Elizabeth (31 page)

Raleigh had sailed to America in 1578, and then served as a captain in a company sent to Ireland to suppress an uprising. On
his return to England in December 1581, he became a prominent member of the Court, where it is clear that he greatly pleased the Queen. Elizabeth gave him a lease on Durham House on the Strand so that he could remain close to her. In 1585, he was knighted, and in 1587 he was given the post of Captain of the Gentleman Pensioners, the Queen’s bodyguard. During this period, the extremely handsome Raleigh was at the height of his favour with the Queen, and benefited from the honours and gifts she bestowed on him. However, he did not have any real political influence with the Council.

Raleigh and Elizabeth exchanged poems during their relationship. One of the earliest is reported to have occurred when Raleigh, a new arrival at Court, wrote on a window pane, ‘Fain would I climb, yet fear I to fall,’ and the Queen then added, ‘If thy heart fails thee, climb not at all.’
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On another occasion, Raleigh wrote Elizabeth a poem that began:

And Elizabeth replied:

In 1587, Raleigh set off on an expedition to attempt to found the colony of Virginia in the New World and also spent time in Ireland
during the years that followed. Despite his absence from Court, Raleigh continued to hold Elizabeth’s affections until 1592, when he was abruptly recalled from one of his expeditions by the Queen after it was discovered that he had secretly married one of her ladies-in-waiting, Elizabeth Throckmorton, in 1591; she was five months pregnant. It was strictly forbidden for ladies-in-waiting to marry without the Queen’s consent and Elizabeth Throckmorton was dismissed from Court, while Raleigh was sent to the Tower. After his release, he returned to his estates rather than to Court. Over the years he went up and down in the Queen’s favour, but would never regain his previous standing.

Raleigh was never a rival to Robert Dudley, who returned Elizabeth’s love until his death. He did, however, have a serious rival in Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, who is discussed in more detail in the last chapter.

As rivals for the Queen’s attentions, Devereux and Raleigh were often on bad terms. However, in 1584, the year in which Devereux arrived at Court, a rather pleasant picture emerges of life for Elizabeth, surrounded by those both formerly and presently devoted to her.

A German visitor, Lupold von Wedel, wrote of the Queen dining in state at Greenwich, dressed in black and silver and attended by, among others, ‘my lord of Leicester, the Master of the Horse, who is said to have had a love affair with the Queen for a long time. Now he has a wife. Then there was the Lord High Treasurer and the Keeper of the Privy Purse, my lord Hertford [Edward Seymour, Catherine Grey’s son], who they say of all Englishmen has the most right to the throne.’

He noted Sir Christopher Hatton as being another of the Queen’s former lovers, and ended, ‘All of them … were handsome old gentlemen.’
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In 1585, Elizabeth sent troops to the Netherlands to aid the Protestant Dutch rebels who were striving to throw off the rule of Philip II. Spain had been extending its influence there and in France, posing a greater threat to England.

The Netherlands force was under the command of Robert Dudley, but they disagreed on the expedition’s strategy. She wanted to avoid direct confrontation with Spain and try to engage in negotiations, while he supported active military intervention and Dutch independence from Spain. As a result of Robert’s military campaign, the Dutch Council of State offered him the post of Governor General of the United Provinces, which he duly accepted.

Elizabeth was furious with this direct contradiction of her wishes and made no attempt to control her anger. She wrote to Sir Thomas Heneage, his friend and her own representative in the Netherlands, saying that Robert had greatly offended her by going expressly against her orders. Elizabeth also wrote to Robert directly:

Robert duly and humbly apologized to the Queen, saying her words had caused him such misery that he had fallen ill. It was an
old but effective ploy that he had used over the years to show his repentance and regain the Queen’s favour, and after a few months Elizabeth forgave him. Even direct disobedience could not truly come between them, it seemed. By August 1585, Elizabeth promised support to the Dutch in the Treaty of Nonsuch, an event that triggered the Anglo-Spanish War, a conflict that would continue for the next 19 years.

At the same time, Elizabeth was facing another threat closer to home. Mary, Queen of Scots, who had been in English custody for 18 years, had become involved in a plot to dispose of Elizabeth and have herself placed on the English throne. The plot was discovered while Mary was being held at Chartley Castle in Staffordshire under the strict surveillance of the Puritan Sir Amyas Paulet, who worked with Elizabeth’s spymaster Francis Walsingham to monitor all Mary’s communications. They intercepted letters containing details of the conspiracy, which involved six gentlemen assassinating Elizabeth, while a second group rescued Mary.

