Elizabeth's Spymaster (45 page)

54
Mary’s representatives withdrew from the conference on 6 December and the Scottish queen refused to offer a defence. On 10 January 1569 proceedings ended without any judgement being made.

55
Her mother Anne Boleyn, Henry VIII’s second wife, was the granddaughter of Thomas, Second Duke of Norfolk. The French ambassador in London had already reported rumours of the marriage to the French king. See Féenelon, Vol. I, pp.17–18.

56
Robinson, p.60 and Williams, p.141. The reference to the pillow recalled the murder of Darnley.

57
She was also concurrently seeking annulment of her marriage, by Protestant rites, to James Hepburn, Fourth Earl of Bothwell, to ensure her freedom to marry Norfolk.

58
Brenan and Statham, Vol. II, p.453. Cited by Williams, p.159. The ducal palace at Norwich had been extended by Norfolk and now boasted a 180-foot-long bowling alley and a covered tennis court. It also had its own theatre.

59
59 Anderson, Vol. I, p.21ff., suggests that the text was sent to Thomas Randolph, then English ambassador in Edinburgh, for his comments before publication. This is entirely plausible. As well as Randolph checking the diplomatic implications, he and Walsingham had a friendly relationship, as he was married to Anna, one of the children of Sir Thomas Walsingham, first cousin of Francis.

60
It is ascribed to Walsingham in various contemporary hands on the manuscript copies in the British Library – Harleian MS 290, fol.117 and Harleian MS 4, 314, fol.120. A printed version is in BL Cotton MS Caligula, C ii, fols.284–291. The manuscript version in Harleian MS 290 is printed in Read,
Mr Secretary Walsingham,
Vol. I, pp.68–79.

61
Her involvement in the murder of Darnley.

62
Mary’s mother was Mary of Guise, the powerful French Catholic noble house.

63
A pamphlet, published as ‘An answer to a slanderous book’ – Walsingham’s
Discourse –
and dated 15 March 1570, is in BL Cotton MS Julius F xi, fols.391ff.

64
Edwards,
The Marvellous Chance,
p.29.

65
Stählin, pp.246ff. The French ambassador Fénelon told the French queen mother in March 1569 that Ridolphi had ‘received a commission from the Pope personally to negotiate with the Catholic lords … for the restitution of the Catholic religion in England. He has mainly dealt with the Earl of Arundel and Lord Lumley, with whom he has had business dealings concerning loans he had made to them … He found them … not brave enough to dare to undertake anything if the Duke of Norfolk does not take part. He has been very difficult to win over but at last he has allowed himself to be persuaded See Fénelon, Vol. I, pp.233–7.

66
SPD,
Edward VI, Mary & Elizabeth, 1547–80,
p.345. Ridolphi was to remain in Walsingham’s house ‘without conference [contact with the outside world] until he may be examined of certain matters which touch her majesty very nearly’.

67
Ibid.

68
Ibid., p.346. Cited by Read,
Mr Secretary Walsingham,
Vol. I, p.67.

69
Cecil wrote to Walsingham and Alderman Bowes on 26 January 1570, formally discharging Ridolphi’s bond ‘for keeping his house and restraint of liberty during the queen’s pleasure’. See SPD,
Edward VI, Mary & Elizabeth 1547–80,
p.362.

70
Camden, p.394.

71
She was moved, as a security precaution, to Coventry on 25 November and was returned to Tutbury on 2 January 1571.

72
Stählin, p.299.

73
Ibid., pp.270–1

74
Cited by Read,
Mr Secretary Walsingham,
Vol. I, p.105.

75
Walsingham travelled by horse, using eight to reach Dover and a further sixteen from Boulogne to Paris, paying 2s 6d per horse. Shipping his belongings and geldings from Dover in two barques, or small sailing ships, cost a total of
£12
13s 4d, including tips to porters and customs duties to ‘searchers’ at the ports. The bill also included
£6
for two guides for himself and his cart from Boulogne. A letter of safe conduct was also issued for his servant John de Russe. See SPD
Edward VI, Mary & Elizabeth 1547–80,
p.432.

76
‘Cal. Spanish’, Vol. II, p.288.

77
See ‘Journal’,
passim.

78
Ibid., p.5 – ‘A bull set up against the queen my mistress
au pont de
[blank in manuscript] was brought up by Mr Dansett.’

79
Digges, p.45–6.

80
Walsingham’s wife went to the French court on 21 April and was ‘entertained by the Queen Mother [Catherine de Medici], the young queen, the Duchess of Lorraine, the lady Margaret [Marguerite de Valois]… and divers others’. One wonders what Ursula made of her entertainment.

