Life of Elizabeth I (41 page)

Although they were legion, her complaints were chronic rather than serious, and she refused on many occasions to give in to them. Like her father, she had an abhorrence of illness, and she could not bear people thinking she was ill. In 1 577, she commanded Leicester to ask Cecil to send her some of the spa water from Buxton, where he was staying. When he did so, however, she would not drink it, on the grounds that 'It will not be of the goodness here it is there.' The real reason for her reluctance was that people were saying - with truth - that she had a 'sore 
leg', and that she would never admit to; in fact, she gave Leicester a dressing down for having written to Cecil.

The following year she suffered the 'grievous pangs and pains' of toothache, but because she 'doth not or will not think' that the offending tooth needed to be extracted, her doctors dared not suggest it. Various methods of relief were essayed, but all failed, and still the Queen would not 'submit to chirurgical instruments', despite the remonstrances of her Council. A heroic Bishop Aylmer of London, to demonstrate that it was not such a terrible process, offered to have one of his own decayed teeth pulled out in her presence. In December 1578, he underwent the operation, whereupon Elizabeth, after nine months of agony, finally allowed the doctors to take out her own tooth. After that, the subject of teeth became a taboo one with her, and she resolved to keep hers and suffer, rather than have them out as they decayed, for she had heard that King Philip had done so and now had to live on slops. This decision condemned her to years of intermittent pain from toothache, gum disease and resultant neuralgia in the face and neck. Contemporary sources refer to swellings in her cheeks which may have been abscesses. Her increasing preference for sugary confections, custards and puddings did not help matters, but she nevertheless succeeded in keeping some of her teeth, although a foreign observer who saw her in old age noticed that they were 'very yellow and unequal, and many of them are missing'.

Even in old age, the Queen would never admit she was unwell. In 1 597, Cecil reported that she had 'a desperate ache in her right thumb, but will not be known of it, nor the gout it
cannot
be, nor
dare
not be, but to sign [documents] will not be endured'.

Her physicians were the best that could be found in an age in which a doctor might well hasten a patient's end by employing dubious and often dangerous treatments, but Elizabeth had little time for them and avoided consulting them if she could. Nor could she easily be persuaded to take any medicine, although she was fond of pressing sick courtiers to take herbal 'cordial broths' prepared to her own recipes, which she was convinced were excellent restoratives. The Queen could sometimes even be found spoon-feeding these homely and ancient remedies to her friends, and would boast that there was not an ailment that they could not cure. The only one of her recipes to survive is a cure for deafness, which she prescribed for Lord North: 'Bake a little loaf of bean flour and, being hot, rive it in halves, and into each half pour 111 three or four spoonfuls of bitter almonds, then clap both halves to both ears before going to bed, keep them close, and keep your head warm.' History does not record whether it worked.

The Queen deplored the contemporary fashion for purgatives, mainly on the grounds that those who took them were likely to take time off 
work, and forbade her maids to take them. In 597, she banned two girls from her chamber for three days for disobeying her by 'taking of physic'. The reasons for Elizabeth's reluctance to admit that she was ill were not far to seek. 'In another body, [illness was) no great matter, but [it was] much in a great princess.' It meant that people would think she was, to a degree, out of control; it meant giving in to human weakness, and as we have seen, Elizabeth enjoyed being regarded as more than human. Illness also betokened advancing age, which she would never admit to, and it threatened the image of eternal youth so central to the cult of the Virgin Queen.

In Tudor times, the royal image was all-important, much more so than today, for magnificence was regarded as being synonymous with power and greatness. The Tudor monarchs were renowned for their splendour, no less than their personal charm, and this found its most evident expression in their public dress anci in the palaces they built and inhabited.

Elizabeth I's wardrobe, which was rumoured to contain more than three thousand gowns, became legendary during her lifetime, as her costumes grew ever more flamboyant and fantastic. The image of the godly Protestant virgin in sober black and white, so carefully cultivated by Elizabeth during her half-sister's reign, soon gave way to an altogether more colourful and showy image. The Queen's portraits invariably show her in dresses of silk, velvet, satin, taffeta or cloth of gold, encrusted with real gems, countless pearls and sumptuous embroidery in silver or gold thread whilst her starched ruffs and stiff gauze collars grew ever larger. Her favoured colours were black, white and silver, worn with transparent silver veils. Many gowns were embroidered with symbols and emblems such as roses, suns, rainbows, monsters, spiders, ears of wheat, mulberries, pomegranates or pansies, the flowers she loved best.

