Life of Elizabeth I (50 page)

The Lords and Commons arranged for a committee to be set up to determine Mary's fate. By 19 May, its members had come up with two alternative ways of proceeding. Either Mary could be attainted of treason and executed forthwith, or they could legislate to bar her from the succession and warn her that, if she plotted against Elizabeth again, she would be put to death.

Parliament was unanimously in favour of the former course, but the Queen insisted that it would be wiser to adopt the second, since honour would not permit her to attaint a foreign queen who was not subject to English law. It would also be very costly and would mean that Parliament would have to sit through the summer, when there was usually plague in London.

The Lords and Commons were past caring about that: they were out for Mary's blood. 'Many members shed tears for the Queen,' and even the convocation of bishops used many 'godly arguments' to persuade Elizabeth to agree to an attainder, pointing out that, if she did not put to death this husband murderer and arch-traitress, this Scottish Clytemnestra, she would offend God and her conscience. She should not 
think that 'threatening words of law' would deter Mary from plotting against her in future, nor prevent traitorous subjects from aiding her.

Intent upon having a favourable answer, Parliament submitted to the Queen a petition, which was described as 'the call and cry of all good subjects against the merciful nature of Her Majesty'. But Elizabeth had already made up her mind that she could not 'put to death the bird that, to escape the pursuit of the hawk, has fled to my feet for protection. Honour and conscience forbid!' Nor had she any desire to provoke armed retribution on the part of Mary's Catholic allies. On 28 May, she received the petition at the hands of a deputation from both Houses, but, in a speech that has not survived, managed to turn down their request with such skill that they ended up thanking her for the good opinion she had of them. Only the radical MP, Peter Wentworth, who regarded Mary as 'a notorious whore', was heard to mutter that Elizabeth deserved no thanks.

On 26 May, having been forced to take less drastic measures against Mary, Parliament drew up a Bill listing her offences and depriving her of her pretended claim to the throne. From henceforth, it would be an offence for anyone to proclaim or assert it. However, when the Bill was submitted to the Queen for the royal assent, she exercised her veto. It was now obvious that she meant to take no action whatsoever against her cousin, and her councillors despaired; their intelligence from abroad showed conclusively that King Philip and the Pope were set upon overthrowing her in Mary's favour.

It was probably around this time that Elizabeth wrote her famous sonnet about Mary, which was published in her lifetime by George Puttenham in his book,
The Art of Poesie.
This is an extract:

The Daughter of Debate, that eke discord doth sow,

Shall reap no gain where former rule hath taught still peace to grow.

No foreign banish'd wight shall anchor in this port;

Our realm it brooks no stranger's force, let them elsewhere resort.

Our rusty sword with rest shall first his edge employ,

To poll their tops that seek such change, and gape for joy.

Having spared Mary, Elizabeth was obliged to throw Norfolk to the wolves. Parliament had been agitating throughout for the law to take its course, and on 3 May the Queen capitulated and signed the Duke's death warrant. On the following day she paid a rare visit to the Tower to ensure that arrangements had been made in a seemly and proper fashion, although she did not see her prisoner.

At seven a.m. on 2 June, Norfolk was beheaded on Tower Hill, declaring to the watching crowds that he had never been a Papist and 
acknowledging the justness of the sentence of beheading. 'For men to suffer death in this place is no new thing,' he told them. 'Since the beginning of our most gracious Queen's reign I am the first, and God grant I may be the last.' Dignified in a black satin doublet, he refused a blindfold and died bravely, his head being 'at one chop cut off. His body was buried before the altar of the Chapel of St Peter ad Vincula within the Tower, between those of his cousins, Anne Boleyn and Katherine Howard. Courtiers at Whitehall reported that the Queen was very melancholy all that day.

16

'Less Agreeable Things to Think About'

On 19 April 1572, England and France concluded the Treaty of Blois, under the terms of which they undertook to provide each other with military and naval assistance against their common enemies. These included Spain and the Protestant states of the Netherlands, although Elizabeth was still sending surreptitious aid to the latter, if only to discountenance Philip and Alva. The treaty meant that England was no longer isolated in Europe, and it also put an end to the French support of Mary Stuart. Its signing was celebrated at Whitehall with a sumptuous banquet arranged by Leicester, who boasted that it was 'the greatest that was in my remembrance'.

