Ackroyd _2011_. The Thirty Nine Steps (1).pdf

English culture

1. yo Tuners

‘of the council were called down from London and met a all times
of night and day to consider the calamity that was facing chem.
All the doubts and divisions ofthe nation now came to 4 head as
they debated the matter of the succession, Mary Stuart was not to
be thought of. There could be no second Catholic queen. OF all
the candidates Lady Katherine Grey, still in disgrace after her
clandestine marriage, was the most favoured, She was, ar lest of
the reformed fai.

‘When the fever had cooled sufficiently, the queen reruraed to
Konsciousnes. She believed that she was dying and, a the council
(Med around her bed, she asked them to make Dudley the
iporecor of the realm. She told them that she loved him dearly

invoking God as her witness, declared that nothing unseemly’

lever taken place between them. Yet the crisis had passed, her

good health reasserted itself, and she remained among the

is fact of her mortality, however, was now evident to all

hon and to the lady herself. In later years the queen never
Ie reminded of her lines

28
The thirty-nine steps

The religion of England had always possessed a vital European

+. At the beginning of the 1560, for example, it bore a part
in the wars of religion that divided France. In matters of faith no
nation was an island. In the regency of Catherine de Medici the
Catholics and the Huguenots vied for mastery, with the Guise
family supporting the Catholics and the house of Bourbon allied
with the Protestants. Catherine herself was obliged to maintain
some kind of balance between them to preserve the unity of the
Kingdom. Into this uneasy struggle were in turn drawn the rulers
of the other European states, Catholic and Protestant alike
among the former were the Holy Roman Emperor, Ferdinand I,
and Philip IL of Spain. Elizabeth could not stand apart, To have
done s0 would look like weakness. The balance ofthe members of
her council, who favoured the reformed religion, were alo likely o
support the Protestant case.

Elizabeth, as always, vacilted. She never made a decision
when one could be avoided. Procrastination was her policy in all
the afin of sat, She was no frend tothe Calvinist luguenots,
having hated the doctrines of Calvin in the shape of John Knox
and The First Blast ofthe Trumpet against the Mensrou Regiment
of Homer she had an aversion to spending her much needed money
in European wars she had far more cause to watch the afhir of

zu

2. su Topors

Mary Stuart in Scotland. In any case the prospect of a general

ous war in Europe promised manifold pers. It could draw
England itself into senseless shaughter. Rich prizes, on the other
hand, might be won. One of hr advisers rote to her that ie may

chance in these garboys [bois] some occasion may be ofeed
as that again you may be brought into possession of Calas.
Sill she remained iresolute. She sent an envoy to Catherin
Medic, promising her help in any mediation.

At che same time Mary Snare was pressing fora meeting with
her English cousin, in which she hoped that Elizabeth would
recognize her claim to the throne. Elizabeth herself welcomed the
opportunity of seeing her close relative and neighbouring queen.
Te might also help t pacity the House of Guise, to which Mary
was allied through her marriage to the former French king, and
promote a truce in France. Yet here, to, infinite dangers threat-
ened. The co

vil voted, without one dissenting voice, against any
such interview between the two queens. They believed Mary to be
a secret enemy, still pursuing the interests of the Catholic cause
on behalf of France. The prospect of another Catholic queen of
England was in any case too dreadful to consider.

Elizabeth persisted in her wish to meet the queen of Scots, and
promised that she would receive her in Nottingham atthe begin
ning of September 1562, Letters were sent to the authorities of
that cy, ordering them to prepare forthe stinues of two sover
gps amounting to some 4,000 people. News now came, however
hat Spanish troops were advancing towards the French border in
order to assist the pretensions of the House of Guise, The Prot-
estants might be overwhelmed; Elizabeth's offers of mediation were
now worthless, and any meeting tcles in the extreme. So sh
cancelled the proposed encounter with Mary. On receiving this
news the queen of Scots took t herbed for the whole day

In desperation the leader ofthe Huguenot caus, the prince of
Condé, appealed to Elizabeth for men and for money. He sil
controlled Normandy and, in return for her assistance, he promised
er Le Havre and Dieppe as securities for the eventual restoration
of Calais into English hands, She. could no longer hesitates her
reluctance to help the Protestants was mining her credit on the
bourse at Anne. On 22 September a treaty was concluded with

Tun rmarvnıne STEP »

Condé legation at Hampton Cour. The queen agreed to send
6000 troops into France, while also granting a large loan. She
wrote to Macy arguing that it was necessary to protect our own
house from destruction when those of our neighbours are on fe
Need knows no law

‘On 2 October an English force lft Portsmouth for France and,
too days later, had taken possession of Le Havre. This was to be
the fst step in the reposesion of Calais eis kel chat the queen
Was more interested in that town than in the Protestant cause.
Against her expres orders a smaller foros of English troops had
ako joined the Protestants in defence of Rouen. The afirs of war
ae, as she know well enough, uncertin. Rouen was taken by the
Catholic forces of the Guise, and is defenders put to the sword
A bloody battle at Drew in north-west France, in which thousands
‘were slain on either sido, led eo an wneasy interval. Catherine de
Medici then arranged a tice between Catholics and Protestants,
in which the prince of Condé was offered a moderate form of
religious toleration, Jt scemed likely then that, in che saying of the

English interest was to be left out a he cat’ cul

“The English forces in Le Havre were defiant. They wanted to
make the French cock ery cu, and hey promised the queen that
“the least molehill should not be lost without many bloody blows
Condé and Guise now marched together against the ancient enemy,
while Elizabeth sled agains the prince 2 ‘treacherous incon
Stant perjured villa’. She insisted that Calas was given over to
fer before she would think of leaving Le Havre, She ordered her
ships to se and a force was rised from the prisons of London;
the thieves and highwaymen were enolled a soldiers as a means

cf escaping de gl

Yer death ce in ter forms. A auge dies bro ut
among the Engl gun at Le Have. In the heat of June
was son known to bet lg. By the end ofthe month sy
tren fl each day. The French Big Bad cut ff water from
the town o ri met or vegetables cul be obtained. By the
Begin of July ony 1,909 hen wet e, and French camen
tore men ars the ter bu thy were wat he polled and
ponent was moe lal than weona athe French

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The commander of the gumison, the cal of Warwick, came to
terms with the enemy. Effectively he surrendered. Le Havre was
med to dhe French, and che remainder of the English were
alowed to embark upon thee ships.

Te had been disaster, but ie was prelude 10 another calamity.
“The retuming soldiers brought the plague to England with chem.
“Throughout the est of the summer the death raged inthe towns
and villages through which they pased. The symptoms were those
‘of fever, At of shivering vete followed by violen headaches, which
in turn were succeeded by a great desire to sleep. The langvor
Commonly resulted in death. In August the mortalities in London
ore from 700 to 2,000 a week. Only when the heavy rains of
November and December cleansed the streets was the epidemic
rental stile,

The queen had earat two harsh lessons from the disaster of
Le Havre. It was not wise to rely upon the promises of princes
Ie was dangerous to medal in wars nat of her own choos
subsequent treaty Elizabeth gave up all aim to Calas

Apartament had been summoned at the beginning of 1563 t0
consider these great matters of state and, in particular, to finance
What was then the ongoing French war, But the members of
both Lords and Commons were more exercised over the problem
ofthe succession; the recent illness of the queen only emphasized
the precarious state of the nation in the event of her death, The
Abate was considered to be so important that Mary Stuart sent
her own ambassador to observe the proceedings and to press her

“The Commons dilated on the perils of the singe fife. If no
marriage was contemplated, or if no heir was chosen, the entire
Country was in a sense barren; this increased the risk of infinite
mischief, among them civic confict and foreign invasion. The
‘queen answered their petition in a direct but not unambiguous
Speech in which she declared that she understood the dangers as
wel a, if not better than, they’ did She had ead of a philosopher
‘whose custom was to recite the alphabet before applying his mind
to a delicate problem (the same story was told of the emperor
Augustus): in similar fashion she would wait and pray before
making her deliberation, Yet assure you al that though after my

Tur ravie srars ES

death you may have many step-dames, yet you shall never have a
‘Sore satura mother than T mean to be unto you all. This might
be interpreted as the reply courteous

