Chapter 26
Elizabeth never showed any sign of regret for having executed Essex. As far as she was concerned, she had been justified in doing so. Yet she remembered him with sadness, and for the rest of her life wore a ring he had given her.
With Essex dead, the most powerful man in England was Cecil, that able and consummate statesman. However, he was not popular, and the people blamed him and Raleigh for Essex's death. 'Little Cecil trips up and down, he rules both court and crown,' ran a contemporary rhyme. This was not strictly true, for, although the public thought otherwise, the Queen remained firmly in control of affairs. 'I know not one man in this kingdom that will bestow six words of argument, if she deny it,' Cecil testified. The only man who would have done so was dead, and there was at last an unusual peace at court which not even Raleigh's pretensions could ruffle. Elizabeth knew he was jealous of Cecil's power, but was also aware that his 'bloody pride' would ensure he was never a serious rival.
In March 1601, Cecil began paving the way for James VI's succession, and his own continuance in office, by instituting a private correspondence with the Scots King, which was to be conducted in the strictest secrecy, Cecil insisting that James could expect nothing from him that was prejudicial to Elizabeth's estate. If James would accept his advice and guidance, however, he could rest assured that the crown would pass peacefully to him when the time came. James was only too pleased to co-operate.
In May, he sent envoys to Elizabeth to request that she openly acknowledge him her heir, but, as Cecil informed England's ambassador in Edinburgh, 'Her Majesty gave nothing but negative answers, the matter being of so sour a nature to the Queen.' By now, she had a pathological aversion to any discussion of the succession question, and even the news that the Scottish King, angry at her response, was doing his best to enlist foreign support for his claim, did not encourage her to settle the matter. Hence, relations between herself and James were tense for the rest of the reign; once, she informed him that she knew that all was in readiness for her funeral. Nevertheless, it is clear from her letters that she favoured him above all others as her successor. What she dared not do was acknowledge him openly as such. Yet she told Harington in private that 'they were great fools that did not know that the line of Scotland must needs be next heirs'.
For months after Essex's death, Elizabeth was weary and sad, suffering bouts of depression that drove her to seek sanctuary in her darkened bedchamber, where she would give way to fits of weeping. Drained of energy, she grew careless and forgetful when attending to state affairs. The last two years had broken her spirit, and there were few left of her generation to understand her terrible isolation. That summer, she confessed to the French ambassador that 'she was tired of life, for nothing now contented her or gave her any enjoyment'. She referred to Essex 'with sighs and almost with tears', but insisted that he had not heeded her warnings and had brought his own doom upon himself. 'Those who touch the sceptre of princes deserve no pity,' she declared.
In consequence of her mood, 'the court was very much neglected, and in effect the people were generally weary of an old woman's government'. After the fall of Essex, Elizabeth's popularity had declined, despite government efforts to set the record straight. 'To this day', wrote Camden in the next reign, 'there are but few that thought [Essex's] a capital crime.' The country was burdened by economic hardship, the war with Spain still dragged on interminably, and a need for change was making itself felt. Elizabeth was criticised, somewhat unfairly, for making savage cuts in her expenditure, by courtiers who could not meet the rising cost of living and looked to her successor to remedy matters. Bribery and corruption were now endemic at court, and the Queen was powerless to stamp them out. 'Now the wit of the fox is everywhere on foot, so as hardly a faithful or virtuous man may be found,' she complained.
In August, Elizabeth received the antiquary William Lambarde, Keeper of the Records in the Tower, who had come to present her with a copy of his catalogue of the documents in his care. Elizabeth showed great interest, reading some aloud and telling him 'that she would be a scholar in her age and thought it no scorn to learn during her life'. But when she turned to the papers documenting the reign of Richard II, it was obvious that Essex's rebellion was still on her mind, for she turned to Lambarde and said, 'I am Richard II; know ye not that? He that will forget God will also forget his benefactors. This tragedy was played forty times I open streets and houses.' Lambarde was in no doubt as to what she was referring. But she dismissed him graciously, saying, 'Farewell, good and honest Lambarde.' He died two weeks later.
The Queen's progress that summer took her to Reading and then into Hampshire, where she stayed with the Marquess of Winchester at Basing before moving on to Lord Sandys's mansion, The Vyne, where she entertained Marshal Biron, the French ambassador, in whose honour she had the house adorned with plate and hangings brought from Hampton Court and the Tower. She was heard to boast that none of her predecessors had ever, during a progress and at a subject's house, 'royally entertained an ambassador'.
