The Queen's Bed: An Intimate History of Elizabeth's Court (11 page)

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In late September, Sir Nicholas Throckmorton wrote to Elizabeth from Paris warning of another plot to assassinate her. An Italian, calling himself Jean Baptista Beltran of Lyon, had come to the ambassador’s lodgings to inform him that a Greek called Maniola de Corfeu had been instructed by a ‘great personage’ to ‘make a voyage into England to poison the Queen’. Beltran had recently been in England where he had revealed the plot to Dudley and Cecil, described the would-be assassin and told them that de Quadra, the Spanish ambassador, was also privy to the plot. On his return to France, Baptista told Throckmorton that Maniola had arrived in Paris ready to cross to England to commit the deed. If he could be assured of a ‘good recompense for the charges’ that had been incurred and the danger he had put himself in by ‘discovering the matter’, Baptista said he would accompany Maniola to England, ‘and there apprehend him and all his boxes with the sundry sorts of poison’. Throckmorton assured Baptista that he would be well rewarded if he foiled the plot and apprehended Maniola, although he could not assure him of any certain sum for his trouble.
34

A fortnight later Throckmorton wrote again to the Queen, warning her that Maniola de Corfeu had departed secretly on 6 October and was going via Dieppe to England. Throckmorton described the assassin as being about the age of forty, having a black beard, a mean stature and corpulent, and with a cut on the left side of his nose.
35
Cecil had the plot investigated but was satisfied it was a false alarm.
36
Nevertheless, as de Quadra subsequently reported, Cecil had spent ‘many hours’ watching out for the two men described by Beltran and, ‘this would not have been done, at least by Cecil himself if they did not take the thing seriously’.
37

9

Arcana Imperii

On the afternoon of 18 January 1562,
Gorboduc
or
The Tragedy of Ferrex and Porrex,
a play written by Thomas Norton and Thomas Sackville, two lawyers of the Inner Temple, was performed before the Queen at Whitehall. It took its name from the mythical British king who unwisely divided his kingdom between his sons. By presenting the Queen with a vision of a realm thrown into chaos by an unresolved succession, it sought to spur her to marry and produce an heir.
1
Gorboduc
counselled the Queen not simply that a royal marriage was necessary and desirable, but that it should be to Robert Dudley and not to Erik XIV, King of Sweden.
2

An Anglo-Swedish marriage, which had been keenly promoted by Erik and his ambassadors from the earliest days of the reign, was increasingly favoured by those hostile to Dudley. After the sudden death of Amy Robsart and Dudley’s rather dubious efforts to obtain Spanish and papal support for his suit to the Queen, support for the Swedish match had been building. In July 1561, wedding souvenirs had begun to circulate in London and when Erik’s ambassador, the Swedish chancellor Nils Göransson Gyllenstierna, arrived in England to negotiate terms, he received a grand official welcome.
3
Elizabeth had initially resisted the Swedish overtures but as rumours reached England that Erik XIV was making advances to Mary Queen of Scots, Elizabeth began to respond with greater enthusiasm.
4

Upon his arrival in England, Gyllenstierna was first instructed to investigate the truth about Elizabeth’s morality and sexual conduct. ‘I saw no signs of an immodest life,’ he reported, ‘but I did see many signs of chastity, of virginity, of true modesty; so that I would stake my life that she is most chaste.’
5
By September, after the assurances of the Swedish chancellor, the King himself was ‘hourly looked for’ and preparations made at court for his arrival.
6
Erik began his journey from Sweden to England in November but soon had to turn back because of bad weather.
7
He was not now expected until the following spring.

While in the intervening months the Swedish ambassador continued to press his master’s suit, Dudley and his supporters mounted a concerted campaign against it. The performance of
Gorboduc
had dramatically made their case.
8
As one member of the audience explained, the play, and particularly the dumbshow which formed part of it – in which the King was offered an ordinary glass of wine which he refused and then a golden chalice of wine which he took – showed how ‘men refused the certain and took the uncertain’, meaning ‘it was better for the Queen to marry with the L[ord] R[obert] … than with the K[ing] of Sweden’.
9

By March 1562, Erik had still not arrived and, believing any match was increasingly unlikely given that ‘the Queen maketh so much of the L[ord] Rob[ert]’, Gyllenstierna prepared to leave for home. While Elizabeth tried to detain him for fear that he would go straight to Mary Stuart, he finally left England in early April 1562.
10