To the petition sent by the Lords a few days Inter, she was
more bunt. She had hoped that they would show more foresight
‘han ther colleagues in the Commons, where there were resis
heals in schose Brains the nesdless hammers beat with vain judg
ment, She asserted that to declare a successor would lead to cv
ares and Bloodshed. The marks on her face were not the wrinkles
‘fold age but che scars of smallpox In any case, ike che mother of
{he Baptist, she might bear fruit in her advanced years, She was in
face only twenty-nine years old

Im a Binal address o both the Lords and Commons, ead out
by dhe lord chancellor, she admitted that she had not resolved
or mar And if] ean bend my king to your need I wi
relat auch a mind? might prove only a very slender undertaking.
‘She promised o consult the learned of the land, so shall more
lly procure your good after my days chan with my prayers whist
Fi be mean to linger my living thread. As a masterwork of

‘obfuscation, this could mean anything or nothing
She had alo been asserting henel on another front es likely
hat William Cecil and certain other members of the council, had
been helping to promote the petitions of padlament. They could
Her be seen dvcetly to intervene in its argument with the queen,
they could bring pressure to bear upon her. The

Mer is o deep, Cecil wrote, Tcannot reach into it, Godsend it
2 go inc!” Yet it was clay his belle bat parliament should
oler and advise on the matter of the succession, even at the

but indirectly

‘Cost of diminishing the queens prerogative.

tra als his belief that he should be guided, if not ruled, by
the members of her council. She required wise, male advice in order
Fo forward che godly rule ofthe nation. One of her councillors, Sir
Fans Knolys, explained to ber that she should se aide ‘such
tons and passons of your mind as happen to have dominion
ve you, So yt the resolutions digested by the deliberate consul
score of your most faithful counsllos ought ever to be had in
mou price" The councl were the ‘watchmen’ or ‘the fathers ofthe
County’ Elizabeth could not have become a tyrant

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Yet she remained the mistress of her parliament. Her immed
ste predecestor had called ive parliaments in four years, bt in the
fist thiy yca of her reign she summoned it only seven times
It is in me and my power’ she once told the Speaker, to call
parliaments: it is my power to end and determine the sun: it sin
my power to assent or dissent to anything done in parlament
The legislation came from the council, or was introduced into
parliament at the express wish or with the connivance of the
council. Her minister, such as Knollys and Hatton, sat among
the Commons. The Speaker himself was chosen by he soverign
25 an instrument of her rule. Occasions of retlessnes and discon
tent of course emerged in the course of the long reign, but in
‘general she managed to curb them with gracious speeches, politic
Degotiations, or he selective imprisonment of recalcitrant members
In the bad of wits she was never defeated

The question of eee speech’ was raised but never resolve
the confusions atendant upon ie were resurrected in the next reign,
In general paliament was considered to be an extension of royal
goverment, on the supposition that the source of ll law, according
o one political philosopher, ‘sandeth in diverse statutes made by
the ing, the Lords and the Commons

In 1563 Cecil also dafted a succession bil in which he advised

that, in the event of the queen's death without an heir, he author
iy of government would pass for he immediate future to the privy
council. Fora time England would become an oligachy or ario
cratic republic not unlike chat of Venice. Cecil proposed that it
would then become the responsibility of parliament

monarch. The idea o an heredicary elected monarchy was new and
staring, it was a denial of the whole structure and spii of the
Tudor dynasty, Tt was of course à messure of Cecil's anxiety and
frustration that he was forced to this expedient. Yet the bill self

was never put forward for discussion. If Elizabeth had seen it she
would undoubtedly have quashed ig, Cecil may have realized that
he had overreached himself

Parliament passed two bills of more than usual significance,

Among the measures proposed by the Statute of Aries was the

À justices
€ to be hired on à yearly contact.

Apprentices were to follow the custom of London and seve for
seven years, All able-bodied men could be compelled to work in
the fields at the time of harvest It may have been a provisional
device, designed to meet the needs of the moment, but this
adventitious and only loosely coherent statute remained in force for
the nest 250 years

Another Act considered the problem of ‘sturdy beggar and
of the unemployed. It was further decred that each parish must
Support the ‘impoten, aged and needy out of communal funds
The rele of the poor was no longer the presen ofthe Church, as
had been the custom of many centuries, but had become a local
and secular mater, Gifts to the poor had been called ‘donations?
and the food spared rom the rich man’s table had been known as
“Our Ladys bread they had ofcourse disappeared. The isolation
ofthe religious houses, i the reign of Henry VII, may also have
prompted the search for fresh remedies.

"We might say in genera that the Reformation created a wider

space in which the lay authorities could regulate and contol the
nation at large, The fist workhouse in England, Bridewell, was
established in 1553; a workhouse was set up in Exeter in 1579,
The authorities of London had already established Ave ‘hospitals
that took over fiom thei medieval spiritual equivalents, The
hospitals of St Thomas and St Bartholomew were designed for the
sick and forthe old; they exist sil. Chris Hospital sheltered
‘orphan children, while Bedlam served the insane. An Act of 1572
instituted the fist local Poor Law tax. Other Acts and statutes

followed. Not until the close of he sixteenth century, however,
the term stat” emerge wih ts modern connotations

Te can be suid with some confidence, therefore, that these wo
Acıs were signal measures in the social and economic construc
tion of English society, Yet che meusurs of parliament were not
meant to be benevolent but were, rather, strict and auıhoriuria.
The penalties for vagabondage, for example, were increased, The
ordinary vagrants were to be whipped and then imprisoned until
à master could be found for them; the dangerous among them
were o be banished from the realm and, if ever they returned,
<onsigned 0 che gallows or the galley.

Im 1563 the convocation of the bishops and senior clergy met,

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as woul, in conjunction with purament. Since this was the fst

evocation called since the re-establishment of the reformed fh,
it was considered important to frame suitable legislation on behalf
of the Church. A document entitled ‘General Notes of Matters
to be Moved by the Clengy in the Next Parliament and Synod
expressed the desire fora ‘certain form of doctrine tobe conceived
in acces. The grounds ofthe English fi were to be defined,

So, by à process of consultation and debate, the Thirty-Nin
Aces of Religion were compiled. Some of them were not dean
up in time for pariamene to pas the necessary legislation, and had
to wait for the assembly called three years later, che document itself
only became the oficial doctine of fit in 1571, But the essential
‘work had now been done, The convocation of 1563 established the
most important doctrinal statement i the history of the Church of
England and, in its essential form, it remains in force o this day
“The language of he liturgy must be in the vernacular, the Ma
not tobe allowed, and adoration of the Eucharist i blasphen
papist doctrines of transubstntation and purgatory are denied
there is to be no invocation of the saints, The monarch’ role, a
the supreme head ofthe Church, is emphasized

The fal mensur ofthe Thiry-Nine Articles ha been deemed
to be moderately Cabinist in tone, but there is not one article
that is incompatible either with Lutheranism or with Calvinism
The ales represent as wide a definition of the reformed fach
as was possible in the sixteenth century. They were belived to be
the thiy-nine steps towards broad domestic agreement. The more
precise reformers were not necessarily happy withthe outcome, and
in the cour of time they would become identified a the Puritan’
tendency. confes the bishop of Durham wrote, we suffer many
things against our hears; But we cannot take them away, though
we were ever so much set upon it. We are under authority, and we
an innovate nothing without the queen; nor can we ltr the laws;
the only thing left to our choice is whether we will bear these
things, or breathe peace ofthe Church” These words can be seen
as harbinger of aer divisions

The religion of the vast majrity of people must have been
mixed and variable, neither wholly old nor completely new. The
reformed fith wat a recent developme le the Catholic

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religion was a long time ding. I was estimated
Arie chat at the time ofthe queen accession only 1 per cent ofthe
population was actively and determinedly Protestant in inclinaion
In 1561 a professor of divinity at Oxford, Nicholas Sander, dew
up a document entitled How the Common People of England are
disposed, with regard to the Catholic fit’ in wich he declared
that ‘the farmers and shepherds are Catholic they of couse
represented a large proportion of the people. He said that the
artisans did not accept the reformed faith except those engage in
sedentary tds, weavers, for example, and cobbles’ OF the over
‘whelmingly Catholic aeas he named Wale, Devon, Cumberland,
Northumberland and Westmorland, In time, over the next few
decades, the doctrines of Protestantism were better received in
Kent, Essex, Sulfolk, Norfolk Sussex and of course London.

