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

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  During the summer of 1599 there were growing fears that another Spanish fleet was being prepared and that King James VI of Scotland was ready to invade and support a Catholic uprising. England was put on a state of high alert, and letters were sent to bishops and noblemen ordering them to ‘prepare horses and all other furniture as if an enemy was expected within fifteen days’. By royal command on Sunday 5 August in London, ‘chains were drawn across the streets and lanes of the city, and lanterns with lights, of candles (eight in the pound) hanged out at every man’s door, there to burn all the night, and so from night to night, upon pain of death, and great watches kept in the streets.’3 There was speculation that the Queen ‘was dangerously sick’ and at the beginning of September, Elizabeth moved quietly from Whitehall to Hampton Court, where she was seen at the windows of the palace, ‘none being with her but my Lady of Warwick’.4

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  Given the fears for her safety and rumour of a Spanish invasion, Elizabeth did not go on a long progress but travelled between her royal residences outside London. From Hampton Court she moved to Nonsuch in Surrey. It was something of a fairy tale palace, famed for its novel octagonal towers and its extensive deer park. It was built in the 1530s by Henry VIII in emulation of the great French palaces of the Loire. The walls were of white stucco with a deep relief pattern picked out in gold and there was a vast array of classical statuary in the picturesque grounds. There were two quadrangles surrounded by beautiful gardens. When the court was in residence the meadow outside the palace would be full of tents, where many of those attending on the court had to stay, as Nonsuch stood outside any village or township where extra accommodation would otherwise be provided.

  On Sunday 26 September, Thomas Platter, a Swiss-born traveller arrived at Nonsuch for an official tour of the palace. In the Presence Chamber around midday, he watched as men with white staffs entered, after them some lords and then the Queen. Elizabeth sat on a red damask-covered chair with cushions embroidered in gold thread. The chair was so low that the cushions almost lay on the ground, and there was a canopy above, fixed ornately to the ceiling. Having sat down, Platter describes how a lady-in-waiting, ‘splendidly arrayed’, entered the room and while Elizabeth’s secretary stood on her right and her others officers with their white staffs stood on the left Elizabeth ‘was handed some books’. Anyone who approached her did so on their knees; ‘I am told they even play cards with the Queen in kneeling posture’, Platter noted. Elizabeth read the books for a while and then a preacher delivered a sermon standing before her. After a time, since it was very ‘warm and late’, the Queen called one of her gentlemen to her and commanded him to sign to the preacher to draw to a close. When the prayer ended she withdrew to the Privy Chamber.

  Platter remained in the Presence Chamber to observe the Queen’s luncheon being served. Her guardsmen, wearing red tabards with the royal arms embroidered in gold, carried two tables into the room and set them down where the Queen had been sitting. Then another two guardsmen entered each bearing a mace, ‘and bowed three times, first at their entrance, then in the centre of the room and lastly in front of her table’. Two more guards then appeared with plates and goblets and two more carrying carving knives, bread and salt, all bowing before the table. A ‘gentleman bearing a mace’ entered, together with one of the Queen’s ladies who, having bowed before the empty table, stood before it as guardsmen brought in covered dishes of food. Platter describes how, when the guardsman had removed the cover and handed over the food, the Queen’s lady carved a large piece off which she gave to a guard to taste. Wine and beer were also poured out and tasted. Once the table had been fully laid out and served ‘with the same obeisance and honours performed as if the Queen herself had sat there’, Platter watched as each of the dishes, including large joints of beef and all kinds of game, pasties and tarts were taken to the Queen in her chamber for her ‘to eat of what she fancied privily’, as, ‘she very seldom partakes before strangers’. Finally, once the food had been served, ‘the Queen’s musicians appeared in the Privy Chamber with trumpets and shawms, and after they had performed their music, everyone withdrew bowing before the table and the tables were cleared away’.

