14

For a Woman to Bear Rule

THE MONARCH WAS God’s representative on earth and so, by definition, male. Elizabeth’s challenge was to overcome the very considerable drawback of her sex and assert her authority over a rigidly patriarchal society.

It was not enough to be Queen. After the disaster of Mary, which had reinforced male prejudice against female rule, there was profound anxiety. Elizabeth knew that she had to address this. In order to function successfully in a man’s world, she would have to present herself as an extraordinary woman – ‘alone of all her sex’. The status of other women was not her concern. Thanks to her education, Elizabeth was able to function comfortably on a masculine level. She had been trained, as other women were not, in the use of rhetoric to assert her authority, and she was rigorously drilled in the language of men’s privilege and power – Latin.

There is no doubt that Elizabeth genuinely believed that she had been chosen by God as His instrument, but she also recognized the propaganda value of adopting the persona of the divinely chosen ruler, to whom the people would give their unquestioning obedience. She did not bother to counter John Knox’s polemic, The First Blast of the Trumpet against the Monstrous Regiment of Women, directed primarily against her sister, in which he equated authority with maleness and asserted that femaleness and rule were mutually contradictory. She simply reiterated her own divine sanction to rule, manifested by God’s protection of her through the many perils of her youth.

In this she was aided by John Aylmer, formerly tutor to Lady Jane Grey, who in his An Harborowe for Faithfull and Trewe Subjectes advanced the doctrine that God’s choice of a weak instrument such as a woman is evidence of His own miraculous strength. Unfortunately, he rather spoilt the case by adding that Elizabeth did not rule alone: she must rely on Parliament and the rule of law. England would triumph, he argued patronizingly, not simply because God would guide an untested young woman, but because the seasoned and wise men of Parliament would give her advice and counsel.

In her first speech to the nobility at Hatfield, Elizabeth had described herself as ‘God’s Creature, ordained to obey his appointment … the minister of His heavenly will’. Likewise, in the closing address to Parliament in 1576, she attributed the benefits England had enjoyed not to herself but to God: she was ‘no better than His handmaid’. She could not take the glory which rightly belonged to God, she told them, adding in a nicely judged aside, ‘My sex permits it not.’ Similarly, in her Golden Speech in 1601 she reminds them that she has simply been the instrument of God’s will. As a woman, she would not have the temerity to claim otherwise: ‘Shall I ascribe anything to myself and my sexly weakness? I were not worthy to live then.’

Elizabeth could bolster her authority by assuming a dual sexual identity, as both king and queen. At the beginning of the reign Nicholas Heath, Archbishop of York, stated that by the ‘appointment of God she [is] our soveraigne lord and ladie, our kinge and quene, our emperor and empresse’. He probably had in mind the Act Concerning Regal Power, passed at the beginning of Mary’s reign, establishing that a woman could rule in her own right and had the same powers as a male monarch. The theory rested on the medieval concept of the king’s two bodies, which Henry VIII had appropriated, and which lent itself perfectly to exploitation by Elizabeth.

The monarch’s mortal body was subject to human frailties and imperfections, culminating in death; whereas his second body, incorporating the monarchy, was immortal. In this way, the king never died, he lived for ever. Elizabeth applied gender to the theory. Her ‘natural body’ was that of a woman, subject to the weaknesses of her sex; her ‘body politic’ was that of a king, carrying the strength and masculine spirit of the best of her male predecessors. She acknowledged this in her first speech to the nobility when she said, ‘And as I am but one body naturally considered, though by His permission a body politic to govern’. It was for this reason that she was so keen to take on some of her father’s male identity, frequently drawing attention to her resemblance to him and making comparisons with him in her speeches.

Hence in response to Parliament’s petition in 1566 that she either marry or declare a successor, she tells them: ‘And as for my own part, I care not for death, for all men are mortal; and though I be a woman, yet I have as good a courage answerable to my place as ever my father had.’ She is at pains to remind them, however, that she is not just any woman, but an exceptional woman: ‘I thank God that I am indeed endued with such qualities that if I were turned out of the realm in my petticoat, I were able to live in any place of Christendom.’

Elizabeth liked to show off her ‘manly’ brain – as, for instance, when she attended plays and disputations at the Inns of Court and Oxford and Cambridge and discoursed with the students in Latin – while at the same time calling attention to her womanly weakness when it suited her to do so. This was nearly always an implicit invitation to view her otherwise, though some of her male audience might have missed the cue.

She would make a point of referring to the ‘defect’ of her womanhood, a tactic to mask her hidden strength. She pandered to male discomfort at being commanded by a woman through her open acknowledgement of her weakness, while at the same time reminding them of her kingly status which transcends the deficiencies of her sex. There is no better example of this than in her Armada speech of 1588, where she seems to defy the law of nature itself by claiming to have ‘the body but of a weak and feeble woman’ but the ‘heart and stomach of a king’.

