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ELIZABETH BELIEVED THE sovereign was an exalted being ordained by God. When she swore allegiance and obedience to Mary at her coronation, therefore, she sincerely meant it. Her loyalty was to be tested to the limit.
It did not take long for Mary’s show of friendship towards Elizabeth to begin to cool and the old rivalry and jealousy between the sisters – at least on Mary’s part – to reassert itself. Elizabeth found herself out of place in a court that was soon steeped in the Catholic revival. Sensing her sister’s disapproval of her continuing apostasy, Elizabeth – ever the survivor and a pragmatist – decided to temporize. Unlike Mary under the previous Protestant regime, Elizabeth did not have a powerful relative like the Emperor to threaten war if she was not allowed to practise her religion. Elizabeth was essentially alone in what was rapidly becoming a hostile and menacing world.
She began by seeking audience with the Queen. Kneeling before her and in tears, she said she saw only too clearly that the Queen was not well disposed towards her, and she knew of no other cause except religion. She protested that she acted not from obstinacy but ignorance, that she had been brought up in the reformed faith and had never been taught the doctrine of the ancient religion. She asked for a priest to instruct her ‘in the truth’ or books so that ‘having read them she might know if her conscience would allow her to be persuaded’. Somewhat mollified, Mary agreed and gave her a rosary of coral and gold. The test came on 8 September 1553, the Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin, when Elizabeth was expected to attend Mass. She turned up but, perhaps as a gesture to her supporters, complained ‘all the way to the church that her stomach ached, and wearing a suffering air’.
Not surprisingly Mary taxed Elizabeth to tell her the truth: did she really believe the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation, or did she attend Mass ‘in order to dissimulate, out of fear or hypocrisy’. Elizabeth replied that she ‘had considered making a public declaration that she went to Mass and did as she did because her own conscience prompted and moved her to it; that she went of her own free will and without fear, hypocrisy or dissimulation’. Mary noted that she trembled as she spoke and drew the conclusion that her sister was lying. The declaration, of course, was never forthcoming.
Mary was as eager to condemn her sister as a hypocrite as Elizabeth’s critics among the Calvinists were later to do for conforming during her sister’s reign, while others were going into exile for their Protestant faith. But this is to ignore and misunderstand Elizabeth’s genuine evangelical piety. For her, true religion lay between the individual and God. The externals of worship which were dividing Christians were merely man-made and irrelevant. Elizabeth’s personal book of prayers and devotions attests to her very real faith and close relationship with God.
Mary, whose inflexibility was always at odds with her sister’s more fluid approach and ability to compromise, confided in the Imperial envoy Simon Renard that she did not trust her sister. The old vendetta seems to have been reawakened by the legislation passed in her first Parliament declaring the marriage of Henry VIII and Katherine of Aragon valid and herself legitimate. It bastardized Elizabeth all over again. By raising the ghosts of the past, Mary seems to have relived all the hurts and humiliations meted out to her mother and herself by Anne Boleyn. This time she was not powerless, however; she could right the wrongs of the past. By November 1553, she was telling Renard that ‘it would burden her conscience too heavily to allow Elizabeth to succeed’. She was not a true believer and ‘she had not a single servant or maid of honour who was not a heretic, she talked every day with heretics and lent an ear to all their evil designs.’ Moreover, it would be ‘a disgrace to the kingdom to allow a bastard to succeed’.
Mary’s large and unwieldy Privy Council – an uneasy mix of conservative Catholic supporters with no experience of office and those who had served under Henry VIII and Edward – was far too divided to agree such a radical step as excluding Elizabeth from the succession. Even if they did, it would be difficult to persuade Parliament to enact the necessary legislation. Nor could public opinion, increasingly turning against Mary, be discounted. Elizabeth was very popular, especially in London. So Mary had to content herself by inflicting petty slights on her sister. At court, Elizabeth had to yield precedence to others in line of succession, notably the insufferable Lady Margaret Douglas, daughter of Margaret Tudor, Queen of Scotland, by her second marriage to the bigamous Earl of Angus. Lady Margaret, a Catholic, had married a Scottish exile at the English court, the Earl of Lennox. Elizabeth loathed her. Even Frances Brandon, Duchess of Suffolk, was given precedence, despite her family’s treason in trying to usurp the crown.