Biron's associate, the Due de Sully, was much impressed by Elizabeth's acute insight into matters of state:
I was convinced this great Queen was truly worthy of that high reputation she had acquired. She said many things which appeared to me so just and sensible that I was filled with astonishment and admiration. It is not unusual to behold princes form great designs, but to regulate the conduct of them, to foresee and guard against all obstacles in such a manner that, when they happen, nothing more will be necessary than to apply the remedies prepared long before - this is what few princes are capable of. I cannot bestow praises upon the Queen of England that would be equal to the merit which I discovered in her in this short time, both as to the qualities of the heart and the understanding.
It was during this progress that Elizabeth's courtiers, noticing that the handsome young Irish Earl of Clanricarde bore a passing resemblance to Essex, tried to bring him to the Queen's notice in order to revive her spirits, but she betrayed no interest whatsoever in him, anci made it clear that anything that reminded her of Essex only brought her pain.
On returning to London, she visited the Middle Temple, where, in the great hall, which had been built using timbers from the Golden Hind, she presided over a banquet at a table which is still there today, and watched a performance of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night.
The thirteenth and last Parliament of Elizabeth's reign met in October in a surly mood, being determined to break the wretched system of monopolies that was causing such financial distress to many.* When the
*Monopolies were royal grants bestowing the sole right to make or sell consumer goods such as salt or starch, but these privileges were frequently and scandalously abused by their holders, and there was much ill feeling against the system.
Queen went in state to open Parliament, few offered the customary greeting, 'God save Your Majesty'. There was momentary alarm when, as she addressed the assembly, weighted down in her heavy robes and crown, she suddenly swayed, prompting several gentlemen to rush forward and catch her before she sank to the ground. She recovered, however, and the ceremony proceeded as planned.
After she had left the Parliament house, the antechamber was so full there was 'little room to pass, [and] she moved her hand to have more room, whereupon one of the gentlemen ushers said, "Back, masters, make room." And one answered stoutly behind, "If you will hang us we can make no more room," which the Queen seemed not to hear, though she lifted up her head and looked that way towards him that spoke.'
To add to the problems of dearth and famine, the population of England had increased considerably during Elizabeth's reign. The practice of enclosing common land only added to the burgeoning numbers of the destitute, who would once have been cared for by monks and nuns, but the Dissolution of the Monasteries in the 1530s had dispossessed many in the religious life, placing an added burden upon the state. By the end of Elizabeth's reign, beggars had become a serious problem.
In 1598, Parliament had passed the famous Poor Law Act, which was published in November 1601, consigning beggars to the care of their native parishes, who were bound by law to provide relief for them. Each city or corporate town was to have its poor house - later known as the workhouse - and the system was to be paid for by local taxation.
The Commons, determined to end the abuse of monopolies, were resolved to block a subsidy Bill until the Queen had agreed to the passing of an Act limiting her powers to grant them. Before they could do so, and in order to avoid a dispute over the royal prerogative, Elizabeth issued a proclamation announcing that she would put an end to the present system immediately. There was a jubilant response to this in the House, with members weeping with emotion and fervently echoing 'Amen!' when the Speaker, John Croke, offered up a prayer for Her Majesty's preservation.
Parliament decided to send a deputation to the Queen to express her subjects' deepest gratitude and joy. When it came to choosing which MPs were to go, there were cries of'All! All! All!', prompting Elizabeth to send word that although space was limited, she would be pleased to see them all. 1 50 members accepted her invitation.
On 30 November, she received them enthroned in the Council Chamber at Whitehall, where she proved that the old magic could still have its effect by making what would ever afterwards be known as her 'golden speech', and would, in effect, be her farewell words to her beloved people. The MPs knelt before her and the Speaker, who headed the delegation, began to express their gratitude, but the Queen was determined to have her say. 'Mr Speaker,' she said,
we perceive your coming is to present thanks unto us. Know that I accept them with no less joy than your loves can have desired to offer such a present. I do assure you, there is no prince that loves his subjects better. There is no jewel, be it of never so rich a price, which I set before this jewel: I mean your love. For I do more esteem it than any treasure or riches, for those we know how to prize; but loyalty, love and thanks - I account them invaluable; and though God hath raised me high, yet this I account the glory of my crown, that I have reigned with your loves. This makes me that I do not so much rejoice that God hath made me to be a queen, as to be a queen over so thankful a people and to be the means under God to conserve you in safety and to preserve you from danger.
