Chapter 8
Smallpox was exceptionally virulent during the early years of Elizabeth's reign, and in the early 1560s reached epidemic form, seeming to single out 'aged folks and ladies': the Countess of Bedford and hundreds of lesser folk had recently succumbed to it. Smallpox was a dreaded disease, not only because it was life-threatening, but also because those who did survive it were often left horribly disfigured. Thomas Randolph described the early symptoms as being 'a pain in their heads that have it, and a soreness in their stomachs with a great cough'.
Queen Elizabeth was at Hampton Court when, on 10 October 1562, she first felt unwell. Believing, as many did then, that it would effect a cure, she immersed herself in a bath, then took a bracing walk outdoors; as a result, she caught a chill. Within hours, she had taken to her bed, running a high temperature.
Dr Burcot, a respected but irascible German physician, was summoned to examine her. He diagnosed smallpox, but there were no spots, and the Queen dismissed him for a fool. No eruptions appeared, which many believed betokened the onset of a serious attack, and a day or so later the fever grew worse. By 16 October she was very ill indeed, first becoming incapable of speech and then lapsing into an unconscious state in which she remained for twenty-four hours. The royal doctors, fearing that her death was imminent, sent urgently for Cecil to come down from London.
The next night, Elizabeth drifted in and out of consciousness as the crisis approached, and there was a hurried convening of an anxious Privy Council, whose members were all panic-stricken over the unresolved matter of the succession. If the Queen died, as most believed she would, who should succeed her? Over the next few days there were urgent discussions, with the councillors, according to de Quadra, divided in their opinions: extreme Protestants favoured Lady Katherine Grey, while moderates supported the Earl of Huntingdon, who had no near blood relationship to the Queen. The rest wanted the judiciary to determine the matter. Not one spoke in support of Mary, Queen of Scots. But a consensus was lacking, which hinted at deep divisions and boded ominously for the future.
As the court prepared to go into mourning, Lord Hunsdon persuaded a reluctant Dr Burcot - some said at the point of a dagger - to resume his treatment of the Queen. Following a curative measure first used by the Arabs and recommended by the English medieval physician John of Gaddesden, Burcot ordered that she be wrapped in red flannel, laid on a pallet beside the fire, and given a potion of his devising. Two hours later, Elizabeth was conscious and able to speak.
Fearfully, the councillors gathered around her bedside. She was aware that she was dangerously ill - 'Death possessed every joint of me,' she told a parliamentary delegation soon afterwards - and her chief concern was to make provision for the government of England after her death. Turning in extremis to the one man she felt she could trust, she commanded the councillors to appoint Robert Dudley Lord Protector of England, with the magnificent salary of 20,000 per annum. She also asked that his personal servant, Tamworth, who slept in his room, be given a large pension of 500 per annum. Many people thought, then as now, that this was to buy the silence of one who had stood guard while the Queen and Dudley were alone, but Elizabeth, anticipating that adverse conclusions would be drawn, declared 'that, although she loved and always had loved Lord Robert dearly, as God was her witness, nothing unseemly had ever passed between them'. It is hardly likely that one who believed she would shortly be facing divine judgement would have lied over such a matter.
Although the councillors were much dismayed by her commands, 'everything she asked was promised', for nobody wished to distress her with any arguments, since she was 'all but gone', but, according to de Quadra, 'it will not be fulfilled'. It was obvious that the appointment of Dudley as Lord Protector could only provoke a bitter power struggle.
Shortly afterwards, Dr Burcot entered the royal bedchamber with some medicine, and it was at this point that Elizabeth groaned as she noticed that the first red eruptions of smallpox had appeared on her hands.
'God's pestilence!' swore the doctor at his august patient. 'Which is better? To have a pox in the hand, or in the face, or in the heart and kill the whole body?' The spots, he told the anxiously hovering councillors, were a good sign, and indicated that the worst was over. Soon, the pustules would dry out, form scabs and fall off.
From then onwards, to the profound relief of the Council and her subjects at large, Elizabeth improved rapidly - Randolph wrote that she was in bed for six days only - but it had been a near thing, and her grateful subjects issued a coin to mark her recovery. Her brush with Death, 'the blind Fury with the abhorred shears', brought home to them as nothing else could that only her life, which could be snuffed out at any time, stood between peaceful, stable government and the uncertainties of a disputed succession, which could easily lead to civil war. The scare left both councillors and Members of Parliament determined to force the Queen to marry and provide the country with an heir without further dithering or fruitless prolonging of courtships and diplomatic negotiations.
Throughout her illness, Elizabeth had insisted that only her favourite ladies attend upon her, and none nursed her more devotedly than her friend, Lady Mary Sidney, wife of Sir Henry, and sister to Dudley. But while the Queen's pockmarks eventually faded, Lady Mary caught the dreaded smallpox and emerged from it so hideously scarred that she never appeared publicly at court again. Sir Henry Sidney was abroad throughout her illness, and later wrote, 'When I went to Newhaven, I left her a full, fair lady, in mine eyes at least the fairest, and when I returned, I found her as foul a lady as the smallpox could make her, which she did take by continual attendance on Her Majesty's most precious person. Now she lives solitary.'
Elizabeth remained friends with Mary Sidney, being truly sorry for her tragedy, and would visit her privately at Penshurst Place in Kent, the Sidney country seat. On the rare occasions when Mary could be persuaded to come to court, she remained in her apartment, and the Queen, abandoning royal precedent and etiquette, visited her there.