That spring, fearing that Mary would appeal to Spain for help, Catherine de' Medici again discussed with Sir Thomas Smith the necessity for a royal marriage to seal the alliance.

'Jesu!' sighed the Queen Mother. 'Doth not your mistress see plainly that she will always be in such danger till she marry? If she marry into some good house, who shall dare attempt aught against her?'

Smith, nodding agreement, replied that if the Queen had but one child, 'Then all these bold and troublesome titles of the Scotch Queen or others, that make such gaping for her death, would be clean choked

UP'

'But why stop at one child? Why not five or six?' queried Catherine,

who had borne ten.

'Would to God she had one!' retorted Smith, with feeling.

'No', disputed the Queen Mother, 'two boys, lest the one should die, and three or four daughters to make alliances with us again, and other princes to strengthen the realm.'

'Why then,' smiled Smith, 'you think that M. le Due should speed?'

Catherine laughed. 'I desire it infinitely', she said, 'and I trust to see three or four at the least of my race, which would make me indeed not 
to spare sea and land to see Her Majesty and them.'

In June, the Queen Mother sent to London, as ambassador extraordinary, the Duke of Montmorency, with powers to ratify the Treaty of Blois and formally offer Alencon as a husband for the Queen. Elizabeth was a gracious hostess, entertaining the embassy lavishly and investing the Duke with the Order
of
the Garter, but she was noncommittal about the marriage proposal, citing her reservations about Alencon's age and appearance. When Montmorency left, she promised that she would consider the matter and give King Charles her answer within a month.

She then told Burghley to instruct Walsingham to submit a full report on Alencon. The response was initially favourable, with the ambassador describing the Duke as wise, stalwart, not so light-minded as most Frenchmen, and in religion 'easily to be reduced to the knowledge of the truth'. His notorious pockmarks, which many people had hastened to reassure the Queen were not as bad as rumour had it, were 'no great disfigurement on his face because they are rather thick than great and deep'. While his beard covered some of them, those on the 'blunt end of his nose are much to be disliked', although 'When I saw him at my last audience, he seemed to me to grow daily more handsome.' Nevertheless, 'The great impediment I find is the contentment of the eye. The gentleman is void of any good favour, besides the blemish of the smallpox. Now, when I weigh the same with the delicacy of Her Majesty's eye, I hardly think that there will ever grow any liking.' Burghley feared as much, and gave little credence to Fenelon's claim that he knew a doctor who could cure the Duke's pockmarks.

Throughout the next weeks Elizabeth considered the matter, blowing hot and then cold, the chief sticking point being Alencon's extreme youth. What concerned her most was 'the absurdity, that in general opinion of the world might grow'. On a more practical level, she also wondered whether the Duke's pockmarks might be sufficient excuse for her to demand the return of Calais as a condition of the marriage.

Then, in July, Catherine de' Medici sent Alencon's good friend, Monsieur de la Mole, to England, in the hope that he would be able to persuade Elizabeth to accept the Duke. De la Mole was a handsome, personable young man whose gallant charm was calculated to soften the Queen's heart. 'It seemeth the Queen Mother is come nearer to the matter than I hoped for,' observed Burghley.

Elizabeth, whilst she was not impervious to de la Mole's charms, did not trust Catherine de' Medici and was suspicious that the French were trying to manoeuvre her into joining them in a war against Alva in the Netherlands, they being as nervous as she was about the presence of a huge Spanish army on their doorstep. Charles wanted to set up Alencon 
as Regent of the Netherlands, but while this might have been to England's advantage in some respects, the prospect of a French army in the Netherlands was hardly more comforting to Elizabeth, who regarded the House of Valois as unstable and unreliable, than the presence of a Spanish one.