Bidding them rise, for she had more to say to them, she thanked them for making her aware of her people's resentment of the system of monopolies.
Mr Speaker, you give me thanks, but I am more to thank you, and I charge you, thank them of the Lower House from me that I take it exceeding grateful that the knowledge of these things have come unto me from them; for, had I not received knowledge from you, I might have fallen into the lapse of an error, only for want of true information. That my grants shall be made grievances to my people, and oppressions be privileged under colour of our patents, our princely dignity shall not suffer. Yea, when I heard it, I could give no rest unto my thoughts until I had reformed it, and those abusers of my bounty shall know I will not suffer it.
Of myself, I must say this: I never was any greedy, scraping grasper, nor a strict, fast-holding prince, nor yet a waster; my heart was never set upon any worldly goods, but only for my subjects' good. What you do bestow on me, I will not hoard up, but receive it to bestow on you again; yea, mine own properties I account yours, to be expended for your good, and your eyes shall see the bestowing of it.
She assured them that she did not 'desire to live longer days, than that I may see your prosperity, and that is my only desire. Since I was Queen, yet did I never put my pen to any grant, but that upon pretext or semblance made unto me that it was both good and beneficial to the subjects in general, though a private profit to some of my ancient servants who deserved well.' If they had abused the system, she prayed
God will not lay their offence to my charge. To be a king and wear a crown is more glorious to them that see it than it is a pleasure to them that bear it. And for my own part, were it not for conscience's sake to discharge the duty that God hath laid upon me, and to maintain His glory and keep you in safety, in mine own disposition I should be willing to resign the place I hold to any other, and glad to be free of the glory with the labours; for it is not my desire to live nor reign longer than my life and reign shall be for your good. And though you have had and may have many mightier and wiser princes sitting in this seat, yet you never had nor shall have any that will love you better.
I was never so much enticed with the glorious name of a king, or royal authority of a queen, as delighted that God hath made me His instrument to maintain His truth and glory, and to defend this kingdom from peril, dishonour, tyranny and oppression. I speak it to give God the praise, as a testimony before you, and not to attribute anything to myself; for I - O Lord, what am I? - O what can I do that I should speak for any glory? God forbid!
And thus concluding, she invited every delegate forward to kiss her hand, then rose from her throne and left the chamber to the sound of trumpets.
Her speech, it was unanimously agreed, had never been bettered; one MP said it was worthy to have been written in gold. Moreover, her magnanimous and prompt assent to Parliament's wishes restored her flagging popularity, enshrined her in her people's affections more than ever before, and inspired the Commons to vote her an unprecedented quadruple subsidy without one dissenting voice.
When Elizabeth dissolved Parliament on 19 December, the Speaker reminded the Lords and Commons that England, alone in Europe, had known stable government throughout the Queen's reign, and he thanked her on their behalf for 'the happy and quiet and most sweet and comfortable peace we have long enjoyed and, blessed be God and Your Majesty, do still enjoy.'
Elizabeth replied that they should go home and tell their people 'that your sovereign is more careful of your conservation than of herself, and will daily crave of God that they who wish you best may never wish in vain'.
It was an unusually quiet Christmas, with so few people at court that the guards 'were not troubled to keep the doors at plays and pastimes'. Yet there was to be cause for celebration, for on 24 December Mountjoy had achieved a great victory over Tyrone at Kinsale, leaving 1200 rebels dead on the field. Tyrone himself had escaped, but the commander of the Spanish army that had arrived the previous autumn to assist him had given up his cause for lost and sued for peace. On 2 January 1602, the Spaniards surrendered to Mountjoy and sailed back to Spain. The English were now in control of Ireland.
This was, wrote the Queen, 'one of the most acceptable incidents that hath befallen us'; she would have preferred the Spaniards to have been killed, but that was a minor detail. Mountjoy's offences had been forgotten; already, Elizabeth was writing regular and affectionate letters to him, signing herself 'Your loving sovereign'. Once, after he had complained she was treating him like a scullion, she responded with a lengthy and supportive letter in her own hand, but began with the greeting, 'Mistress Kitchen Maid . . .' Now, after his victory, she wrote, 'We have forgotten to praise your humility, that, after having been a queen's kitchen maid, you have not disdained to be a traitor's scullion. God bless you with perseverance.'
