16
On 19 April 1572, England and France concluded the Treaty of Blois, under the terms of which they undertook to provide each other with military and naval assistance against their common enemies. These included Spain and the Protestant states of the Netherlands, although Elizabeth was still sending surreptitious aid to the latter, if only to discountenance Philip and Alva. The treaty meant that England was no longer isolated in Europe, and it also put an end to the French support of Mary Stuart. Its signing was celebrated at Whitehall with a sumptuous banquet arranged by Leicester, who boasted that it was 'the greatest that was in my remembrance'.
That spring, fearing that Mary would appeal to Spain for help, Catherine de' Medici again discussed with Sir Thomas Smith the necessity for a royal marriage to seal the alliance.
'Jesu!' sighed the Queen Mother. 'Doth not your mistress see plainly that she will always be in such danger till she marry? If she marry into some good house, who shall dare attempt aught against her?'
Smith, nodding agreement, replied that if the Queen had but one child, 'Then all these bold and troublesome titles of the Scotch Queen or others, that make such gaping for her death, would be clean choked
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'But why stop at one child? Why not five or six?' queried Catherine,
who had borne ten.
'Would to God she had one!' retorted Smith, with feeling.
'No', disputed the Queen Mother, 'two boys, lest the one should die, and three or four daughters to make alliances with us again, and other princes to strengthen the realm.'
'Why then,' smiled Smith, 'you think that M. le Due should speed?'
Catherine laughed. 'I desire it infinitely', she said, 'and I trust to see three or four at the least of my race, which would make me indeed not to spare sea and land to see Her Majesty and them.'
In June, the Queen Mother sent to London, as ambassador extraordinary, the Duke of Montmorency, with powers to ratify the Treaty of Blois and formally offer Alencon as a husband for the Queen. Elizabeth was a gracious hostess, entertaining the embassy lavishly and investing the Duke with the Order of the Garter, but she was noncommittal about the marriage proposal, citing her reservations about Alencon's age and appearance. When Montmorency left, she promised that she would consider the matter and give King Charles her answer within a month.
She then told Burghley to instruct Walsingham to submit a full report on Alencon. The response was initially favourable, with the ambassador describing the Duke as wise, stalwart, not so light-minded as most Frenchmen, and in religion 'easily to be reduced to the knowledge of the truth'. His notorious pockmarks, which many people had hastened to reassure the Queen were not as bad as rumour had it, were 'no great disfigurement on his face because they are rather thick than great and deep'. While his beard covered some of them, those on the 'blunt end of his nose are much to be disliked', although 'When I saw him at my last audience, he seemed to me to grow daily more handsome.' Nevertheless, 'The great impediment I find is the contentment of the eye. The gentleman is void of any good favour, besides the blemish of the smallpox. Now, when I weigh the same with the delicacy of Her Majesty's eye, I hardly think that there will ever grow any liking.' Burghley feared as much, and gave little credence to Fenelon's claim that he knew a doctor who could cure the Duke's pockmarks.
Throughout the next weeks Elizabeth considered the matter, blowing hot and then cold, the chief sticking point being Alencon's extreme youth. What concerned her most was 'the absurdity, that in general opinion of the world might grow'. On a more practical level, she also wondered whether the Duke's pockmarks might be sufficient excuse for her to demand the return of Calais as a condition of the marriage.
Then, in July, Catherine de' Medici sent Alencon's good friend, Monsieur de la Mole, to England, in the hope that he would be able to persuade Elizabeth to accept the Duke. De la Mole was a handsome, personable young man whose gallant charm was calculated to soften the Queen's heart. 'It seemeth the Queen Mother is come nearer to the matter than I hoped for,' observed Burghley.
Elizabeth, whilst she was not impervious to de la Mole's charms, did not trust Catherine de' Medici and was suspicious that the French were trying to manoeuvre her into joining them in a war against Alva in the Netherlands, they being as nervous as she was about the presence of a huge Spanish army on their doorstep. Charles wanted to set up Alencon as Regent of the Netherlands, but while this might have been to England's advantage in some respects, the prospect of a French army in the Netherlands was hardly more comforting to Elizabeth, who regarded the House of Valois as unstable and unreliable, than the presence of a Spanish one.
