After Elizabeth Read online

  When we look into your competitors at home we find the eyes of the world, neither of the great ones nor the small ones, cast towards them, for either in their worth they are contemptible, or not liked for their sex, wishing no more Queens, fearing we shall never enjoy another like to this.71

  Northumberland acknowledged, however, that James’s candidature had two obvious problems. The first was that he was Scots. He warned—as Harington had—that “the better sort” feared James might give public office to the Scots, while ordinary people found “the name of Scots is harsh in the ears.” He advised therefore that James enter England as an Englishman; if he succeeded in keeping “the better sort” happy, ordinary people would also accept him “and the memories of the ancient wounds between England and Scotland will be cancelled.” 72

  The second potential source of serious opposition James might face, Northumberland wrote, was from the Catholic population. Harington had told James that “a great part of the realm, what with commiseration of their oppression, and what with the known abuses in our own church and government, do grow cold in religion and in the service of both God and prince.” 73 Northumberland confirmed “their faction is strong, their increase is daily.” Indeed, so many young men were being drawn to the Catholic seminaries on the Continent that there were now too many English priests to be supported at home. The number of converts was also growing and they were found even in the families of the most bitter enemies of Catholicism: Leicester’s son became a Catholic, as would Walsingham’s daughter, while the children of recusant-hunting bishops such as the Bishop of Durham, Tobie Matthew and John Thornborough had already done so. 74 Northumberland admitted that “the purer sort” of these Catholics— those influenced by the Jesuits—preferred the candidature of the Infanta Isabella to that of James. “I will dare say no more,” Northumberland concluded, “but it were a pity to lose so good a kingdom for not tolerating a mass in a corner.”75 The unspoken advice was clear enough: the moderates needed to be encouraged—but James already knew that well enough.

  The English Jesuits, led by their Principal, the Somerset-born Robert Persons, were the most determined and dangerous opponents of James’s succession. They had been behind the Doleman book on the succession and in February 1601 had persuaded Philip III to promote the candidature of the Infanta Isabella despite her own opposition to it.

  Three main issues governed the Spanish Council’s outlook in matters of foreign policy, and as the Jesuits were aware, their relations with England affected them all: the first—the Dutch rebellion in the Netherlands—was backed by England; the second—trade in the Indies—was frequently interrupted by English privateers; the third— the threat posed by France—had been countered in earlier centuries by an Anglo-Spanish alliance. It was vitally important, therefore, for Spain to have a friendly monarch on the English throne. The Infanta and Albert believed this would be best achieved by peaceful relations with whomever naturally succeeded Elizabeth; but Scotland was a traditional enemy of Spain and the Jesuits had persuaded the Spanish Council that if they did not provide a candidate themselves the English Catholics would support James in return for toleration, and that would be a disaster for Spain. Philip III followed their advice and the Infanta’s objections were overruled.

  Spain’s invasion of Ireland in September 1601 followed. Intended as a stepping-stone to an invasion of England, it proved to be a military fiasco and in December Spanish forces were obliged to surrender to Essex’s replacement in Ireland, Lord Mountjoy. By the early summer of 1602, however, the Spanish Council had devised new plans to invade England in the following March and started laying groundwork, giving the soldier and spy Thomas Wintour a large sum of money (100,000 escudos) to try to buy the loyalty of discontented Catholics. Within weeks, the Archduke Albert had admitted he was in touch with James and had offered his support in the hopes of future friendship. Clearly the Catholic campaign for the English throne required a new and more convincing candidate.

  In Rome, English and Welsh Catholics were still petitioning the Pope to consider a marriage between Arbella Stuart and a member of the Farnese family, to whom she had been linked before the death of Alessandro Farnese, the Duke of Parma, in December 1592. Others suggested she marry the young Earl of Arundel, whose father had died in the Tower and who was considered a Catholic martyr.76 Even Robert Persons accepted that a new candidate was required, one who might fulfill the Pope’s desire to choose someone on whom Spain, France and the Vatican could all agree—and here he had a stroke of good fortune. Henri IV had always been a strong advocate of James’s claim. The Scots King had a French grandmother, their countries were traditional allies and Henri had hoped to gain goodwill from the Pope by encouraging James to grant toleration of religion to Catholics, as he had offered it to Protestants in France. Henri’s attitude, however, underwent a revolution in the summer of 1602.

