Elizabeth showed her dry sense of humour by telling Feria about the
advances of the duke of Savoy and that being married to a foreigner had
caused Mary a lot of grief. Now that the marriage was linked to the royal
succession, it was altogether a more serious � and sensitive � subject.
Feria told Elizabeth that Philip would fight on against the French until
they gave Calais back. Elizabeth told him she'd behead anyone who
thought otherwise.
Elizabeth (who may only have been half joking) said she worried about
the English hatred of foreigners. Becase Feria was about to marry
Elizabeth's friend, Mary's lady-in-waiting Jane Dormer the following
month, he already regarded himself as an honorary Englishman. In fact,
he found English habits barbarous and their politics appalling.
Claiming the Crown
Mary died on the morning of 17 November at St James's Palace in London,
possibly of cancer. She'd been drifting in and out of consciousness for days
and wasn't in pain. She told her ladies in the last hours that she'd had dreams
of little children playing with angels.
The story goes that Elizabeth was walking in the knot gardens of Hatfield
when she was brought the news of Mary's death. She took a deep breath and
thanked God for a happy conclusion. The lord chancellor, Nicholas Heath,
proclaimed Elizabeth as queen and Parliament was dissolved.
The other Mary
Practically speaking, the only rival who could When Mary Tudor died, Mary of Scots was in
have rained on Elizabeth's parade was Mary, France, about to marry the dauphin and even-
Queen of Scots, her cousin once removed. tually become queen of France as well as
Elizabeth was the country's rightful queen Scotland. It was this French connection that
under the will of Henry VIII, but Mary of Scots, made Mary unacceptable to Philip. The last
now 16, did have a claim. She was the grand- thing he wanted was a Guise empire stretching
daughter of Margaret Tudor, Henry VIII's elder from the Pyrenees to Scotland.
sister, but because her father was the Scots
But although she wasn't to be queen of England,
king James V, she was an `alien'. That's why
for the next 20 years Mary of Scotland was to
Henry hadn't included her in his will.
be a thorn in Elizabeth's side. 196 Part III: Remembering the Forgotten Tudors: Edward VI and Mary
It was the smoothest handover of power in 50 years. Elizabeth's backers had
got men together, ready to face opposition from Catholics, Philip, anybody,
but no one argued and the Elizabeth's men quietly put their weapons away.
What was the state of play in 1558?
Pope Paul was hopeful. He'd lost faith in Mary because the Catholic
comeback had stalled. He couldn't stand Cardinal Pole and the pair's
deaths on the same day delighted him. Maybe Elizabeth would see sense
and continue Mary's work. Oh dear � Part IV illustrates how naive his
hope was!
Philip needed England in his war against France, but Elizabeth was as
devious as he was. Only time would tell how it would all work out (see
Chapter 12).
The bishops were uneasy. They received Elizabeth loyally (although
some refused to go to her coronation) and they urged her not to make
sudden, rash decisions but to check with the pope first.
The Protestants hoped their time had come. Rumours of the new
queen's religious leanings were too many not to be true. They expected
a field day.
At Mary's funeral on 14 December 1558, Bishop John White of Winchester
warned the congregation about the threat to religion. `The wolves,' he said,
`be coming out of Geneva and other places . . . and have sent their books
before them, full of pestilent doctrines, blasphemy and heresy to infect the
people.'
He must have hoped, as many Catholics did, that the queen would marry a
champion of the old faith who'd channel her in the right direction.
But nobody was ready for Elizabeth, as you can see in Chapters 12 to 18.
Elizabeth In this part . . . A fter Henry VIII, Elizabeth is the other Tudor every-
body knows about; red hair, white face, big ruff, hell of a temper. She was her father's daughter all right, and more of a man than many of her courtiers. She brought Protestantism and a bit of sanity back to religion, played house with at least two of her noblemen, had her cousin executed and went to war with Spain, the superpower of her age.