In the summer of 1561 the bishop of Carlisle reported that in
many of the chusches of his diocese the Mass was stl being said
with the connivance of the local lord. In the same summer the
justices of Hereford commanded the obervance of St Lawrence
Day asa holy day or holiday, no butcher sold meat, and no trader
dazed open his shop, on that day. A party of secusant priests was.
welcomed in Devonshire and they were so feasted and magnified,
as Christ himself could not have been more reverentially enter
tained’, The bishop of Winchester complaine people were
‘bstnately grvelle in superstition and popery, lacking not priests
to inculate the same daly in their heads. Among the city council
of Hereford there was ‘not one fivourable to this [reformed] reli
sion”. Only six practised it in Ludlow. As late as 1567, seventeen
‘churches in Ease Yorkshire still possessed Catholic iting, while
seven year later more than a dozen churche in Northamptonshire
contained the rood lofts that had been forbidden. In the couse of
this reign seveny-fve recusnt press were active in Lancashire,
and one hundred more in Yorkshire

‘Yet if che majority of the population were sill inclined to the
old faith, few of them were willing to disobey the authorities by

too contempo

‘openly practising it, atleast in London and the south-east of
England. Some avered that if by going to Protestant worship
they sinned, then the sin would redound upon the queen. As

ended church once a weck and followed the newiy

long as they

6. no Tupors

prochimed sites of the reformed faith, they were free to believe
What they wished. They may have believed anything or nothing
Te was easier and sar, to serve and obey rather than o rebel

"That is why the reformed series were rendered case, if not
ambiguous, by openly proposing only what al Christians agreed
in believing; the rubrie and ceremonial could be subtly changed
to match the inclinations of the congregation. Thus Cecil was

nformed of the muliplcity of worship in 1564 so that some

perform divine service and prayers in the chancel, others in the
body of the church... some keep precisely to the order of the
book, some intermix psalms in mete... some receive the com
union knecling, others standing some baptize in a font, some in
‘basin; some sign with the sign ofthe cross, others no

Confuson also reigned in the wardrobe, with some ministers
in a surplice, some without; some with a square cap, some with a
round cap, some in a button cap, and some in a round hat; some
in scholars clothes, and some in others. Many complaints were
‘made about inatentin, and token worship, in the churches. With
the interions stripped bare of their former omamentation, there
was nothing to look at, The alehouses were reported o be fll on
Sundays, and the people would preer to goto a bear biting than
to attend divine service. With the great rituals gone there were
many who, in the words of one lei, “ove a pot of ale beter than
a pulpit and a com-rick betr than a church door who, coming to
sine service more for fashion than devotion, are contented aera
Tite capping and kneeling, coughing and spitting’ o sing a pal
‘ot slumber during the sermon. There was alo a shortage of re
formed minister, with only 7,000 ordained cer fr 9,000 ling,

Te would be unwise, however, to exaggerate the fervency ofthe
Catholic cause. The Venetian ambassador, some eighteen months
sen before the accesion of Elizabeth, had suspected that very
few of those under the age of thy five were truly Catholic
They did not espouse the new faith but they had lst interest in
the old. They had become what one Benedictine called ‘neutrals
in religion. We must suspect, therefore, a very high level of
indifférence. A man or woman ofthat age would hardy remember
à time when the monarch was not head of the Church, yet such a
fact was not likely o inspite devotion.

Tur tiurri-0s STEPS

To indifference might be added uncertainty and confusion
The bishop of Salisbury, preaching before the queen here,
lamented tha the poor people Heth forsaken, and left as ie were
sheep without a guide... they are commanded to change their
religion, and for ack of instruction they know not whither to torn
them: they know not neither what they leave nor what they should
receive’. Many were simply ignorant. When an old man was told
that he would be saved through Christ he replied, 1 hink I heard
of that man you spake of once in a play at Kendal called Corpus
Christ play, where there was a man on a tee and blood ran down”

Some, however, knew precisely what they were supposed 10
believe. As fate as 1572 an anonymous chronicler stated that,
outside London, fewer than one in forty were ‘good and devout
ospeller This small and fervent minority, however, was greatly
encouraged by the publication of Fa Martyrs in the
Spring of 2563. I offered a vivid and in many respect horsfving
account of those who had burned for thee new fit inthe previous
reign of Mary Foxe described the plight of a woman, for example
‘who gave birth while being consumed by fame in Guernsey; the
newborn babe was tossed into the fie with its mother. This was
‘once widely dismissed as a fibrication, but other contemporary
‘documents suggest that i did take place as Foxe described. The
book woodeuts were in themselves a tour de fore of hagiography
The work furnished a new litany of saints for a nation that was
bereft of them

Foxe also created a new history of the Reformation ia which
the English Church had restored the ‘old ancient church of
Chris? that had been all the time concealed within the Roman
communion. The time of Antichrist, beginning in approximately
‘ap 1100, had at last been purged. He declred that ‘because
God hath so placed us Englishmen here in one commonwealth
alo in one church, a in one ship together, le us not mangle or
divide the ship. In this period the commanwealch had connotations
of the body politic and the general good; it was the vision of a
community that trinscended selfinterest and the bitterness of
Faction, with an idalied and productive union between all ofthe
estates of the realm. The sim was a ‘godly comamonvvealth’

The English were once more an elect nation. By creating a

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Protestant historiography Fo ad effectively given form and mean
ing to che newly established religion, The book went through five
ion inthe reign of Elizabeth and became, afer the Bible, dhe
ost popular and indispensible of all books of ih. Eventually
the onder came that it should be placed in every parish church
alongside he Paraphrases of Erasmus.

Many of the more avid reformers were dissatisfied with the
sertement of religion and waited for a day when further reforms
We implemented. One of them, the dean of Wells Cathedral,
Trained his dog to snatch off the papistical square caps from any
‘Conforming clties who chose to wear them. In the 1560s thes
radicals sll formed part of the routes and disatisfied Elizabethan
Church, but they were already beginning 10 aser their density. Te
ras in this period, for example, dat che Puritan movement began
to be distinguished from the broader Church. One hundred Lon
‘don clergymen had been convoked at Lambeth where a clergyman
tras paraded before them in the orthodox dress of four-comered
Cap, pet and schola’s gown, When asked if they would wear the
ame dress, they were dismayed. ‘Great sas one observe, was the
gua and distress of those ministers” They exclaimed: We shall
be killed in our soul for tis polluion" Eventually sixty-one agreed
to don the vestments, and the other thiny-nine were suspended
rom ther duties and given three months 0 conform,

‘Other measures were now taken, at the qu

against the sites Protestants, No licence to perform divine service
Would be given to anyone who refused to sign a declaration of
onformiy. As a result many godly preachers retired into private
Iie as lawyers or even doctors some migrated o the spore weleom
ing ar of Scotland, or travelled once more overseas to Zurich orto
Genova, A number of pamphlets and books of sermons espousing
the Puritan cause prompted an injunction from the Star Chamber
forbidding, on pain of three months imprisonment, the publication
of any treatise ‘aginst the queen's injunctions

The radial sectatians, believing themselves to be persccuted
clung more tight together. They adopted the book of service used
by the Calvinists at Geneva as their model, discarding the conven-
tonal English liturgy used by what they called ‘the wraditonen
‘They were especialy active in London. John Stow wrote, in 156,

‘Tue runary-nıne srers 55

that a group who called themselves purtans or unspotted lambs
De lord. Rept their church in the Minories without Aldgate:
‘Ac various times the godly met on a lighter in St Katherine Pool,
in Pudding Lane, and in a gldsmith’s house along the Strand.
"They entersaned various opinions on such matter as baptism
and predestination but hey were united in their fervour for preach
ing und for he propagation of the Word; they stewed the
FPeamount importance of Sriprue; they detested the secs of
Pope sl present within che established religion, and pressed
Pe or the kancity ofthe Sabbath while denouncing the generat
he essence lay in individual fach

Ticentiousness of the age
radiated by grace and not by any pet. It might be ssid thatthe
lly emplasizd a spiritual, while che traditionalists prefered a
visible, Church.