Meanwhile, in July 1572, Elizabeth, in holiday mood, set off on an extended progress through the Thames Valley and the Midlands. After staying at Theobalds with Burghley, she arrived on the 25th at Gorhambury, the recently completed Hertfordshire mansion of Lord Keeper Bacon, who warmly welcomed her with his bluestocking wife, Anne Cooke, and two scholarly sons, Anthony and Francis. The Queen was unimpressed by the size of the building.
'You have made your house too little for Your Lordship,' she commented.
'No, Madam,' replied Bacon, 'but Your Highness has made me too big for the house.'
At Coventry, the Recorder told Elizabeth that the people had 'a greedy taste for Your Majesty'. In August, she spent a week at Warwick, arriving with the Countess in an open coach so that the crowds could see her. After the town's Recorder, Mr Aglionby, had falteringly delivered a speech of welcome, Elizabeth put him at his ease.
'Come hither, little Recorder,' she said. 'It was told me you would be afraid to look upon me or to speak boldly, but you were not so afraid of me as I was of you.'
Local lads and maidens gave a display of country dancing in the courtyard of Warwick Castle, which the Queen watched from her window; 'It seemed Her Majesty was much delighted and made very merry.' At supper in the castle one night she insisted that M. de la Mole sit with her. Afterwards he listened appreciatively as she entertained the company by playing on the spinet. They had several private talks, and one evening he escorted her to a spectacular firework display and mock water battle arranged by the Earl and Countess, in which the Earl of Oxford took part, 'whereat the Queen took great pleasure'.
Unfortunately, the occasion was marred by sparks from the squibs and fireballs setting fire to four houses in the town and completely destroying one nearby which belonged to a Mr Henry Cowper. Elizabeth personally expressed her sympathy to him and his wife and organised a collection for them amongst her courtiers.
Despite de la Mole's efforts, Elizabeth was unwilling to commit herself to accepting Alencon. She told Fenelon of her doubts and insisted she could not make up her mind until she had seen the Duke in person. The ambassador told her that the King and Queen Mother would be pleased to arrange a meeting, but only if she convinced them that she really did mean to marry. She replied that she must meet the Duke and be certain that they could love one another before giving an answer. Burghley, who, plagued by gout, had accompanied the progress in a litter, now began to doubt whether the marriage would ever take place.
By 22 August, the Queen had arrived at Kenilworth to be entertained by Leicester, who had arranged all kinds of'princely sports'. But on 3 September, while she was out hunting one day, a messenger arrived with a dispatch from Walsingham in Paris that caused her to burst into tears, cancel all further entertainments and send de la Mole back to France. A Spanish agent in London informed Alva that she had 'sent all her musicians and minstrels home, and there are no more of the dances, farces and entertainments with which they have been amusing themselves lately, as they have some less agreeable things to think about'.
The events which took place in France from 24 August 1572 almost wrecked the Anglo-French alliance. On the occasion of the marriage of King Charles's sister, Marguerite de Valois, to the Protestant Henry, King of Navarre, the zealously Catholic Guise party, backed by Catherine de' Medici, tried to murder Admiral de Coligny, the Huguenot leader, who had incurred the Queen Mother's jealousy through his increasing influence over the King. The attempt failed, but it provoked riots and panic in Paris. On 24 August, St Bartholemew's Eve, Catherine, reluctantly backed by the King, gave the order for the Huguenots to be cleared from the capital. A bloodbath ensued, since the Catholics rose and slaughtered every Huguenot they could lay hands on, to the number of 3-4000. During the next four days, similar orgies of killing erupted in the provinces, bringing the total number of dead to around 10,000.
King Philip, hearing the news, in the privacy of his bedchamber danced for joy, and Mary Stuart stayed up all night celebrating, while the Pope expressed his satisfaction at the annihilation of so many heretics. But the Massacre of St Bartholemew, as it became known, profoundly shocked Protestants throughout Europe and provoked an outcry against the French government and Catholics in general. Huguenot refugees who had fled to England brought with them dreadful tales of atrocities, of rivers of blood in the streets and streams choked with bodies. Burghley was so appalled that words failed him, and Walsingham, who had hidden during the killings and barely escaped with his life, was profoundly shaken.
