Life of Elizabeth I (78 page)

As he lay in bed in his house on the Strand, worn out with age and overwork, she visited him and affectionately spoon-fed him his meals. She also sent him medicines, writing, 'I do entreat Heaven daily for your longer life, else will my people and myself stand in need of cordial too. My comfort hath been in my people's happiness, and their happiness is thy discretion.' She told him she had no wish to live longer than she had him with her, a remark that made him weep. 'You are, in all things to me, Alpha and Omega,' she declared. So distraught was she at the prospect of losing him that she could attend to nothing. He was the last link with the ruling caste of her youth, all the others having died, and without him she knew she would be isolated amongst the rising new men, many of whom resented her or discounted her as a spent force.

When Cecil sent his father some game broth, he was too weak to lift it to his lips. Again, Elizabeth came to the rescue, and after she had gone, he dictated a letter to his son:

I pray you, diligently and effectually let Her Majesty understand how her singular kindness doth overcome my power to acquit it, who, though she will not be a mother, yet she showeth herself, by feeding me with her own princely hand, as a careful nurse; and if I may be weaned to feed myself, I shall be more ready to serve her on the Earth. If not, I hope to be, in Heaven, a servitor for her and God's Church. And so I thank you for your porridges.

P.S. Serve God by serving the Queen, for all other service is indeed bondage to the Devil.

Burghley died on 4 August 1598, Elizabeth took the news 'very grievously, shedding of tears', then she shut herself away to mourn in private. For months afterwards, she would break down at the mention of his name.

By the time of his death, Burghley was being called the father of his country. 'No prince in Europe hath such a counsellor,' Elizabeth had said. He had been, wrote Camden in tribute, 'a singular man for honesty, gravity, temperance, industry and justice. Hereunto was added a fluent and elegant speech, wisdom strengthened by experience and seasoned with exceeding moderation and most approved fidelity. In a word, the Queen was happy in so great a counsellor, and to his wholesome counsels the state of England for ever shall be beholden.'

The Queen ordered that, although Burghley was to be buried in St Martin's Church at Stamford, he should be honoured by a ceremonial funeral in Westminster Abbey. Among the five hundred black-cowled guests at the impressive ceremony, Essex 'carried the heaviest countenance', but this was attributed by most people to 'his own disfavour' rather than to grief over his enemy's passing. Even in her desolation, Elizabeth had declared that 'he hath played long upon her, and that she means to play a while upon him, and to stand so much upon her greatness as he hath done upon stomach'.

Death was taking not only the Queen's trusted friends but also her enemies. On 13 September, after fifty days of intense pain, Philip of Spain died, ravaged by a terrible disease that had reduced his body to a mass of putrefying, stinking sores. By his own orders, his lead coffin had been placed at his bedside before he died. He was succeeded by his less fanatical, twenty-year-old son, Philip III, who was to continue the war against England in a desultory fashion.

Two weeks after Burghley's death, serious news arrived from Ireland. A large English army under Sir Henry Bagenal had been ambushed at Yellow Ford by the forces of the rebel Irish under Hugh O'Neill, Second Earl of Tyrone, leaving over 1200 dead or wounded and the English-held territory from the north down to Dublin unprotected. This was the 'greatest loss and dishonour the Queen hath had in her time', and she knew she had to act quickly before it was too late to reverse the damage done.

Tyrone was a fighter of great stature and ability, who had once been loyal to the Queen but had turned traitor in 1595 and succeeded thereafter in uniting his countrymen against the occupying English. He wanted freedom of worship, the withdrawal of English troops from the province, and a say in the appointment of government officials. Many Irish looked to him as their saviour, and great numbers had deserted 
their English garrisons to join his rebels, while the Spaniards were in league with Tyrone, having for years used Ireland as a springboard for harrying England. On his deathbed Philip II had dictated a letter of congratulation and support to Tyrone as his last act of defiance towards Elizabeth. To control such a man, the Queen knew she must appoint a Lord Deputy of great reputation and ability, someone who could crush the rebel forces and effect a peace.