In June 1567 a group of the godly hired Plumbers’ Hall in
Chequer Yard, London, ostensibly to ccebrate a wedding in rai
they wished eo enjoy a day of sermons and of prayers. Word of
these plans had reached the city authorities; they were surrounded
And come of them were arrested by che sheriffs and taken before
the Diop of London. Twenty-four were committed 10 privo,
where they remained for some time. Here perhaps we may glimpse
those zligious quatele that were eventually to divide

the nation

‘The godly had supporters among the highest inthe land. Many
the bishops were narurally sympathetic to their cause. The carl

Sf Leicester was only the most prominent among the nobles who
Sapponted the radical reformers; Wiliam Cecil was believed to be
SP he same par together with other of the queens councilors
‘Ae the univenity of Cambridge, too, a prominent group of Puritans
began to guher. The queen herself was unmoved. She did not
Hund to pone orthodoxy, but she demanded conformity In thi,
the believed, the peace of the realm consiste. She would not be

‘ot relish religious change of

pshed into doctrinal reform. She di

any kind.
Others were equaly sanguine, In The Apology ofthe Church of
England John Jewel, Bishop of Salsbury, dedared in 1562 that
ent apostolic

fear some as near as we possibly could to the an
fuk He rested this trust upon the fat that we have searched

8. Tunoss

out ofthe Holy Bible, which we are sure cannot deceive, our sure
of religion’, These modest reformers believed that they had
recovered an ancient truth long lost in the quagmire of popery
Slowly, in the course of this reign, Protestantism became the
acquired fui of the majority of the people; they may have
‘conformed out of fear or indifference, but that conformity became
by degrees the traditional religion of England, Within a few years
one had known any other form of worship. This uniquely monar
ical Church was at the turn of the century
Anglican, the product of England.
There was a further reformation for which the queen and her

council can chim a certain credit, che seformation of money
Elizabeth called in the debased coin a

euced the quantity of
cheap metal used in minting it; forthe fist time in many yeas the
worth of the coin was now equivalent to its fice value. The queen
Had reversed the decline that had begun in her

ds eg, and
such was the achievement that it was commemorated on her tomb,
Im her epitaph i is listed as her third greaest success afer the
religious settlement and the maintenance of peace. Pity, peace and
prosperity were aot tobe spans

29
The rivals

@

NE

The queens of Scotland and of England were stil single, and hat
urusal state presented complications to both women. Mary Stuart
was now actively seeking a French or Spanish match; ie was
rumouted that she might marry Don Carlos the son ofthe Spanish
King, or even her brother-in-law, Chases IX of France. The pow

of her county would thereby be redoubled and the threat 0 ho
Ancighbour increased. In an extraordinary act of audacity Elizabe
suggested to the Scottish commissioners at her court that their

queen might consider mariage to her own easier suitor, Robert
Dudley; it was even proposed thatthe two queens might then share
a household, with Elizabeth providing the funds. Mary considered
the offer for a moment, as another way to the English throne, but
‘he was never really prepared to take up hat which Elizabeth had
fast off. She was happy to appease her va with vague promises,
but in reality she was looking fra foreign prince.

‘This led Elizabeth in tur to revisit the question of her own
mariage. Once more the prospects of Archduke Charles of Austria
were revived, and at the beginning of 1564 she wrote to the
Habsburg court bat ‘she was ever in courtesy hound to make that
choice so as should be forthe best of her state and subjects. She
had taken the words of parliament to heart. The great difculy
lay, however, with the archduke's religion; he was a devout Roman

ey

9. Catholic who would brook no impediment to the practice of his
faith. Robert Dudley wa created car of Leicester inthe autumn of
1564 but his new status did not materally asis his sui. He was
still the grat favourite of the queen, her tre Knight ‘without fear
and without reproach’. At the ceremony sel, in which Dudley
received the honour, i was noted by the Scottish ambassador that

‘she could not rein from putting her hand in his neck to tickle
him’. If the queen should take a husband,
would of course be severely curled
So he seems to have determined to thw
alliance with the archduke. He inte
raed the

‚were, this intimacy

a the queens possible
Jed with dl

y French to put

bung Charles IX, but the disparity in age between the
‘old boy and the thiny-one-yearold woman would
ave caused only ridicule and disquiet. She said cha it would tke
only few years for him to desert her, leaving her a discontented
‘ld woman. When the Spanish ambassador asked her if she was
about to marry the French King, she hal id hee fice and laughed
‘On the file ofthis plan Leicester objected to the archduke
on the grounds of his religion, and it is perhaps no coincidence
that in this period he emerged as the protector of the true
Protestan fith; he supported ‘godly’ ministers, for example, in
their remonstrance against the papistical elements of the Book of
Common Prayer. In his stance again the mariage he was opposed
by Cecil as well as the duke of Norfolk and the cal of Sussex
Sussex himself had travelled to Vienna in order to expedite the
union. So there was a division at the heart of the court and of
the queens council. The retainers of Sussex and of Leicester cared
arms a ifo try their utmost the Sussex party wore yellow ribbons
while the supporter of Leicester sported purple. The queen ordered
them ‘not to meddle with’ one another and to lay down their
weapons. Nevertheless, Leicester continued to gather ‘great bands
of men with swords and Bucher. There came a point when the
two great nobles exchanged ‘hard words and challenges t fight, at
‘which point the queen ordered them to ride together through
streets of London in a show of amity, Sussex was cventally crested
À president of the council of the north, thus removing him to
York. The fracas is a reminder, however, of the tensions between
the great nobles that had been so prominent in previous centres

he

Tue avais #7

The court was sill in part a medieval institution. I is probable
too, that the presence of a female queen encouraged the greater
robles around her to assert their masculine power, the were still
saorde but hey were also in a sense pura lovers competing for
her favour

he negotiations between the courts of London and Vienna
continued a a painfull slow pace but che delays and dispute over
religion were acceptable to Elizabeth if they defered any final
decision. Te meant aso that she was sl on coneliatory terms with
both branches of the Habsburg empire, represented by Philip II
of Spain and the new emperor Maximilian IL. Philip himself was
assured of her suitability asa bride to his cousin; his ambassador
bought information from the queens laindesses about her men
sia ce

TAC this time, 100, attempts were made to standardize her
painted image. At dhe end of 1563 William Cecil had drafted a
proclamation which cricized the depiction of the queen ‘in paint-
ing, graving and printing’ these unfatteing or unsophisticated

portruts provoked ‘complaints among her loving subjects. It had
been decided that some cunning [alfa] person’ would create a
great original on which all other portraits might be modelled, Since

portait were alo often wed in mariage negotiations, the queen
Fight have desired a more perfect image. In this decade, to, she
began to entertain hopes of an alchemical cli of fe that would
maintain her youth and beauty; Wiliam Cecil noted in his diary
that Cornelius Lanoy, a Dutchrnan, ‘was committed to the Tower

for abusing the queens majesty, in promising to make the els’
‘Yet her negotiations with the Habsburgs were overshadowed
by the devices of Mary Stuart. The Scottish queens attention had
fumed to a young man, Henry Stuart, Lord Darley he had been
bom in Leeds, but his father was the fourth car of Lennox, a
prominent Scottish nobleman who had been forced into exile by
à rival fiction, Yet more pertinently Darley was the grandson
Margaret Tudor, the sister of Henry VIIL, and cousin to Mary
Stuart here, On the Scottish side, he was directly descended from
James IL Any alance with him would immensely strengthen Mary
Stuarts claim to the throne ater the death of Elizabeth, Dare
was abo a Catholic, and the clergy ofthe Scottish kik feared above

10. ye Tepors

al else the renewed prospect of Catholic supremacy. The young,
‘man was given a passport to visit Scotland, where of course he paid
his respects o his cousin the queen. She saw him ‘running at
the sing’ a chivaric game for horsemen, and soon enough they
became inseparable, Mary had become genuinely infituaed with
im, almost at first sight. She was in many respects quisoric and
impulsive, relying upon her instinct rather than her judg

did not have her sitas gift of calculation.

