Assassination: The Royal Family's 1000-Year Curse (28 page)

On Walsingham’s urging, and so as to obtain information, Lopez joined a Spanish plot to kill Don Antonio, the claimant to the Portuguese crown, who was living in exile in England. When some of the conspirators were seized, one of them disclosed Lopez’s involvement. Essex saw his opportunity. He had Lopez tortured on the rack until he admitted that the Spanish had asked him to poison the Queen.

At his trial, Lopez denied the charge, saying that he had joined the plot against Don Antonio at the request of Walsingham, who had chosen him because he was fluent in Spanish and Portuguese. But Walsingham had died, and Lopez was not believed. He was convicted of treason. Elizabeth refused to sign the warrant for three months; then she gave in, and Lopez was hanged, drawn and quartered.

The trial had been a sensation, and it produced outbursts of anti-Semitism in the streets and in literature. As the only Jew most Englishmen had ever seen, Lopez is referred to in Marlowe’s
Doctor Faustus
, in Dekker’s
Whore of Babylon
, in Middleton’s
Game at Chess
, and is probably the model for Shakespeare’s Shylock in
The Merchant of Venice
– first staged a few weeks after the execution; again with a trial, with a Jew as the villain, with an intended victim named Antonio, and with a hero (Antonio/Essex) supported by a woman (Portia/ Elizabeth).

In 1596 it was time for more action. Raleigh was released from prison and allowed to join the fleet under the joint command of Lord Howard and Essex. All the Spanish galleons in Cadiz harbour were destroyed, and the city was seized. Philip sent what was left of his fleet to attack England, but he failed again as his vessels were damaged in a storm and forced to limp home. Essex took all the credit for the victory. He was the idol of the country.

With Spain quiet, rebellion broke out in Ireland. It was therefore necessary to send an army to subdue the rebels. First, a Lord Deputy had to be appointed to take charge of Ireland. Elizabeth and Essex favoured different candidates. The matter was to be decided at a meeting of the Council. At the meeting, Elizabeth expressed her view, and then Essex put his case with considerable force, dismissing all that the Queen had said. The argument continued, and it became increasingly heated, the other members of the Council remaining silent. Essex’s voice grew louder, exasperated that his judgment was not being accepted. For her part, Elizabeth’s anger at the lack of respect shown to her was clear to all.

Elizabeth had had enough, her candidate would be appointed. While Elizabeth was still speaking, Essex turned his back on her to show his contempt. He was not going to stand there meekly and accept being overruled on a military matter by a woman. Essex had gone too far. Elizabeth took a step forward, raised her hand and slapped him across the side of the head. Even as his ear was turning red, Essex spun round. “This is an outrage that I will not put up with,” he shouted in the presence of the stunned members of the Council. “I would not have borne it from your father’s hands” – not that he was alive when Henry was king.

Essex’s hand reached for his sword. It seemed that in his uncontrollable fury, he was about to strike down the person who had publicly insulted him, regardless of rank or gender. It was a natural reaction, nothing less could have been expected of him.

Grasping the hilt, Essex half-drew the sword; but before he could raise it to strike, other councillors had taken hold of him from both sides. Who knows what might otherwise have happened. It cannot be said that in his rage, Essex would not have killed Elizabeth there and then before he was able to realise the consequences. Very possibly those councillors saved Elizabeth from an attempt to kill her.

Forced to return his sword to its scabbard, Essex shrugged himself loose and walked away as Elizabeth and the other councillors stood speechless. Essex retired for several days to Wanstead. When he returned to court, nothing more was said of the incident, and Essex was given command of the army to be sent to Ireland.

It was not a good idea. Once in Ireland, Essex behaved as if he were the king, granting knighthoods and ignoring his orders. He lost several battles, made a truce and then returned to England contrary to his instructions. Full of confidence, and covered in mud, he burst into Elizabeth’s bedroom at Nonsuch Palace in Surrey to address her even before she had changed from her nightclothes or put on her wig. It was asking for trouble. Essex was deprived of public office and banished from court.

Elizabeth had not finished. She refused to renew Essex’s only source of income, the lease on the duty on sweet wine. Impoverished and humiliated, Essex, supported by ambitious hotheads, decided to seize the crown. The most popular man in England sent Elizabeth a message: he paid the actors at the Globe Theatre to put on Shakespeare’s
Richard II
– a monarch who was deposed, murdered and replaced by a warrior. Elizabeth understood it all too clearly. She sent men to bring Essex to court; but they were imprisoned by Essex’s supporters. Then Essex and 200 followers (over half the knights in England owed their knighthoods to Essex) rode into the City with swords drawn; Elizabeth was their target. Yet again Essex had overestimated his position. The Londoners remained loyal to their Queen, and Essex was arrested. Arrogant to the last, at his trial Essex welcomed the death sentence, informing all who were present that the Queen could not be safe while he was alive. He went to the block without asking for mercy; the last person to be beheaded in the Tower.

In the later years of the reign, the economy suffered with attacks of plague, poor harvests, high taxation and the cost of further fighting in Ireland and with Spain. By now Elizabeth was old and frail, but death would not come from another plot to kill her.