Essex had remained at Wanstead, still waiting for Elizabeth to apologise, but when he heard of Tyrone's victory, he wrote to the Queen offering his sword against the rebels and, without waiting for a reply, rushed off to Whitehall, only to find that she would not see him. Spluttering with rage, he wrote to her, 'I stay in this place for no other purpose but to attend your commandment.' Back came the terse reply: 'Tell the Earl that I value myself at as great a price as he values himself.'

Desperate for some military action, and worried in case he might miss out on the redistribution of Burghley's offices, Essex feigned illness, which had the desired effect. Elizabeth's heart melted and she sent a sympathetic message and her physician to attend him, which led to a speedy recovery and prompted the Earl to write a flattering letter of gratitude. Charmed, Elizabeth agreed to receive him. Because she was so gracious at their interview, Cecil and many others gained the impression that matters were 'very well settled again', but it was not so. When Essex demanded an apology, the Queen refused it, so he flounced back to Wanstead in a foul temper. In fact, she felt it was she who should have an apology, but Essex was not prepared to give her one. Neither would relent, so a deadlock was reached. Egerton and others advised Essex that it was his duty to submit to his sovereign, but he argued that her behaviour had made it impossible for him to do so. Even his election, in Buckhurst's place, as Chancellor of Oxford University did not lift his spirits.

Meanwhile, Elizabeth had sent a new commander, Sir Richard Bingham, to Ireland, but he had died soon after arriving in Dublin. Hearing of this, Essex again wrote to offer his services in the field, and this time the Queen accepted. Thus he came to court, and in a private interview they settled their differences. It is not known whether either apologised, but it may have been the Queen, for Egerton had showed her Essex's extraordinary letter of the previous July, and she had been much disturbed by it. Nor, after this, was she ever quite so affectionate towards him. Both retained a sense of injury, and this was to overlay their future dealings with each other.

Essex did not learn from his mistakes. Hoping to extend his following, he demanded from the Queen Burghley's old - and lucrative - office of Master of the Wards, but she told him she was thinking of retaining it 
herself. Essex stalked off in a temper, then sent her a letter of protest, in which he pointed out that none of her royal forebears had ever done such a thing. He told her she should think again, but this only stiffened her resolve, and the office remained unfilled.

Undaunted, Essex put himself forward as the new Lord Deputy of Ireland, insisting that he was the only man capable of conquering Tyrone, which everyone agreed would be no easy task. The Queen had proposed Charles Blount, now Lord Mountjoy, for the post, but neither he nor anyone else wanted it, and although she had reservations about giving it to Essex, she had no choice. Robert Markham, a courtier, wrote: 'If the Lord Deputy performs in the field what he hath promised in the Council, all will be well, but though the Queen hath granted forgiveness for his late demeanour in her presence, we know not what to think. She hath placed confidence in the man who so lately sought other treatment at her hands.'

The next two months saw Elizabeth and Essex wrangling over how his campaign should be conducted. He wanted the largest army ever sent to Ireland, and when she refused it, he sulked. 'How much soever Her Majesty despiseth me, she shall know she hath lost him who, for her sake, would have thought danger a sport and death a feast,' he raged. Already, he was having second thoughts about going to Ireland, yet 'his honour could not stand without undertaking it'.

In the end, his persistence got him what he wanted, the greatest army ever raised during Elizabeth's reign, comprising 16,000 infantry and 13,000 cavalry. 'By God', he told Harington, 'I will beat Tyrone in the field, for nothing worthy of Her Majesty's honour has [yet] been achieved.'

Meanwhile, Elizabeth Vernon was still living at Essex House. When the time came for her to be delivered, Essex sent her to stay with his sister, Lady Rich, who was just then engaged in an adulterous affair with Lord Mountjoy and was well versed in subterfuge. A daughter, Penelope, was born on 8 November.

Inevitably, the Queen found out, and ordered Southampton home at once. When he landed, he was arrested for having married without her consent, and committed for a short spell to the Fleet Prison. Essex was by then sheltering the Earl's wife and daughter at Essex House, and did his utmost to secure his friend's release. This did not make for harmony in his relations with the Queen.

