Life of Elizabeth I (5 page)

The whole of London, it seemed, had turned out to watch her arrival, and was entranced, especially when the Queen displayed an inclination for 'stately stooping to the meanest sort' of commoner. Sir John Hay ward wrote:

If ever any person had either the gift or the style to win the hearts of the people, it was this Queen. All her faculties were in motion, and every motion seemed a well-guided action; her eye was set upon one, her ear listened to another, her judgement ran upon a third, to a fourth she addressed her speech; her spirit seemed to be everywhere. Some she pitied, some she commended, some she thanked, at others she pleasantly and wittily jested, condemning no person, neglecting no office, and distributing her smiles, looks and graces so artfully that thereupon the people again redoubled the testimony of their joys, and afterwards, raising everything to the highest strain, filled the ears of all men with immoderate extolling of their prince.

The dignified de Feria was shocked at such condescension to her subjects, but the citizens of London would not have agreed with him: they had already embarked upon their love affair with Elizabeth, and they applauded her common touch, which she contrived to exercise 'by 
coupling mildness with majesty' without any loss of dignity. Touched by her care for them and her vibrant youth and gracious smiles, they cried out their greetings and blessings with gusto.

As she neared the Tower, Elizabeth reined her horse to a standstill, reflecting that when she had last come here it had been as a prisoner in fear of execution. Now she expressed gratitude for her deliverance before the watching crowds: 'O Lord, Almighty and Everlasting God, I give Thee most hearty thanks that Thou hast been so merciful unto me as to spare me to behold this day.' Then, to her people:

Some have fallen from being princes of this land to be prisoners in this place. I am raised from being a prisoner in this place to be a prince of this land. That dejection was a work of God's justice. This advancement is a work of His mercy.

She then rode into the Tower precincts and entered the royal apartments, summoning the Lieutenant of the Tower to attend her. He was Sir Henry Bedingfield, her former gaoler. Graciously, she thanked him for his services to the late queen and informed him that he was to be relieved of his duties. Yet there was no animosity in her.

'God forgive you the past, as I do,' she told him, then added mischievously, 'Whenever I have one who requires to be safely and straitly kept, I will send him to you!'

After lodging a week in the Tower, Queen and court went by river, 'with trumpets playing and melody and joy', to take up residence in Somerset House on the Strand, Elizabeth's town house when she was princess. During the winter evenings, she could be seen in her barge, being rowed along the Thames to the sound of music, attended by a host of little boats, and the Londoners grew used to her daily appearances in the streets of the capital, usually en route to dine with various courtiers. She knew well that, to retain her people's love, she had to remain visible.

On 23 December, she moved to Whitehall Palace, which was to be her principal, if not her favourite, residence. Here, the court gave itself up to daily entertainments and celebrations, its members being 'intent on amusing themselves and on dancing till after midnight', following the lead of their mistress, who was determined to enjoy her new-found freedom. Liberated from the fear of danger that had stalked her since early youth, she was thrilled to be not only the centre of attention and flattery, but also the supreme power in the land.

Arriving at Whitehall, Feria was put out to discover that, contrary to the usual custom, no room had been allocated to him; nor could he obtain an audience with the Queen or speak with her councillors - he 
noticed the latter trying to avoid him, 'as if I were the Devil'. Elizabeth was already making it clear that she would rule without guidance from any foreign power.

Unlike Henry VIII, who had given all his time over to pleasure during the early years of his reign and left the business of governing to others, Elizabeth worked hard every day, finalising plans for her household and attending to state business. She insisted that every letter arriving at court be brought for her inspection, much to Cecil's dismay, for he believed that a woman had no business poking her nose into matters that were properly the concern of the Council. When he found out that an ambassadorial dispatch from overseas had been taken straight to Elizabeth without first being shown to him as Secretary of State, his irritation increased, and he was further aggravated when the Queen blithely revealed that she had discussed the contents of the letter with the messenger who delivered it. Later, Cecil lectured the poor fellow, saying he had had no right to take it to Her Majesty, 'a matter of such weight being too much for a woman's knowledge'.

