All the Queen's Men (27 page)

The Cambridge influence also extended into the cultural activities of the nation. Marlowe, Spenser, Nashe and Greene, that formidable quartet of poets, had all previously been Cambridge students. Edmund Spenser was successful in attracting the Queen's patronage and introduced the cult of ‘Gloriana' when he wrote
The Faerie Queene
, a theatrical work which greatly influenced the public perception of Elizabeth during the second half of her reign. These poets were soon to be followed by Milton, who received his education at Christ's College, Cambridge; his epic work
Paradise Lost
could be said to symbolize the passing of the Elizabethan age.

Cambridge's influence on Elizabethan England was all-embracing at Court, in Council, in Parliament and in the Church. It extended even into more unorthodox services, such as those provided by the Queen's official Court Astrologer, Dr John Dee, one of the initial Fellows at Trinity College who had previously been at St John's. The exceedingly witty courtier, Sir John Harington, the Queen's godson, had been at Christ's College, Cambridge, while another of the Queen's eminent courtiers, George Clifford, the 3rd Earl of Cumberland, who succeeded Sir Henry Lee as her Champion of the Tilt and became a prominent naval commander in the latter part of her reign, had previously been at Trinity College. Lord Henry Hunsdon, Elizabeth's Lord Chamberlain towards the end of the sixteenth century, had also resided at the college, taking his degree at the age of thirteen.

In turn, Cambridge was to considerably benefit from its high profile throughout Elizabeth's reign. In addition to Thomas Nevile's extensive work at Trinity, Sir Walter Mildmay, a highly effective Lord Chancellor, had studied at Christ's and founded the new Emmanuel College, while the widow of the long-serving Privy Councillor, the Earl of Sussex, endowed Sidney Sussex College. The Second Court at St John's was financed by Mary, Countess of Shrewsbury, the daughter of Bess Hardwick. The Second Court's Tudor Long Gallery, currently the Senior Common Room, remains one of Cambridge's most impressive interiors with an elaborate plastered ceiling nearly one hundred feet long and dating from 1600. Cloister Court at Jesus College dates from the sixteenth century, as does the First Court at Magdalene, constructed in that mellow red brick which became such a fashionable material during that period.

The impact that Cambridge had on Elizabeth and her kingdom and the powerful patronage it received in return had long-lasting benefits. Four hundred years later, Cambridge remains a centre of academic excellence with an undisputed reputation as a major international university. Trinity, founded by Henry VIII, is currently Cambridge's biggest and most prestigious college, universally regarded for the quality of its scholarship; thus, the Master of Trinity, Professor Amartya Sen, is a recent recipient of the Nobel Prize for Economics. The tradition for intellectual genius which began in Tudor times is very much maintained as Henry VIII's statue guards the Main Gate and Elizabeth's gazes out across the immaculate lawns of the Great Court, the largest in either Oxford or Cambridge.

The origins of the ‘Establishment', that mysterious network of power and influence, can be traced to the Elizabethan age. This highly authoritative, yet invisible force, is formed from the aristocracy, the Church, judiciary, the military and academia. It could be said to have had its roots in the days of Cecil, Whitgift, Coke, Bacon and Cumberland. Then, as now, educational background is one of the key factors that creates a common bond, a meeting of minds, a unified sense of purpose binding its members together. Today the term ‘old school tie' is a well-known phrase – in Elizabethan times there was no such item in a gentleman's wardrobe but eminent public schools such as Eton, Harrow, St Paul's and Winchester already existed. The major educational impetus was to be found at Cambridge and so many of the great men of Elizabeth's reign originated from that centre of learning set among the remote fens of eastern England.

In the second half of the sixteenth century, just as today, the Establishment was a complex, mysterious web, essentially a predominantly masculine society with a female monarch at its centre. In the late twentieth century, the heads of the Church, the armed forces, the judiciary and academia surprisingly still remain largely a male prerogative. Although club-like in nature, the Establishment has never been a place for which membership can be applied: there is no rule book, no list of members, not even any firm evidence that it even exists. Yet it remains a major force in English society, seemingly oblivious to political, historical or social change, just as it was in Elizabethan England, where personalities such as Sir Walter Ralegh tried exceedingly hard to gain entry into this exclusive inner world but never succeeded. Ralegh was an Oxford man. The Queen and the Elizabethan Establishment definitely appeared to be coloured light, Cambridge, blue.