However, despite her outrage, and her conviction that the blame for the massacre should be laid at the door of the Queen Mother, Elizabeth knew she could not seek to avenge the slaughtered Huguenots because she dared not compromise the French alliance, which was so necessary to her and England's security. All she could do was express her deep shock and anger, whilst secretly sending arms to the Huguenots and using her diplomatic influence to protect them.
When, on 5 September, the French ambassador, Fenelon, requested an audience in order to impart to Elizabeth the official explanation for the massacre, which he referred to as an 'accident', Elizabeth kept him waiting for three days at Oxford. When he was finally admitted to her presence at Woodstock, he found the Queen and the entire court dressed in deepest mourning and standing in reproachful silence as he advanced to kiss the royal hand. With a stern countenance, Elizabeth led him to a window seat and said she hoped that King Charles would clear his name in the eyes of the world. Lying through his teeth, Fenelon explained that King Charles had uncovered a deadly Protestant plot aimed against himself and his family, and had had to act quickly to avoid assassination. However, it was not His Majesty's intention to persecute the Huguenots, nor to revoke his edicts of religious toleration.
Such provocation, Elizabeth pointed out, did not excuse widespread violence. She had wept, she said, when she read reports of the killings. However, because he was a monarch and a gentleman, she was bound to accept Charles's explanation, and was comforted by Fenelon's assurance that nothing was more important to His Majesty than the alliance with England. She hoped that, in the weeks to come, Charles would do everything in his power to make amends for so much blood so horribly shed, if only for his own honour, now blemished in the eyes of the world.
She would not, however, discuss the matter of her marriage to Alencon, even though the Duke had had nothing to do with the massacre and had spoken out against it.
'How should we think His Majesty's brother a fit husband for us, or how should we think that love may grow, continue and increase, which ought to be betwixt the husband and wife?' she demanded of Walsingham. For a time, therefore, negotiations were left in abeyance, although the French were desperate to revive them. When the Queen Mother suggested that Elizabeth meet with Alencon on neutral ground, perhaps in Jersey, the Queen declined. She would reach no decision, she declared, until she was satisfied that King Charles meant to treat his Huguenot subjects well in future.
In October, relations began to thaw somewhat when Charles IX sent a special envoy, the Sieur de la Mauvissiere, to London to ask Elizabeth, an excommunicate, to be godmother to his new baby daughter. After much procrastination she agreed, even though the baby was to be baptised into the Catholic faith. However, she deemed it too dangerous for Leicester, a well-known champion of the Protestant faith, to go to France to represent her, and sent the Earl of Worcester instead with the gift of a gold salver, which was regrettably looted from his ship by pirates on the Channel.
Not surprisingly, the Massacre of St Bartholemew had provoked cries for Mary's head from those of Elizabeth's subjects who saw it as part of a Catholic plot. Elizabeth, however, did not want to provoke Philip or the Pope by executing Mary herself, so on 10 September, on her instructions, her councillors secretly requested the Earl of Mar to demand Mary's return to Scotland and there try her for the murder of Darnley, a trial that would almost certainly lead to Mary's execution. Mar, however, would only agree if English soldiers were present at the scaffold, and since this would implicate Elizabeth in Mary's death, the Queen was obliged to abandon the idea.
By October, when the crisis had passed, it was clear that there would be no repercussions from the massacre in England. It was as well for Mary, since when the Earl of Mar died that autumn, he was replaced as regent by the Earl of Morton, one of Mary's most implacable enemies.
At this time, Burghley attempted to revive England's trade with Spain and the Low Countries, which had been under an embargo since 1569, to the loss of both sides. Despite the state of cold war which existed between England and Spain, the pragmatic Alva could see that the restoration of trade would bring benefits to everyone, as well as a lessening of tension, but Philip was unconvinced.
'Sometimes, Sire, it is necessary for Princes to do what displeases them,' Alva pointed out. Still Philip could not bring himself to treat with the English, and it was not until March 1573 that the embargo was lifted.