81
Digges, p.29. Walsingham to Leicester, 28 January 1571.

82
Ibid., pp.29–30.

83
Killigrew was one of those Protestants who went into exile during Mary’s reign. He was employed on various diplomatic missions by Elizabeth in Scotland in 1558–66 and 1572–91. He was knighted in 1591 and died in 1603.

84
Smith (1513–77) was ambassador to France 1562–6. He became a member of the Privy Council in 1571 and a Principal Secretary of State a year later. His work on the Tudor constitution,
De Repuhlica Anglorum,
was published in English six years after his death.

85
CSPF,
1572–4,
p.9.

86
SPD,
Edward VI, Mary & Elizabeth, 1547–80,
pp.62–3.

87
Digges, p.343 and BL Cotton MS Vespasian F vi, fol.107, 13 July 1572.

88
Digges, p.212.

89
Gilbert (?1539–83), step-brother to Sir Walter Raleigh, used terror tactics to suppress the rebellion in Munster, killing men, women and children in disaffected areas and burning both homes and crops. He also decapitated the
corpses of those slain by his soldiers and stuck the heads on poles in his camps as an awful warning to the population.

90
An arquebus or ‘hackbut’ was a smoothbore matchlock and forerunner of the musket. It was fired by an ‘S ‘-shaped lever pressing a lighted match into a small pan holding priming powder, which in turn ignited the gun’s main charge.

91
Stählin, p.527, fn.1.

92
Fénelon, Vol. VI, p.330.

93
CSP Rome, Vol. II, p.45. Antonio Salviati, late Bishop of St Papoul, told the Cardinal of Como of Walsingham’s ‘dissatisfaction… at the execution done upon the Huguenots and the seizure of Briquemault in his house, as to which he has told his intimate friends that he has written to his queen that it is a point of honour for her to save him, whereof for the best of reasons I have not failed to apprise the Queen Mother [Catherine de Medici]’. The letter, in Italian, was dated Paris, 15 September 1572.

94
So many Lyonese corpses were floating in the River Rhone that the water was not drunk by the Arlesian population for three months.

95
According to a newsletter in Rome, dated 29 October, news of the massacre was brought to Charles IX ‘while he was at church. He devoutly gave thanks to God that it has so befallen and announced that he was firmly resolved to tolerate no religion in his realm save the Catholic’. CSP Rome, Vol. II, p.64.

96
Stählin, pp.530–1.

97
Digges, p.238. He sent a list of women and children killed in Paris in a dispatch to London dated 14 September 1573. See BL Add. MS 48, 126, fol.103B.

98
Bossy,
Under the Molehill,
p.55.

99
CSP Rome, Vol. II, p.42.

Chapter Two

1
APC, Vol. XV, p.330.

2
He was succeeded as ambassador by Dr Valentine Dale.

3
See Nuttall, pp.191–7.

4
BL Harleian MS 290, fol.88.

5
Edwards,
The Marvellous Chance,
p.35.

6
One reads: ‘Wise men ought [circums]pectly to se[e] w[hat they] do, to examine [before th]ey speak, to pro[ve before] they take in hand, [to be]ware
whose compa[ny the]y use and above all [things to] whom they trust.’ This is dated 10 April 1571. See: RCHM, Vol. V, p.84. Another carving is of an ornate panel containing the sacred monogram ‘IHS’ and with this additional inscription: ‘Anno D[omini] 1571 10 September. The most unhappy man in the world is he that is not patient in adversities, for men are not killed with the adversities they have but with the impatience which they suffer.
Tout vient a poient quy peult attendre
[‘Everything comes to him who waits’].
Gli sospirine son testimoni veri dell angoscia mia
[‘My sighs are true witnesses to my sorrows’]. Aged 29, Charles Bailly.’ See RCHM, Vol. V, p.85 and Edwards,
The Marvellous Chance,
p.29. The panel is illustrated in RCHM, Vol. V, plate 31 and in Edwards, facing p.192. A third, in Latin, is on the ground floor.

7
Evidence for how the rack worked can be derived from an eighteenth-century edition of William Shakespeare’s
Measure for Measure.
Its editor, Isaac Reed, wanted to illustrate the line: ‘Some flee from brakes of vice’ – ‘the brake’ being an alternative name for the rack – and after some searching in the Tower of London, he found the remains of ‘this horrid instrument’. It still had its iron frame and three wooden rollers but was minus its levers and ropes. The rackmaster clearly turned the central roller using a lever, attached by ropes to the other rollers at the head and foot, so pulling and stretching the victim. A replica was created for a special exhibition at the Tower which opened in 2003.

