Elizabeth I’s love life: was she really a ‘Virgin Queen’?

History Extra

Over the years, countless books, novels, plays and films have depicted Elizabeth I’s relationships with figures such as Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester; Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, and the Duke of Anjou. In the absence of conclusive proof one way or another, the question ‘did they or didn’t they?’ will always linger. Yet what is clear is that, both at home and abroad, rumours about Elizabeth’s love life – real or imagined – circulated throughout her reign. Far from being the Virgin Queen, for some hostile observers Elizabeth was the ‘whore’ of Europe.

 Contemporary beliefs about the ‘insatiable’ sexual appetites of women, together with Elizabeth’s failure to marry, fuelled suspicions that the queen was engaged in secret sexual liaisons. Her Catholic opponents challenged her virtue, and accused her of a “filthy lust” that had “defiled her body and the country”. The king of France joked that one of the great questions of the day was “whether Queen Elizabeth was a maid or no”. The courts of Europe were abuzz with gossip as to the queen of England’s behaviour.

 From the very earliest months of her reign, rumours spread of Elizabeth’s relationship with Robert Dudley, her “sweet Robin” whom she had known since childhood. Within days of her accession, Elizabeth had appointed Dudley as master of the horse – a position that guaranteed almost daily contact. The Spanish ambassador reported to the king of Spain that “Lord Robert has come so much into favour that he does whatever he likes and it is even said that Her Majesty visits him in his chamber day and night”.

 The pair’s attraction to one another was widely commented upon, and their flirtatious behaviour shocked observers. When in 1560 Robert Dudley’s wife, Amy Robsart, was found with her neck broken at the bottom of a staircase, speculation was rife as to the involvement of the queen and her favourite. In the years that followed, their close relationship continued, but any lingering possibility of a future marriage was cast aside.

 Elizabeth’s councillors were determined to secure a favourable marriage for her, both as a means of consolidating England’s position in Europe and to provide an heir to succeed her. While there was no lack of suitors, including Philip II of Spain; Erik XIV of Sweden and the Archdukes Ferdinand and Charles of Austria, no one managed to win the queen’s favour or the unanimous support of her council. While foreign negotiations continued, Elizabeth enjoyed the attention of young male courtiers like Thomas Heneage, Christopher Hatton and Walter Raleigh, and later Robert Devereux, earl of Essex, all of whom flirted their way into the queen’s favour.

 But Robert Dudley remained the queen’s first, and probably only love. Perhaps as a reaction to Dudley’s marriage to Lettice Devereux, dowager countess of Essex in the autumn of 1578, the following year Elizabeth welcomed Francois, the duke of Anjou, brother of the king of France, to the English court to present his suit for marriage.

Robert Dudley, who Elizabeth called her “sweet Robin”. © Heritage Image Partnership Ltd / Alamy 

It was not an ideal match. Anjou was a 20-something tiny and pockmarked Catholic who was widely rumoured to be a transvestite. Nonetheless, Elizabeth had always longed to be wooed in person by one of her illustrious suitors, and for a time she seemed to be genuine in her affections and interest in Anjou, whom she affectionately named her ‘frog’.

 After a few weeks Anjou returned to France and negotiations appeared to falter in the face of public opposition to the match, but in October 1581 Anjou returned to England. Since his previous visit, he had continued to write love letters to the queen in which he expressed his desire to be “kissing and rekissing all that Your beautiful Majesty can think of”, as well as to be “in bed between the sheets in your beautiful arms”.

 Upon his arrival in London Elizabeth once again seemed enthralled and enraptured by Anjou’s presence, and on 22 November, when the court was assembled at Whitehall to celebrate the Accession Day festivities, Elizabeth declared in public that she intended to marry him. She proceeded to kiss him on the mouth and give him her ring. Yet overnight, Elizabeth apparently had second thoughts and announced the next day she would not marry Anjou.

 It is doubtful whether Elizabeth had really intended to go ahead with the marriage given the popular hostility to it, but when Anjou finally departed she made much of being grief-stricken at the loss of her lover “with whom she so unwillingly parted”.

 With the failure of the French match, hopes that Elizabeth would marry came to an end, but as she grew old and increasingly isolated she continued to seek the attention of her male courtiers. Robert Devereux, the young earl of Essex and stepson of Robert Dudley, was Elizabeth’s last great flirtation. Despite the age gap between them, the nature of the relationship was again speculated upon. He soon became master of the horse and moved into his stepfather’s apartments at court. One of Essex’s servants boasted that “even at night my lord is at cards or one game or another with her, that he cometh not to his own lodging till the birds sing in the morning.”

 But this was a different kind of relationship than the one Elizabeth and had had with Dudley, and was more about the desire of an aging woman to be made to feel young and attractive by a handsome young courtier. Yet Elizabeth was never so swept away by her emptions that she lost a keen sense of political realities. In 1601, after what was seen to be an attempted coup against her, she ordered Essex’s execution.

 In 1603 Elizabeth, then almost 70, died unmarried and celebrated as England’s great ‘Virgin Queen’. Yet her death served only to continue speculation about her private life. In the years that followed, the questioning of Elizabeth’s virginity was no longer confined to hostile Catholic discourse, and there was a growing sense that Elizabeth’s private feelings had compromised the integrity of her rule.

 In life, Elizabeth and the ladies of the bedchamber had tenaciously defended the chastity of her body to protect her reputation and defend her crown. In death, it is surely the possibility that she was not chaste that continues to fascinate, and ensure Elizabeth’s enduring popularity and appeal.

 Dr Anna Whitelock is a reader in early modern history at Royal Holloway, University of London, and the author of Elizabeth’s Bedfellows: An Intimate History of the Queen’s Court (Bloomsbury, 2013).

5 things you (probably) didn’t know about the Tudors

History Extra

1) The Tudors should never have got anywhere near the throne
When Henry Tudor defeated Richard III at the battle of Bosworth in 1485, the vast majority of his subjects saw him as a usurper – and they were right. There were other claimants with stronger blood claims to the throne than his.

 Henry’s own claim was on the side of his indomitable mother, Lady Margaret Beaufort, who was the great granddaughter of John of Gaunt, fourth son of Edward III, and his third wife (and long-standing mistress), Katherine Swynford. But Katherine had given birth to John Beaufort (Henry’s great grandfather) when she was still John’s mistress, so Henry’s claim was through an illegitimate line – and a female one at that.

 Little wonder that he was plagued by rivals and ‘pretenders’ for most of his reign.

 2) School was for the ‘lucky’ few
Education was seen as something of a luxury for most Tudors, and it was usually the children of the rich who received anything approaching a decent schooling.

 There were few books in Tudor schools, so pupils read from 'hornbooks' instead. Pages displaying the alphabet and religious material were attached to wooden boards and covered with a transparent sheet of cow horn (hence the name).

 Discipline was much fiercer than it is today. Teachers would think nothing of punishing their pupils with 50 strokes of the cane, and wealthier parents would often pay for a ‘whipping-boy’ to take the punishment on behalf of their child. Barnaby Fitzpatrick undertook this thankless task for the young Edward VI, although the two boys did become best friends.

 3) Tudor London was a mud bath
Andreas Franciscius, an Italian visitor to London in 1497, was horrified by what he found. Although he admired the “fine” architecture, he was disgusted by the “vast amount of evil-smelling mud" that covered the streets and lasted a long time – nearly the whole year round.

 The citizens, therefore, in order to remove this mud and filth from their boots, are accustomed to spread fresh rushes on the floors of all houses, on which they clean the soles of their shoes when they come in.”

 Franciscius added disapprovingly that the English people had “fierce tempers and wicked dispositions”, as well as “a great antipathy to foreigners”.

 4) Edward VI’s dog was killed by his uncle
Edward was just nine years old when he became king, and his court was soon riven by faction. Although the king’s uncle, Edward Seymour, had been appointed Lord Protector, he was undermined by the behaviour of his hot-headed and ambitious brother, Thomas.

 In January 1549, Thomas Seymour made a reckless attempt to kidnap the king. Breaking into Edward’s privy garden at Westminster, pistol in hand, Thomas tried to gain access to the king’s bedroom, but was lunged at by the boy’s pet spaniel.

 Without thinking, he shot the dog dead, which prompted a furore as the royal guard rushed forward, thinking that an assassin was in the palace. Thomas Seymour was arrested and taken to the Tower. He was found guilty of treason shortly afterwards, and his own brother was obliged to sign the death warrant.

