After Elizabeth Read online

  James hunted all the way from Newark to Belvoir—another fortress that, like Pontefract, Newark and Nottingham, would be pulled down after the Civil War when they had shown how dangerous a weapon of war they could still be. This was the seat of the Earl of Rutland, with whom Sir Griffin Markham had been having frequent rows over his attempts to acquire the Beskwood stewardships in perpetuity. Rutland considered the lieutenancy of the forest to be the hereditary property of the Manners family. Sir Griffin knew Rutland was a bad enemy to make at this juncture. The Earl had been a leading supporter of the Essex revolt and had only been released from the Tower in February—he was thus one of James’s “martyrs.” At Belvoir Rutland offered James lavish entertainments including a mock battle—which appeared to frighten the King—and an exhibition of Ben Jonson’s masque The Metamorphosis of Gypsies, which proved more to his liking. James, in turn, realized Sir Griffin Markham’s worst fears by rewarding Rutland with a gift of the parks on which Sir Griffin’s honor and wealth rested.29

  Harington, meanwhile, had arranged for one of his friends to greet the King at Burghley House, Lincolnshire, on 23 April, with an elegy celebrating his peaceful entry into England:

  Here James the sixth, now James the first proclaimed.

  See how all hearts are healed that erst were maimed:

  The peer is pleased, the knight, the clerk, the clown;

  The mark at which the malcontent has aimed

  Is missed; succession ’stablished in the crown. 30

  Succession was not “’stablished in the crown” until the coronation, as Harington well knew, but James was getting an ever greater sense of just how rich this new kingdom was.

  Burghley, one of the grandest and largest palaces to have been built during Elizabeth’s reign, was a statement of power and wealth. Its exterior presents an exuberant display of fantastic Gothic architecture, with obelisks, Ionic columns and arches sprouting across its roofline, while the interior, now lost, seemed “so rich, as it had been furnished at the charges of an Emperor.” Lord Burghley had complained bitterly to his brother Cecil that he would pay dearly for his office by the time he had finished entertaining the King, but the rewards of royal favor were there for all to see.

  As the Scots gawped a number of leading courtiers arrived to celebrate Easter with the King the following day. Essex’s friend, the Earl of Southampton, was said to be “well used,” that is, treated with honor, and when Henry Howard presented his nephews, Lords Thomas and William Howard, James declared that he loved the whole family.31

  But on Monday, when the feasting was over, Sir Walter Ralegh appeared. After he had been prevented from leading a party of suitors to Berwick he had been sent personal orders from James that he was to remain with Elizabeth’s body until the funeral. According to the French ambassador, the Comte de Beaumont, Ralegh was nevertheless determined to protest to James about the disinformation Cecil and Howard had been feeding him.32 His pretext for gaining an audience was the need for letters “for continuance of process and the course of justice in the Duchy of Cornwall.” This was, however, just a formality, and James snorted to Sir Thomas Lake “that this was all that he had to allege for excuse of his coming and . . . promised to write those letters, and willed . . . they might be speedily delivered that he were gone again.”33

  That afternoon, as an angry Ralegh returned to London, James went hunting on the estate of Sir John Harington’s elderly cousin, Sir John Harington of Exton. In the course of the chase he fell heavily from his horse. With “his blood yet hot” he made light of his injuries, but the next day he was unable to ride and had to travel by coach. He had broken his collarbone. It could very easily have been his neck and his heir was still only a child. The accident was a timely reminder of just how fragile the political situation was and it was a subdued train that arrived at Apethorpe, the Northamptonshire seat of Sir Anthony Mildmay, the following day.

  Sir Anthony’s father had been a judge at the trial of Mary, Queen of Scots, but no mention was made of the events at nearby Fotheringay: James was uninterested in pursuing vendettas on his mother’s account, as his stay was doubtless intended to demonstrate. 34 Mildmay’s wife, Grace, had personally prepared some of the food for the day’s feast. The appearance of food was considered at least as important as the taste in England and enormous pièces montées in pastry, jelly or sugar were very fashionable. Ben Jonson described the work of a typical “master cook” of the period:

  He paints, he carves, he builds,

  He fortifies,

  Makes citadels of curious fowl and fish.

