Tudors (History of England Vol 2) (54 page)

The latter part of Elizabeth’s reign, in particular, witnessed the greatest extravagance of fashion. New silks and velvets were introduced; great ruffs and farthingales became common. The queen herself left, at the time of her death, approximately 3,000 dresses.

The industry of England advanced as strongly as its commerce. The investment in looms, furnaces and forges increased, while parliamentary Acts were passed to promote the trade in leather. More coal was needed for the manufacture of glass and for soap-boiling. The production of pig iron rose threefold in the space of thirty years.

William Harrison, in his
Description of England
of 1577, amplified the changes with some local detail. One was ‘the multitude of chimneys lately erected’, while another was ‘the exchange of vessel, as of treen [wooden] platters into pewter, and wooden spoons into silver or tin’. Timber and clay had given way to stone and plaster; pallets of straw had been replaced by feather beds, and logs of wood by pillows. The rise of the stricter forms of Protestantism had not yet inhibited the lavish materialism that seems to characterize Elizabethan society. This might be described as the first secular age.

The confinement of Mary, queen of Scots, rendered her even more desperate and dangerous. She began a correspondence with the duke of Norfolk that might seem to suggest collusion against Elizabeth. Elizabeth herself had by now heard the rumours about a possible alliance and berated Norfolk for even considering the notion. ‘Should I seek to marry her,’ he responded, ‘being so wicked a woman, such a notorious adulteress and murderer?’ He added that Mary still pretended a title to the English throne; any marriage with her ‘might justly charge me with seeking your crown from your head’. Elizabeth did not need to be reminded of that fact. In January 1569 Elizabeth sent a confidential letter to Mary in which she wrote that ‘those do not all love you who would persuade your servants that they love you. Be not over confident in what you do. Be not blind nor think me blind. If you are wise, I have said enough.’

An alliance of the more conservative councillors was ready to support the project of uniting Mary and Norfolk; it would provide the neatest possible dynastic solution to the problem of the succession. The marriage between Mary and Bothwell could easily be annulled, with Bothwell himself soon to be imprisoned in a Danish dungeon from which he would never escape. In their happy vision Mary would be pronounced to be the heir, and all help would be
withdrawn from the Protestant rebels of Europe. This policy would be the exact opposite of that pursued by Cecil, who distrusted Mary as much as he despised European papistry. The councillors found an unlikely ally in the earl of Leicester, who had long hated Cecil for his role in wrecking his hopes of marriage with the queen.

So a concerted attack was mounted against the queen’s principal councillor. Leicester told the queen that Cecil was so badly managing the affairs of the nation that he ought to lose his head; it was he who had managed to alienate both the French and the Spanish, thus endangering the realm. Elizabeth in turn berated Leicester for questioning Cecil’s judgement and by extension her own.

Norfolk also lent his voice against Cecil, knowing that he was the principal obstacle in the pursuit of marriage with Mary. In the queen’s presence he turned to the earl of Northampton. ‘See, my lord,’ he is supposed to have said, ‘how when the earl of Leicester follows the secretary he is favoured and well regarded by the queen, but when he wants to make reasonable remonstrances against the policy of Cecil, he is frowned on and she wants to send him to the Tower. No, no, he will not go there alone.’ Elizabeth made no comment.

It was rumoured that a plan was formed to arrest Cecil, but like many such schemes it came to nothing. The loyalty of the queen to her faithful servant was adamantine. Cecil himself, aware of the threat, tried to mend relations with Norfolk. He deferred to his judgement and offered to consult the other councillors more widely and openly. He bent to the storm.

The duke himself was already stepping further and further into the sea of Mary’s troubles. Letters of an affectionate nature passed between them. The earl of Leicester was also pressing the suit in the belief that he might gain from it. At worst he would earn the gratitude of a future queen and, at best, Elizabeth might decide to marry him as a counterpoise to Norfolk. Elizabeth herself was aware of the rumours from a hundred mouths. She asked the duke one day what news was abroad. He was aware of none. ‘No?’ she replied. ‘You come from London and can tell me no news of a marriage?’