  Elizabeth was, as Platter adds, ‘most gorgeously apparelled, and although she was already seventy [sixty-] four, was very youthful still in appearance, seeming no more than twenty years of age. She had a dignified and regal bearing.’ Referring to the Lopez and Squires plots, Platter added, ‘although her life has often been threatened by poison and many ill designs, God has preserved her wonderfully at all times’.5 Yet, as Nottingham, the Lord Admiral, told Platter, her Majesty was now taking greater care of her safety, as ‘a short time before, an attempt had been made to poison the Queen by smearing powder on the chair she was accustomed to sit and hold her hands on’. Now she ‘refused to allow anyone in her apartments without my Lord Admiral’s command’.6

  Two days after Platter’s visit, one unannounced visitor would not only fail to seek permission to enter the Queen’s apartments, but would do what no man had done before; he would cross the threshold into the Queen’s Bedchamber and glimpse Elizabeth far from ‘gorgeously apparelled’ and with a ‘dignified bearing’, but newly up, half-undressed, wigless and without her make-up.

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  Essex arrived at Nonsuch on Friday 28 September, little more than three days after his departure from Dublin. The manner of his arrival at the palace was unexpected and unorthodox and left Essex’s plans to consolidate his position at court and in the Queen’s favour in tatters. Without stopping at Essex House to change his spoiled, mud-splattered clothes, the earl hastily crossed the Thames at Westminster by the horse-ferry, and rode on to Nonsuch Palace. Rowland Whyte was at court that day and described what happened.

  On arriving, Essex ‘made all haste up to the Presence [Chamber] and so to the Privy Chamber and stayed not till he came to the Queen’s Bedchamber, where he found the Queen newly up, the hair about her face’. Elizabeth had just a simple robe over her nightdress, her wrinkled skin was free of cosmetics and without her wig Essex saw her bald head with just wisps of thinning grey hair ‘hanging about her ears’. This was the unadorned reality of the Queen’s natural body that no one, except her trusted ladies, should ever have seen. ‘Tis much wondered at,’ Whyte wrote with considerable understatement, ‘that he went so boldly into her Majesty’s presence, she but being unready, and he so full of dirt and mire, that his very face was full of it.’7

  As the Queen stood speechless at the sight of the unheralded intruder, Essex flung himself, repentant and subdued, at her feet. Kneeling before her, he ‘kissed her hands and her fair neck, and had some private speech with her, which seemed to give him great contentment’. Although no man had ever entered her Bedchamber uninvited, the Queen remained calm, not knowing whether or not she was in danger, and, as Whyte reported, ‘her usage very gracious towards him’.

  Later that evening, however, the Queen’s mood had changed and she ‘began to call him to question for his return, and was not satisfied in the manner of his coming away’. She now ordered that Essex should keep to his chamber.8 This was the last time that she would ever see him.

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  The following day Essex was summoned before the Privy Council and Robert Cecil read out a list of the six charges. Among them was, ‘His rash Manner of coming away from Ireland: His overbold going Yesterday to her Majesty’s Presence to her Bedchamber: His making of so many idle Knights.’9 He was placed under house arrest in the custody of Lord Keeper Egerton at his official residence, York House. His wife, Frances, Countess of Essex, was heavily pregnant and when the baby was born the next day, Essex was kept from them.

  There was rising public discontent at the earl’s unexplained house arrest. He petitioned Elizabeth with letters explaining how he was ‘wonderfully grieved at her Majesty’s displeasure towards him’, and drew up a detailed explanation of what had happened in Ireland and the arrangements he ha
d put in place when he left.10 By December, Essex’s health was deteriorating and his wife was finally given access to him. The Queen once more sent her physicians to report on his illness. The prognosis was poor: the earl was suffering from dysentery and was unlikely to live. When Elizabeth heard the news, she ‘was very pensive and grieved, and sent Doctor James unto him with some Broth. Her Message was, that he should Comfort himself and that she would, if she might with her Honour, go to visit him; and it was noted, that she had Water in her Eyes when she spoke it.’11

  Essex did begin to recover and resumed his attempts to regain the Queen’s favour. He sent a New Year’s gift to her at Richmond, which was ‘neither received nor rejected’, but remained in the hands of Sir William Knollys, the Comptroller of the Royal Household.12 Lady Penelope Rich, the earl’s sister, who had formerly been one of the Queen’s maids of honour, presented Elizabeth with a strongly worded letter. In it she defended her brother, denounced his enemies and complained that Essex had not been allowed into the Queen’s presence to answer his critics. Elizabeth was outraged at Lady Penelope’s ‘stomach and presumption’, and never fully forgave her for it.13