  Some he dry-ditches, some motes round with broths,

  Mounts marrow-bones, cuts fifty

  Angled custards,

  Rears bulwark pies; and for his outer works,

  He raiseth ramparts of immortal crust.

  At Apethorpe “everything that was most delicious for taste, proved more delicate, by the art that made it seem beauteous to the eye; the Lady of the House being one of the most excellent confectioners in England.” 35 But the feast was soon interrupted by the delivery of a supplication from the poor of the royal parks of Brigstock, which Cecil had acquired from the dying Queen in January. Cecil had wasted no time in overthrowing the extensive common rights the inhabitants had enjoyed under Elizabeth’s cousin, Lord Hunsdon. The land was now being enclosed rapidly, with heavily defended sheep pastures being erected and trees chopped down and sold—depriving the poor of fuel as well as food. Such behavior was not unusual. The rise in population during the sixteenth century created valuable grain and meat markets and the more successful farmers had bought or leased land near their own, but as the population continued to grow and the numbers of farms had shrunk land hunger set in. Large numbers of landless peasants were now entirely dependent on wages, and if the new, bigger farms converted to pasture, their only protection against starvation became the animals they grazed on common land. In areas where there was most pressure on the land, however, the big farmers were grazing this common more intensely and enclosing ever larger parts of it.

  Northamptonshire was the worst affected area in England. Between 1578 and 1607, at least 27,335 acres were enclosed and 1,444 people displaced. 34 Aggrieved peasants in the country had already accosted James when he was hunting through common land near Stamford. It had begun with the extraordinary spectacle of what seemed like a hundred men, at least fourteen feet high, striding toward the hunting party. At first James had wondered what they were but as they came closer a witness observed that “they proved a company of poor honest suitors, all going upon high stilts, preferring a petition against the Lady Hatton.”35 James assured them he would consider their petition when he reached London. The supplication delivered at Apethorpe was more problematic, since it concerned Cecil’s property. James refused to reply to it and as he left Apethorpe he found himself confronted by large crowds, shouting their complaints. 36 He ignored them and almost as soon as he had passed, riots broke out, with people “resisting them that offered to carry the wood already felled, and not suffering the deer to be driven out of the park into the forest.”37

  A little further down the road James passed through another common that had suffered from enclosures. This time it was at the hands of Sir John Spencer, who, like Cecil, had a reputation as one of the most ruthless commercial farmers of the day. 36 Again James was met by protestors begging him to open the common, “for the comfort of the poor inhabitants about,” and, as at Stamford, James promised them “their hearts desire.”

  In the future James would be inclined to favor the side of the peasantry in such disputes, but Cecil knew how to get his own way. When James reached London Cecil convinced him that the disturbances in his parks had to be suppressed so that he could improve the area to allow James to hunt there. James promptly ordered local justices of the peace “to prevent injuries to the game in Brigstock park,” and Cecil continued enclosing land until 1607, when a peasant rebellion swept Northamptonshire.38 It was far more serious than a
nything seen in the 1590s, but it was a struggle the peasants were bound to lose. By the time Cecil died in 1612 he had a very profitable property at Brigstock, which he leased to a large-scale grazier at a rent of over £1,200 a year.39

  On Thursday 28 April Elizabeth’s funeral took place in London. The court official, John Clapham, found Westminster packed “with multitudes of all sorts of people in their streets, houses, windows, leads, and gutters,” straining to watch the spectacle. The mourners processed from Whitehall Palace to Westminster Abbey, in a river of black. Twelve thousand yards of dark cloth had been ordered for the occasion:

