After Elizabeth Read online

  This apparent harmony was shattered, however, by the less than generous attitude of the English courtiers to James’s Scots friends. Even Cumberland was unable to disguise his contempt for James’s rough-and-ready entourage. Having gone to great lengths to entertain the royal family with banquets, speeches “and delicate presents,” he spoiled it all by taking on one of James’s Scots favorites, Henry Alexander, in a joust and almost killing him. The ill will continued once the court had made its way back to Windsor. There were only a limited number of rooms for the nobility in the castle and the English and Scots squabbled bitterly over the division of lodgings. But the court was universally fascinated and delighted by their attractive new queen, despite her Scots accent.

  Anna was England’s first queen consort since Catherine Parr and the first to have been a royal princess since Catherine of Aragon. “She gives great contentment to the world in her fashion and courteous behaviour to the people,” the diplomat Sir Dudley Carleton wrote to a friend—his only complaint being that she was yet to admit anyone English other than Lucy Bedford to her Privy Chamber. Prince Henry was the object of still more curiosity. The parting speech Ben Jonson had written for a young gentleman to deliver at Althorp had depicted him as the rising sun for a new generation and, with notable foresight, a martial alternative to his peace-loving father:

  O shoot up fast in spirit, as in years;

  That when upon her head proud Europe wears

  Her statliest tire, you may appear thereon

  The richest gem, without a paragon

  Shine bright and fixed and the artic star:

  And when slow time hath made you fit for war,

  Look over the strict ocean, and think where

  You may but lead us forth.75

  Henry was invested with the Order of the Garter at Windsor Castle on 2 July, alongside the Earls of Southampton and Pembroke, the Duke of Lennox, the Earl of Mar, and the King of Denmark (in absentia). It was the first time in nearly half a century that a Chapter of the Garter was to be held, and when the ceremony took place in St. George’s Chapel all eyes were on Henry. The Duke of Stettin had seen the banners and coats of arms of the few Garters still living, as well as the silver shields that replaced them when the Garters died. He had also seen the tomb of Prince Henry’s namesake, Henry VIII, which he described as being “of good Lydian stone, the emblemata of brass and bell-metal, a work so large that it would take not less than forty carts to remove it.”76 He had heard that it was to stand in the center of the choir, but it was not quite finished—and it never would be: Henry VIII is buried in the choir, but in a vault under a plain black ledger stone.

  The Princess Elizabeth stood with Lady Anne Clifford in what she called “the shrine”—probably Edward IV’s Chantry Chapel—and from there they watched Prince Henry being represented to his mother in his Garter robes. Prince Henry’s performance during the rituals was judged as being flawless. The formidable Henry Howard and Admiral Nottingham admired his “quick, witty answers, princely carriage, and reverend performing his obeyance at the altar, all of which seemed very strange unto them and the rest of the beholders, considering his tender age .”77

  The day should have ended well, but that evening Anna showed a side to her character that the English had not seen so far. As de Rosni had remarked upon in his memoirs, Anna enjoyed intrigue and faction. In choosing the company of Lady Bedford, whose husband had taken part in the Essex revolt, and Essex’s sister, Lady Rich, she had chosen friends of a very particular kind and she could not resist pouring salt in old wounds by now asking Southampton “why so many great men did so little” to support Essex’s revolt. Southampton explained to Anna that once Elizabeth had been “made a party against them” and issued a royal proclamation accusing them of treason they “were forced to yield.” But he assured her that “if that course had not been taken, there was none of their private enemies . . . that durst have opposed themselves.”78 Southampton’s enemy, Grey of Wilton, who was listening in to their conversation, begged to differ: Grey had led the “little army” Elizabeth had sent to the City to suppress the revolt and he objected that his troops could easily have crushed Southampton and the other rebels whatever had happened. The two men drew their swords. Anna angrily ordered them to “remember where they were” and at that the guard escorted them to their chambers, from where the Council had them taken to the Tower. To Anna’s irritation James released them almost immediately—but Grey’s freedom was to last only a matter of days. The talkative poet Anthony Copley was under arrest and he intended to save his skin by naming as many of the Bye conspirators as he could.

