Life of Elizabeth I (55 page)

News of Drake's booty and his colourful adventures soon reached the Queen, who was jubilant at the thought of how maddened King Philip would be by such blatant piracy, and fascinated by Drake's exploits. Overnight, he became famous throughout England, and notorious in Spain, where he was called 'El Draque' - the Dragon. Naturally, the Spaniards complained to Elizabeth, but while she was vaguely conciliatory, or affected to be concerned, she did nothing to stop these acts of piracy, and indeed benefited from them, since much of the looted treasure went into her coffers.

At the end of 1577, Francis Drake set off in his ship, the
Pelican,
on what was to be an epic world voyage. His priority, however, was not exploration but to harry the Spaniards, who had retaliated for his seizure of their treasure by attacking English ships. There was a great deal of public interest in the venture, and Walsingham arranged for Drake to be presented to the Queen before he left.

'Drake!' she greeted him effusively. 'So it is that I would be revenged on the King of Spain for divers injuries that I have received.' Drake answered that the most effective way to do this would be to prey on Philip's ships and settlements in the Indies, with which Elizabeth wholeheartedly agreed. Burghley, however, was not to be told about the expedition until it had sailed, since he felt it unwise to provoke the Spaniards any further. According to Drake, the Queen invested 1000 marks (nearly 665) in the voyage; other backers included Leicester, Walsingham and Hatton.

Just before Drake sailed, a royal messenger arrived bearing gifts from the Queen, an embroidered sea cap and a silk scarf on which she had stitched the words, 'The Lord guide and preserve thee until the end'.

Morton's regency in Scotland came to an abrupt end in March 1578, when the lords mounted a coup against him, which resulted in James VI, now nearly twelve, being declared of an age to assume personal rule.

On 4 April, Mary Stuart's husband, the Earl of Bothwell, died, mad and chained to a pillar in the dungeons of Dragsholm Castle in Denmark, where he had been held prisoner since soon after his flight from Scotland in 1567. The rigours of his imprisonment and the ever- present fear of imminent execution had unhinged his mind, although there were still those among Mary's supporters who claimed that, at the last, he had dictated a confession which cleared her of all complicity in Darnley's murder. This is unlikely, however, given his mental state at the time. Bothwell's mummified body may be seen today, under glass, at Faarevejle Church near Dragsholm.

Chapter 18

Frenzied Wooing'

In January 1578, news came that the Protestant Dutch armies had suffered a crushing defeat at the hands of Don John of Austria, which gave Elizabeth cause to point out to Leicester that she had been right all along about not wanting to involve England in a war it might lose. Instead, she now hoped to use her diplomatic influence with Philip II to bring about a settlement that was not only acceptable to both sides but also to English interests. Thanks to the provocation given to King Philip by English privateers and the help supplied to the Dutch by Elizabeth, the peace with Spain now seemed to be on a very precarious footing, and fears were expressed that Philip might yet invoke the Pope's interdict and make the rumoured Enterprise of England a reality.

Elizabeth had for some time been worried about reports that Alencon, now Duke of Anjou, was intending to meddle in the affairs of the Netherlands. The last thing she needed was the undermining of her negotiations for a peace that would safeguard England's security and economic prosperity, nor did she want any French military presence in the Netherlands. By the spring of 1578, when it had, to her relief, become clear that Anjou was acting without the backing of the French government, it occurred to her that the best way of controlling his activities to her advantage would be to revive negotiations for their marriage and a new treaty with France. She did not know it, but this was to be her last venture into the European marriage market.

The same idea had occurred to Anjou, whose ambition had found no outlet at the court of France, where he was regarded as a troublesome nuisance, and who still dreamed of a crown. This was why he had looked to find fame and glory in the Netherlands, though it now seemed unlikely he would achieve it without the backing of a powerful ruler such as the Queen of England. With her as his bride and the wealth of her kingdom behind him, matters would be very different. The 
evidence suggests that it was he who made the first approach: he certainly wrote to Elizabeth to assure her of his entire devotion and his willingness to be guided by her in all his doings. It was astonishing, he added, 'that after two years of absolute silence, he should wake up to her existence'. Elizabeth was gratified to hear from him and by the realisation that his letter gave her the perfect excuse to revive the courtship.

