Sir Francis Walsingham by Derek Wilson

Author:Derek Wilson
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781472112484
Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group

Chapter 7

‘SHE SEEMETH TO BE VERY EARNESTLY BENT TO PROCEED’

1581–4

‘I content myself, Monsieur, that you assure yourself of me as of the most faithful friend that ever prince had. And if you trust to such a rock, all the tempest of the sea will be far from shaking it, nor will any storm on the earth turn it aside from honouring and loving you.’1 So Elizabeth assured Anjou in March 1581. He cannot possibly have been taken in by the image of the queen as an example of granite immutability. He and his brother, Henry III, knew that the protestation of unshakable amity was a smokescreen behind which Francis Walsingham would bargain, bluff and bluster to obtain for England maximum diplomatic advantage at minimum cost. The ambassador’s instructions were to bring about an Anglo-French defensive treaty while making no final commitment to marriage. Elizabeth had come round to the point of view that Walsingham had always advocated; the creation of a league with France which would hold Spanish ambition in check. Her hot-and-cold response to Anjou’s wooing continued to keep everyone guessing but it seems that, by now, Elizabeth had resigned herself to the fact that marriage to the French prince was impracticable.

Perhaps the realization dawned that she had, all along, been in love with the idea of marriage, rather than the reality. In times of sober reflection she could not but acknowledge the practical difficulties pointed out to her by Walsingham and others – the differences of religion and age and the potential danger to her own health. She had no need to read the radical Puritan propaganda that poured from the presses to realize the widespread resentment marriage to Anjou would cause. In London there was much sympathy for men like John Stubbe. When the executioner, with three blows, cut off the pamphleteer’s right hand, the large crowd in the Westminster market-place watched the event in sullen silence. When parliament was convened in 1580 the mood of opposition was plain. Yet Elizabeth remained the consummate actress, able to switch roles at a moment’s notice. When it suited her she continued to revert to that of the lovesick bride-to-be. Not for the first or last time Walsingham found himself having to guess not only the intentions of foreign princes but also of his own mistress.

He was perhaps encouraged to receive, via Leicester, one of those heart-warming messages at which Elizabeth excelled. Dudley reported that the queen had spoken very warmly of her secretary. She acknowledged that Walsingham was a man of unshakable principles and opinions. She knew that her ‘Moor’ could not ‘change his colour’ but assured him that she valued his faithful service and that he would always enjoy her favour. It may have been a throwaway comment but it does go to the heart of the unique relationship the queen maintained with her closest advisers. Through all the frustrations, differences of opinion and downright confrontations, Elizabeth’s charisma and loyalty to her closest servants held them willingly in thrall.

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