The Queen's Bed: An Intimate History of Elizabeth's Court (46 page)

The
Conference
had speculated on a subject which Elizabeth had forbidden to be discussed. The 1571 Treason Act had imposed severe penalties on publication of any claims to the royal succession, other than that ‘established and affirmed’ by Parliament.
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Anyone who debated it publicly was put in the Tower. Yet here was a book that blew the subject wide open, dedicated to Robert Devereux, the Earl of Essex, because ‘no man is more high and eminent in place or dignity at this day in our realm than your self’. The dedication to the earl was deliberately mischievous; he was Spain’s leading enemy at the English court. But at the same time it was very calculated; Essex had a large Catholic following and, as the book claimed, ‘no man like to have a greater part or sway in deciding this great affair’.

When Elizabeth was shown the work she summoned Essex to see her. Afterwards he was reported to have looked ‘wan and pale, being exceedingly troubled at this great Piece of Villainy done unto him’.
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He had already incurred the Queen’s displeasure when in May it had been revealed that he was the father of a son by Mistress Southwell.
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But having raged at Essex at his involvement in the book, after a few days the Queen accepted his word that he knew nothing about it.

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The annual Accession Day tilt at Whitehall Palace was one of the highlights of the court calendar, marking the return of the court to London after its absence during the summer progress. Shortly before 17 November, as the city bells rang and people rode out to meet her, the Queen made her state entry into London in advance of the tournament. From being an informal joust arranged by the gentlemen of the court in the Queen’s honour in the early 1570s, the tilt was now deliberately staged as an opportunity for young male nobles to pay homage to the Queen. With Sir Henry Lee, the organiser and principal promoter of the tilt, now retired, Essex resolved to use the tilt of 1595 as a means to regain royal favour.

In the months leading up to the tilt, each knight would work on his disguise, from which would emerge the symbolic colours for his liveried servants and lance-bearers, the emblem for his shield, the props and costumes. Appearing at the tilt was expensive. Honour came through strength and skill, but also in spectacular, ingenious pageantry. Elaborate outfits were designed for the young men and their servants, and painted shields inscribed with pithy mottos,
impresas
, tended to the glorification of the Virgin Queen. Tiltyard speeches, often witty or romantic in sentiment, were expected to be delivered before the Queen during the festivities.

The event was much anticipated by the court and public alike; Londoners would come clutching their 12d entry fee, eager for a spectacular day out. The Tiltyard, near to where Horse Guards Parade is today, could accommodate over 10,000 spectators. At one end was the tilt gallery or ‘long room’ in which Elizabeth sat with her ladies. Bordering the tiltyard were scaffolds and stands from where those who paid for admittance would watch the knights shattering their lances against one another.

After the day’s jousting was done and the supper enjoyed, Essex laid on an entertainment for Elizabeth entitled ‘Erophilus’ (‘Love’). The earl’s squire (representing Essex) called upon the Queen to observe how his master was ‘tormented with the importunity’ of the three representatives of Philautia (Self-Love): a Hermit, a Soldier and a Statesman. Each urges Erophilus (Essex), to abandon his love for his mistress and instead look to his own desires and fulfilment through either study (as the Hermit), martial glory (the Soldier), or political power (the Statesman). However, Essex’s squire dismisses these ‘enchantments’ of Philautia and reaffirms his master’s undying devotion to the Queen.

Despite Essex’s best efforts, Elizabeth was far from pleased by the performance; it was not the display of loyalty and glorification that she expected on Accession Day. Although seemingly a celebration of love and devotion to her Majesty, Elizabeth thought the entertainment was too much about Essex himself and complained, ‘If she had thought there had been so much said of her, she would not have been there that night, and so went to bed.’
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The earl’s bid to re-establish his position at court and in the Queen’s affection had failed, and instead of returning to his favoured position by the Queen’s side in the approach to Christmas, Essex was sent north. Henry Hastings, the Earl of Huntingdon and Lord President of the Council in the North since 1572, had fallen ill and the Queen needed to ensure order there, ‘till a trusty President can be found, if God should call him away’. By sending Essex away she could ensure that royal authority was upheld, though it meant that the earl was away from court for the festive season. She would not be happy but it would prove a point.