Walsingham, however, was not deceived by Anjou's flowery sentiments, believing that 'he entertaineth Her Majesty at this present only to abuse her', so that she would not protest when he marched at the head of an army into the Netherlands. Elizabeth was not pleased when she heard this, and instructed Leicester to inform Walsingham that it was not in the least surprising that Anjou should have fallen in love with her. He was, she asserted, only going to the Netherlands to give himself'better means to step over hither'.

Since the death of her husband, Lettice, Countess of Essex, had struggled to pay her debts. Ambitious and still beautiful, she was determined not to waste her assets, and, being a confident, opportunistic woman, saw no reason why her lover, the Earl of Leicester, should not be persuaded to marry her. It is not known how much Lettice knew of the circumstances of Leicester's union with Douglas Sheffield, although it is clear that both she and the Earl regarded him as a free man.

When Lettice discovered that she was pregnant, Leicester, desperate for a legitimate heir, agreed to marry her; the ceremony took place secretly in the spring of 1578 at Kenilworth. He then purchased the house and manor of Wanstead in Essex so that he could visit Lettice there when his duties at court permitted. Their union was undoubtedly happy, for the Earl 'doted extremely upon marriage'.

After the wedding, Leicester came up to London to stay at Leicester House, giving out that he was ill and unable to come to court. He may, in fact, have been enjoying a brief honeymoon with Lettice, or the 'illness' may have been tactical, for the evidence suggests that, on 28 April, Elizabeth found out what he had done. Mendoza reported that,

The Queen had fixed the 28th for my audience with her, but as she was walking in the garden that morning she found a letter which had been thrown into the doorway, which she took and read, and immediately came secretly to the house of the Earl of Leicester, who is ill here. She stayed there until ten o'clock at night, and sent word that she would not see me that day as she was unwell. I have not been able to learn the contents of the letter, and only know that it caused her to go to Leicester's at once. 

There were two likely possibilities: either Leicester himself had written asking the Queen to visit him, giving good reasons why she should do so as a matter of great urgency, or someone else had found out about his marriage and had informed the Queen. Of course, her visit could have related to another matter entirely, but, given the circumstances and her behaviour afterwards, this is the likeliest version of events. If the letter had come from Leicester himself, it was in character for him to feign sickness in order to soften Elizabeth's heart and mitigate her anger.

In May, possibly prompted by Leicester's betrayal, the Queen sent an envoy to France to open negotiations for her marriage to Anjou. Around the same time, Leicester travelled north again to Buxton to take the waters, insisting he was still unwell. It may also have been politic for him to go away to give Elizabeth time to adjust to the situation and perhaps make her realise how lonely she would be if she cut him out of her life, as she may have threatened to do. Whatever the reason, he stayed away for more than two months, which was unusual, since the Queen normally hated to have him out of her sight.

While Leicester was away from court, Elizabeth took out her frustration on Hatton, apparently giving him to understand that she could not bear it if he were to betray her as Leicester had by marrying someone else, especially after he had sworn undying loyalty to her, who, if she were able, would leap at the chance of marrying him.

In perplexity, Hatton wrote to Leicester on 18 June:

Since Your Lordship's departure, the Queen is found in continual and great melancholy; the cause thereof I can but guess at, notwithstanding that I bear and suffer the whole brunt of her mislike in generality. She dreameth of marriage that might seem injurious to her: making myself to be either the man, or a pattern of the matter. I defend that no man can tie himself or be tied to such inconvenience as not to marry by law of God or man, except by mutual consents on both parts the man and woman vow to marry each other, which I know she hath not done for any man, and therefore by any man's marriage she can receive no wrong. But, my Lord, I am not the man that should thus suddenly marry, for God knoweth, I never meant it.