As for Dudley, who had very nearly become the ruler of England, on 20 October Elizabeth, having just settled on him a pension of#11000 per annum, finally made him a Privy Councillor; in order to preserve the peace, she bestowed the same honour upon his rival, Norfolk. Although the rivalry between the two men remained as intense as ever, they were now displaying in public a 'close intimacy'. As for Dudley, he was to prove a faithful and diligent councillor, attending more meetings than most right up to the end of his life.
By 25 October, Elizabeth had resumed her normal duties, but she was aware that certain demands would undoubtedly be made of her by Parliament: the mood in the country and the Council left her in little doubt of public feeling. She therefore tried to stall when it came to summoning Parliament, but her councillors were not prepared to suffer her delaying tactics. In November, weeping with rage, she had a furious confrontation with her former suitor Arundel, who stood his ground and defended the right of her lords to interfere in the matter of the succession, which touched the whole country. Later that month, Elizabeth, who needed the money that it could vote, had no choice but to summon Parliament.
When Elizabeth's second Parliament met on 12 January 1563, its members were determined to have the question of the succession settled once and for all. The matter was first raised when, during the opening ceremonies, Alexander Nowell, Dean of St Paul's, at Dudley's behest, castigated the Queen for failing to marry.
Just as Queen Mary's marriage was a terrible plague to all England, so now the want of Queen Elizabeth's marriage and issue is like to prove as great a plague. If your parents had been of like mind, where had you been then?' he asked the Queen. 'Alack! What shall become of us?' Elizabeth never spoke a friendly word to him again.
But the Lords and Commons were unanimous in supporting Nowell, and soon afterwards agreed that lovingly-worded petitions from both Houses should be submitted to Her Majesty, urging her to marry or designate a successor, for 'thereby shall she strike a terror into her adversaries and replenish her subjects with immortal joy'. Cecil supported the petitions, but not openly - 'The matter is so deep I cannot reach into it,' he wrote. 'God send it a good issue!'
Both petitions were couched in humble terms, reminding Elizabeth of the terror felt by her subjects during her illness and warning her what might ensue if she died without naming her successor: 'the unspeakable miseries of civil wars, the perilous intermeddlingsof foreign princes, with seditions, ambitions and factious subjects at home, the waste of noble houses, the slaughter of people, subversion of towns, unsurety of all men's possessions, lives and estates', attainders, treasons and a host of other calamities.
We fear a faction of heretics in your realm, contentious and malicious Papists. From the Conquest to the present day, the realm was never left as now it is without a certain heir. If Your Highness could conceive or imagine the comfort, surety and delight that should happen to yourself by beholding an imp of your own, it would sufficiently satisfy to remove all manner of impediments and scruples.
Elizabeth always took the view that neither her marriage nor the succession were the business of her subjects, but matters for herself alone, yet she could not afford to alienate Parliament, and therefore resorted to deliberate obfuscation and procrastination. After din.ier on 28 January, she graciously received the delegation from the Commons in the gallery at Whitehall Palace. The Speaker, on his knees, presented the Commons's petition, which she 'thankfully accepted' and then delivered 'an excellent oration' in which she assured him and his fellows that she was as worried as they were about the succession, and had been especially so since her illness. She won sympathy by confiding that the matter had occupied her mind constantly as she recuperated. 'Yet desired I not then life so much for my own safety as for yours.'
She laboured, she told them, under an intolerable burden. They were asking her to name a successor, but she could not wade into so deep a matter without weighty deliberation and was more concerned about choosing the right claimant. If her choice led to civil war, her subjects might lose their lives, 'but I hazard to lose both body and soul', she said, being responsible to God for her actions.
It was not their place, she admonished, to petition her on this matter, but she knew the difference between men who acted out of love and loyalty and those who were mischief-makers. She did not wish to hear them speak of her death, for she knew now, as well as before, that she was mortal. She would, she promised, take further advice, and then give them an answer.
'And so I assure you all', she concluded, 'that though after my death you may have many stepdames, yet shall you never have a more natural mother than I mean to be unto you all.'
Two days later she received the deputation from the Lords with their petition, in which they urged her to marry 'where it shall please you, to whom it shall please you, and as soon as it shall please you'. Even if she chose Robert Dudley, he would be better, they felt, than no husband at all. Failing this, they begged her to name her successor, since 'upon the death of princes the law dieth'. The Lords were anxious to have Mary Stuart's claim disposed of: they did not, 'as mere, natural Englishmen', wish to be 'subject to a foreign prince', and Mary was 'a stranger, who, by the laws of the realm, cannot inherit in England'. According to Sir Ralph Sadler, who served four Tudor sovereigns, 'the stones in the streets would rebel' at the prospect of Mary ruling England.
Displaying some irritation, the Queen told the delegation that she had made allowances for the Commons, where she had observed 'restless heads in whose brains the needless hammers beat with vain judgement', but she expected the Lords to know better than to press her on such weighty matters. It was not impossible that she would marry: 'The marks they saw on her face were not wrinkles, but the pits of smallpox, and although she might be old, God could send her children as He did to St Elisabeth, and they had better consider well what they were asking, as, if she declared a successor, it would cost much blood to England.'
Initially, both Lords and Commons were too impressed by her graciousness and her powers of oratory to realise that Elizabeth had stalled again; they really believed that she would now take steps to resolve the matters of her marriage and the succession, when in fact she had promised nothing at all. Consequently, Parliament refrained from debating the succession, although by 12 February, the Commons were getting restive, and sent the Queen a humble reminder that they were waiting for an answer. But Elizabeth was biding her time until Parliament had voted the subsidy she wanted.