Inthe course of these marta games the Scorish ambassador,
Sir James Mebille, was obliged to haunt the court of Elizabeth in
search of information or gossip. In his memoirs, written in the
carly years of the seventeenth century, he lft certain vignettes
concerning the convertion and behaviour of the queen that
throw an interesting light upon her character, She discussed with
him the female costume of different countries, and old him that
she possessed the ‘weeds of every civilized county. She proved the
point by wearing a fesh set of clothes every dy

‘She asked him ‘what coloured hair was reputed best, and
whether my queen's hair or hers was the bes, and which of the

He replied, in the manner of the Sibiline
orale that ‘the fulness of both was not their worst fault. She
England and ours the first queen in Scotland Sil she was not
satisfied with his answer. He was obliged to make a judgement,
“You are both the fairest ladies in your cours you are the whites,
but our queen is vey lovely

‘Which of us’ she now asked him, is o the highest statue

‘Our queen,

Then she i over high, for am neither

When Elizabeth asked him about May's pastimes, he told her
that his mistress liked sometimes to play on the lute or visinas.
She then asked him whether che Scottish queen played wel,

‘Reasonably well’ he replied, Yor a queen,

There then followed a conttved piece of showmanship. After
inner the queens cousin, Lord Hunsdon, invited Mile to a
retired gallery where he promised him some enchanting music. He
‘whispered, a if imparting a secret, that it was "the queen playing
on her virginal The ambassador listened for a moment and then

nent he

to was the re

xa more direct response. "You an

fairest queen in

100 high n

00 low

Tar aivats 339

very boldly put aside a tapestry that hung before the doorway of a
tects, to se the great queen at her virginal. Her back was to him
but she turned her head and semed surprised to find him tb
she rove from her instrument, affecing embarrassment and alleging
that he used not to play before men, bu when

eschew melancholy, and asked "How I came there

Meike seplic that he had been drawn by the sweetest melody
which gracious answer pleased the queen. She sat down upon a
<ashion, while he knelt. She then provided him with a cushion to
place beneath his ke, Ie was a breach of eiquete but the queen
insisted. She demanded to know ‘whether she or the Queen of
Scots played best” Mille gave the palm to her. She then spoke
to him in French, Falla and Dutch asa sign of her proficiency

Two days later she decided that the ambassador must see her
dance. At the end of the performance she once ag
know which queen danced bes, He replied that "my queen d
not so high or disporedly as she did, By this he meant that
Elizabeth's dancing was more mannered and deliberate than that
of Mary

Te is not at all clear chat Mille recollections are always
accurate. Yet he is surely right to have emphasized the implicit
“vale or jealouy between the two queens. When he returned to
his native county, Mary asked him if he believed char Elizabeth's
words of affection for her were genuine. He replied that in my
judgement there was neither plan dealing nor upright meaning,
‘but great diseimulation, emulation and fear chat [Mary] princely
qualite should over soon chase her out and displace her from the
Kingdom’

Tn the cry spring of 1565 Mary was so enamored of Darnley
that she helped to murs him through an atack of measles that may
in face have been a manifestation of syphilis. An English envoy
wrote to Elizabeth that "The matter is irevocable. I do find this
Queen so captivate either by love or cunning = or rather to say
truly by boasting and folly = that she isnot able 10 keep promise
with herself, and therefore not able to keep promise with your
Majesty in these matters” Hee desire and wiltlnes had outrun her
discretion. Darley was twenty and she three years his senior.

By May they had made «secret engagement and, in July, they

e was solitary, to.

‘wished (0

need

11. were maried without waiting for the papal dispensation from
Rome allowing the frst cousins to unite, She then prochimed him
being of Scotland without asking the advice of her pusament, She
had married in haste, but she would soon repent it. Daraley was as
vain as he was unbalanced; he was arrogant and dissolute;

weak wild; within a short time he had managed to offend most
fte Scottish mobility. ‘The brits here are wonderful the English
‘envoy wrote at the time, men's talk very strange, the hatred towards
Lord Darnley and his house marvellous gest, his pride intolerable,
his words not to be bore... He added that in token of his
‘manhood! Daraley is eager to Jet blows fy where he knows they
willbe taken”. He was, in other words, an egregious bully.

“The young queen was herself no stranger to confit. Her
ilgitimatehal-brother, James Stuart, first eal of Moray, espoused
the Protestant cause and sought to lead a group of rebels against
her. Mary summoned 5,000 of her supporters, and from summer

to autumn of 1565 mercilessly harried her enemies in a series of
skirmishes thar became known as the Chaseabout Rad. 1 defy
them, she sid, ‘what can they do, and what dare they do? She
rode fast and furiously; she wore a steel helmet and card a brace
of pistols at her side. Eventually she chased her hal-brother over
the border into England, and in her triumph declared that she
could lead her troops tothe walls of London. She was a formidable
oppon

£ the wo Cathoies posed an immediate prob
lem for the English queen and her council. It seemed that their
union was a plain hint of thei right to che succession of the
English throne. The Catholic of England would

to be their natural and proper leaders. Ifthe young couple also
produced a son and hei, whieh seemed most likly, an already
complicated situation would become infinitely worse. In the face

der them

many other of her subjects were
also prepared to countenance Mary and Daraley asthe least bad
alternative to a virgin queen. One day i the spring ofthis year the
French ambassador had come upon Elizabeth playing chess
‘Madam, you have before you the game of life. You lose a
pawn; it seems a small matter; but with the pawn you lose the

Tur savais st

Y see your meaning. Lord Darley is but a pawn, but unless

look to tT shall be check-mated

‘Another reported conversation can be added to this account
Mary Stuart vas discussing with some courtiers a portait of the
queen of England and debating whether it resembled the great

Original. No, said Mary, it is nor like her. For 1 am queen of
England”

The members of the council discussed the matter endlessly
They even prepared for war, but in che end nothing was done
Elizabeth declared that Mary ‘doth look for my death. In thi
period the queen of England became seriously ill with a fever

Eommonly known as ‘the uy. The strain of her perilous situation,

perhaps, was beginning to af
Ye by he end ofthe year lt was apparent har all was not well
swith the mariage of Mary and Darley. She had expected him 10
and tractable; instead he revealed himself to be foolish

ate, He carted himself like a king in role as well as

name, and therefore became intolerable, Mary would not allow
anyone to usurp her place, and by degrees began to demote him,
Hee was now known as ‘the queen's husband rather than king,

and he was forbidden the use ofthe royal ams. He was drinking

excessive and, when she once tried to emonsteate with him, he
igave her such words as she left the place in teas. His demand
for the matrimonial crown was refused. T know for cern’, an

English agent atthe Scotch court wrote, ‘that
her marriage ~ that she ates him and all his kin.

A farther complication arose in the shape of Mars Tala
secretary, David Rizzo or Riccio, a gentleman of charming and
persuasve manners, He was an accomplished musician who

his queen repente

Enchanted her with love-songs he soon became her closest adviser
confidant. It was he, perhaps, who counselled

‘maintain a distance fiom Damley. He had also offended many
Scottish nobles, perhaps on the sole grounds tha he was a foreigner
who had more influence with the queen than did they. As a
Catholic, 00, he was cause of offence to the Protestant nobility
“Those who had been chased out of Scotland by Mary, with the ea
of Moray at thei head, were seeking reve

“They decided to enlist the help

Daruley he was, atleast, of

12. se Tunons

Scottish stock. They informed him that Rizio was the
of his decline in influence, and that the secretary had “done him
the most di"honour that can be to any man’. He entered a bond
of association with them where in exchange for his support and
assistance in the murder of Rizzo, they would assert his aim
to the throne. In particular Moray and his fllowers were to be
‘pardoned for their rebellion of the previous ear. After the murder
Mary was to be consigned to Stirling Castle the queen was in fact
already sis months pregnant, but the noblemen scem to have
‘convinced Darnley that the child was fathered by Rizzo,

(On the evening of Saturday 9 March 1566 Mary was enerain
ing Rizzo and some other frends in a small room next to her
bedchamber in the royal palace of Holyrood just after they had
assembled Darnley led his fellow conspirators into the presence of
the shocked company by means of his privat staircase, When they
thrust the queen aside and lid hands on Riezio he cried out
Justice! Justice! Save me, my lady! He tried to cling to Mary's
sins but the men dragged him away and hustled him into an

ole cause

adjoining room, where he was dispatched with fifly-six dagger

is. His body was then dragged down a staircase ad left ais

When Mary asked her husband why he had commited this
«sime he repeated the slander that Rizzio ‘had more company of
her body’ than he did. She stayed in her private chambers for the
next few hours bus, within a shot time, had managed to convince
Darnley that he would be the next victim of the mobles. She had
isined their malevolent intent very well. They had planned al
along to lay the blame for Risi's murder on Darnly alone, and
to inform the queen that her husband had decided to commit the
murder infront of hr, he wiched to diable her and perhaps the un
bom chi.