Some of Elizabeth's dresses and other items of clothing were presented to her as New Year gifts by her courtiers; some certainly remained unworn. These, with other discarded dresses and shoes, she gave away to her ladies. However, she certainly appreciated the many gifts of clothing from friends and courtiers: in 1575, having given the Queen a blue cloak embroidered with flowers and trimmed with carnation velvet, Bess of Hardwick was gratified to learn from a friend at court that 'Her Majesty never liked anything you gave her so well; the colour and strange trimming of the garment with the great cost bestowed upon it hath caused her to give out such good speeches of Your Ladyship as I never hear of better.'

As an unmarried woman, Elizabeth delighted in wearing low-cut necklines, right into old age, and on occasions wore her artificially 
curled hair loose, although it was usually coiled up at the back. As she grew older and greyer, she took to wearing red wigs, which were copied by the ladies of the court. Many of her clothes were made by her tailor, Walter Fish, whilst Adam Bland supplied her with furs.

It took her ladies about two hours each morning to get the Queen ready. She had bathrooms with piped water in at least four of her palaces, as well as a portable bath that she took with her from palace to palace and used twice a year for medicinal purposes. It is therefore reasonable to suppose that Elizabeth bathed more often than most people in those days, which could be as little as three times a year. She cleaned her teeth with toothpicks of gold and enamel, and then buffed them to a shine with a tooth-cloth. In old age, she chewed constantly on sweets in the mistaken belief that they would sweeten her breath.

Beneath her clothes she wore fine linen shifts to protect her unwashable gowns from the damage caused by perspiration. These gowns came in pieces - stomacher, kirtle, sleeves, underskirt and collar or ruff- which were tied or buttoned together over whalebone corsets and the ever-widening farthingale, a stiff, hooped petticoat. Elizabeth had worn this type of garment since girlhood, but sometimes required hers to be modified by the royal farthingale-maker, John Bate, since they could cause the same problems as those experienced by Victorian ladies in crinolines three centuries later. In 1579, Mendoza, the Spanish ambassador, reported that he could not carry on a conversation with the Queen until she had moved her farthingale to one side and enabled him to 'get closer to her and speak without being overheard'. Yet Elizabeth never looked ridiculous: Sir John Hayward described her as having 'such state in her carriage as every motion of her seemed to bear majesty'.

Nearly every garment owned by Elizabeth was exquisitely made. Handkerchieves given her by Katherine Ashley were edged with gold and silver thread. At the beginning of her reign, the Queen had been presented with a pair of the new silk stockings from Italy, and had vowed that thereafter she would wear no other type. For much of her reign, her stockings were made by Henry Heme, or knitted by her ladies. A pair of silk stockings, reputedly Elizabeth's, are preserved at Hatfield House, along with a wide-brimmed straw hat and long- fingered gloves. The Queen's shoe-maker, Garrett Johnston, provided her with a new pair of shoes each week. In winter, her outdoor wear comprised cloaks or mantles, of which she had 198 in 1600.

In appearance, according to Sir John Hayward, Elizabeth was 'slender and straight; her hair was inclined to pale yellow, her forehead large and fair, her eyes lively and sweet, but short-sighted, her nose somewhat rising in the middle; her countenance was somewhat long, but yet of admirable beauty, in a most delightful composition of majesty and 
modesty'. Like many other women of her time, she used cosmetics to enhance her appearance, whitening her complexion with a lotion made from egg-whites, powdered egg-shell, alum, borax, poppy seeds and mill water, and scenting herself with marjoram or rose water. She would have her hair washed in lye, a mixture of wood-ash and water, which she kept in pots on her dressing table along with her looking glass and combs in jewelled cases.