8
Williams, pp.199–200.

9
Digges, p.95 and CSPF, 1569–71
,
p.445.

10
Robinson, p.63 and Williams, pp.200–2.

11
Information supplied by Herle is in BL Cotton MS Caligula C iii, fols.57–60 and 166–169. Herle begins by complaining of a ‘great want of necessities’.

12
BL Add. MS 48, 023, fol.150.

13
BL Cotton MS Julius F vi, fol.11 lists the questions put to Norfolk during the interrogations.

14
BL Cotton MS Caligula C iii, fol.96.

15
CSP Rome, Vol. II, p.3

16
Ibid., pp.2–3.

17
For accounts of his imprisonment and trial, see BL Cotton MS Julius F vi, fol.200B; BL Add. MS 48, 027, fols.83–125B. The words recorded in Brown
(passim)
and in the report of the trial printed in the
Harleian Miscellany,
Vol V, pp.414–21 differ widely. His last moving letter to his children, dated 26 January 1572, is in Add. MS 48, 023, fols.153–156.

18
Camden, p.140.

19
Brown, preface; Edwards,
The Marvellous Chance,
p.398.

20
Hatfield House, CP 90/150.

21
BL Cotton MS Vespasian F vi, fol.261, 18 January 1573.

22
SPD,
Edward VI, Mary & Elizabeth, 1547–80,
p.466.

23
Wotton (1548–1626) was briefly considered a candidate to succeed Walsingham as Secretary of State, together with Sir Edward Stafford. In the end, Burghley had to do the job.

24
CSPF,
1577–8,
p.457. Sir Amyas Paulet, then ambassador in Paris, had bought the satin and sent it over to London. Walsingham told him that the queen liked the gift ‘so well that I have never had greater thanks of her for any present that I made her’.

25
Bertrand de Salignac de la Mothe Fénelon, French ambassador to London 1568–75, and Michel de Castelnau, Seigneur de la Mauvissièere, French ambassador to London 1575–85.

26
Almost certainly a reference to Queen Elizabeth.

27
BL Add. MSS 48, 149, fols.3B-9B.

28
BL Harleian MS 290, fol.84.

29
Cited by Read,
Mr Secretary Walsingham,
Vol. II, p.267.

30
‘Cal. Spanish’, Vol. II, pp.595–6.

31
Nicholas,
Memoirs of…
Hatton,
p.361–2.

32
The original pamphlet was in Latin. An English translation was published under the name of J. Creswell.

33
See Meyer, p.177.

34
BL Lansdowne MS 97, fol.154.

35
SPD,
Elizabeth, 1581–90,
p.126.

36
Ibid., p.161. Mendoza also said that Edward Arden, Mary his wife and the priest Hugh Hall were to be executed; however, the woman’s body would not be quartered as this was illegal in England. The sentence on her was deferred as she was pregnant. CSPF,
July 1583-July 1584,
pp.651–2. See also Read,
Mr Secretary Walsingham, Vol. II, p.381 fn.

37
CSPF, July
1583-July 1584,
p.651. Letter from Mendoza to ?the Prince of Parma, December 1583.

38
Ibid., pp.652–3.

39
Stucley (?1530–78) had been a privateer for Elizabeth in 1563 but escaped to Spain seven years later where he received a pension from Philip II. He later
joined an expedition against Morocco and died after a cannon shot took off both his legs during the battle of Alcazar.

40
CSP Rome, Vol. II, p.19.

41
Ibid., p.54.

42
Ibid., pp.140–1.

43
Ibid., p.208. The grants were signed on 13 June 1571.

44
For more information on Tregian (1548–1608), written in the seventeenth century by the Cistercian monk Francis Plunkett, see the text contributed by Mrs P. A. Boyan in CRS, Vol.XXXII,
Miscellanies,
London, 1932.

45
CRS, Vol. II,
Miscellanea,
p.191. The arrest party found a papal bull of indulgence amongst Mayne’s papers. During his interrogation, he defiantly maintained that if any Catholic prince ‘took in hand to invade any realm to reform the same to the authority of the See of Rome … then the Catholics in that realm invaded by foreigners should be ready to assist and help them’. See A. L. Rowse,
Tudor Cornwall,
London, 1941, pp.346–51. Tregian was imprisoned.