Darnley was by now thoroughly alarmed, and at midnight on
11 March he and Mary left the palace by means of che servants
quarters and fled on horsebuek 10 Dunbar. The other noble,
deserted by Darley, dispersed; many of them took shelter acros
the border in Berwick. Mary

med in triumph to Edinburgh
where she meditated vengeance on her feckless and unstable us
band. But revenge would have to wait upon the birth of her child

Tine RtvaLS 5

That chi was itself the subject of whispered report it was claimed
by some that Rizio was the real father. The somewhat unattractive
features of James VI of Scotland, who was to become James T of
England, were enough to guarantee the longevity of such rumour.

Elizabeth was shocked a the ourage of murder committed in
the presence of a reigning queen. “Had I been in Queen Marys
place; she told the Spanish ambassador, T would have taken my
husbands dagger and stabbed him with it As she was atthe same
time negotiating a marrige with the archduke Charles with the
connivance ofthe Spanish, she hastened to add har she would not

take any such action against im.
In the early summer of the ycar Mary Stuart gave birth to a
son, A messenger arrived atthe palace of Greenwich in the course

of a grand part; he went up to Cecil and whispered in his ar
Then Cecil went over to his mistress. She is reported to have
slumped into a chai and told those around her that The queen
of Scots is lighter of a für son, and I am but a barren stock
The party came to an end. This a least is the story of Melle’
Memoirs. As Thomas Fuller once observed, ‘when men's memories

History to haste abed! But if the queen's

words have been improved in the telling, they perfectly sit the
Only two months calor Elizabeth had fallen sick of a strange
disease and had grown so thin that ‘her bones may be counted
Te was whispered that she might be consumptive, Her Majesty
Cecil wrote to the English envoy in France, ‘suddenly sick in the
stomach and suddenly relieved by a vomit. You mast think such a
matter would drive men tothe end of thei wis, but God is the
‘tay ofall that pu their tru in Him.’ Despite the confident and
indeed imperious demeanour of the queen, her first years of rule

‘were undermined by a constant note of insecurity and danger

Yet she recovered and in the late summer of 1566 went on a
progress to Oxford, stopping off at Woodstock, where she had
been held prisoner during the reign of her sister. The dons came to
meet her before she came into the town, calling out ‘Vit regina!
She gave them thanks in Latin, Then she listened to loyal address
in Greek before replying to tha oration in the same ancient tongue
She was as leaned as any Oxford scholar.

13. a 'enons

Her aval at the university was the occasion for further
rations and sermons, public lecare and public disputations plays
and debates. While she watched one drama, Palemon and Art

the stag collapsed chee people were killed and five were injured
She sent her own bar but hen
laughed hearily when the performance was resumed, She alo
expressed her instinctive like for the more doctrine reformers,
On meeting one noted sectarian, of Puritan persuasion, she
remarked Mr Doctor, that lose gown becomes you mighty well
Y marvel that you are so stit-laced in this point [oF religion]
but] come not now to chide” He had made the mistake of pray

ng, in publi, that the queen would allow further chan

the Church. This was a subject on which her mind was closed
A the end of her visit she made another speech in Latin, on the
gnity and worth of la «ter was accompanied for
2 miles by a body of scholars and local worthie.

surgeon to care for the acted

ing, and

The bith of James Stuart had alarmed Elizabeth, since the
prospect of an heir materially increased Mary’ following in Eng
land. The Scottish ambassador in England told his mistes that
many shires were ready to rebel and that the nobility had named

the captains of the enterprise. Elizabeth's envoy wrote to Cecil
from the French court that both the pope' and the king of Spain's
Hands be in that dish further and deeper than I think you know

T have cause to say to you vigiae! The ambassador was acute
Six months later Phil

wrote to the Vatican that the time

would soon come ‘to throw off the mask and bestir ourselves. He
and the pope must consider the way in which chey could asst
Mary Stuart and promote the cause of God; the queen of Scots
vas the ‘gate by which religion must enter the real of England

Te is probable, then, that Cecil helped to orchestrate the

pressure placed upon Elizabeth by the pariament of 1566. He lft
2 paper, or memorial to himself in which he wrote that to require
both marriage and the stabilizing of the succesion is the uner-
most that can be desired, Parlament asembled in the autumn
ofthat year, unaltered since the last meeting of 1563; it had then

n
been prorogucd rather than dissolved. The clamour for th

Tue rivats 2

marriage had become more intense during the interval, and it was
Fumoured that the Commons would reise to vote her supplic,
for finances, unless she revealed her commitment to matimony or
atleast named her succesor, The debate went on for rwo mor
ings in the course of which several members traded blows. The
Lords then

seed to join the Commons in petition to her
Elizabed

as furious with her councillors, who were suspected
of collusion. She vented her anger fist on the duke of Norfolk
and, when another councillor wie to defend him, she said that he
spoke like a swaggering soldier. Then she
her favourite, She accused him of abandoning her. He swore that
he was ready to die at her feet. What, she asked him, has that to

‚med upon Leicester,

do withthe matte? Before venting some further insults on those
present, she left the room, Of mons she was disdanfl
She told the Spanish ambassador chat she did not know what
those ‘devils’ wanted,

She summoned a delegation of fifty-seven members of the
Lords and Commons to Whitehall, and forbade the presence of
the Speaker. Je was only the queen who would tall. They presented
her with a petition in which they expressed their wish that she
many “where it should please her, with whom it should please
her, and as soon as it should please her. She opened her harangue
by accusing ‘unbridled persons in the Commons of contiving a
‘rsitorous trick Then she accused the Lords of supporting them.
"Whom have I oppressed? she asked them. ‘Whom have I enriched
to others harm? But then she turned to the subject.‘ have sent
word tha Iwill marry, and 1 vil never break the word of a prince
said in a public place, for my honours sake À princes honour is
of course a flexible commodity. There then followed what might
be called an Elizabethan moment, I am your anointed queen, she
told them. 7 will never be constrained to do anything. 1 thank
God I am endued with such qualities that ifT were turned out of
the realm in my petticonts 1 were able to live in any place in
Christendom.”