It was the fashion for women to have a white complexion with red cheeks. To achieve a snow-white skin, women of the nobility used ceruse – a paste made of white lead and vinegar. With her pock-marked face and lines from age, and with public appearances nearly every day, Elizabeth used ceruse in everincreasing quantities.

Unfortunately, ceruse is toxic; it withers the skin and causes sores, and that made the user apply even more. Worse than that, the poison from the ceruse rots the teeth (Elizabeth suffered from violent toothache, lost several teeth and in the end her speech was almost incomprehensible), it makes the hair fall out (Elizabeth’s hairline retreated halfway across her head, so that high foreheads became the fashion) and it damages the internal organs, particularly the lungs.

Elizabeth may also have used kohl (black eye make-up made of powdered antimony), and cinnabar (a red compound of mercury and sulphur for her cheeks and lips), and drops of deadly nightshade to make her pupils larger (therefore called
belladonna,
‘beautiful lady’ in Italian); all poisonous.

She ended up lying on the floor speechless for four days, refusing to allow her doctors to examine her. Then, on 24th March 1603, in those times the last day of the year
¹⁹
, she died in her sleep at the age of 69. She probably died of blood poisoning; killed by cosmetics – the original fashion victim.

become a major trading nation exploring distant lands, with Drake circumnavigating the world and Raleigh promoting colonisation in North America, the first permanent colony being named Virginia after the Virgin Queen. It was the country of Edmund Spenser, Christopher Marlowe, Sir Francis Bacon, John Donne, John Webster, Sir Philip Sidney, Ben Johnson and William Shakespeare.

Elizabeth is remembered as ‘Gloriana’, England’s greatest royal leader. What a different country it would have been if Queen Mary had signed her half-sister’s death warrant, or if one of the many assassination conspiracies had succeeded. And what if the councillors had not taken hold of Essex?

The family called the Stewarts (changed to Stuarts by Mary Queen of Scots) were descendants of Alan FitzFlaad, whose ancestor was a Breton knight who had come to England in the army of William the Conqueror. Alan’s second son, Walter Fitzalan, fled from England with other supporters of Matilda (the rival of King Stephen) in the twelfth century, and he was appointed the first Hereditary High Steward of Scotland by King David I. The Scottish royal family took the surname Stewart in the fourteenth century when Marjorie, the daughter of Robert the Bruce, married the sixth High Steward, and on the death of Marjorie’s half-brother King David II without issue her son became King Robert II. His 6 x great-granddaughter was Mary Queen of Scots, and James was her only child. He became King James VI of Scotland at the age of 13 months when his mother was forced to abdicate.

At the age of thirteen, James had formed a romantic attachment with Darnley’s 37-year-old French cousin, Esmé Stewart Sieur d’Aubigny (later to become the Duke of Lennox). From this first experience, homosexual relationships would be a constant theme of James’s life. Nevertheless, James had to secure the succession, and in 1589 (after the Scottish nobles had forced James to banish Esmé) he married Anne, the 14-yearold daughter of the King of Denmark. They went on to have seven children, but only three, Henry, Elizabeth and Charles, survived infancy.

James’s long-time obsession was his fear of witchcraft. So it was no surprise that when Shakespeare wrote his Scottish play, the first scene of
Macbeth
concerned a meeting of three witches.

Maintaining his throne was difficult for James because of a Scottish king’s lack of power. James had no standing army and he was confronted by hostile earls. One of those earls was the Earl of Bothwell; not the Bothwell who was Mary Queen of Scots’ third husband – his title had been forfeited shortly before Mary was forced to abdicate. The new Earl of Bothwell was Frances, the son of James V’s illegitimate son John Stewart (Mary’s half-brother), the man who might have been king but for his father’s illegitimacy. James believed that Bothwell had employed witches to kill him.

The first violent incident occurred when Bothwell and his supporters broke into Edinburgh Castle and raced through the building, seeking the King. James ran away and locked himself in a small room. Bothwell found the room, but he could not break down the door, so he set it on fire. Before the door had burned down, help arrived, and Bothwell and his men were chased away.

In 1592, Bothwell came with 300 men to besiege James at Falkland Palace in Fife. This time they brought a battering ram to break down the gates, but the next day they gave up and left. The following year, James was awoken in Holyrood Palace early one morning by loud noise, and he rushed from his bedroom. Bothwell had seized the palace, and he approached James, sword in hand. James turned and ran to the Queen’s bedroom, but it was locked. The King was trapped; all he could do was stand there shouting “Treason!”. Bothwell came up to James, who challenged Bothwell to kill him. Surprised at the proposal, Bothwell hesitated, and then he offered his sword to James inviting James to kill him. Negotiations began, and they led to a deal under which Bothwell agreed to stand trial for witchcraft. In 1594, having been acquitted of witchcraft, Bothwell and his men once more went on the attack, ambushing James and his retinue and pursuing them until they reached the safety of Edinburgh. After further failed conspiracies, Bothwell gave up and left Scotland for ever.