Parliament had by then proceeded to its other business, that of passing legislation to protect the Anglican Settlement of 1559. These Acts extended the Oath of Supremacy required from all in public life, and imposed penalties upon those who upheld the authority of the Pope and those who opposed the Church of England. In February, Convocation approved the restoration of the Thirty-Nine Articles of Henry VIII (in place of the Forty-Two Articles of Edward VI) in which were enshrined the Church's basic doctrines: these were finally approved by Parliamentin 1571.
When, on 10 April, Parliament assembled for its closing ceremonies, the Queen, who had been voted her subsidy, attended and gave to the Lord Keeper, Sir Nicholas Bacon, a handwritten answer, composed by herself, to the petitions of the two Houses. Fuming over her subjects' temerity, she had written two earlier drafts which referred to the 'two huge scrolls' they had given her, but had amended this as her irritation subsided. In the final version she wrote:
If any here doubt that I am, as it were by vow or determination, bent never to trade that way of life [i.e. spinsterhood], let them put out that kind of heresy for your belief therein is awry. For though I can think it best for a private woman, yet do I strive with myself to think it not meet for a prince. And if I can bend my liking to your need, I will not resist such a mind. I hope I shall die in quiet with 'Nunc dimittis', which cannot be without I see some glimpses of your following surety after my graved bones.
And that was that. Parliament was prorogued with what Elizabeth herself described as an 'answer answerless', a most unsatisfactory response to its carefully-drafted petitions.
By rejecting the claim of Mary Stuart to be Elizabeth's successor, the Lords were by implication endorsing that of Lady Katherine Grey, whom many supported. Lady Katherine and Lord Hertfoid had remained in the Tower since August 1561, but they had not been ill treated. Katherine's apartment was hung with rich curtains and tapestries, and she was permitted such comforts as a Turkey carpet and a line tester bed with a feather mattress. Delicacies were brought in for her table, and she was allowed to keep her pet dogs with her. All this had been arranged with the full knowledge and approval of the Queen, but what the Queen did not know was that Katherine's gaolers, feeling some sympathy for Katherine and her husband, had allowed the young couple to meet regularly and even share the feather mattress at night.
By the autumn of 1562 Katherine was pregnant again, and in the first week of February 1563, she gave birth to her second son, Thomas. This could not be concealed from Elizabeth, whose fury knew no bounds, and she gave orders that under no circumstances were Katherine and Lord Hertford to meet again. They never did, and Katherine spent the best part of the rest of her life weeping for her lost love.
Hertford was hauled before the Court of Star Chamber, where he was found guilty of having compounded his original offence of having 'deflowered a virgin of the blood royal in the Queen's house' by having 'ravished her a second time'. He was fined - 15,000, later commuted to .3000. As for Sir Edward Warner, the kindly Lieutenant of the Tower who had allowed the couple conjugal visits, he was dismissed from his post.
In the summer, when there were cases of plague within the Tower, the Queen sent both young people, heavily guarded, into the country, there to be kept separately under house arrest. There was no question now of Elizabeth acknowledging Katherine Grey as heiress to the throne, but later that year talk of a secret conspiracy to have her two sons legitimised prompted the Queen to bring her cousin back to the Tower, lest she become a focus for rebellion. As a near relative in blood, with two sons, she represented a very dangerous threat to Elizabeth's security. Thereafter she remained in the Tower, being allowed to leave it only for short visits under guard to the Lieutenant's house in Suffolk, Cockfield Hall. Hertford's piteous requests to visit her there met with firm refusals.
Lady Katherine Grey died of tuberculosis in 1568 at Cockfield Hall. The Queen paid for a ceremonial funeral in Salisbury Cathedral. Although she never forgave Katherine for her secret marriage, she no longer nourished animosity towards Lord Hertford, who was released from the Tower. He married twice more and lived to be an old man. As for his sons by Katherine, they were placed in the care of Cecil, who brought them up for a time with his own children.
In February 1563, scandal had also touched Mary Stuart, who, since her return to Scotland, had cherished a nostalgia for the court of France and employed as her secretary a young French courtier called Pierre de Chastelard. Unwisely, Mary showed special favour to this gallant, but he soon grew too ardent in his behaviour towards his mistress, and could have seriously compromised her honour when he was discovered hiding under her bed by Scots lords who were jealous of his influence. They arrested him, and on 22 February had him executed.
After Queen Elizabeth had recovered from smallpox, Warwick's force had gone to France, where they had occupied Newhaven, but in March 1563 the capture of the Huguenot leaders and the murder of the Duke of Guise enabled Catherine de' Medici to bring the religious conflict to an end. The English troops were therefore technically redundant, but Elizabeth had invested her money in them in order to secure the return of Calais, and insisted that they remain in France to achieve this aim. However, with the country at peace, both Catholics and Protestants now united against the English invaders and laid siege to Newhaven. A terrible epidemic of plague swept through the English ranks and decimated their numbers. As the months went by, and the siege continued, it seemed increasingly likely that Calais was irretrievably lost.
During this time, Queen Mary consistently supported her 'dear sister, so tender a cousin and friend', having resisted all attempts by the Guise faction to draw her over to their side. On 2 November, Mary wrote to Elizabeth to express her relief that her cousin had recovered from her illness and that 'your beautiful face will lose none of its perfections'. Mary was still enthusiastic about meeting Elizabeth, and even more anxious to persuade her cousin to declare her her successor. Elizabeth wrote Mary affectionate letters of condolence on the death of the Duke of Guise, and after Parliament had been prorogued in April, she ordered the imprisonment of John Hales, a lawyer who wrote and circulated a pamphlet deriding Mary's claim to the throne and supporting that of Lady Katherine Grey. The Queen also temporarily banished his patron, Sir Nicholas Bacon, from court.
