After Elizabeth Read online

  The plotters waited in vain for Catholics to pour into London to aid them. At one point Watson complained angrily that the Jesuits were foiling their recruitment plans in Lancashire and Wales. The day before the plot was due to be sprung, Sir Griffin Markham heard James had decided to move to Windsor Castle and would be spending the night at Hansworth. Since Hansworth would be easier to storm than Greenwich, Markham suggested a dawn assault. He believed that Northumberland, Mountjoy and Southampton would be there and expressed anxiety that they should not be harmed— Northumberland because he was a champion of toleration, the others because they had been close to Essex.

  On the day of the twenty-fourth, Anna was staying at Dingley Hall in Northamptonshire, the house of Sir Griffin Markham’s cousin Sir Thomas, whose family was still more stubbornly Catholic than his own. 41 Sir Thomas Griffin had sold ten properties to pay recusancy fines and although he remained in debt he persisted in refusing to attend Protestant services.53 Sir Griffin Markham, on the other hand, appears to have been what they called a “church papist,” that is, one who went to the Protestant service to avoid the fines but was Catholic in his beliefs—the kind that was the first to compromise with the state.

  Sir Griffin’s more extreme cousin was a very odd choice of host for the Queen. It is possible that James, worried that there was a plot afoot, was redoubling his efforts to divide Catholics by showing favor to individuals, or even that he already knew the details of it. But Anna’s itinerary could have been decided much earlier with the same desire to divide Catholics in mind. James’s host at Topcliffe near York, Mr. Ingleby, was one of a group of brothers considered to be among the most dangerous papists of the north.

  That night Watson’s lodgings in London were packed with Catholics. They included Sir Griffin’s brothers, but there was nowhere near 100 men, let alone the 1,000 Sir Griffin had originally hoped for—and Grey of Wilton was nowhere to be seen. The plan was aborted and the next day Sir Griffin Markham went to see Grey. He returned after dinner with the unwelcome news that Grey wanted nothing more to do with them. It was evident that he did not trust Watson.

  Grey had also told Sir Griffin that he hoped he might get a major command in the Low Countries that would provide him with an army to carry through his own plot, in which Brooke would be involved. “ ’Till then attend,” he said to Markham, “for you know all things must have their opportunity.”54 Watson fled London the next day and Copley warned Sir Griffin that he had told the Jesuits of their plans and that he too should escape as best he could. Sir Griffin went straight to Cobham and asked for a passport to flee abroad. Cobham explained that he was unable to oblige. Sir Griffin then gave him the chilling news that Copley “was in question, and that if he should confess, himself must be in danger.” 55 Cobham convinced himself he would be able to brazen it out. His plot was still largely in his head and its existence would be almost impossible to prove.

  On 28 June the authorities began looking for Copley. De Rosni, meanwhile, was preparing to return to France. The minister had spent his last few days in England finalizing the defensive treaty James had suggested. By it France and England agreed to help the Dutch reach a settlement with Spain and that in the meantime they would cooperate in providing them with military aid. Even if an Anglo-Spanish peace went ahead, James’s “neutrality” would be pro-Dutch.56 The sense of achievement from the treaty was soon tarnished, however, by a parting shot from James. De Rosni was handed a letter for the French King addressed to “Mon très cher frère le Roi” and not the more polite “Monsieur mon frère” Henri had used when writing to James. It was a deliberate insult and de Rosni was furious about this “error.” He asked that a new letter be sent after him and he left England at four in the morning on the twenty-ninth, “with a good wind and a fair passage, but in his mind much discontented.”57

  James, despite the recent attempt to kidnap him, was in a far happier frame of mind. The Bye plot was nothing compared to his terrifying experiences of kidnap in Scotland and besides, he was shortly to be reunited with Anna and his children.