  After discovering that Cecil was working for James, Henri had realized that if James became king, it might mean a settlement between Spain and England, a cause that had always been close to Cecil’s heart. Although France and Spain were at peace, it was an uneasy one and Henri spent half his revenue on defense. Not only did he fear better Anglo-Spanish relations, but under James the English and Scots crowns would be united and France would lose the benefits of the Auld Alliance, which he called France’s “bridle on England.” In October 1602 Spanish spies reported home that Henri IV of France was “no less worried about the King of Scotland than we are.” Robert Persons approached the leader of the curia’s French faction, Cardinal D’Ossat, and urged him to encourage the opening of discussions between Spain, France and the Papacy. The Pope meanwhile had issued a secret brief to his nuncio in Flanders ordering all English Catholics to oppose any Protestant successor to Elizabeth “whensoever that wretched woman should depart this life.”

  Alarmed by the prospect of Jesuit plots in England, James wrote a furious letter to Cecil in January, attacking his pursuit of peace with Spain. If any treaty were achieved, he complained, it would no more be thought odious for any Englishman to dispute upon [i.e. argue for] a Spanish title; . . . the king of Spain would . . . have free access in England, to corrupt the minds of all corruptible men for the advancement of his ambitions . . . and lastly, Jesuits, seminary priests, and that rabble, with which England is already too much infected, would then resort there in such swarms as the caterpillars or flies did in Egypt, no man any more abhorring them.77

  He demanded to know why Cecil had not carried out a royal proclamation issued in November ordering the expulsion of all priests from England.

  I know it may be justly thought that I have the like beam in my own eye, but alas it is a far more barbarous and stiff-necked people that I rule over. Saint George surely rides upon a towardly riding horse, where I am daily struggling to control a wild unruly colt . . . I protest in God’s presence the daily increase that I hear of popery in England, and the proud vaunting that the papists make daily there of their power, their increase and their combined faction, that none shall enter to be king there, but by their permission.78

  Cecil tried to put James’s mind at rest. He insisted he was indeed ferocious in his pursuit of Jesuits—“that generation of vipers”—and if he was reluctant to see the secular Catholic priests “die by dozens” it was because by and large they shared moderate Catholic opinion. Many were loyal to James’s candidature and they were useful tools against the Jesuits. Some secular priests had published pamphlets accusing the Jesuits of treason and even were prepared to betray them to their deaths.79 Unconvinced, James replied with what amounted to an order:

  I long to see the execution of the last edict against [the priests], not that thereby I wish to have their heads divided from their bodies but that I would be glad to have both their heads and their bodies separated from this whole land, and safely transported beyond the seas, where they may freely glut themselves on their imagined Gods.

  James explained that he was not interested in “the distinctio
n in their ranks, I mean betwixt the Jesuits and the secular priests.” Both were subject to the Pope, he pointed out, arguing that if the secular priests appeared harmless, it actually made them more dangerous.80

  On 20 January 1603 the Spanish Council finally submitted their recommendations on the succession issue to Philip III. They suggested that an English candidate should be chosen because it would satisfy the “universal desire of all men to have a King of their own nation . . . whilst the King of France will have reason to be satisfied, and to refrain from helping the King of Scotland, as it cannot suit him for Scotland and England to be reunited.” The Marquis de Poza added that if the English could not agree on a Catholic candidate “it would be better to have any heretic there rather than the King of Scotland.” The Count de Olivares agreed:

  The worst solution of the question for us may be regarded as the succession of the King of Scotland. He is not only personally to be distrusted, but the union of two kingdoms, and above all the increment of England . . . with the naval forces she possesses, would be a standing danger to your Majesty in a vital point, namely the navigation to both Indies. To this must be added the hatred which has always existed between the crowns of Spain and Scotland and the old friendship of the latter with France.