It is likely that he was too much afraid of her wrath to venture upon the subject, and as a result his silence deepened. But if it had
become a secret matter, then it might come close to treachery. Some of his supporters deserted him. The earl of Leicester, thoroughly discomfited by the queen’s growing displeasure, retired to his sickbed from where he told Elizabeth all he knew. The queen then summoned Norfolk, who was forced to confess to the marital arrangement; whereupon she commanded him to give it up.

Norfolk left the court, whilst in the middle of a summer progress at Titchfield in Hampshire, without formally taking leave of the queen before returning to his house in London. In Howard House he met an envoy from Mary. The Scottish queen was complaining about all the delays in the negotiations for their marriage. When the envoy asked him about the intentions of the queen, he replied that ‘he would have friends enough to assist him’. This was dangerous talk. Some of these friends were the Catholic lords of the north who were prepared to rise in arms for the Scottish queen.

Elizabeth, fearing something very much like an uprising, ordered that the guard on Mary be strengthened. She then sent a message to Norfolk ordering him to return to the court, now at Windsor. The duke was already beset by rumours that he was in fact about to be sent to the Tower. He pleaded illness in response to the queen’s command, but then promptly retired to his estate at Kenninghall in Norfolk. This was the centre of his power with land, wealth and a loyal tenantry. The name of Kenninghall itself is derived from the Anglo-Saxon words for king and palace. If he married Mary, could he perhaps then become king in reality?

Elizabeth later told Leicester that, if the two had married, she feared that she would once again be dispatched to the Tower. When some of her council were of the opinion that Norfolk’s intentions were not necessarily treacherous, it is reported that the queen fainted. These were not the wiles of court. Elizabeth knew the situation intimately for, in the reign of Mary Tudor, she had been in the same state of hapless imprisonment that she had now imposed upon Mary, queen of Scots. In a panel Mary was then embroidering she wove the image of a tabby cat in orange wool with a crown upon its head; Elizabeth was red-headed. Then Mary placed a little mouse beside the cat.

Norfolk wavered between defiance and despair. He wrote to
the queen protesting his loyalty and declaring his fear that he might be unjustly imprisoned. At the same time he wrote to his principal supporters in the north – among them Thomas Percy, earl of Northumberland and Charles Neville, earl of Westmorland – urging them not to stir and thereby risk his head. Another royal summons followed with a peremptory command. The duke decided to obey the command but he was diverted into the place he most feared; the doors of the Tower were locked behind him. The ports were closed for fear of foreign intervention.

The earls of Northumberland and Westmorland were now summoned to court by Elizabeth. ‘We and our country were shamed for ever,’ Westmorland’s wife lamented, ‘that now in the end we should seek holes to creep into.’ Her advice, therefore, was to stand firm and to confront the queen in what would be a ‘hurly-burly’. At Topcliffe, the estate of Northumberland, the bells were rung in reverse order as the well-known call to arms. The earls rose in November 1569, in the name of the old religion. They rode to Durham Cathedral with their men, where they pulled down the communion table; then they ripped to pieces the English Bible and the Book of Common Prayer before demanding that the Latin Mass be once more performed. It was the most serious test that Elizabeth had yet faced, with the prospect of civil war dividing the realm made infinitely more dangerous with the introduction of the religious question. The Spanish ambassador played a double part, promising much to the conservative cause but delivering very little. The French ambassador in turn was delighted at the prospect of England’s collapsing into the same religious turmoil as his own country.

