The young elizabeth, p.20
The Young Elizabeth, page 20
We tendering the surety of your person, which might chance to be in some peril, if any sudden tumult should arise, either where you now be, or about Donnington, whither (as we understand) you are bound shortly to remove, do therefore think it expedient you should put yourself in readiness with all convenient speed to make your repair hither to us, which, we pray you, fail not to do, assuring you, that as you may more surely remain here, so shall you be most heartily welcome to us. And of your mind herein we pray you return answer by this messenger.7
Velvet gloves were still being worn, but the hint of steel in the invitation was unmistakable. Elizabeth returned a verbal answer. She was too ill to travel, she said. The officers of her household felt it prudent to follow this up with a letter addressed to the Lord Chancellor. ‘Albeit we attend here on my Lady Elizabeth’s Grace, our mistress,’ they wrote,
in hope every day of her amendment, to repair towards the Queen’s Highness, (whereof we have, as yet, none apparent likelihood of health,) yet, considering this dangerous world, the perilous attempts and the naughty endeavours of the rebels … we do not forget our most bounden duty, nor yet our readiness in words and deeds to serve Her Highness by all the ways and means that may stand in us, both from her Grace, our mistress, and of our own parts also.8
There, for the moment, the matter rested; during the next fortnight the Queen and Council were too busy coping with a major crisis on their doorstep to have any leisure to spare for Elizabeth.
A hastily collected force, consisting of men of the Queen’s guard and the City train bands, had been sent down to Kent; but the Londoners and a fair proportion of the guard promptly defected to the rebels with rousing cries of ‘We are all Englishmen!’ In the words of one Alexander Brett, they preferred to spend their blood ‘in the quarrel of this worthy captain, Master Wyatt’ and prevent at all costs the approach of ‘the proud Spaniards’ who, as every right-thinking Englishman knew, would treat them like slaves, despoil them of their goods and lands, ravish their wives before their faces and deflower their daughters in their presence.9
Thus reinforced, Wyatt resumed his advance on the capital. From Blackheath on 30 January he announced his terms: the custody of the Tower with the Queen in it, the removal of several councillors and their replacements to be chosen by him. London was in a turmoil and everything depended on the loyalty of the citizens, which appeared doubtful to say the least. It was Mary herself who saved a very ugly situation. Like all her family, she showed to the best advantage in a crisis which demanded a display of physical and moral courage. Disregarding advice that she should seek her own safety, she rode into the City on 1 February and made a fighting speech in the crowded Guildhall that not even Elizabeth could have bettered. Her audience rose to her, and when Wyatt reached Southwark two days later he found the bridge heavily defended against him. A period of uneasy stalemate followed, during which the Lord Mayor and the sheriffs got into armour and commanded the householders to be ready ‘in harness to stand every one at his door, what chance soever might happen’. It was a long time since London had been besieged and ‘much noise and tumult was everywhere’ as shops were shuttered, market stalls hastily dismantled and weapons and armour unearthed from store and prepared for use. The Queen had refused to allow the Tower guns to be turned on the rebels in case any of the innocent inhabitants of Southwark should suffer, and finally, on Shrove Tuesday, 6 February, Wyatt withdrew his men from ‘the bridge foot’ and marched down-river to Kingston, where they crossed to the northern bank before turning eastwards again. But the steam had gone out of them by now. They were tired and hungry, and too much time had been wasted. Still they came on through the western suburbs. There was some skirmishing with the royalist forces under the command of the Earl of Pembroke around St James’s and Charing Cross, and some panic at Whitehall when, in the general confusion, a cry of treason was raised within the precincts of the palace as a rumour spread that Pembroke had gone over to the enemy. ‘There’, remarked one observer,’ should ye have seen running and crying of ladies and gendewomen, shutting of doors, and such a screeching and noise as it was wonderful to hear.’ But still the Queen stood fast and ‘many thought she would have been in the field in person’.10 Wyatt and a handful of followers got through Temple Bar and on down Fleet Street, but found Ludgate barred and defended against them. As they turned back they realised that they had become separated from the main body of their army and Pembroke was coming up to cut off their retreat. A few minutes later it was all over and Wyatt had yielded to Sir Maurice Berkeley at Temple Bar.