The young Queen had from the first established a set daily routine. She rose early and went in all but the worst weather for a brisk walk in the palace gardens. She then had breakfast served to her in her Privy Chamber, where she would remain while she attended to the day's business, summoning her secretaries, who would kneel before her to present letters and documents that needed the royal signature. She might then preside over a meeting of the Privy Council. At noon, dinner was served to her, again in her Privy Chamber, for she rarely ate in public. In the afternoon she might hold formal receptions in her Presence Chamber for foreign ambassadors and other visitors, remaining standing for hours on end and conversing in fluent Latin. Usually, she would set aside time in which to indulge her passion for dancing: it was not unusual for her to dance six spirited galliards in the Presence Chamber. This exercise invariably had a beneficial effect on her mercurial temper.

In the evenings there were state banquets or courtly entertainments to attend. Elizabeth loved music of all kinds, and welcomed many performers at her court. Sometimes she herself would play on the lute or virginals. Later in the evening, after supper, she would play cards with her courtiers, but she usually worked for an hour or so on state papers before retiring to bed, and was not above summoning Cecil and other councillors at all hours of the night if she wanted some advice. Often, she would make a decision at midnight, but change her mind in the morning. Needless to say, this kind of behaviour drove her advisers to near distraction.

On 14 December, Queen Mary was buried in Westminster Abbey, and 
the requiem mass sung for her conformed to the traditional Catholic ritual at the new Queen's command. Elizabeth had as yet said little on the crucial matter of religion, yet few people doubted which way she meant to follow. On the day of the funeral, de Feria wrote gloomily to King Philip:

The kingdom is entirely in the hands of young folks, heretics and traitors. The old people and the Catholics are dissatisfied, but dare not open their lips. Her Majesty seems to me incomparably more feared than her sister, and gives her orders and has her way as absolutely as her father did. We have lost a kingdom, body and soul.

It seemed to de Feria that his mission was hopeless. The precious English alliance seemed now to be in jeopardy, and he had still not been granted an audience. He could not imagine how he was to influence Elizabeth in her choice of husband, and was alarmed by what people were saying at court. 'Everybody thinks that she will not marry a foreigner, and they cannot make out whom she favours, so that nearly every day some new cry is raised about a husband.' Already, Elizabeth had discovered the pleasures and advantages of keeping everyone guessing, a game at which she was to become maddeningly adept. De Feria feared that neither the Queen nor her councillors would consider 'any proposal on Your Majesty's behalf. His only hope lay in trying to persuade the councillors that an English match would have many drawbacks. If he saw the Queen, he would 'begin by getting her to talk about Your Majesty, and run down the idea of her marrying an Englishman, and thus to hold herself less than her sister, who would never marry a subject'. There were no English suitors worth speaking of, and it would look bad if she married a mere nobleman when there were great princes on the Continent waiting to offer themselves and protect her from the pretensions of Mary, Queen of Scots.

But Philip had not as yet proposed, and de Feria was becoming daily more anxious that he would not. He pressed the matter as much as he dared: 'If she inclines to Your Majesty, it will be necessary for you to send me orders whether I am to carry it any further or throw cold water on it and set up the Archduke Ferdinand [of Austria], because I do not see what other person we can propose to whom she would agree. I am afraid', he added bitterly, 'that one fine day we shall find this woman married, and I shall be the last man in the place to know anything about