In June 1602, it seemed as if the great seafaring age of Drake was about to flourish once more, when a small fleet under Sir Richard Leveson captured a great Portuguese carrack, laden with treasure, despite its being protected by eleven galleys and 10,000 troops. But an expedition sent by the Queen to plunder the Spanish coast returned empty-handed. These were to be the last major maritime ventures of the reign.
There was an epidemic of smallpox in 1602, which claimed many lives, but the Queen was nevertheless planning a long progress to Bristol. However, the weather was again wet and stormy, and she was persuaded that entertaining her would cause hardship to her people, who had already suffered seven years of famine. In the event, the weather improved and the harvest was a good one, signalling the end of the period of dearth. Trade began to revive, and the people's spirits with it.
In August, Elizabeth announced that she was in better health than for the past twelve years. In a single day, she rode ten miles on horseback, then went hunting. She arrived home shattered, but took care to go for a long walk on the following day, lest her courtiers guessed she had been exhausted by her activities. At this time, Cecil presented her with a jewel set with rubies and topazes to match 'the life of her eyes and the colour of her lips'; it was still the fashion for men to maintain the fiction that she was some eternally youthful goddess of beauty.
That month, Elizabeth left Greenwich for Chiswick, then visited Lord Keeper Egerton at Harefield Park in Middlesex, where, despite constant rain, she was lavishly entertained and lauded as 'the best housewife in all this company'. There were banquets, masques, musical interludes, a rustic feast, allegorical pageants and a lottery which was rigged so that the Queen would win the prize. Printed pamphlets describing the festivities were on sale days later and avidly bought by the public. Because of the rain and the smallpox, however, the progress was curtailed, and the Queen settled for a time at Oatlands.
In September, she celebrated her sixty-ninth birthday, and was observed by the Duke of Stettin walking in the garden at Oatlands 'as briskly as though she were eighteen years old'. He was told she had been 'never so gallant many years, nor so set upon jollity'. Lord Worcester informed Lord Shrewsbury, 'We are frolic here at court; much dancing in the Privy Chamber of country dances before the Queen's Majesty, who is exceedingly pleased therewith.' Only rarely did she herself dance in public nowadays, although she was occasionally espied in her private apartments, dancing to pipe and tabor when she thought she was not observed.
That September, Fulke Greville informed Lady Shrewsbury, 'The best news I can yet write Your Ladyship is of the Queen's health and disposition of body, which 1 assure you is excellent good. I have not seen her every way better disposed these many years.'
Her sense of humour was still lively. She noticed that the Countess of Derby was wearing a locket containing Cecil's portrait, and, snatching it away, laughingly tied it on his shoe, then his elbow, so that all could see it. He took it in good part, commissioned some verses about it, and had them set to music and sung to the Queen, who was much amused. She could be alarmingly familiar with her subjects. When an Englishman who had lived abroad for some years was brought before her, kneeling, she 'took him by the hair and made him rise, and pretended to give him a box on the ears'.
Yet there were signs that her memory was failing. On 8 October she moved to Greenwich, where, four days later, some courtiers arrived to pay their respects to her. Although she could remember their names, she had to be reminded of the offices she herself had bestowed upon them. She was finding it harder to concentrate on state business, and this was exacerbated by failing eyesight. Cecil warned the Clerk of the Council that he must read out letters to her.
On T7 November, Elizabeth celebrated Accession Day at Whitehall 'with the ordinary solemnity and as great an applause of multitudes as if they had never seen her before'. Her fool, Garret, rode into the tiltyard on a pony the size of a dog, and 'had good audience with Her Majesty and made her very merry'. On 6 December, she dined with Cecil at his new house on the Strand, and afterwards watched a 'pretty dialogue' between a maid, a widow and a wife on the respective advantages each enjoyed; predictably, the virgin was deemed the most fortunate. When the Queen left, she appeared 'marvellously well contented, but at her departure she strained her foot'. We hear no more of this, so it cannot have been serious. Later in the month she was entertained by both Hunsdon and Nottingham at their London houses.