She was Gloriana, Orianna, Good Queen Bess. She only had the feeble body of a woman, but she wore the trou- sers in 16th-century England before trousers were even invented. A lot of people loved her (Leicester, Essex, Ralegh, Cecil, Walsingham) and a lot of people hated her too (Mary of Scots, Philip of Spain, most of Europe).
If Henry VIII was big, Elizabeth was bigger still, if only because she was a woman in a man's world. Her death in 1603 marked the end of a family whose like England shall never see again.
Dancing with Elizabeth In This Chapter
Making over the Council and Chamber
Playing the marriage game
Entertaining Elizabeth
Playing pirates
Annoying the king of Spain
E lizabeth took over the reins of government smoothly. Like a breath of
fresh air, she cleared out her Court, negotiated with foreign powers,
organised the navy and backed overseas voyages. Over it all, she kept every-
body guessing about her marriage � would she? Wouldn't she? Who to?
When? Everybody asked and nobody got an answer.
But the first ten years of Elizabeth's reign were nervy ones: the new queen
lived on the edge as enemies closed around her.
Clearing Out the Court
The queen was crowned at Westminster Abbey on 15 January 1559. Paintings
of the occasion show the 25-year-old with long golden hair flowing down her
back, her dress and stomacher of gold cloth, holding the orb and sceptre in
her hands. On her head is a glittering golden crown, set with rubies and emer-
alds. None of this stuff has survived today � the Crown Jewels in the Tower of
London only date from Charles II (1660) � but check them out even so.
This was a different style of coronation to Mary's or Henry VIII's or Henry
VII's. Elizabeth's service was performed by the bishop of Carlisle because the
archbishop of York refused to go; and the ceremony was in English as well as
in Latin. Protestant pageantry was everywhere you looked � a sign of things
to come (see Chapter 13).
Elizabeth's first job was to sort out her closest advisers. 200 Part IV: Ending with Elizabeth
Purging the Privy Chamber
The Privy Chamber was meant to comprise the queen's most trusted confi-
dantes (see Chapter 1), so all 23 of Mary's closest circle got the elbow and
were replaced with Elizabeth's relatives, especially the Seymours, Dudleys
and Greys.
Because the monarch was female, ladies-in-waiting were now closest to the
queen. They dressed her, bathed her and put her to bed. She can't have
been able to keep many secrets from them. Katherine Ashley was her closest
confidante, a sort of mother figure who'd been with Elizabeth since she was
a child. Two new girls on the block were Lady Knollys (pronounced Noles)
and Lady Carey. Others were the wives and daughters of new ministers (see
below).
Some of the men of the Chamber stayed put, like Katherine's husband John,
the grooms and ushers (who looked after horses and opened doors).
Out of a total of 50 Chamber members under Mary, Elizabeth changed nearly
40. If that didn't send a message as to how the new queen was going to oper-
ate, nothing would.
Choosing the Council
When it came to the Council , Elizabeth was more cautious (see Chapter 1 for
the Council's responsibilities). Courtiers could come and go but statesmen
were important, and she chose men who hopefully would stay loyal for life.
Here's how the new queen shook up the Council:
Kicked out: Principal Secretary John Boxall was fired � the man was an
ardent Catholic. The dodgy Lord Paget (see Chapter 11 for his views
on Elizabeth) was also shown the door, as was Nicholas Heath as lord
chancellor.
New blood: Elizabeth recruited two of the cleverest men of their genera-
tion. William Cecil (later Lord Burghley) became the queen's secretary
of state and right-hand man, and Nicholas Bacon became lord keeper
of the great seal. Elizabeth tasked these two men with sorting out her
Church (see Chapter 13).
Retained: The old marquis of Winchester stayed as lord treasurer and
Lord Clinton kept his job as lord admiral (even though he was a crony
of Philip's). Elizabeth also kept the earls of Arundel, Shrewsbury and
Pembroke. They were Catholics, but not rabid, and were intensely loyal
to the queen.
About a dozen of Mary's advisers stayed on.