  First went two hundred and sixty poor women, four in a rank, apparelled in black, with linen kerchiefs over their heads; the inferior officers of the Household and gentlemen of meaner quality following after them. The standards of the Dragon, of the Greyhound, and the Lion, the supporters of the arms of England . . . intermingled with the train; among which also there were led . . . two great horses, the one covered with black cloth, the other with velvet; whereto the escutcheons of the Arms of England and France were fastened. Then came the gentlemen and children of the Chapel in copes and surplices, singing in a mournful tune. The ensigns of the earldom of Chester, of the Duchy of Cornwall, of the Principality of Wales, and of the Kingdom of Ireland were severally borne by some of the nobility . . . Between them were placed the Aldermen of the City of London, the Justices of the Benches, and the Gentlemen Pensioners, whose pole axes were covered in black and the heads of them carried downwards. Then followed the Mayor of the City, the Privy Councillors, the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and the chief officers of the Kingdom. 40

  The Venetian ambassador Giovanni Scaramelli had refused to attend the funeral of a heretic, but the French ambassador, de Beaumont, walked behind the chief officers dressed in a long black cloak. The heralds carrying banners bearing the royal arms followed him and then came Elizabeth’s hearse, draped in black velvet and pulled by four horses. On top of Elizabeth’s coffin was a full-size effigy of the Queen carved in wood, the face and hands painted to appear lifelike, with a crown upon its head, a ball and scepter in either hand, the body dressed in her parliamentary robes of red velvet and ermine. 41 As it passed there was “such a general sighing, groaning and weeping, as the like hath not been seen or known in the memory of man,” and the playwright Thomas Dekker declared: “Her hearse (as it was borne) seemed to be an island swimming in water.”42

  In the absence of Arbella, the role of chief mourner had fallen to the Marchioness of Northampton, who walked behind Elizabeth’s hearse, her black train carried by the Vice Chamberlain, John Stanhope, and three countesses. Admiral Nottingham and Lord Buckhurst assisted her, and Elizabeth’s Ladies and Maids of Honor followed. Sir Walter Ralegh and the Guard, walking five abreast, brought up the rear, their halberds held downward. The train disappeared inside the Abbey and as Elizabeth was interred her chief officers had their white staffs of office taken and “broken upon their heads.”43 Outside, meanwhile, Clapham listened as “the people then began to talk diversely.” His memoirs recall that many simpler people remained fixated on any strange coincidence thrown up by the Queen’s death. The latest story was that an old lion bearing Elizabeth’s name had died in the Tower after pining away during her illness. The more educated, however, discussed her life and the manner of her government.

  The pessimists noted “the long and peaceable time of [Elizabeth’s] reign, her clemency and other virtues; wishing that things might continue in no worse state than they had done.” They quoted the old proverb that “seldom cometh the better” and, indeed, questions were already being asked about some of James’s decisions. The numbers of knights James had created was causing consternation at court: there had been eighteen at Worksop and forty-nine at Belvoir alone. Most were respectable men such as the Earl of Rutland’s brothers, George and Oliver Manners—the kind of men Elizabeth should have dubbed years before (although Oliver was one of John Gerard’s converts)—but some of those newly honored were considered to be of “mean quality.”44 The courtier Philip Gawdy was certain that James regretted making so many knights “and is very angry with some Scots, for he has heard they took money for making of them.” 45 But there were other concerns.

  At York James had created two Scots Gentlemen Ushers and it was reported that at Burghley he had gone on to bestow the deaneries of Lichfield and Norwich “upon Mr Peter Young his schoolmaster, the other upon one Montgomery at the suit of the Earl of Mar.”46 The Jesuits and the Archpriest Blackwell had picked up on fears at court that other offices might also go to the Scots, and a Catholic gentleman called Anthony Dutton was on his way to Valladolid carrying descriptions of English contempt for James and his entourage. They hoped to persuade the Spanish that there would be widespread support for an invasion and Dutton’s message insisted that “Walter Ralegh . . . and many others of repute, though they are Protestants, or without concern for religion, have so much declared themselves against the Scot that they will come over to us without fail.” 47 Some radical Catholics appear to have been considering other drastic courses. A priest called Tillerton had informed the authorities that a few of his fellow Jesuits planned to murder James and his children. Coincidentally a suitable method of achieving mass murder had suggested itself only the previous day. A gunpowder mill had exploded at Redriffe on the Thames. It killed thirteen people instantly and injured many others. The accident was noted by the charismatic future gunpowder plotter Robert Catesby, but James was doing his best to ensure that such extremist elements would find no support in Spain or Rome.

