The Queen's Bed: An Intimate History of Elizabeth's Court Read online

  Mary considered the prospect of a Spanish union through a marriage with Don Carlos, Philip of Spain’s eldest son. Whilst this would be a hugely significant political match with the heir to the Spanish throne and primary Catholic power in Europe, personally Don Carlos had little to recommend him; he was a sickly youth, hunchbacked and pigeon-breasted, prone to fits of violent insanity, and rumoured to be impotent. Nevertheless Don Carlos remained Mary’s most prized suitor and Elizabeth made it clear that she would see such a marriage as a hostile act which would ruin Mary’s chances of inheriting the English throne.3 Elizabeth needed to keep Scotland Protestant and urged Mary to take ‘a person mete whose natural disposition will be to continue and increase the love and concord between both people and countries’, and urged her to marry a nobleman of ‘this isle’.4 In the end, the Spanish match came to nothing. Mary’s position was further weakened in February 1563 by the assassination of her uncle, the Duke of Guise. As long as he lived there was always the possibility that he could mobilise French military might to assert his niece’s ambitions to the English throne. Now Mary’s keenest champion was dead.

  * * *

  In March, William Maitland of Lethington, the Scottish secretary, again came to England in the hope of persuading Elizabeth to officially recognise Mary as her heir.5

  When the subject of Mary’s marriage came up, Elizabeth responded with an extraordinary proposal. If Mary wanted to marry ‘safely and happily’, she would do well to take Lord Robert Dudley as her husband. Maitland was thrown entirely off guard, and replied judiciously that although this was ‘great proof of the love she bore to his Queen, as she was willing to give her a thing so deeply prized by herself’, he felt ‘certain that Mary would not wish to deprive her cousin of ‘all the joy and solace she received from his company’. When Elizabeth persisted, Maitland replied,

  The Queen his mistress was very young yet, and what this Queen [Elizabeth] might do for her was to marry Lord Robert herself first and have children by him, which was so important for the welfare of the country, and then when it should please God to call her to himself she could leave the Queen of Scots heiress both to her kingdom and her husband.6

  The following spring, Thomas Randolph made the formal proposal of Dudley to Mary Queen of Scots, with the assurance that if she agreed to ‘content us and this our nation in her marriage’, Elizabeth would proceed to the ‘inquisition of her right and title to be our next cousin and heir and to further that which shall appear advantageous to her’.7 Mary’s response was swift and to the point. ‘Is that to conform to her promise to use me as her sister?’ she demanded sharply. ‘And do you think it may stand with my honour to marry my sister’s subject?’ Horribly compromised, Randolph could only mumble that ‘there was not a worthier man to be found’ than Robert Dudley.8

  The Scots, Randolph informed London, were in disbelief. Knowing the Queen’s deep affection for Dudley and judging Elizabeth and her Master of the Horse to be inseparable, they could only suppose that her offer was merely to give the appearance of goodwill rather than being genuine.9 Meanwhile, Catherine de Medici and her uncle the Cardinal of Guise were quick to remind Mary that it was not safe to trust Elizabeth’s ‘counsel in her marriage who meaneth therein only to [deceive] her’.10

  Whilst pretending to entertain the idea of Dudley as a possible match, Mary secretly hoped to marry another Englishman: the strikingly handsome, six-foot-two, seventeen-year-old Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley.11 Like Mary Queen of Scots, Darnley was a grandchild of Margaret Tudor, Henry VIII’s eldest sister. His mother Margaret, Countess of Lennox, was a staunch Catholic, granddaughter of Henry VII and cousin to Elizabeth, and had been advocating Darnley as a match for Mary since the death of François II. The countess had repeatedly denounced Elizabeth as an illegitimate usurper and claimed she and her heirs were the rightful sovereigns of England. When Mary had returned to Scotland following the death of her husband, the Earl and Countess of Lennox were placed under surveillance at their Yorkshire estates. Shortly afterwards they were arrested and imprisoned for allegedly plotting a marriage between Mary and Darnley. Examination of their servants revealed that the earl and countess had heard Catholic mass and had their jester mock Queen Elizabeth, including in a sketch depicting her love affair with Robert Dudley, who had been portrayed as a pox-ridden traitor.12 Lennox was imprisoned in the Tower and Darnley left for France. By the summer of 1563, Darnley and his parents were apparently back in favour.13 On 19 July it was reported that the Earl and Countess of Lennox were at court at Greenwich and ‘my Lord Darnley, their son and heir, is also a daily waiter and playeth very often at the lute before the Queen, wherein it should seem she taketh pleasure as indeed he plays very well’.14

