Chapter 25
Elizabeth had just left her bed, and her maids were about their work. It now took her a long time to put on her mask of youth, her wig, her fine clothes and her jewels, so that she could face the world looking her best. When Essex flung open her door and fell to his knees she was, according to Rowland Whyte, a courtier, 'newly up, her hair about her face' and her wrinkled face unpainted. Despite her shock and embarrassment, she did not lose her composure, but offered Essex her hand to kiss and 'had some private speech' with him, 'which seemed to give him great contentment'.
Elizabeth, having no idea of what was going on outside the palace, may well have concluded that her fears had become reality, and that Essex had come at the head of an army to depose or restrain her. Yet he seemed well-disposed, and with great presence of mind she dismissed him, promising they would talk further when they were both more presentable. He had no idea of her inner turmoil, nor of how grossly he had offended her: 'coming from Her Majesty to go shift himself in his chamber, he was very pleasant and thanked God that, though he had suffered much troubles and storms abroad, he found a sweet calm at home'.
The court was agog with speculation. ' 'Tis much wondered at here that he went so boldly to Her Majesty's presence, she not being ready and he so full of dirt and mire that his very face was full of it,' observed Whyte.
After Essex had gone, Elizabeth quickly completed her toilette, then summoned the four members of the Council who were at Nonsuch that day: Cecil, Hunsdon, Thomas, Lord North, and Sir William Knollys. At half past twelve, she saw Essex again, and for an hour and a half, 'all was well, and her usage very gracious towards him'. Later, at dinner, he was in high spirits, and entertained his friends and the ladies with tales of Ireland. But Whyte sensed an underlying tension: 'As God help me, it is a very dangerous time here.'
In the afternoon, having ascertained from Cecil that there was no immediate danger of insurrection, Elizabeth summoned Essex once more, but this time 'he found her much changed in that small time, for she began to call him to question for his return, and was not satisfied in the manner of his coming away and leaving all things at so great hazard'. He responded by losing his temper and demanding to explain himself to the Council. The Queen 'appointed the lords to hear him, and so they went to Council in the afternoon', Elizabeth having retreated, in no very encouraging mood, to her apartments.
Essex was made to stand bare-headed before the Council table whilst Cecil accused him of disobeying Her Majesty's will, deserting his command, acting contrary to orders, making too many 'idle' knights, and intruding overboldly into the Queen's bedchamber. For five hours he sought to justify his actions before being informed that he was being dismissed so that the Council could adjourn to discuss the matter. After a debate lasting only fifteen minutes, the councillors recommended to the Queen that he be arrested.
That evening, at eleven o'clock, 'a commandment came from the Queen to my Lord of Essex, that he should keep [to] his chamber': he was to remain under house arrest until his conduct had been fully investigated. His enemies now closed in for the kill. Next morning, when the full Council, hastily summoned, was assembled, he was brought before it again, the clerks were sent out, and the doors were closed. He then underwent a further three hours of questioning, during which he conducted himself, for once, with 'gravity and discretion'. Informed of his answers, the Queen made no comment, merely saying she would think on the matter. But she was in an angry and vengeful mood. By now, the court was a-buzz with rumours, whilst the Queen and her councillors were still half-expecting the remnants of Essex's army to arrive and attempt a coup. When, by the morning of October, it became clear that their fears were groundless, Elizabeth gave orders for Essex to be committed to the custody of his friend, Lord Keeper Egerton, to remain under house arrest during Her Majesty's pleasure at the latter's official residence, York House in the Strand. He was permitted only two servants and no visitors, not even his wife. No sooner had Essex been brought there than he fell sick - genuinely, this time.
Nobody, not even Cecil, believed that Elizabeth would keep him under lock and key for long.
Shortly afterwards, Harington received a message from Essex begging him to go to the Queen and show her his diary of the campaign, hoping that it would prove to her that Essex had done his best. Harington was reluctant to face her, for he feared she might have found out that he himself had visited Tyrone after the truce and been entertained to a 'merry dinner' with the rebels. It was as he had feared, for when he knelt before her, quaking, she bore down on him and, grabbing him by the girdle, shook him violently.
'By God's Son, I am no queen!' she thundered. 'That man is above me.' And 'she walked fastly to and fro', frowning at Harington. Tremulously, he handed her his journal, but, reading it impatiently, she was not impressed.
'By God's Son, you are all idle knaves, and the Lord Deputy worse, for wasting your time and our commands in such wise!' she swore. Terrified, he did his best to placate her, but 'her choler did outrun all reason', leaving all present in no doubt 'whose daughter she was'.
'Go home!' she bawled. Harington 'did not stay to be bidden twice', but rode off to Kelston as 'if all the Irish rebels had been at my heels'.
After a short interval, Harington sent his wife to plead his case with the Queen, instructing her to say, pointedly, that she kept her husband's love by showing her love for him. The analogy was not lost on Elizabeth, who replied, 'Go to, go to, mistress, you are wisely bent, I find; after such sort do I keep the goodwill of all my husbands, my good people; for if they did not rest assured of some special love towards them, they would not readily yield me such good obedience.' So saying, she agreed that Harington might return to court, but when he ventured to do so, she could not resist taking a dig at him.
'I came to court in the very heat and height of all displeasures,' he told Sir Anthony Standen, a friend.
After I had been there but an hour, I was threatened with the Fleet [prison]. I answered poetically that, coming so late into the land service, I hoped that I should not be pressed to serve in Her Majesty's fleet in Fleet Street. After three days, every man wondered to see me at liberty, but I had this good fortune, that after four or five days, the Queen had talked of me, and twice talked to me, though very briefly. At last she gave me a full-gracious audience in the Withdrawing Chamber at Whitehall, where, herself being accuser, judge and witness, I was cleared and graciously dismissed. What should I say? I seemed to myself, like St Paul, rapt into the third heaven, where he heard words not to be uttered by men; for neither must I utter what I then heard. Until I come to Heaven I shall never come before a statelier judge again, nor one that can temper majesty, wisdom, learning, choler and favour better than Her Highness did at that time.