T
he dynamic changes continually unfolding throughout England during Elizabeth's reign were to impact significantly on the cultural life of the nation. The Queen maintained a lively interest in the arts throughout her lifetime with a particular interest in music and the theatre. She was an excellent musician, exceedingly proficient on the virginals, a small keyboard instrument which had become popular during the sixteenth century and one on which she practised diligently almost every day. Tradition has it that the Queen was playing the virginals when news of the Earl of Essex's execution was brought to her. Elizabeth is said to have paused momentarily, and then, without making any comment, continued to play.

The composers Thomas Tallis and William Byrd flourished under her patronage; both were employed at the Royal Court, despite being Catholic. Byrd was devout in his religion, a fervour which comes through strongly in the church music which he composed, particularly the Masses, although he also created a wealth of both vocal and instrumental secular music, which has led to Byrd being called the father of the English keyboard. The richness of Byrd's work contrasts with the more austere compositions of Thomas Tallis, and the strong tradition of English choral music dates from this time. The Queen generously granted Tallis and Byrd the sole rights to print, publish and sell music throughout her nation. Both lived into their eighties, Byrd outlasting Elizabeth by some twenty years. Along with Dowland, Byrd and Tallis are the best remembered of the Elizabethan composers, although the best-known musical work of the period is
God Save the Queen
, composed by Dr John Bull many years before it was adopted as the National Anthem.

The Queen's enthusiasm for theatrical performances, one shared by a number of her Privy Councillors, was essential in protecting the embryonic theatre from the growing hostility of the Puritans, who would have liked to see all theatres closed on a permanent basis and every theatrical company banned. Both needed a licence from the Lord Chamberlain in order to remain in existence, so Elizabeth's keen interest, which was shared by a number of her most prominent courtiers such as the Earl of Leicester, Lord Strange and Lord Hunsdon, was extremely important. Without royal interest and prominent courtiers' direct involvement, there may not have been any actors or theatres to perform the works of such dramatists as Ben Jonson, Christopher Marlowe and William Shakespeare.

The visual arts also flourished during Elizabeth's reign, particularly painting. It has been said that while the Queen had no great interest in painting, she enjoyed being painted. Certainly she was exceedingly vain and loved being depicted in the best possible light, considering the official portrait to be an ideal medium for adding a distinctive gloss to the royal image. During the long period of time when the most eligible bachelors in Europe were courting her, a flattering portrait was a favourite device utilized in this elaborate ritual in order to show an ardent yet distant suitor the object of his desires. As Elizabeth's reign developed and the fame of her exploits spread throughout Europe, the growing demand to capture her on canvas created a constant requirement for the services of the best artists of the day. Eminent European painters, such as the Italian Federigo Zuccaro and the Flemish artist Steven van der Muelen, came to England. At the same time, it became more and more fashionable for Elizabeth's wealthy courtiers to have their portraits painted, the exceedingly vain Earl of Leicester virtually supporting the art industry single-handedly by having himself constantly portrayed in a variety of progressively more arrogant poses. Leading royal courtiers such as Sir Francis Walsingham, Sir Robert Cecil and Sir Henry Lee became enthusiastic patrons of the leading painters of the time. One of the best-known paintings of the Queen, the so-called Ditchley Portrait, by Marcus Gheeraerts the Younger, resulted from Lee's patronage of Gheeraerts and is now considered to be the best portrait of the Queen created during her lifetime. Gheeraerts became extremely fashionable after the Queen had sat for him in 1592, working in England for more than thirty years and marrying fellow artist John de Critz's sister, Magdelena, while Gheeraert's sister Sara, became the wife of the miniaturist Isaac Oliver. Gheeraert's style of painting was greatly influenced by the emerging Antwerp School in the Netherlands whose best-known members were the Breughels.