  Whilst Elizabeth had no intention of nominating a successor, she was angered by Parliament’s support for Katherine Grey, particularly after the birth of Katherine’s second son. She now resolved to promote an alternative candidate. ‘Many people think that if the Queen of Scots does marry a person unacceptable to this Queen, the latter will declare her successor the son of Lady Margaret, whom she now keeps in the palace and shows such favour to as to make this appear probable.’15

  In June, Elizabeth petitioned Mary to restore the Lennox family’s hereditary lands, which had been confiscated by Henry VIII. It was undoubtedly a disingenuous move that sought to stir up troubles for Mary at a time when she was courting marriage prospects. At the end of April 1564, Mary granted the passport for the Earl of Lennox and allowed him to return to his ancestral home.

  By autumn, relations between Mary and Elizabeth had soured because of the ‘jealousies and suspicions’ that lay between them. Mary sent to the English court Sir James Melville, an urbane young Scotsman and one of her most trusted agents and diplomats in an attempt to smooth relations between the two queens and defend Mary’s dynastic claim to the English throne if Parliament should reassemble. Melville was also instructed to secretly deliver a message to Darnley’s mother, the Countess of Lennox, ‘to procure liberty for [Darnley] to go to Scotland’.16

  13

  Visitor to the Bedchamber

  At eight o’clock on a bright September morning, the twenty-nine-year-old Sir James Melville arrived on horseback at Whitehall Palace. He was shown into the privy garden where the Queen was expecting him. A delicious bouquet of scents emanated from the garden’s aromatic herbs and flowers, planted in raised beds, enclosed by low rails painted in the Tudor colours. Sculptures of men, women, children, monsters and other strange figures, rose up from the grassy avenues in high and low relief, and thirty-four tall columns, decorated with carvings and gilded animals and flags bearing the Queen’s arms. At the centre of the garden, a sundial blade ‘showed the hours in thirty different ways’ and a fountain sprayed water up through concealed pipes, soaking anyone who stood nearby.

  The palace itself was renowned for its splendid furnishings, tapestries and pictures, and the number and length of galleries. The Hans Holbein mural of Henry VIII dominated the Privy Chamber. ‘The King as he stood there,’ wrote one visitor, ‘majestic in his splendour, was so lifelike that the spectator felt abashed, annihilated in his presence.’1 Melville spent nine days at court and charmed Elizabeth with his wit and sophisticated manners. The Queen, for her part, was keen to show off her many talents to the Scottish envoy; she knew he would report them in minute detail to Mary. Melville was treated to the most remarkable access to Elizabeth during these days and enjoyed daily audiences, often ‘before noon, after noon and after supper’, in her privy lodgings and in her Bedchamber.2

  Late one evening after supper, Elizabeth invited Melville into her Bedchamber. It was a dark and airless place; weak candlelight lit up the gold ceiling and rich tapestries of glistening threads which hung on the walls. Next to the Queen’s lavish bed, adorned with sumptuous embroidered quilts, was a table entirely covered with silver and a chair with no actual seat but built up from the floor with cushions. There were ‘two little silver cabinets of exquisit
e work in which the Queen kept her paper and which she used as writing boxes, a silver inkstand and a Latin prayer book that the Queen had written and, in a beautiful preface, had dedicated to her father’.3 Next door to the Bedchamber was Elizabeth’s bathroom containing an exotic bath into which the water poured from ‘oyster shells and different kinds of rock’. A room on the east side of the Bedchamber contained the Queen’s musical instruments, including a virginal and an organ, and a clock ‘which played tunes by striking on bells’. A library close by was filled with Greek, Latin, Italian and French books, bound in red velvet ‘with clasps of gold and silver’, some with pearls and precious stones set in their bindings. A secret entrance led from the Bedchamber into the garden, where there was a walkway down to the gatehouse on the river, from which the Queen could depart in her royal barge. When she travelled along the Thames, perfumed oils were burned to camouflage the odours from the river.