As the Earl of Huntingdon’s health continued to deteriorate, Elizabeth ordered that the news be kept from his wife, Katherine, Countess of Huntingdon, for fear of worrying her unnecessarily. Katherine spent long periods of time at their estate in Ashby-de-la Zouch in Leicestershire and also made regular visits to the court. By the early 1590s, Lady Katherine was in almost permanent attendance on Elizabeth and was sufficiently rehabilitated for her husband to thank the Queen, for being ‘so gracious to my poor wife, which I can no ways in any sort do anything to deserve’.
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Such was her favour with the Queen that in September, Rowland Whyte, Robert Sidney’s agent at court, urged his master, ‘I pray you write to my Lady Huntingdon by every passage, for tis looked for, and desire her favour to obtain your leave to return to see her, which will much advance it; for the Queen is willing to given any such contentment that may comfort her.’
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When a messenger arrived on 14 December 1595 with the news that the Earl of Huntingdon had died, the court was away from London. Elizabeth set off at once for the capital determined to tell the countess herself. ‘The Queen is come to Whitehall on such a sudden that it makes the world wonder when it is but to break it unto her herself,’ observed Rowland Whyte.
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On learning of her husband’s death, Katherine was distraught. ‘I am not able to deliver unto you the passions she fell into and which yet she continues in,’ Whyte told his master. Elizabeth was so concerned about Katherine that she returned again the following day to console her. ‘The Queen was with my Lady Huntingdon very private upon Saturday,’ said Whyte, ‘which much comforted her.’
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Overcome by her loss, Katherine fell seriously ill and it was feared her death was imminent. On 3 January it was reported that ‘my lady of Huntingdon continues so ill of grief that many doubt she cannot live. She is so much weakened by sorrow that no officers of hers dare go to her sign to know her pleasure, either in her own private fortune or to know what shall be done with the dead body of my Lord.’
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The countess, with no children of her own, was now desperate to see her nephew, Sir Robert Sidney, who was away serving in the Netherlands. The Queen’s concern for Lady Huntingdon was such that she recalled Sir Robert so that her dear friend had all the comfort she required. Lady Katherine’s condition improved and for the next few years she lived at Chelsea, made regular visits to court and remained close to Elizabeth until the Queen’s death. The countess also devoted herself to advancing the career of her nephew Sir Robert Sidney, and delighted in having his young children in her care during his embassies abroad. Robert Sidney now had the influential favour of both his aunts, the Countess of Huntingdon and Lady Anne, the Countess of Warwick who would also further his suits at court.

Essex returned from the north early in 1596. Whilst he remained the Queen’s favourite, the honeymoon period between them was clearly over. When Elizabeth seemed reluctant to admit the earl to his favoured place at her side, Essex retired to his chamber and feigned illness in order to regain the Queen’s attentions. On 19 February, Rowland Whyte reported, ‘My Lord of Essex keeps his Chamber still’. Three days later: ‘My Lord of Essex kept his Bed the most Part of all Yesterday, yet did one of his Chamber tell me, he could not weep for it, for he knew his Lord was not sick.’ Elizabeth was taken in by this charade. ‘Not a Day passes,’ Whyte told Sir Robert Sidney, ‘that the Queen sends not often to see him, and himself every Day goeth privately unto her.’ On 25 February, Whyte wrote, ‘My Lord of Essex comes out of his Chamber in his Gown and Night Cap … Full 14 Days, his Lordship kept in; her Majesty … resolved to break him of his Will, and to pull down his great Heart … but all is well again, and no Doubt he will grow a mighty Man in our state.’
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For now, Essex was restored to favour, as Elizabeth continued to entertain his petulance.

*   *   *

The daring raid on the Spanish port of Cadiz in the summer of 1596 was the Earl of Essex’s finest hour. Throughout the previous year he had grown frustrated as Elizabeth ignored his intelligence that Spain was preparing a fresh invasion. However, after a Spanish naval squadron attacked the west coast of Cornwall, and the Irish rebels led by the Earl of Tyrone became increasingly militant, Elizabeth ordered that her own forces be made ready. In the first days of April, while the fleet awaited Elizabeth’s permission to sail, a Spanish army from the Netherlands had marched on Calais, taken the town and laid siege to the garrison. Spain now had a foothold just across the Channel. Finally in June, the English fleet set sail for Cadiz, a major port on the Andalusian coast some forty miles from Seville and raided in an audacious attack by Sir Francis Drake ten years before. Three weeks later the fleet rounded the cape into the Bay of Biscay and began demolishing the Spanish navy. Essex led the troops ashore and stormed Cadiz in a dramatic coup, plundering the city’s vast riches.