During this time, loyal courtiers began to wear a miniature of the Queen pinned to their chest like a badge of honour, a craze that greatly assisted the fortunes of the leading miniaturists of the day, such as Levina Teerlinc, Isaac Oliver and Nicholas Hilliard. The latter's first miniature of the Queen is thought to have been painted in the early 1570s. A dozen or so years later even gung-ho seafarers such as Sir Francis Drake were proudly besporting one of Hilliard's miniatures of their sovereign. Today, Hilliard is considered the most significant portrait painter of the Elizabethan era.

Elizabeth's firm establishment of Protestantism as England's official religion meant that the nation provided a safe haven from Catholic oppression. A number of prominent Protestant Flemish painters settled in England in order to escape persecution from the Duke of Alva in the Netherlands, thereby making Elizabeth's kingdom an artistic asylum and strengthening the advancement of painting in the nation. Among their number was Marcus Gheeraerts the Elder who brought his young son with him, while John de Critz was befriended by Walsingham; Isaac Oliver was a French Huguenot refugee who first became Hilliard's pupil and then his greatest rival as a miniaturist – he was to paint Elizabeth on a number of occasions. Gheeraerts the Younger's classic painting of the Queen, the Rainbow Portrait, was painted at the end of the sixteenth century; it is to be found at Hatfield House and is thought to have been commissioned by Sir Robert Cecil who was building Hatfield at the time.

The presence of so many leading European artists in Elizabethan England, either on a permanent or temporary basis, was in turn helpful in assisting the cause of English-born painters such as George Gower, William Segar, Robert Peake and, most illustrious of them all, Nicholas Hilliard. Hilliard was born in Exeter in 1547, thereby demonstrating that Devon was capable of providing famous men other than great seafarers during Elizabeth's reign. He had originally trained as a goldsmith and for two years was employed in France as a miniaturist by the Duke of Anjou. To some extent, he was influenced by French court portraiture, but rather more by the most outstanding portrait painter of the sixteenth century, Hans Holbein. Hilliard's technique, based on simplicity of line and use of bright colour, greatly appealed to the Queen and he was to paint her on a number of occasions. It might be difficult to imagine that the restless Queen would agree to remain in one place long enough to be painted, but her sittings for Hilliard are well recorded by the artist himself, as are their conversations when he instructed her in the mysteries of limning and
chiaroscuro
. Limning, the art of painting on a small scale, greatly appealed to the Queen, who kept a collection of miniatures in a small cabinet in her bedchamber, carefully wrapped with names inscribed in her own hand on the paper. One had written on it ‘My Lord's picture'; inside was a likeness of the Earl of Leicester. The term
chiaroscuro
, derived from the Italian for light,
chiaro
, and dark,
oscuro
, refers to the then relatively new technique of building up thin layers of paint on canvas or oak board, then applying rich impasto pigment, in order to achieve dramatic highlights. This found far less favour with a Queen as conservative in her appreciation of art as most other matters; ‘the Queen cares not for novelties', noted de Maisse.
¹
To Elizabeth,
chiaroscuro
represented modern art and her taste in painting was positively medieval.

It may also seem remarkable that the haughty Queen would have had a lengthy conversation with a mere humble artist like Hilliard, for in the mid-sixteenth century, the artist did not enjoy the same status as was to be afforded by society in later years. Artists were seen more as craftsmen, indeed Hilliard complains of being regarded as merely ‘a needy articer' and although George Gower had the grand title of Sergeant Painter while the official court painter, he was to spend much of his time in mundane activities such as supervising the redecoration of the interior of various royal palaces. Gower had been the most sought-after portrait painter at the Royal Court prior to the appearance of Marcus Gheeraerts the Younger, having risen to prominence by painting a series of aristocratic ladies of the Court decked out in all their finery. He portrayed women such as Lettice Knollys, wife of the Earl of Leicester, and Elizabeth Sydenham, Sir Francis Drake's second wife. His career culminated in the archetypal portrayal of the Queen – the Armada Portrait – considered to be Gower's most outstanding work, an icon-like neo-medieval painting, and one of the world's most important historical works of art.