  It had taken quite some time for the quarrel over Prince Henry to resolve itself and the last few weeks before Anna’s progress south had witnessed further stresses in the royal marriage. No sooner had Mar left for Scotland, after the news of the row reached James, than other letters had followed informing him that Anna had miscarried. Groups of leading Scots gentry gathered near Stirling Castle and debated whether they should fight to keep Prince Henry in Scotland, but Lord Fife, the President of the Scots Council, warned James that “physic and medicine requires greater place with her majesty, at present, than lectures on economy or politic.” James had taken this kindly advice on board and instructed the Duke of Lennox, of whom his wife was fond, “to meet Mar on the road . . . [and] beg of him to return to Stirling in his company, and pacify the queen as well as he could.”

  Lennox had taken four of Elizabeth’s jewels with him to Scotland. They included a gold and diamond crossbow (which was to become one of Anna’s favorite pieces) that was removed from the Wardrobe on 19 May—almost the same day that Fortescue was removed from his post as Master of the Great Wardrobe and replaced with Home. James had hoped that the situation around Stirling would calm once Henry was formally handed to the Queen, but although Anna accepted the jewels from Lennox she had refused to have anything to do with Mar. Anna had heard that the Mars were claiming that she wanted to raise Prince Henry as a Catholic and she wrote warning James not to believe any slanders given out by the family, adding in a postscript written in her own hand, “My hairt, for God’s sake take na care nor anger, for it will renew me pain and displeasure.”58

  Since James had given Mar orders to travel with Henry to Holyrood and the boy could not be moved from Stirling without them being revoked, a request for new instructions was sent to Greenwich. James was heard swearing loudly as he read the letter. He was, however, careful not to quarrel with Anna and wrote asking instead how she could possibly believe that anyone would dare speak to him to her prejudice:

  I thank God, I carry that love and respect to you [which] by the law of God and nature [I] ought to do to my wife and the mother of my children—not for that ye are a king’s daughter, for whether you were a king’s or a cook’s daughter ye must be alike to me being my wife. For the respect of your honourable birth, and descent I married you, but the love and respect I now bear you, is because you are my married wife and partaker of my honour, as of my other fortunes . . . God is my witness, I ever preferred you to my bairns, much more than to a subject . . . praying God, my heart, to preserve you and all the bairns, and to send me a blyth meeting with you, and a couple of them, Your awn, James R59

  Anna nevertheless persisted in her vendetta. As a court observer later noted, she was a queen “full of kindness for those who support her, but on the other hand, terrible, proud, unendurable to those she dislikes.” 60 She blamed the Erskines for causing her to miscarry and she wanted the entire family punished and for the Mars to have to apologize. They refused, arguing that they had done nothing but obey the King’s commands. James suggested to Anna that she “would do wisely to forget all her grudges to the Earl of Mar, and think of nothing but thanking God for the peaceable possession they had got of England.” But Anna retorted that “she would rather never see England, than be in any sort beholden to the Earl of Mar.” 61 Eventually Anna got her way. Lennox was ordered to deliver Prince Henry to Anna in the place of Mar, and Anna, satisfied to have at last triumphed over her enemy, left for Holyrood accompanied by her son.

  The potential rebels dispersed and when Anna and Henry arrived in Edinburgh they were greeted by a salvo of guns from the castle. A number of English ladies also waited for her. They were not those who had been chosen to attend her by the Council. The official ladies, including Cobham’s wife, the Countess of Kildare, and Carey’s sister, Lady Scrope, were in Berwick, where they had been ordered to wait with more jewels and clothes from the Great Wardrobe. The ladies in Edinburgh
were the female equivalent of the courtiers who had ridden to Scotland on Elizabeth’s death: those ambitious and bold enough to risk the wrath of the government in order to make a strong first impression on the Queen. The beautiful, dark-haired Lucy, Countess of Bedford, immediately found Anna’s approval and would remain her principal favorite for the rest of her life. The daughter of Sir John Harington of Exton, Lucy was amusing, intelligent and a renowned patron of the arts. She was also able to share Anna’s grief over her miscarriage. She had lost her own baby only months before.

