The Queen's Bed: An Intimate History of Elizabeth's Court Page 16
At the heart of the case against her was a silver-gilt casket of letters purportedly written in Mary’s hand, which was said to provide stark evidence that she had plotted her husband’s murder and had had an adulterous affair with the Earl of Bothwell, the chief suspect in Darnley’s death. The letters have since been shown to be almost certainly fakes but within three months the tribunal formally recognised the authenticity of the letters and so by implication demonstrated its belief that the deposed Queen was guilty. When Mary refused to answer to the charges before a deputation sent by Elizabeth, judgement was deferred and the trial adjourned indefinitely. Whilst Mary continued to protest that her imprisonment was entirely unlawful, Elizabeth had little choice but to keep her in close custody. Cecil’s words of warning to her were unambiguous: ‘The Queen of Scots is, and always shall be, a dangerous person to your estate.’9
With the trial adjourned and the matter of Mary left unresolved, Elizabeth moved to Hampton Court ahead of the festive season. When the Queen was in residence, and particularly before Christmas, the palace would become a hive of activity. Servants in red liveries carried trays laden with food, or armfuls of firewood from the woodyard to stack by the palace’s hearths ready to fuel the great fires that would burn throughout the festivities. Horses could constantly be heard clattering across the cobbles bringing guests to the palace, or conveying the Queen’s personal messengers across the country and abroad.
During the preparations, Katherine Knollys, Elizabeth’s cousin and trusted woman of the Bedchamber, fell gravely ill. Sir Francis, then custodian of the imprisoned Mary Queen of Scots at Bolton Castle in north Yorkshire, begged to be allowed to return to London and visit his sick wife. ‘I would to God I were so dispatched hence that I might only attend and care for your good recovery,’ he wrote to Katherine. Yet Elizabeth refused to grant him leave from his post. When Katherine’s condition improved a little, she urged the Queen to let her join her husband in the north, but still Elizabeth refused, saying the ‘journey might be to her danger or discommodity’. Sir Francis’ response to Cecil was curt: as Elizabeth would not let him look after his wife, hopefully ‘her Majesty will comfort her with her benign clemency and gracious courtesy’. Cecil assured him that Katherine was ‘well amended’, but Sir Francis remained desperate to return to London and complained bitterly of Elizabeth’s ‘ungrateful denial of my coming to the court’.10
On New Year’s Eve, Sir Francis wrote to his wife from Bolton Castle, pouring out his feelings and frustrations. The Queen had never granted them what they wanted nor rewarded them enough for their service. ‘For the outward love that her Majesty bears you, she makes you often weep for unkindness to the great danger of your health.’ He wished they could now retire from court to a ‘country poor life’, adding ‘whereunto I thank God I am ready to prepare myself for my part if you shall like thereof’.11 He would leave the decision to Katherine.
Lady Katherine never responded. Soon after Christmas and still with the Queen at Hampton Court, her condition worsened. Elizabeth ordered that she be nursed in a chamber close by her own and made regular visits to her bedside, but on Saturday 15 January 1569, she died aged forty-six. Elizabeth was overwhelmed with remorse. Only the day before, she had written to Sir Francis but had deliberately made no reference to his wife’s illness. Now she hastily sent a messenger north with news of his wife’s passing. In the meantime, arrangements were made for Mary Stuart to be brought south to the medieval and semi-derelict Tutbury Castle in Staffordshire and placed in the custody of George Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury, one of Elizabeth’s leading noblemen.