In October, the truce expired and Tyrone re-armed. The Queen, whose wrath had increased rather than abated, blamed Essex and resolved to teach him a lesson. 'Such contempt ought to be publicly punished,' she told her Council. To the French ambassador, she declared her intention of showing Essex who held power in England. Had her own son committed a like fault, she asserted with passion, she would have him put in the highest tower in England. The world, however, did not realise the quality of her indignation, and looked daily for his release. Even the Council had recommended it several times, on the grounds that Essex had been incompetent rather than malicious, and that his offences did not merit such severity.
But 'Her Majesty's anger seems to be appeased in nothing'; months later, she confided to the French ambassador that she had not revealed to her councillors the full extent of Essex's disobedience, and although she did not elaborate further, such fragments of evidence as exist indicate she may have suspected the Earl of having been in league with Tyrone before he set out for Ireland, in which case, his offences were very serious indeed. It seems, however, that what she had learned was not sufficient to secure a conviction, for she remained unsure as to what she should do with him, and asked Francis Bacon, who wrote an account of their interview many years later, for his advice. Bacon, perceiving that Essex was ruined, had decided to abandon him in the interests of furthering his own career, and now pounced on this chance of ingratiating himself with the Queen. He told her that he thought Essex's offences serious. He would never, he advised, send him back to Ireland.
'Whensoever I send Essex back to Ireland, I will marry you! Claim it of me!' Elizabeth cried. She said she meant to bring Essex to justice, but how? Had he committed treason? Was it a cause for the Star Chamber? Bacon advised her that to proceed thus would be unsafe, since, although Essex had been incompetent, there was little evidence of deliberate misconduct or treason. Were he to be convicted on such flimsy proofs, his popularity was such that there would almost certainly be a massive public backlash; already, the people were criticising her for keeping him under arrest without charge. This was not what Elizabeth wanted to hear, and, with a venomous look, she indicated that the interview was over. However, when she had thought on what Bacon had said, a public trial did seem inappropriate and provocative.
At the Accession Day tilts on 17 November, Elizabeth appeared relaxed and unconcerned, presiding over the jousts for several hours. A week later, having announced that Mountjoy was to replace Essex as Lord Deputy of Ireland, she suddenly decided that she would make public account to her subjects for her treatment of Essex. It was then the custom, at the end of the legal term, for the Lord Keeper to deliver a speech to the people in the Court of Star Chamber, and the Queen resolved to make this the occasion for the sorry catalogue of Essex's offences to be read out, 'for the satisfaction of the world' and to suppress the 'dangerous libels cast abroad in court, city and country, to the great scandal of Her Majesty and her Council'.
When he received a summons to appear, Essex pleaded that he was too sick to attend, having 'the Irish flux', but Elizabeth did not believe him, so, on the afternoon of 28 November, accompanied by Lord Worcester and Lady Warwick, she had her bargemen row her to York House. What transpired there is unrecorded, and there is no evidence that she even saw Essex, who was said to be at death's door.
Nevertheless, on 29 November, before a solemn gathering of Privy Councillors, judges and laymen in the Star Chamber, Essex was accused of mismanaging the Irish campaign, squandering public funds to the tune of - 300,000, making a dishonourable treaty with Tyrone and abandoning his command against the express orders of the Queen.
Bacon was not present, and when the Queen asked him why, he claimed he had been deterred by threats of violence and worse from the people, who were calling him a traitor for betraying his friend. She did not believe him, and refused to speak to him for weeks afterwards.
After Essex's offences had been published, the Star Chamber proceedings came to an end, and he remained in confinement, though many people thought it unfair 'to condemn a man unheard' without trial.
Throughout the weeks of his confinement, Essex had suffered greatly. He was in pain due to a stone in the kidney and recurring bouts of dysentery, he was allowed to see no one but his servants, he could not go out of doors, and his submissive letters to the Queen provoked no response, driving him to desperation. Even Harington, who bravely came to see him, dared not carry a letter to Elizabeth, for he had barely recovered her favour and had no wish to be 'wrecked on the Essex coast'. The people, however, had not lost faith in Essex, and their sympathy grew when it became known how critically ill he had become: laudatory pamphlets asserting his innocence were distributed in the streets; graffiti insulting the Queen and Cecil (who was blamed for poisoning her mind against Essex and had taken to going about with a bodyguard) appeared on the palace walls; and in pulpits throughout the land, preachers offered up prayers for this champion of the Protestant faith, urging Elizabeth to show clemency. Worst of all, 'traitorous monsters' (the Queen's words) had the temerity to make 'railing speeches and slanderous libels' against her. All this disturbed her greatly, for, having devoted her whole life to courting the love of her subjects, she could not bear to see evidence of their disaffection.
In early December, therefore, Elizabeth graciously allowed Lady Essex, who had stayed at court, conspicuously dressed in mourning, to visit her husband during the daytime, but he was so ill, both in body and spirit, that Frances concluded there was 'little hope of his recovery'. Whyte wrote, 'He is grown very ill and weak by grief, and craves nothing more than that he may quickly know what Her Majesty will do with him. He eats little, sleeps less, and only sustains life by continual drinking, which increases the rheum.'
Distressed to hear this, the Queen sent eight of her physicians to attend him, but their report was not encouraging: his liver was 'stopped and perished', and his intestines ulcerated. He could not walk, and had to be lifted so that his linen, soiled with black matter from his bowels, could be changed. All the doctors could prescribe were glisters (enemas) to cleanse his system. Elizabeth ordered that he be moved to Egerton's great bedchamber, and with tears in her eyes dispatched a messenger with some broth and a message bidding Essex comfort himself with it, and promising that, if she might with honour visit him, she would. She also conceded that, when he was better, he might take the air in the garden of York House.
Nevertheless, she had now seen enough evidence to suggest to her that his dealings with Tyrone had verged on the treasonable, and was still insisting that he be punished for his offences. Yet her anger was underlaid with sadness, and, as she told the French ambassador later, she was still hoping Essex might yet 'reform', for the sake of 'those good things' that were in him.
