CHAPTER XII

MY LORD LEICESTER’S CURE

My Lord of Leicester was to have his cure. The physicians insisted upon it. It is chronicled in Gilbert Talbot’s letter with all the importance which would attend the bulletins of the health of a king. The Queen never resented a fuss of this kind made over her pampered darling. In his stuffed and padded Court costume, his feathered head-dress, and his jewels one cannot detect in him one of the virile qualities which so dominated her imagination. His treacheries were winked at, his vices condoned, even the people who accused him most violently of the murder of his first wife, Amy Robsart, when in perplexity crawled to his feet, either literally like poor Lady Catherine Grey, or in abject letters like Lady Lennox, who was one of his bitterest accusers and who had suffered under the spies he sent into her very house. Let us for a few moments recall the growth of this personage, this veritable bay-tree. He was just Robert Dudley, a younger son, the fifth of a ruined family lying under attainder—the Dukes of Northumberland. Mary of England restored him to his title, and drew him out of nonentity and poverty by appointing him Master of the Ordnance at the siege of S. Quentin. As soldier and courtier he certainly came into contact with the Princess Elizabeth, whose visits to Court were finally forced upon her unwilling sister. Elizabeth had scarcely been on the throne a few months before she indulged with much too evident relief in flirtations with him, as a counterblast to the incessant negotiations with the ambassadors of her successive foreign suitors. She coquetted with him in her boat, she kept his portrait in a secret cabinet, she showed off her learning, her airs and graces before him, she danced with him, and when she formally created him Earl of Leicester she “could not refrain from putting her hand in his neck, smilingly tickling him.” This honour, by the way, it will be remembered, she pretended to confer on him in order that his rank should fit him for marriage with Mary Queen of Scots, and so avoid the dangers and difficulties to England which would arise from her marriage with Darnley. There never was a pretence so thin. Elizabeth made a great show of her willingness to bestow on another her “brother and best friend, whom she would have married herself had she minded to take a husband.” Since she had decided to die a virgin she held that such a procedure in regard to Leicester would “free her mind of all fears and suspicions to be offended by any usurpation before her death, being assured that he was so loving and trusty that he would never suffer any such thing to be attempted in her time.” While she openly advertised Leicester as her favourite, she dangled him as a prize over the head of her chief enemy. She always loved playing with fire, and it is well that this time she did not burn her fingers, for Leicester was the complete courtier and could not decide between the two queens. In his eyes Mary had as much chance of ruling England as his present mistress. Mary did not at the beginning of her career in Scotland appear very anxious for his wooing. All this helped Elizabeth. Creighton clearly takes the view that the latter promoted the Darnley marriage by the very pushing of Leicester’s claims. Whether or not he was personally commendable to Mary, it was greatly to his disadvantage, that, as creature of Elizabeth, he should be thrust upon her enemy.

Just at that period Leicester’s familiarity towards the Queen touched gross impudence. We see him in the royal tennis-court pausing in a match against the premier peer of England, the Duke of Norfolk, to wipe his face with the handkerchief quickly filched from the Queen’s hand as she sat amongst the onlookers. The Duke raged, offered violence, and, unfortunately for royal dignity, Elizabeth’s manner showed that she took the part of Leicester. She had already bestowed on him while a commoner the Garter. The Order of St. Michael was his next honour, and he was soon created Master of the Horse, Steward of the Household, Chancellor of Oxford, Ranger of the Forests south of Trent, and, later on, Captain-General of the English forces in the Netherlands. When age and his last illness brooded over him his queen planned for him a last dazzling post—a new creation—in the Lieutenancy of England and Ireland. Despite the scandals attached to his three marriages,[37] he maintained his place in the eyes of Elizabeth, and only in after years seriously earned her displeasure. He had the rare art of “keeping on the right side” of Lord Burghley, between whom and himself a sort of armed neutrality existed, except when mutual advantage found them acting heartily in concert. Leicester, as all his history shows, was, like Buckingham, a gay dog, a ladies’ man. Pretty women hovered about him at Court—_vide_ the letter from Gilbert Talbot under date May 11, 1573, quoted in full in a previous chapter—he had to keep them at peace not to give offence. He could play with their love, enjoy it, go to utmost lengths, so long as the Queen believed that in his heart no other woman could take her place. He entertained largely, he lived and dressed as befitted his position. It was above all highly important that he should keep his health in order, preserve the elegant lines of his soldier’s figure, and defer as long as possible the days when he would, in his own phrase, “grow high-coloured and red-faced.”