  In the flickering candlelight of her Bedchamber, Elizabeth led Melville to a ‘little desk’ in which there were several portrait miniatures that she kept wrapped in paper. On each she had written the names of the sitters. She had intended to show him a picture of Mary, which she said she ‘delighted often’ to look at, but the first she unwrapped was that of Robert Dudley upon which she had written, ‘My Lord’s picture’. When Melville asked if he might take the picture back to Scotland for Mary, Elizabeth refused saying that she ‘had but one of his picture’. Melville quipped that ‘she had the original’ – Dudley was ‘at the farthest part of the chamber, speaking with Secretary Cecil’. Elizabeth then took out the miniature of Mary Queen of Scots and kissed it. Melville responded by kissing Elizabeth’s hand, ‘for the great love I saw she bore to my mistress’. He suggested that she might send to Mary either the picture of Dudley or a ruby – ‘great like a tennis ball’ – which she also showed him. If Mary ‘would follow her counsel, then she would, in the process of time, get both, and all she had’. In the meantime she agreed to send her cousin a diamond as a token of her intentions.4

  During his time at Whitehall, Melville often sat next to Dorothy Stafford so that, ‘I might be always near her Majesty that she might confer with me’. He knew Lady Stafford and her daughter from their time in exile on the continent, during the reign of Mary I, and spoke of how he made ‘their acquaintance when they passed through France’.5 Dorothy and her husband Sir William, together with two of their children, Elizabeth and Edward Stafford, had taken up residence in Geneva and joined the English Church there soon in October 1556. Another son, John, was born and baptised in Geneva and became godson to Jean Calvin. Sir William died several months later.6 Having then travelled to France in the early months of Elizabeth’s reign, Lady Dorothy returned to England and joined the Queen’s entourage.

  Elizabeth was keen to impress Melville with her extensive wardrobe. Each day she wore something different, showing off the styles of France, Italy and England. ‘She asked me which of them became her best?’ Melville noted, to which he replied, ‘the Italian dress’. This, ‘pleased her well, for she delighted to show her golden coloured hair, wearing a caul and bonnet as they do in Italy. Her hair was more reddish than yellow, curled in appearance naturally.’ When Elizabeth asked, ‘What colour of hair was reputed best; and which of the two queens was the fairest?’ Melville replied diplomatically, ‘I said she was the fairest Queen in England and ours the fairest Queen in Scotland.’ Elizabeth pressed Melville who was forced to respond that, ‘they were both the fairest ladies of their courts, and that Her Majesty was whiter, but our Queen was very lovely’. Elizabeth then quizzed the Scot as to who was taller. Melville said Mary, but that Elizabeth was neither too high nor too low.

  Then Elizabeth asked what sort of exercises Mary did. I answered that [when] I was despatched out of Scotland, the Queen was lately come from the Highland hunting, that when she had leisure from the affairs of her country, she read good books, the histories of diverse countries, and sometimes would play upon the lute and virginals.

  She asked if she played well, to which Melville responded, ‘reasonably for a queen’.

  One evening, Melville was taken to a ‘quiet gallery’ and stood outside one of the Queen’s rooms to hear her playing the virginals. Elizabeth was an accomplished musician; she sang well and also played the lyre and the lute.7 After a while, Melville drew aside the tapestry covering the door and seeing that Elizabeth had her back to him, entered. A few moments later the Queen noticed him and rose and, rather than chastise him, explained that she was not used to playing before men but normally played when she was alone to ‘shun melancholy’. Melville spoke apologetically of how he was walking with Lord Hunsdon, brother of Katherine Knollys, past her chamber door and having heard ‘such a melody as ravished me’ was drawn to the chamber. As he spoke, Elizabeth sat down low on a cushion and Melville fell on his knees before her but she passed him a cushion to rest under his knee. He refused the honour at first but she insisted that he take it. She called Dorothy Stafford from the next room to join them and then asked whether she or the Scottish Queen played best. ‘In that I gave her the praise,’ Melville recorded.

