Sir Francis Walsingham (30 page)

It was too late. The battle lines had been drawn. Whitgift simply changed his tactics. He prosecuted selected radicals in the ecclesiastical courts and he cultivated Sir Christopher Hatton who, for reasons of personal advancement, adopted the queen’s religious policy and became a serious rival to Leicester in the Council. The Puritan clergy similarly organized themselves and presented petitions to their conciliar supporters against proceedings which, as Burghley observed, smacked of the Spanish Inquisition. This was the situation when parliament assembled in November 1584. It was obvious that there was going to be trouble. The House of Commons now included many new members no less zealous for religion than their predecessors but lacking the caution those predecessors had learned from previous encounters with the queen. Foreseeing difficulties, Leicester convened a meeting at Lambeth Palace where the radicals and reactionaries could argue the case. Predictably the debate generated more heat than light. It was the ever-pragmatic Walsingham who played the peacemaker. He persuaded the archbishop to stop hounding incumbents who conformed outwardly and did not draw attention to themselves. Henceforth it would only be new appointees who were obliged to subscribe. It was, however, too late to head off the parliamentary critics.

Promises had been made to previous parliaments concerning further reform of the church. Not only had those promises not been kept; Puritans now found themselves under the cosh of a reactionary regime. The Commons set up a committee to prepare religious legislation. The queen sent to inform them that they were not permitted to meddle in matters ecclesiastical. They ignored the prohibition. Elizabeth authorized a long parliamentary recess as a cooling off period. Parliament came back in February still determined to have satisfaction. Both houses eventually presented two bills. The queen vetoed them. On 29 February she summoned the speaker and told him in no uncertain terms that she would brook no more interference in her governance of the church.

Two days earlier Walsingham had had to endure another of her intemperate outbursts during a meeting of senior churchmen and leading councillors. The queen made ostentatious show of her support for the bishops:

We understand that some of the Nether House have used divers reproachful speeches against you, tending greatly to your dishonour, which we will not suffer; and that they meddle with matters above their capacity not appertaining unto them, for the which we will call some of them to an account. And we understand they be countenanced by some of our Council, which we will redress or else uncouncil some of them.

She grumbled about the behaviour of the London mercantile community:

where every merchant must have his schoolmaster and nightly conventicles expounding Scriptures and catechizing their servants and maids, in so much that I have heard how some of their maids have not sticked to control learned preachers, and say that such a man taught otherwise in our house.

And she made it abundantly clear that her personal animosity was greater towards Puritans than Catholics. She told of a letter received from some foreign correspondent:

who wrote that the papists were [in] hope to prevail again in England, for that her Protestants themselves misliked her, and indeed so [they] do, for I have heard that some of them of late have said that I was of no religion, neither hot [nor] cold, but such a one as one day would give God the vomit. I pray you look unto such men. I doubt not but you will look unto the papists, for that they not only have spite at me, and that very nearly, but at the whole realm and the state of religion. There is an Italian proverb which sayeth, ‘From mine enemy let me defend myself, but from a pretended friend, good Lord deliver me.’ Both these join together in one opinion against me for neither of them would have me to be queen of England.
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And it was those last words that revealed her deepest prejudice. She repeated them a month later when, at the earliest possible moment, she prorogued parliament.

Walsingham may well have breathed a sigh of relief when MPs packed their bags and rode off back to their shires and boroughs. Useless confrontation made the queen more difficult to handle than usual and was a distraction from his principal preoccupation – ‘being very careful for the safety of the queen and the realm’. From his letters and reports of others about his conduct we can detect a growing irascibility from 1585 onwards. This was partly due to failing health. Forced absences from court became more frequent because of ‘my old disease’. He was wearing himself out with overwork in his attempts to respond appropriately to the worrying situation at home, in Scotland and in the Low Countries. The very volume of intelligence reports constituted a problem. Walsingham’s desk must, at times, have been swamped with information, much of it mutually contradictory. Thus, the location of the presumed Catholic strike was a matter for constant assessment and reassessment: would it be Scotland, or Arundel, or Ireland, or the Kent coast? In the ever-difficult internal politics of court and Council he was always having to watch his own back. He could not rely on Burghley’s support. The treasurer was still dealing directly with Stafford. On one occasion Walsingham flew into a rage because the ambassador’s assessment of the Paris situation differed from that of his own agents and, when reported, humiliated him in front of the queen.