Sir Francis Knollys returned to London on 8 February, ‘distracted with sorrow for his great loss’. After nearly thirty years of marriage he was now bewildered as to how to care for his family and manage their large household. Katherine had ‘disburdened him’ of many cares and had been the bookkeeper of his ‘public charges’ and his ‘private accounts’. Without her, he wrote, ‘my children, my servants and all other things are loosely left without good order’.12 Elizabeth meanwhile retired to her Bedchamber in deep mourning. Katherine Knollys had become a dear friend. She had served the Queen since her accession and remained in close attendance in the Bedchamber despite the needs of her husband and many children.13 Such was Elizabeth’s grief, that ‘forgetful of her own health, she took cold, wherewith she was much troubled’.14 Visiting Hampton Court five days after Katherine’s death, Bertrand de Salignac de La Mothe-Fenelon, the French ambassador, found the Queen full of sorrow for the woman whom she had ‘loved better than all the women in the world’.15 Visiting the court around the same time, Nicholas Whyte, one of Cecil’s emissaries, found the Queen beset by grief and hardly able to talk of anything other than her beloved servant and kinswoman:
From this she returned back again to talk of my Lady Knollys. And after many speeches past to and fro of that gentlewoman, I perceiving her to harp much upon her departure, said that the long absence of her husband … together with the fervency of her fever, did greatly further her end, wanting nothing else that either art of man’s help could devise for her recovery, lying in a prince’s court near her person, where every hour her careful ear understood of her estate, and where also she was very often visited by her Majesty’s own comfortable presence.
This rather tactless remark was followed by another. ‘Although her Grace was not culpable of this accident,’ said Fenelon, ‘yet she was the cause without which their being asunder had not happened.’ Elizabeth replied disconsolately that she was ‘very sorry for her death’.16 Katherine had attended tirelessly and selflessly on the Queen and had been forced to endure long absences from her husband and her children. The years of unrelenting service had, as Elizabeth was forced to acknowledge, doubtless taken its toll.
Elizabeth spent £640 2s. 11d. on a lavish funeral ceremony complete with interment in Westminster Abbey.17 Katherine’s hearse was so elaborate that the Dean of Westminster and the heralds both wanted to keep it. Her tomb, erected by her husband, identified her as ‘The Right Honourable Lady Katherine Knollys chief lady of the Queen Majesty Bed Chamber and Wife to Sir Frances Knollys, Knight Treasurer of her Highness’ Household’. A printed epitaph extolled her virtues, calling her a ‘mirror pure of womanhood’ with ‘wit and counsel sound, a mind so clean and devoid of guile’, she had been ‘in favour with our noble queen, above the common sort’.18
In the years following Katherine Knollys’s death, Elizabeth continued to show care and affection for her children. On 14 March, Katherine’s brother wrote to Cecil that he ‘was glad to hear of her Majesty’s good disposition to his late sister’s children’.19 Her daughter Anne became a paid member of the Queen’s chamber and was the recipient of several gifts.20 The following year Henry Knollys became an Esquire of the Body and his brother William became a Gentleman Pensioner.21 In a letter of January 1570 to the Earl of Sussex, Lord Chamberlain of the Household, and to Sir Ralph Sadler, the Queen wrote, ‘We require you to have consideration of the custody appointed to Henry Knollys, whom you know what reason we have to regard, in respect of his kindred to us by his late mother’.22
21
Secret Enemies
Mary Stuart’s arrival in England could not have come at a worse time. Europe was riven with conflict and the Protestant cause was in grave danger. Civil war in France continued, with Huguenots fighting Catholics; the Protestants in the Low Countries, led by William of Orange, faced the might of a huge Spanish army led by the Duke of Alva. Now it seemed only a matter of time before the Catholic powers would turn their attention across the Channel. Sir Henry Norris, the ambassador in Paris, was in no doubt that ‘if the Duke of Alva do bring his purpose to desired effect he will forthwith invade England’.1
As relations with Spain and France cooled in recent months, England had become increasingly isolated. The French King, Charles IX, and his mother Catherine de Medici were convinced that Elizabeth was sending covert aid to the Huguenots and the Dutch rebels and this, t
ogether with growing resentment over English pirates preying on French shipping, left England vulnerable to French hostility. Meanwhile diplomatic relations with Spain had broken down completely after Elizabeth impounded treasure from Spanish ships bound for the Low Countries which had been forced to shelter in English ports. The imprisonment of Mary Stuart in England served only to heighten tensions and raise fears of an imminent Catholic invasion. In December 1568 an English agent in Paris reported that the monarchies of France and Spain were conspiring to undermine English security, ‘for the alteration of religion and the advancement of the Queen of Scots to the crown’.2