  Anna admired the fashions of the English court ladies waiting for her and ordered a new wardrobe for the royal family’s progress south: a gown of figured taffeta and a mantle of white satin and purple velvet for herself; a purple doublet and breeches for Henry; a Spanish red taffeta bodice and brown skirt for the six-year-old Princess Elizabeth. Even Anna’s jester, Thomas Drury, received a new green coat.62

  Many of Anna’s old clothes were given to her Scottish ladies, as were some of her jewels and the hangings in her rooms. The extravagance of this gesture caused some sour comment in London, but the mood in Edinburgh remained sunny. A farewell service was held on Tuesday 31 May and the Queen and the Prince Henry rode by coach from Holyroodhouse to the great Kirk with the English ladies in other coaches or riding on “fair horses.” 63 Henry, slim and golden-haired, waved from his mother’s coach as the crowds cheered and the next day, 1 June, Anna said her final goodbyes—she would never return to Scotland. With her were her Scots ladies, her English friends, Prince Henry, mounted on a new horse, and a ragtag army of chancers. Anna also had with her her stillborn baby. It was being said that she had never been pregnant at all—if James required proof she would give it to him.

  The Princess Elizabeth did not travel with the party. She was so distraught at being parted from her governess, Lady Livingston, that she was left behind for a few days, and the Countess of Kildare, who was hoping to be given custody of the Princess, was disappointed when the little girl did not arrive in Berwick. This, however, was nothing to the embarrassment of the official greeting party when Anna refused to admit any of them into her Privy Chamber. James had taken his closest Scots allies south, while Anna’s friends remained in Scotland. She was determined to overcome this weakness and state her independence. The only English women Anna would accept in her chamber were Lucy Bedford and Lucy’s mother, Lady Harington, and she also refused to accept Sir George Carew as the newly appointed head of her Household, announcing that she intended to keep the Scottish Mr. Kennedy as her Chamberlain. When James heard what Anna had done he shouted that “if he do find that she do bring [Kennedy] hither to attend her in that place, that he would break the staff of Chamberlainship on his head, and so dismiss him.”64

  Mr. Kennedy sensibly decided to head back to Scotland while the Duke of Lennox attempted to sort out the problems with the Ladies of Honor. It was, however, clear that Anna intended to keep her own niche in public affairs and Cecil was fearful about what exactly this might mean for him. It was possible that Anna bore a grudge for his former support for the Mar faction or for his having asked James to keep their correspondence secret from her, and her new friend Lady Bedford was from the old Essex faction, who detested him. He had taken the opportunity of the row over Prince Henry to write a groveling letter to Anna assuring her that had he been consulted by the King on her quarrel with Mar, he would have supported her cause. But he need not have worried. Anna was thankful to him for helping to make her Queen of England. “You shall find her, I know, a most gracious prince,” Lord Burghley assured Cecil from York; “this I must write in clouds. She will prove, if I be not deceived, a magnificent prince, a kind wife and a constant mistress.”

  Anna gave Cecil further confidence in her affections when she arrived at Worksop Manor on 20 June and “took Cecil’s little son in her blessed arms and kissed him twice and bestowed a jewel on him, tying it herself to his ear.” The boy, who had enjoyed playing pirates with Ralegh, must have been aghast by Anna’s kisses, but he bore up nobly and did everything his father could have required of him. When Anna asked Prince Henry to dance and then commanded the other children to join him, none would, save young Cecil, who “stepped forth in comely and lowly manner, and took out the young sweet Princess, and danced his galliard.” Unlike Henry, young Cecil did not know the steps, but we are told “the excellence of his spirit and grace helped what he wanted in the exercise of dancing.” 65 After Worksop Anna traveled to Woollaton, then to Ashby de la Zouch and on to Leicester, a city regarded even then as having “more antiquity than beauty.”66

  Anna spent the night at Sir William Skipwith’s house, but the honor proved a mixed blessing for her host. Several items lent for the use of the royal party went missing, including linen and pewter. Someone even stole a poor man’s horse.67 There had been a series of “disorders in the Queen’s court” on the journey, as greed and a party mood had taken hold, and large numbers had already been sent home—apparently without effect. Anna herself was as absorbed in pleasure as James had been during his journey south. The next day she was at Dingley Hall with the recusant Catholic Sir Thomas Griffin and her quarrels with James seemed forgotten. When he wrote chiding her that she had not written to him, she scribbled back merrily, My heart, I am glad that Haddington has told me of your Majesty’s good health, which I wish to continue. As for the charge you lay me with of lazy writing, I think it rather rests on yourself, because you be as slow in writing as myself. I can write of no mirth but of practise of tilting, of riding, of drumming and of music, which is all, where with I am not a little pleased. So wishing your Majesty perpetual happiness, I kiss your Majesty’s hand and rest, Your Anna, R68

