Life of Elizabeth I (62 page)

In fact, though, his power was waning. Elizabeth frequently ignored his advice, especially where the Netherlands were concerned. Leicester believed that England would not be safe until the Spaniards were expelled from the United Provinces, and he still favoured military intervention to accomplish this.

Leicester was now fifty, a corpulent, balding man with the ruddy colour that betokens high blood pressure. He was not well, and suffered intermittent stomach pains that may have been caused by advancing cancer; in vain did he eat a careful diet, and take the healing waters at Buxton. His poor health made him short-tempered and rather paranoid, perceiving criticism where there was none, and taking every man to be his enemy. His friends deplored the change in him, and one, John Aylmer, wrote, 'I have ever observed in you such a mild, courteous and amiable nature. I appeal from this Lord of Leicester unto mine old Lord of Leicester, who hath carried away the praise of all men.'

Leicester still occupied a special place in the Queen's heart, but he found it hard to compete with her younger favourites, Raleigh or even young Charles Blount, the twenty-year-old brother of Lord Mountjoy, who had recently visited Whitehall to see the Queen at dinner. Espying the attractive stranger, she had asked his name, at which he blushed. She beckoned him over and said, 'Fail you not to come to the court, and I will bethink myself how to do you good.' When Blount finished his training as a lawyer, he took her at her word, and was gratified to be admitted to her charmed circle of handsome male favourites.

In September, 1583, Elizabeth celebrated her fiftieth birthday; she had now reigned for nearly twenty-five years.

In October 1583, an insane young Catholic, John Somerville of Warwickshire, swayed by Jesuit propaganda, was arrested for bragging that he intended to march on London and shoot the Queen with a pistol and 'hoped to see her head on a pole, for she was a serpent and a viper'. He was thrown into Newgate prison and condemned to death, but hanged himself in his cell before the sentence could be carried out.

The publicity given to this event provoked an upsurge of national affection towards Elizabeth, and in November, the French ambassador reported that, when she travelled to Hampton Court, huge crowds of people knelt by the wayside, wishing her 'a thousand blessings and that the evil-disposed who meant to harm her be discovered and punished as they deserved'. The Queen made frequent stops to thank them for their loyalty, and told the ambassador 'she saw clearly that she was not disliked by all'.

Chapter 20

'Practices at Home and Abroad'

In November 1583, Francis Throckmorton was arrested at his London house, a search of which revealed 'infamous pamphlets' and lists of papist lords and harbours where foreign ships could land in safety. More sinisterly, it became apparent that Mendoza was heavily involved in the plot, which surprised Walsingham, whose suspicions had centred upon the French ambassador, who, if he had been aware of what was going on, had managed to avoid being implicated.

Under torture in the Tower, Throckmorton gave nothing away, but after the Queen had authorised him to be racked a second time, his courage failed him: 'Now I have disclosed the secrets of her who was the dearest thing to me in the world,' he lamented. He revealed that the conspiracy's aim had been to prepare for King Philip's Enterprise of England, the object of which was to set Mary on the English throne. The Pope, the Guises and the Jesuits were involved, and there were to be four separate invasions, centred upon Scotland, Ireland, Sussex and Norfolk, co-ordinated by Catholic activists at home and abroad. Plans were so far advanced that all that remained to be done was stir up rebellion in England. Both Mary and Mendoza had been fully involved at every stage, but Walsingham had already guessed at Mary's complicity, for she had given herself away in several letters that had come under his scrutiny.

'All this shows that her intention was to lull us into security,' Elizabeth concluded, 'that we might the less seek to discover practices at home and abroad.'

The government were in no doubt that this was a very dangerous plot indeed, and set about hunting down the Catholic lords on Throckmorton's list. Some were committed to the Tower, but several had already fled abroad. The Queen was pressed to bring Mary to justice, for there was enough evidence to convict her, but she refused 
out of hand. She agreed, however, that Throckmorton be executed at Tyburn and that Mendoza be expelled in disgrace. His parting shot was that his master would avenge this insult with war. For the rest of Elizabeth's reign, Spain would never send another ambassador to England.