Around this time, a deep depression descended on Elizabeth, who was beginning to realise that she would not win this constant battle with advancing age. It became obvious to all that time was running out for her. Harington, up for Christmas, was shocked at the change in her, and wrote to his wife:
Our dear Queen, my royal godmother and this state's most natural mother, doth now bear show of human infirmity; too fast for that evil which we shall get by her death, and too slow for that good which she shall get by her releasement from pains and misery. I find some less mindful of what they are soon to lose, than of what they may perchance get hereafter. Now, I cannot blot from my memory's table the goodness of our Sovereign Lady to me: her affection to my mother, her bettering the state of my father's fortune, her watching over my youth, her liking to my free speech and admiration of my little learning and poesy, which I did so much cultivate on her command. To turn aside from her condition with tearless eyes would stain and foul the spring and fount of gratitude.
Because the Queen was 'in most pitiable state', and hardly eating anything, he tried to cheer her by reading out some of his humorous verses, but although she managed a weak smile, she bade him desist, saying, 'When thou dost feel creeping time at thy gate, these fooleries will please thee less. I am past my relish for such matters.'
Harington was startled when she asked him if he had ever met Tyrone. 'I replied with reverence that I had seen him with the Lord Deputy [Essex]; she looked up with much grief and choler in her countenance saying, "Oh, yes, now it mindeth me that you was one that saw this man elsewhere.'" But she was very distressed by the lapse, and 'dropped a tear and smote her bosom'. Harington was concerned about the implications of her failing memory. 'But who shall say, Your Highness hath forgotten?' he asked his wife.
The Queen kept Christmas at Whitehall with her former accustomed splendour, and seemed in better spirits. 'The court hath flourished more than ordinary. Besides much dancing, bear-baiting and many plays, there hath been great golden play' - Cecil lost 800 at cards. Then came further heartening news from Ireland: Tyrone had offered to surrender if the Queen would spare his life. Mountjoy urged her to accept this condition, and so bring the Irish war to an end.
Although Elizabeth refused to name her successor, speculation on the matter had increased as she grew older. Most people wanted James of Scotland because he was a Protestant and a married man with two sons. Despite their affection for, and admiration of, Elizabeth, few members of the nobility and gentry desired another female sovereign: the feeling still persisted that it was shameful for men to be subject to a woman's rule. It was also feared that 'we shall never enjoy another queen like this'. As for the claims of the Infanta Isabella or any of the other European descendants of John of Gaunt, such as the Dukes of Braganza and Parma, nobody in England took them seriously, nor was Philip III sufficiently interested to pursue them.
Of the English claimants, most people discounted the claims of Katherine Grey's son, whose legitimacy was questionable, nor were they interested in Arbella Stewart, mainly on account of her sex.
Arbella had come to court in 1587, but Elizabeth, offended by the girl's arrogance, had promptly sent her home to her grandmother, Bess of Hardwick, with whom she had lived ever since. She was now twenty-eight, neurotic and unstable, and still unmarried. She hated Bess, who was a harsh and critical guardian, and by the end of 1602 was so desperate to escape from what she regarded as a prison, that she sent a message to Lord Hertford, Katherine Grey's widower, offering herself as a bride for his grandson. Hertford, who had recently been in trouble for attempting to have his marriage to Katherine declared valid, informed the Council at once, knowing that on no account would Elizabeth have permitted these two young people, in whom flowed the blood royal of England, to marry each other.
When a royal deputation came to question Arbella, an enraged Bess, who had known nothing of her granddaughter's scheme, could hardly refrain from beating the girl; instead, she lashed out with her tongue. She also wrote to Elizabeth, assuring her that she had been 'altogether ignorant' of Arbella's 'vain doings' and pleading to be relieved of the responsibility of the girl, adding, 'I cannot now assure myself of her as I have done.' But Elizabeth insisted that Arbella must remain with her grandmother, who must make a better effort to control her. Two months later, Arbella was caught trying to run away, but Elizabeth was by then beyond such concerns.
Yet although her people of all classes were uniced in their anxiety as to what would happen after Elizabeth's death, the succession remained a taboo subject. 'Succession!' exclaimed one gentleman. 'What is he that dare meddle with it?'