On 19 December, it was rumoured that Essex had died, and several church bells began tolling. On the door of Cecil's house, someone scrawled, 'Here lieth the Toad'. But when the Queen heard her chaplains praying for Essex, she bade them desist, for she had heard he was not dead, but had in fact recovered somewhat. A week later, he was sitting up in bed, and soon afterwards was taking his meals at table.
Elizabeth kept Christmas that year at Richmond; the court was crowded and merry, and the Queen appeared in good spirits, playing cards with Sackville and Cecil, and watching her ladies performing country dances in the Presence Chamber. There were also 'plays and Christmas pies' for her delectation. There was talk of Pembroke's heir, young William Herbert, becoming the new royal favourite, since 'he very discreetly follows the course of making love to the Queen', but he proved to be a dull, unambitious youth who preferred reading to jousting and was soon 'blamed for his weak pursuance of Her Majesty's favour. Want of spirit is laid to his charge, and that he is a melancholy companion.'
On Twelfth Night 1600, reported a Spanish agent, 'The Queen held a great feast,' in which the Head of the Church of England and Ireland was to be seen in her old age dancing three or four galliards.'
Essex's sister, Lady Rich, had already incurred the Queen's displeasure with her incessant pleas on her brother's behalf. Before her lover Mountjoy left for Ireland on 7 February, he conferred with Southampton and Essex's friend Sir Charles Danvers as to how they might best help Essex. It was agreed that they would enlist the support of James VI by informing him that the Cecil faction was working to prevent his succession, and that his only hope of wearing the crown of England lay in the return to favour of Essex. If James would consider a show of armed strength to bring that about, Mountjoy would back him by bringing an army of 4-5000 men over from Ireland to force Elizabeth to agree to their demands. Since all three men were in secret contact with Essex, it is almost certain that he knew of, and had approved, this treasonable plan. But James diplomatically showed little interest in the proposal, and it was shelved.
By the end of January, Essex was well again, and, Elizabeth, stiffening in her resolve, announced to her councillors that she meant to have him publicly tried for treason on 8 February in the Star Chamber. Cecil and Bacon, fearful of public opinion, dissuaded her, suggesting instead that she secure his submission privately. At Cecil's suggestion, Essex wrote her a humble letter craving her forgiveness, beseeching her to let this cup pass from him. 'The tears in my heart hath quenched all the sparkles of pride that were in me,' he declared. Unwillingly, she cancelled the trial at the last minute.
On 3 March, Whyte noted that 'Her Majesty's displeasure is nothing lessened towards the Earl of Essex.' After representations by Egerton, who was finding his position intolerable, Elizabeth gave permission on 20 March for Essex to return under the supervision of a keeper, Sir Richard Berkeley, to live in Essex House, which had been stripped of its rich furnishings, but he was not allowed to leave it and was only permitted a few servants. Nor were his family allowed to live with him. He was still writing plaintive letters to the Queen, pleading to be restored to favour. 'God is witness how faithfully I vow to dedicate the rest of my life to Your Majesty,' he assured her.
Raleigh was fearful that Cecil was not taking a hard enough line with the Queen over Essex, and warned him,
I am not wise enough to give you advice, but if you relent towards this tyrant, you will repent it when it shall be too late. His malice is fixed and will not evaporate by any [of] your mild courses. Lose not your advantage. If you do, I read your destiny. He will ever be the canker of the Queen's estate and safety. I have seen the last of her good days, and all ours, after his liberty.
At that very moment, Essex was in correspondence with Mountjoy in Ireland, pleading with him to come to his aid with an army, even if James would not help him. But Mountjoy, having now himself seen the situation in Ireland, was less inclined to sympathise with Essex, and had rather more pressing matters to deal with, the chief of those being the overthrow of Tyrone. He therefore declared that, 'to satisfy my Lord of Essex's private ambition, he would not enter into an enterprise of that nature'. Essex wrote another beseeching letter to the Queen at this time, telling her he felt he had been 'thrown into a corner as a dead carcass'.
That spring, the Queen was very downcast, obviously torn two ways over Essex. When Lady Scrope, bringing her a letter from him, expressed the hope that Her Majesty would restore to favour one who with so much sorrow desired it, Elizabeth replied wistfully, 'Indeed, it was so.'
Public indignation at Essex's continuing imprisonment was mounting, with many believing he had not been brought to trial because there was 'want of matter to proceed against him'. To counteract this, on 5 June, at York House, Elizabeth had him brought before a commission of eighteen councillors, presided over by Lord Keeper Egerton. An invited audience of two hundred persons was present. This was not a formal court, but a tribunal invested with the power to mete out a punishment agreed beforehand by the Queen, who had devised the whole charade as a public relations exercise. Afterwards, many courtiers began to believe that she was paving the way for a reconciliation.
The proceedings lasted eleven hours. The prisoner, who understood very well what was required of him, was made to kneel before the board at which the lords sat, while the Attorney-General, Sir Edward Coke, read out a list of his 'delinquencies'. Chief of these was his gross contempt and disobedience, although it was made clear to him that his loyalty to the Queen was not in doubt. Then four lawyers for the Crown condemned his misdemeanours; Essex was astonished and hurt to see his erstwhile friend Bacon among them. Bacon had, in fact, begged to be excused, but the Queen had insisted on his being there.
Thanks to the intervention of Archbishop Wmitgift, Essex was eventually permitted to lean on a chair-back and, as time wore on, to sit. After several hours of accusations, it was time for him publicly to apologise for his misdeeds and throw himself on the Queen's mercy, but at this point the Attorney-General took it upon himself to deliver a lengthy attack on the Earl, provoking Essex to heated retaliation. The dignified hearing quickly deteriorated into a slanging match, and only when Cecil intervened did the protagonists desist and Essex, in a passionate and moving speech, freely acknowledge his culpability and express his deep remorse at having offended the Queen. 'I would tear the heart out of my breast if ever a disloyal thought had entered it!' he cried.
