Elizabeth I's Final Years: Her Favourites & Her Fighting Men

By Robert Stedall

A study of the later years of the English monarch as seen through the men she surrounded herself with in her court.

Elizabeth I’s Final Years outlines the interwoven relationships and rivalries between politicians and courtiers surrounding England’s omnipotent queen in the years following the Earl of Leicester’s death in 1588. Elizabeth now surrounded herself with magnetically attractive younger men with the courtly graces to provide her with what Alison Weir has called ‘an eroticised political relationship’.

With these ‘favourites’ holding sway at court, they saw personal bravery in the tiltyard or on military exploits as their means to political authority. They failed to appreciate that the parsimonious queen would always resist military aggression and resolutely backed her meticulously cautious advisors, William Cecil, Lord Burghley, and later his son Robert.

With its access to New World treasure, it was Spain who threatened the fragile balance of power in Continental Europe. With English military intervention becoming inevitable, the Cecils diverted the likes of Walter Raleigh and the Earl of Essex, despite their lack of military experience, away from the limelight at court into colonial and military expeditions, leaving them just short of the resources needed for success. The favourites’ promotions caused friction when seasoned soldiers, like Sir Francis Vere with his unparalleled military record in the Low Countries, were left in subordinate roles.

When Spanish support for rebellion in Ireland threatened English security, Robert Cecil encouraged Elizabeth to send Essex, knowing that high command was beyond his capabilities. Essex retorted by rebelling against Cecil’s government, for which he lost his head.

Both Elizabeth and Cecil realised that only the bookish Lord Mountjoy, another favourite, had the military acumen to resolve the Irish crisis, but his mistress, Essex’s sister, the incomparable Penelope Rich, was mired by involvement in her brother’s conspiracy. Despite this, Cecil gave Mountjoy unstinting support, biding his time to tarnish his name with James I, as he did against Raleigh and his other political foes.

Praise for Elizabeth I's Final Years: Her Favourites & Her Fighting Men

“Meticulously researched history told with academic flair, wit, and enthusiasm.” —Professor Steven Veerapen, University of Strathclyde

“Robert Steadall’s superb book is both educational and entertaining.” —Books Monthly

“A masterpiece of original scholarship.” —Midwest Book Review

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Jun 30, 2022
• ISBN: 9781399083164

Robert Stedall

Robert Stedall has made a specialist study of Tudor history and is the curator of the popular www.maryqueenofscots.net. He has also written Men of Substance, on the London Livery Companies’ reluctant part in the Plantation of Ulster.

Book preview

PART I

THE DUDLEYS AND THE DEVEREUXES

Chapter 1

Leicester’s flirtation with Lettice Knollys, 1565–76

While Lettice enjoyed an apparently idyllic life as a young wife moving between her various Devereux homes, her mentor Queen Elizabeth, ten years the elder, was juggling Continental marriage suits proposed by her government in their single-minded effort to protect English independence. Elizabeth was most reluctant. She had become besotted with her childhood friend, Lord Robert Dudley, who had done much to support her during the reign of her sister, Mary Tudor. On her accession, Dudley was appointed to the important role of Master of the Horse, requiring him to spend much of his time in her presence. In 1552 he had married Amy Robsart of a well-to-do, but not ennobled, Norfolk family; she had failed to provide him with children and was suffering from breast cancer. It seemed that Elizabeth and Dudley were only waiting for her death to enable them to marry.

Although they remained on socially cordial terms, Cecil (later to become Lord Burghley), now Elizabeth’s Secretary of State, strongly opposed Robert’s marriage to Elizabeth. In part, this was because he wanted her to make a dynastic marriage to provide England with security, but he also considered Robert to be politically unreliable. Elizabeth did not help his standing with her ministers by encouraging him to undermine any marriage suits they were proposing. Nevertheless, it was also recognised that England’s independence as a Protestant nation depended on her providing an heir.