After thirteen years, the relationship between Elizabeth and Leicester was no longer the passionate affair it had once been, although there were still scandalous rumours. Elizabeth and Leicester behaved, in fact, like a long-married couple, sharing interests and offering each other affection and support. Their mutual devotion and loyalty had fostered deep bonds that would never be severed, although it was at last becoming clear even to Leicester himself that she would never marry him. For a man in his position, this was difficult to accept, because like all his class, he greatly desired to have heirs to whom he could bequeath his vast wealth and title. On the surface, however, he played the part of adoring suitor, along with Hatton and Oxford.
Hatton, who was prone to expressing his resentment in tears or sulks, deeply resented the favour shown by the Queen towards Oxford, because he had recently apparently been given cause to believe that he himself stood higher I her affections than anyone else. His enemies claimed he had 'more recourse to Her Majesty in her Privy Chamber than reason would suffer, if she were so virtuous and well-inclined as some noiseth her', and there was probably some truth in this.
In fact, matters may have gone further than either of them intended. There is possible evidence for this in a letter written to Hatton in October 1572 by his friend, Edward Dyer, the poet, in whom he seems to have confided. Dyer wrote: 'Though, in the beginning, when Her Majesty sought you (after her good manner), she did bear with rugged dealing of yours until she had what she fancied; yet now, after satiety and fullness, it will hurt rather than help you. Never seem deeply to condemn her frailties, but rather joyfully commend such things as should be in her, as though they were in her indeed.'
There has been much conjecture as to what Dyer was referring. Had Elizabeth at last set aside her scruples and surrendered her much-vaunted virginity? Or had she, which is more likely, gone so far as to obtain sexual satisfaction while remaining, technically, a virgin? If it was Hatton's body that had drawn her, and she had surrendered in some way to him, it seems that she had regretted it, and wished him to behave towards her as if she were still the Virgin Queen. It has been claimed that Hatton's letters to her are platonic and do not support such a theory, but, as we have seen, they are intensely passionate. However, he himself later swore to Sir John Harington that he had never had any carnal knowledge of the Queen.
At the end of the year, the Queen moved to Hampton Court for the Christmas season and Shrovetide; on Twelfth Night, Leicester gave her two glittering collars set with precious stones. Soon afterwards, however, she fell out with Burghley for reasons that are not clear. Leicester offered to intercede for him, and fortunately encountered the Queen in a forgiving mood. 'I assure you I found Her Majesty as well disposed as ever', the Earl wrote, 'and so I trust it shall always continue. God be thanked, her blasts be not the storms of other princes, though they be very sharp sometimes to those she loves best. Every man must render to her their due, and the most bounden the most of all. You and I come in that rank, and I am witness to your honest zeal to perform as much as man can. Hold, and you can never fail.'
In May 1573, Shrewsbury's son reported to his father:
My Lord of Leicester is very much with Her Majesty, and she shows the same great good affection to him that she was wont. Of late, he has endeavoured to please her more than heretofore. There are two sisters now in the court that are very far in love with him, as they have been long: my Lady Sheffield and Frances Howard.
They (of like striving who shall love him better) are at great wars together and the Queen thinketh not well of them, and not the better of him. By this means, there are spies over him.
The indications are that Leicester and Douglas, Lady Sheffield had been romantically involved for months, if not years, but had kept their love secret for fear of incurring the Queen's wrath.
Lady Sheffield was now twenty-five and acclaimed a great beauty. She was the daughter of the recently dead William, Lord Howard of Effingham, the Queen's great-uncle and councillor, and had been married, whilst still very young, to Lord Sheffield, who had died in 1568, leaving Douglas a widow at twenty. Shortly afterwards, she had been appointed a Lady of the Bedchamber and had come to court, and some time after that had attracted Leicester's attention. It is possible that resentment of Hatton's influence with the Queen led Leicester to begin the affair.
The court gossips later alleged that it had even begun in Sheffield's lifetime, and had become adulterous during a visit by Leicester to Belvoir Castle. It was said that Sheffield had found a letter which incontrovertibly compromised the couple, but that, when he had ridden to London to petition Parliament for a divorce, Leicester had had him poisoned. No other evidence corroborates this tale, and as Leicester was invariably accused by his enemies of poisoning those about him, even such a friend as Throckmorton, little credence can be given to it.