 5) Elizabeth I owned more than 2,000 dresses
When her mother, Anne Boleyn, was executed, Elizabeth was so neglected by her father, Henry VIII, that she soon outgrew all of her clothes, and her servant was forced to write to ask for new ones. 

Perhaps the memory of this humiliation prompted Elizabeth, as queen, to stuff her wardrobes with more than 2,000 beautiful dresses, all in rich fabrics and gorgeous colours.

 But despite her enormous collection, she always wanted more. When one of her maids of honour, Lady Mary Howard, appeared in court wearing a strikingly ostentatious gown, the queen was so jealous that she stole it, and paraded around court in it herself.

The reluctant ambassador: the life and times of Tudor diplomat Sir Thomas Chaloner

History Extra

Sir Thomas Chaloner aged 28. (Private collection, courtesy of Richard Chaloner, Lord Gisborough. Photograph by Peter Morgan)

Here, writing for History Extra, O'Sullivan introduces you to the reluctant ambassador who longed for his home in England…

 

This story is set in one of the most turbulent periods of English history, when the government's religious and political policies seemed to change from year to year, and ambitious courtiers and diplomats needed to watch their balance on fortune's slippery wheel. Those who fell off could easily end their lives on the block, as did so many of Thomas Chaloner's patrons and colleagues. But he himself was a survivor because, as he once wrote to a friend, he knew how to keep his opinions to himself.

 

In 1541 the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, ruler of Spain, the Netherlands and much else, collected a large army to deal once and for all with a pressing problem – the Barbary pirates, who were supported by the Turkish sultan and constituted a permanent hazard for all who sailed in the Mediterranean. Charles did not have the manpower to launch a full-scale attack on Constantinople itself but he reckoned that once his army had landed near the pirates' main base in Algiers, resistance would crumble. Then Algiers would fall and thousands of Christians, enslaved by the pirates, could be rescued.

 

Unfortunately, from the start things went very wrong. Opposition was fiercer than expected, the weather was brutal to troops that had to spend nights in the open, and to cap it all Charles's fleet of war ships and transports, on which his soldiers relied for food and also for an eventual withdrawal, was shattered by a violent storm while at anchor. In less than an hour half the fleet had been sunk, with the loss of 8,000 men.

 

Accompanying Charles on his expedition was a small group of Englishmen, of whom the youngest was the 20-year-old Thomas Chaloner, who was experiencing his first taste of foreign travel. When the storm struck he was on board a galley that soon lost its anchor, along with its neighbours. William Hakluyt, chronicler of Tudor voyages, takes up the story:

 

“Thomas Chaloner escaped most wonderfully with his life. For the galley wherein he was, being either dashed against the rocks or shaken with mighty storms and so cast away, after he had saved himself a long while by swimming, when his strength failed him, his arms & hands being faint and weary, with great difficulty laying hold with his teeth on a cable, which was cast out of the next galley, not without breaking and loss of certain of his teeth, at length [he] recovered himself, and returned home into his country in safety.”

 

Thus it was that Chaloner's career very nearly came to an end before it had properly started. One might remark that it was lucky he could swim – an unusual skill in those days, even for professional sailors. He had other accomplishments too. His father, Roger, a successful London mercer, had seen him through grammar school and Cambridge, and had then found him a place in the household of Thomas Cromwell – a position seen as a stepping stone towards the higher ranks of government service. 

 

By the time of his near drowning Chaloner was already fluent in Latin – essential at university where all the lectures were in Latin. At his college, thought to be St John's, the students were even expected to talk to each other in that language. More unusually, Chaloner also had a grasp of French and Italian, implying that Roger had hired private tutors to teach him these languages, which were not on the school or university curriculum. Something else that was to turn out an asset for him was that he had made friends at university with a certain William Cecil, later Lord Burghley. Many years later Cecil would become Elizabeth I's secretary of state, and the most powerful man in England.

 

After the failure to capture Algiers, Charles V's depleted and demoralised army sailed home in the transports that had survived the storm. Chaloner and the other Englishmen accompanied the emperor to Spain. They were no doubt shocked to learn that during their absence Henry VIII's recently married young wife, Catherine Howard, had been accused of adultery, and was now in the Tower, shortly to be executed. 

 

Soon after Chaloner finally returned home he was able to make his first real step up the ladder of promotion. He was appointed one of the two clerks to the Privy Council, the body that, under the monarch, effectively ran the country. The council dealt with all kinds of matter, from private requests and punishments to issues of national finance, diplomacy and war. The clerks were well paid but expected to work hard for their money. They kept detailed minutes of council meetings, wrote dozens of letters, and were often dispatched far and wide on council business. 

 

^{Sir Thomas Chaloner aged 38. (Private collection, courtesy of Richard Chaloner, Lord Gisborough. Photograph by Peter Morgan)}

 

Because of his ability to speak Italian and French, Chaloner often found himself sent to meet foreigners – for instance, to deliver funds to bands of mercenaries hired to fight England's wars. As he became more experienced he was trusted with more delicate missions. To take one example, there was the case of Robert Holgate, archbishop of York, who, at the age of 68 had caused some scandal by marrying Barbara Wentworth who was more than 40 years his junior. Then a young man appeared who claimed that the marriage was invalid because he and Barbara had been betrothed when they were both children. Chaloner was sent up to York along with an ecclesiastical lawyer to investigate.

 

After the death of Henry VIII in 1547 the country was run by Edward Seymour, duke of Somerset, as protector for the nine-year-old Edward VI. Somerset had an ambitious policy to unite England and Scotland by betrothing Edward to the young Mary, Queen of Scots, and when the Scots objected to this plan he decided to use force. He led an army across the border towards Edinburgh, defeating an ill-trained and out-of-date Scottish force at the battle of Pinkie Cleugh. Chaloner played a major part in Somerset's campaign by organising and paying the various mercenary bands that accompanied the English. As reward he was knighted by Somerset – another important step up the ladder. 

 

By now Chaloner had married a wealthy widow, Joan Leigh, and on the death of his father found himself the head of an extended family that included two younger brothers, two unmarried sisters and various elderly relatives. He had a house in London and lands to look after in different parts of the country, and consequently spent many hours on horseback, either on missions for the council or to oversee his estates in the north of England. Somehow he also found the time to write poetry, and to translate works from Latin – one of these being the well-known satire by Erasmus, In Praise of Folly. This period of his life is fairly well documented because an account book of his income and expenditure has survived.

 

On Edward VI’s early death in 1553 – probably from tuberculosis – he was succeeded as monarch by his Catholic sister Mary. Chaloner composed, but of course did not publish, a poem about Lady Jane Grey in which he berates “cruel and pitiless Mary” for executing her young rival. While many others, such as his friend William Cecil, chose to leave the country during Mary's reign, the cautious Chaloner not only stayed but managed to remain in government service. Mary even sent him to Scotland to meet the regent, Mary of Guise, and complain about Scottish involvement in anti-English rebellion in Northern Ireland.

 

When Elizabeth I succeeded Mary in 1558, Chaloner was sent to the new emperor of the Holy Roman Empire to discuss the possibility that one of his sons, the archduke Ferdinand, might marry the queen. Chaloner came home with a portrait of the young Ferdinand I to present to Elizabeth, and for a short time marriage seemed on the cards. But then it became known that Ferdinand was already secretly married to a German woman, so attention shifted to his brother, the archduke Charles, as a possible suitor. 

 

^{A portrait of Queen Elizabeth I from around 1575. (Imagno/Getty Images)} 

 

Cecil sent Chaloner to the Netherlands in June 1559 to be a fully-fledged ambassador to Philip II, who was then holding court at Ghent. When Philip decided to return to Spain there was a discussion about whether or not England needed a permanent ambassador at his court in Madrid. Chaloner suggested a few names to Cecil but was horrified to learn that he himself had been picked. He had known for some time that he would hate Spain, “that country of heat and inquisition”. When he finally landed at Bilbao in February 1562 he found that all his fears were justified. His luggage was taken away to be searched for heretical books, and when he complained to Philip, no apology was forthcoming. After a difficult journey he reached Madrid, only to be advised by the previous ambassador to start requesting his recall home straight away.