Elizabeth had always been intensely proud of her royal lineage, especially as the daughter of Henry VIII, and now that pride was wounded. She was outraged. In December she asked permission to leave court for her house at Ashridge. The request was granted, with relief on both sides. Renard noted that ‘she very courteously took leave of the Queen, who also dissembled well and gave her sister a rich coif of sable.’ As a presage of things to come, she asked Mary ‘not to believe anyone who spread evil reports of her without doing her the honour to let her know and give her a chance of proving the false and malicious nature of such slander, that were only designed to harm her’. Renard was already pouring venom into Mary’s ear, feeding her suspicions: ‘There is no persuading her that Elizabeth will not bring about some great evil until she is dealt with.’
At Ashridge, Elizabeth kept up the pretence of her conversion, sending for ‘ornaments for her chapel’, but she was not to be left in peace for long. Early in 1554 the rebellion that took its name from the key conspirator, Sir Thomas Wyatt – the son of the poet who had been her mother’s admirer – broke out. It plunged Elizabeth into the most extreme danger, because – unknowingly or not – she was its intended beneficiary. It was triggered by dislike of the intended marriage between Mary and Philip of Spain. The plan was for simultaneous risings in Kent, the Midlands, Devon and the Welsh Marches. The leaders – Wyatt in Kent, Lady Jane Grey’s father the Duke of Suffolk in the Midlands, Sir Peter Carew in the South-west and Sir James Croft on the Welsh border – would march on London and overthrow the government. The Spanish marriage would be blocked, Mary dethroned, and Elizabeth – married to Edward Courtenay, Earl of Devonshire, who had been alienated by Mary’s rejection of him as the English candidate for her hand – made Queen in her place with Courtenay king consort.
The plot was leaked before the rebels could launch a co-ordinated attack. Wyatt and his Kentish army marched on London alone and were defeated, not least by Mary’s courageous stand and by her rousing speech to the citizens, which reignited their loyalty to their rightful sovereign. Fresh from her triumph, she could now deal with her errant sister, for Mary was unwilling to believe her innocent. It looked bad for Elizabeth. At the outbreak of the rebellion Mary had written informing her of it and inviting her to court for her own safety, assuring her of a hearty welcome. Elizabeth had declined to come, fearing a trap and giving illness as her excuse. As it happened, she was ill. She was confined to bed, her face and limbs severely swollen. She was possibly suffering from acute nephritis, failing which some psychosomatic illness brought on by stress. Mary sent two of the royal physicians, Dr George Owen and Dr Thomas Wendy, to examine her. Having declared her fit to travel, Elizabeth dragged her swollen limbs to her litter and began the journey to London. She was so ill that she could be moved only in short stages. By the time she reached Highgate she had to stop and rest.
As ever with Elizabeth, she contrived to make a spectacle of her entry into London. Her litter was preceded and followed by a vast train of horsemen in scarlet, while she sat exposed to view, the pallor of her face and her white gown – the colour of innocence – presenting a dramatic contrast to her escort. The two rival ambassadors made their affiliations plain in their reports. Renard noted that ‘her countenance was plain and stern, her mien proud, lofty and disdainful, by which she endeavoured to conceal her trouble.’ The French ambassador, Antoine de Noailles, who had been encouraging the conspirators and had no qualms about involving Elizabeth in his constant plotting against the Habsburg alliance, was sympathetic, stating that ‘she is so swollen and weakened that she is a pitiful sight.’ He did not expect her to live long.
Elizabeth was not permitted an audience with the Queen, but lodged in an obscure part of Whitehall. The evidence against her was mounting. For some inexplicable reason, a copy of her letter to the Queen declining her invitation to court was found in a confiscated bag of the French ambassador’s despatches. It was established that both Wyatt and Carew had been in contact with her – or at least with her servants – urging her to move from Ashridge to her more easily defended castle at Donnington. Elizabeth had been careful not to reply in writing. She had sent her servant William St Loe to Wyatt with a message ‘that she did thank him for his good will, and she would do as she should see cause’.
From this it is clear that she had known conspiracy was afoot, but not necessarily what the objectives were. Arms and provisions had indeed been sent to Donnington, probably with Elizabeth’s knowledge, as a defensive rather than offensive measure, in case the country descended into anarchy. At the least she was culpable of not coming forward to warn the government of impending trouble, but it was in character for her to look ahead and be prepared for any eventuality. If Mary was toppled, she had to be ready to protect her own position. She would have to make her bid for the crown against the rival claimants whose ambitions Mary had encouraged.