The commissioners found Essex guilty on all counts, and Egerton told him that, had this been a normal court, he would have been condemned to a huge fine and perpetual imprisonment in the Tower, but since it was not, and since he had abjectly admitted his faults and begged for mercy, he might return to his house to await Her Majesty's pleasure. 'It was a most pitiful sight to see him that was the minion of Fortune, now unworthy of the least honour,' wrote Whyte, and many of the onlookers wept to see it.
Elizabeth ordered that he be dismissed from the Privy Council and deprived of his offices of Earl Marshal and Master of the Ordnance, allowing him to retain only that of Master of the Horse. She had considered releasing Essex, but both Cecil and Raleigh warned her that he was almost certain to start scheming again, so after the hearing he remained under house arrest at Essex House.
Three weeks later, the Queen decided to strip all those knighted by Essex of their knighthoods, sparking a terrible fuss, as many of the men quailed at the prospect of telling their wives they were 'Lady' no longer, just plain 'Mistress' again. Cecil intervened on their behalf, but it was some time before the Queen finally relented. Fortunately, news had come from Ireland that Mountjoy was proving himself a considerable strategist and was making headway against the rebels, which disposed the Queen to clemency.
During the summer, Elizabeth kept herself busy. She walked in Greenwich Park, rode her favourite horses, Grey Pool and Black Wilford, and danced in public on several occasions, hoping to prove that she was 'not so old as some would have her'. She was also entertained to dinner by her nobles on several occasions, practised archery at the butts, thrilled to the daredevil performance of a French tight-rope acrobat, and watched the baiting of some bears, a bull and an ape in the tiltyard.
On 15 June, she attended the wedding of a favourite maid of honour, Anne Russell, to William Herbert at Blackfriars. At a masque performed afterwards by eight ladies of the court in allegorical guise, Mary Fitton, another of her maids, invited Elizabeth to dance. The Queen asked her what her costume represented, whereupon Mary replied, 'Affection.'
'Affection!' sniffed the Queen, still keenly hurt by Essex's betrayal. 'Affection is false!' But she joined the dancing, nevertheless.
During August and September, she was hunting every day and, at sixty-seven, planning a long progress to Wiltshire and Farnham, prompting groans and protests from the older members of her household, 'but Her Majesty bid the old stay behind and the young and able to go with her'. Then she thought better of it and, with a very small train, went to Nonsuch instead, then Elvetham, and later to Oatlands, where she was reported to be 'very merry and well'. Thereafter, instead of going on progress, she spent days out, visiting Sir Francis Carew at Beddington Park, Archbishop Whitgift at Croydon Palace, and her New Forest hunting lodge.
Her moods were changeable. At Penshurst Place in Kent, she was in low spirits, and her host, Sir Robert Sidney, told Harington,
She seemeth most pleased at what we did to please her. My son made her a fair speech, to which she did give most gracious reply. The women did dance before her, whilst the cornets did salute from the gallery, and she did eat two morsels of rich comfit cake and drank a small cordial from a gold cup. She doth wax weaker since the late troubles, and Burghley's death often draws tears from her goodly cheeks. She walketh out but little, meditates much alone, and sometimes writes in private to her best friends. At going upstairs, she called for a staff, and was much wearied in walking about the house, and said she wished to come another day. Six drums and trumpets waited in the court and sounded at her approach and departure.
That summer saw the seventh bad harvest in a row. For some time now, the Queen had been preoccupied with trying to solve her country's economic problems. Dearth and famine had given rise to widespread discontent and disorder, and there were angry rumblings about the dragging out of the costly war with Spain, which had curtailed much of England's trade. No longer could Elizabeth live within her means; instead, she was forced to sell off Crown lands, jewels and even Henry VIII's Great Seal, to pay her debts. Many of her courtiers relied on monopolies on goods and commodities to survive, but the abuse of this system led to bitter complaints from Parliament.
After the hearing in June, Bacon had written to apologise to Essex for his part in it, and had advised him to send two letters in succession both composed by Bacon, begging the Queen's forgiveness. One read: 'Now, having heard the voice of Your Majesty's justice, I do humbly crave to hear your own proper and natural voice, or else that Your Majesty in mercy will send me into another world. If Your Majesty will vouchsafe to let me once prostrate myself at your feet and behold your fair and gracious eyes, yea, though afterwards Your Majesty punish me, imprison me, or pronounce the sentence of death against me, Your Majesty is most merciful, and I shall be most happy.'
This worked to a degree. In July, Berkeley was dismissed, although Essex was commanded to keep to his house, and on 26 August, on Bacon's advice, the Queen set him at liberty. As he was forbidden, however, to come to court or hold any public office, he announced he would retire to the country. Both he and his friends were still hopeful that the Queen would forgive him, but in her opinion, he was not yet humble enough.
Essex was still deeply in debt, to the tune of 16,000; his creditors were growing restive, and he was counting on the Queen to renew his monopoly on sweet wines, which accounted for the lion's share of his income, when it expired at Michaelmas. Elizabeth was aware of his predicament, for he had written telling her of it, but when he began inundating her with a further barrage of flattering missives, she observed shrewdly to Bacon, 'My Lord of Essex has written me some very dutiful letters, and I have been moved by them, but' - and here she gave an ironic laugh - 'what I took for the abundance of the heart, I find to be only a suit for the farm of sweet wines.' Bacon pleaded with her 'not utterly to extinguish my Lord's desire to do her service', but she brushed him aside.
Unaware that she saw through him, Essex, having returned to London, was hoping she would agree to see him, and wrote again in desperation: 'Haste paper to that happy presence, whence only unhappy I am banished; kiss that fair, correcting hand which lays new plasters to my higher hurts, but to my greatest wound applieth nothing. Say thou comest from pining, languishing, despairing SX.' Elizabeth had consistently failed to reply to any of his letters, but to this one she sent a verbal message, 'that thankfulness was ever welcome and seldom came out of season, and that he did well so dutifully to acknowledge that what was done was so well meant'.