  James had already intimated, while still in Scotland, that he would be willing to negotiate peace with Spain and that he wanted to remain on good terms with the Pope—hence the messages sent by Anna. Scaramelli’s absence from Elizabeth’s funeral had not gone unnoticed and that afternoon a Scot, Edward Bruce of Kinloss, paid the Venetian a visit. Kinloss expressed James’s gratitude to the Pope for not having excommunicated him and assured Scaramelli that as long as Catholics remained quiet and hidden they would neither be hunted nor persecuted. Scaramelli retorted that this hardly fulfilled the Pope’s expectations that James would grant religious toleration or even convert. Kinloss admitted that on this front everything that Anna had suggested was wrong, and “beyond a doubt this will never happen,” but he explained that James believed there was another way forward: James’s dream of a Council that would work out the ground for the reunification of the Protestant and Catholic Churches:

  If the Pope wished to summon a General Council, which, according to ancient usage, should be superior to all Churches, all doctrine, all Princes, secular and ecclesiastic, none excepted, my master would be extremely willing to take the lead and to prove himself the warm supporter of so great a benefit to Christendom . . . abuses would be removed on all hands, and a sound decision would put an end, perhaps for ever, to the discords in the Christian faith, nor would his Majesty think he could act more nobly than to be the first to o fer complete obedience to the Council’s decrees.48

  Scaramelli was unimpressed. James’s plans struck him as nothing more than vanity. But being a diplomat, he bit his tongue.

  While the pessimists in the crowds outside the Abbey had claimed that “seldom cometh better,” others had retorted that “they could not lightly be in worse state than they were.” There was still a great deal of hope and belief in James. Many in the funeral crowd recalled Elizabeth’s “continual subsidies and taxes, besides other exactions of contributions extorted by corrupt officers,” with “the meaner sort commonly sustaining the greater burden”; how wrongs were winked at “for private respects”; and how the few had gained trading and other privileges at the expense of the many.49 Plenty of people, particularly among the Puritans, still believed that James was to be the instrument of much-needed change, whatever the Jesuits were telling the Spanish.

  James’s host on the day of the funeral was one such Puritan. Oliver Cromwell, uncle of the future Lord Protector, had first m
et James in 1594 when he arrived in Scotland as part of the English delegation sent for the christening of Prince Henry. His brother-in-law, Henry Bromley, had traveled with him. Bromley had been recently released from jail, having been imprisoned for being a co-signatory to Peter Wentworth’s petition that Elizabeth name an heir. He was sent back to jail in 1601 for his part in the Essex revolt and, freshly released in May, he had again traveled with Cromwell to see James, this time in Berwick. Bromley’s spells in prison had proven his loyalty to James’s cause and the King was happy to listen to the views of Bromley and his brother-in-law. The nature of the reforms they sought was outlined in an anonymous “Memorial,” addressed to James, which had probably been handed to him in Northumberland.

  The first section of the “Memorial” attacked the Cecilian administration for its corruption. Cecil himself was singled out for abusing his position as Master of the Wards, selling wardships “at the second hand, as men do horses and other cattle.”50 The second section addressed the desire for the continuation and restoration of the radical reforms in the Church made during the reign of Edward VI: the introduction of more preaching ministers, an end to profanation of the Sabbath, the ring in marriage and other relics of popery. They also advocated harsher penalties for fornication and adultery and attacked members of the nobility for living with women other than their wives. The “Memorial” alluded to a similar petition yet to be delivered, now thought to have been the Millenary Petition—so called because of the thousand signatures it claimed to bear—which it is believed was delivered at Cromwell’s family seat, Hinchingbrooke, near Huntingdon.