Her frequent denigration of her sex reflected both her acceptance of contemporary mores and the need to emphasize the difference between her and ‘ordinary’ women. Again and again, Elizabeth through her oratory and speeches sets herself apart from other women, who never spoke in public. But at the same time, she was careful to ‘disable’ herself, as a concession to male notions of their supremacy over the inferior, weaker, female sex. It helped to be a great actress. ‘The weight and greatness of this matter might cause in me some feare to speak, and bashfulness besides, a thing appropriate to my sex,’ she soothes, before reminding them that she is different: ‘But yet, the princely seate and kingly throne, wherin God hath constituted me, maketh these two causes to seme little in myne eyes, though grievous perhaps to your eares, and boldeneth me to say somewhat in this matter…’ As, of course, she does.

Elizabeth seems to have believed that a woman in power needed to appropriate the language of kingship. As a young woman writing to her sister to protest her innocence, she vows that she does not share the ‘rebellious hearts and devilish intents’ of those who showed malice towards ‘their anointed king’. The point was lost on Mary, however, as she had surrendered her ‘kingship’ to Philip. As queen, Elizabeth frequently referred to herself as ‘prince’, but this simply meant ruler in the sixteenth century; it did not have a gender, or if it did, it was assumed to be male. She uses ‘princess’ disparagingly, especially when writing to or about Mary, Queen of Scots, whom she felt had lost much of the respect due her as sovereign through her bad behaviour. Elizabeth had no objection to the term Queen in relation to herself, but tended to use phrases such as ‘The Queen our Sovereign Lady’ when it seemed apt, for instance, in time of plague, when she expressed a maternal concern for her stricken people. In her Golden Speech, she refers to herself as king and queen: ‘To be a King and wear a crown is a thing more glorious to them that see it, than it is pleasant to them that bear it. For myself, I was never so much enticed with the glorious name of a King or royal authority of a Queen, as delighted that God hath made me His instrument to maintain His truth and glory, and to defend this Kingdom … from peril, dishonour, tyranny and oppression.’

It was important for Elizabeth as queen regnant to assert her authority over the court, which was very much a male club. One way to do this was through the royal progresses, which took place in the summer months when the roads were passable. The progresses inconvenienced every member of the court and cost her rather more than staying in the royal palaces, but as queen she found power in the turmoil of an itinerant court and in an ongoing dialogue with her subjects. For Elizabeth, going on progress reiterated her central position in the court and in the country. The progresses created a dislocating confusion that reminded ministers, courtiers, hosts and citizens of the Queen’s centrality in their lives. Each day, whether the Queen was staying at a private house or visiting a town, began with everyone focusing on what she wanted: did she intend to stick to her schedule; did she intend to hunt; would she enjoy the ceremonies; would she grant a particular petition; what gift to give her? Elizabeth had found there were no prizes in being predictable.

Unlike her parents, Elizabeth never went abroad and even in her own country she was not adventurous in her choice of destination. Ever cautious, she restricted her travels to the more populated, prosperous and stable areas of her kingdom, validating royal authority, social stability and religious conformity where it already existed, rather than reaching out to new audiences. But the progresses fulfilled their function of taking her beyond the confines of the court to appear in public ceremonies, to consolidate her image and popularity, to strengthen royal authority in the towns and encourage civic pride and productivity, and to nourish social ties with the aristocracy and gentry – the women as well as the men.

At court, the dual existence of the Queen’s two bodies – the one private and feminine, the other public and implicitly masculine – was reflected in the neutralization of the Privy Chamber as a political force. Under Elizabeth’s father, his cronies in the Privy Chamber had derived political power and influence simply through being close to the monarch. It was no coincidence that the foremost among them, the Groom of the Stool, had the most intimate function of all – wiping the royal bottom. Gentlemen of the Privy Chamber were entrusted with diplomatic errands and were taken seriously by foreign potentates precisely because they were known to be in their sovereign’s confidence. The dry stamp of the King’s signature resided in the Privy Chamber, again lending power to those who had access to it.

As a woman, Elizabeth had to have an almost exclusively female household and, of course, these women could not play any part in political life. Their role was purely domestic and, by dint of that, the Privy Chamber became a sort of cocoon, an oasis for Elizabeth away from the political fray. She even tended to eat there privately, with very few attendants, dining in state only on special occasions. Elaborate court ceremony was still maintained, with the participants bowing to the empty throne as if the Queen were there in person:

When the Queen is served, a great table is set in the Presence Chamber, near the Queen’s throne. The cloth being laid, a gentleman and a lady come in … and make three reverences, the one by the door, the next in the middle of the chamber, the third by the table. Then they set down the cover and the lady tries the food. The guards bring in the meat in the same manner; then the lady tries the food with a piece of bread and gives it to the guards; thence the meat, such as the Queen desires, is carried into the Privy Chamber where she dines.