In early 1569, Cecil made a stark assessment of the safety of the realm. ‘The perils are many, great and imminent, great in respect of Persons and Matters.’ At the top of his list came a ‘conspiration of the Pope, King Philip, the French King and sundry potentates of Italy to employ all their forces for the subversion of the professors of the gospel’.3 Pope Pius V was, he believed, determined to recover the ‘tyranny’ of his authority and restore England to the Catholic fold and to support Elizabeth’s ‘eviction’ from her throne’ and replacement with Mary Stuart. Elizabeth was also under threat from within her realm. Don Gureau de Spes, who had been appointed Spanish ambassador the previous year, wrote to Philip describing Mary Queen of Scots as a ‘lady of great spirit’, gaining so many friends where she was that ‘with little help she would be able to get this kingdom into her hands’.4 In her own over-optimistic epistle to Philip, Mary claimed that if the King could ‘help me, I shall be Queen of England in three months, and mass shall be said all over the country’.5 By July, de Spes was reporting that ‘this Queen sees that all the people in the country are turning their eyes to the Queen of Scotland, and there is now no concealment about it. She is looked upon generally as the successor.’6
* * *
At the end of 1568 rumours circulated at court that the Duke of Norfolk was about to propose marriage to Mary Queen of Scots. The match had first been suggested by Sir William Maitland of Lethington, Mary’s adviser, who believed that a union between Scotland’s deposed Queen and England’s pre-eminent noble could revive her fortunes and resolve the Anglo-Scottish impasse. Elizabeth had considered Norfolk as a possible consort for Mary four years earlier, as a means to secure the Scottish Queen’s loyalty, but now in very different circumstances, she was not consulted.
In response to the gossip, the Queen quizzed Norfolk. Was there any truth to the rumour? The duke strongly denied any such accusation. ‘Should I seek to marry her, being so wicked a woman, such a notorious adulteress and murderer? I love to sleep on a safe pillow.’7 In truth, by early 1569, Norfolk had resolved to press ahead with a marriage to Mary and set about winning support from the leading men at court. By the spring, Dudley, the Earl of Arundel and Sir Nicholas Throckmorton had all declared themselves in favour of the match and were working secretly to bring it to fruition. Having secured Mary’s consent, Norfolk made contact with the leading Catholic noblemen in the north, the Earls of Northumberland and Westmoreland, to secure their support. The challenge now was to gain Elizabeth’s approval. Would she see the merits of the match as a means to securely bring about Mary’s restoration to the Scottish throne and make it safe for her to declare Mary her heir? Or would she regard Norfolk’s designs as more the product of his own personal ambition?
No one wanted to broach the subject with the Queen. Finally, on 6 September, Dudley feigned illness, took to his chamber and then summoned Elizabeth to his bedside where he revealed details of Norfolk’s proposal. Despite Dudley’s assurance that in supporting the plan he believed he was acting in her best interests, the Queen regarded his actions as a betrayal. If Norfolk married Mary, Elizabeth would, she believed, find herself in the Tower within four months of the ceremony. How could he, Dudley, the man she trusted above all others, support a marriage alliance between her greatest rival and her premier nobleman?
Fearing the Queen’s reaction, Norfolk now fled to his estates in East Anglia. When Elizabeth summoned him back to court he initially resisted but then set out for the court at Windsor, to submit to her and profess his loyalty. Three days later he was arrested by Sir Francis Knollys and by 10 October he was a prisoner in the Tower of London where he would remain until the following summer. His sister, the Countess of Westmoreland, wrote scornfully of her brother’s weak resolve: ‘What a simple man the duke is, to begin a matter and not go through with it.’8
In the first clear rebellion of her reign, Elizabeth faced a dangerous challenge to her crown as members of her Privy Council and leading Catholic noblemen conspired against her in support of Mary Queen of Scots. It was only Norfolk’s lack of resolve and Dudley’s belated loyalty that had saved her. But the matter was not yet over. With Norfolk in the Tower, the two northern earls knew they were compromised. They had been plotting for months and their intentions were widely known. The Earl of Northumberland sent a message to de Spes, the Spanish ambassador, that he would now have to rebel, or ‘yield my head to the block, or else be forced to flee and forsake the realm, for I know the Queen’s Majesty is so highly displeased at me and others that I know we shall not be able to bear it nor answer it’.9 Elizabeth summoned the earls to court, but instead they rallied over 5,000 rebels to their cause in a spontaneous uprising. On 14 November the earls stormed Durham Cathedral where they ripped apart the Protestant prayer book, overturned the communion table, and celebrated a Catholic mass.10 Two days later they issued a proclamation declaring:
Forasmuch as diverse evil-disposed persons about the Queen’s Majesty have, by their subtle and crafty dealings to advance themselves, overcome in this Realm the true and Catholic religion towards God, and by the same abused the Queen, disordered the realm and now lastly seek and procure the destruction of the nobility. We, therefore, have gathered ourselves together to resist by force, and rather by the help of God and you good people, to see redress of these things amiss, with the restoring of all ancient customs and liberties to God’s church, and this noble Realm.11
Elizabeth had prepared for the worst and quickly mobilised 14,000 men who were sent north, whilst a special reserve guard was put in place for the Queen’s own protection.12 The Aldermen of London ordered that guns be put in readiness and the city gates and portcullises be fixed. Meanwhile, the Earl of Shrewsbury was commanded to move Mary south to the walled city of Coventry.