In time, Douglas had indeed become Leicester's mistress, and was soon demanding marriage, though he repeatedly made it clear to her that his relationship with the Queen precluded such a commitment. In a letter to an unknown lady, whom internal evidence strongly suggests was Douglas, he explained his position and offered her two alternatives: she could either remain his mistress, or he would help her to find a suitable husband. Needless to say, neither was acceptable to the lady, even though she had been assured of his continuing affection: 'I have, as you know, long both liked and loved you. Albeit I have been and yet am a man frail, yet am I not void of conscience towards God, nor honest meaning toward my friend, and having made special choice of you to be one of the dearest to me, so much the more care must I have to discharge the office due to you.'
By the spring of 1573, people had begun to gossip about the affair, and rumour had it that in 1571 or 1572, Douglas had become pregnant by Leicester, and had given birth secretly at Dudley Castle, the home of her sister, who was married to Leicester's cousin, Edward, Lord Dudley. The baby was a girl, who died before she could be baptised. Douglas would later deny the rumours, but many believed them.
It was now becoming almost impossible to keep the liaison secret, and Douglas realised that her reputation would be ruined if the details were made public. She therefore put increased pressure upon Leicester to marry her, and may even have threatened to tell the Queen everything if he did not. Already, Elizabeth was becoming suspicious, although she was only aware as yet that there was rivalry between Douglas and another of her sisters, Frances, for Leicester's attentions.
In May, Leicester agreed that he and Douglas would marry secretly. The ceremony took place at a house at Esher, with at least three witnesses present. The bride was given away by one of Leicester's friends, and married with a diamond ring given to Leicester by the Earl of Pembroke. Although the validity of the marriage ceremony was later disputed and the parties behaved as if they were free agents, the evidence strongly suggests that it was entirely legal.
After his marriage, Leicester divided his time between the two women in his life, continuing as before at court with Elizabeth, whose suspicions seem to have been allayed, and secretly living with Douglas at Esher and Leicester House when he was away from court. He was well aware that his enemies would have seized any chance to discredit him, and in this case, he knew they could ruin him. Thus, when Douglas insisted that her servants serve her as a countess, he forbade it, in case word of it leaked out.
In July 1573, when Charles IX announced that his Huguenot subjects were free to follow their consciences with regard to religion, it seemed that there might be an end to religious strife in France. Following on from this, the French made new overtures to Elizabeth about the Alencon marriage, the Queen Mother claiming that peace had been made mainly for her sake. In fact, Alencon had urged his brother to it. Since relations between England and Spain had improved, King Charles and the Queen Mother feared that Elizabeth might abandon them, and offered to allow Alencon to come to England without conditions. Perversely, Elizabeth's own enthusiasm had cooled, and she insisted that the Duke would have to promise not to take offence if she rejected him. Thus it went on for several months, while the French besought her for an answer and Elizabeth played for time.
On 7 September, Elizabeth was forty, rather too old to be contemplating marriage and motherhood in Tudor times. To mark the event, Leicester gave her a fan of white feathers with a handle of gold engraved with his emblem of the bear and hers of the lion.
In December that year Walsingham, who had been recalled from France, was appointed Chief Secretary of State in place of Burghley. His main responsibility was to be foreign affairs, and in this capacity he would concentrate his energies on bringing 'the bosom serpent' Mary, Queen of Scots to justice. He would also, at his own expense, progressively set up a superbly efficient and powerful network of spies, the best in Europe, that would enable him efficiently to counteract Catholic plots and preserve the Queen from harm.
By this time, Elizabeth was so enshrined in the affections of her subjects that the common purpose of the vast majority of them was her preservation. They realised that she was the sole bulwark that stood between England and its enemies, and their love for her was such that, when a Doncaster man dared slander her, the magistrates had to intervene to prevent him from being torn apart by the mob.