 

Chaloner proved to be a cautious and careful ambassador but, judging by his letters home, he was also a worrier. He worried about his lack of funds and the high cost of living in Madrid; about his difficulties in obtaining interviews with Philip; and his failure to penetrate the aura of secrecy that hung about the Spanish court. He worried about not receiving his due wage as ambassador, and whether this might be due to its having been stolen en route.

 

An important part of Chaloner’s job was to obtain and send home the latest news from Spain, and also to deliver the latest news from England, and this was sometimes difficult. For example, Chaloner was caused a good deal of embarrassment when in the summer of 1562 Elizabeth took the decision to send military aid to the Huguenots in France who were engaged in a civil war against the French government. William Cecil told Chaloner to deny that any such decision had been taken, which he did – until he heard from other sources that an English army had actually been sent to fight in France, thus completely contradicting what he had told everybody at court.

 

Above all, Chaloner worried about his own health. He put down his “quartan agues” (bouts of fever every few days) and his inability to sleep at night to Spanish weather and Spanish food. During those sleepless nights he occupied himself by composing reams of Latin verse that remained unpublished until several years after his death. Reading his letters to Cecil and his other friends, one would put him down as a dedicated hypochondriac, except for the fact that when he was finally allowed to quit Spain some four years later he had to take to his bed, and died within a few months. His ‘agues’ were probably due to malaria, but according to Andreas Vesalius, Philip's court physician, he also suffered from kidney stones brought on by drinking Spanish wines that had been adulterated with lime or chalk to make them look whiter.

 

A couple of years after Chaloner first arrived in Madrid, relations between England and Spain, not brilliant in the first place, suddenly darkened. This was because when Elizabeth I joined in the French wars of religion it became possible for English sea captains to obtain ‘letters of marque’ allowing them to attack French shipping, or to confiscate cargoes bound for France. This was a lucrative business, and soon there were dozens of these freebooters at large, many of them not considering it necessary to distinguish too closely between French and other foreign ships. The Spanish authorities saw them as pirates, and Philip retaliated by ordering all English ships trading in Spanish waters to be seized, and their crews imprisoned. In most cases these sailors were treated extremely roughly, and had to subsist on a diet of bread and water. 

 

It was Chaloner's duty as ambassador to intercede for these unfortunates. He received information from his contacts up and down Spain as well as numerous messages from the prisoners themselves. He pulled every string he could think of, worrying all the time that he was not doing enough. Always he was up against the rigid Spanish bureaucracy. Officials were never in a hurry to help, especially in cases concerning ‘heretics’. All this did nothing to improve the ambassador's health and peace of mind. Nevertheless, he did succeed in certain cases in achieving the release of sailors who would otherwise have died in prison.

 

A final worry for Chaloner was that he had no heir to carry on his name and look after his estates. His wife, Joan, had died childless many years earlier, and now he was isolated in a foreign land where he was unlikely to meet any eligible women – the ones he did meet being Catholics and therefore for him unmarriageable. 

 

However, before he became an ambassador, Chaloner had as a young widower enjoyed a full social life, and it seems that he was able to persuade a lady whom he had known at that time to visit him in Spain with a view to matrimony. Audrey Frodsham, aged about 35 and unmarried, was from a gentry family of Cheshire. We do not know exactly when she and her servants arrived at Bilbao, but we do know from oblique phrases in Chaloner's letters that she must have left in June 1564, just when Chaloner was embroiled in the issue of the imprisoned sailors. 

 

Audrey's trip is important because by the time she left she must have been pregnant with Chaloner’s future son, another Thomas. Some historians who have written about Chaloner have assumed that Thomas Chaloner junior must have been Chaloner's stepson, but this now seems unlikely [the baby was likely conceived sometime before June 1564]. In any case, when Chaloner did retire home, more than a year after Audrey's visit, he found her and her baby in his house to welcome him. In September 1565 the couple were married, and a month after that Chaloner died, having made a will leaving everything to his son and his widow.

 

As ambassador Chaloner was unlucky because relations between Spain and England were starting to deteriorate during his time in office. Nevertheless, Sir Thomas performed his task with skill and discretion. One could say he was a man who dedicated his life to duty.

 

Dan O'Sullivan is author of The Reluctant Ambassador: The Life and Times of Sir Thomas Chaloner, a Tudor Diplomat (Amberley Publishing, 2016).

The Spanish Armada: England's lucky escape

History Extra

English ships clash with enemy vessels off Gravelines (now northern France) in a theatrical interpretation of the “defeat of the Spanish Armada”. Tudor spin portrayed the events of August 1588 as a glorious English victory but, argues Robert Hutchinson, bad weather and bad tactics had more to do with the Spanish fleet’s failure than Elizabethan derring-do. (National Maritime Museum)

The failure of the Spanish Armada campaign of 1588 changed the course of European history. If the Duke of Parma’s 27,000-strong invasion force had safely crossed the narrow seas from Flanders, the survival of Elizabeth I’s government and Protestant England would have looked doubtful indeed.  

 

If those battle-hardened Spanish troops had landed, as planned, near Margate on the Kent coast, it is likely that they would have been in the poorly defended streets of London within a week, and that the queen and her ministers would have been captured or killed. England would have reverted to the Catholic faith and there may have been no British empire.

 

It was bad luck, bad tactics and bad weather that defeated the Spanish Armada – not the derring-do displayed on the high seas by Elizabeth’s intrepid sea dogs. But it was a near-run thing. 

 

Because of Elizabeth’s parsimony, driven by an embarrassingly empty exchequer, the English ships were starved of gunpowder and ammunition and so failed to land a killer blow on the ‘Great and Most Fortunate Navy’ during nine days of skirmishing up the English Channel in July and August 1588.  

 

Only six Spanish ships out of the 129 that sailed against England were destroyed as a direct result of naval combat. However, a minimum of 50 Armada ships (probably as many as 64) were lost through accident or during the Atlantic storms that scattered the fleet en route to England and as it limped, badly battered, back to northern Spain.

 

More than 13,500 sailors and soldiers did not come home – the vast majority victims not of English cannon fire, but of lack of food and water, virulent disease and incompetent organisation.

 

Thirty years before, when Philip II of Spain had been such an unenthusiastic husband to Mary I, he had observed: “The kingdom of England is and must always remain strong at sea, since upon this the safety of the realm depends.” 

 

Elizabeth knew this full well and gambled that her navy, reinforced by hired armed merchantmen and volunteer ships, could destroy the invasion force at sea. Her warships, she maintained, were the walls of her realm, and they became the first and arguably her last line of defence.

 

Decades of neglect had rendered most of England’s land defences almost useless against an experienced and determined enemy. In March 1587, the counties along the English Channel had just six cannon each. A breach in the coastal fortifications at Bletchington Hill, Sussex, caused 43 years before in a French raid, was still unrepaired.  

 

England had no standing army of fully armed and trained soldiers, other than small garrisons in Berwick on the Scottish borders, and in Dover Castle on the Channel coast. Moreover, Elizabeth’s nation was divided by religious dissent – almost half were still Catholic and fears of them rebelling in support of the Spanish haunted her government. 

 

Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, was appointed to command Elizabeth’s armies “in the south parts” to fight not only the invaders but any “rebels and traitors and other offenders and their adherents attempting anything against us, our crown and dignity…” and to “repress and subdue, slay or kill and put to death by all ways and means” any such insurgents “for the conservation of our person and peace”. 

 

Some among Elizabeth’s subjects placed profit ahead of patriotism. In 1587, 12 English merchants – mostly from Bristol – were discovered supplying the Armada “to the hurt of her majesty and undoing of the realm, if not redressed”. Nine cargoes of contraband, valued between £300 and £2,000, contained not just provisions but also ammunition, gunpowder, muskets and ordnance. What happened to these traders (were they Catholics?) is unknown, but in those edgy times, it’s unlikely they enjoyed the queen’s mercy. 

 

Elsewhere, Sir John Gilbert, half-brother to Sir Walter Ralegh, refused permission for his ships to join Sir Francis Drake’s western squadron and allowed them to sail on their planned voyage in March 1588 in defiance of naval orders.

 

If that wasn’t bad enough, Elizabeth’s military advisers  – unaware that Parma planned to land on the Kent coast – decided on Essex as the most likely spot where the Spanish would storm ashore.