On Christmas Day 1558, Queen Elizabeth gave an inkling of her future 
religious policy. Normally, the Archbishop of Canterbury would have celebrated mass in her private chapel on Christmas morning, but the primacy was vacant, the last Archbishop, Cardinal Pole, having died on the same day as Queen Mary. Several of the Catholic bishops who had held office under Mary were suspicious of Elizabeth's supposed Protestant leanings, and Nicholas Heath, Archbishop of York, who should have deputised in the absence of a Primate, had made it clear that he would not crown a heretical Queen. Hence it was Owen Oglethorpe, Bishop of Carlisle, who was celebrating the Christmas mass in the Queen's chapel at Whitehall. Prior to the service, Elizabeth had sent a message commanding him to omit the elevation of the Host - for Catholics, the most sacred element of the mass, but for Protestants, the symbol of the miracle of transubstantiation that they denied. Oglethorpe, however, decided to proceed as normal, according to his convictions. When the Gospel had been read, and the Bishop started to raise the bread and wine before the congregation, the Queen loudly ordered him to desist, to the astonishment of those present. But Oglethorpe merely frowned at her and went on with what he was doing, whereupon Elizabeth, in a fury, rose and withdrew from the chapel, determined not to witness what was offensive to her.

Two days later she issued a proclamation decreeing that parts of the mass might be said in English rather than Latin, and forbidding all preaching until further notice. This injunction, she hoped, would deter the fanatics on either side of the religious divide from engaging in a verbal power struggle and inciting unrest. When Parliament met after the coronation, planned for January, the religious issue would be decided.

The twelve days of Christmas festivities that year were lavish and very merry indeed. Lord Robert Dudley was in charge of the court entertainments, which included balls, banquets and masques. One of the latter, staged on Twelfth Night, had a decidedly anti-clerical theme, as Il Schifanoya, a shocked agent of the Duke of Mantua, reported to his master:

Your lordship will have heard of the farce performed in the presence of Her Majesty on Epiphany Day, and the mummery performed after supper, of crows in the habits of cardinals, of asses habited as bishops, and of wolves representing abbots. I will consign it to silence. Nor will I record the levities and unusual licentiousness practised at the court.

As was customary, gifts were exchanged on Twelfth Night, and it was on this occasion that Elizabeth was presented with her first ever pair of 
the new - and expensive - silk stockings. She was delighted with them, and vowed never again to wear cloth stockings.

De Fena's last despondent dispatch had had the effect of prompting King Philip to action, and on 10 January 1559 he informed the ambassador: 'I have decided to place on one side all other considerations which might be urged against it, and am resolved to sacrifice my private inclination and render this service to God and offer to marry the Queen of England.' When de Feria was able to obtain a private audience with Elizabeth, he was formally to propose marriage on Philip's behalf.

But the King was no joyous wooer: 'Believe me', he confided, 'if it was not to serve God, I would not have got into this. Nothing would make me do it except the clear knowledge that it would gain the kingdom for His service and faith.' Despite such a union being of 'enormous importance to Christianity', he felt 'like a condemned man awaiting his fate'. However, as ruler of Spain, Portugal, the Low Countries and much of the New World, he saw himself, as he was in truth, as the champion of Catholicism in Europe, and felt he had no option but to do his best to save England from a downward slide into heresy. He did not want to achieve this by violence, or by papal anathema, but by diplomacy; the truth was that, with his treasury drained by years of war with France, he was in no position to enter into an armed religious conflict, and he needed England's friendship for commercial reasons. If Elizabeth consented to his proposal and undertook to remain, as she had professed to be for the past few years, a devout Catholic, and 'maintain and uphold' the Roman faith in her kingdom, then Philip was prepared to help her regain Calais.

However, as he confided to de Feria on 10 January, he felt there would be 'many great difficulties'. His royal duties would require him to be often absent from England, which had caused great distress to Queen Mary. Because of Elizabeth's suspected heretical beliefs, he could foresee Mary, Queen of Scots's claim to the throne being pressed, and his war with France becoming 'perpetual'. He could not afford to maintain an English household to the standard that he had done in the previous reign. He was only marrying Elizabeth as a service to God, and only on condition that she would abjure her Protestant beliefs, declare herself a Catholic, and obtain absolution from the Pope for her former error. By doing these things she would proclaim that it was Philip who had saved her and England from eternal damnation, and 'it will be evident and manifest that I am serving the Lord in marrying her'.