In Council, Walsingham was to enjoy the support of Leicester, who was now recognised as the leader of radical English Protestants, but he often clashed with the Queen, who at times fiercely resented his dictatorial manner and dogmatic views, although she admired his shrewdness and respected his advice - even if it was not always welcome. He was never afraid to speak his mind to her and she allowed him the freedom to criticise her, knowing that he had her interests at heart.
In March 1574, it was at last agreed that the Queen and Alencon should meet near Dover, but before this could come to pass, the Duke was implicated with Henry of Navarre in a series of intrigues against his brother, and was placed under house arrest at St Germain. The French continued to urge the marriage, to which Elizabeth responded by saying she thought it not unreasonable of her to expect that her husband should be a free man.
Then, on 30 May 1574, Charles IX died, probably of the congenital syphilis which was the scourge of the Valois. 'Well could he be spared, considering his bloody disposition,' commented the Queen. Charles was succeeded by his brother Anjou, who, hastily summoned from Poland, ascended the French throne as Henry III. He was known to be a fanatical, priest-ridden Catholic who was under the domination of the Guise party, and in England fears were expressed that he would end religious toleration in France and might even abandon any alliance with Elizabeth.
In response England moved closer to Spain, and diplomatic relations were restored in July when a new ambassador, Bernardino de Mendoza, arrived in London to be civilly received by the Queen. In August, the Treaty of Bristol brought about a cautious peace between England and Spain.
By this time, it had become evident that Henry III intended to follow the moderate policies of the Queen Mother, which came as a relief to the Protestant community in France. However, relations between Henry and Elizabeth were to remain cool, and when, later that year, she sent Lord North as ambassador to France, he was discourteously received by the King. He was also forced to watch with the Queen Mother as her two female dwarfs were dressed up to resemble Elizabeth; Catherine then asked Alencon, now released from confinement but kept under his mother's eye, what he thought of his intended. North was mortified, and when a furious Elizabeth made plain her displeasure, Catherine apologised, with the excuse that North's French was insufficient for him to have properly understood her joke, although no insult had been intended.
Shortly afterwards news reached England that Alencon had escaped his mother's surveillance and was now wandering aimlessly around Europe, a prey for any ill-intentioned princes. Elizabeth wasted no time in informing Catherine de' Medici that she would not marry the Duke in these circumstances.
The new Spanish ambassador, Mendoza, was as much of a troublemaker as his predecessors had been, and in September 1574 confidently reported that Elizabeth had borne Leicester a daughter who had been 'kept hidden, although there are bishops to witness'.
In fact, Mendoza may have been confused by court gossip about another birth, for a month earlier, on 7 August, Douglas Sheffield had borne Leicester a son, Robert, the Earl of Warwick and Sir Henry Lee standing as sponsors at the christening. Although the birth was not kept secret, and the Queen must have heard of it, there is no record of her expressing her displeasure. As far as she was concerned, the child was a bastard: had she known that its parents were married, her reaction might well have been stronger. In the circumstances, she presumably accepted that even the best of men could succumb to temptation, especially when she herself kept them at arm's length. Leicester was in a difficult position. He had long desired a son, but now that he had one he dared not acknowledge him as his heir, and would always refer to Robert as his 'base son' or 'the badge of my sin'.
In April, Elizabeth had sent troops to Edinburgh, where they had successfully crushed an attempt by Mary's supporters to take control of the castle and thereby put paid for ever to Mary's hopes of restoration. However, the presence of the Queen of Scots in England could only be prejudicial to the recent entente with Spain, and in 1574 Elizabeth tried to persuade the new regent of Scotland, Morton, to request Mary's return to Scotland to be tried for Darnley's murder. But even he, an inveterate enemy of Mary, refused, and Elizabeth had to resign herself to keeping Mary a prisoner in England.
By now, Scotland having abandoned her, Mary's sole ambition was to ascend the throne of England. She saw herself as a champion of the Catholic faith, overthrowing the heretic Elizabeth and restoring the true religion. It was her mission in life, a crusade she would pursue to the death. She had no scruples about what she was doing, and little grasp of reality. 'I will not leave my prison save as Queen of England,' she once declared, and events proved that she meant it.