In August, Essex returned to England and was given a hero’s welcome when his ship dropped anchor at Plymouth. However, when he went to court, he did not receive the reception he had anticipated: Elizabeth was furious. She had heard reports of the great booty brought back from Cadiz which everyone had seemed to benefit from bar her. After an investigation led by the Cecils into Essex’s conduct of the campaign, the earl was cleared of incompetence. Nevertheless, the relationship between Queen and Essex had undoubtedly soured.

It was not only Elizabeth who gave Essex a frosty reception on his return from Cadiz. In December he received a furious letter from Lady Anne Bacon, the mother of his close friends, Anthony and Francis Bacon. She rebuked Essex for the ‘lust of concupiscence’ and charged him with ‘inflaming a noble man’s wife and so near about her Majesty’. Lady Anne warned the earl that in doing so he courted ‘God’s severe displeasure’, and risked provoking violence from the woman’s husband; ‘if a desperate rage, as commonly followeth, he will revenge his provoked jealousy and most intolerable injury’.
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Essex refuted Lady Bacon’s claims and denied any improper dealings with ‘the lady you mean’. Nevertheless, his response was not entirely reassuring. He claimed that ‘since my departure from England towards Spain, I have been free from taxation of incontinency with any woman that lives’, suggesting he may have been guilty of philandering before he left for Cadiz.
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The woman to whom Lady Anne Bacon referred was Elizabeth Stanley, the granddaughter of William Cecil, who, with the Queen’s encouragement, had married the Earl of Derby in January 1595. Just five months later rumours circulated about the Earl of Essex and the ‘new crowned countess’, although these claims were energetically denied by the earl. Essex’s enemies maintained however that ‘he lay with my Lady of Derby before he went [to the Azores’].
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The Earl of Derby had been prepared to overlook his wife’s indiscretions with Essex at the time because he needed her help with a family financial dispute. But when Essex returned from his expedition later in the year, gossip about the earl and the countess revived. The news, Cecil wrote of his rival, left Essex ‘in no great grace’ with the Queen;
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the affair clearly demonstrated that the earl was ‘to fleshly wantonness … much inclined’.
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Privy Matters

Elizabeth’s late bedfellow, the greatly mourned Katherine Knollys, had nine children. One son in particular, William, cousin to the Queen, profited from his mother’s favour and secured a career at court. Elizabeth had promised to take care of Katherine’s children in the event of her death and in 1560, Sir William became a Gentleman Pensioner and under his father, Sir Francis, responsible for guarding Mary Queen of Scots at Bolton Castle in Yorkshire. Sir William later spent time as a captain under the command of his brother-in-law Robert Dudley, and eventually became Comptroller of the Royal Household in 1596, a position formerly occupied by his father.

When Mary Fitton, the fifteen-year-old daughter of Sir Edward Fitton, a Cheshire knight, came to court as a maid of honour in 1595, Sir William Knollys, then in his fifties, earnestly promised Mary’s father that he would play ‘the good shepherd and will to my power defend the innocent lamb from the wolvish cruelty and fox-like subtlety of the tame beasts of this place, which when they seem to take bread at a man’s hand will bite before they bark’. He assured Fitton that he would ‘be as careful of her well doing as if I were her true father’.
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But instead, Sir William’s behaviour towards Mary turned lecherous.

The maids of honour slept together, dormitory-style, in the Coffer Chamber, which was right next door to Sir William’s room. He protested that their ‘frisking and heying about’ kept him awake. One night, having grown particularly frustrated, he walked in on the maids wearing only his spectacles and nightshirt and carrying a copy of a book by Aretino.
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He then began pacing around their chamber reading aloud the obscene sonnets of the Italian author, which had been written to accompany a series of engravings depicting sexual positions, by Marcantonio Raimondi in
I Modi
or
The Sixteen Pleasures
published in 1524, for which the artist was imprisoned by the Pope.