Maitland was still pressing for Mary to be acknowledged as heiress presumptive, but the problem of the succession was a complex one, as Elizabeth knew well. The succession was not a thing she could bestow as a gift, it was a right under the law, and there was, as we have seen, much dispute over whose claim was the strongest. For Parliament to accept Mary, Queen of Scots as Elizabeth's heir, Mary would have to demonstrate that she had English interests at heart, and her marriage plans so far had done little to reinforce this conviction. Elizabeth complained to Cecil that she was 'in such a labyrinth' with regard to the problem of Mary and the succession that she had no idea what course to follow, yet Cecil could not offer much comfort. Elizabeth knew he distrusted Mary because of her Catholicism, but he had also told her that if she excluded her cousin from the succession, the result would probably be war. Cecil's unwelcome advice was that Elizabeth should marry as soon as possible.
Unaware of his sadistic tendencies, Mary was still pursuing negotiations for a marriage to Don Carlos, which was seen in England as being directly opposed to English interests. Elizabeth's chief desire was to see Mary married to a loyal Englishman, and it was around this time that she first conceived the idea of proposing Robert Dudley as a husband for the Scots Queen. It seems that, initially, this was her way of paying him back for inciting Parliament to press her into marriage. Gradually she grew to like the idea and began to pursue it seriously.
It was not such a preposterous notion as it seemed. Dudley was the one man who could be trusted to promote England's welfare north of the Border; indebted to Elizabeth for his meteoric rise to power and an almost princely status, he would not be likely to forget the woman for whom he felt a genuine affection, if not love. Dudley was hungry for a crown and had a penchant for attractive redheads; by marrying him, Mary would remove herself from the European marriage market, and the threat of foreign interference in Scotland would recede. England and Scotland would draw closer together in friendship. As a Protestant, Dudley would be acceptable to the Calvinist lords and would hold the Scots Catholics in check. The drawback, of course, was that Elizabeth would have to give him up, but it seems that she had already decided to embrace celibacy, and, hard as renouncing him would be, she convinced herself she could do so if she knew that it was to her and England's advantage. Moreover, royal marriage negotiations took so long that their parting might be months, if not years, away.
Few people shared her view of the situation. Only Cecil, who perceived what good could result from the match and who, for reasons of his own, wanted Dudley out of the way, supported the plan. When, in the spring of 1563, Elizabeth first broached the matter to Maitland, quite suddenly in a private audience, saying that she was prepared to offer his Queen a husband 'in whom nature had implanted so many graces that, if she wished to marry, she would prefer him to all the princes in the 'world', an embarrassed Maitland guessed whom she was referring to and tried to pass the whole thing off as some royal joke. When, however, he saw that Elizabeth meant what she said, he stuttered 'that this was a great proof of the love she bore his Queen, that she was willing to give her a thing so dearly prized by herself, but he felt certain his sovereign would not wish to deprive her cousin of 'all the joy and solace she received from his company'. Elizabeth was not to be put off. It was unfortunate, she said, that the Earl of Warwick was not as handsome as his younger brother, for had this been so Queen Mary could have married Ambrose while she herself became the wife of Dudley. Maitland rejoined that Her Majesty ought to marry him anyway, 'and then when it should please God to call her to Himself, she could leave the Queen of Scots heiress to both her kingdom and her husband; that way, Lord Robert could hardly fail to have children by one or other of them'.
Cecil also praised Dudley to the skies, writing to Maitland that he was 'a nobleman of birth, void of all evil conditions that sometimes are heritable to princes, and in goodness of nature and richness of good gifts comparable to any prince born and, so it may be said with due reverence and without offence to princes, much better than a great sort now living. He is also dearly and singularly esteemed [Cecil had written "beloved" here, but crossed it out] of the Queen's Majesty, so as she can think no good turn or fortune greater than may be well bestowed upon him.' In Maitland's private opinion, the Queen's plan to foist her discarded lover - a commoner - upon Mary Stuart was little short of insulting, especially in view of his reputation as a former traitor and suspected wife murderer, and when the ambassador returned to Scotland he said nothing of Elizabeth's suggestion to Mary. But he had informed de Quadra of it, de Quadra informed King Philip, and before long the news had spread rapidly to Scotland and France. Everywhere it met with derision, and few believed that Elizabeth was serious.
Elizabeth was determinedly set on her course, and having made this resolution, she could afford to be generous to Lady Lennox. She ordered her release in the spring of 1563, making it conditional upon a promise that Lady Lennox would never again scheme to marry her son to the Queen of Scots. Furthermore, in June Elizabeth wrote to Queen Mary asking that an old attainder on the Earl of Lennox be reversed, so that he could return to his estates in Scotland.
Dudley was still riding the crest of success. In June, Elizabeth bestowed upon him Kenilworth Castle in Warwickshire, a huge medieval fortress that had been converted by John of Gaunt in the fourteenth century into a luxurious palace. Northumberland had briefly owned it, and Dudley had had his eye on it for some years. Now he would have a country seat of his own, just five miles south of Warwick Castle, the residence of his older brother Ambrose, and he wasted no time in drawing up elaborate plans for its improvement and renovation in order to make it a fit place to entertain the Queen. It would be ten years before Kenilworth was ready to receive her, and then it would be the most magnificent of all Elizabethan mansions.