At the outset, Elizabeth vested the secretarial and financial functions that had previously resided in the Privy Chamber in Sir William Cecil, who became both Secretary of State and her own personal secretary. There was no female equivalent of the Groom of the Stool. As Chief Gentlewoman of the Privy Chamber until her death in 1565, Kat Ashley performed the same tasks, being the receiver and keeper of the Queen’s close-stools, but the office had been shorn of its political power, especially as it no longer entailed the keepership of the Privy Purse – which had sometimes been the predominant spending department – or the dry stamp of the royal signature. In the past, access to the sovereign had been everything, but again this no longer applied, although a hierarchy based on nearness to her prevailed among the women.

Elizabeth had tailored the Privy Chamber and the household to her own personal needs. As a woman, she needed a group of female attendants to wait on her in her chamber and run errands for her, while as a queen she needed an entourage of ladies to accompany her on formal occasions. Nearly all were derived from her milieu of relatives and loyal servants of long standing, as well as those families who had had an affinity to the Tudor court over several generations. Kat Ashley and Blanche Parry had been with her from childhood. Blanche, who was to be keeper of the Queen’s jewels for forty years, had actually rocked her cradle, and Kat had been a second mother to her. Then there were her Boleyn relatives, particularly the descendants of her aunt, Mary Boleyn. The closest was probably Mary’s daughter by her first marriage, Catherine Carey, wife of Sir Francis Knollys. Mary, Lady Sidney, sister of Robert Dudley, was also a very close friend, so devoted that she nursed Elizabeth through smallpox and caught the disease herself; her beauty was so marred that she did not appear at court again.

Under Henry VIII, the Privy Chamber had been a cockpit of faction, whereas under Elizabeth, faction had no place. The women’s first loyalty was to the Queen. That was why she grew so angry when any of her maids of honour presumed to marry without her permission: it indicated a lack of trustworthiness. Some of her women might try to further a minor suit on behalf of a relative, but anything larger was frowned upon and discouraged. The only sense in which they might have acted as conduits was in relaying to the Queen gossip and information about the court, and in apprising Cecil and others of the Queen’s mood, so that they could judge if it was an apt moment to raise a particular issue. They were not there to advance the interests of court factions. Nor did Elizabeth give her women any cause to think they could emulate her by flouting the conventions of the patriarchal society. She was exceptional – perhaps a part of God’s inscrutable plan, certainly the token woman or honorary male – whereas they were ordinary women and must conform to type.

Elizabeth’s dual existence was played out in two different arenas. In her capacity as queen and ruler she was, as it were, on the public stage. In her private capacity, as queen and woman, she retreated to the feminine confines of the Privy Chamber surrounded by her trusted familia. Here, behind the scenes, she could relax and be herself, although she was never alone. Outside she put on a performance. Like an actress, she dressed for the part, donning ever more fantastic clothes, jewels, wigs and cosmetics to perpetuate her goddess-like image. The magnitude of the Earl of Essex’s offence in bursting into the Queen’s bedchamber one morning while she was still in a state of undress, her red wig on its stand, her face bare of the elaborate makeup behind which it was in her later years habitually concealed and her grey hair in wisps about her temples, can be understood in this context. This was not just a case of lèse-majesté. It was an assault, an invasion of the Queen’s privacy.

Perhaps because of the taint of her illegitimacy, Elizabeth was assiduous in treating fellow monarchs as part of her family. They were addressed variously as ‘my very dear brother’, ‘my good brother and cousin’ and ‘my dear sister’, as a reminder of the bond of sovereignty. Her nobles were her ‘right trusty and well-beloved cousins’. She might snip their power and relegate them to a secondary role in the governance of the country, but they were still part of her extended family, owing the monarchy a supra-familial loyalty. Elizabeth assiduously played her part, receiving them into the Privy Chamber for dancing and games, entertaining them at tournaments, providing them with London residences, attending their weddings, negotiating some of their marriages or acting as mediator in their quarrels, serving as godmother to their children. And like any family, the members exchanged gifts at New Year. There were perfumed gloves, gorgeous clothes, intricately designed jewellery rich in symbolism and purses of gold for the Queen, gifts of plate weighted according to the rank of the recipient from the Queen to them.

Whether there would be any room in this familia for a husband remained to be seen. The Scottish envoy Melville was shrewd enough to see the advantages of the Queen’s dual persona, recognizing that if she married she would be but Queen of England, whereas now ‘she was both king and queen’. The marriage question was the next challenge in Elizabeth’s career as queen.