 

^{A contemporary painting of English ships and the Spanish Armada, which, so one Tudor verse had it, bore sailors “that were full of the pox”. (Bridgeman)}
 

Breaking barriers

 

The Thames estuary had a wide channel leading straight to the heart of the capital, bordered by mud flats that posed a major obstacle to a vessel of any draught. Therefore, defensive plans included the installation of an iron chain across the river’s fairway at Gravesend in Kent, designed by the Italian engineer Fedrigo Giambelli. This boom, supported by 120 ship’s masts (costing £6 each) driven into the riverbed and attached to anchored lighters, was intended to stop enemy vessels penetrating upriver to London. Yet it would do no such thing – for it was broken by the first flood tide.

 

A detailed survey of potential invasion beaches along the English Channel produced an alarming catalogue of vulnerability. In Dorset alone, 11 bays were listed, with comments such as: “Chideock and Charmouth are two beaches to land boats but it must be very fair weather and the wind northerly.” Swanage Bay could “hold 100 ships and [the anchorage is able] to land men with 200 boats and to retire again without danger of low water at any time.”

 

Lacking time, money and resources, Elizabeth’s government could only defend the most dangerous beaches by ramming wooden stakes into the sand and shingle as boat obstacles, or by digging deep trenches above the high water mark. Mud ramparts were thrown up to protect the few cannon available, or troops armed with arquebuses (an early type of musket) or bows and arrows. 

 

Fortifications on the strategically vital Isle of Wight were to be at least four feet (1.22m) high and eight feet (2.44m) thick, with sharpened poles driven into their face and a wide ditch dug in front. But its governor, Sir George Carey, had just four guns and gunpowder enough for only one day’s use.  

 

Portsmouth’s freshly built ramparts protecting its land approaches had been severely criticised by Ralegh and were demolished, much to Elizabeth’s chagrin. New earth walls were built in just four months, bolstered by five stone arrow-head-shaped bastions behind a flooded ditch. Yet, more than half Portsmouth’s garrison were rated “by age and impotency by no way serviceable”, and the Earl of Sussex escaped unhurt when an old iron gun (supposedly one of his best cannon), blew into smithereens. In November 1587, Sussex complained that the town’s seaward tower was “so old and rotten” that he dared not fire one gun to mark the anniversary of the queen’s accession.

 

The network of warning beacons located throughout southern England since at least the early 14th century was overhauled. The iron fire baskets mounted atop a tall wooden structure on earth mounds were set around 15 miles (24km) apart. Kent and Devon had 43 beacon sites, and there were 24 each in Sussex and Hampshire.

 

These were normally manned during the kinder weather of March to October by two “wise, vigilant and discreet” men in 12-hour shifts. Surprise inspections ensured their diligence, and they were prohibited from having dogs with them, for fear of distraction.  

 

It was a tedious and uncomfortable patriotic duty. A new shelter was built near one Kent beacon when a old wooden hut fell down. This was intended to protect the sentinels only from bad weather and had no “seats or place of ease lest they should fall asleep. [They] should stand upright in… a hole [looking] towards the beacons.” Not everyone spent their time scanning the horizon for enemy ships: two watchers at Stanway beacon in Essex preferred catching partridges in a cornfield and were hauled up in court. 

 

^{An English chart shows the Spanish fleet off the coast of Cornwall. Much of the local militia slunk away when the Armada cleared the county. (National Maritime Museum)}
 

Malicious firing

 

In July 1586, five men were accused of plotting to maliciously fire the Hampshire beacons “upon a [false] report of the appearance of the Spanish fleet” and in the ensuing tumult, to steal food “to redress the current dearth of corn”; engage in a little light burglary of gentlemen’s houses and liberate imprisoned recusants at Winchester. Most were gaoled but some were sent to London for further interrogation, for fear of a wider conspiracy.

 

Elizabeth’s militia makes the enthusiastic Local Defence Volunteers of ‘Dad’s Army’ during the Nazi invasion scare of 1940 look like a finely honed war machine. A census in 1588 revealed only 100 experienced “martial men” were available for military service and, as some had fought in Henry VIII’s French and Scottish wars of 40 years before, these old sweats were considered hors d’combat. 

 

Infantry and cavalry were drawn from the trained bands and county militia. A thousand unpaid veterans from the English army in the Netherlands were recalled but they soon deserted to hide in the tenements of Kent’s Cinque Ports.

 

Militia officers were noblemen and gentry whose motivation was not only defence of their country, but protection of their own property too. Many living near the coast believed it more prudent to move their households inland than stay and fight on the beaches but were ordered to return “on pain of her majesty’s indignation, besides forfeiture of [their] lands and goods…” 

 

The main army was divided into two groups. The first, under Leicester, with 27,000 infantry and 2,418 cavalry, would engage the enemy once he had landed in force. The second and larger formation, commanded by the queen’s cousin Lord Hunsdon, totalled 28,900 infantry and 4,400 cavalry. They were recruited solely to defend the sacred person of Elizabeth herself, who probably planned to remain in London, with Windsor Castle as a handy bolt hole if the capital fell.  

 

An anonymous correspondent suggested to Elizabeth’s ministers that the best means to resist invasion was “our natural weapon” – the bow and arrow. It had defeated the French at Agincourt in 1415; why not the Spanish in 1588? One can imagine an old buffer, bristling at this threat to hearth and home, insisting that the bow and crossbow were “terrible weapons” which Parma’s mercenaries had not faced before. After further reflection, he concluded that “the most powerful weapon of all against this enemy was the fear of God”.

 

In the event, despite strenuous efforts to buy weapons in Germany, and arquebuses from Holland at 23s 4d (£1.17p) each, many militiamen were armed only with bows and arrows. A large proportion was unarmed and untrained. To avoid the dangers of fifth-columnist recusants in the militia ranks, every man had to swear an oath of loyalty to Elizabeth in front of their muster-masters.

 

Captain Nicholas Dawtrey, sent to train the Hampshire militia, warned that if 3,000 infantry crossed the Solent to defend the Isle of Wight, the Marquis of Winchester would be left “utterly without force of footmen other than a few billmen (with pole arms) to guard and answer all dangerous places”. 

 

However, local people complained about being posted away from home, they and their servants being compelled “to go either to Portsmouth or Wight upon every sudden alarm, whereby their houses, wives and children shall be left without guard and left open by their universal absence to all manner of spoil”.  

 

Hampshire eventually raised 9,088 men but Dawtrey pointed out that “many… [were] very poorly furnished; some lack a head-piece [helmet], some a sword, some one thing or other that is evil, unfit or unseemly about him”. Discipline was also problematic: the commander of the 3,159-strong Dorset militia (1,800 totally untrained) firmly believed they would “sooner kill one another than annoy the enemy”. 

 

When the Armada eventually cleared Cornwall, some of the Cornish militia, ordered to reinforce neighbouring counties, thought they had done more than enough to serve queen and country. Their minds were on the harvest and these reluctant soldiers decided to slink away from their commanders and their colours.

 

The Spanish were now someone else’s problem.  

 

^{Map Illustration by Martin Sanders.}
 

Armada propaganda

Why it paid to vilify the perfidious Spanish

 

The Tudor propaganda machine became strident as the Spanish fleet appeared, delivering terrifying warnings of genocide to stiffen a fearful population’s resistance. 

 

Spanish spies reported that Elizabeth’s ministers, “being in great alarm, made the people believe that the Spaniards [are] bringing a shipload of halters in the Armada to hang all Englishmen and another shipload of scourges to whip women”. 

 

As the skirmishes continued in the Channel, foreigners were placed under curfew and had their shops closed up. An Italian, harassed in the streets, maintained it was easier “to find flocks of white crows than one Englishman who loves a foreigner”.

 

A pamphlet entitled A Skeltonical Salutation reassured its readers that fish that consumed the flesh of drowned Spaniards would not be infected by their venereal diseases. The doggerel verse asked whether: 

 

“this year it were not best to forebear

On such fish to feed

Which our coast doth breed

Because they are fed

With carcase dead

Here and there in the rocks

That were full of the pox…

 

Our Cods and Conger

Have filled their hunger

With the heads and feet

Of the Spanish fleet

Which to them were as sweet

As a goose to a fox…”

 

Thomas Deloney’s A Joyful New Ballad described Spanish perfidy:

 

“Our wealth and riches, which we enjoyed long;

They do appoint their prey and spoil by cruelty and wrong

To set our houses afire on our heads

And cursedly to cut our throats

As we lie in our beds

Our children’s brains to dash against the ground”

 

Another tract was said to have been found “in the chamber of Richard Leigh, a seminary priest lately executed for high treason”. In reality, his identity was stolen for propaganda purposes. The ‘tract’ claimed that English naval supremacy and the omnipotence of England’s Protestant God were undeniable. “The Spaniards did never take or sink any English ship or boat or break any mast or took any one man prisoner.” As a result, Spanish prisoners believed that “in all these fights, Christ showed himself a Lutheran”. 