Dudley enjoyed a standard of luxury tasted by few, yet he was still living beyond his means. His pride demanded that he make it known how munificently the Queen had enriched him, which led to him being besieged by those who craved his patronage. As a result of this the number of his clients and those beholden to him increased, affording him a substantial following. Sensitive about his lack of popularity and disinterested supporters, he was usually quick to revenge himself on those of his followers who failed to reciprocate his kindness, but steadfast and generous to those whose loyalty was genuine.
Ambrose Dudley, Earl of Warwick was still in Newhaven, trying to cope on insufficient funds with a plague-ridden army whose numbers were dwindling at an alarming rate. In July, Elizabeth agreed that he had no choice but to surrender Newhaven to the French, but during negotiations he was shot in the leg by an enemy musket. At the end of the month, having withdrawn from France with as much honour as he could salvage, Warwick returned home, but his leg would never fully heal, and he walked with a stick for the rest of his life. Lord Robert went down to Portsmouth to welcome his brother but the Queen sent a messenger after him to warn him that he was in danger of catching the plague from the returning troops. Dudley defied her, having found Ambrose in bed in some pain, and an angry Elizabeth commanded him to stay put in case he brought the contagion back to court.
Elizabeth was in no very good mood just then: she was furious with the French and humiliated over the loss of Newhaven. It seemed that Calais would never be recovered, and to make matters worse there was grumbling in England against the incompetence of women rulers. De Quadra reported that he had heard people blame the Queen for what had happened and say, 'God help England and send it a king.'
As Elizabeth feared, the returning soldiers had brought the plague to England. For the rest of the summer, it raged unchecked, claiming, in London alone, three thousand souls each week, and in the suburbs around the capital twenty thousand altogether. One of those who succumbed was Bishop de Quadra, who died in August, having been a source of trouble to Elizabeth to the last. His mischievous reports had done much to weaken the friendship between England and Spain.
That month, Elizabeth sent Thomas Randolph back to Scotland, with instructions to persuade Mary to allow Elizabeth to choose her a husband. He was to say that if Mary consented 'to content us and this our nation in her marriage', Elizabeth would be as a mother to her and would 'proceed to the inquisition of her right and title to be our next heir, and to further that which shall appear advantageous to her'. The only clue as to whom the chosen husband might be lay in the reference to 'some person of noble birth within our realm, yea, perchance such as she would hardly think we could agree unto'.
Mary, however, did not understand what was implied, and begged for clarification. Who, among the English aristocracy, would her 'good sister' regard as suitable? Randolph, who knew of Elizabeth's intentions, was praying he would not have to tell her, opining to Cecil that it was asking too much of her 'noble stomach' to debase her 'so low as to many in place inferior to herself. Fortunately for him, Elizabeth was still playing for time and, in the interests of retaining Mary's interest and preventing her from pursuing other marriage plans, kept her guessing for the next few months. Thus when Randolph went home, Mary was none the wiser.
In the autumn of 1563, Don Carlos fell seriously ill, and this appeared to signal the end of Mary Stuart's hopes of a Spanish marriage. Finding the right husband was, for the Scots Queen, a priority, not only for political and dynastic reasons - she, like Elizabeth, had no heir of her body - but also because she was unsuited to the single life. Thomas Randolph attributed her bouts of depression and crying to emotional frustration and unsatisfied desire.
Don Carlos's illness was more than convenient for Elizabeth, who had done everything she could behind the scenes to delay Mary from marrying until a safe husband could be found for her.
It was at this time that Elizabeth, mindful of her promise to Parliament, attempted to revive negotiations for her own marriage to the Archduke Charles. This appeared at first to be a forlorn hope, because, despite being reminded of the advantages of an alliance with 'such a Helen, accompanied by such a dowry and so much dignity', the Emperor was justifiably suspicious of Elizabeth's motives and would not have forgotten that she had formerly rejected his son. There was also the persistent gossip about Dudley. He now had apartments next to the Queen's in all the royal palaces; he was the host at most courtly entertainments; he kept state like a prince, and enjoyed vast power and influence.
In spite of these obstacles, Elizabeth expected the Archduke to make the first move towards reviving his courtship - it was unthinkable that she, a woman, should take the initiative. Cecil therefore wrote to one of his agents in Germany, who in turn approached the Duke of Wurttemberg, who in his turn sent a letter to the Emperor. Ferdinand consented to the reopening of negotiations, but proceeded with caution, as did Cecil, who made it clear that the Archduke must take matters slowly, since the Queen was much inclined to celibacy. She had acknowledged that the Archduke was the best foreign match for her, but she waxed alternately hot and cold over the matter.
In January 1564, the Duke of Wurttemberg, acting on the Emperor's behalf, sent an envoy, Ahasverus Allinga, to Windsor to discover the Queen's true feelings about the marriage. Allinga was received by Elizabeth with just Cecil and two maids of honour present. The envoy and the Secretary praised the merits and advantages of the match, whereupon the Queen replied that they might save their breath, 'For she would never be induced by any appeals to reason but only by stern necessity, as she had already inwardly resolved that, if she ever married, it would be as Queen and not as Elizabeth.' She said she blamed the Emperor for the failure of the earlier negotiations: he had behaved like an old woman, refusing to allow his son to visit her in England. She insisted that she would never accept a suitor without seeing him first, and that the Archduke must make the first move towards reviving the courtship, for she herself could not do so 'without covering herself in ignominy'. She added that, for her part, she would far rather be a beggarwoman and single than a queen and married.
Not surprisingly, Allinga told Cecil afterwards that there was no point in pursuing the matter further, but Cecil was reassuring, saying the Queen had told him how much she had enjoyed her interview with him. Knowing her of old, he said, he believed she was by no means disinclined to the marriage. Much dissatisfied and confused, Allinga returned home.