When he was ordered to Buxton it was imperative that he should be properly received and housed, and not lodged in the low wooden sheds which were used by the ordinary public during their “cure,” and where their fare seems to have consisted of “oat cakes, with a viand which the hosts called mutton, but which the guests strongly suspected to be dog.”

Buxton waters, under the patronage of St. Anne “of Buckstone” and St. Andrew of Burton, were beset for many years before this with poor crippled pilgrims, who left symbols of their gratitude in the various shrines of the place in the way of crutches and candles. When the Cromwell of Henry VIII wiped England of popery these testimonials were all demolished, and he “locked up and sealed the baths and wells ...” pending the royal permission “to wash” therein. This, however, did not prevent the Earl of Shrewsbury from building a suitable house for patients, and it is thus described by a physician of the day:—

“Joyninge to the chiefe sprynge betweene the river and the bathe is a very goodly house, four square, four stories hye, so well compacte with houses and offices underneath, and above and round about, with a great chamber, and other goodly lodgings to the number of thirty, that it is and will be a bewty to beholde; and very notable for the honourable and worshipful that shall need to repair thither, as also for others.

“Yea, and the porest shall have lodgings and beds hard by for their uses only. The bathes also so beautified with seats round; defended from the ambyent air; and chimneys for fyre to ayre your garments in the bathes side, and other necessaries most decent.”

Prices for baths varied according to the social position of the patient! An archbishop seems to head the scale with a compulsory payment of £5, while a yeoman only paid twelvepence, and was entitled to as long a cure as the Primate. Lord Leicester, coming in the category of Earls, was charged twenty shillings. One half of the fee went to the doctor in command, the rest towards a fund for the cure of the poorest cripples.

The aforesaid house, which four times sheltered both Mary of Scotland and once at least Lord Leicester, is now gone; in place of it is a hotel, and there is no trace of the “pleasant warm bowling-green planted about with large sycamore trees.” This, according to another authority, was part of its garden, and it was Gilbert Talbot’s duty to entertain his father’s dazzling guest and the Queen’s favourite in this pleasant spot. During the week of this memorable visit the young man never lost an opportunity of furthering his family’s cause and of sounding influential persons at all seasons. He, like others, had constant recourse to Leicester, both by word of mouth and pen. The letter which follows[38] is a typical epistle of the kind which is scattered through the society correspondence of the day.

We see by this that Gilbert was actually at “Buckstones” doing the honours of his father’s house there to any distinguished guests, while the Earl, his father, was nailed to his post at Sheffield, and the Countess presumably busying herself with the killing of the fatted calf at Chatsworth in readiness to honour Leicester on his going southward.

She must have hailed this epistle with huge satisfaction, since it definitely announces the Earl’s presence at Buxton with his intention of accepting her invitation to Chatsworth, and at the same time assures her of his good offices on behalf of young Lady Lennox. Poor Elizabeth Cavendish was by this time a widow,[39] almost penniless, and appealing to the Queen for financial support on behalf of the baby Lady Arabella. The letter is addressed to both of Gilbert’s parents:—

“My duty, etc,—This morning early I delivered your L.’s packet to my L. of Leicester, who, upon reading thereof, said he would write to your L. by a post that is here, and willed me to send away your lackey. I asked him how long he thought to tarry here, and prayed him to tarry as long as might be. And he said he knew not whether to go to Chatsworth on Tuesday or Wednesday or Thursday come seven nights, but one of those three days without fail. There came some score of fowl here on Saturday, which served here very well yesterday, and will do this three or four days. Sir Hugh Chamley sent hither to my L. of Leicester a very fat beef, which my L. of Leicester bade me go down to see, and to take him to use as I listed; but I told him I was sure your L. would be angry if I took him; yet for all this, he would force me to take him; and so I kept him here in the town till I know your L.’s pleasure what shall be done with him; he would serve very well for Chatsworth. Bayley thinketh that they will tarry two or three days at Chatsworth. There is no word yet come from my L. of Huntington and my La. whether they will meet my L. of Leicester at Chatsworth or not; if they do (as he hath written very earnestly to them) I think he will not come to Ashby, but go the next way to Killingworth and there tarry but two or three days only. My L. of Rutland, by reason of the foul afternoon yesterday, lay here all the last night in the chamber where Sir Henry Lea lodged. I showed the letter of my La. Lennox, your daughter, to my L. of Leicester, who said that he thought it were far better for him to defer her suit to her Majesty till his own coming to the Court than otherwise to write to her before; for that he thinketh her Majesty will suppose his letter, if he should write, were but at your La.’s request, and so by another letter would straight answer it again, and so it do no great good; but at his meeting your La. he will (he saith) advise in what sort your La. shall write to the Queen Majesty, which he will carry unto her, and then be as earnest a solicitor therein as ever he was for anything in his life, and he doubteth not to prevail to your La. contention. To-morrow my L. of Leicester meaneth to go to Sir Peres a Leyes to meet with my L. of Derby, if the weather be any whit fair. And thus most humbly craving your Lo.’s blessing with my wonted prayer for your long continuance in all honour and most perfect health and long life I cease. At Buxton in haste this present Monday before noon.