 

Armada commander Medina Sidonia attracted special vilification. He spent much of his time “lodged in the bottom of his ship for his safety”. 

 

What if the Armada had got through?

 

England’s poorly armed militia and uncompleted defences could have been overwhelmed by Spanish invaders, after landing in Kent with the heavy siege artillery carried by the Armada. 

 

Based on the progress of his 22,000 troops – when they covered 65 miles in just six days after invading Normandy in 1592 – the Duke of Parma could have been in London within a week of coming ashore.

 

As the Spanish anchored off Calais, 4,000 militia based in Dover deserted, possibly because they were unpaid, but more probably through abject fear. The port’s defences were hastily stiffened by importing 800 Dutch musketeers, who promptly mutinied. 

 

The loyalty of the inhabitants of Kent was uncertain. Informers reported that some rejoiced “when any report was [made] of [the Spaniards’] good success and sorrowed for the contrary” while others declared the Spanish “were better than the people of this land”. 

 

As is the case in any invasion planning, the Spanish identified potential collaborators, and enemy leaders to be captured. (Elizabeth was to be detained unharmed and sent to Rome).

 

Those “heretics and schismatics” who faced a sticky end if Spain was victorious included the Earl of Leicester, his brother the Earl of Warwick and brother-in-law the Earl of Huntingdon Lord Burghley, “Secretary Walsingham”, Sir Christopher Hatton, and Lord Hunsdon. These were “the principal devils that rule the court and are the leaders of the [Privy] Council”.

 

The list of “Catholics and friends of his majesty in England” was headed by “the Earl of Surrey, son and heir of the Duke of Norfolk, (actually the Earl of Arundel) now a prisoner in the Tower” and “Lord Vaux of Harrowden, a good Catholic, a prisoner in the Fleet (prison)”. 

 

The four potential collaborators in Norfolk included Sir Henry Bedingfield, “formerly the guardian of Queen Elizabeth the pretended queen of England, during the whole time that his majesty was in England”. 

 

The document reported that “the greater part of Lancashire is Catholic, the common people particularly, with the exception of the Earl of Derby and the town of Liverpool”. Westmorland and Northumberland remained “really faithful to his majesty”.

 

Amphibious landings, however, are the most risky of all military operations, with everything dependent on weather and tides. And the English fleet would have to be destroyed first.

 

Robert Hutchinson is a historian specialising in the Tudor period. He has previously written biographies of Henry VIII and Francis Walsingham.

History Trivia - Mary, Queen of Scots, imprisoned in Lochleven Castle

June 16

1567 Mary, Queen of Scots, was imprisoned in Lochleven Castle prison Scotland since she was perceived as a threat to Elizabeth I's monarchy.

9 of history's best quotes

History Extra

Queen Victoria, who reportedly said "We are not amused". (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Neil Armstrong: “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind”

 

On 20 July 1969, as Neil Armstrong became the first man to set foot on the moon, he marked the momentous event with this iconic statement. 

 

After jumping more than three feet down from his spacecraft Apollo 11 onto the moon’s surface and issuing his immortal words, Armstrong explored the moon’s surface for two-and-a-half hours along with fellow American astronaut Edwin ‘Buzz’ Aldrin. The pair made their mark by planting an American flag and a plaque that read, "Here men from the planet Earth first set foot upon the moon. July 1969 A.D. We came in peace for all mankind".

 

Interestingly, though, the words uttered by Armstrong in that historic moment are in fact a misquote. After a safe journey home Armstrong told the press that what he had actually said – or intended to – was, “That’s one small step for a man”. The indefinite article was lost over the crackling audio connection – a small omission that led to a significant change in the quote’s meaning. Armstrong acknowledged this, saying that “The ‘a’ was intended. I thought I said it”. Yet since the misquote had already been repeated the world over, Armstrong was forced to concede “I can’t hear it when I listen on the radio reception here on earth, so I’ll be happy if you just put it in parentheses”.

 

^{American astronaut Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon as commander of the Apollo 11 lunar mission. (MPI/Getty Images)}

 

Marie Antoinette: “Let them eat cake!”

 

According to popular legend, this flippant remark was Marie Antoinette’s response to being told that the French people were starving and they could not afford bread. The quote, widely attributed to her, has become a symbol of the callous decadence of France’s monarchy on the eve of the French Revolution (1789–99).

 

Antoinette was famed for her extravagant lifestyle, and her exclamation of “Qu'ils mangent de la brioche" (which actually translates more literally to ‘let them eat brioche’ or a enriched, egg-based bread) was seen as damning mockery of the plight of her people. 

 

It is now generally accepted, though, that Antoinette most likely never uttered these famous words. Instead they are thought to have been attributed to her by revolutionary propaganda keen to portray her as ignorant, distant and uncaring. Writing for History Revealed magazine, Emily Brand has suggested that the expression in fact pre-dates Antoinette. It is first referenced as the words “of a great princess” in Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s 1766 treatise Confessions, written when Antoinette was only 11 years old. Brand argues the saying was only linked to Antoinette 50 years after her execution in 1793. 

 

But while this quote may not in reality have been uttered by Antoinette, the phrase had sticking power because of the popular perception, whether justified or not, of the French queen as outrageously extravagant and insensitive to the struggles of her people.

 

^{Marie Antoinette in a 1775 portrait by Jean-Baptiste Gautier Dagoty. (Universal History Archive/Getty Images)}
 

Winston Churchill: “We shall fight on the beaches… we shall never surrender”

 

Over the course of his political career, Winston Churchill delivered many iconic speeches in the face of war and hardship. From “Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few” (1940) to “An iron curtain has descended across the continent” (1946), Churchill has been recognised as one of history’s most inspiring speakers.

 

Churchill’s “We shall fight on the beaches” quote was part of a grave yet rousing speech given by the prime minister in the aftermath the 1940 Dunkirk evacuation. Churchill’s words were arguably fundamental in transforming the event in the popular imagination from a humiliating defeat into a miraculous triumph of bravery and determination. Indeed, Churchill’s words – which are often misquoted as “we shall fight them on the beaches” – have been immortalised as an example of Britain’s plucky ‘Blitz spirit’ in the face of adversity.

 

A frequently misremembered fact about the “We shall fight on the beaches” speech is that Churchill did not originally read it out over the nation’s airwaves. He delivered the speech unrecorded to the House of Commons and sections of it were later read out by a BBC radio announcer. The famous recording we recognise today was not actually made until nine years later in 1949, when it was thought that Churchill's words should be set down for posterity. 

 

^{Churchill delivering his “I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat” speech over BBC radio in 1940. (Keystone-France/Gamma-Keystone via Getty Images)}

 

Queen Victoria: “We are not amused”

 

The story goes that this famous line was Queen Victoria’s retort to a risqué anecdote told by a tactless guest at a Windsor dinner party. In this version of events the “we” is intended, not as the royal “we”, but as a reference to all the ladies present who were unimpressed by such vulgar behaviour. Disappointingly, though, it is not clear whether this story stems from historical fact or just appealing urban legend. 

 

“We are not amused” has perhaps had such sticking power because it is emblematic of the public image of Victoria in her later years – a po-faced, dumpy woman dressed in black. The quote fits neatly with this straitlaced portrayal of her and also provides a handy epithet for popular ideas about Victorian society being stuffy and uptight.

 

The association of Victoria with the humourless quote arguably portrays the monarch in an unfair light. Writing for the Washington Post, historian Kate Williams has suggested that “dour” photos of Victoria, (the first photographed monarch) – taken before people learned how to pose – “unfairly colour our view of her”. Williams claims that Victoria was “full of passion for life, forgiving of moral peccadilloes” and “always loved laughter and jokes”. She was, in fact, often amused.

 

^{A photograph of Queen Victoria c1887. (Alexander Bassano/Spencer Arnold/Getty Images)}

 

Julius Caesar: “I came, I saw, I conquered”

 

Translated from the Latin “Veni, Vidi, Vici”, this line is attributed to Roman emperor Julius Caesar, who supposedly used it to boast of his military success.