On 17january 1603, Elizabeth, who was looking 'very well', dined with Lord Thomas Howard, her 'good Thomas', younger son of the executed Norfolk, at the Charterhouse, and created him Lord Howard de Walden. Four days later, on the advice of Dr John Dee, who had cast Elizabeth's horoscope and warned her not to remain at Whitehall, the court moved from Whitehall to Richmond, 'her warm winter box', stopping on the way at Putney so that the Queen could have dinner with a clothier, John Lacy, whom she had known for years. The weather was wet and colder than it had been for years, with a sharp north-easterly wind, but the Queen insisted on wearing 'summer-like garments' and refused to put on her furs. Thomas, Lord Burghley, warned his brother Cecil that Her Majesty should accept 'that she is old and have more care of herself, and that there is no contentment to a young mind in an old body'.
During the journey to Richmond, Nottingham, riding beside the royal litter, presumed upon Elizabeth's familiar manner towards him and asked her bluntly if she would name her successor. She answered, 'My seat hath been the seat of kings, and I will have no rascal to succeed me; and who should succeed me but a king?' Nottingham, and others, took this to mean that she wanted James VI to succeed her, but she would neither confirm nor deny it.
On 6 February, the Queen, now suffering badly from rheumatism, made her last public appearance when she received Giovanni Scaramelli, an envoy from Venice, the first ever to be sent to England during her reign. Seated on a dais, surrounded by her courtiers, she was wearing an outdated, full-skirted, low-necked gown of silver and white taffeta edged with gold, and was laden with pearls and jewels, with her hair 'of a light colour never made by Nature' and an imperial crown on her head. Scaramelli noticed in her face traces of her 'past, but never quite lost, beauty'. When he bent to kiss the hem of her dress, she raised him and extended her hand to be kissed.
'Welcome to England, Mr Secretary,' she said in Italian. 'It is high time that the Republic sent to visit a Queen who has always honoured it on every possible occasion.' She rebuked the Doge and his predecessors for not having acknowledged her existence for forty-five years, and said she was aware that it was not her sex that 'has brought me this demerit, for my sex cannot diminish my prestige, nor offend those who treat me as other princes are treated'. Aware that she had pulled off a brilliant diplomatic coup by overcoming the prejudices of the Doge, who had hitherto been tearful of offending the Papacy, the ambassador accepted her reproaches in good part, and expressed his delight at finding her 'in excellent health', pausing to give her a chance to agree with him, but she ignored this and angled instead for another compliment, saying, 'I do not know if I have spoken Italian well; still, I think so, for I learnt it when a child, and believe I have not forgotten it.'
Ten days later, after much bullying on Cecil's part, the Queen wrote to Mountjoy, agreeing that he might accept Tyrone's submission and offer him a pardon, on the strictest terms. She might be an old, 'forlorn' woman, but she was going to end her reign with this final triumph.
In the middle of February, Elizabeth's cousin and closest woman friend, the Countess of Nottingham, who had been the late Lord Hunsdon's daughter, died at Richmond. The Queen was present at the deathbed, and her grief was such that she ordered a state funeral and sank into a deep depression from which she never recovered. At the same time, her coronation ring, which had become painfully embedded in the swollen flesh of her finger, had to be sawn off- an act that symbolised to her the breaking of a sacred bond, the marriage of a queen to her people. She knew her own death could not be far off, and wrote sadly to Henry IV of France, 'All the fabric of my reign, little by little, is beginning to fail.'
On 26 February, when the French ambassador, de Beaumont, requested an audience, the Queen asked him to wait a few days on account of the death of Lady Nottingham, 'for which she has wept extremely and shown an uncommon concern'. Nor did she appear again in public. 'She has suddenly withdrawn into herself, she who was wont to live so gaily, especially in these last years of her life,' observed Scaramelli.
There arrived at court at this time the Queen's cousin, Robert Carey, youngest son of the late Lord Hunsdon and brother to Lady Nottingham. Being a relative, he was admitted one Saturday night to the private apartments, where he found Elizabeth
in one of her withdrawing chambers, sitting low upon her cushions. She called me to her. I kissed her hand and told her it was my chiefest happiness to see her in safety and in health, which I wished might long continue. She took me by the hand and wrung it hard, and said, 'No, Robin, I am not well,' and then discoursed with me of her indisposition, and that her heart had been sad and heavy for ten or twelve days; and in her discourse she fetched not so few as forty or fifty great sighs. I was grieved at the first to see her in such plight, for in all my lifetime before I never knew her fetch a sigh but when the Queen of Scots was beheaded.