  More and more court ladies joined the party at Dingley, among them the young Lady Anne Clifford, daughter and heiress of the Earl of Cumberland. Her mother and their party had killed three horses on one day as they galloped north from Kent to be with the Queen. They had spent their first night on the road sleeping in the hall of the Earl of Kent’s seat, Wrest Park, where the remainder of the house was shut up. The following evening they were at Rockingham Castle where they met up with Lucy Bedford. Anne Clifford recalled that she was already “so great a woman with the Queen as everyone much respected her,” but when they arrived at Dingley, Anna generously “kissed us all and used us kindly.”69 On Saturday 25 June the royal train departed for the seat of Sir Roger Spencer, Althorp—then a moated house and the beneficiary of one of the last crenellation licenses, granted by the crown in 1512. Spencer was reputed to be the richest man in England and it was here that Anna would be introduced to one of the more expensive passions of her life: the masque.

  Anna arrived at Althorp in the evening, having rested at Holdenby House on the way. As the royal train moved through the park she heard pipes being played, then a satyr perched in a tree announced the beginning of Ben Jonson’s masque The Satyr:

  Here! There! And everywhere!

  Some solemnities are near,

  That these changes strike mine ear.

  My pipe and I a part shall bear.

  When the satyr finished he leaped down and gazed at the Queen and Prince Henry: “Sure they are of heavenly race,” he announced, and then ran off into the woods.70 More music heralded the arrival of fairies, and their queen later presented Anna with a jewel. The evening ended with Spencer’s young son releasing two deer that were hunted and killed in front of the Queen. It was an unforgettable spectacle and Anna was captivated. Under her patronage the masque would become the outstanding feature of the artistic life of the Jacobean court and this courtly display would serve a useful purpose in reminding the world of the wealth and power of her court.

  Ben Jonson put on a further entertainment for the royal party after the midday dinner on Monday, before Anna was due to meet James at nearby Easton Neston. The work, a comedy, began with the appearance of a group of clowns, their leader dressed “in a pair of breeches which were made to come up to his neck, with his arms out at his po
ckets, and a cap drowning his face.” But the crowds of country people had by now grown so large and noisy that each time he attempted to give his opening speech he was drowned out and the farewell speech, which was to be presented by a gentleman’s young son, had to be abandoned altogether.71

  When Anna and her train arrived that afternoon at Easton Neston—the Northamptonshire seat of Sir George Fermor—James was unusually unbothered by the vast numbers in her retinue. It was obvious that his wife was at last rejoicing in their good fortune and he greeted her in high spirits, asking Southampton “if he did not think his Annie looked passing well.” He then picked up his daughter Elizabeth, adding “my little Bessy too is not an ill favoured wench and may outshine her mother one of these days.” 72

  The royal family traveled together the following day to the seat of the Earl of Cumberland at Grafton. Anne Clifford’s mother was estranged from her husband and was forbidden from staying overnight, even on this special occasion. The nobility and higher gentry had many couples trapped in unhappy marriages, cursing “their parents even unto the pit of hell for coupling them together.”73 Arbella Stuart’s uncle and aunt Henry and Grace Cavendish were one such couple and the Puritan “Memorial” had complained how the nobility frequently took up with women other than their wives. 42 But although Cumberland lived openly with his mistress neither James nor Anna seems to have been troubled by the Earl’s living arrangements. Indeed, Cumberland’s daughter noticed that the Queen showed no favor to the respectable elderly ladies (such as Lady Scrope) who had surrounded Elizabeth but plenty to beautiful women like Essex’s sister Lady Rich, who lived openly with Lord Mountjoy and had several illegitimate children by him. 43