 

According to ancient accounts, Caesar sent the three-word message to Rome in 47 BC to report on his victory over Pharnaces II of Pontus in the battle of Zela. Despite being significantly outnumbered at Zela, Caesar managed to crush the Pontic forces. His five-day campaign proved a swift, decisive victory that saw Pharnaces subdued by Caesar’s military might. 

 

According to Roman historian Suetonius’s The Twelve Caesars (AD 121) the “Veni, Vidi, Vici” slogan was also inscribed on placards during the ‘Pontic triumph’ – a public procession in celebration of Caesar’s return to Rome following his military victory.

 

In his Life of Caesar, Greek biographer Plutarch (c46–120 AD) writes that “In Latin the words have the same inflectional ending, and so a brevity which is most impressive”.  

 

^{Bust of Julius Caesar. (National Museum in Naples/Bettman/Getty)}

 

FDR: “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself”

 

These famous words were spoken during Franklin D Roosevelt’s first inaugural address, delivered at the United States Capitol, Washington DC on 4 March 1933. Following an election victory over republican Herbert Hoover in 1932, Roosevelt became the 32nd president of the United States. Known as ‘FDR’, he went on to become the first president to serve a total of four terms. 

 

Elected during the depths of America’s Great Depression, Roosevelt made his 20-minute address a solemn and resolved affair. It tackled head-on the nation’s economic crisis and unemployment, blaming the “callous and selfish wrongdoing” of bankers and businessmen. This quote, which goes on to describe “fear itself” as the “nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyses needed effort to convert retreat into advance” appeared near the very beginning of Roosevelt’s address. Contemporaries understood it as a pointed attack on the damaged and pessimistic American mindset of the time, which had been dealt a heavy blow by the economic crash.

 

Broadcast to tens of millions of Americans over national radio networks, FDR’s speech was generally accepted as a dynamic and inspiring promise to get America back on track. 

 

^{President Franklin D. Roosevelt delivers his first inaugural address at the Capitol in 1933. (George Rinhart/Corbis via Getty Images)}

 

Oscar Wilde: “There is only one thing in life worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about”

 

This remark, from Oscar Wilde’s 1890 novel The Picture of Dorian Gray, is just one example of reams of quotable material from the celebrated writer, conversationalist and wit. 

 

Wilde’s comic plays made a satire of the contradictions and petty manners of polite Victorian society. Works including The Importance of Being Earnest (1895) and An Ideal Husband (1895) are full of the wry observances and witty aphorisms for which Wilde is best known. Dozens of his phrases, including “We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars”; “Always forgive your enemies – nothing annoys them so much” and “I have nothing to declare but my genius” have proven enduringly popular.

 

In 2007 Wilde was voted Britain’s greatest wit in a poll of more than 3,000 comedy fans, beating to the top spot Spike Milligan, Winston Churchill and Noel Coward. The Irish-born Wilde was wisecracking until the very end, reportedly quipping on his Parisian deathbed in November 1900, “Either those curtains go, or I do”.

 

^{Colourised photograph of Oscar Wilde from around 1870. (Roger Viollet Collection/Getty Images)}

 

Queen Elizabeth I:  “I know I have the body of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart and stomach of a king, and of a king of England too”

 

This assertion of royal power from Elizabeth I was part of a rousing speech delivered by the queen in one of England’s darkest moments, as the nation faced the threat of imminent attack from the Spanish Armada. Elizabeth’s rallying cry was intended to motivate the English troops assembled at Tilbury in August 1588 as they awaited the arrival of an unprecedented Spanish invasion force. Through her words the queen clearly portrayed herself as a warrior ready to fight for her nation.

 

Accounts portray Elizabeth addressing her troops atop a white steed, wearing a helmet and cutlass. Despite the threat to her safety, the queen allegedly refused to return to London, instead resolving to stay at the English army camp at Tilbury. She reportedly declared that she would “not think of deserting her army at a time of danger”. 

 

Writing for History Extra in 2015, Robert Hutchinson revealed that although the speech elsewhere pledges that “shortly we shall have a famous victory over these enemies of my God, of my kingdom, and of my people’’, in reality it was probably not delivered in a moment of imminent danger. Hutchinson suggests that Elizabeth’s stirring words only reached her men after the Armada was already in retreat. The words were recorded by royal courtier Lionel Sharp and later repeated to the army.

 

^{Elizabeth I of England is depicted riding a horse as she reviews her troops at Tilbury, c1560. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)}

 

Eleanor Roosevelt: “Women are like teabags – you don’t know how strong they are until you put them in hot water” 

 

While her husband, Franklin D Roosevelt, was serving as US president between 1933 and 1945, Eleanor Roosevelt redefined the role of first lady through her active engagement in politics. An outspoken social campaigner and early ambassador of the United Nations, Eleanor was also engaged in human rights work, playing a significant role in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948.

 

Many inspirational quotes have been attributed to Eleanor, including “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent”; “Do one thing every day that scares you” and “It is not fair to ask of others what you are not willing to do yourself”.


 

Her “Women are like teabags” quote seems to draw on several older variations of the idea, including “A man is like an egg, the longer he is kept in hot water the harder he is when taken out”, which appeared in an 1858 Boston newspaper, and “Men are like potatoes; they do not know how soon they may be in hot water”, from an 1870 Dublin newspaper.

 

While there is little concrete evidence that Eleanor spoke the original quote, it is now widely attributed to her. The adage is reportedly a favourite of presidential candidate Hilary Clinton, who herself recently ascribed it to Eleanor.

 

^{Eleanor Roosevelt listening through headphones during a UN conference in New York. (Keystone/Getty Images)}

History Trivia - Robert Devereux becomes Lord Lieutenant General of Ireland

March 27

1599 Robert Devereux, second Earl of Essex and a favorite of Elizabeth I, became Lord Lieutenant General of Ireland during the Nine Years War. However, he was unsuccessful in defeating the rebel forces and returned to England in disgrace.

Robert Dudley: Queen Elizabeth I's great love

History Extra

Robert Dudley, 1560s. (Photo by Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images); Elizabeth I in coronation robes. (Photo by Universal History Archive/Getty Images)

Elizabeth I is remembered in history as the Virgin Queen. She was the daughter of Henry VIII by his second wife Anne Boleyn and in stark contrast to her much-married father, she famously declared: “I will have but one mistress here, and no master.” During the course of her long reign, she was besieged by many suitors but gave each one nothing more than “fair words but no promises”. Yet it is generally accepted that there was one man who, more than any other, tempted Elizabeth to relinquish her single state. 

 

Robert Dudley (1532/33–88), was the fifth son of John Dudley, 1st Duke of Northumberland. The duke had wrested power during the minority of Edward VI (who became king aged nine on Henry VIII’s death), but was executed for putting his daughter-in-law, Lady Jane Grey, on the throne after the young king’s death in 1553. His son Robert led troops in support of the coup, but was swiftly defeated by Queen Mary I and was thrown into the Tower of London.

 

Robert Dudley’s sojourn in the Tower coincided with that of the new queen’s half-sister, Elizabeth (who Mary suspected of plotting against her). They had been friends since childhood, Dudley having been among her brother Edward’s companions. Close in age, Elizabeth and Dudley had shared the same tutor, Roger Ascham, who had been greatly impressed by his precocious young pupils. 

 

^{As a young girl Princess Elizabeth, shown aged about 13, shared a tutor with Robert Dudley. (GL Archive/ Alamy Stock Photo)}

 

It was in Dudley that the eight-year-old Elizabeth had confided upon the execution of her third stepmother, Catherine Howard, in 1541, vowing: “I will never marry.” He would always remember the conversation, and it may have been the reason he decided to marry Amy Robsart nine years later. During the years that followed, Robert kept his wife away from court – mindful, perhaps, that it might damage his relationship with Elizabeth.

 

The years of uncertainty during Mary Tudor’s reign (1553–58), when Elizabeth lived in constant fear for her life, brought her ever closer to Dudley. He remained loyal to her throughout, even when it risked his own safety. They spent many hours together and had a great deal in common, sharing a love of hunting, dancing and lively conversation. This sparked endless gossip among the princess’s household, particularly given that Dudley was a married man.

 

His loyalty was rewarded when Elizabeth became queen in 1558, at the age of 25. She immediately appointed Dudley to be her Master of Horse, a prestigious position that involved regular attendance upon his royal mistress. But it was no longer easy for the couple to meet in private. As queen, Elizabeth’s every move was scrutinised not just by her people, but by the whole of Europe. “A thousand eyes see all I do,” she once complained.