By March 1564, it was obvious that Elizabeth could keep Mary guessing as to the identity of her suitor no longer. She therefore told Randolph he might now speak without using 'obscure terms', but when the time came to tell Mary who it was that Elizabeth wished her to marry, he hedged so much that she cut in incredulously, 'Now, Mr Randolph, doth your mistress in good earnest wish me to marry my Lord Robert?'
Randolph, cringing, admitted that it was. 'It pleased Her Grace to hear me with meetly good patience,' but she was in fact amazed and somewhat affronted by Elizabeth's plan, although remaining outwardly cordial. She was determined to be her own mistress, and certainly did not consider Dudley a fit mate for one whose previous husband had been the King of France and who was herself a reigning sovereign. Haughtily, she asked Randolph if this plan conformed to Elizabeth's promise 'to use me as her sister or daughter. Do you think that it may stand with my honour to marry a subject?' Randolph replied that no better man could be found, and that this marriage could bring good to her realm. Mary would only say that she would consider the matter in private.
She might have been more amenable to the offer of Dudley's hand if it had been accompanied by an undertaking from Elizabeth to declare her heiress presumptive to the English throne. Instead, she felt she was being made a fool of. Not for a minute did she believe that Elizabeth would really part with him - a view shared by many other people -although Elizabeth gave every appearance of being serious.
Mary's lack of enthusiasm for the marriage was shared by Dudley himself, who was panic-stricken at the prospect of leaving England for what he perceived to be a land of barbarians, and even more distraught at the thought of leaving Elizabeth, whom he still cherished some hopes of marrying. Yet Elizabeth was so insistent upon his co-operation that he had little choice but to acquiesce.
She now revived her plans for a meeting with Mary, suggesting that it should take place in the summer. Mary, however, had no desire to meet her cousin face to face just then, for she was secretly trying to reopen negotiations for her marriage to Don Carlos, and did not want to prejudice them by seeming to favour a match with Robert Dudley. She therefore declined the invitation, giving Elizabeth offence and causing a cooling in Anglo-Scots relations which lasted through the summer.
On 11 April, England and France signed the Treaty of Troyes, bringing hostilities between them to an end and placing Calais firmly beyond reach of recovery.
In June, Philip II sent a new ambassador to England, Don Diego de Guzman de Silva, who did much to foster good Anglo-Spanish relations. In the same month the Emperor Ferdinand died, and was succeeded by his eldest son, who was crowned as Maximilian II. These events brought talk of Elizabeth's marriage to the Archduke to a temporary standstill, but the new Emperor was more in favour of the match than his father had been, although anxious to ensure that his brother 'would not, as on the last occasion, suffer himself to be led by the nose'.
On 5 August, one of the most famous progresses of her reign brought Elizabeth to Cambridge, where she stayed for five days. Strikingly attired in a gown of black velvet slashed with rose, with a netted caul studded with pearls and gems and a feathered and bejewelled hat atop her red hair, the Queen entered the city preceded by trumpets and attended by a magnificent retinue. She was welcomed by Cecil in his capacity as Chancellor of the University and by the scholars, 'lowly kneeling', crying, 'Vivat ReginaV
During the visit she enjoyed a full programme of ceremonies, entertainments and, as she had requested, 'all manner of scholastic exercises', mostly organised by Dudley, who, at Cecil's request, acted as Master of Ceremonies. Elizabeth was particularly impressed with the glories of King's College Chapel - 'the best in our realm' - and its choir. She visited most of the colleges, including Trinity, founded by her father, and St John's, founded by her great-grandmother, Lady Margaret Beaufort. She attended lectures and Latin plays, listened to orations, addresses and disputations, received gifts of books, gloves and comfits (sweetmeats), and tried whenever possible to talk - in the mandatory Latin - to the scholars themselves. She made elegant speeches in that language, to great acclaim: in one she promised to build a new college a promise never fulfilled in Cambridge, but in Oxford, where she founded Jesus College in 1571.
When the Public Orator openly praised her virginity, Elizabeth was touched, and replied, 'God's blessing on your heart, there continue.' As he extolled her other manifold virtues, she shook her head, bit her lips and fingers, and displayed uncharacteristic embarrassment.
When she 'cheerfully departed' from Cambridge on 10 August, a day later than planned, she said she would have stayed longer if 'provision of beer and ale could have been made' for the court.
After the progress had ended there were widespread rumours in London that the Queen would marry the Archduke and was about to dispatch an embassy to Vienna, ostensibly to offer formal condolences to Maximilian II on the death of his father, but in reality to conclude the marriage. In fact, Elizabeth was stalling yet again.
She still favoured the plan to marry Dudley to Mary Stuart, but the Earl of Lennox, who was finally permitted to return to Scotland that September, warned Randolph that there was no chance of this happening: 'He has not descended from a great old house, and his blood is spotted. I fear we shall not accept him.' If the English pressed the matter, the Scots would turn to his own son, Lord Darnley.
At Elizabeth's command, Cecil did press the matter, writing a sixteen- page justification of the marriage to Randolph, which averred that Mary would have with Dudley the promise of the English succession, subject, of course, to the consent of Parliament. But Mary wanted more concrete assurances than that, and was angered that something she felt should be hers by right should be offered her only with conditions attached to it.
She was concerned, however, that her disinclination to accept Dudley might mar friendly relations between the two countries, and in September, in order to emphasise her goodwill, she sent a seasoned diplomat, the urbane, charming and cultivated Sir James Melville, to England. Years later, in his memoirs, Melville wrote a lively account of this and later visits, which is a valuable, if not entirely reliable source for historians.