  PART THREE

  Times go by turns, and chances change by course,

  From foul to fair, from better hap to worse.

  —ROBERT SOUTHWELL, Poet and Jesuit

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  “AN ANOINTED KING” James and Anna Are Crowned, July–August 1603

  The secrets of the Bye plot unraveled quickly after Anthony Copley’s arrest. The gentleman poet made a series of confessions, culminating on 14 July in a document outlining most of the plot’s details. He named the priests William Watson and William Clark, Sir Griffin Markham, George Brooke and Grey of Wilton as planning an attempted kidnap of the King. The priests, used to hiding from the authorities, evaded capture until well into August, but the others were rounded up within the month.

  Grey was arrested first, on 12 July. Four days later a frightened George Brooke wrote to the Bishop of London from hiding, insisting “that he and the Lord Grey do rather deserve thanks and favour for diverting and breaking the plot, than to be imprisoned.”1 On the same day Sir John Byron led a group of pursuivants to Sir Griffin Markham’s house at Beskwood and Sir Griffin fled into the forest. Byron warned the Council that it would be impossible to arrest him there even if Byron had 1,000 men to back him. It was here that Robin Hood was said to have evaded the Sheriff of Nottingham. Sir Griffin, however, gave himself up on 23 July. Brooke had already done so on the day after his letter was sent. He hoped the authorities would believe that his actions could all be explained by his offer to the King in Berwick that he become a government spy.

  Brooke buckled quickly as he did his best to prove what an effective spy he had been. Within hours of his arrival at the Tower he was volunteering that his brother, Lord Cobham, had known of the Bye plot and had a more dangerous plot of his own, the Main plot, whose aim was not merely to kidnap the King but to overthrow him in favor of Arbella Stuart. He claimed that Cobham had written to Arbella and received answers. Cobham was already being questioned. His requests to travel abroad, his blood connection to Brooke and his obvious dissatisfaction with the new regime had made him a suspect even before Brooke had opened his mouth. He was not yet in the Tower, however, and he admitted to nothing save that he had corresponded with Arbella and had then burned the letters. This he explained by informing his interrogators that his kinswoman Frances Kirton, who was in Arbella’s service, “had solicited him divers times about the Lady Arbella” and that he had only responded to requests for contact—intriguingly, Kirton is the name of the Earl of Hertford’s lawyer, whom Arbella had been keen to approach at Christmas about a marriage to Edward Seymour. It appears Cobham was trying to embarrass Cecil with a reminder of his past interest in Arbella as Elizabeth’s potential heir. As Arbella had already discovered, however, Cecil was not easily intimidated on this matter.

  Ralegh’s association with Cobham made it likely that he too would be interviewed and on the morning of 18 July, when he was walking on the terrace at Windsor waiting to join the King for the day’s hunting, Cecil approached him. He informed Ralegh, “as from the King,” that he was to meet with the Lords in the Council Chamber and warned that they “have some questions to ask you.”2 Ralegh coolly assured the Councilors he knew nothing of any plot, but after the meeting he began to wonder how much was already known. Copley was, at this very moment, telling his inquisitors that there was a plan “for the betraying a part of
the navy into Sir Walter Ralegh’s hands.”3 Ralegh only guessed, however, that Brooke was betraying Cobham. It seemed to him that he could still escape a treason trial if he distanced himself from his old friend and, to this end, he wrote a note to the Council suggesting that they interview Aremberg’s agent, Matthew la Renzi.