In fact, Elizabeth seems to have been broken-hearted rather than angry at Leicester's desertion, and when, during the next week or so, she received from him several letters, which have not survived, Hatton was able to inform the Earl, on 28 June, that she had been overjoyed to have them 'because they chiefly recorded the testimony of your most loyal 
disposition from the beginning to this present time'. She was now impatient for Leicester's return, and thought 'your absence much drawn in too length, and especially in that place, supposing indeed that a shorter time would work as good effect with you, but yet [she] chargeth that you now go through according to your physician's opinion. For if now these waters work not a full good effect, Her Highness will never consent that you cumber yourself and her with such long journeys again.'

Subtly, Elizabeth had set the tone for her future relationship with Leicester: in return for his behaving towards her as if nothing had happened and continuing as her favourite, she was prepared to ignore his unfortunate marriage, as long as he put her needs first. Relieved to have got off so lightly, Leicester played along with this fantasy, but he soon found that there was a heavy price to pay, for Elizabeth, who had once been so affectionate towards her cousin Lettice, now developed an implacable hatred for her and behaved as if she did not exist. Aside from her marriage to Leicester, Lettice had offended the Queen by not seeking her permission to marry, which, as the widow of an earl, she was obliged to do.

Leicester, caught in a conflict of loyalty between two strong women, one his wife and one his queen, suddenly realised that his life, from now on, was going to be very complicated. In the interests of keeping the peace, therefore, he resolved to avoid any reference to his marriage.

Of course, his relationship with the Queen had to change. He remained close to her in a way no other favourite did: for example, he sat up all night soothing her when she had toothache, and he continued to give her expensive and original gifts, such as the gold clock he presented to her at New Year 1579. But they could no longer enjoy the intimate friendship of the past: there were fewer shared private jokes and affectionate personal messages. Instead, the Queen lost her temper with him more frequently or was more capricious when it came to granting favours. She also made such demands on his time that he had few opportunities to visit his wife, which was exactly what the Queen intended.

The discovery of Leicester's marriage put Elizabeth into a bad mood that lasted throughout the summer and drove her councillors to near despair. It was exacerbated by her having such painful toothache as to cause her whole face to be inflamed, and her long-suffering doctors spent hours debating with her 'how Her Majesty might be eased of the grief. Depressed and in pain, she refused to make any decisions, snapped and snarled at her ministers and once shouted at Walsingham that he deserved to be hanged - in which case, he drily said later, he asked only that he could be tried by a Middlesex jury.

When the French ambassador spoke out against her treatment of the Queen of Scots, Elizabeth, who had just learned from Walsingham that Mary had been plotting with her Guise relatives again, hissed that her cousin was 'the worst woman in the world, whose head should have been cut off years ago, and who would never be free as long as she lived'.

Even in the face of pressing state business, the Queen sometimes refused to see her councillors at all, giving her toothache as an excuse. In the end, they defied her and insisted that she act to prevent Anjou from leading a French army into the Netherlands. Leicester, who now usually acted as spokesman for the Council to the Queen, spoke to her 'so plainly, so boldly and so faithfully against delays', and in a way that no other councillor would have dared, but to no avail. She told him to be silent. Nor would she speak even to Hatton. Leicester then tried the proven tactic of taking to his bed, feigning sickness in the hope that she would come hastening to his side, but even this did not work, and many wondered at the coolness in her attitude towards him. Nor did she intervene to prevent squabbles breaking out between Burghley and Leicester.

Then, on the morning of 9 August, Elizabeth finally woke to the realisation that Anjou was not playing games and might cause more trouble for her in the Netherlands than the Spanish ever had. She had, after all, delayed too long.

The Queen's progress that year took her to East Anglia, and was arranged at such short notice that there was a scramble by the worthies of the region to obtain new silks and velvets, which were soon sold out.