Michaelmas came and went, with no word from the Queen about his monopoly. There is evidence that the government had just found out about his dealings with Mountjoy, to whom he had recently sent a further request for help, with a view to launching an assault on the court.
'Corrupt bodies - the more you feed them, the more hurt you do them,' Elizabeth observed grimly. 'An unruly horse must be abated of his provender, that he may be the more easily and better managed.'
On 18 October, Essex made a final, despairing plea to her:
My soul cries out unto Your Majesty for grace, for access, and for an end of this exile. If Your Majesty grant this suit, you are most gracious. If this cannot be obtained, I must doubt whether that the means to preserve life, and the granted liberty, have been favours or punishments; for, till I may appear in your most gracious presence and kiss Your Majesty's fair, correcting hand, time itself is a perpetual night, and the whole world but a sepulchre unto Your Majesty's humblest vassal.
Late in October, the Queen announced that from henceforth the profits on sweet wines would be reserved to the Crown; perhaps she intended to restore them to him when he had sufficiently expiated his crimes, but for the present, Essex was ruined.
This, the culmination of months of ill-health, deep anxiety and strain, finally broke him. It would be no exaggeration to say that he lost his reason in consequence of this cruel blow, which coincided with Mountjoy's categoric refusal to help him. He was as a man possessed, raving with anger one moment and plunged into black melancholy another. Harington, who went to see him at this time, recorded that
ambition thwarted in its career doth speedily lead on to madness. He shifteth from sorrow and repentence to rage and rebellion so suddenly as well proveth him devoid of good reason or right mind. He uttereth strange words, bordering on such strange designs that made me hasten forth and leave his presence. His speeches of the Queen becometh no man who hath a healthy mind in a healthy body. He hath ill advisers and much evil hath sprung from this source. The Queen well knoweth how to humble the haughty spirit, the haughty spirit knoweth not how to yield, and the man's soul seemeth tossed to and fro, like the waves of a troubled sea.
One remark made by Essex was reported to Elizabeth: when someone, possibly Harington, referred to 'the Queen's conditions', he interrupted, shouting, 'Her conditions! Her conditions are as cankered and crooked as her carcass!' She never forgave him for this.
But his anger went beyond words. From now on, spurred on by the machinations of his clever and ambitious secretary, Henry Cuffe, who was the brains behind what was to come, he was in covert rebellion. He was paranoid, convinced that his misfortunes marked the success of a masterplan by his enemies to destroy him, and that Cecil was not only plotting to murder him, but was also conspiring with Philip III to set the Infanta Isabella on the throne. It was imperative that he warn the Queen of what was going on, so that she could rid herself of such treacherous ministers and be reconciled with himself, fully restoring him to favour. If she refused to listen, he would make her: Cuffe had convinced him the only way to get back into favour would be to force his way into her presence, backed by an army of his friends and those citizens who had so often expressed their love for him. Cuffe told him that honour demanded this of him: he must save his reputation.
Essex therefore began to gather around him disaffected peers such as the Earls of Southampton and Rutland, his staunch friends, who included Sir Charles Danvers, Essex's stepfather Christopher Blount, a Catholic recusant, Francis Tresham, Essex's secretary Henry Cuffe, his Welsh steward, Sir Gelli Meyrick, and even his sister, Lady Rich, who was Mountjoy's mistress. For good measure, Essex warned James VI of Cecil's imagined efforts to promote the claim of the Infanta, and urged him to insist that Elizabeth declare him her heir. James was disturbed by this, and responded in a coded message, which Essex ostentatiously carried with him at all times in a black pouch hung around his neck.
Soon, the conspirators were meeting, not only at Essex House, but also at Southampton's residence, Drury House. Essex was even contemplating breaking into the Queen's apartments, placing her under restraint, and ruling England in her name. Thanks to Cecil's agents, whose suspicions had been alerted by the number of swaggering young bucks converging on the Strand, the Secretary knew exactly what was going on, and was prepared to bide his time until Essex had woven enough rope with which to hang himself.
In November, the war in the Netherlands finally came to an end when an Anglo-Dutch army won a victory over the Spaniards at Nieuport. All that most people, including the Queen, wanted now was a safe, honourable peace with Spain.
Accession Day arrived, and there were the usual festivities at Whitehall. On this day also, Essex wrote his last surviving letter to Elizabeth, congratulating her on the forty-second anniversary of her accession and again begging to be forgiven: 'I sometimes think of running [in the tiltyard] and then remember what it will be to come into that presence, out of which both by your own voice I was commanded, and by your own hands thrust out.' Again, he received no answer.
By now, he had built up a wide affinity of support, which included, according to Camden, 'all swordmen, bold, confident fellows, men of broken fortunes, and such as saucily used their tongues in railing against all men'. Outcasts, social misfits, deserters from the army, Puritan preachers, Papists, adventurers, and all manner of malcontents found the door of Essex House open to them. Nearly all, even Essex's noble supporters, were desperately short of money, a disadvantage which they looked to the success of their revolt to remedy, and all were ready to be swept up in a fervour of misplaced patriotism. Even Mountjoy, learning of Lady Rich's involvement, now offered his assistance, should the rebellion prove successful.
At Christmas, Essex tried again to enlist the support of James VI against the Cecil faction, urging him 'to stop the malice, the wickedness and madness of these men, and to relieve my poor country, which groans under the burden'. The Queen, he asserted, was 'being led blindfold into her own extreme danger'. James agreed to send an ambassador to back Essex's complaints, but only after Essex had staged his coup.
Elizabeth kept Christmas at Whitehall; Cecil entertained her to dinner, and on 26 December there was dancing at court, she herself performing a coranto with a Mr Palmer. She also watched the eleven plays that were staged at court during the season.
During the early weeks of 1601, Essex finalised plans for his coup, which was planned for March, whilst his followers disseminated wild rumours of Catholic plots throughout London. It was decided that, once the City and the Tower had been secured, Essex would approach the Queen 'in such peace as not a dog would wag his tongue at him' and make her summon a Parliament, in which he would have Cecil, Raleigh and their associates impeached and himself named Lord Protector. Yet, although Essex had decreed that the Queen should not be harmed, according to Christopher Blount, 'if we had failed of our ends, we should, rather than have been disappointed, even have drawn blood from herself.