Both Parliament and the Council were in militant mood, fiercely protective of their queen, and urging that a 'final' policy towards Mary Stuart be settled. However, Elizabeth again baulked at this, and this time was backed by Leicester, who wanted Mary kept in honourable and comfortable captivity, a strategy dictated by self-interest, for if Mary ever ascended the throne of England, she would remember to whom she owed her life. Yet his was a lone voice, for most of his colleagues wanted Mary's head.

On 10 June 1584, the Duke of Anjou died of a fever at Chateau-Thierry in France. His death meant that there was now no direct Valois heir to the French throne, Henry III having no sons, and that the succession would pass to a cousin, Henry of Bourbon, the Huguenot King of Navarre.

Elizabeth was greatly grieved when she heard of Anjou's death, and wept in public every day for three weeks, leaving observers in no doubt that she had felt a genuine affection for her 'Frog'. The court was put into mourning, the Queen herself wearing black for six months. 'Melancholy doth possess us', wrote Walsingham to a friend, 'as both public and private causes are at stay for a season.'

To Catherine de' Medici, Elizabeth wrote:

Your sorrow cannot exceed mine, although you are his mother. You have several other children, but for myself I find no consolation, if it be not death, in which I hope we shall be reunited. Madame, if you could see the image of my heart, you would see there the picture of a body without a soul, but I will not trouble you with sorrows, for you have too many of your own.

Not everybody was convinced of her sincerity. When Elizabeth told the French ambassador, 'I am a widow woman who has lost her husband,' he commented that she was 'a princess who knows how to transform herself as suits her best'.

Worse tidings were to come. Protestant communities in Europe were shocked shortly afterwards at the news that William of Orange had been assassinated on 10 July at Delft. It was obvious that Philip of Spain had been behind the killing, and this boded ill for Elizabeth, whose subjects were terrified that she might be next. Nothing stood now between her 
and Parma's great army in the Netherlands: the degenerate Henry III was too preoccupied in keeping the factions at his court from each other's throats, and Anjou was dead. Parma was advancing steadily, taking city after city, and Elizabeth believed that, once the Netherlands were subdued, as they would be if no leader could be found to replace William of Orange, Philip would set his sights on England. Something must therefore be done urgently to curb the activities of the Queen of Scots.

Mary Stuart was now forty-two, and sixteen years of captivity had had their effect on her former beauty and her health. Her hair was grey, she had put on weight, and she was plagued by rheumatism and a chronic pain in her side. Although she had been allowed to go several times to Buxton to bathe in the waters, this had not improved her symptoms.

In 1584, Mary's principal residence was Sheffield Castle, where she still lived under the guardianship of the Earl of Shrewsbury. From time to time she stayed at his other houses whilst Sheffield was cleansed. The Earl scrutinised all her correspondence, and whenever she went out to take the air, as she was permitted to do, he and a troop of guards accompanied her. In fact, there were guards everywhere, both inside and outside the castle, while at night, a watch was set in the surrounding town and villages. Every traveller was questioned as to his business in the district, and no one was allowed to enter the castle or communicate with Mary without written authorisation from the Council. She might only receive visitors under supervision.

Mary bitterly resented these restrictions, but she was nevertheless treated with the honour and deference due to a queen. She maintained her own household of forty-eight persons, selected her servants and paid their wages, Elizabeth defraying her food and fuel bills, which often amounted to over
jfiooo
per annum, and she dined under a canopy of estate, being served two courses of sixteen dishes each at every main meal. She was allowed to indulge her passion for hunting, but rheumatism often prevented her from doing so; instead she worked with her ladies on exquisite embroideries, or played with her numerous lapdogs and caged birds. She would never leave her prison, she told her friends, unless it was as Queen of England, and despite the risks, she continually intrigued to attain that, unheeding of the eyes that watched her every move. Over the years, it had become more and more difficult to correspond with her friends abroad, and now she had to rely on those members of her household who might be able to evade Walsingham's vigilance.