Wyatt could not be induced to implicate Elizabeth in the conspiracy and there was not enough evidence to condemn her. Nevertheless, Mary decided that she should be sent to the Tower, pending further investigation. She was informed of the decision by the Council, who came as a body to charge her with involvement in the plot. When the Marquis of Winchester and the Earl of Sussex came to escort her a few days later, Elizabeth, thinking with characteristic speed, begged to be allowed to write a letter to the Queen. Sussex, who was sympathetic and mindful of the fact that Elizabeth was heir to the throne, gave permission.
She began by recalling the old saying ‘that a king’s word was more than another man’s oath’, reminding Mary of her promise not to condemn her ‘without answer and due proof’. She was innocent, yet being sent to the Tower, ‘a place more wonted for a false traitor than a true subject’. She begged Mary to give her a hearing, so that she could answer the charges in person. Probably recalling her last critical encounter with danger during the Seymour investigation, she went on: ‘I have heard in my time of many cast away for want of coming to the presence of their prince, and in late days I heard my lord of Somerset say that if his brother had been suffered to speak with him, he had never suffered. But the persuasions were made to him so great that he was brought in belief that he could not live safely if the admiral lived, and that made him give consent to his death.’
She quickly adds ‘that these persons are not to be compared to your majesty, yet I pray God as evil persuasions persuade not one sister against the other and all for that they have heard false report and not hearken to the truth known’.
As for ‘the traitor Wyatt’, she continued, ‘he might peradventure write me a letter, but on my faith I never received any from him. And as for the copy of my letter sent to the French king, I pray God confound me eternally if ever I sent him word, message, token, or letter by any means, and to this truth I will stand to my death.’
She ended the letter on the top quarter of the second sheet of parchment and took the precaution of scrawling diagonal lines down the rest of the blank page, so that insertions could not be made.
By the time she finished the letter, they had missed the tide, probably as she intended. It would be too dangerous to make the trip to the Tower at midnight, when the next high tide was due, so that the journey was delayed until morning. The exercise was futile, however, as the Queen stubbornly refused to grant an interview. The next day was Palm Sunday and Elizabeth was taken to the Tower while the rest of London was attending the re-established Palm Sunday service.
Much of the information about Elizabeth’s arrival and imprisonment in the Tower comes from John Foxe’s The Miraculous Preservation of the Lady Elizabeth, now Queen of England in his Acts and Monuments, which was first published in 1563. There is a substantial amount of truth in his narrative. One of his sources was likely to have been Elizabeth Sandes. She was with Elizabeth in the Tower and later accompanied her on the journey to Woodstock, after which she joined other English exiles in Geneva. Here she probably imparted the story to Elizabeth’s kinswoman, Dorothy, Lady Stafford, who gave the details to Foxe. Foxe’s narrative is factually based and full of accurate details, but is neither entirely factual nor entirely accurate. He was not writing a history, but a martyrology, so that he had to emphasize, if not exaggerate, his subject’s suffering. His immediate goal was to depict Mary’s Catholic government, particularly her Lord Chancellor, Stephen Gardiner, in the worst possible light.
Elizabeth protested her loyalty as she entered. ‘Oh Lord! I never thought to have come in here as prisoner; and I praie you all, good frendes and fellows, bere me wytnes, that I come yn no traitour, but as true a woman to the queens majesty as any is now lyving.’ Seeing the many guards on duty, she commented, ‘yt needed not for me, being alas, but a weak woman.’
Foxe’s version diverges from the reality in that Elizabeth did not enter by the Traitors’ Gate, but landed at Tower Wharf and walked over the main drawbridge. The route took her past the menagerie of lions and within sight of the scaffold where Lady Jane Grey had recently died. During her incarceration, she would frequently ask if the scaffold was still standing, fearing that it was meant for her own execution.
Inside the Tower, Lord Sussex reminded the others that ‘she was a kinges daughter, and she is the quenes sister … therefore go no further then your comyssyon.’ Foxe leads us to believe that Elizabeth’s lodgings were cold, dark and miserable, whereas they were some of the best in the royal apartments. They had an ominous significance for her, though, as they were the ones used by her mother before her coronation and during her trial for adultery. This is where her mother had spent her last night before her execution. No wonder Elizabeth believed she was to die, determining that she should follow her mother’s example and ask to die by the sword rather than the axe.