  By the end of January, Essex’s mother, Lettice Knollys, the Countess of Leicester, had left her country estate to come to London to petition for her son’s release.14 The following month she sent a gown for Elizabeth that was presented by Mary Scudamore, one of the Queen’s favoured women, who was sympathetic to Lettice’s cause and had known her from her time in the Queen’s service.15

  Her Majesty liked it well, but did not accept it, nor refuse it, only answered, that Things standing as they did, it was not fit for her to desire what she did; which was to come to her Majesty’s Presence, to kiss her Hands … and her Majesty’s Displeasure nothing lessened towards him, nor any Hope of his Liberty.16

  Lady Warwick also tried to promote Essex’s case and sent him a message assuring him that if he came to Greenwich, where the court was then in residence, she would contrive an opportunity to let him into the palace gardens, when the Queen was in a good mood, so that he could plead forgiveness in person.17 In March, Essex was allowed to return to Essex House, but still under conditions of house arrest, ‘by her Majesty’s express commandment’, with his wife and friends all removed from there.

  On 5 June, the earl was taken to York House to appear before a special commission of enquiry which was to hear the charges against him. He was found guilty of disobedience and dereliction of duty, although cleared of the most serious charge of disloyalty. In an act of humility, Essex knelt for much of the twelve-hour-long hearing, but he refused to admit insubordination. He acknowledged he had ‘grievously offended’ her Majesty, but pitifully urged that it was ‘with no malicious intent’. He was stripped of his offices and was to remain a prisoner at his house at the Queen’s pleasure.18

  Essex continued to plead his case with the Queen. Philadelphia Carey, Lady Scrope, daughter of the late Katherine Knollys, wrote to tell him how favourably Elizabeth had received his letters: ‘She seemed exceedingly pleased with it yet her answer was only to will me to give you thanks for your great care to know of her health.’ Lady Scrope continued, ‘I told her that now the time drew near of your whole year’s punishment and therefore I hoped her Majesty would restore her favour to one that with so much true sorrow did desire it but she would answer me never a word but sighed and said indeed it was so.’ She added, ‘I do not doubt but shortly to see your Lordship at the court.’19

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  On the night of 2 October, Essex returned to the deserted Essex House where, ‘he lives private, his gate shut day and night’. His petitions to the Queen were now desperate. Sir John Harington met with the earl and warned him that he was an example of how ‘ambition thwarted in his career doth speedily lead on to madness’. Essex now ‘shifteth from sorrow and repentance to rage and rebellion so suddenly as well proveth him devoid of good reason or of right mind’.20

  Essex believed that his path back to the Queen’s favour was only blocked by the evil counsel of his enemies at court. By the end of the year he was gathering around him other ‘discontented persons’, deployed soldiers, persecuted Catholics, failed courtiers and bankrupt nobles. Essex House was becoming something of an anti-court. ‘These things are brought to the Queen’s ears,’ it was reported, ‘and alienate her affection from him more and more, and especially one speech inflameth her most of all, for he said that being now an old woman, she is no less crooked and distorted in mind than she is in body.’21 Elizabeth might have begun to fear the dangerous plottings of her former favourite, but she was, and would remain, always acutely sensitive to comments that slighted her royal majesty.

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  Dangerous and Malicious Ends

  In early February 1601, ‘a concourse of people and great resort of Lords and others’ gathered at Essex House.1 Fearing disorder, the Privy Council met in urgent session on Saturday 7 February and summoned Essex to appear before them to explain himself and to reprimand him for holding unlawful assemblies.

  The earl ignored the first summons, and the second, pleading ill health. He had been in disgrace for more than a year, was heavily in debt and was convinced that a plot had been laid by his enemies to entice him from his home and then ‘bring about his death’.2 Throughout the night, as Essex fortified his house and more nobles assembled with their followers, the council moved to secure the court by erecting a barricade of coaches between Whitehall and Charing Cross.3

  At ten the following morning, a delegation from the court was sent to Essex House. The four commissioners, who included the earl’s uncle, Sir William Knollys, came to offer the chance for Essex to have his grievances heard on condition that the gathering at his house disperse. Fearing another attempt to lure him to his death, Essex rejected the commissioners’ overtures. He placed the delegation under armed guard in his library and then set off with a group of two hundred friends and followers, carrying firearms, for the city, to take control of the Tower and force their way to the Queen.4 Essex urged the people of London to join with him against the forces that threatened the Queen and the country.5 He claimed that his enemies were going to murder him and that ‘the crown of England was offered to be sold to the Infanta [Isabella of Spain]’.