The next day would be Sunday, and she gave command that the Great Closet should be prepared for her to go to chapel the next morning. The next day, all things being in readiness, we long expected her coming. After eleven o'clock, one of the grooms came out and bade make ready for the Private Closet; she would not go to the Great. There we stayed long for her coming, but at last she had cushions laid for her in the Privy Chamber, hard by the Closet door, and there she heard service. From that day forwards, she grew worse and worse.
The main trouble seemed to be slight swellings - probably ulcers - in the throat, accompanied by a cold. By the beginning of March, a fever had developed, and she could not sleep or swallow food easily. On 9 March, according to de Beaumont, 'she felt a great heat in her stomach and a continual thirst, which obliged her every moment to take something to abate it, and to prevent the hard and dry phlegm from choking her. She has been obstinate in refusing everything prescribed by her physicians during her illness.' These problems, which may have been symptomatic of influenza or tonsillitis, were exacerbated by her depression, although when her courtiers asked what the matter was, she told them 'she knew nothing in the world worthy to trouble her'.
Cecil, realising that the Queen might die, knew that it would fall to him to ensure James VI's peaceful and unchallenged succession to the throne. At the end of February, he ordered Robert Carey to hold himself in readiness to take the news of his accession to the Scottish monarch the moment the Queen ceased to breathe.
On 11 March, the Queen rallied for a day, then had a relapse, descending into 'a heavy dullness, with a frowardness familiar to old age'. She was, according to de Beaumont, 'so full of chagrin and so weary of life that, notwithstanding all the importunities of her councillors and physicians to consent to the use of proper remedies for her relief, she would not take one'. With a flash of her old spirit, she told Cecil and Whitgift, who had begged her on their knees to do as her physicians recommended, 'that she knew her own strength and constitution better than they, and that she was not in such danger as they imagine'. Nor would she eat anything, but spent her days lying on the floor on cushions, lost in 'unremovable melancholy' and unwilling to speak to anyone. It was obvious that she had lost the will to live.
'The Queen grew worse and worse, because she would be so, none about her being able to persuade her to go to bed,' recorded Robert Carey.
Cecil insisted, 'Your Majesty, to content the people, you must go to bed.' But she retorted, 'Little man, the word "must" is not to be used to princes. If your father had lived, you durst not had said so, but ye know that I must die, and that makes thee so presumptuous.'
Her throat felt as if it were closing up. Nottingham came to see her: having retired from court to mourn his wife, he had returned to cheer the Queen. He told her to have courage, but she said, 'My Lord, I am tied with a chain of iron around my neck. I am tied, I am tied, and the case is altered with me.' She complained of'a heat in her breasts and a dryness in her mouth, which kept her from sleep frequently, to her disgust'. This suggests that she had now developed either bronchitis or pneumonia.
Nottingham tried also to get her to retire to bed, but she refused, telling him, 'If you were in the habit of seeing such things in your bed as I do when in mine, you would not persuade me to go there.' She added that 'she had a premonition that, if she once lay down, she would never rise'.
One day, she had herself lifted into a low chair. When she found herself unable to rise from it, she commanded her attendants to help her to her feet. Once in that position, by a supreme effort of will and a determination to defy mortality, she remained there unmoving for fifteen hours, watched by her appalled yet helpless courtiers. At length, fainting with exhaustion, she was helped back on to her cushions, where she remained for a further four days.
By 18 March, her condition had deteriorated alarmingly; de Beaumont reported that she 'appeared already in a manner insensible, not speaking sometimes for two or three hours, and within the last two days for above four and twenty, holding her finger continually in her mouth, with her eyes open and fixed to the ground, where she sat upon cushions without rising or resting herself, and was greatly emaciated by her long watching and fasting'. She had now been lying there, in her day clothes, for nearly three weeks.
On 19 March, she was so ill that Carey wrote informing James VI that she would not last more than three days; already, he had posted horses along the Great North Road, ready for his breakneck ride to Scotland. On the following day, Cecil sent James a draft copy of the proclamation that would be read out on his accession. All James hoped for now was that Elizabeth would not linger, 'insensible and stupid, unfit to rule and govern a kingdom'.