Once the immediate danger had passed and the rank and file of the insurgents were being rounded up and crammed into makeshift prisons, the government was able to turn its attention to unravelling the threads of the conspiracy. Before the end of January, Gardiner, believing with some justification that de Noailles was involved up to his neck, had resorted to highway robbery on one of the ambassador’s couriers. As a result indisputable evidence emerged that de Noailles had known all about the plot and the names of the plotters for at least two months. Even more interesting, the Lord Chancellor’s men discovered a copy of Elizabeth’s last letter to the Queen on its way to the French King by diplomatic bag. From this it seemed reasonable to assume that the Queen’s heir was in correspondence with the emissaries of a foreign power. Whether she had been actively involved in the recent disturbance remained to be proved, but although Wyatt had never openly invoked her name there could be no doubt that she, if anyone, had stood to gain from his success. At all events, it was time she came to London to give an account of herself. Mary was already suspicious of the convenient illness Elizabeth was still using as an excuse for skulking in the country, and two of the royal physicians, Drs Owen and Wendy, were despatched to examine the patient and report on her condition. On 10 February, the medical team was reinforced by a commission consisting of Lord William Howard, the Lord Admiral and Elizabeth’s maternal great-uncle, Sir Edward Hastings and Sir Thomas Cornwallis.
According to a highly coloured and quite unsubstantiated account by that enthusiastic martyrologist John Foxe, their orders were to bring the Princess back with them ‘either quick or dead’. Holinshed says they arrived late at night and insisted on forcing their way unbidden into her bedroom. The commissioners themselves reported more soberly to the Queen on the following day that ‘immediately upon our arrival at Ashridge, we required to have access unto my Lady Elizabeth’s Grace; which obtained, we delivered unto her your Highness’ letter; and I, the Lord Admiral, declared the effect of your Highness’ pleasure’. The doctors had given it as their opinion that Elizabeth could be moved ‘without danger of her person’ and the commission therefore felt that ‘we might well proceed to require her in your Majesty’s name (all excuses set apart) to repair to your Highness with all convenient speed and diligence’. They found the invalid ‘very willing and conformable’ but still fighting a determined rearguard action, for ‘she much feared her weakness to be so great that she should not be able to travel and to endure the journey without peril of life’. Elizabeth knew that the peril lay not in the journey but its destination and begged a further respite, ‘until she had better recovered her strength’. It was, however, politely but firmly made clear that the time for such delaying tactics had passed, and she gave in with becoming meekness, agreeing to set out on the following day.11
Although, for obvious reasons, she was making the most of it, there is no doubt that her illness was genuine. When her escort ‘had her forth’ at nine o’clock in the morning of Monday, 12 February, ‘she was very faint and feeble and in such case that she was ready to swound three or four times’ before they could get her into the Queen’s litter which had been brought to carry her. From the description of her symptoms – her face and limbs were so distended that she was said to be ‘a sad sight to see’ – Elizabeth appears to have been suffering from acute nephritis, or inflammation of the kidneys, and it has been suggested that she may have had an attack of scarlet fever of which this form of Bright’s Disease is often a complication.12 But her physical discomfort can scarcely have compared with her mental anxiety. The situation she had been dreading ever since Mary’s accession was now at hand and there could be no disguising the fact that she stood in deadly danger. The litter jolting its way slowly but inexorably through the frost-rutted Hertfordshire lanes might well be taking her towards a traitor’s death.