One of Essex's friends, Sir Ferdinando Gorges, took fright and warned Raleigh of what was going on. Raleigh, in turn, alerted the Council, but Cecil was already prepared. At the beginning of February, he himself spread a rumour that Essex was about to be sent to the Tower. Hearing this, Essex realised there was no time to lose.
His sense of urgency deepened when, on the morning of 7 February, a messenger arrived from the Queen to demand that he present himself before the Council immediately. His friends warned him not to go, as he would be arrested, and urged him to act without delay. He briefly considered fleeing, but could not bring himself to abandon his hopes of glory, nor his public, for he felt sure they would rise on his behalf. He therefore dispatched the royal messenger with a message that he was 'in bed and all in a sweat' after playing tennis, and could not attend the Council. Then he summoned three hundred of his followers and told them that, since he had just discovered that Cecil and Raleigh were planning his assassination, the rising would take place on the morrow. The Queen, he insisted, must not be harmed.
Later that day, in order to rouse the populace of London, Essex's friend, Sir Gelli Meyrick, paid a reluctant Shakespeare and his company of actors, the Lord Chamberlain's Men, forty shillings to stage a production of the inflammatory Richard II, with its banned abdication scene, at the Globe Theatre in Southwark.
Cecil was also preparing for a confrontation: he summoned levies from the nearby shires, instructed the London preachers to tell the citizens to remain indoors on the morrow, and arranged for the guard to be doubled at Whitehall. Danvers, who had been watching the palace, warned Essex that his plans were known, and warned him to escape while he could. Essex refused to listen.
On the next day, the 8th, he staged his coup. As he gathered his friends and supporters and two hundred soldiers in the courtyard of Essex House, there was so much noise and commotion that the Queen, hearing of it, sent Lord Keeper Egerton, the Lord Chief Justice, Sir John Popham, the Earl of Worcester and Sir William Knollys to find out the cause of it and insist that Essex come and explain himself to the Council. Essex invited them into his library, but the crowd swarmed up the stairs behind them, crying, 'Kill them! Kill them!', drowning the lords' injunctions to disarm. Essex locked the four councillors in the library, and left with his by now unruly following for the City on foot.
Wearing his normal clothes rather than armour to signify his peaceful intent, and carrying just a sword, he marched through Temple Bar into Fleet Street, crying, 'For the Queen! For the Queen! The crown of England is sold to the Spaniard! A plot is laid for my life!' But he had overestimated his popularity and credibility: far from flocking to his side, the astonished citizens remained indoors and even tried, unsuccessfully, to prevent him forcing his way through Ludgate, which had been locked against his coming. By the time he reached St Paul's Cathedral, he was forced to face the fact that there would be no popular rising in his favour. As he turned into Cheapside, his face was 'almost molten with sweat' and suffused with fear. When he reached the house of the Sheriff of London, Thomas Smyth, who had offered his support, he was perspiring so much that he asked for a clean shirt. But already, his followers were deserting him, covering their faces with their cloaks, and Smyth, regretting having ever got involved in such a madcap scheme, escaped out of the back door to summon the Mayor, who was busy obeying the Queen's injunction to summon all the citizens to arms.
Meanwhile, heralds had ridden abroad proclaiming Essex a traitor, and government troops had begun erecting a barricade of coaches across the road that led from Charing Cross to Whitehall. Many citizens had hurried to the palace, one remarking that there was 'such a hurly burly at the court as I never saw'. A force under Sir John Leveson occupied Ludgate, and every one of London's seven gates was locked.
Around two o'clock in the afternoon, realising that all was lost, Essex abandoned his remaining followers and fled to Queenhithe, where he took a barge back to his house, only to find that Gorges had released his hostages and returned with them to Whitehall. Realising his predicament, Essex locked himself in and burned dozens of incriminating papers as well as his black pouch containing the Scottish King's message. But it was not long before the Queen's soldiers, under the command of Lord Admiral Nottingham, came and surrounded his house and trained their cannon upon it, demanding he give himself up.
Essex clambered up on to the roof and brandished his sword. 'I would sooner fly to Heaven!' he cried. Nottingham replied, very well then, he would blow the house up. Essex had no choice but to come out, just after ten in the evening, and surrender his sword. He asked only that his chaplain, Abdy Ashton, remain with him. Before long, eighty-five rebels had been rounded up and taken into custody.
During the rebellion, Elizabeth had remained coolly in control and displayed remarkable courage, giving orders to Cecil and never doubting her people's loyalty. She took her meals as usual, stating that God had placed her on her throne and He would preserve her on it, and would not allow the normal routine of the day to be disrupted. At one stage, she received a false report that the City had gone over to Essex, but was no more disturbed by this 'than she would have been to hear of a fray in Fleet Street'. 'She would have gone out in person to see what any rebel of them all durst do against her, had not her councillors, with much ado, stayed her.' Nottingham spoke admiringly of the way she had placed her reliance on God: 'I beheld Her Majesty with most princely fortitude stand up like the Lord's Anointed and offer in person to face the boldest traitor in the field, relying on God's almighty providence, which had heretofore maintained her.' Cecil spoke for many when he gave thanks for 'the joy of Her Majesty's preservation'.
Having demonstrated that she was still in authoritative control of her realm, the Queen expressly ordered that Essex and Southampton be taken that night under guard to Lambeth Palace rather than the Tower, 'because the night was dark and the river not passable under [London] Bridge'. But on the next tide, at three o'clock the next morning, they were rowed to the Tower, closely followed by Rutland, Danvers, Blount and several others of gentle birth. Elizabeth would not retire to bed until she had been assured that her orders had been carried out. Cuffe and other rebels were thrown into the common gaols.
On 9 February, the Queen told the French ambassador that Essex, that 'shameless ingrate, had at last revealed what had long been in his mind'. She had indulged him too long, she confessed, and with mounting passion, spoke scornfully about Essex parading himself through the City, making vain speeches and retreating shamefully. Had he reached Whitehall, she declared, she had been resolved to go out and face him, 'in order to know which of the two of them ruled'.