Cel read an edited version of her specch to the Commons in
their chamber, and he was greeted with silence, The members
were not impresed, and almost at once Further call for a petition
on the mariage were being heard. The queen demanded to see

14. x6 Tuvons

the Speaker and commanded him to instroct parliament chat there
should be no further talk of the mater, When they remonstrated
with her on the infringement of their ‘awful Iibetiee’ she wisely
yielded, But it was in no sense a triumph, At the end of the
session, in January 1567, Elizabeth rose from the throne and made
her concluding speech, fe was already dusk have in this asem-
Diy, she said, found such dssimulation where I always professed
plainness that marvel thereat
the body rotten’ She finished her perortion with ‘beware how
you prove your prince’ pai
My Lord Keeper you will do as Ibid you”
The lord keeper ose inthe fading light. The Queen's Majesty
doth dissolve this parliament. Let every man depart at his pleasure
“The queen proceeded tothe royal barge and returned tothe palace.
Pasliament would not meet again for another four years. Cecil

ea, 000 faces under one hood, and

ice as you have now done mine

noted ‘the succession not answered, the mariage not followed,
dangers ensuing, general disoientations

Te may be noted, in parenthesis, chat in thi period the coach
was introduced to England. Joho Taylor, the popular ‘water poet,
believed chat been brought to England by the queen
coachman, a Dutchman named Wiliam Boones. ‘A. cos

wrote, ‘was a strange monster in those days, and the sight of
it put both horse and foot in amazement. Some sid it was a great
crab-shell brought out of Ching; and some thought it one of the
pagan temples in which the cannibals adored the devil. Soon an
outcry was rised about the scarcity of leather, ftom the quantity
used in coach building. So in the 1560s the

a well as che queen's marrage, ws the talk of London,

30

The rites of spring

Having alienated both his wife and the Scorish nobilty, Henry
Stuart, Lord Darley, had every reason to leave Scotland; he spoke
of escaping into England, although he would hardly have been
‘weloomed atthe cour of Elizabeth. She would not even secogaize
him as king of Scotland, and he was deluded enough to believe
that he bad some claim upon the English throne. After the safe
Birth of her son Mary med her face against him, believing him
to be responsible for the murder of he etary. Mary
nether ate nor slept with him and on one occasi
the English ambassador in Scolan
modesty nor with the honour of queen be reported
[At the beginning of 1567 Mary was reliably informed that
Darnley was proposing to kidnap their son and rule as regent in
his name, the queen herself was to be confined in a secure caste.
Te was important that all his movements and meetings should be
watched. When he fll, perhaps from a recurrent bout of syphilis,
she visited his sicktoom and remained with im for the nex wo
for three days. At the end of January she brought him to Edinburgh

Talia se

according to
‘wed words that cannot for

in a horse lier.

James, the fourth car of Bochwel, now enters the plot. At the
age of twenty-one he had become Lieutenant of the Border, and
had served Marys mother during her regency of Scotland. He had

57

15. The depredations of Sir Francis Drake had been swifly repaired
and by the winter of 1587 a great Spanish et, the greatest ever
seen in Europe, vas floating out to sea by the mouth ofthe Tags
Ar the same time the Spanish army in the Ni

command of the duke of Parma, had been further strengthened

herlands, under the

Je vs planned that the navy, under the command of the marquis
of Santa Cruz as lord high admiral, would make for the Thames
estuary and anchor by Margate; the Spanish ships would then
command the Strit of Dover giving the dake of Parma time and

to land his forces at Thanet. Their path to London

would then le clear, Yet the naval forces were aot adequatly
prepared and the autumn winds began to blow. Philip of Spain had

reluctantly o postpone the expedition for more clement weather
The duke of Parma had not been informed ofthe delay, and

his troops suffered in the ran and ffeezing conditions upon the
hills above Dunks When a leterarived from the king, remon-
stating with him for not launching an invasion, he was nanurlly
irate, He had been told to wai for the arial ofthe Spanish fet.
To wite to me as if I should have acted already in direct
contradiction to your instructions is naturally distressing to me. Do
ame the signal Kindness to tell me what to do and no dificult shall
barge? The dsagree-

stop me, though you bid me eros alone in

AnMapa “o

ent did not bode well for

the enterprise, The finances of Sprin
were ling, The troops were on short rations. To compound an
already dificult situation, Santa Cruz died. His uccesor, the duke
of Medina Sidonia, knew next to nothing about sence at sea
Delays and frustrations once more bedevilld the proposed Armada

News reached England in che spring, however, th
preparations were almost complete he Spanish authorities lt it he
ken
was deccived.

‘On 18 May 1588 the Spanish Acer Analy sailed out of the
Tagus; but ie was scarered by a heavy storm. Medina Sidonia
recommende
replied that I have dedicated this enterprise to God .... Get on
then, and do your part’ So on 12 July the Spaniands se al again
“The church bells of Spain rang
the papal bull confiming
<aling on all thf Catholics to rise up against er. The Armada
‘consisted of approximately 130 large ships of war, carrying 19,000
‘oldies and 8000 sailors. The Spanish, the Ttallans an
Portuguese made up the various contingents, with the
themselves divided into squadrons of Gallians, Andalusians,
Catalans and Castilans. There were alo 600 monks on board, to
maintain religious devotion and tocar or the wounded. Gambling
and sweating were forbidden. AI of the Spanish fon
‘confessed and then received holy communion, in thie religious
rude against the heretics. The royal standard of the Armada
had, as its motto, “Exurg, Domingo jdicia causam tua” ~ "Rise
up, ob Lord, and avenge gland
Philip remained knecling before the Holy Sacrament, without a
‘cushion, fr four hours each day

The English were now fully aware ofthe imminent danger. A
division of the fleet was watching the harbours under the control
of Parma while the principal body made itself ready at Plymouth
‘The Elizabethan navy consisted of nwenty-ve Fighting galleons,
‘but a his time of peri ie was enlarged by other vessels furnished
by the city of London and by private individuals, Some other
ships and coasters had to be hired. The queen had relied upon
Sir Francis Drake and other privater. It has been estimated that

the vast

thatthe fleet was destined forthe West Indes, but no one

the expedition be once more postponed, Philip

x. On board were printed copies
izaberhs excommunication and

hy cause? As the let sailed for Ei

16. he English feet consisted of 197 various vessels (not al of which
were stale for combat),

“The trained bands and the county militia of England were as
prepared as their somewhat rickety organization allowed; they
‘would be joined bythe surviving retinues ofthe nobles, drawn from
‘hei major tenant. It was sud that 100,000 men were ready to
fall to arms, but that may be an overestimate. If they had encoun
tered the duke of Parma and his men, in any case, they would have
ret the finest military force in Europe. The coastal companies
were told o fall back where the enemy landed, removing the com

they were to wait unt eeinfor
austere of the Midland armies, 10,000
a separate force in defence of the queen

here
On 19 July the Spanish ct was sighted off the Lizard in th
Channel, The Spanish Armada,’ Camden wrote, “ule high like
towers and castes, ral into the form of a crescent whose hom
was at least seven miles distant, sling very slowly though under
fall si, as the winds laboured and the ocean sighed under the
borden of it? When it was sighted from the topmast of the Ark
y. The moment of battle between

Real, the crew shouted for
Spain and England had arrived
The story goes that Drake received the news while playing

arking that ‘we have time enough to
finish the game and beat the Spaniards too, The words ae prob
ably apocryphal but he may have sid something quite like iy he
would have to wait forthe ide to tum before he made

ver noted that “the country

bowls at Plymouth, only re

of the harbour. A contemporary
people, forthwith, ran down tothe seaside, some with cabs, some
with picked staves and pitchfork..." It is perhaps fortunate that
(hir fighting skills were not tested
‘The rest of the world remain
The Venetians believed that the English would win, and
ench merely suggested that they would be able to hold off
theic enemies at sea. For the love of God, the vice-admiral wrote
o Whitehall, ‘and our country, le
shot sent us ofall bigness? On 21)
Plymouth, wrote that ‘the Spanish flet was in view of this town

neutral, looking on with

us have with speed some gee
y Wiliam Hawkins, mayor.

yesterday night and my lord admiral [Lord Howard] pased tothe
Sea before our said view and was out of sight. The English fect
had the wind on their side and on that Sunday morning a skirmish
ensued between the two parties that listed two hours. Philips
treasure ship was badly damaged, and was taken by its captors into

Daremouth
On 25 July the two fleets were off Portland Bill and were
ngish had the advantage, with

engaged in a general struggle; the E
their smaller ships and lager guns. The Spanish vessels wished to
close up and grapple with their adversaries, allowing thei soldiers
to take over the fight. But hey were not allowed to come to e
The English rlid largely upon seaworthincss and speed. Event
ally Medina Sidonia broke off and
meeting with the duke of Parma, In the 5
Howard had almost run out of ammunition
enough for one more large engagement. The Spanish we
‘ase; they too were running low on ballets, and their vessels
been more severely damaged. A galleon and a fagship drifted as
For thre days, sling towards Calais,
Medina Sidonia sen increasingly urgent mes e duke of
Parma. Meanwhile the English forces were receiving reinforce-
ments from the cosstal ports and castles, The enemy pu
Sidonia told Parma. They fire upon me most days from morning
tll nightfall; but they will no lose and grapple. Ihave given them
every opportunity. 1 have purposely left ships exposed to tempt
them to board; but they decline to doi, and there is no remedy
for they are swift and we are slow. So the English were able to

umed course 0 his supposed

wrecks to the French con

drive the Spanish forward ‘ike sheep’ until Medina Sidonia reached
the haven of Calas

Yet it was not a haven for long. At midnight on Sunday
July, Howard directed eight fre ships upon the Spanish feet at
anchor, the veselsffanialy cut loose their cables before drifting
into the sea and the night. On the following morning the Spanish
commander collected his feet together, just off Dunkirk the
English, now sezing their good fortune, went on the attack The
batle of Gravelines was dec, The English went in among the
Spani

and wrought havoc with their guns and cannon, Three

galleons were sunk or eaptured, along with a host of smaller ships

17. ss Tunons

1 will not write unto her majesty before more be done? Howard
wrote to Walsingham, Their force ie wonderful great and strong;
and yet we lack their father by litle and ie.