With the Swedish suit effectively over, Dudley and his supporters grew ever more hopeful that he might finally win the Queen’s hand.
11
Elizabeth told de Quadra that she was free of any betrothal, ‘notwithstanding what the world might think or say’, but that ‘she thought she could find no person with better qualities than Lord Robert’ if she was obliged to marry in England. De Quadra joked with her ‘not to dilly-dally any longer, but to satisfy Lord Robert at once’.
12

But then, on 28 April, Borghese Venturini, secretary to de Quadra, made a statement which changed everything. He revealed de Quadra’s secret communications with Dudley, his contact and relations with the English Catholics, and unflattering comments he had made as to Elizabeth’s indiscretions with her favourite.
13
Cecil got what he had been after. For some time he had been bribing Venturini to spy on the ambassador, in the hope of learning something that would discredit de Quadra with the Queen and put an end to his dealings with Dudley over the marriage and restoration of Catholicism.
14
According to Venturini, de Quadra had even alleged that ‘the Queen was secretly married to Lord Robert’ and had composed a sonnet ‘full of dishonour to the Queen and Lord Robert’.
15

The Spanish ambassador was immediately confronted by Cecil and accused, among other things, of turning his residence Durham House into a hotbed of Catholic conspiracy against the crown. De Quadra wrote of the ‘disaster’ that had happened in his house and how Venturini had ‘been bribed by the Queen’s ministers’ and ‘has laid more on to me than he could truthfully do’.
16
In response to the charge that he had written to Philip of Spain describing how the Queen had secretly married Lord Robert at the Earl of Pembroke’s house, de Quadra argued that Elizabeth herself had admitted that, ‘on her return that afternoon from the earl’s house, her own ladies-in-waiting when she entered her chamber with Lord Robert asked whether they were to kiss his hand as well as hers; to which she told them no and they were not to believe what people said’. Two or three days later, the ambassador claimed, Dudley had told him that the Queen had promised to marry him.

Elizabeth and Dudley had hitherto believed that de Quadra was sympathetic to their relationship, but now they learned that he had passed on gossip that dishonoured them both and had advised Philip II to withhold support for the match for fear of alienating the English Catholics. The ambassador denied any duplicity but neither party could trust him again.
17

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Desperate to save their mistress from a scandalous marriage to Dudley, two of the Queen’s ladies, Kat Ashley and Dorothy Bradbelt, now took matters into their own hands, in the hope of reviving the Swedish match and enticing Erik to come finally to England.
18
While we know Dorothy Bradbelt was at the very heart of the Queen’s court and was even acknowledged in the diplomatic correspondence of the Venetian ambassador in the 1560s to be ‘oftentimes’ the Queen’s ‘bedfellow’, we know very little of her.
19
She was not of noble origin and there is no evidence that she had served in the royal household during the years before Elizabeth’s accession. Yet, as her involvement with the Swedish match reveals, Dorothy was a determined woman who would do what she thought necessary to defend the honour of her Queen.

On 22 July, Dorothy together with Kat Ashley wrote to the Swedish King’s chancellor, Gyllenstierna, suggesting that the King’s suit might now be successful if he came to England.
20
Two English adventurers seeking profit from contact with the wealthy Swedish King named John Kyle and James Goldborne (a former servant of Ashley’s) also wrote a number of letters to their friends in Sweden encouraging a marriage with Elizabeth.
21
It was not the first time that Ashley had acted covertly in favour of the Swedish suit. Earlier in the year, John Dymock, a London jewel merchant, came to see her before travelling to the Swedish King’s court to sell some gems.