  On 19 May la Renzi was interviewed. He admitted that he had carried several letters from Cobham to Aremberg and had returned answers. When Cobham was confronted with this evidence he claimed the letters were about nothing more than “dogs and ambling mares and such like things.” 4 Brooke, however, was now accusing his brother of soliciting up to 600,000 crowns from France and Spain to help him overthrow James and replace him with Arbella. He also claimed that Cobham had asked him to tell Arbella to contact Philip III and the Archdukes offering peace and toleration of religion if they supported her title. He said Sir Griffin Markham and Grey of Wilton had known of the plot and that Grey was planning a further plot of his own in which he would use his command in the Low Countries to provide him with an army. That night Cobham was placed in the Tower. Come the morning, the shaken man was shown Ralegh’s letter. He read it twice, unbelieving the first time. On the second, he cried out, “O wretch, O traitor!” three or four times, and then in fury and despair he told them, “I will tell you all truly.”5

  Cobham’s revenge on Ralegh was fulsome. He claimed that the plot to put Arbella on the throne was all Ralegh’s idea, “that he had never entered this course but at his instigation, and that he would never let him alone.” Cobham outlined that the plan was for him to “travel to the Archduke, from thence to Spain for the money, for that Archduke was but poor, and from thence to return to Jersey to Sir Walter Ralegh.” 6 They were to discuss how best to distribute the money as and when public discontent presented opportunities for revolt. Cobham’s servant, Matthew Questor, added further details implicating Ralegh. Cobham had sent Questor to see Aremberg after the envoy’s arrival, hoping to arrange a secret meeting. When Questor returned with the news that Aremberg had insisted that any meeting be cleared with Cecil, Cobham was with Ralegh, but he had made no effort to keep Questor’s information secret or to hide his disappointment.

  It was now Ralegh’s turn to be taken to the Tower. Sir John Peyton, the Lieutenant of the Tower, had seen many brave men collapse in the face of ruin and death. Even the Earl of Essex had lost his nerve after a visit from his chaplain, confessing his crimes and casting blame on his friends and family, before recovering his courage for the scaffold. But Peyton was still shocked by the effect the Tower had on Ralegh. “I never saw so strange a dejected mind as in Sir Walter Ralegh. I am extremely cumbered with him,” he complained to Cecil: “five or six times in a day he sends for me in such passions as I see his fortitude is [not] competent to support his grief.”7 It was not only the fear of death that had reduced Ralegh to this state, it was the shame of impending disgrace. He wrote to his wife, Bess, in despair:

  All my services, hazards and expenses for my country: plantings, discoveries, fights, counsels and whatsoever else, malice hath now covered over . . . Woe, woe, woe be unto him by whose falsehood we are lost . . . Oh what will my poor servants think at their return when they hear I am accused to be Spanish . . . Oh intolerable infamy. Oh God I cannot resist these thoughts. I cannot live to think how I am derided, to think of the expectation of my enemies, the scorns I shall receive, the cruel words of lawyers, the infamous taunts and despites, to be made a wonder and a spectacle.

  Ralegh then swore to his wife that he was innocent of treason—“Be bold of my innocence, for God to whom I offer life and soul knows it.” 8 Many since have believed him, but Ralegh was a fluent liar. Ralegh had every reason to want to see the back of James and from his perspective Arbella would have been an excellent replacement. Her aunt, Mary Shrewsbury, was a family friend. 44 She was acceptable to the Catholic powers and Ralegh, being open-minded on religious matters, was not averse to toleration of religion. Furthermore, contrary to the belief of some of his posthumous admirers, there was no pressing reason for him not to take money from Spain. Even the fervently Protestant servant of Lord Hundson, racked in April “on his assertion as to the King’s favouring Catholics,” intended to go to Spain for help. It was the only possible source of the funds necessary to support a rebellion.9

  The government’s case against Ralegh was presented in a prosecution document that focused on Cobham’s furious reaction to Ralegh’s letter. If Ralegh had not known what he was plotting, why would he have been so concerned about it? And if Ralegh did know about the plot, why did he do nothing? The Earl of Southampton later expressed his belief that Ralegh had intended to betray the plot when Cobham reached Jersey, “and to have delivered them up to the King and made his peace.”10 Cobham himself confessed that he had feared that this was Ralegh’s intention all along, but even if this was the case, by keeping such information to himself he was, at best, putting James’s life at risk; the more likely truth was that he was trying to keep his options open. The evidence against Ralegh was, however, largely circumstantial. Cobham and Brooke, by contrast, had made fulsome confessions—and now had to face the fact that they were likely to be executed for treason.

