The Elizabethans
Authors: A.N. Wilson
Contents
List of illustrations and credits
3 Ceremonial – Twixt earnest and twixt game
9 St Bartholomew’s Day Massacre
14 Sir Francis Drake’s Circumnavigation
15 A Frog He Would A-wooing Go
Part Four: The Close of the Reign
28
Essex and the End
About the Book
With all the panoramic sweep of his bestselling study The Victorians, A. N. Wilson relates the exhilarating story of the Elizabethan Age. It was a time of exceptional creativity, wealth creation and political expansion.
It was also a period of English history more remarkable than any other for the technicolour personalities of its leading participants.
Apart from the complex character of the Virgin Queen herself, we follow the story of Francis Drake and political intriguers like William Cecil and Francis Walsingham, so important to a monarch who often made a key strategy out of her indecisiveness. Favourites like Leicester and Essex skated very close to the edge as far as Elizabeth’s affections were concerned, and Essex made a big mistake when he led a rebellion against the crown.
There was a Renaissance during this period in the world of words, which included the all-round hero and literary genius, Sir Philip Sidney, playwright-spy Christopher Marlowe and that ‘myriad-minded man’, William Shakespeare.
Life in Elizabethan England could be very harsh. Plague swept the land. And the poor received little assistance from the State. Thumbscrews and the rack could be the grim prelude to the executioner’s block. But crucially, this was the age when modern Britain was born, and established independence from mainland Europe. After Sir Walter Raleigh established the colony of Virginia, English was destined to become the language of the great globe itself, and the the foundations were laid not only of later British imperial power but also of American domination of the world.
With The Elizabethans, Wilson reveals himself again as the master of the definitive, single-volume study.
About the Author
A. N. Wilson was born in 1950 and educated at Rugby and New College, Oxford. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, he holds a prominent position in the world of literature and journalism. He is an award-winning biographer and a celebrated novelist, winning prizes for much of his work. He lives in North London.
Also by A. N. Wilson
FICTION
The Sweets of Pimlico
Unguarded Hours
Kindly Light
The Healing Art
Who Was Oswald Fish?
Wise Virgin
Scandal
Gentlemen in England
Love Unknown
Stray
The Vicar of Sorrows
Dream Children
My Name is Legion
A Jealous Ghost
Winnie & Wolf
The Lampitt Chronicles
Incline Our Hearts
A Bottle in the Smoke
Daughters of Albion
Hearing Voices
A Watch in the Night
NON-FICTION
A Life of Walter Scott
A Life of John Milton
Hilaire Belloc
Penfriends from Porlock
Tolstoy
C.S. Lewis: A Biography
The Rise and Fall of the House of Windsor
God’s Funeral
The Victorians
Iris Murdoch As I Knew Her
London: A Short History
After the Victorians
Betjeman
Our Times
Dante in Love
The Elizabethans
A.N. Wilson
for
KATHERINE DUNCAN-JONES,
Elizabethan
sans pareil
Acknowledgements
Gillon Aitken was the ‘onlie begetter’ of this book. It was his idea that I should write it, and I am deeply grateful for all his encouragement, with this and other projects, and for his friendship over many years. Many thanks, too, to Emma Mitchell, Paul Sidey, Mandy Greenfield and George Capel who all gave support and advice. Thanks to Simon Thurley, Anna Keay, David Starkey, and Roy Strong, all experts in a field where I am an amateur, who guided my steps and suggested further reading. Georgie Wilson helped with Elizabethan Highgate and with the Armada chapter, and Ruth Guilding with the architecture. I finished the book at Lamorna Cove, Ruth’s brainchild, looking at the sea and imagining the Armada sailing by. My greatest debt, in writing this book and in understanding many others, is expressed in the dedication.
Oak Apple Day, 2011
List of illustrations and credits
Elizabeth I, ‘The Ditchley Portrait’, by Marcus Gheeraerts the Younger, c.1592. National Portrait Gallery, London: NPG 2561
An Allegory of the Tudor Succession: The Family of Henry VIII, c.1589–95 (oil on panel), English School, (16th century) / Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection, USA / The Bridgeman Art Library
Sir Francis Walsingham c.1532–1590 English statesman and spymaster for Queen Elizabeth I. From the book ‘Lodge’s British Portraits’ published in London, 1823. (Photo by Universal History Archive/Getty Images) © Getty Images
William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley (1520–98) English statesman. Lord High Treasurer to Elizabeth I from 1572. Engraving. (Photo by Universal History Archive/Getty Images) © Getty Images
G.11631.B.L. Title Page with a Portrait of Shakespeare, from ‘Mr. William Shakespeare’s Comedies, Histories and Tragedies’, edited by J. Heminge and H. Condell, engraving by Droeshout, 1623 (engraving) © British Library Board. All Rights Reserved
Interior of schoolroom where William Shakespeare was educated, Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England, UK, Europe © Peter Scholey
Mary Herbert Countess of Pembroke, nee Mary Sidney, 1561–1621. English patroness of the arts and translator. From the book ‘Lodge’s British Portraits’ published London 1823. (Photo by Universal History Archive/Getty Images) © Getty Images
Circa 1590, English poet Edmund Spenser (c. 1552–1599). With Sir Philip Sidney and Dyer, he formed the literary club ‘Areopagus,’ and invented the Spenserian stanza in poetry. Original Artwork: Engraving by Thomson. (Photo by Archive Photos/Getty Images) © Getty Images