Meanwhile, in July 1572, Elizabeth, in holiday mood, set off on an extended progress through the Thames Valley and the Midlands. After staying at Theobalds with Burghley, she arrived on the 25th at Gorhambury, the recently completed Hertfordshire mansion of Lord Keeper Bacon, who warmly welcomed her with his bluestocking wife, Anne Cooke, and two scholarly sons, Anthony and Francis. The Queen was unimpressed by the size of the building.

'You have made your house too little for Your Lordship,' she commented.

'No, Madam,' replied Bacon, 'but Your Highness has made me too big for the house.'

At Coventry, the Recorder told Elizabeth that the people had 'a greedy taste for Your Majesty'. In August, she spent a week at Warwick, arriving with the Countess in an open coach so that the crowds could see her. After the town's Recorder, Mr Aglionby, had falteringly delivered a speech of welcome, Elizabeth put him at his ease.

'Come hither, little Recorder,' she said. 'It was told me you would be afraid to look upon me or to speak boldly, but you were not so afraid of me as I was of you.'

Local lads and maidens gave a display of country dancing in the courtyard of Warwick Castle, which the Queen watched from her window; 'It seemed Her Majesty was much delighted and made very merry.' At supper in the castle one night she insisted that M. de la Mole sit with her. Afterwards he listened appreciatively as she entertained the company by playing on the spinet. They had several private talks, and one evening he escorted her to a spectacular firework display and mock water battle arranged by the Earl and Countess, in which the Earl of Oxford took part, 'whereat the Queen took great pleasure'.

Unfortunately, the occasion was marred by sparks from the squibs and fireballs setting fire to four houses in the town and completely destroying one nearby which belonged to a Mr Henry Cowper. Elizabeth personally expressed her sympathy to him and his wife and organised a collection for them amongst her courtiers.

Despite de la Mole's efforts, Elizabeth was unwilling to commit herself to accepting Alencon. She told Fenelon of her doubts and insisted she could not make up her mind until she had seen the Duke in person. The ambassador told her that the King and Queen Mother 
would be pleased to arrange a meeting, but only if she convinced them that she really did mean to marry. She replied that she must meet the Duke and be certain that they could love one another before giving an answer. Burghley, who, plagued by gout, had accompanied the progress in a litter, now began to doubt whether the marriage would ever take place.

By 22 August, the Queen had arrived at Kenilworth to be entertained by Leicester, who had arranged all kinds of'princely sports'. But on 3 September, while she was out hunting one day, a messenger arrived with a dispatch from Walsingham in Paris that caused her to burst into tears, cancel all further entertainments and send de la Mole back to France. A Spanish agent in London informed Alva that she had 'sent all her musicians and minstrels home, and there are no more of the dances, farces and entertainments with which they have been amusing themselves lately, as they have some less agreeable things to think about'.

The events which took place in France from 24 August 1572 almost wrecked the Anglo-French alliance. On the occasion of the marriage of King Charles's sister, Marguerite de Valois, to the Protestant Henry, King of Navarre, the zealously Catholic Guise party, backed by Catherine de' Medici, tried to murder Admiral de Coligny, the Huguenot leader, who had incurred the Queen Mother's jealousy through his increasing influence over the King. The attempt failed, but it provoked riots and panic in Paris. On 24 August, St Bartholemew's Eve, Catherine, reluctantly backed by the King, gave the order for the Huguenots to be cleared from the capital. A bloodbath ensued, since the Catholics rose and slaughtered every Huguenot they could lay hands on, to the number of 3-4000. During the next four days, similar orgies of killing erupted in the provinces, bringing the total number of dead to around 10,000.

King Philip, hearing the news, in the privacy of his bedchamber danced for joy, and Mary Stuart stayed up all night celebrating, while the Pope expressed his satisfaction at the annihilation of so many heretics. But the Massacre of St Bartholemew, as it became known, profoundly shocked Protestants throughout Europe and provoked an outcry against the French government and Catholics in general. Huguenot refugees who had fled to England brought with them dreadful tales of atrocities, of rivers of blood in the streets and streams choked with bodies. Burghley was so appalled that words failed him, and Walsingham, who had hidden during the killings and barely escaped with his life, was profoundly shaken.