After the rising had collapsed, however, the strain told. Harington noticed that Elizabeth was 'much wasted' and could not be bothered to put on all her finery.
She disregardeth every costly dish that cometh to the table, and taketh little but manchet and pottage. Every new message from the City doth disturb her, and she frowns on all the ladies. I must not say much, but the many evil plots and designs hath overcome all Her Highness's sweet temper. She walks much in her chamber, and stamps with her feet at ill news, and thrusts her rusty sword at times into the arras [tapestry] in great rage. But the dangers are over, and yet she always has a sword by her table. And so disordered is all order, that Her Highness hath worn but one change of raiment for many days, and swears much at those that cause her griefs, to the no small discomfiture of all about her.
As Elizabeth wanted the chief offenders brought to trial without delay, the Council began examining them, uncovering the full details of the doomed plot. On 13 February, in the Star Chamber, these were made public. Four days later, indictments against Essex, Southampton and many others were laid, and it was decided that the two principals should be tried two days hence. Bacon was one of those chosen to act for the Crown, and had no qualms now about doing so. The Queen was prepared to overlook Mountjoy's involvement, in view of his successes in Ireland, and also refrained from complaining to James VI about his support of Essex.
Elizabeth's resolve to make an end of Essex was strengthened on 12 February, when one of his followers, a Captain Lea, who had served as his messenger to Tyrone - and in 1597 had presented Elizabeth with the severed head of an Irish rebel, much to her disgust - was arrested in the palace kitchen on his way to the chamber where she supped with her ladies, his intention being to force her at knife-point to issue a warrant for Essex's release. Lea was tried at Newgate on 14 February, and hanged at Tyburn the following day.
On 19 February, Essex and Southampton were tried by their peers at Westminster Hall, Buckhurst presiding as Lord High Steward. They were accused of plotting to deprive the Queen of her crown and life, imprisoning the councillors of the realm, inciting the Londoners to rebellion with false tales, and resisting the Queen's soldiers sent to arrest them. As Essex looked on smiling, Sir Edward Coke, Francis Bacon and Sir John Popham presented a devastating case for the Crown, Coke accusing him of aspiring to be 'Robert, the first of his name, King of England'. Bacon's defection was, to Essex, 'the unkindest cut of all', but Bacon pointed out to the court, 'I loved my Lord of Essex as long as he continued a dutiful subject. I have spent more hours to make him a good subject to Her Majesty than I have about my own business.'
Essex, dressed in black and very much in control of himself, pleaded not guilty, as did Southampton, and boldly did his best to refute the charges, arguing heatedly with his accusers. He insisted that Raleigh had tried to murder him, but Raleigh, summoned as a witness, stoutly denied it. When Essex insisted that his chief intention had been to petition the Queen to impeach Cecil, whose loyalty was false, Bacon retorted that it was hardly usual for petitioners to approach Her Majesty armed and guarded, nor for them to 'run together in numbers. Will any man be so simple to take this as less than treason?' When Cecil demanded to know where Essex had learned that he was plotting to set the Infanta on the throne, Essex was forced to admit that this slander was based on a chance remark of Cecil's, made two years before, and taken out of context. 'You have a wolfs head in a sheep's garment. God be thanked, we know you now,' commented Cecil, vindicated.
The verdict was a foregone conclusion, the peers having asked the advice of senior judges beforehand, and taken into account the wishes of the Queen: after an hour's debate, they found Essex guilty of high treason, whereupon Buckhurst sentenced him to the appalling barbarities of a traitor's death - a sentence which, in the case of a peer of the realm, was invariably commuted by the monarch to simple beheading.
After being sentenced, Essex, who remained calm, dignified, and unmoved by the terrible fate awaiting him, was allowed to address the court: 'I think it fitting that my poor quarters, which have done Her Majesty service in divers parts of the world, should now at the last be sacrificed and disposed at Her Majesty's pleasure.' He asked for mercy for Southampton, but said he would not 'fawningly beg' for it for himself, and, looking at the peers, added, 'Although you have condemned me in a court of judgement, yet in the court of your conscience, ye would absolve me, who have intended no harm against the prince.' The condemned were generally expected to express humble submission, and Essex's speech was reckoned by many of those present to be unfittingly arrogant for one on the brink of Divine Judgement, and whose guilt was so manifest.
Southampton, who declared he had been led away by love for Essex, was also condemned to death, but the Queen was merciful, and later commuted his punishment to life imprisonment in the Tower. After her death, he was released by James I.
Many people at court believed that, if Essex begged the Queen for mercy, she would spare his life, but Essex remained true to his word and proudly refrained from making any 'cringing submission'. Despite the efforts of the Dean of Norwich, who had been sent to him by the Council, he would not acknowledge his guilt. Even had he done so, he would have posed too great a threat to the Queen's security to be allowed to live. On the day after the trial, without her usual prevarication, Elizabeth signed his death warrant in a firm hand; it may still be seen in the British Library.
On 21 February, Cecil, Nottingham, Egerton and Buckhurst were requested to attend on Essex in the Tower. His chaplain, having conjured up a terrifying vision of the punishment that awaited him in Hell if he did not own up to his sins, had succeeded where the Dean had failed and, in an agony of remorse, Essex had asked to make a full confession of his crimes in the presence of the Council. With great humility, he declared he was 'the greatest, most vilest and most unthankful traitor that has ever been in the land', and admitted that 'the Queen could never be safe as long as he lived'. He then rehearsed all his misdeeds, implicating most of his friends, and even his own sister, without a qualm. He asked to see Henry Cuffe, and when the secretary was brought in, accused him of being the author 'of all these my disloyal courses into which I have fallen'.