From December 1585 to December 1587 Leicester was, with one interlude, on campaign in the Netherlands. In his absence the Whitgift-Hatton caucus gained strength. Whitgift was admitted to the Council early in 1586 and a year later Hatton was appointed Lord Chancellor (a promotion owing more to royal favour than any experience of the law). At the very time that England found itself on the dizzying rim of the maelstrom of international conspiracy, Walsingham felt his influence waning. Over the years Mr Secretary had perfected the art of bringing the queen round to his viewpoint on many issues. His secret was persistence. Without him nagging at her elbow and refusing to be deflected by her anger, Elizabeth fell prey to her own prevarication and the advice of others. A throwaway line in a letter Burghley wrote to his colleague highlights the role Walsingham so often played and which had become an established feature in the
landscape of government: ‘I wish your health and presence here, where your ability to attend on her Majesty at all times might greatly further causes . . . by importunity that now, for lack of following, which I cannot do by [reason of] my lameness, remain unperfected.’
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In one area of policy Walsingham’s advice was, at last, heeded – or it may be that the logic of events prevented Elizabeth reaching any other conclusion. In the summer of 1584 Anjou had died. No longer could Elizabeth’s battles in the Netherlands be fought by proxy. Yet the survival of the United Netherlands (the Protestant northern states) still depended on foreign aid. In fact, their dependence was greater than ever. Parma’s brilliant and persistent campaign in the south was bringing more and more territory back under Spanish control. Brussels capitulated in March 1585. What was worse from an international point of view was that Antwerp, that great entrepôt, was being systematically starved into submission. By March it had lain under siege for nine months and there was no prospect of it surviving without the intervention of a relief force. (The end came in August and resulted in almost half the city’s population fleeing to the north.) The States General turned to both Henry III and Elizabeth as their only potential saviours. They offered sovereignty over their land in return for military aid. By early March it was known in London that the French king had declined. All eyes were now turned on Elizabeth. She had a clear choice: allow the Netherlanders to stew in their own juice and watch Spain seize control of the Narrow Seas and the western trade routes or stand shoulder to shoulder with the rebels, an act which would be, in effect, a declaration of war against Philip.

True to form, she did neither – or rather she tried to do both at the same time, with inevitably disastrous results. Her positive acts were twofold. She entered into a treaty with representatives of the States General, promising men and money for their nationalist struggle and she authorized Drake to harass Spanish shipping in order to distract Philip from the Netherlands and also in the hope of gaining booty to finance the military operation. The second part of the plan was the only one about which the queen could be said to have shown any enthusiasm. The prospect of a cash return on her investment of ships and money was alluring. Also Philip inadvertently came to her aid by
seizing some English merchant vessels. Elizabeth could thus claim that she had been provoked into ordering reprisals. Yet even the maritime scheme fell victim to her changeableness. For almost a year it was by turns on and off. Drake, as he gathered and provisioned his fleet, was repeatedly frustrated by the latest order arriving from the court. At last, on 14 September, even though his preparations were not complete, he grabbed the opportunity to set sail. As one of his captains, Christopher Carleill (Walsingham’s stepson) explained to Mr Secretary, ‘because the wind being fair upon our coming from Plymouth we were loth to lose the same for any small matters, coming so rarely as it doth there, and withal we not the most assured of her Majesty’s perseverance to let us go forward’.
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Similar dithering hampered relations with the States General. Leicester, Hatton, Burghley and Walsingham handled negotiations with the Dutch representatives. Throughout July and August a series of meetings took place, some at Burghley’s town house and some at Walsingham’s residence in Seething Lane, and were occasions of exceedingly hard bargaining. The major points at issue were twofold – sovereignty and money. The States General wanted Elizabeth to assume absolute authority and to back it with such a military force as should be able to drive Parma from the land. Such a prospect appalled the queen. She was prepared to
lend
her allies the wherewithal to fight a defensive campaign, against the collateral of certain port towns that her troops would garrison. As to sovereignty, that was out of the question since it manifestly implied conquest. She would only consent to send a senior nobleman in charge of her forces in a purely military capacity. Eventually, some sort of agreement was cobbled together and enshrined in the two treaties of Nonsuch.