When Amy Robsart died after falling down a couple of steps and breaking her neck at her lodging at Abingdon in Oxfordshire, Cecil had only to ask if she were pushed. With Robert having been with the court at Windsor, there is no serious modern suggestion that he was implicated in her death, and he was completely exonerated at the independent inquest. Nevertheless, Elizabeth concluded that she would greatly damage her standing by marrying him. Furthermore, Cecil persuaded her to test his integrity. When she asked Robert to seek Spanish support for their marriage in return for them backing a Counter-Reformation, Robert unashamedly made the proposal to the Spanish ambassador. With Robert being a leading Puritan, she now knew that his ambitions were greater than his religious and political conscience. Although she realised that she could never marry him, it did not end their close association. It is probable that their affair became intimate, and he continued to believe that she could be won round – and would have been, if she had become pregnant.

It was perhaps a coincidence that in 1565 Robert began paying attention to Lettice. She was already pregnant by her husband, but Robert was persuaded by Sir Nicholas Throckmorton that the flirtation would make Elizabeth jealous and would force her hand. There is no doubt that Robert was attracted to Lettice, but it was, at that time, no more than harmless banter. There is no mention of her facing any royal hostility, and Robert seems to have struck up a friendship with her husband, becoming a godfather to their son, who was born in the following November and named Robert in his honour. Such was Elizabeth’s reconciliation with Robert that at the end of 1565 she granted him the use of Durham Place, previously occupied by the Spanish ambassador, and appointed him to the lucrative role of Chancellor of the County Palatine of Chester.

When Robert gave Elizabeth an ultimatum to make up her mind by Christmas, she promised to let him know by Candlemas (2 February 1566). The ambassadors were certain that ‘Cecil … would resist to the last the marriage of the queen with [Robert], under the patronage of France or Spain’.¹ Candlemas came and went without any word of marriage and, although his suit eventually petered out, he remained the love of her life.

In 1569, following the death of her wealthy husband, John, 2nd Lord Sheffield, Robert began a secret affair with Douglas Howard, the daughter of the 1st Lord Howard of Effingham. To protect his standing with Elizabeth, Robert managed to keep this relationship hidden and always made clear to Douglas that he could not marry her. In August 1574, Douglas gave birth to a son, Robert, who took the surname Sheffield; after the child’s birth, however, it seems that Robert’s relationship with Douglas had run its course. He conveniently arranged for her to marry Sir Edward Stafford, who became the English ambassador in Paris and provided her with a pension of £700 per annum. By now, his roving eye had again chanced upon Lettice.

By this time, Walter had begun to make his name as a soldier, having arranged a muster of men at arms around Chartley to secure the imprisonment of Mary Queen of Scots at Tutbury. This followed the launch of a Catholic rebellion in the North led by the Earls of Northumberland and Westmoreland with the prospect of Spanish support. Their plan was to release Mary and to arrange her marriage to the Duke of Norfolk. A further motive was an attempt by the ‘old’ nobility to reduce the power of the ‘upstart’ Cecil. With Cecil having Elizabeth’s complete backing, Walter maintained mounted soldiers at Tutbury to deter Mary’s escape and escorted her south to the relative security of Coventry. He immediately returned north to challenge the rebels, proving himself a born leader by mustering a further 3,000 men at Lichfield and linking up with Lettice’s uncle, Henry Carey, Lord Hunsdon, and her brother, William Knollys, under the overall command of Leicester’s brother, Ambrose Dudley, 3rd Earl of Warwick. On Leicester’s recommendation, Walter was appointed High Marshal of the Field. Warwick told the privy council: ‘I never saw a nobleman in all my life more willing to serve his prince and country.’ On 20 December, the rebel leaders fled to Scotland, but Walter’s reprisals on their supporters demonstrated a bloodthirsty bent that was to recur when he was later in Ireland. Nearly 800 rebels were executed, leading, in April 1570, to Elizabeth’s excommunication by the Pope. In the summer of 1571, to recognise his zeal in service, Walter was created a Knight of the Garter, and Elizabeth confirmed his claim to the earldom of Essex and viscountcy of Bourchier, titles previously held by his Bourchier ancestors.² In January 1572, he was one of twenty-five representative peers who sat at Norfolk’s treason trial.