“Your Lo.’s most humble and obedient son,

“G. TALBOT.

“The Lords do pray your L. to remember their case (of) knives.”[40]

There is no further comment from him on the subject of this visit, but later letters will show that it went off smoothly and resulted in benefit to the patient. As for his visit to Chatsworth it appears to have been a triumphant success. Many things were talked out between host, hostess, and guest in the few days of his sojourn. They had many experiences in common—to wit, the insane jealousy and suspicions of their Sovereign. But on this occasion their meeting hatched no unpleasant results in this respect. The Queen herself wrote to thank them for their good entertainment of her valued friend. And hereby hangs a little comedy, a mystery. Two letters, evidently of the same date, were dictated by the Queen. The skittish original in the handwriting of Sir Francis Walsingham was not sent. A sedate version of it was the one which the Shrewsburys opened. This is among the Talbot manuscripts. The lively edition remains in the Record Office among the Mary Queen of Scots MSS. for the amusement of posterity. Opinions differ as to the mood in which Elizabeth wrote it.[41] It has been suggested that it was done in a flippant ironical spirit; it has also been taken as a symptom of wild elation born of Elizabeth’s belief that her marriage with Lord Leicester would really be achieved. It seems most likely that she certainly dashed it off in a flippant mood, with the intention of chaffing the serious apprehensive High Steward of England and his wife, and that Lord Burghley, or Walsingham, advised her to desist and to allow a copy to be made, excluding the “larky” passages.

This is what she sent:—

“The Queen to the Earl and Countess of Shrewsbury. “By the Queen. “Your most assured loving cousin and sovereign, Elizabeth R. “Our very good Cousins,

“Being given to understand from our cousin of Leicester how honourably he was received by you our cousin the Countess at Chatsworth, and his diet by you both discharged at Buxtons, but also presented with a very rare present, we should do him great wrong (holding him in that place of favour we do) in case we should not let you understand in what thankful sort we accept the same at your hands, not as done unto him, but to our own self, reputing him as another ourself; and, therefore, ye may assure yourselves, that we taking upon us the debt not as his but as our own, will take care accordingly to discharge the same in such honourable sort as so well-deserving creditors as ye are shall never have cause to think ye have met with an ungrateful debtor. In this acknowledgment of new debts we may not forget our old debt, the same being as great as a sovereign can owe to a subject; when through your loyal and most careful looking to this charge committed to you, both we and our realm enjoy a peaceable government, the best good hope that to any prince on earth can befall: This good hap, then, growing from you, ye might think yourselves most unhappy if you served such a prince as should not be as ready graciously to consider of it as thankfully to acknowledge the same, whereof ye may make full account, to your comfort when time shall serve. Given under our signet in our manor of Greenwich, the 25th day of June, 1577, and in the 19th year of our reign.”

This is what Elizabeth, a sovereign of nineteen years’ standing, a woman over forty years of age, wanted to send:—

“Being given to understand from our cousin of Leicester how honourably he was lately received and used by you, our Cousin the Countess of Chatsworth, and how his diet is by you both discharged at Buxtons, we should do him great wrong (holding him in that place of favour we do) in case we should not let you understand in how thankful sort we accept the same at both your hands—which we do not acknowledge to be done unto him but unto ourselves; and therefore do mean to take upon us the debt and to acknowledge you both as creditors, so you can be content to accept us for debtor, wherein is the danger unless you cut off some part of the large allowance of diet you give him, lest otherwise the debt thereby may grow to be so great as we shall not be able to discharge the same, and so become bankrupt, and therefore we think it meet for the saving of our credit to prescribe unto you a proportion of diet which we mean in no case you shall exceed, and that is to allow him by the day of his meat two ounces of flesh referring the quality to yourselves, so as you exceed not the quantity; and for his drink one-twentieth of a pint of wine to comfort his stomach and as much of St. Anne’s sacred water as he lusteth to drink. On festival days, as is fit for a man of his quality, we can be content you shall enlarge his diet by allowing unto him for his dinner the shoulder of a wren, and for his supper a leg of the same, besides his ordinary ounces. The like proportion we mean you shall allow unto our brother of Warwick,[42] saying that we think it meet, in respect that his body is more replete than his brother’s, that the wren’s leg allowed at supper on festival days be abated; for that light suppers agreeth but with the rules of physic. This order our meaning is you shall inviolably observe, and so you may right well assure yourselves of a most thankful debtor to so well-deserving creditors.”