Robert Dudley (1532–88) 1st Earl of Leicester, c.1560s (oil on panel), Meulen, or Muelen, Steven van der (fl.1543–68) / Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection, USA / The Bridgeman Art Library
Kenilworth Castle, Warwickshire, England © David Hughes
Portrait of Sir Francis Drake (1540–1596) 1591 (oil on panel) © Marcus Gheeraerts the Younger
Portrait of British Naval commander Sir John Hawkins. (Photo by Time Life Pictures/Mansell/Time Life Pictures/Getty Images)© Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images
Circa 1600, A naval and military battle in which the English fleet engages the Spanish Armada at Cadiz. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images) © Getty Images
Circa 1570, English poet, courtier and soldier Sir Philip Sidney (1554–1586) who typified the Elizabethan gentleman. Original Artwork: Engraved by E Scriven. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images) © Getty Images
View of Penshurst Place from the east over a wilderness of weeds in the kitchen garden. (Photo by Ian Smith/Time Life Pictures/Getty Images) © Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images
The funeral cortege of Sir Philip Sidney (1554–1586) on its way to St. Paul’s Cathedral, 1587, engraved by Theodor de Bry (1528–1598) (engraving), English School, (16th century) / Private Collection / The Stapleton Collection / The Bridgeman Art Library
Stage and seating (photo), / Shakespeare’s Globe, Southwark, London, UK / © Peter Phipp/Travelshots / The Bridgeman Art Library
Queen Elizabeth I (1533–1603) at a stag hunt, plate from ‘Noble Art of Venerie and Hunting’ by George Turberville, 1575 (woodcut) (b/w photo) by English School, (16th century) British Library, London, UK/ The Bridgeman Art Library
Sir Henry Lee (1533–1611), 1568 (panel), Mor, Sir Anthonis van Dashorst (Antonio Moro) (1517/20–76/7) / National Portrait Gallery, London, UK / The Bridgeman Art Library
Elizabeth Knollys, Lady Layton, 1577 (oil on panel), Gower, George (1540–96) (attr. to) / Montacute House, Somerset, UK / The Phelips Collection National Trust Photographic Library/Derrick E. Witty / The Bridgeman Art Library
A pair of embroidered gloves belonging to Queen Elizabeth I, 19th May 1953. They were presented to her during a visit to Oxford in 1566, and are on display at an exhibition of Treasures of Oxford at Goldsmith’s Hall, London. (Photo by T. Marshall/Topical Press Agency/Getty Images) © Getty Images
Queen Elizabeth I Feeds the Dutch Cow
. Oil on panel, 39.4 × 49.5, artist unknown
Spring Cleaning Takes Place At Longleat © Getty Images
Hardwick Hall © English School
Robed lawyers dine under carved beams in Middle Temple’s Great Hall, Inns of Court, London, England (Photo by Willis D. Vaughn/National Geographic/Getty Images) © National Geographic/Getty Images
Tomb of Pope Saint Pius V in Santa Maria Maggiore Rome
The tomb of Mary Queen of Scots, south isle of the Lady Chapel, c.1612–13 (marble), Cure, Cornelius (d.1607) and Cure, William (d.1632) / Westminster Abbey, London, UK / Photo: James Brittain / The Bridgeman Art Library
Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II (R) and Ireland’s President Mary McAleese stand together during a wreath laying ceremony at the Irish War memorial Garden at Islandbridge in Dublin, Ireland on May 18, 2011. Queen Elizabeth II Wednesday visited a memorial to the 49,400 Irish soldiers killed fighting for Britain in World War I in a highly-charged ceremony on the second day of her historic visit to Ireland. © PAUL ELLIS/AFP/Getty Images) AFP/Getty Images
Portrait of John Dee (1547–1608) (oil on canvas), English School, (17th century) / Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford, UK / The Bridgeman Art Library
Great Britain, England, Devon, Exeter, Exeter Cathedral, marble statue of theologian Richard Hooker © Nigel Hicks
Portrait of Queen Elizabeth I – The Drewe Portrait, late 1580s (oil on panel), Gower, George (1540–96) (attr. to) / Private Collection / Photo © Philip Mould Ltd, London / The Bridgeman Art Library
Preface
We have lived to see the Elizabethan world come to an end. This makes
now
a very interesting time to be reconsidering the Elizabethans, but it also makes for some difficulties. As human societies and civilisations change, it is natural for them to suppose that what they do, what they think, what they eat and drink and believe is superior to what went before. While the Elizabethan world was still going on – and in some respects it was still continuing, in modified form, until the Second World War – British and American historians were able to see the reign of Queen Elizabeth I as a glory age. This was how the Elizabethans saw themselves. Their great poet, Edmund Spenser, named his Faerie Queene (who was a projection of Elizabeth herself) Gloriana, and her capital, an idealised London, he named Cleopolis – the Greek for ‘Glory-ville’. Modern historians from, let us say, James Anthony Froude (1819–84) to A.L. Rowse (1903–97) wrote about the Elizabethan Age with celebratory
brio
. They noted, correctly, that this was the age when the history of modern England (and Wales) really began. With the other British nations, Scotland and Ireland, the tale was perhaps more complicated. This was when England, having put civil wars and the superstitions of the Middle Ages behind it, emerged into the broad sunlit uplands. This was the age that saw the origins of English sea-power. In consequence, if not in Elizabeth I’s own day, America – the future United States – became an English-speaking civilisation. This was the great age when British explorers went out to every corner of the known world. Modern geography began, and the colonial expansion that was the foundation of later British power and prosperity.