  The Council noted that there was a faction within the curia that believed James might be converted. It recommended that English Catholics might be informed that the truth was otherwise. They pointed out that James was notoriously dishonest and Henri IV’s ambassador was complaining that it was being made difficult for him to hear mass in Edinburgh. Furthermore, “there is a strong belief that he consented to the killing of his mother, and at least he manifested no sorrow or resentment at it.” 81 They advised that their new candidate should support religious toleration for Protestants and observed that Catholics and Protestants shared “a common ground of agreement . . . their hatred of the Scottish domination,” and concluded that “the greatest aid to success will be . . . the liberal promises made to Catholics and heretics, almost without distinction, particularly to other claimants and their principal supporters, who should be given estates, incomes, offices, grants, privileges, and exemptions, almost, indeed, sharing the crown amongst them”—as James was already doing.

  The Council then emphasized to Philip that the means of approaching France had to be decided immediately, “in case the Queen dies before we are fully prepared. If this should happen we should not only be confronted with the evils already set forth, but the Catholics, who have placed their trust in your Majesty, will be handed over to the hangman and religion will receive its death blow.”82 Orders were made “that the building and fitting out of high ships should be continued with high speed, and also that the [military] efforts already recommended to be made in Flanders should proceed.”

  News of a buildup of Spanish forces had already reached England. On 17 January an English courtier wrote to a friend that a former prisoner in Spain had described military preparations and that the Queen’s ships had captured several vessels heading to Spain laden “with arms and munitions.” 83

  There was also shocking news about Arbella Stuart emerging at court. That Christmas she had at last attempted to escape from her grandmother’s house, Hardwick Hall in Derbyshire. It was said that she had planned a marriage with Edward Seymour, the senior grandson of the Earl of Hertford and Katherine Grey. Hertford had betrayed her plan and Cecil had tried to assure James that, as far as he knew, Arbella was no Catholic, just a lonely spinster. Courtiers in England now anxiously prepared for whatever violence lay ahead. Northumberland added fifty-three warhorses to his stables. The Earl of Hertford reinforced the gateways to his house and erected defensive structures. Bess of Hardwick’s elder son, Henry Cavendish, began stocking Chatsworth with new pikes and other arms.84 Cecil, meanwhile, busily began shoring up his personal financial position. Even the prospect of a peaceful Stuart inheritance did not make his future secure. James might sack or demote him after he had served his purpose and if that occurred he would be brought down by the weight of his debts. The building of his new grandiose palace on the Strand had almost bankrupted him. Harington had heard a rumor in the summer that Cecil was being forced to sell Theobalds, the fabulous palace in Hertfordshire that his father had left him. Cecil denied it, but the Secretary of State was in a delicate position and the easiest way for him to make money was to take it from the crown.

  Cecil had never been above making money from Elizabeth in morally dubious ways: when he offered his ship the True Love for an official expedition to the Azores in 1597 he had charged the Queen twice for the victuals. He now sold her his unprofitable estates for £5,200 and acquired the valuable royal Great and Little Parks of Brigstock in Northamptonshire behind the back of Elizabeth’s cousin and Lord Chamberlain, Lord Hunsdon, the lessee. His action, he hoped, would offer some security of income, whatever lay ahead.

  As James looked on watchfully from Scotland, the final duel between Cecil and Persons for the English crown was about to begin.

  PART TWO

  That strange outlandish word “change.”