  James was to issue pardons to celebrate the coronation on 25 July and Cobham and Brooke looked to their former brother-in-law, Robert Cecil, to ask for the King’s mercy. Cecil had loved their sister, Elizabeth Brooke, and never remarried after her death in 1598. They hoped that he might take pity on them for her sake. Cobham swore to him that although he had had treasonous thoughts he had not done anything treasonous: “For God is my witness, when I saw [Arbella] I resolved never to hazard my estate for her . . . God make you apprehensive of the affliction I am in . . . and dispose your heart to yield me comfort.” Brooke also pleaded, “I perceive that I have fallen quick into hell . . . yet do I . . . entreat that you will not be weary to move the king for grace, and that he will not exempt us out of this great and universal jubilee.”11

  But as no news of mercy came Ralegh appears to have decided on suicide as his way out. “I know it is forbidden to destroy ourselves,” he wrote to his wife, “but I trust it is forbidden in this sort, that we destroy not ourselves despairing of God’s mercy. The mercy of God is immeasurable, the cognitions of men comprehend it not . . . Far is it for me to be tempted with Satan; I am only tempted with sorrow, whose sharp teeth devour my heart.” 12 He asked her to forgive Henry Howard, “my heavy enemy,” but could not forgive his old ally, Cecil: “I thought he would never forsake me in extremity: I would not have done it him, God knows.” He warned his wife that she must pretend not to feel Cecil’s betrayal. As Master of the Wards, he would be the guardian of their child. Ralegh listed his debts and urged her to marry again “to avoid poverty,” though adding that he could not bear the thought that she might love her second husband: “let him be but thy politic husband, but let thy son be thy beloved for he is part of me and I live in him.”13

  Shortly after this letter was written, on 27 July, Ralegh took out a dagger and stabbed himself in the chest in front of Sir John Peyton, with whom he was having dinner. It was not, however, a fatal blow. Something held Ralegh back and despite his long experience with weapons he struck a rib. Cecil, who was in the Tower interviewing other prisoners, found Ralegh bleeding heavily but he judged the wound “in truth rather a cut than a stab.” Perhaps Ralegh was unbalanced and had made a genuine gesture toward killing himself. If he died before his trial, it would have protected his estates from confiscation—although he would have hoped they were protected anyway since he had put them in his son’s name the previous autumn. Perhaps it was all a ploy. Ralegh’s letter to his wife would be circulated as evidence of his innocence and the wickedness of his enemies. His secretary, Edward Hancock, is also believed to have killed himself on the same day, which suggests the timing was planned—and there was now one less witness against him.

  An unofficial truce was declared between James and the Catholic gentry early in July. Sir Th
omas Tresham, whose son Francis had signed Watson’s oath, had led a deputation to Hampton Court and presented the King with a proclamation of allegiance signed by a large number of leading members of the Catholic laity. 45 James, in return, announced the remission of recusancy fines. If Catholics would also obey the law, he told the deputation, the highest places in the state should be open to them.

  The Jesuits were also pondering compromise. Their Principal, Robert Persons, had written a letter on 6 July, which they received later in the month, extinguishing any hopes of a Spanish invasion or of papal support for a Catholic rising. Addressed to the spy Anthony Rivers, the letter opened with a survey of the numerous attempts to reintroduce Catholicism since the accession of Elizabeth. These disasters had culminated in the abject failure of Catholics to make “some show of union amongst themselves and of their forces at the Queen’s death.” If Catholics had done something to show their strength, it would have earned them the respect of the Catholic powers, but instead, Persons scoffed, they had allowed themselves to be fooled into thinking James would become a Catholic or offer toleration. Courtiers “ran after him” and “such applause was here at the new King’s entrance, as if he had been the greatest Catholic in the world.”