came to pass that in 1579, at the age of 46, Elizabeth was again considering a marriage to François, Duc d’Alençon, who was by now 24 years old. She had told her desperate Parliament that marriage was still an option, although not one she would embrace for her own sake: ‘If I were a milkmaid with a pail on my arm whereby my private person might be little set by, I would not forsake that poor and single state to match with the greatest monarch.’
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François would be the last of the Queen’s suitors.

There were a number of political advantages to a marriage with François. He was the heir to the throne of France, which was currently occupied by his brother, Henri III, who had become King in 1574 when their brother Charles IX died. Henri, who had made insulting remarks about Elizabeth years before, was married but had no children. There were unproved rumours that he was a homosexual and liked to wear women’s clothes, although it is also recorded that he had many mistresses. During Henri’s reign, the French Wars of Religion between Catholics and the Protestant Huguenots continued to rage.

François’ relationship with his brother was one of rivalry. In 1575–76, François had challenged Henri III’s rule and offered protection to both Catholics and Protestants, suggesting that the latter should have the right of public worship of their religion. The brothers made their peace, to the extent that the following year François commanded the King’s army against the Huguenots, but by 1578 he had again fallen from grace and was arrested. François escaped to Belgium, part of the provinces of the Netherlands.

In 1579, the northern part of these provinces formed the Union of Utrecht to break away from Spanish rule (the entire area had been part of the Holy Roman Empire), and François was invited to
be the hereditary sovereign. The following year he would be named ‘Defender of Belgic Liberty’ of the northern provinces, opposing the Spanish in the Catholic southern provinces. François had the support of the English Crown, which preferred the option of neither Spain nor France ruling the Netherlands. Elizabeth’s political interest in François was his wish to drive Spanish forces out of the country to gain a free and independent Netherlands. During the courtship, the two also grew very close.