Elizabeth wasted no time in complaining to Melville about the offensive tone of one of Mary's recent letters. She withdrew from her purse and showed him a strong reply she had composed, informing him that she had not sent it because she felt it was too mild. Melville managed to convince her that Mary had meant no harm, and she happily tore up both letters.
Sir James's wit and polish had impressed Elizabeth at that first interview, and throughout the nine days of his stay she would summon him to attend her as often as possible, flirting with him and angling for compliments. His long years of service at the courts of France, Italy and Germany had made him proficient in languages, which meant that Elizabeth could show off her skills as a linguist. She also dressed to impress him, one day in the English style, a second in the French style, and a third in the Italian style. When she asked him which he preferred, 'I said the Italian dress, which pleased her well, for she delighted to show off her golden-coloured hair wearing a caul and bonnet, as they do in Italy. Her hair was more reddish than yellow, curled in appearance naturally.'
This prompted her to ask him what colour hair was considered best in his country. How did her hair compare with his queen's? Which of them was the fairest? Melville realised that future diplomatic relations between England and Scotland might depend on his answer, so he offered a tactful reply, giving it as his opinion that 'the fairness of them both was not their worst fault'; when pressed to say more, he pronounced that Elizabeth was the fairest Queen in England and Mary the fairest Queen in Scotland. But this was not enough for Elizabeth, who archly insisted that he make a choice. Deftly, he answered that 'they were both the fairest ladies of their courts, and that Her Majesty was white [in complexion], but our Queen was very lovely'.
'Who is the higher?' demanded Elizabeth, after a pause.
Melville said that Mary was.
'Then she is over-high', was the retort, 'for I am neither over-high nor over-low.'
'Then she asked what kind of exercises [Mary] used. I answered that when I was dispatched out of Scotland, the Queen was lately come from the Highland hunting; that when she had leisure from the affairs of her country, she read good books, the histories of divers countries, and sometimes would play upon the lute and virginals. [Elizabeth] asked if she played well.'
'Reasonably, for a queen,' Melville answered.
That evening, determined to show him that she herself had the edge when it came to music, Elizabeth arranged for her cousin, Lord Hunsdon, to bring Melville, seemingly by chance, to a gallery overlooking a chamber where she would be alone, playing the virginals. Hunsdon acted out this little charade, and when Melville, who was not fooled, commented on the excellence of Elizabeth's playing, she pretended she had not known he was there and, coming towards him and 'seeming to strike me with her left hand', alleged 'that she used not to play before men, but when she was solitary, to shun melancholy'. Chiding him for entering her chamber without leave, she asked how he came to be there. Gallantly, he excused himself, saying, 'I heard such melody as ravished me and drew me within the chamber, I wit not how.' Much pleased, the Queen sank down on a cushion, and when Melville knelt at her side, 'She gave me a cushion with her own hand to lay under my knee, which at first I refused, but she compelled me to take it.' When she asked who was now the better musician, herself or Mary, he conceded that she was.
To please her, he delayed his departure so that he could stay at court one more night and watch her dance. Predictably, Elizabeth asked if Mary danced as well as she. 'Not so high and disposedly,' was the flattering answer.
On 28 September, the final morning of his visit, Melville was present with other ambassadors when, at a splendid ceremony in the Presence Chamber at St James's Palace, Elizabeth at last raised Robert Dudley to the peerage. To make Queen Mary 'think the more of him', he was created Baron Denbigh and Earl of Leicester in the presence of a glittering throng of dignitaries and courtiers. It was a solemn occasion, with the new Earl, whose motto was to be 'Droit et loyal', conducting himself with the utmost gravity and dignity, so that Melville was shocked to see Elizabeth smilingly tickle the kneeling Robert's neck as she invested him with the collar of his earldom and his ermine-lined mantle. This was an act at odds with her repeated assertions that she looked upon Dudley as merely 'a brother and best friend'.
When the ceremony was over, Elizabeth spoke with Melville, asking, 'How like you my new creation?' Melville, knowing how unpopular the Dudley marriage was in Scotland, made a polite but noncommittal response, whereupon the Queen pointed at the young Lord Darnley, who was in attendance as her sword-bearer, saying, 'And yet ye like better of yonder long lad!'
Gazing distastefully at the effeminate-looking youth, Melville replied, 'No woman of spirit would make choice of such a man, that was liker a woman than a man, for he is very lusty, beardless and lady-faced.'
Elizabeth was at pains to prove to Melville how sincere she was in her desire to marry Leicester to Mary, and invited him, in the company of Leicester and Cecil, into her bedchamber, to show him her treasures. From a little cabinet she took a miniature of the Scots Queen and kissed it affectionately. Sir James noticed another object in the cabinet, wrapped in paper which was inscribed in her own hand 'My Lord's picture', but it took all his powers of persuasion to persuade Elizabeth to show him the miniature of Leicester that was within the paper. When he declared that this would be the perfect gift for his Queen, Elizabeth refused to part with it on the grounds that she had no copy.
'But Your Majesty has the original,' Melville protested jocularly, although he was privately coming round to the opinion that the Queen was beginning to regret ever offering Leicester to Mary. This was not surprising, as he had noticed that Elizabeth and Leicester were 'inseparable'.
Nor would she give him another of her treasures, a ruby 'as great as a tennis ball'. If Queen Mary followed her advice, she said, 'she would in process of time get all she had'. In the meantime, Elizabeth would send her a beautiful diamond.