 

Nevertheless, Elizabeth made it clear that she had no intention of giving up her favourite. If anything, she found ways to spend even more time with him. A year after her accession, she had Dudley’s bedchamber moved next to her private rooms in order to facilitate their clandestine meetings. Before long, their relationship was causing a scandal not just in England, but in courts across Europe. 

 

The obvious intimacy between them provoked endless speculation about just how close their relationship was. Elizabeth’s chief rival, Mary, Queen of Scots, was in no doubt that Elizabeth and Dudley were lovers, and later told the noblewoman Bess of Hardwick that he had visited the queen’s bed numerous times. It is unlikely that Elizabeth, who had seen so many powerful examples of the perils of sex and childbirth, would have risked the throne she had fought so hard for by sleeping with her favourite. But their friendship probably charted a careful course between platonic and sexual.

 

The rumours flared up again in 1587, when a young man going by the name of Arthur Dudley arrived at Philip II’s court in Madrid, Spain, claiming to be the illegitimate child of the English queen and her favourite, Robert Dudley. His age placed his conception at 1561, which coincided with Elizabeth being bedridden with a mysterious illness that caused her body to swell. The account therefore had an air of credibility, made more so by the fact that Arthur was able to name a servant who had allegedly spirited him away from the royal palace of Hampton Court (near London) as soon as he was born and raised him as his own, only confessing the truth on his deathbed in 1583. There is no firm evidence to corroborate the story, but it suited King Philip’s interests to discredit the English queen.

 

Ironically, the death of Dudley’s wife in 1560, at her residence Cumnor Place, removed any hope that Elizabeth may have privately cherished of one day marrying him. The circumstances were suspicious. Amy insisted that all her servants attend a local fair. When they returned, they found her at the bottom of a short flight of stairs, her neck broken. Whether it was an accident, suicide or murder has never been resolved beyond doubt. 

 

The finger of suspicion pointed at Dudley, whom his enemies claimed would not have flinched from having his own wife put to death so that he could realise his ambitions of marrying the queen. Mary, Queen of Scots  quipped that the queen of England was about to marry her “horsekeeper” who had killed his wife in order to make way for her. Elizabeth was also in the frame: many believed that her passion for Dudley had driven her to have his wife murdered so that she could have him at last.

 

Yet it is extremely unlikely that Dudley or Elizabeth had any hand in Amy’s death. They would hardly have taken such a risk, especially as they would have known that it would prove counterproductive to any plans they may have had to marry. The scandal reverberated not just around the kingdom but across the courts of Europe, so that Elizabeth was obliged to distance herself from Dudley in order to avoid being implicated any further.

 

^{The death of Amy Robsart in 1560. Dudley came under suspicion when his wife was found dead at the bottom of their stairs. In the ensuing scandal, the queen had to distance herself from him, in public at least. (Nottingham Castle/Bridgeman Images)}

 

But in private, the queen refused to give up her favourite. Now that the scrutiny of the court was even more intense, she was obliged to go to even greater lengths to conceal their meetings. In November 1561, for example, she disguised herself as the maid of Katherine Howard (later Countess of Nottingham) in order to enjoy the secret pleasure of watching Dudley shoot near Windsor Castle. Another attempt at discretion was less successful. When her close friend and attendant Lady Fiennes de Clinton helped Elizabeth escape court in disguise to meet Dudley at his house for dinner, Philip II of Spain’s envoy heard of it and immediately reported it to his master. 

 

In the letters that Queen Elizabeth and Dudley exchanged, they used the symbol ‘ôô’ as code for the nickname of ‘Eyes’ that she had given him. Elizabeth kept her favourite’s letters, along with his portrait, in a locked desk next to her bed. On a visit to court in 1564, the Scottish ambassador Sir James Melville spied the portrait as Elizabeth was searching for one of his own royal mistress. When he asked if he could borrow it to show the Scottish queen, Elizabeth immediately refused, “alleging that she had but that one picture of his”. Spying Robert Dudley in a corner of the bedchamber, Melville slyly observed that she should not cling so to the portrait, since “she had the original.”

 

As her reign progressed and the pressure to marry grew ever more intense, Elizabeth pretended to consider numerous potential suitors. But she would never commit to any of them. The Venetian ambassador shrewdly observed: “She has many suitors for her hand, and by protracting any decision keeps them all in hope.”

 

Meanwhile, now that the scandal of his wife’s death had faded, Robert Dudley stepped up his campaign to make Queen Elizabeth his wife. He besieged her with protestations of his undying affection, all of which his royal mistress received with obvious pleasure but with no firm promises. 

 

By 1575, Dudley was growing desperate and decided to make one last, spectacular attempt to persuade Elizabeth to marry him. Pulling out all the stops, he invited her to his Warwickshire estate, Kenilworth Castle, and staged several days of extraordinarily lavish entertainments at a huge cost. The queen loved every minute of her visit there, but would not be dazzled into acquiescence. Genuine though her affection for Robert was, she knew that marrying him would court disaster in her kingdom, sparking such intense opposition from Dudley’s rivals that it might even spill out into civil war.

 

For all his desperation to marry the queen, Dudley had been secretly courting one of her ladies-in-waiting, Lettice Knollys. Described as being one of the best-looking women of the court, she was of royal blood, being the great-niece of Elizabeth’s mother, Anne Boleyn. This no doubt added to her attraction for Dudley, who had enjoyed a flirtation with Lettice for the previous 10 years. Now that his last-ditch attempt to persuade Elizabeth to marry him had failed, he took Lettice as his mistress. 

 

For a time, Elizabeth was blissfully unaware that her favourite was betraying her. But three years into the affair, Lettice became pregnant. She was not a woman to be set aside and insisted that Dudley marry her. Fearing the inevitable backlash from his royal mistress, he agreed only to a secret ceremony, which took place in 1578. The bride was said to have worn “a loose gown” – a coded reference to her pregnant state. It was not long before the secret leaked out at court.

 

When Elizabeth learned that her cousin had stolen the only man she had truly loved, she flew into a jealous rage, boxing Lettice’s ears and screaming that “as but one sun lightened the earth, she would have but one queen in England”. She then banished this “flouting wench” from her presence, vowing never to set eyes on her again. Although she eventually forgave Dudley, their relationship had lost the intimacy that had defined it for so many years.

 

But towards the end of Dudley’s life, they grew close once more. In 1586, he went to command her forces in the Netherlands. Missing him, she wrote an affectionate letter, which she signed: “As you know, ever the same. ER.” “Ever the same” or “semper eadem” was her motto, but she and Dudley knew how much more it signified in their relationship. 

 

The following year, the execution of Mary, Queen of Scots at Elizabeth’s orders threw her into turmoil and it was to her old favourite that she turned for comfort. Dudley was also by Elizabeth’s side through the Armada crisis of 1588 (the Spanish navy’s failed attempt to invade England, thwarted by the English fleet). By now he was gravely ill but did not hesitate to accept the post of ‘Lieutenant and Captain-General of the Queen’s Armies and Companies’.

 

He walked beside her horse as his royal mistress delivered her famous speech at Tilbury on 8 August 1588, while inspecting the troops that had been assembled to defend the Thames Estuary against any incursion up-river towards London: “I know I have the body but of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart and stomach of a king and of a king of England too.” 

 

He stayed with the queen in the immediate aftermath of the Armada, wishing to be certain that the danger had passed. One of the last recorded sightings of the pair together was at a palace window, watching a celebratory parade staged by his stepson, the Earl of Essex. By now in poor health, Dudley took his leave of Elizabeth. He, at least, must have known that it would be for the last time.

 

A few days later, he wrote to Elizabeth from Rycote in Oxfordshire, ending the letter: “I humbly kiss your foot… by Your Majesty’s most faithful and obedient servant.” These were probably the last words ever written by Robert Dudley. Five days later, on 4 September 1588, he breathed his last. Elizabeth was inconsolable at the loss of “sweet Robin”, the only man whom she had ever truly loved. Their relationship had survived almost 50 years of trials and tribulations, and Elizabeth was lost without him.

 

In the days immediately after his death, she kept to her room, unable to face her court or council. The brief note that he had sent her from Rycote now became her most treasured possession. She inscribed it “His last letter”, and kept it in a locked casket by her bed for the rest of her life. For years afterwards if anyone mentioned Robert Dudley’s name her eyes filled with tears.