Elizabeth’s excommunication seemed to threaten further outbreaks of Catholic rebellion, but with her religious tolerance having made her popular, English Catholics generally preferred her as a Protestant English queen to the prospect of a foreign Catholic one. In January 1572, with the French also in fear of Habsburg aggression, they proposed that Elizabeth, who was 39, should marry Francis, Duke of Alençon, the 17-year-old youngest brother of Charles IX. Elizabeth enjoyed the romance of it all, even though he was by repute ‘short, puny and pitted with smallpox’, marvellously ugly and with a curvature of the spine.³ She named him her ‘frog’, or more politely as ‘Monsieur’. Although Leicester initially played along with the match, he was horrified when Elizabeth seemed to take it seriously. Nevertheless, it seemed to be brought to an abrupt end in August when news arrived from Paris of the Guise-inspired Massacre of St Bartholomew, during which many of the leading French Huguenots attending the marriage of Henry of Navarre (later Henry IV) to Margaret de Valois, Alençon’s sister, were assassinated. Nevertheless, the suit drifted on. When Charles IX died in 1574, Alençon fell out with his brother Henry, now king of France. Although he remained Catholic, he sided with the Huguenots, forcing the French crown into the very one-sided Edict of Beaulieu. This resulted in him being granted the dukedom of Anjou. Furthermore, his Huguenot affiliation made him far more acceptable as a spouse for Elizabeth.

With the Spanish threat continuing, it was recognised that their most likely bridgehead for an invasion of England was through Catholic Ireland, which remained rebellious. To prove ‘his good devotion to employ himself in the service of her Majesty’, Walter – now Earl of Essex – approached Elizabeth with a plan to subdue and colonise an area of eastern Ulster dominated by the O’Neills.⁴ Elizabeth welcomed any opportunity to plant more settlers but had been reluctant to fund their military protection. In August 1573, having mortgaged his estates to underwrite a borrowing of £10,000 from the Royal Exchequer, Essex set out from Liverpool to occupy an area covering most of County Antrim. Despite this being in direct contravention of the rights of the Ulster clans, Elizabeth funded half his cost of settling 1,000 men. After a stormy crossing in which his ships became scattered, he reached Carrickfergus, but the new arrivals, many of whom were Irish in Essex’s pay, were poorly equipped and proved unreliable. In the face of mounting local hostility, many returned to England. Sir William Fitzwilliam, the Lord Deputy, who had not been warned of the expedition in advance, disapproved of the venture and proved uncooperative. When some of Essex’s supporting troops threatened to desert for want of better pay, he hanged them and became involved in mindless acts of cruelty in the locality. Far from reproving this, Elizabeth appointed him as Governor of Ulster and praised his ‘good services’. He reported to her: ‘I will not leave the enterprise as long as I have any foot of land in England unsold.’ With his project under great pressure, he needed Council funding for it to continue. In December 1575, he returned home but was unwell and retired to Lamphey to recuperate. He was facing financial ruin with debts of more than £25,000 in addition to the £10,000 borrowed from the Exchequer, and was forced to sell a large part of his English estates.⁵

Essex did not attend Hampton Court for the court’s Christmas celebrations, but needed to find the right moment at the end of the festivities to plead with Elizabeth for help. He blamed many of his difficulties on her prevarication over providing financial support. His only way out was to return to Ireland and to make a success of his project. Elizabeth supported this, as he had shown himself to be the kind of ruthless leader that she considered necessary, but Sir Henry Sidney (the father of Sir Philip), recently restored as Lord Lieutenant with increased powers, had no respect for his bloodthirsty treatment of the Irish and lacked confidence in him.

Meanwhile, Lettice continued to attend court. In July 1575, she was present when Elizabeth came with the court to visit Leicester’s newly refurbished country estate at Kenilworth. The party lasted eighteen days with every aspect being sumptuous in its extravagance. There were masques specially written for the occasion, music, dancing, water pageants, spectacular food and wines and magnificent fireworks. Lettice came without her husband, who was still in Ireland, and Douglas Sheffield was not there. It is apparent that Lettice was by then enjoying a relationship with Leicester, as at one stage Elizabeth threatened to leave, and it seems that her nose had been put out of joint. If her husband did not already know it, Lettice also attended hunting parties there and stayed at Leicester’s London residence, Durham Place, while attending court. This heralded a massive row. The Spanish ambassador, Antonio de Guarás reported: ‘As the thing is publicly talked about in the streets, there is no objection to my writing openly about the great enmity which exists between the Earl of Leicester and the Earl of Essex.’⁶ The ambassador spiced it up by suggesting that Lettice had produced two children by Leicester while her husband was in Ireland. While this is certainly untrue, it seems that she had not been enjoying domestic harmony with Essex for some time, despite their four handsome children. This made his absence abroad convenient.