  The Queen received the news that Essex had entered the city while at dinner at Whitehall. She responded calmly, ‘only said [that] He that had placed her on that seat would preserve her in it; and so she continued at her dinner, not showing any sign of fear, or distraction of mind, nor omitting anything that she had been accustomed to do at other times’.6 The Queen’s Guard were immediately deployed and when Essex’s band moved to Ludgate Hill they were met by a company of soldiers.7 As Essex’s followers scattered, several men were killed, including the earl’s page, Henry Tracy, and Essex himself was shot twice in the hat. The remaining fifty or so men were forced to withdraw and at Queenhithe, taking as many boats as they could, they rowed furiously back to Essex House.

  As dusk fell, Essex returned to find his house surrounded by the Queen’s forces. By nine that evening he surrendered and was rowed across the river to spend the night a prisoner in Lambeth Palace. The next day he was taken to the Tower. A proclamation was issued announcing his arrest and ordering people to remain vigilant ‘to the speeches of any that shall give out slanderous and undutiful words or rumours’.8

  On Thursday 12 February, Captain Thomas Lee, one of Essex’s Irish captains, was discovered and arrested outside the door of the Queen’s Privy Chamber at Whitehall.9 He admitted he was going to break in that evening, at supper time when, he said, Elizabeth ‘is attended with a few Ladies, & such as that are known in court and have credit might easily come to the Privy Chamber door without suspicion’. He planned to take the Queen captive and force her to sign a warrant for the earl’s delivery from the Tower.10 Lee had demonstrated that the Queen’s privy lodging could be penetrated. Although the Irishman swore that he ‘would not have hurt her Royal person’, he was tried at Ne
wgate two days later and, as Robert Cecil wrote from court, ‘he received the due reward of a Traitor at Tyburn’, two days later.11

  On 19 February the Earl of Essex was brought up river from the Tower to Westminster Hall to be tried. Essex and the other conspirators were accused of plotting to deprive the Queen of her crown and life as well as imprisoning councillors of the realm and inciting Londoners to rebel. The Attorney General Sir Edward Coke was determined to prove that Essex had intended to take ‘not a town, but a city, not a city alone, but London the chief city; not only London, but the Tower of London; not only the Tower of London, but the royal palace and person of the prince, and to take away her life’. Essex protested that ‘he never wished harm to his sovereign more than to his soul’.12 The coup, it was claimed, was merely intended to secure access for Essex to the Queen.13 He believed that if he was able to gain an audience with Elizabeth, and she heard his grievances, he would be restored to her favour. Despite his protestations, he was sentenced to be hanged, drawn and quartered.

  On the day after his trial, Elizabeth signed Essex’s death warrant.14 She had made up her mind that no mercy could be shown to a man who had threatened to take up arms against her.15 In the Tower, after his trial, Essex broke down claiming he had been pressured by his followers and his sister, Lady Penelope Rich, to take seditious action.16 Lady Penelope denied her brother’s claim and argued that she had been drawn into the conspiracy against her will. After a brief period of confinement, and examination by the Privy Council, she was released.17

  In the early morning of 25 February, Ash Wednesday, Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, attended by three priests, sixteen guards and the Lieutenant of the Tower, walked to his execution. Elizabeth had granted him one final favour: in deference to his rank, his beheading would take place in private, within the grounds of the Tower of London. As he knelt before the scaffold the earl made a long and emotional speech of confession in which he acknowledged that his ‘courses’, if successful, might have imperilled the Queen, with ‘more dangerous and malicious ends for the disturbance of her Estate’.18 His head was severed in three blows. Elizabeth was playing the virginals in the Privy Chamber when a messenger brought confirmation of Essex’s death. She received it in silence. No one else spoke. After a time she began to play again.