In August 1584, Walsingham decided to tighten the security net surrounding Mary; Shrewsbury had borne the burden of guarding her for many years and was inclined to be too lenient with her, and she was 
now transferred into the temporary care of Sir Ralph Sadler. The following month, after Walsingham had shown Elizabeth a letter which proved that her cousin was still plotting to depose her, Mary was removed from Sheffield to Wingfield in Staffordshire, and then, in January 1585, to the forbidding fortress of Tutbury. There would be fewer hunting jaunts there, and it would be far more difficult for her to smuggle out letters. However, she would still be able to retain her household, and although she protested at the move and complained that the castle was damp and cold, the accounts show that she was plentifully provided with food and fuel. Nor, it was pointed out to her, had she been 'so well entertained when she lived at her own will in her own country', where standards of living were far lower than in England.

But all this was not enough to ensure Elizabeth's safety, and by the autumn of 1584, public concern prompted the emergence of a movement among the English gentry and nobility to take more stringent precautions against threats to her throne. There was further alarm and indignation when a Jesuit, Father Creighton, was arrested by the Dutch authorities and found to be carrying a paper describing in detail plans for Philip's now notorious Enterprise of England.

Leicester, backed by several other privy councillors and probably the Queen, although she would later deny it, suggested the formation of a league of Protestant gentlemen, who would all swear an oath of association to take up arms on the Queen's behalf and destroy the Queen of Scots if she became involved, even unknowingly, in any plot against Her Majesty's life. This oath was to be called the Bond of Association, and when the idea was made public that October it so captured the public imagination that there was a huge response from thousands of gentlemen throughout the country, all clamouring to subscribe to the Bond and take the oath. They cared little whether or not they offended their Catholic neighbours, declaring that they would rather engage in a civil war than accept a papist monarch. At Burghley's instigation, the Bond of Association was shown to Mary Stuart, and it was thus made very clear to her that, if she continued her intrigues, her life would be in the gravest danger.

Mary, in the face of all the evidence to the contrary, protested that she knew nothing of any conspiracies against Elizabeth, and even added her signature to the Bond of Association; only two days later, however, she was writing to Philip of Spain urging him to press ahead with the Enterprise, even at the risk of peril to herself.

Elizabeth herself had an alarmingly careless attitude towards her own safety, and her male advisers could only deplore her feminine aversion to shedding blood in her own interests. Although she was immeasurably heartened by these new demonstrations of loyalty and affection, she was 
reluctant to sanction what amounted to lynch law, and declared she would not have anyone put to death 'for the fault of another' nor permit any legislation that would offend the consciences of her good subjects. Parliament took the same view, and insisted upon modifying the terms of the Bond of Association before enshrining it in law. Henceforth, any 'wicked person' suspected of plotting treason was to be put on trial before being 'pursued to death'.

In order to avoid the likelihood of having to bring Mary to trial under this new law, Elizabeth tried again to persuade James VI to agree to share his throne with his mother, but although the Scots King was anxious to ally himself with England, he made it very plain that he did not want his mother in Scotland stirring up trouble. Elizabeth saw to it that Mary was kept in ignorance of his betrayal for months to come.

In October, Leicester was viciously attacked in a pamphlet entitled
Leycester's Commonwealth,
which was widely circulated, and repeated every scurrilous and defamatory piece of gossip about him, past and present. It also made even more serious allegations that he was a serial murderer, extortioner and criminal. It was in fact such a masterpiece of character assassination, and so brilliantly written, that many people were convinced of its veracity. The Earl had never been popular, and the only people to speak out in his defence were Sir Philip Sidney and the Queen. Elizabeth banned the pamphlet, declaring that 'only the Devil himself would believe such malicious lies, and writing to the Lord Mayor of London commending Leicester's 'good service, sincerity of religion and all other faithful dealings' and saying she took 'the abuse to be offered to her own self.