Lady Essex had written begging Cecil to intercede with the Queen for her husband's life, saying that if he died, 'I shall never wish to breathe one hour after'. Cecil was in fact grieved to see Essex brought so low, but the Queen was implacable. Later, she told the French ambassador that, had she been able to spare Essex's life without endangering the security of the realm, she would have done so, but 'he himself had recognised that he was unworthy of it'. She did, however, grant Essex's request for a private execution.
On 23 February, having been delayed to give the prisoner time to make his confession, Essex's death warrant was delivered to the Lieutenant of the Tower, but the Queen sent a message after it, ordering that the execution be postponed until the next day.
Shrove Tuesday fell on 24 February; the Queen attended the customary banquet at court, and watched a performance of one of Shakespeare's plays. That night, she sent a message commanding the Lieutenant of the Tower to proceed with Essex's execution on the morrow, ordering that two executioners be summoned to despatch the prisoner: 'If one taint, the other may perform it to him, on whose soul God have mercy.' Then she retired to the privacy of her apartments and remained there throughout the following day.
There is a legend, often repeated, that Elizabeth had once, in happier times, given Essex a ring, saying that, if ever he was in trouble, he was to send it to her and she would help him. A gold ring with a sardonynx cameo of the Queen, said to be this one, is in the Chapter House Museum in Westminster Abbey. In the seventeenth century, it was claimed that, whilst in the Tower, Essex leaned out of his window and entrusted the ring to a boy, telling him to take it to Lady Scrope and ask her to give it to the Queen; however, the boy mistakenly gave it to Lady Scrope's sister, the Countess of Nottingham, wife of Essex's rival, the Admiral, who, out of malice, made her keep the ring to herself. The story went that she only revealed its existence to the Queen when she herself was on her deathbed in 1603, whereupon Elizabeth is said to have told her bitterly, 'May God forgive you, Madam, but I never can.'
The story is a fabrication. It is first referred to in 1620 in John Webster's The Devil's Law Case, and later recounted in detail in The Secret History of the Most Renowned Queen Elizabeth and the Earl of Essex, by a Person of Quality, a work of fiction published in 1695. Camden, Elizabeth's usually well-informed biographer, knew of the tale, and condemned it as false, and this is borne out by the fact that Elizabeth, who did attend the death-bed of her great friend, Lady Nottingham, was so devastated with grief at her death that her own health was fatally undermined.
During the night of 24 February, Essex prepared for death, apologising to his guards for having no means of rewarding them, 'for I have nothing left but that which I must pay to the Queen tomorrow in the morning'.
In the early hours of the 25th, a select company of lords, knights and aldermen arrived at the Tower. They had been invited to watch the execution, and took their seats around the scaffold, which had been built in the courtyard of the Tower in front of the Chapel of St Peter ad Vincula. When Raleigh appeared, being required, as Captain of the Gentlemen Pensioners, to attend, there was a frisson of disapproval, for it was known that he had been Essex's enemy, and several people, seeing him position himself near the block, accused him of having come to gloat. He therefore withdrew to the armoury in the nearby White Tower, and watched the proceedings from a window. Later, he claimed he had been moved to tears.
Supported by three clergymen, Essex was brought to the scaffold just before eight o'clock; he was dressed in a black velvet gown over a doublet and breeches of black satin, and wore a black felt hat. Having ascended the steps, he took off his hat and bowed to the spectators. It was traditional for the condemned person to make a last speech before departing the world, and Essex's was abject in tone; 'he acknowledged, with thankfulness to God, that he was justly spewed out of the realm'. Then he continued:
My sins are more in number than the hairs on my head. I have bestowed my youth in wantonness, lust and uncleanness; I have been puffed up with pride, vanity and love of this wicked world's pleasures. For all which, I humbly beseech my Saviour Christ to be a mediator to the eternal Majesty for my pardon, especially for this my last sin, this great, this bloody, this crying, this infectious sin, whereby so many for love of me have been drawn to offend God, to offend their sovereign, to offend the world. I beseech God to forgive it us, and to forgive it me - most wretched of all.
He begged God to preserve the Queen, 'whose death I protest I never meant, nor violence to her person', and he asked those present 'to join your souls with me in prayer'. He ended by asking God to forgive his enemies.
His speech over, he removed his gown and ruff, and knelt by the block. A clergyman begged him not to be overcome by the fear of death, whereupon he commented that several times in battle he had 'felt the weakness of the flesh, and therefore in this great conflict desired God to assist and strengthen him'. Looking towards the sky, he prayed fervently for the estates of the realm, and recited the Lord's Prayer. The executioner then knelt, as was customary, and begged his forgiveness for what he was about to do. He readily gave it, then repeated the Creed after a clergyman. Rising, he took off his doublet to reveal a long- sleeved scarlet waistcoat, then bowed to the low block and laid himself down over it, saying he would be ready when he stretched out his arms. Many spectators were weeping by now.
'Lord, be merciful to Thy prostrate servant!' Essex prayed, and twisted his head sideways on the block. 'Lord, into Thy hands I commend my spirit.' A clergyman enjoined him to recite the 51st Psalm, but after two verses, he cried, 'Executioner, strike home!' and flung out his arms, still praying aloud. It took three strokes to sever his head, but he was probably killed by the first, since his body did not move after it. Then the headsman lifted the head by its long hair and shouted, 'God save the Queen!'
Of the other conspirators, Blount, Danvers, Meyrick and Cuffe were executed. Otherwise, the Queen, on Cecil's advice, was disposed to be merciful. Some forty-nine were imprisoned or fined - some of whom would become involved in the Gunpowder Plot of 1605 - while Lady Rich and thirty others were allowed to go free. Lady Essex remarried twice, and Lettice Knollys, Blount's widow, lived to the age of ninety- four. Anthony Bacon, broken by the loss of his old friend, died three months after the rebellion. His brother Francis was rewarded by the Queen for his services with a grant of ,12,000.
Essex's passing was mourned by many of the common people, who commemorated his deeds in popular ballads such as Essex's Last Good Night, and Sweet England's pride is gone, well-a-day, well-a-day, but the Queen, who had sent him to his death yet grieved for him on a personal level, had no doubt that he had deserved it, and that England was a more stable and secure state without him.