It was all about balance. When Elizabeth came to the throne she had a coun-
try that was broke, divided, unhappy and disease ridden. She had to mend
fences as well as jump over them. So the old faces in the Council represented
continuity and experience, and the new ones, like the earl of Bedford and Lord
Cobham, stood for change. Elizabeth's Council was 20 strong, half the size of
Mary's.
This Council was the first one without a single churchman in it. The council-
lors were mostly elderly (the marquis of Winchester was 85) and were either
university men or lawyers from the London Inns of Court, but not one of them
had a religious background. Even when Matthew Parker was appointed arch-
bishop of Canterbury in 1559 he couldn't join Elizabeth's exclusive club.
Marrying the Job
From Sarah Bernhardt to Cate Blanchett, actresses have longed to play
Elizabeth because her reign has it all � vicious politics, terrible tortures,
naval battles on the high seas and discoveries of the New World. And the
story of Elizabeth's personal life is just as colourful � child molestations,
sexual abnormality, did she/didn't she, and if so, with whom . . .
Getting a picture of Elizabeth's sexuality
So what do we know about Elizabeth's sex life?
She was examined by doctors at the age of 13 and we don't know a)
why and b) what their findings were. Today we still wonder whether
Elizabeth had some sort of physical abnormality that made sex difficult
or impossible.
She was seduced at 14 by Lord Thomas Seymour in 1548. He liked to
chase her through the garden and slap her backside. In a bizarre scene,
Catherine Parr once held the girl down while Seymour cut Elizabeth's
dress to gawp at her undies and presumably the body underneath.
Weird or what?
Descriptions of the princess/young queen tell us she was attractive, with
golden hair, a high forehead (considered a sign of intelligence) and very
beautiful hands with long fingers that she fluttered while she talked.
She liked wearing particularly low cut dresses, not always on the most
appropriate occasions.
She was a notorious flirt, fluttering her eyelashes at ambassadors like
Count Feria (see Chapter 11), courtiers like Robert Dudley (see the later
section `Dallying with Dudley') and even the odd servant. 202 Part IV: Ending with Elizabeth
Looking for Mr Right
It was expected � and Elizabeth's first Parliament suggested � that the queen
would marry. So it wasn't a matter of whether but whom, and Elizabeth had a
number of options:
The duke of Savoy: Been there, done that. In Chapter 11 you see that
this was Philip's idea to shut up his sister-in-law and remove her as a
threat to Mary.
The earl of Arundel: A nice old boy, but at 46 he could've been
Elizabeth's father.
Sir William Pickering: A handsome soldier but he made no effort.
Philip of Spain: He put himself forward (largely as a matter of duty) as
early as 10 January 1559, before the coronation. Elizabeth turned him down
(politely) on the grounds of the Leviticus warning about marrying your
dead wife's sister that had caused Henry VIII so much grief (see Chapter 6).
Parliament wasn't best pleased when they asked Elizabeth about marriage
and her answer was, `And in the end, this shall for me be sufficient, that a
marble stone shall declare that a queen, having reigned such a time, lived
and died a virgin.' Well, okay; Parliament had other problems just then, but
they weren't going to let the matter drop.
Wanting it all
Elizabeth didn't want `a man about the kingdom', as Mary had with Philip, but
marriage and child bearing was still at the heart of the Tudor problem. She was
the last child of Henry VIII and beyond her the line got very murky indeed.
Even if Elizabeth had no physical problems in conceiving, the idea of mar-
riage can hardly have appealed. She'd seen Mary's unhappiness first-hand
and her life had been dominated by her father's string of marital mess-ups
(see Chapter 5).
The Enabling Act of 1554 had ungendered the crown � the queen was a man as
far as the Constitution went. Even so, Mary's marriage to Philip (see Chapter
11) had shown everybody the risks. A foreign husband would have his own
agenda, and as king he'd be able to use England in any future alliance or war.
A home-grown husband would be more acceptable to the foreigner-hating
English, but he'd stir up the old family squabbles that had made the Wars of
the Roses possible (see Chapter 2).