  After a few days, the young envoy prepared to return to Scotland, but Elizabeth was reluctant to let him go. ‘She said I was weary sooner of her company than she was of mine,’ and urged him to stay for another two days so that he might see her dancing, one of her favourite pastimes. Every morning to keep fit, Elizabeth practised the demanding galliard – a court dance involving vigorous leaps and hops; she always loved to dance with her courtiers and visiting ambassadors. After performing, Melville was asked the inevitable question, ‘Whether she or my queen danced best.’ The Scotsman replied that Mary ‘danced not so high and disposedly as she did’.

  Elizabeth had repeatedly expressed her desire to meet Mary in person and Melville urged her not to wait for a formal royal meeting but to come with him back to Scotland, disguised as a page. He suggested that the Queen’s Bedchamber, ‘might be kept in her absence as though she was sick’, and that she need only tell Lady Stafford and one of the grooms of her chamber. According to Melville, Elizabeth replied, ‘Alas! If I might do it.’ The envoy pressed her again: no one else need know; the court could be told she was ill and not to be disturbed. Elizabeth resisted although, as Melville noted, she used ‘all the means she could to cause me to persuade the Queen of the great love she did bear unto her, and that she was minded to put away all the jealousies and suspicions, and in times coming to entertain a straighter friendship to stand between them than ever had been of before’.

  * * *

  Melville returned to Scotland with an agreement that the English and Scottish commissioners should meet at Berwick to discuss a possible marriage between Mary and Robert Dudley. In an attempt to make Dudley a more attractive proposition for the Scottish Queen, Elizabeth raised him to the peerage and on 29 September, Melville witnessed Dudley’s ennoblement as the Earl of Leicester. It was an act of enormous honour and, as the Spanish ambassador Diego Guzman de Silva reported, a title ‘usually given to the second sons of the Kings of England’.8 Elizabeth also gave Leicester the manor of Kenilworth, along with a number of other grants and offices. He might now be considered of the appropriate status to marry a queen.

  At the formal ceremony at Westminster it was still possible to see the intimacy that Dudley and the Queen shared. As Dudley knelt before her and she girded the sword on his neck, Elizabeth could not ‘refrain from putting her hand in his neck to tickle him smilingly’. The two were ‘inseparable’, Melville observed. Elizabeth asked the Scotsman how he liked Dudley and he responded that Leicester was a worthy subject and he was happy she could discern and reward good service. ‘Yet,’ said Elizabeth, ‘you like better of yonder long lad’ – pointing to Lord Darnley, who attended the ceremony as Dudley’s nearest prince of the blood. Mary’s agent again responded carefully:

  My answer was that no woman of spirit would make choice of such a man, that was more like a woman than a man; for
he was very lusty, beardless and lady-faced. And I had no will that she should think that I liked him, or had any eye or dealing that way … Albeit, I had a secret charge to deal with his mother, my Lady Lennox, to procure liberty for him to go to Scotland that he might see the country and convey the earl, his father, back again to England.9

  Elizabeth had talked of Dudley as ‘her brother and best friend’, the man ‘she would herself have married had she ever minded to have taken a husband’; but now she appeared adamant that she was happy to see him marry Mary Queen of Scots. She had ‘determined to end her life in virginity’, and therefore wished the Queen, ‘her sister’, to have him secure in the knowledge that ‘being matched with [Dudley], it would best remove out of her mind all fear and suspicion, to be offended by usurpation before her death; being assured that he was so loving and trusty that he would never give his consent nor suffer such thing to be attempted during her time’.10 Yet as Cecil wrote to a friend, ‘I see the Queen’s Majesty very desirous to have my Lord of Leicester placed in this high degree to be the Scottish Queen’s husband, but when it cometh to the conditions which are demanded, I see her then remiss of her earnestness.’11 Elizabeth soon began to change the terms in which she imagined the union, and talked of how Mary and Dudley might instead live at her court, in a ménage à trois that would allow Elizabeth to see Dudley daily. She would ‘gladly bear the charges of the family’ of the couple, ‘as shall be mete for one sister to do for another’, she said.12