 

Elizabeth's other men

 

As well as Dudley, the Virgin Queen had several other contenders for her heart

 

Eric XIV of Sweden (1533–77)

 

Realising that marrying a home-grown candidate was fraught with difficulty, Elizabeth’s ministers focused upon suitors from overseas for most of her reign. One of the earliest was King Eric XIV of Sweden, who had started to make overtures towards Elizabeth before she was queen. He continued to pursue her for several years and even made plans to visit her. Horrified, she wrote him a polite but firm letter, telling him to stay away and assuring him: “We have never yet conceived a feeling of that kind of affection towards anyone.”

 

Philip II of Spain (1527–98)

 

Even while he had been married to her sister Mary I, Philip II of Spain had made overtures towards Elizabeth, beguiled by her youthful charms. When Mary died, Philip – who had been styled ‘King of England’ for his wife’s lifetime only – was reluctant to give up his English kingdom and so sent a proposal of marriage to Elizabeth. He urged the new queen to consider the advantages of having the protection of Spain. Elizabeth employed what would become her customary tactic of delaying, but eventually told Philip that she could not marry her sister’s widower, and that his Catholicism would not be acceptable to her people. Thenceforth, they were enemies.

 

François, Duke of Alençon and Anjou (1555–84)

 

Elizabeth’s last serious suitor was François, the Duke of Alençon and Anjou, and the youngest son of King Henry II of France. He had first been proposed as a husband in 1578, when he was 23 and Elizabeth 45. Despite the considerable age gap, the pair became very close, aided by the fact that the duke was the only one of the queen’s many suitors to court her in person. Calling him her “frog”, Queen Elizabeth showered the young duke with affection, and he gave every appearance of returning her love. But it all came to nothing, and François eventually returned to France in 1581.

 

Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex (1565–1601)

 

Robert was the son of Elizabeth’s rival Lettice Knollys with her first husband Walter Devereux, 1st Earl of Essex. He was 30 years younger than Elizabeth but gave every appearance of being passionately in love with her. She was beguiled by his darkly handsome looks and swaggering self-confidence, which made him take greater liberties with the queen than anyone else dared. Painfully aware that age had ravished her looks, she was fiercely possessive of his attentions. But Essex had already proved false. In 1590, he had incurred her wrath by secretly marrying Frances Walsingham, daughter of the secretary of state. He later led a rebellion against Elizabeth’s regime and was executed in 1601.

 

Dr Tracy Borman is joint chief curator of Historic Royal Palaces and an expert on the Tudor period. 

History Trivia - Mary, Queen of Scots, executed

February 8

1587 After twenty years of captivity in England, Mary, Queen of Scots was executed at Fotheringay Castle, Northamptonshire, on suspicion of having been involved in the Babington Plot to murder her cousin, Queen Elizabeth I.
 

5 surprising Tudor facts

History Extra

The family of Henry VIII, c1572. (Photo by Universal History Archive/Getty Images)

1)  The Tudors wore spectacles

In 1541, the grandmother of Henry VIII’s fifth wife, Katherine Howard, under suspicion for her knowledge of the queen’s pre-marital sexual affairs, broke into coffers belonging to two of the men involved and sent for her spectacles to read the letters that she found. Since she was doing this by candlelight in the middle of the night, it’s not surprising she needed a little help to read – and then burn – these incriminating documents.
Spectacles at this time were usually armless, designed to sit on the bridge of the nose or to be handheld. Although they were useful for reading, they wouldn’t have been particularly helpful for people who needed to wear them all the time. Poor eyesight was common in Tudor England and there was little that could be done about it. The many remedies for eye conditions that can be found in early modern medical recipe books show that people certainly tried to cure themselves – but the vast array of remedies suggests none of them were very effective!

2)  The official penalty for brawling within the royal court was the loss of a hand

With a court full of young and rowdy men, Henry VIII felt that a deterrent was necessary to control his courtiers, and he chose to make the punishment fit the crime. In 1541 Sir Edmund Knyvett [the eldest son of distinguished courtier and sea captain Sir Thomas Knyvet] had a fight on the tennis court with one of the Earl of Surrey’s servants, Thomas Clere, and landed a punch on Clere’s nose. Knyvett was arraigned for this later in the year and sentenced to lose his hand.
Apparently the royal surgeon would be the one to sever the hand; the king’s mastercook supplied the knife; and the sergeant farrier [the person in charge of providing horses with shoes] the hot iron to sear the wound, while the sergeant of the cellar [the person in charge of the court’s alcohol] supplied alcohol (for the spectators, not the victim).
Knyvett is said to have pleaded that his left hand be cut off, so that he could continue to serve the king with his right. Happily for Knyvett, in the end he was pardoned, but the king put out a proclamation then and there that in future, anyone found brawling within the precincts of the court would definitely lose a hand.

3)  Elizabeth I could be violent

She may not have borne arms or led an army, but Elizabeth I could be quite violent in a domestic setting. When in a rage, she swore like a trooper and could apparently be heard several rooms away.
Elizabeth was not above abusing her ladies-in-waiting; in 1576, when she discovered that Mary Shelton had secretly married courtier Sir John Scudamore two years previously, she flew into a rage and rained blows on the unfortunate Mary, and according to some sources may have broken her finger.
Elizabeth I wasn’t above throwing things either; there is a story that she once threw a slipper at her spymaster, Sir Francis Walsingham. Elizabeth also had no toleration for lack of respect: one day in 1598, Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, turned his back on the queen during a heated argument. For this unthinkable breach of court etiquette, Elizabeth promptly boxed his ears, at which point Essex placed his hand on his sword hilt [handle]. Shocked courtiers scrambled to put themselves between him and the queen, and Essex stormed out of the room.

4) Tudor aristocrats gave each another some interesting presents

Gift-giving was a key element of the patronage system; if you wanted something done, you gave the relevant person a gift, since this would in theory force them to reciprocate by doing whatever it was that you wanted. Gifts could be very personal, such as jewellery worn by the giver, or clothing.

Food items could also be given as gifts; for example, noblewoman Lady Honor Lisle prided herself on her homemade quince marmalade [quince is a fruit similar in appearance to a pear]. Some food items were rather more exotic, and letters testify to attempts to transport seal and porpoise before they went bad.

Sometimes even live animals were given as gifts. Lady Lisle sought advice on a gift for Anne Boleyn in the 1530s and was told that the queen hated monkeys, but liked spaniels. Plus, Princess Mary (later Mary I) was given a parrot by the Countess of Derby in 1538.

New Year’s Day, rather than Christmas, was the biggest gift-giving day for the Tudors, and nobles competed to give the king or queen the best present. Such gifts usually involved vast quantities of gold and jewels, but were sometimes more inventive: the Duke of Norfolk gave Henry VIII a chess set in 1532, and in 1557 Mary I and her husband, Philip II of Spain, were given “a Map of England, stayned upon cloth of silver in a frame of wood”. It is also said that Elizabeth I’s courtiers indulged her love of clothes with gifts of gowns and fabric.

5)  All Tudor monarchs, and many aristocrats, adopted or inherited mottos that would be used alongside their personal symbol or ‘badge’ on their servants’ livery [uniform]

These mottos could change to reflect important events or occasions, such as a marriage, and temporary mottos were worn during tournaments.
Some of these mottos are well known: Henry VIII’s ‘Coeur Loyale’ (Loyal Heart) in 1511 after the birth of Prince Henry; ‘Declare, I Dare Not’ in 1526, which is thought to relate to Anne Boleyn; and the royal motto still used by our queen today, ‘Dieu et mon droit’ (God and my right)'. Some mottos are less well known – for example, Mary I’s was ‘Truth, the daughter of time’.

Some Tudor mottos have a peculiarly modern feel. Philip II’s motto when king of Spain was ‘The world is not enough’ – apt for a man who controlled Spain, the Netherlands, parts of Italy, and swathes of Germany! Anne Boleyn used the motto ‘Ainsi sera, groigne qui groigne’, during the Christmas period in 1530, which in modern idiom is more or less ‘Haters gonna hate’ – a clear reference to her intention to marry Henry VIII.

Dr Nicola Clark is an early modern historian specialising in gender and court history at Royal Holloway, University of London, and the University of Chichester. Her book, Gender, Family and Politics: The Howard Women, 1485–1558 is forthcoming with Oxford University Press.