In deference to his charge’s fragile condition, Howard had planned the thirty-mile journey to Westminster in very easy stages, expecting it to last five days; but he had reckoned without Elizabeth’s talent for procrastination and it was 22 February before the cortège was able to leave Mr Cholmeley’s house at Highgate and descend into the City. Simon Renard reported that Elizabeth, who was wearing unrelieved white for the occasion, ‘had her litter opened to show herself to the people’ and the people themselves, clearly expecting the worst, came flocking gloomily to gaze on the swollen, pallid countenance of their Princess. According to Renard, she appeared ‘proud and haughty’, an expression which in his opinion was assumed to mask the vexation she felt.13
Elizabeth’s feelings on that dismal Thursday afternoon can only be guessed at, but the sights which greeted her as she was carried through Smithfield and on down Fleet Street can have done nothing to raise her spirits. The government had had a bad fright and the work of exemplary justice was proceeding briskly. Gallows had been erected throughout the City, in Bermondsey, at Charing Cross and Hyde Park Corner, and all the gates into London were decorated with heads and dismembered corpses.14 The great were suffering with the simple. Courtenay was back in the Tower. The Duke of Suffolk, who owed his life and liberty after Northumberland’s coup entirely to the Queen’s generosity, had tried to raise the Midlands against her and was now awaiting execution. Mary had also reluctantly been brought to agree that Jane Grey would have to die. Innocent she might be of any complicity in Wyatt’s rebellion but the very fact of her existence had come to represent an unacceptable danger. Her father’s disastrous behaviour had proved that beyond doubt. Diminutive, freckle-faced Jane, who was not yet seventeen, had followed her young husband to the block on the day Elizabeth left Ashridge – a piece of news which more than any other must surely have brought home her own nearness to the abyss. If Mary could be persuaded to kill Jane of whom, despite her heresy, she had always been rather fond, there seemed even less chance that she would be in any mood to spare the sister she so overtly distrusted.
When Elizabeth reached Whitehall the portents were bad. She had already been separated from most of her household. The Queen refused to see her and she was lodged in a part of the Palace from which, said Renard, neither she nor her remaining servants could go out without passing through the guard. There she stayed for nearly a month, a prisoner in fact if not in name, while determined efforts were made to build up the case against her. Renard could not understand the delay in sending her to the Tower, since, he wrote, ‘she has been accused by Wyatt, mentioned by name in the French ambassador’s letters, suspected by her own councillors, and it is certain that the enterprise was undertaken for her sake. Indeed, Sire,’ he told the Emperor in some exasperation, ‘if she does not seize this opportunity of punishing her and Courtenay, the Queen will never be secure.’15
It is impossible, at this distance in time, to say just how deeply Elizabeth had in fact been implicated in the rebellion. There was some circumstantial evidence – enough, it must be admitted, to justify an enquiry. But it soon turned out to amount to very little in real terms. Wyatt, who was being rigorously interrogated, admitted having sent Elizabeth two letters; one advising her to retreat to Donnington, where she could have defended herself until the insurrection had succeeded; the other informing her of his arrival at Southwark. Francis Russell, the Earl of Bedford’s son, confessed to acting as postman but the replies, if any, had been verbal and non-committal. Sir James Crofts, one of the conspirators now in custody, had been to see Elizabeth at Ashridge, and according to a report from Mr Secretary Bourne dated 25 February had incriminated William Saintlow, a member of her household. But William Saintlow, examined by the Council, ‘stoutly denied’ knowing anything of Wyatt’s plans, ‘protesting that he was a true man, both to God and his prince’.16 ‘Crofts is plain and will tell all,’ wrote Bourne hopefully, and Renard, in a despatch dated 1 March, declared that Crofts had ‘confessed the truth, written his deposition, and admitted in plain terms the intrigues of the French ambassador with the heretics and rebels’.17 Possibly the wish was father to the thought – in actual fact Sir James, although ‘marvellously tossed’, does not appear to have revealed anything of importance. Even the discovery of that letter in de Noailles’s postbag was not in itself evidence against Elizabeth. There was nothing to prove that she herself had given it to de Noailles or had permitted anyone else to do so.