It must be said that Elizabeth and the States General deserved each other. The leaders of the United Netherlands were hopelessly divided among themselves over their political and religious objectives. While some were insistent on ceding sovereignty to a foreign protector, others were defensive about their freedom and determined to maintain tight control of any army Elizabeth sent over. English aims and objectives were equally divided. The conciliar hawks were, as usual,
Leicester and Walsingham, though on Netherlands affairs they now had the support of Hatton. As the military campaign progressed through 1586 the queen got cold feet and was ready to listen to any scheme which might enable her to disengage honourably. Within the Council an appeasement faction developed of men who, either out of conviction or a desire to curry favour with their mistress, actively promoted peace. There were also those who stood to gain from a cessation of hostilities, men such as Sir James Croft, Controller of the Household, who was receiving a pension from Philip. At one time there were as many as five separate overtures being made to Philip’s representatives. Needless to say such parleys were carried out in secret. This gave rise to a situation in which Elizabeth and members of her government were scheming against and even spying on each other. This was the background to the ill-fated Netherlands campaign, which we must now consider in brief outline.

In August 1585 the seasoned general, Sir John Norreys, was despatched with the first detachment of English troops to go to the aid of Amsterdam. He arrived too late but the die had been cast. The Dutch pressed Elizabeth to send Leicester as her deputy and he was eager for the command but it was late September before she could bring herself to agree. Dudley immediately set about making the necessary arrangements. He raised a loan in the City. He requisitioned arms and armour from the royal arsenal in the Tower. He wrote to 200 friends and dependants requesting them to join him with their own bands of armed retainers. Then, in the small hours of 27 September he was awoken to receive a message from Walsingham:

My very good lord, her majesty sent me word . . . that I should speak unto your lordship that her pleasure is you forbear to proceed in your preparations until you speak with her. How this cometh about I know not. The matter is to be kept secret. These changes here may work some such changes in the Low Country as may prove irreparable.
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Ten weeks later uncertainty was still in the air, causing Leicester to appeal to Burghley:

as there can be no good, or honour, fall to this action, but it must be wholly to the praise and honour of her majesty, so whatsoever disgrace or dishonour shall happen (growing for lack of our good maintenance) but it will redound to her majesty also. Her majesty, I see, my Lord, often times doth fall into mislike of this cause, and sundry opinions it may breed in her withal, but I trust in the Lord, seeing her highness hath thus far resolved and grown also to this far execution as she hath, and that mine and other men’s poor lives and substances are adventured for her sake, and by her commandment, that she will fortify and maintain her own action to the full performance of that she hath agreed on . . . if her majesty fail with such supply and maintenance as shall be fit, all she hath done hitherto will be utterly lost and cast away and we, her poor subjects, no better than abjects.

Leicester knew full well that his work could be undermined, not only by Elizabeth’s half-heartedness and disinclination to spend money, but also by backstabbing colleagues. There was a real note of pathos in his closing appeal to Burghley:

I beseech your lordship have this cause even to your heart . . . have me only thus far in your care, that in these things which her Majesty and you all have agreed and confirmed for me to do, that I shall not be made a metamorphosis [and] that I shall not know what to do.