Wyatt was offered his freedom in return for implicating Elizabeth in the plot, a fact the authorities were very eager to suppress when it leaked out, but he held firm. On the scaffold, he exonerated her. Unfortunately, he also exonerated Courtenay, who was implicated, throwing doubt again on Elizabeth. The only tangible evidence against her remained the fortifying of Donnington. At first Elizabeth feigned ignorance of having such a house – a transparent lie which reinforced the suspicion of her guilt. Eventually she was brought to admit to having a vague recollection of a conversation with her household officers in which it was decided to send arms and provisions to Donnington. But this was not a crime in itself. No treasonable activity could be proved against her.
Gradually, the conditions of her confinement relaxed. She was allowed to walk outside on the battlements and on the green. There is a pretty story that the son of one of the keepers gave her flowers, until he was forbidden to do so. In mid May she was informed that she was going to be moved to a place of detention, in the custody of Sir Henry Bedingfield, who would escort her under armed guard. She began her journey by barge up the Thames to Richmond, being cheered by the people on the banks, who assumed that she had been released. The rest of the journey turned into a triumphal progress – a reminder to Mary, if any were needed, of her sister’s popularity. It was both a threat and a safeguard. It made Mary jealous and resentful, anxious to do away with her tiresome sister; yet it also forestalled her from making a move against her which would incur the anger of the people. Elizabeth seems to have believed that the threat against her life was real. Were they perhaps removing her to some obscure place so that they could do away with her? At Richmond she seemed to think the end had come, confiding in her attendants: ‘This night I think to die.’
Crossing the Thames and passing into Berkshire and Buckinghamshire, she was fêted the whole way, with women loading her litter with gifts of cakes and wafers until she had to beg them to stop. At last she came to the old, dilapidated palace of Woodstock in Oxfordshire, where she was to live for the next few months under house arrest. Typically, Mary had chosen Elizabeth’s gaoler, Sir Henry Bedingfield of Oxborough in Norfolk, for his Catholic credentials. Slow, methodical, conscientious and barely educated, he was no match for the sharp-witted Elizabeth, the best-educated princess in Europe. She teased and bullied him unmercifully and ran rings round him. His authority was further demeaned by the fact that although Elizabeth was a prisoner, she was still royal and Bedingfield had to address her kneeling. He was also financially dependent on her, as she was obliged to pay for his upkeep and that of his servants.
The absurdity of the situation is revealed by the fact that while Elizabeth was refused pen and parchment to write letters, her treasurer, Thomas Parry, had been allowed to set up quarters at the Bull Inn in Woodstock, giving the prisoner a ready channel to the outside world. Not only that, but Parry was receiving endless visitors whom Bedingfield suspected were conspiring against the government. Try as he might, however, he could make none of his suspicions stick.
Elizabeth did not wish to bring about her sister’s dethronement or death. She had too much reverence for the monarchy to do that. Repeated usurpations would weaken it, undoing the life-work of her father and grandfather to enhance and strengthen it. With her own future in doubt, however, she wished to garner enough support among the disaffected – those of the reformed faith, who were her natural supporters, but also those who feared the implications of the Queen’s Spanish marriage – to ensure her succession in the event of Mary’s overthrow.
Her immediate concern was to get out of gaol. She wrote to Mary protesting her innocence. Mary’s reply, addressed to Bedingfield to relay to the prisoner, made it clear that she did not believe her, that the conspirators would hardly have used her as a figurehead if they had not been sure of her approval. Elizabeth next sought to exploit the divisions in the Council. She was innocent, she told them, but if they did not believe her, then they should put her on trial. It was a daring strategy, typical of Elizabeth, who was never risk-averse if she felt the gamble would pay off. This time she was rebuffed in a direct reply from Mary. Elizabeth might be able to pull the wool over most eyes, but she had known her from childhood and had a good idea of what subterfuges she was capable of. In frustration, Elizabeth is said to have used a diamond to scratch on a window the words: ‘Much suspected of me, nothing proved can be. Quoth Elizabeth Prisoner.’