On discovering the plot, the Council arrested the conspirators and seized Mary’s papers, thereby providing proof of her involvement. The Council met and pronounced a sentence of death, which needed Elizabeth’s agreement. She procrastinated, wishing for any other outcome than the one facing her. It took the combined powers of Robert Dudley, William Cecil and Francis Walsingham to persuade Elizabeth that there was no alternative if she wanted to be safe from assassination.

On 4 December, the death warrant was drawn up, but Elizabeth still resisted signing it. Then in January, details of another plot against her emerged, giving Elizabeth, it seemed, no choice, but still she waited. Finally, on 1 February, Elizabeth approved the warrant. Worried that she might change her mind, Cecil had the warrant despatched immediately, and on 8 February
1587, Mary, Queen of Scots was beheaded at Fotheringay Castle in Northamptonshire.

Elizabeth was heartbroken at her cousin’s death, despite their mistrust of each other over the years. She was also worried about the consequences of the execution and how her European rivals might perceive it and consequently react. She told her Court that she had not meant the warrant to be served so quickly. The secretary who had carried it to Fotherhingay was arrested and imprisoned in the Tower.

The execution of Mary, Queen of Scots set off a sequence of events that would lead to Spain’s attempted invasion of England. With Mary’s death, Philip realized he could no longer rely on her to install a Catholic on the English throne. He acknowledged the Pope’s decision to excommunicate Elizabeth and stated that he himself was heir to the throne on the grounds that firstly, Mary had named him her heir in her will, denying her Protestant son, James VI of Scotland, and, secondly, that he himself had a direct, lawful descent from the two daughters of John of Gaunt, the father of Henry IV: Philippa of Lancaster, Queen of Portugal, and Catherine of Lancaster, Queen of Castile. Philip wanted to conquer England, ending the problems that the island was causing him. Apart from conspiring with the Dutch Protestant rebels, during the 1580s England was also pursuing a policy of piracy against Spanish ships, attempting to plunder their treasure.

Just months after Mary’s execution, Sir Francis Drake raided Cadiz, destroying a fleet of war ships. In response, Philip assembled an enormous fleet under the command of the Duke of Medina Sedonia and ordered his admiral to invade and conquer England, taking the Queen alive at all costs. This was not a reflection of his affection for her – instead, Philip planned to send the captive Queen to Rome where she would be triumphantly
exhibited before being handed over to the Pope and his inquisitors for punishment.

These grandiose plans would, in the end, come to nothing. The giant Spanish Armada set out with 22 warships from the Spanish Royal Navy and 108 converted merchant vessels, but ended up limping back to Spain in a disastrous retreat after being harried by the English fleet and hit by storms. Elizabeth proved to be a rousing and fearless leader, planning to ride at the head of her army to wherever along the coast the enemy might seek to land, while her fleet went out to battle. Robert, in command of the ground forces, managed to dissuade her from this:

He recommended instead that Elizabeth address her troops at Tilbury on the Thames, where she gave a defiant and patriotic speech that has become one of the key moments in English history. Standing in front of her soldiers Elizabeth uttered some of her most famous words: ‘I know I have the body but of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart and stomach of a king, and of a king of England too.’
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The defeat of the Spanish Armada in July 1588 heralded the highest point in Elizabeth’s rule, and was a victory that lent England not only a strong sense of national pride, but also the sense that God was on the side of a Protestant victory against the Catholic enemy.

Elizabeth’s moment of triumph at this great victory was soon overshadowed by great personal tragedy - the death of the Queen’s great love, Robert Dudley. After the Armada was defeated, Robert, who had been the Lieutenant and Captain General of the Queen’s Armies and Companies during the crisis, was lauded as a hero. His health had been poor, so he retired to take the waters at Buxton, and on his way there stopped off to visit friends in Rycote, where he wrote his last letter to Elizabeth. Later, on the Queen’s death, it was found in a cabinet by her bed. It reads in part:

Six days after this letter, on 4 September 1588, Robert died at the age of 56. Elizabeth was devastated. Their mutual affection and trust had lasted until the end.

Soon after, others who had served the Queen since the beginning of her reign began to pass away. In 1590, Robert’s
brother Ambrose Dudley died, as well as the spymaster Francis Walsingham and Elizabeth’s Household Controller Sir James Crofts. Then in 1591, Sir Christopher Hatton died at Ely Place in Hatton Gardens. Of her suitors, he alone had remained unmarried. Other deaths followed swiftly: Henry Carey, her most loyal cousin; Francis Knollys, her treasurer; Henry Hastings, a possible heir to the throne; and Elizabeth’s beloved Blanche Parry, who was buried with the honours due to a baroness. Then, in August 1598, William Cecil fell ill, retiring to his house at Theobalds. As he lay dying, Elizabeth came to feed him broth with her own hand, chatting to take his mind off his ailment. With his death, she lost her first and best servant.