With hindsight, we can see that all Elizabeth's flirtations with proposals (see
the following section) were a bluff, but it wasn't like that at the time. Each
proposal seemed genuine and Elizabeth had weigh each up carefully. Chapter 12: Dancing with Elizabeth 203
The political and the personal Tudor marriages weren't to do with love; they The Counter-Reformation was a comeback were all about politics. This is what was hap- by the Catholic Church that brought all kinds pening in the politics of 16th-century Europe: of problems involving Spain, England and
of course the papacy. Elizabeth changed
Spain was becoming the superpower, thanks
marital direction depending on who was
to silver from the New World. Spain's power
top dog in Europe. By the 1560s the Roman
led to clashes with Barbary (North African)
Empire was on its way down, but Spain was
pirates, the Ottoman (Turkish) Empire in the
on its way up. As Spain got pushier in the
east and the Dutch (see Chapter 15).
1570s, however, Elizabeth went right off the
France was falling apart. The acciden- idea of a Habsburg connection.
tal jousting death of Henri II in 1559 led
to a power struggle and years of warfare
called the Wars of Religion, which let in the
English, the Spaniards and the Germans.
Toying with the talent
European princes were lining up as soon as Elizabeth was crowned.
Eric XIV of Sweden: He'd already tried it on before Mary died but the
Council turned him down because he was a Lutheran. Elizabeth rejected
Eric, partly because his little brother, John, duke of Finland, was sent
over to woo her. She may have known Eric was as mad as a March hare,
paranoid and suspicious to the point of having several courtiers mur-
dered. He was dethroned in 1569 and spent his last years writing psalms
before somebody poisoned him with arsenic. Good call, Elizabeth!
Charles of Austria: He was Philip's cousin and the son of the new Roman
emperor, Ferdinand. He was Catholic but `flexible' and not in line for
the throne so he was free to pop over for a life of bliss with Elizabeth.
Charles wasn't very keen but Elizabeth pretended to be (at first) and
William Cecil liked the idea. After two years of Elizabeth putting religious
and financial obstacles in the pre-nup, Charles gave up.
Henri of Valois, duke of Anjou: He was the younger brother of King
Charles IX of France and son of the terrifying Catherine de Medici.
Elizabeth only considered him as a possible rebuff to the ever more
threatening attitude of Philip II of Spain. Henri was only 18 at the time
and a rabid Catholic. Negotiations dragged on between 1569 and 1572
when it all went to hell in a handcart when Elizabeth discovered that
Catherine de Medici and Henri were up to their necks in the slaughter of
40,000 Protestants in Paris on St Bartholomew's Day, 24 August. Another
narrow escape! 204 Part IV: Ending with Elizabeth
Fran�ois, duke of Alen�on: Catherine de Medici (see the previous
bullet) had other sons and wasn't going to give up a crack at England
that easily. As pushy mothers go, de Medici takes some beating.
Fran�ois was her youngest boy and Secretary of State Lord Burghley was
getting desperate. The queen was 39 � only three years younger than
Mary when she died � and her biological clock may well have stopped
already. Elizabeth was old enough to be Alen�on's mother, but by 1578
she seemed keen to start on him again. Spain was on the rampage (see
`Sailing in New Directions', later in this chapter) and the duke of Anjou
(as Alen�on was by now) seemed a likely prospect to keep Philip at
arm's length.
The protestant John Stubbs wrote The Gaping Gulf as an attack on the
Anjou marriage. The poet Spenser had a go at it too in Mother Hubbard's
Tale but he got away with it, probably because he was usually buttering
Elizabeth up with stories about the Faerie Queen. Stubbs had his right
hand cut off (it was an Elizabethan belief that whatever body part had
offended should be removed) but still had the guts to sweep off his hat
with his left hand and shout `God save the queen!' before fainting. Cool,
or what?