On 20 December, the conflict came to an end without a shot being fired. As the Queen’s forces rode north, Northumberland and Westmoreland fled over the border and the rebels disbanded. Despite the speed of its collapse, the rebellion had represented a major threat to Elizabeth and her government. There had been rumours of promised Spanish assistance, her Catholic nobles had demonstrated their opposition to her and the north of England had responded to their call to arms. Moreover, the Queen’s most senior nobleman, the Duke of Norfolk, remained alienated and ambitious and, despite his imprisonment, he continued scheming with Mary Queen of Scots. In the months that followed nearly 800 of the rebels were executed on hastily erected gallows. It was a ruthless and very timely reminder of the price of disloyalty to Elizabeth and her crown.
* * *
On 25 February 1570, Pope Pius V issued a bull of excommunication, Regnans in Excelsis, in which he formally declared Elizabeth to be a usurper and absolved her subjects from allegiance to her.
Since that guilty woman of England rules over two such noble kingdoms of Christendom and is the cause of so much injury to the Catholic faith and loss of so many million souls, there is little doubt that whosoever sends her out of the world with the pious intention of doing God’s service, not only does not sin but gains merit … And so, if those English gentlemen decide actually to undertake so glorious a work, your Lordship can assure them they do not commit any sin. We trust in God also that they will escape danger.13
In the early hours of the morning of 15 May, John Felton, a wealthy Catholic living in Southwark, nailed a smuggled copy of the bull to th
e gate of the Bishop of London’s palace. Felton was immediately arrested, tried for high treason and within months was hanged, disembowelled, decapitated and quartered. The issuing of the papal bull signalled the start of the long-awaited Catholic crusade against England and the moment when Catholics in England were marked out as traitors to the realm. The Pope had effectively sanctioned Elizabeth’s murder and she now became the legitimate target of any wilful Catholic plotter.
22
Want of Posterity
In an audience at Hampton Court on 23 January 1571, Elizabeth told the French ambassador Fenelon that ‘she was determined to marry, not for the wish of her own, but for the satisfaction of her subjects’. In a remarkably candid exchange, she explained that marriage would also ‘put an end, by the authority of a husband or by the birth of offspring, (if it should please God to give them to her), to the enterprises’ which, she felt, ‘would perpetually be made against her person and her realm, if she became so old a woman that there was no longer any pretence for taking a husband, or hope that she might have children’. Whilst ‘she had formerly assured him that she never meant to marry’, she now said that ‘she regretted that she had not thought in time about her want of posterity’.1 It was a dramatic and very personal revelation which appeared to demonstrate a new resolve finally to settle the succession.
Marriage had become a necessity. The lessons of the Norfolk affair and the northern rebellion were plain to the Queen and her government; so long as her death meant the accession of a Catholic queen, her life would always be under threat. The papal bull of excommunication and Spanish intrigues in Ireland, coming after de Spes’s involvement with the northern earls, all seemed compelling evidence that an international conspiracy spearheaded by Spain was operating against Protestant England. Cecil held out hope that the Queen was at last sincere in her pledge to marry: ‘If I be not much deceived, her Majesty is earnest in this’; if a marriage went ahead, ‘the curious and dangerous question of the succession would in the minds of quiet subjects be buried – a happy funeral for all England’.2