It was through Leicester’s intercession that Essex was restored to Ireland, receiving what Camden described as ‘the empty title of Earl Marshal’ of Ireland.⁷ Leicester seems to have wanted him kept out of the way while he developed his relationship with Lettice. He pressurised Sidney, his brother-in-law, to be more effusive in seeking Essex’s reappointment.⁸ Sidney was suddenly fulsome with praise, describing him as ‘so noble and worthy a personage’, and ‘complete a gentleman’.⁹ It took until the following May, 1576, for the terms of Essex’s return to Ireland to be agreed. He was granted Farney in County Monaghan and Island Magee in County Antrim to compensate for the loss of estates in England that had had to be sold. He was still unwell and signed a will at Chartley on 14 June, in which he granted handsome dowries of £2,000 each to his daughters Penelope and Dorothy. A few days later he set out for Dublin. It is not clear if Lettice came to Chartley to see him off, but she soon joined Leicester in London and accompanied him north when he went to Buxton to take the waters.

Chapter 2

The 1st Earl of Essex’s death and his children’s education, 1572–81

While in England, Essex had renewed his acquaintance with Philip Sidney, having always held him in great affection. Even while Philip was still attending Shrewsbury School, Essex had provided him with the gift of a horse. By now, Philip was already a budding diplomat, having spent time on the Continent while Essex was in Ireland. In 1572, he had visited Paris, staying with Sir Francis Walsingham, the English ambassador, during the Massacre of Saint Bartholomew. He later gained considerable prestige while travelling in Protestant Europe, after being taken under the wing of the diplomat Hubert Languet, who was promoting the development of a Protestant league to combat Catholic aggression. Not only did Philip’s poetry show that he was cultivated and cultured, but he had diplomatic flair. His father was the Lord Deputy of Ireland and President of the Council of Wales, and he was likely to become the heir to his uncles, the Earl of Warwick and Earl of Leicester. This made him quite the most eligible young Englishman on the Continent.

When Philip returned home in mid-1575 he attended Leicester’s great pageant at Kenilworth with his parents, but he was far less well-known in England than on the Continent, where he was already recognised as ‘the paragon of the age’.¹ In his absence his elder sister Ambrosia had died, after which Elizabeth had written a most sympathetic letter to the Sidneys offering, if it would suit them, to take their younger daughter Mary, then 14, into a position at court. Her offer was gratefully accepted. She shared all her brother’s charm and, within a year, had become betrothed to the widowed 42-year-old Henry Herbert, who had succeeded his father as Earl of Pembroke in 1570. The Sidneys were delighted at this glittering prospect for their 15-year-old daughter, despite having to borrow from their relations to find the required £3,000 dowry.

After setting out back to Ireland, Essex was held up in Holyhead while his ship waited nearly a month, until 26 July 1576, for a favourable easterly wind. It is probable that Philip, who wanted to visit his father, travelled with him. Sir Henry, who was campaigning in Galway, returned to Dublin to greet them after being instructed by Walsingham, and probably by Leicester, to remain on good terms with Essex. He then returned with Philip to Galway to search out rebels, but without great success.

While father and son were away from Dublin, Essex had been enjoying a drink with his page and a third person, when all three were stricken with dysentery. Believing he had been poisoned, Essex decided to return to Lamphey to recuperate, but was too unwell to travel and realised that he was dying. On 22 September, at the age of 36 and only two months after arriving back in Ireland, he succumbed.² Although Sir Henry ordered a post-mortem, Essex’s secretary confirmed that there was no evidence of foul play. Two days before dying, Essex managed to dictate a letter to Elizabeth bidding her farewell and asking her ‘to be a mother unto’ his children, but with no similar request to support his widow. Elizabeth always took great interest in the children’s welfare and politely offered her condolences to Lettice but provided her with no practical help.³ Essex also wrote to Sir Henry with a message for