While it is difficult to believe that she had been entirely ignorant of the conspiracy, it is equally hard to credit that she had either approved or been actively involved. On the other hand, she could scarcely have betrayed the men who, however wrong-headed, believed themselves to be her friends, and had they been success ful, she would have found it impossible to stand aside. There can be little doubt that one of the first consequences of such a success would have been the removal of Mary and an attempt to replace her by putting Elizabeth and Courtenay jointly on the throne. Since everything we know about Elizabeth leads to the conclusion that this was the last way she would ever have chosen to come into her inheritance, her most likely course is the one which, in the light of the available evidence, she may be said to have pursued – to try to know as little as possible and hope to keep out of it.
On 15 March Wyatt was brought to trial and convicted. The next day, which was the Friday before Palm Sunday, Elizabeth received a visit from Stephen Gardiner and nineteen other members of the Council, who ‘burdened her with Wyatt’s conspiracy’ as well as with the ‘business made by Sir Peter Carew and the rest of the gentlemen of the West Country’. It was the Queen’s pleasure, they told her, that she should go to the Tower ‘while the matter were further tried and examined’. Elizabeth was aghast. She denied all the charges made against her, ‘affirming that she was altogether guiltless therein’, and said desperately that she trusted the Queen’s Majesty would be a more gracious lady unto her than to send her to ‘so notorious and doleful a place’. Stony-faced, the deputation indicated that there was no alternative, the Queen was fully determined, and they trooped out ‘with their caps hanging over their eyes’. Barely an hour later four of them were back again. Her own servants were removed and six of the Queen’s people appointed to wait on her, so that ‘none should have access to her grace’. A hundred soldiers from the north in white coats watched and warded in the Palace gardens that night, and a great fire was lit in the Hall, where ‘two certain lords’ kept guard with their company.18
It is not difficult to imagine the twenty-year-old Elizabeth lying awake in the darkness, listening to the tramp of feet beneath her window and knowing that the net was closing round her. Within a few hours, short of some miracle, she would be in ‘that very narrow place’ the Tower, from which few prisoners of the blood royal had ever emerged alive. But, on the following morning, when the Earl of Sussex and another lord whom Foxe tactfully omits to name (he was probably the Marquess of Winchester, the same who as Lord St John had once ridden down to Hatfield with Robert Tyrwhit), came to tell her that the barge was waiting and the tide now ready ‘which tarrieth for nobody’, Elizabeth made it clear she had by no means given up the fight. It was a time for clutching at straws. She asked to wait for the next tide and was refused. Then, if she might not see the Queen, she begged at least to be allowed to write to her. Winchester said he dared not permit such a thing, adding that in his opinion it would do Elizabeth more harm than good. But Sussex, suddenly kneeling to the prisoner, exclaimed that she should have liberty to write, and, as he was a true man, he would deliver her letter to the Queen and bring an answer ‘whatsoever came thereof’.19
Writing-materials were hastily produced, and with her escort hovering in the background Elizabeth sat down to begin what might well prove to be the most important letter of her life. Her pen flowed easily over the first page, in sentences which she must have been polishing during the watches of the night. ‘If any ever did try this old saying’, she wrote,
that a King’s word was more than another man’s oath, I most humbly beseech your Majesty to verify it in me, and to remember your last promise and my last demand, that I be not condemned without answer and due proof, which it seems that now I am; for that without cause proved I am by your Council from you commanded to go into the Tower, a place more wonted for a false traitor than a true subject. … I protest afore God, who shall judge my truth, whatsoever malice shall devise, that I never practised, counselled nor consented to anything that might be prejudicial to your person any way, or dangerous to the state by any means. And I therefore humbly beseech your Majesty to let me answer afore yourself, and not suffer me to trust to your councillors; yea, and afore that I go to the Tower, if it is possible; if not, afore I be further condemned. … Let conscience move your Highness to take some better way with me, than to make me condemned in all men’s sight afore my desert [be] known.
It might be dangerous to remind Mary of Tom Seymour and yet she had to risk it. ‘I have heard in my time’, she went on,