  THOMAS DEKKER, A Wonderful Year

  CHAPTER THREE

  “WESTWARD . . . DESCENDED A HIDEOUS TEMPEST” The Death of Elizabeth, February–March 1603

  On the thirty-first day of January Elizabeth finally left Whitehall for Richmond.1 Wind and rain lashed the party on their journey, the last Elizabeth would ever make. Richmond Palace with its stone towers surmounted by fourteen “cloud capped” cupolas has now gone; only the gatehouse at the entrance from the green still stands, and above it the stone plaque bearing the arms of Henry VII, the first Tudor king.

  Richmond was Henry VII’s finest palace, a place of courtyard gardens overlooked by light and spacious double-storied galleries. Even in Elizabeth’s time tourists would come to see his famous library and a genealogy on a vellum roll, twenty feet long, tracing the Kings of England back to Adam and Eve. Another hung between the windows in the great hall, culminating on the left with a picture of Henry VII himself.2 There were also fantastic reminders of his son Henry VIII. Some visitors were shown a room with blood-spattered walls where Henry VIII’s entrails were said to have been thrown three times, in accordance with instructions he had left to be carried out after his death. Another tall tale was spun about a magic mirror in which “he could see everything passing in the world.” 3 The mirror was said to have broken at Henry’s death but Elizabeth was also reputed to have wonderful mirrors that would not show her age. 4

  The supernatural pressed in on the natural world in sixteenth-century England and even the most hardheaded citizens believed in the power of magic. When Arbella Stuart was first at court her worldly grandmother Bess Shrewsbury used to demand she send her hair clippings for the casting of spells. The Earl of Northumberland, whose scientific experiments earned him the sobriquet “the Wizard Earl,” once owned a crystal ball and Elizabeth herself both owned and gave away magic jewelry, such as a ring she had made for Essex to protect him from thieves.5 We cannot be certain that Elizabeth also owned an unusual mirror but her aversion to seeing a clear reflection of herself in later years was often commented on. This may have been a consequence of public awareness of the false image she presented to the world in her costumes and makeup, as well as of her legendary vanity, but aged and ill though she was, her dramatic appearance still worked a kind of alchemy. The Duke of Stettin thought she did not look ugly when seen from a distance and although close up she was obviously very old she could still look impressive, as another foreign visitor to Richmond Palace found.

  The Venetian ambassador Giovanni Carlo Scaramelli was given an audience with Elizabeth at Richmond early in February 1603. His country had previously refused diplomatic ties with Elizabeth on the grounds that she was a heretic. English piracy was, however, delivering hammer blows to Venetian trade in the Mediterranean and they needed to make every effort to persuade the English government to bring the situation under control. This was not going
to be easy since most Privy Councilors profited from it.

  The problem had its origin in the war with Spain. Elizabeth had no professional navy, and since the 1580s private interest and public duty had worked together with the government’s issuing of “letters of reprisal” to legitimize acts of piracy against enemy shipping. It had proved very successful, with Elizabeth taking half the profits from each enterprise, Admiral Nottingham a tenth, and the sailors and investors the rest. The English fleet expanded and the publication of Richard Hakluyt’s descriptions of the exploits of English sailors allowed the wider nation to share in the romance of their escapades. Eventually, however, the financial incentive to piracy had a corrupting effect. By 1598 Englishmen had begun to prey on neutral shipping and despite several royal proclamations forbidding attacks on Venetian trade, incidents involving Venetian ships increased, with Cecil, Nottingham, Cobham, Ralegh and Elizabeth’s Treasurer, Lord Buckhurst, all involved in it.

  Scaramelli found Elizabeth seated on a chair placed on a small square platform with two steps. She had recovered from her depression at Christmas and was dressed in silver and white taffeta trimmed with gold. Musicians had just stopped playing and the room was full of ladies and gentlemen who had until that moment been dancing. At Elizabeth’s feet Scaramelli recognized the Archbishop of Canterbury, John Whitgift, Admiral Nottingham, the “omnipotent” Secretary Cecil (as he described him) and most of the rest of the Privy Council. Scaramelli had heard they lived like princes. Now their benefactress rose to greet him: