Life of Elizabeth I (73 page)

Afterwards, she proceeded to Petworth, Chichester, Titchfield, 
Portsmouth and Southampton, before returning via Basing and Odiham to Elvetham, Hampshire, where the Earl of Hertford had excelled himself in an attempt to regain the royal favour that he had lost after his marriage to Lady Katherine Grey thirty years earlier. Three hundred workmen had enlarged and adorned the house and erected temporary buildings in the park to accommodate the court. A crescent-shaped lake had been specially dug on the lawn, with three ship-shaped islands with trees for masts, a fort and a Snail Mount, from which guns fired a salute at the Queen's arrival. It was beside this lake, seated under a green satin canopy, that Elizabeth watched a water pageant, whilst musicians in boats played for her. She stayed four days, during which time there were banquets, dances, games of volleyball (which the Queen 'graciously deigned' to watch for ninety minutes), fireworks, songs and allegorical entertainments. When she left, it was raining heavily, and one poet asked, 'How can summer stay when the sun departs?' The Queen told Hertford, from her coach, that she would never forget her visit. As she rode out of the park, she saw some musicians playing for her and, ignoring the rain, 'she stayed her coach', removed the mask she wore whilst travelling, and gave them 'great thanks'.

For months now, Henry IV had been sending Elizabeth urgent appeals for aid, for the Spaniards were fighting as allies with the Catholic French forces and had occupied parts of Brittany and Normandy. Elizabeth had stalled, not wishing to involve herself in another costly foreign war. Yet she had no desire to see another threatening Spanish army just the other side of the Channel, and that summer reluctantly consented to send 4000 men to Normandy, although she meant to spend no more money than was absolutely necessary.

Essex had been one of those who had repeatedly urged her to act, and eagerly requested command of her army, but she turned him down. He asked again, but the answer was still no. Even after he begged a third time, pleading with her for two hours, on his knees, with Burghley supporting his pleas, she remained adamant: he was 'too impetuous to be given the reins'. Only when Henry IV personally intervened did she reluctantly change her mind and say he might go after all, warning Henry that he would 'require the bridle rather than the spur'. Some believed she could not bear to let him go, nor the thought of him being killed.

Essex landed with his army in France in August and rode to meet King Henry at Compiegne, where he was received with great honour. It soon -became clear that he regarded war as some superior sport: he revelled in his role of commander, exploiting his powers to the full. But he spent the first month doing virtually nothing, waiting for the King to 
reduce Noyon. Essex was supposed to be besieging Rouen, but could not do that without French assistance. He therefore entertained, held parades and went hawking in enemy territory, needlessly putting himself at risk and earning a rebuke from the Council. The Queen was in a fury of frustration at such a waste of time and money, and the fact that Essex did not see fit to inform her of his plans.

'Where he is, or what he doth, or what he is to do, we are ignorant!' she stormed, regretting that she had sent him. Exasperated she ordered him home.

'I see Your Majesty is content to ruin me,' he replied with equal heat. Burghley, suspecting that in reality she wanted to see him, commented: 'God forbid that private respects should overrule public' The evidence indeed suggests that Elizabeth allowed her heart to override her head on this occasion.

Before Essex left France, he knighted twenty-four of his supporters against her express wishes, a rash act that appeared sinister to those who feared he was building up a power base for his own purposes. From Elizabeth's point of view, the Crown alone was the fount of honour, and to make new knights so indiscriminately could only debase her prerogative. Burghley tried to shield Essex from her wrath by not telling her what he had done, but she found out all the same, and commented ominously that 'His Lordship had done well to build his almshouses before he made his knights.'

Yet when Essex returned and exerted his charm, peace was restored, and after a few days, thanks to Burghley's influence, he was sent back to Rouen to rejoin his troops. From here, he wrote to the Queen:

Most fair, most dear, and most excellent sovereign: the two windows of your Privy Chamber shall be the poles of my sphere, where, as long as Your Majesty will fix to have me, I am fixed and immoveable. While Your Majesty gives me leave to say I love you, my fortune is as my affection, unmatchable. If ever you deny me that liberty, you may end my life, but never shake my constancy, for it is not in your power, as great a queen as you are, to make me love you less.

The campaign ended in disaster. Essex took the town of Gournay 'rather a jest than a victory' observed the Queen - but that was all. His army succumbed to disease, and morale was low, three thousand men died of illness or deserted, and his brother was killed in a skirmish. When Elizabeth complained of his lack of progress, Essex, ill with ague, wrote miserably to her, complaining that her unkindness had broken 'both my heart and my wits'. He had managed to salvage his honour by winning 
a friendly single combat with the Governor of Rouen, but this was small comfort. When the Queen ordered him to resign his command and return home, he blamed Burghley and Cecil, quite unfairly, for what had happened, believing that they had poisoned Elizabeth's mind against him.

In November 1591, the Queen visited Ely Place to see her faithful Hatton, who was very ill, administering to him 'cordial broths with her own hands'. He died shortly afterwards of kidney failure, owing her , 56,000. Some said he had died of a broken heart because Elizabeth had hounded him to the grave, asking for repayment, but this is unlikely. His death plunged her again into grief: it seemed that all those to whom she had been close were being taken from her.

For a time, she was melancholy, obsessed with fearful thoughts of death, hating any word that reminded her of it. Once, when Lord North was acting as her carver, she asked him what was in the covered dish.

'Madam, it is a coffin,' he replied, 'coffin' being a contemporary word for a raised pie, but one that now moved the Queen to anger.

'Are you such a fool to give a pie such a name?' she shouted. Her reaction 'gave warning to the courtiers not to use any word that mentioned her death'.

Essex returned to England in January 1592. He had hoped to find that his application to be elected Chancellor of Oxford University had been approved, but was furious to learn that Cecil's candidate, Lord Buckhurst, had been chosen instead. Jealous complaints availed him nothing, so he decided belatedly to take Francis Bacon's advice and aim for high political office, with a view to breaking the hold on power enjoyed by the Cecils.

When, the following month, Anthony Bacon returned from France, Essex enlisted his support. Anthony was a difficult individual whose uncertain temper was aggravated by arthritis, yet he was more than willing to use his considerable talents in Essex's service. It was decided that he would help the Earl to build up his own intelligence network, hoping thereby to impress upon the Queen that, being so well informed, Essex deserved political credibility and must be taken seriously. Essex also began courting the favour of the Protestant Henry IV.

But it was not enough: he craved attention and excitement. By March, he was hanging irritably around the court, 'wholly inflamed with the desire to be doing somewhat', only to be told by Francis Bacon that he should be working towards becoming 'a great man in the state' rather than hankering after the military glory which constantly seemed to evade him. With so many of the Queen's advisers having died, there 
would surely now be an opening for him, and he should capitalise on this.

Bess Throckmorton had invented a pretext to secure leave of absence from court in February, and, seeking refuge in her brother's house, gave birth to a son in March. For some time now, her thickening figure had given rise to rumours at court, some of them pinpointing with deadly accuracy the father of her child. But Raleigh denied it, declaring, 'There is none on the face of the Earth I would be fastened unto.'

In April, Bess returned to court, where it could easily be observed that she had dramatically lost weight. The rumours became more insistent, until in May Raleigh's 'brutish offence' became known to the Queen, who, as one courtier wrote, was 'most fiercely incensed and threatens the most bitter punishment to both the offenders. S.W.R. will lose, it is thought, all his places and preferments at court, with the Queen's favour; such will be the end of his speedy rising, and now he must fall as low as he was high, at which the many may rejoice.'

Raleigh was away at sea, harrying Spanish ships at Panama, but he was 'speedily sent for and brought back' in the deepest disgrace, having committed the unforgivable crime of duping his sovereign, seducing a noble virgin committed to her care, and marrying without royal consent - the last two being punishable offences. Worse still was Elizabeth's||

bitter sense of betrayal, for Raleigh had for a decade been one of her chief favourites, and this marriage seemed to mock all his protestations of devotion to her.

In June, Elizabeth sent him and Bess to the Tower, where they were lodged in separate apartments. Raleigh was not strictly kept: he was allowed to walk in the gardens and probably managed to see his wife, but he was desperate to be free and did everything in his power to achieve that.

On July, being told that Elizabeth was about to leave London to go on progress, he wrote to Cecil:

My heart was never broken until this day that I hear the Queen goes so far off, whom I have followed so many years with so great love and desire in so many journeys, and am now left behind her in a dark prison all alone. While she was yet at hand, so that I might hear of her once in two or three days, my sorrows were less, but even now my heart is cast into the depths of misery. I that was wont to behold her riding like Alexander, hunting like Diana, walking like Venus, the gentle wind blowing her fair hair about her pure cheeks like a nymph; sometimes sitting in the shade like a goddess, sometimes singing like an angel, sometimes playing like Orpheus.
Behold the sorrow of this world! One amiss has bereaved me of all. She is gone in whom I trusted, and for me has not one thought of mercy. Yours, not worth any name or title, W.R.

Later that day, learning that the Queen's barge would be passing the Tower, he begged the Lieutenant, his cousin Sir George Carew, to row him out on the Thames so that he could see her and hopefully attract her attention, but the Lieutenant did not dare. Carew later reported to the Queen that Raleigh tried to kill himself at this point, and was only prevented from doing so by another official, who wrenched the dagger out of his grip, cutting his own hand in the process. Carew also warned Elizabeth that Raleigh would go insane if she did not forgive him, but she remained unmoved.

Raleigh was not to remain in the Tower for long. Early in August, a captured Spanish treasure ship was brought into Dartmouth carrying jewels worth - 800,000. Most was appropriated by English sailors and local people, and when the Earl of Cumberland arrived to claim the Queen's share, there was a riot. Knowing that Raleigh was the only man capable of restoring order and ensuring that the treasure was fairly apportioned, the Queen agreed to his release. When he arrived at Dartmouth, he received a rapturous welcome from the sailors, but by then most of the jewels had disappeared. However, he managed to salvage Elizabeth's portion, but only at the expense of other investors, including himself.

Elizabeth allowed Raleigh to remain at liberty, but barred him from the court. Nor did her displeasure abate, for he was obliged to live quietly, 'like a fish cast on dry land', for the next five years at Sherborne Castle, the Devon property granted him by the Queen the previous January. Bess, who would prove a domineering wife, joined him there after her release in December.

A mysterious portrait by Marcus Gheeraerts the Younger in the National Maritime Museum is thought to illustrate Raleigh's disgrace. Recent cleaning has revealed that this portrait of a man was overpainted to look like Raleigh, and has also uncovered the tiny figure of a woman in the background, with her back turned to the sitter. She wears a coronet over her red hair and a chain of office around her neck, and holds a feather fan, and it would be reasonable to assume that this is the Queen herself, shunning Sir Walter in her displeasure. Essex was among the many who gloated over the fall of Raleigh, which removed one of his greatest rivals.

Whilst the Queen was on progress that summer, England experienced the worst visitation of the plague for many years. In order to avoid London, she travelled west to Sudeley Castle in Gloucestershire and 
then towards Bath. She had by now forgiven Harington for
Orlando Furioso,
and visited him at Kelston, near Bath, where he humbly presented her with a beautifully bound copy of his completed translation.

Elizabeth was in her element. One German visitor observed that she need not 'yield much to a girl of sixteen', either in looks or vigour. In September, she visited Oxford again, where she replied in extempore Latin to the loyal speeches made to her, watched the presentation of honorary degrees, and attended debates, sermons, lectures, dinners and three rather dull comedies. On the final day of her visit, she delivered a parting address, saying, 'If I had a thousand tongues instead of one, I would not be able to express my thanks.' Then, noticing that poor Burghley was having difficulty in standing, she broke off and ordered that a stool be brought. 'If I have always undertaken the care of your bodies, shall I neglect your minds?' she concluded. 'God forbid!'