Shrewsbury was so careful a guardian that escape was out of the question, 'unless she could transform herself into a flea or a mouse'. What she did manage to do, with the help of her attendants and friends outside, was engage in a clandestine correspondence, with numerous letters in cipher being smuggled out to the Pope, King Philip and others. Thus she not only plotted ceaselessly against her cousin, but was able to keep up with events outside her prison. She also managed to reward her supporters and pay bribes with 12,000 she had saved from the income from her dower lands in France. Elizabeth, when she heard of it, cut her allowance from 52 to /J30 per week in 1575.
Mary was now thirty-two and had been a prisoner for six years. She spent her days reading, praying, conversing with her ladies, writing letters, playing with her numerous pets, and doing beautiful embroidery. From time to time she would send Elizabeth little gifts, such as a crimson satin petticoat she had embroidered herself, or sweetmeats, or a wig. The Council suspected her motives and feared that the gifts might be poisoned, but Elizabeth accepted them nevertheless. They did not, however, soften her attitude towards Mary, for Walsingham's agents had intercepted enough of Mary's letters for Elizabeth to know that she was only waiting for the day when she could supplant her cousin.
During 1574, Elizabeth had cause to believe that Darnley's mother, the Countess of Lennox, had become reconciled to Mary. The Countess denied it, but Elizabeth did not believe her and, hearing that the Countess was travelling north, sent a message commanding her not to attempt to visit her daughter-in-law.
Lady Lennox, accompanied by her younger son, Charles Stewart, went instead to stay at Rufford Abbey near Chatsworth, where she was visited by Bess of Hardwick, Shrewsbury's wife, with her young daughter from an earlier marriage, Elizabeth Cavendish. With the connivance of both matriarchs, the young couple were thrown together. Then Charles fell ill, and tradition has it that Elizabeth Cavendish tended him. Love flowered, and within a month the pair were married.
Since Charles was her cousin and subject, the Queen had every right to be consulted about his choice of bride, and when she discovered what had happened she exploded with rage and summoned both mothers to London, where they were sent to prison for a time as punishment for their presumption.
The following year, Elizabeth bore a daughter, Arbella Stewart. Both grandmothers would have preferred a son to further their ambitions, but it was not to be, for Charles died of tuberculosis in 1576 and Elizabeth followed him to the grave in 1582. But in Arbella, who was brought up by Lady Shrewsbury at Hardwick Hall, the Queen saw a new dynastic threat to her crown.
Nor was she the only threat, for from 1574 onwards highly-trained, committed, and often militant Catholic priests from the Jesuit seminaries in Europe began arriving in England to work undercover for the restoration of the old faith. Most of them hailed from the college at Douai in France, founded by a Catholic exile, the future Cardinal William Allen, in 1568, under the patronage of King Philip and the Pope. Here, priests were trained especially for the English mission, and in time, similar colleges were opened at Rome, Valladolid and Seville.
Many of these seminary priests were deeply devout and simply saw their task as providing spiritual comfort for beleaguered English Catholics, who were thus encouraged to remain true to their faith. Other priests undoubtedly did their best to undermine the English Church and state. The government did not distinguish between the two types, regarding all as traitors who deserved the severest punishments, and before long the word 'seminarist' was synonymous to all true Englishmen with 'conspirator' or 'traitor'.
By 1580, there were a hundred seminary priests in England, and their work had led to a noticeable increase in recusancy, a trend that justifiably alarmed the government. Even by the mid-1570s, there was talk in the seminaries of 'the Enterprise of England', in which King Philip would invade England and overthrow that 'she-devil' Elizabeth, replacing her with Mary Stuart, to whose cause most seminarists were committed. As usual, such talk did not take into account the realities of the political situation, but it was widespread enough for the English government to take it seriously, and many priests who were caught suffered torture to make them reveal what they knew, and often faced the terrible death reserved for traitors.
Given the activities of the seminarists, the ambitions of Mary Stuart, the hostility of King Philip and the Pope, the effects of the Bull of Excommunication, and her lack of an heir, Elizabeth could not feel secure on her throne. That she would remain there is a tribute to her political skill and tenacity, and the loyalty and abilities of her advisers.