Once dressed, she would deck herself with so many jewels that, when she stood in candlelight, they would glitter so much that they dazzled observers. In 1597, the French ambassador noted that she wore 'innumerable jewels, not only on her head, but also within her collar, about her arms and on her hands, with a very great quantity of pearls round her neck and on her bracelets. She had two bands, one on each arm, which were worth a great price.' Four years later, an Italian diplomat was impressed to see the Queen 'dressed all in white, with so many pearls, broideries and diamonds, that 1 am amazed how she could carry them'. A German visitor reported that everything she wore was 
'studded with very large diamonds and other precious stones, and over her breast, which was bare, she wore a long filigree shawl, on which was set a hideous large black spider that looked as if it were natural and alive'.

Her collection of jewellery was extensive, arguably the best in Europe, and so renowned that even the Pope spoke covetously of it. By 1587, she had 628 pieces. Many had been inherited from her parents: she had Anne Boleyn's famous initial pendants, and an enormous sapphire encircled by rubies from Henry VIII, which was reset by her German jeweller, Master Spilman. Many other jewels were gifts, it being the custom for courtiers to present the Queen with costly trinkets or gifts of money each New Year and when she visited their houses. Sir Christopher Hatton gave her several beautiful sets of up to seven matched pieces. A considerable number of Elizabeth's other jewels had been looted from Spanish treasure ships. Yet more were probably designed and made for her by the goldsmith and miniaturist, Nicholas Hilliard. Several pieces were engraved with one of the Queen's mottoes, '
Semper Eadem
('Always the same').

The Queen also owned nearly a dozen jewelled watches fashioned as crucifixes, flowers or pendants, as well as gem-encrusted bracelets, girdles, collars, pendants, earrings, armlets, buttons, pomanders and aglets (cord-tips). She had fans of ostrich feathers with jewelled handles, and several novelty pieces that held symbolic meanings, or were based on a pun, often a play on her name. Her favourite jewels were fashioned as ships or animals, while her pearls, the symbols of virginity, were magnificent, and included the long ropes formerly owned by Mary, Queen of Scots. Some of these pearls now rest in the Imperial State 
Crown; the rest are missing. One of Elizabeth's rings, containing tiny portraits of herself and Anne Boleyn, is in the collection at Chequers. The Queen often gave away jewels as gifts to her councillors - Sir Thomas Heneage was given the exquisite Armada Jewel, a medallic portrait locket designed by Nicholas Hilliard and now in the Victoria and Albert Museum - while her god-children received some of the numerous cameos showing her in profile. The Queen's Wardrobe Books list several jewels 'lost from Her Majesty's back' on progress or elsewhere; often these were gold or diamond buttons, or a brooch in the form of a monster, which she mislaid at Wanstead in 1584. Sadly, her jewellery collection was dispersed after her death, and only a few pieces survive. 'Oh, those jewels!' lamented one MP in 1626. 'The pride and glory of this realm!'

Elizabeth put on her extravagant costumes chiefly for state occasions, court festivals, personal appearances, the receiving of ambassadors and official portraits. Her everyday dress was rather simpler - she once wore 'the same plain black dress three days running', and she was fond of spending her mornings in loose gowns edged with fur. Her clothes and jewels were her working clothes, the outward symbols of majesty, and essential for the preservation of the mythology of the Virgin Queen. No one else might aspire to such magnificence, which was why Elizabeth's costumes were more exaggerated than anyone else's.

Naturally, this drew criticism from the more puritanically-minded. One bishop dared, in a sermon preached at court, to castigate the Queen for indulging in the vanity of decking the body too finely. Afterwards, fuming at his temerity, she declared to her ladies, 'If the bishop hold more discourse on such matters, we will fit him for heaven, but he should walk thither without a staff, and leave his mantle behind him!'

The portraits of Elizabeth I have been the subject of several weighty books. Although there was a great demand for her portrait in the years after her accession, she was - according to Cecil - 'very unwilling to have a natural representation', and there was therefore a proliferation of poor likenesses. The very earliest portraits are half-lengths showing the Queen full-faced, wearing a French hood; only a few examples survive. She is also depicted full-face in her coronation portrait, formerly at Warwick Castle and now in the National Portrait Gallery. This painting on a wooden panel has been tree-ring dated to about 1600, and is probably a copy of a lost original which may have been the work of Levina Teerlinc, a Flemish woman artist who painted many miniatures for the Queen during the early years of her reign. Teerlinc is known to have painted a miniature of the Queen in coronation robes, which was copied around 1600 by Nicholas Hilliard.