Release came as a result of a most unexpected event. Mary’s marriage to Philip of Spain had taken place in July 1554 and by the autumn she believed herself pregnant. In early April 1555 she and the King moved to Hampton Court in preparation for the ceremony of taking to her chamber. She could now afford to be magnanimous in what she saw as her final triumph over her sister. Elizabeth would be put in her place once and for all as the bastard she surely was. Mary’s child, not Elizabeth, would rule England after her and ensure the continuation of a Catholic dynasty. On 17 April Elizabeth was released from Woodstock and summoned to London. She must be present in the lying-in chamber to witness the birth of the child who would supplant her as heir to the throne.
Elizabeth was not admitted to Mary’s presence for another fortnight. Late one night, she was ushered by Susan Clarencieux into the Queen’s bedchamber and knelt at her feet for the inevitable rebuke. According to Foxe, Elizabeth sensed someone else in the room, behind the arras. It seems that Philip was there, stealing his first glimpse of his sister-in-law and keen to hear how she would acquit herself. Mary’s expansive mood of a few weeks ago had faltered as doubts began to creep in about her pregnancy. She was frustrated that Elizabeth had been brought back to court without admitting her guilt; once more the sly creature had got away with it and Mary had been baulked of her prey. Now she was under instructions from Philip to reconcile with her sister and he was there to see that she did it. Philip’s agenda was different from hers: it was one of political expediency. It was already becoming clear to him that Mary’s pregnancy was a fantasy and that the marriage would end in sterility and failure.
If the Habsburgs wished to retain England within their sphere of influence, then their best hope was Elizabeth. Until recently, they had wanted her dead. Now she had suddenly become valuable to them. She was quick to sense her advantage. The Venetian ambassador, Michiel, noted that Elizabeth ‘has contrived to ingratiate herself with the King of Spain’, who stopped his wife from punishing her. When Philip left England at the end of August, she was secure in the knowledge of his protection, so much so that when the Dudley–Ashton conspiracy to dethrone Mary was uncovered later that year, Philip ordered his wife to make no move against Elizabeth. Her servants’ fingerprints were all over the plot, but not, of course, Elizabeth’s. Mary was instructed to exonerate her from blame for her servants’ misdeeds. She had to announce that she thought Elizabeth too wise and prudent ever to undertake anything against her sister and sovereign, although she could not resist letting Elizabeth know as an aside that her servants’ confessions, extracted in the Tower, accused her of complicity. Always quick to sense her opponent’s weakness, Elizabeth declined Mary’s next invitation to court, something of a slap in the face for her sovereign.
Elizabeth was pleased enough, however, to be invited to court for Christmas 1556. When she arrived it was to discover, to her absolute fury, that she was to be pressured into marrying Emmanuel Philibert, Prince of Piedmont and Duke of Savoy, a Habsburg acolyte who had lost most of his lands to the French. Philip was proposing that if Elizabeth married the Prince, he would in turn guarantee that Mary would name her as her successor. Emmanuel Philibert would become King of England, in return for which he would cede his remaining continental lands to Philip. Elizabeth was incandescent with rage. The crown of England would be hers by hereditary right, her father’s will and parliamentary statute. It was not in the gift of the King of Spain. Mary did her best to carry out her husband’s instructions and put pressure on Elizabeth to comply. Finding the situation intolerable, Elizabeth promptly left London without waiting for the Christmas festivities.
For the first time in all the years she had lived under a cloud of suspicion, Elizabeth contemplated leaving the country. She communicated her fears to the French ambassador, Gilles de Noailles, who had replaced his brother Antoine, the inveterate plotter. It was so uncharacteristic of her to panic; she did not seem to be thinking with her usual clarity. If by escaping she meant to go to France, she would be leaving the frying pan for the fire. Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, had an indisputable hereditary right to the English throne, as the granddaughter of Henry VIII’s elder sister Margaret. Mary was betrothed to the Dauphin. Did Elizabeth seriously think she would be safe in France, in the very heart of this rival claimant’s territory? The temptation for Mary’s powerful maternal relatives, the Guises, to capture or do away with Elizabeth would have been overwhelming. Fortunately, de Noailles offered good and impartial advice. Elizabeth must not leave England, because if she did so, she could never hope to be Queen.