Conversation between Melville and the Queen was not confined entirely to pleasantries. On one occasion they discussed Mary's marriage prospects, then Elizabeth told him 'that it was her own resolution at this moment to remain till her death a virgin queen, and that nothing would compel her to change her mind except the undutiful behaviour of the Queen her sister'. A perceptive Melville replied sadly, 'Madam, you need not tell me that. I know your stately stomach. You think if you were married, you would only be a queen of England, and now ye are king and queen both. You may not endure a commander.'
Sir James managed to speak in private with Leicester, who told him that he was not worthy to wipe the shoes of the Queen of Scots. He made it plain that he felt no enthusiasm for the marriage, and blamed the whole project on Cecil, 'his secret enemy', who wanted him out of the way.
During his stay, Melville had talked to many people at court and at the Spanish embassy, where opinion of the Queen was hostile, and formed his own views of Elizabeth. When he returned home, he would increase Mary's suspicions, and do no great service to Anglo-Scots relations, by telling her that her cousin was not a plain dealer but a great dissimulator. The only positive development arising from his visit was an agreement that commissioners from England and Scotland should meet at Berwick to discuss the Dudley marriage. Elizabeth had told Melville that 'if she had ever wanted to take a husband, she would have chosen Lord Robert, but, being determined to end her life in virginity, she wished that the Queen her sister should marry him, as meetest of all others. It would best remove out of her mind all fear and suspicion to be offended by usurpation before her death, being assured that he was so loving and trusty that he would never give his consent nor suffer such thing to be attempted during her time.'
Melville had played along with this, but he had also gon- to the Spanish embassy in a vain attempt to revive the project to marry Mary to Don Carlos. Mary had virtually given up hope of this match, but she needed to be certain that it was moribund before looking elsewhere for a husband. It was: Don Carlos was now so mentally unstable that there was no question of his marrying anyone.
Never having seriously considered Robert Dudley as a consort, Mary had found herself pondering more and more the idea of marrying the young Lord Darnley. As the Lennoxes had pointed out, there were definite advantages to it: the union of two claims to the English throne, and the enlistment of the Catholic Lennox faction - which Mary believed to be more powerful than it actually was - on the side of the Crown. There was one problem: Darnley was still in England - he and his mother were living at court, having been refused permission to accompany Lennox to Scotland - and it was doubtful if Elizabeth would allow him, as her subject, to leave.
After confirming that there was no hope of the Spanish match, Melville, again on Mary's instructions, saw Lady Lennox to discuss the possibility of a marriage between his queen and Lord Darnley. She welcomed him warmly and showered him with presents for Mary, Moray and Maitland, 'for she was still in good hope that her son would speed better than the Earl of Leicester concerning the marriage of our Queen'.
Elizabeth, ever perceptive, had already sniffed an intrigue. She had regretted her earlier letter to Mary, asking for Lennox to be restored to his estates, and had written recently to her in an attempt to persuade her to refuse him entry, although Mary would not go back on her word.
When the English and Scots commissioners met at Berwick in November, relations became fraught. Mary's half-brother, the Earl of Moray, demanded to know precisely what Elizabeth meant to do for Mary in the event of her accepting Leicester, but failed to extract any sureties from the English lords, who would only repeat that there was no better way than this marriage to further Mary's claim to the succession. Tempers flared, and the Scots left the conference angry and insulted.
The following month, both Moray and Maitland wrote to Cecil to say that Mary would not consider marrying Leicester unless Elizabeth promised to settle the succession on her. To everyone's surprise, Elizabeth did nothing. She suspected now that Mary would never accept Leicester, and she also knew that Mary had hopes of marrying Darnley, for which she would have to be a suitor to Elizabeth, whose subject Darnley was. With the focus on Mary in the role of supplicant, Elizabeth would not lose face over her cousin's rejection of her own candidate. Anticipating this, Cecil, enthusiastically backed by a relieved Leicester, suggested that Darnley be allowed to visit his father in Scotland, in order to whet the Queen of Scots' appetite. According to Mary herself, Leicester even wrote to her to warn her that Elizabeth's plan for their marriage had been a mere ploy to discourage more dangerous suitors. As for Elizabeth, her enthusiasm for the project was waning, and, like Cecil, she had already begun to believe that a marriage between Mary and Darnley was less of a threat to England than one between Mary and a powerful Catholic prince because, having recently come to know him better, she took the view that Darnley was a harmless political lightweight. However, for tactical reasons she still would not allow him to go to Scotland.
Leicester, recently appointed Chancellor of the University of Oxford by the Queen, now renewed his courtship of her, having been at pains during the past months to demonstrate that his real future lay at her side, where he could serve her best. He had enlisted the aid of de Silva, the new Spanish ambassador, against her plan to marry him to Mary, and had also been active in promoting Lord Darnley as a suitor for the Scots Queen. It was now his belief that Elizabeth had devised the scheme to unite him with Mary as a test of his loyalty to herself; having, as he saw it, proved that loyalty, he saw no reason why he should not capitalise upon it.
Fears about the succession were revived in December when the Queen fell 'perilously sick' with gastroenteritis. Fortunately, her recovery was speedy, but, as Cecil informed Throckmorton, 'For the time she made us sore afraid.' There was renewed pressure on her to marry, and Cecil invoked the aid of God, praying that He would 'lead by the hand some meet person to come and lay hand on her to her contentation'. Otherwise, he told Throckmorton, 'I assure you, as now things having in desperation, I have no comfort to live.'
Bishop John Jewel of Salisbury spoke for many when he wrote, 'O how wretched are we, who cannot tell under what sovereign we are to live! God will, I trust, long preserve Elizabeth to us in life and safety!'