Marriage negotiations with Anjou went on until 1581 (by which time
Elizabeth was 48), and when he arrived in England Elizabeth went all
schoolgirl over him, giving him a ring and telling everybody they were in
love. This was either a rush of blood to the head or a scam of some kind
all along, because days later Elizabeth told Anjou marriage was impos-
sible. `Goodbye' was all she wrote.
In this whirlwind ride through marriage proposals from foreigners, we've
travelled over 24 years. As each one passed, the queen's likelihood of preg-
nancy diminished and the succession faded. The quest for a groom was all
about politics � Elizabeth's heart, though not her head, lay elsewhere.
Dallying with Dudley
Did they? Didn't they? The one man who undoubtedly held a special place
in Elizabeth's heart was Robert Dudley, whom she made master of the horse
and earl of Leicester. This book contains so many Dudleys (check them out
in Chapters 7, 8 and 9) that for clarity's sake we'll call this one Leicester,
although he wasn't given the title until 1564.
Childhood sweethearts?
Leicester was the fourth son of the duke of Northumberland and was almost
exactly the same age as Elizabeth. They knew each other well and may have
had joint lessons with the same tutor. At the age of 17 Leicester married Amy
Robsart, the daughter of Sir John Robsart, a Norfolk gentleman. Chapter 12: Dancing with Elizabeth 205 Three years later Leicester was imprisoned in the Tower for his part in his father's attempt to keep Mary off the throne (see Chapter 9) and he found himself a cell or two away from Elizabeth. The story goes that he lent her cash when they were released, although she was richer than he was. William Cecil, who watched over Elizabeth like a mother hen (he'd run her estates even before she became queen), found Leicester pushy and didn't like him.
Favouring the favourite When the queen made Leicester her master of the horse, ears at Court began to prick up.
The first master of the horse was Thomas Brandon, brother of William, who'd saved Henry VII's life at Bosworth (see Chapter 2). Then, under Henry VIII at the Field of the Cloth of Gold (see Chapter 3), the master of the horse was Henry Guildford. Leicester held the job for 14 years. The job was a govern- ment appointment until 1924, changing with each ministry; since then it's been permanent. Next time you watch the Trooping of the Colour on TV, check out the master of the horse � he's the guy with a scarlet tunic and cocked hat riding the white horse. You can't miss him.
Because the position involved running the royal stables as well as advis- ing on cavalry horses for the army, it gave Leicester unlimited access to Elizabeth who, like her father, was very keen on riding and hunting. Elizabeth had Leicester's apartments moved nearer hers and she popped in to see him at all hours. Her ladies, who'd usually be present as chaperones with any male visitor to the queen, were told to make themselves scarce.
So were they actually lovers? Here's the evidence:
The Spanish ambassador, de Quadra, saw the couple canoodling on a
barge in 1561.
When Elizabeth made him earl of Leicester, people noticed her tickling
his neck as she put the collar on.
In August 1565 Leicester rode under the queen's window on his way back
from a hunt. She appeared at the casement `undressed' (relax, guys, that
really means in her nightie, but in Tudor times nighties were naughty).
The French ambassador told the Spanish ambassador in 1566 that
Leicester had slept with the queen on New Year's night.
There were rumours that Elizabeth had given birth to a son � Arthur
Dudley � who was spirited out of Hampton Court and brought up by
somebody else.
When Elizabeth was ill with smallpox in October 1562 and thought she was dying she said that she loved Lord Robert dearly, as God was her witness, and that nothing improper had ever passed between them. 206 Part IV: Ending with Elizabeth
In the various films on Elizabeth, Leicester hardly gets a mention until Cate
Blanchett's version. Joseph Fiennes is a swaggering, petulant Leicester (and a
hell of a dancer), childishly upset because the queen has to spend time with
various suitors, but 21st-century audiences have to have it spelled out, so
Leicester and the queen go to bed.
Did they really? Didn't they really? We'll never know. The important thing
is this � whatever their relationship, Elizabeth kept Leicester in his place,
once shouting at him, `God's death [Elizabeth swore like a trooper] my lord,