When Philip returned in the spring of 1557 he continued to press Emmanuel Philibert’s suit. The implication was that if she did not comply, she would be disinherited. Elizabeth bitterly resented his attempt to bully and intimidate her. She remained adamant. She would not be forced into marriage, she told Mary’s emissary, nor, indeed, was she minded to marry at all at the present time, ‘though I were offered the greatest Prince in all Europe’. She found an unexpected ally in Mary. Far from thinking it reasonable to offer Elizabeth the crown in exchange for marrying a Habsburg nominee, Mary did not think her bastard heretic sister should wear the crown at all under any circumstances. Whether Elizabeth married or not, Philip realized that his only hope of retaining England in the Habsburg fold was by keeping Elizabeth onside. Far better that she should succeed than the Francophile Queen of Scots, now Dauphine of France. The only problem was convincing his wife of this and having her name Elizabeth her successor.
It looked as if Elizabeth might have to fight for the crown. When she moaned about poverty, it was because she had been devoting so much of her income to making preparations for such an eventuality. She would be able to raise an army if necessary. She had many friends and supporters, both in government and strategically based throughout the country. She had left nothing to chance. All allies and potential allies were assiduously courted.
At the end of October 1558 Mary, mortally ill, wrote a codicil to her will, conceding that in lieu of a child of her own, she would be succeeded by her next heir and successor according to law. But she was not content to leave it at that. She sent her lady-in-waiting Jane Dormer to Hatfield to extract from Elizabeth a promise that she would maintain the Catholic religion. Elizabeth, ever inscrutable, obliged by giving a placatory, somewhat ambiguous response, but of course she would follow her own conscience when the time came.
Philip sent the Count of Feria to England to give a letter to his dying wife and treat with Elizabeth. He found her at Brocket Hall, near Hatfield. It was a court and government-in-waiting. He enjoyed a convivial dinner with Elizabeth, where much wine was drunk and ‘we laughed and enjoyed ourselves a great deal’. Elizabeth had a good sense of humour and would roar with laughter when she was amused. Now, she was at her most charming and obviously elated that the crown was finally within her grasp. After dinner, she dismissed everyone but a few of her ladies and settled down for a serious discussion with Feria in Spanish. All went well, with Elizabeth promising to maintain good relations with Philip, until Feria made a tactless blunder: ‘I gave her to understand that it was your Majesty who had procured her recent recognition as the Queen’s sister and successor, and not the Queen or the Council, and this was something your Majesty had been trying to secure for some time, as she no doubt realized.’ Elizabeth’s indignation can be imagined.
Feria took a long, shrewd look at Elizabeth and warned Philip what to expect. ‘She is a very vain and clever woman. She must have been thoroughly schooled in the manner in which her father conducted his affairs, and I am very much afraid that she will not be well disposed in matters of religion.’ The men he guessed would be appointed to office and with whom she surrounded herself, including Sir William Cecil, Sir Robert Dudley and traitors like Sir Peter Carew and Sir Nicholas Throckmorton, were all heretics. He realized that she bitterly resented what she saw as her mistreatment during her sister’s reign and cautioned her against exacting vengeance.
Elizabeth herself had no doubt that God had protected her and preserved her from her earliest youth from many perils. It was to Him she owed her crown. But she also recognized the role of the people. ‘She sets great store by the people and is very confident they are all on her side – which is certainly true,’ Feria continued. ‘She declares it was the people who put her in her present position and that she will not acknowledge that your Majesty or the nobility of this realm had any part in it.’ She would be no cat’s-paw of Spain. Unlike her brother or sister, ‘She is determined to be governed by no one.’ She was, after all, her father’s daughter.
As Mary lay dying, a steady stream of courtiers drifted towards Hatfield, all intent on greeting the rising sun. It was something Elizabeth would never forget. After the troubles of her sister’s reign when she had barely escaped with her life, nothing would ever induce her to name her successor, for she knew just how fickle men’s loyalties were and how easy it was to become a figurehead of opposition, willingly or otherwise.
Fearing that she might be prompted to act by a false report of her sister’s death, she charged Sir Nicholas Throckmorton with bringing her Mary’s betrothal ring as proof. On the morning of 17 November 1558 she learned that she was Queen. ‘My lords, the law of nature moveth me to sorrow for my sister,’ she told the lords who came to greet their new sovereign, ‘the burden that is fallen upon me maketh me amazed.’ It was God’s doing, she told them, and she prayed that He would help her in carrying out His work in the office He had entrusted to her.