In order to avoid any public demonstrations or panic, Cecil vetoed the publication of any bulletins on the Queen's health, but the French ambassador deliberately spread word of her condition. 'Her Majesty's life is absolutely despaired of,' reported Scaramelli. 'For the last ten days she has become quite silly [i.e. pitiable]. London is all in arms for fear of the Catholics. Every house and everybody is in movement and alarm.' Camden recorded that, 'as the report now grew daily stronger and stronger that her sickness increased upon her', it was astonishing to behold with what speed the Puritans, Papists, ambitious persons and flatterers posted night and day, by sea and land, to Scotland, to adore the rising sun and gain his favour'.
At last, on 21 March, 'what by fair means, what by force', Nottingham persuaded Elizabeth to go to bed. After lying there for some hours, an abscess or ulcer in her throat burst and she declared she felt better, and asked for some of her restorative broth to be made. Scaramelli reported that rose water and currants were also placed on a table by her bedside, 'but soon after she began to lose her speech, and from that time ate nothing, but lay on one side, without speaking or looking upon any person, though she directed some meditations to be read to her'. Archbishop Whitgift and her own chaplains were from then on in constant attendance on her, whilst her musicians played softly in the background to soothe her.
Her councillors knew she could not last much longer. On the 23rd, her chaplain Dr Parry held a special service of intercession in the royal chapel, offering such fervent prayers for Her Majesty 'that he left few dry eyes'. The diarist John Manningham learned in the Privy Chamber that the Queen
hath been in a manner speechless for two or three days, very pensive and silent, yet she always had her proper senses and memory, and yesterday signified [to Dr Parry], by the lifting of her hand and eyes to Heaven, that she believed that faith which she had caused to be professed, and looked faithfully to be saved by Christ's merits and mercy only, and by no other means. She took great delight in hearing prayers, would often at the name of Jesus lift up her hands and eyes to Heaven. She would not hear the Archbishop speak of hope in her longer life, but when he prayed or spoke of Heaven and those joys, she would hug his hand.
It seems she might have lived if she would have used means, but she would not be persuaded, and princes must not be forced. Her physicians said she had the body of a firm and perfect constitution, likely to have lived many years.
That day, Nottingham, Egerton and Cecil asked Elizabeth to name her successor, but she was beyond speech. Instead - as was afterwards alleged- she used her hands and fingers to make the sign of a crown above her head, which they took to mean that she wanted King James to succeed her.
Scaramelli, returning to Richmond 'found all the palace, outside and in, full of an extraordinary crowd, almost in uproar and on the tiptoe of expectation'. It was now known that the end could not be far off.
At six o'clock, feeling her strength ebbing away, the Queen signed for Whitgift to come and to pray at her bedside. Robert Carey was one of those kneeling in the bedchamber on this solemn occasion, and was moved to tears by what Whitgift's arrival portended.
Her Majesty lay upon her back, with one hand in the bed and the other without. The Archbishop kneeled down beside her and examined her first of her faith; and she so punctually answered all his questions, by lifting up her eyes and holding up her hand, as it was a comfort to all the beholders. Then the good man told her plainly what she was and what she was come to: though she had been long a great Queen here upon Earth, yet shortly she was to yield an account of her stewardship to the King of Kings. After this, he began to pray, and all that were by did answer him.
Whitgift remained at her bedside, holding her hand and offering her spiritual comfort until his knees ached, but as he made to rise, blessing the Queen, she gestured to him to kneel again and continue praying. He did so for another 'long half hour', but still Elizabeth would not let him go. So he prayed for half an hour more, 'with earnest cries to God for her soul's health, which he uttered with that fervency of spirit, as the Queen, to all our sight, much rejoiced thereat, and gave testimony to us all of her Christian and comfortable end. By this time it grew late, and everyone departed, all but her women who attended her.'
Around ten o'clock that evening, with heavy rain pattering against the windows, Elizabeth turned her face to the wall and fell into a deep sleep from which she would never wake. With Dr Parry, who 'sent his prayers before her soul', and her old friends Lady Warwick and Lady Scrope by her side, she passed to eternal rest, 'mildly like a lamb, easily, like a ripe apple from a tree', shortly before three o'clock in the morning of Thursday, 24 March, 'as the most resplendent sun setteth at last in a western cloud'.