He had also fallen out with Raleigh again. On Accession Day that year, Essex and his followers appeared in the tiltyard sporting orange tawny plumes, in an attempt to upstage Raleigh, whom Essex had learned intended to deck out his men in the same. Elizabeth was so 
disgusted at such petty behaviour that she left early, bringing the day's festivities to an abrupt end.

'To Ireland I go,' wrote Essex on 4 January, 1599. 'The Queen hath irrevocably decreed it.' Many would be pleased to have him out of the way because, as old age advanced, Elizabeth was finding it increasingly difficult to strike a balance between the rival factions at court, and to control Essex, whose 'greatness was now judged to depend as much on Her Majesty's fear of him as her love of him'.

But he faced no easy task. Most Englishmen had little understanding of the native Irish, accounting them savage tribesmen who had wilfully embraced their own form of Catholicism to undermine their English overlords. No Elizabethan Lord Deputy before him had succeeded in conquering them, and most English commanders found it impossible to apply their normal strategies to a land strewn with mountains and bogs, where guerrilla warfare was the norm.

Essex was dismissive of these difficulties, being confident that he would rout Tyrone and thus establish his supremacy in every respect over Cecil and Raleigh, whom he believed were working to undermine his influence. But he feared that, whilst he was away, his 'practising enemies' would poison the Queen's mind against him. 'I am armed on the breast but not on the back,' he told the Council, quite openly. It was this fear, more than any other consideration, that caused him, early in 1599, to have second thoughts about going to Ireland.

On Twelfth Night, Essex danced with the Queen before the visiting Danish ambassador. Elizabeth was at this time engrossed in translating the
Ars Poetica
of Virgil into English, and was still, at sixty-five, 'excellent disposed to hunting', going for long rides 'every second day'. That year, a German visitor, Thomas Platter, described her, certainly with exaggeration, as 'very youthful still in appearance, seeming no more than twenty years of age'.

It was gradually dawning on Essex that he had saddled himself with 'the hardest task that ever gentleman was set about'. On 1 March, we hear that 'new difficulties arise daily as touching the time of his abode, his entertainment, etc., upon which points he is so little satisfied that many times he makes it a question whether he should go or not'. And as the time for his departure loomed, he asked the Council to pity him rather than expect great victories.

Elizabeth was also having second thoughts about sending Essex to Ireland. His courage she did not doubt, but she had little faith in his judgement and stability, and nor, now, could she be sure of his loyalty. In February, she had been perturbed by the publication of Dr John Hayward's account of
The First Part of the Life and Reign of King Henry the Fourth,
which was dedicated to Essex. She was painfully aware that, since 
a performance of Shakespeare's
Richard II
in 1597, some of her subjects saw in Essex a second Henry of Bolingbroke, who might overthrow her as Henry had overthrown Richard. Aware that she was entrusting to Essex the greatest army she had ever raised, she declared herself offended by the book.

'Cannot this John Hayward be prosecuted for treason?' she asked Francis Bacon.

'Not, I think, for treason, Madam, but for felony,' he replied.

'How so?'

'He has stolen so many passages from Tacitus!' smiled Bacon. But Elizabeth was in no mood for jests.

'I suspect the worst,' she declared. 'I shall force the truth from him.' She even suggested the rack, though Bacon dissuaded her. Nevertheless, Hayward was arrested, condemned in the Star Chamber for having dared write of the deposition of a sovereign, and imprisoned in the Fleet for the rest of Elizabeth's reign.

Hoping that Essex would learn a lesson from this example, the Queen signed his commission on 12 March, giving him leave to return from Ireland when he thought fit. 'I have the best warrant that ever man had,' he observed.

The sun was shining on 27 March as a plainly-garbed Essex rode out of London at the head of his splendid army, cheered by the watching crowds, who cried, 'God bless Your Lordship!' Just beyond Islington, however, a thunderstorm broke, 'which some held an ominous prodigy'. Bacon wrote afterwards: 'I did plainly see his overthrow chained by destiny to that journey.'