Two days later the rebellious earls rode through Ripon in the traditional armour of the Crusaders, wearing a red cross; they were in procession behind the banner of the Five Wounds of Christ, another emblem of the old faith. This was how the Pilgrims of Grace had ridden against Henry VIII thirty-three years before. It was the sign of the north, which had remained predominantly Catholic; in fact many of the northern rebels were the sons of those who had participated in the earlier movement. The father of Northumberland himself, Sir Thomas Percy, had been attainted and executed after the failure of the Pilgrimage of Grace. After the
earls had arrived in Ripon, Mass was celebrated in the collegiate church, where a proclamation was addressed to those of ‘the old, Catholic religion’. The queen’s evil councillors had attempted to destroy ‘the true and Catholic religion towards God’ and had thus thrown the realm into confusion. The candles were lit and the organ pealed out.

Yet on 28 November 1569 the earls sent forth another address in which the issue of the succession took the place of religion. It was a way of rallying more support, but it was only partly successful in its purpose. Many of the great northern lords refused to join them in insurrection. The earl of Cumberland, for example, could not be moved. In contrast most of the English nobility rallied about the queen, prominent among them the earl of Sussex. Lord Hunsdon was sent north, while the earl of Bedford was dispatched to the west of England in case of danger there. Mary herself was taken to Coventry, where she was securely placed behind the red sandstone city wall. If Mary had been able to reach the rebels, a general insurrection might have ensued. It was said that the Spanish had a fleet, with guns and powder, waiting at Zeeland in the Netherlands. But ‘if’ is not a word to be used by historians. As a result of the Catholic threat, the Act of Uniformity was more strictly enforced, including the compulsory swearing of the oath of supremacy.

Elizabeth said at the beginning of the troubles that ‘the earls were old in blood, but poor in force’, and in that respect her judgement proved to be correct. They had expected popular support, but none was evident. They remained at Tadcaster in the north of Yorkshire for three days, and then retraced their steps. Their armies were demoralized and began to break up even as they were being pursued by the queen’s soldiers. The only battle of the campaign was fought at Naworth, in February 1570, where Hunsdon defeated a rebel force under the command of Lord Dacre.

The northern rebellion, known as ‘the Rising of the North’, was in effect already at an end. The earls of Northumberland and Westmorland had fled across the border into Scotland, and the remaining insurgents were quickly arrested. The lowlier of them were hanged, and almost 300 suffered death in Durham alone. Scarcely a local town or village did not boast a gibbet. It is estimated
that approximately 900 were executed for treason, making it the single most fatal act of reprisal in Tudor history. It was a measure of the queen’s fury, but also of her fear. She had already made it clear that ‘you may not execute any that hath freeholds or noted wealthy’. She wanted their money rather than their lives; the lands and estates of the mightier or most prosperous were therefore confiscated. Northumberland was sold to England by the Scots for £2,000 and subsequently executed, while Westmorland sought sanctuary in the Spanish Netherlands.

This was the last of what may be called the traditional rebellions led by the feudal warlords of the old faith. The great lords, the Percys and the Nevilles, had once been considered to be the de facto rulers of their territories where they exercised more power and authority than the monarch. Yet now they had failed to ignite the northern lands in open revolt. Many of the Catholics of the region had no wish to challenge the political and social order of the country. Even the tenantry of the great families were reluctant to rise. The crisis that Cecil had most feared had been overcome, with the old faith now associated with treason and force. It was described as ‘a cold pie for the papists’. The loyalty of the majority of the realm had been reaffirmed. The northern rebellion represented one of the great and silent transitions in the nation’s history.

Just after the revolt was suppressed a further challenge to the queen’s authority was mounted in Rome. In early 1570, Pope Pius V issued a bull in which he excommunicated Elizabeth as a paramount heretic and tyrant. It stated that ‘the pretended queen of England’ could no longer command allegiance, and that she was ‘the servant of iniquity’. Its denunciation covered any person who obeyed her laws and commands. The queen herself was now a legitimate object of attack by any assassin of the old faith; her death would speed his way to heaven. It was the last stand of medieval religion, the final occasion when a pope would try to depose a reigning monarch.