The feathers were indeed plucked. The Spanish had already
Lost eight galleos in the course of the conc, and many men were
dead or dying, No English vesel had suffered any serious harm.

The duke of Parma could not move; he was marooned in Nieu
port, and the Armada vas in no condition to make a rendenvous.
The Dutch navy, hostile to Parma, also kept him enclosed. The
wind then changed to west-suth-west, sending the Spanish fleet
away from the shoals into the North Sea. The English had no
ammunition left to hinder chem but instead ‘pat on a brag coun
tenance’ by pursing them up the coast, On 31 July Sir Francis
Drake wrote that re have the army of Spain before us and mind
to wrestle a pul with him... doubt it not but ee it be long
So to handle the matter with the duke of Sidonia as he shall wish
himself at St Mary Port among his orange tees.
Te was at this moment that the queen came down from London
for the review of the army at Tilbury. She arrived by ban
she landed at the lockhowse, the cannon were sounded in her
honour. She was met by an escort of 1,000 horse and 2,000 foot,
and on the following day she took part in the
the passed among the men ‘like some Amazonian empres”. In
her speech she told them that she had been advised to take care
of her person, but she scomed any such protection; she could
rely on the rus and devotion of her people. She is then supposed
to have said that she was resolved ‘to ve and die among you al, to
lay down for my God and for my kingdom and for my people, my
honour and my blood, ven in the dust. I know J have the body o
a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart and stomach of a
king, and of a king of England too. Ie is a matter of debate
se words but the gist of the speech,

her soldiers atthe end ofthe oration. She then retired «
rent at noon for her dinner

The Spanish le, battered and defeated, was even then making
its way along the Scottish coast It was noted at the time that che
Scortah king had kept his word to the queen and had not even

Anwana a

covertly supported Spain; James had told the English ambassador
at his cout that a the favour he expected from the Spaniards was
the courtesy of Polyphemus to Ulyies, that he should be devoured
the lst.

‘When they reached the north cout of Sodand the command
es were ordered to male the best way they could to Spain. Four
or five men died each day from savation, and al the horses were
thrown overboard to save water, When the Spanish ships reached
the Irish Sea a great storm blew up and threw them against the
coast of Ireland. The lose of life by shipwreck was enormous but
it was compounded by the lost of if on shore. One Ii
Melaghin MeCabb, boasted that he had dispatched eighty Span
Garde with his gallowglass axe. Ti
told his Venetian counterpart that nineteen vessels had been
‘wrecked, with the loss of 7,00 men; other reports put the fatalities
higher. Only half of che Armada returned 10 Spain, less than half
of the men, Philip himself remained calm, or impassve. I was he
said, the Lords will Secretly he raged, and vowed on his knees
that one day he would subdue England even if he reduced Spain to
a desert by the effort

“The celebrations attendant on victory had a m
In the streets ofthe Channel ports thousands of sailors were dying
of typhus or the scunys they had conquered the enemy but they
ould not vanguish disease, The lord admiral wrote to Burghley,
after the destucion of the Armada, hat ‘sickness and morality
begins wonderfully to grow among us and asked forthe resources
to Purchase food and clothing. Bur, after the expense of warfare,
Elizabeth's purse was now closed. She let her men o their ite.

“Another casualty ofthe war touched her more deply. The eal
of Leicester, worm out by his campaign in the Netherlands was
oubled with an ague that became ‘à continual burning fever
His death was not greatly mourned by anyone except the queen
herself. He wis considered incompetent and vainglorious; a con
temporary historian, John Stow, wrote that ‘all men, so far as they
‘dunt, rejoiced no less outwardly at his death than for he victory
lately obtained against the Spaniaed.

Elizabeth kept the last leer he had w
wooden casket; was found by er bed af

English ambassador in Paris

fe sombre note

en to her in a lie
her death Yet

18. at his death did not mitigate hee practical temper. He had died
indebted to her exchequer and so she ordered his goods

ar public auction to rcimburse her for loss, There were other
rewards, When she st for her famous ‘Armads’ porta by George
Gower, where she exults in the victory with an imperial crown
beside her, she is wearing the peal that Leicester had bequeathed
to her

be sold

On 26 November she was drawn by two white homes in a
rich decorated chariot to St Pauls Cathedral for the final ele
ebraion there had not been such a spectacular procession since
her coronation almost thin years before. In the following year
Edmund Spenser completed the fist three books of his vere epic
The Faerie Queene in which Elizabeth here is transmuted into
Glorana.

Towards the end of 1588 a young man ran down the Strand
calling out tthe people, ‘IE yoo wl se the queen, you must come
quickly Te was said that she was about to appear inthe courtyard
‘of Somerset House, So the crowd rushed tothe area, Te was five in
the evening, and already dark, but chen in a blaze of torchlight
Elizabeth suddenly appeared,

‘God bless yon al, my good people?

‘God save your Mary?

"You may wll havea greater Prince, but you shall never havea
‘ore loving Pine

‘The queen had been raised to new heights of glory and
prestige, but the defeut of the Armada wrought other wonderful
consequences power now beeame a more
striking aspect of national consciousness, linked as it was to the
defeat of Carholici and the defence of true religion, Drake and
Hawkins were new types of Protestant hero, fighting on behalf
of ational libeny. The papal curse had been lite in the most
striking possible manner. Elizabeth herself wrote to the duke of
Florence that ie is a8 clear as daylight that God's blessing rests
upon us, upon our people and our seal, with all the plainst signs
of prosperity, peace, obedience, riches, power and increase of our
subjects

he myth of English se

The pope tied eo excuse himself by saying that he always knew

Ansıana e

the Spaniards would be defeated. The Spanish ambasador then
‘congratulated hen on his gf of prophecy. The pope merely turned
up the whites of his ees and looked piouly towards heaven’. Spain
ould no longer be considered to be the resolute champion of
Catholicism in the world, and the papacy mitigated its own pre
tensions, The Catholics of England now accommodated themselves
to the established Church or were the object of more determined
persection
The death of Leicester helped to forward the career of another
court favourite. Robert Devereux, second carl of Essex, was
mada, He had been the
‘det of his father in

twenty-two years old atthe time of the A
ward of Bugghley ever since the untime
Ireland; Sir Walter Devereux had died of dysentery in 1576, Two
years later Leicester had married the widow, the countess of Essex
stepfather, as well as the godfather, of the

blessed,

Leicester was then e

young man. So the young Essex was dou
He was always restless and ambitious

wel as for glory. It was sid that ‘he was entirely given over 10

arms and war; yet he was alo cloquent and highly incl

He believed, or professed to believe, in

in both a martial and an th

with piety, valour with clemency and justice, He pursued what he

Tater called ‘the public use for which we areal hon’. He supported

«cving for power as

sense; manliness vasto be joined

the Protestant cause, naturally enough, and
the more godly sort. He was impulsive and energetic, too, making
a contrast with the older and more staid councillors of Elzabeihs

alm, He was ‘soft to take offence and hard to lay it down
e could ‘conceal nothing and "carried his love and hatred on his
forchead, and was sometimes the victim of nervous prostration.
Tt has been said tha the court was now so changed that i seemed
to herald a new reign, In truth it was simply entering a darker and
more sequestered phase, of which Essex himself would eventually