Now in July 1565, as he prepared to leave, Dymock met again with Kat in her chamber at Whitehall and asked whether the rumour that Elizabeth was to marry Robert Dudley was true. Kat ‘solemnly declared that she thought the Queen was free of any man living, and that she would not have the Lord Robert’. To add further weight to their cause, Kat and her husband John, Master of the Jewel House, concocted another scheme to convince the Swedish King of the Queen’s favour, this time involving Dymock. Elizabeth had taken an interest in a large ruby that the jeweller had shown her, but she claimed she could not afford it. At John Ashley’s instigation, Dymock suggested to the Queen that he show the same ruby to Erik and see if he would buy it for her, as a token of her affection. Elizabeth laughed off the idea saying, ‘If it should chance that they matched, it would be said that there was a liberal king and a niggardly princess matched…’

Dymock suggested that maybe the Queen might like to send a ring from her finger to the Swedish King, as a sign of her favour? Elizabeth would not give up a ring but did agree to send some other less personal gifts, including a pair of black velvet gloves, a ‘fair English mastiff’, and a French translation of Castiglione’s
Il Cortegiano
(
The Book of the Courtier
). Upon receiving the gifts, Erik reciprocated with two gems and a portrait of himself. The Bedchamber plotting looked to be working and negotiations for the Swedish match moved forward with the gestures of interest from both sides. In acknowledgement of her support, and testament to her perceived influence with the Queen, Erik sent Kat Ashley two sable skins, ‘lined with cloth of silver and perfumed’.
22
Encouraged, Kat sent letters to the Swedish chancellor, saying the time was now right for his King to come to England.

On 4 August, Cecil intercepted the letters and ordered an immediate enquiry. Elizabeth reacted furiously at news of the secret correspondence and moved quickly to inform Gyllenstierna that his informants were ‘idle cheats’ whose tales should not be believed. Elizabeth commanded Kat Ashley ‘to keep to her chamber’ and committed Dorothy Bradbelt to Cecil’s custody.
23
Elizabeth was highly sensitive to any interference in what she termed ‘
arcana imperii
’ – state secrets – especially by the women closest to her.

News of the scandal at court and the imprisonment of two of Elizabeth’s most favoured women spread abroad. A newsletter circulating in Rome and sent from Louvain, the chief haunt of refugee English priests, reported that, ‘Of late there have been committed to the Court of London some, as well men as women, that were formerly high in favour with the Queen, among them being Mrs Ashley, who had such influence with the Queen that she seemed, as it were, patroness of all England.’
24
However, within less than a month, to the astonishment of many people both at home and abroad, both women were restored to their former positions. Was this because of their high favour with Elizabeth and her desire to have her long-serving women back in the Bedchamber; or might this have been another example of Elizabeth using her women to serve her political ends? Elizabeth clearly had little intention of going through with the Swedish marriage, but, at a time when the rumours about her relationship with Dudley were engulfing Europe, her apparent encouragement of the match would have served a useful purpose. The fact that Ashley and Bradbelt regained the Queen’s favour so quickly suggests the latter. The correspondence was a means by which Elizabeth could test opinion at home and abroad for the match and then blame her women if it did not meet with general approval. Once again Elizabeth was using the women of her Bedchamber to act on her behalf, while protecting her own position and reputation.

10

Smallpox

In the early years of her reign, the riverside palace of Hampton Court was a regular destination for Elizabeth. It was a truly magnificent sight, with its red-painted bricks, three storeys of lattice windows, manicured gardens transformed by Henry VIII in the year of Elizabeth’s birth, and its gilded weather vanes, held aloft by golden beasts, high above the pinnacles and cupolas that lined the rooftop.
1
Inside, the eight hundred-room palace was every inch as majestic. Brilliantly coloured tapestries hung from every wall and in each room of the privy lodgings the floors and ceilings were gilded with individual designs.
2

Privileged visitors came to wonder at the splendour of its most impressive room, the Queen’s Presence Chamber – the famous ‘Paradise Chamber’ – where, seated on a throne covered in brown velvet, embroidered with gold thread and ornamented with diamonds, Elizabeth would give audiences, receive ambassadors and hold public ceremonies. Above the throne hung a canopy of state, embroidered with the royal arms of England, encircled by the garter and studded with huge pearls and a diamond, which had been made for her father. A table stood nearby with a cloth ‘embroidered all over with pearls’ and on it a jewelled water clock, a looking-glass decorated with pearls and a chess set made of alabaster. Next door was a library which, besides housing a range of books, displayed a number of curiosities including a walking stick ‘made from a unicorn’s horn’, a cup made out of elk’s horn which was reputed to break if poison was put into it, and a mother-of-pearl casket. Another room contained the bed which Henry VIII had taken on his expedition to lay siege to Boulogne in the last years of his reign, and the bed in which Jane Seymour gave birth to Edward VI.