This letter is endorsed “M. of her Mates Ires to the Earl and Countess of Shrewsbury, of thanks for the good usage of my L. of Lec.”

Indeed, it was well that it was not sent. From one point of view it reads suspiciously like a skit devised by Elizabeth on the statements periodically sent her by Lord Shrewsbury with regard to the “diet” of the Queen of Scots, and the number of courses and dishes allowed her on festival days.

The Earl writes presently to the Queen in his wife’s name, on this, his own, and other matters. His tone is artful, astute, and conventional:—

“May it please your most excellent Majesty,

“The comfortable letters I lately received, of your own blessed handwriting, made me by oft looking on them, think my happiness more than any service (were it never so perfect) could merit; and myself more bounden to your Highness for the same than by writing I can express. And as it pleased your Majesty to write with assured confidence you have in my fidelity, and safe keeping of this lady, doubting nothing but lest her fair speech deceive me, so I am sure, although it please your Majesty to warn[43] me of her, yet doth your wisdom see well enough by my many years’ service past any inclination to her was never further, nor otherwise than of her Majesty’s service....

“Nor have I cause to trust her. Were her speech fair or crabbed my only respect hath been, is still, and so shall continue, to the duty I owe unto your Majesty.... I have her forthcoming at your Majesty’s commandment....

“And may it now further please your Majesty to license my wife and me humbly to acknowledge ourselves the more bound to your Majesty, as well as for the comfortable message Mr. Julio brought us lately from your Majesty, as that it pleased your Majesty to vouchsafe our rude and gross entertainment of our devout friend, my kinsman, my Lord of Leicester; which although in respect of our duties to your Majesty and the great goodwill we bear to him, is not so well as it ought to be, yet are we sure it contenteth him, and displeaseth not your Majesty, that he is the welcomed friend to us of all others. My wife also bids me yield her humble thanks to your Majesty ... and now (since we can do no more, nor your Highness have no more of us than our true and faithful hearts and service, wherein we will spend our lives and all we have, if your Majesty command it) we pray to God for your most excellent Majesty, as we are bounden. Sheffield, 4th of July, 1577.

“Your Majesty’s most humble, faithful servant,

“GEORGE SHREWSBURY.”

In this year, whether or no the weather specially tended to develop rheumatism or aggravate it, there seems to have been a positive rush of great persons to Buxton. A fortnight later Lord Burghley wrote to inform the Shrewsburys of his expedition to the baths and, like others, to beg for hospitality.

“I am now thoroughly licensed by her Majesty to come thither with as much speed as my old crazed body will suffer me. And, because I doubt your Lordship is and shall be pressed with many other like suits for your favour, to have the use of some lodgings there, I am bold at the present to send this my letter by post”—that is to say, by special messenger. He goes on: “I am to have in my company but Mr. Roger Manners and my son, Thomas Cecil, for whom I am also to interest your Lordship to procure them, by your commandment, some lodging as your Lordship shall please.”

The Earl of Sussex who preferred a doughty cure, drinking as much as three pints a day, made tender enquiries as to the result of the water on the Lord Treasurer. As to its effects on Lord Leicester, one can judge best by this letter from a friend to the Shrewsburys—Richard Topclyffe, a tremendous Protestant, by the way, and hunter of “mass-mongers and recusants,” to the Countess. He reassures her fully as to the health of the guest who had just quitted Chatsworth, quotes Leicester’s promise to further her welfare and that of her young stepsons, Henry and Edward Talbot, his kinsmen:—

“We did yesternight come to Ricote, my Lo. Norris’s, where late did arrive the Countesses of Bedford and Cumberland and the Earl of Cumberland, the Lord Wharton and his wife. The fat Earl[44] cometh this day, my L. of Leicester being departed towards the Court, to Sir Thomas Gresham’s, thirty-three miles hence (whereby you may perceive of his health), only a little troubled with a boil drawing to a head in the calf of the leg, which maketh him use his litter. The Countess kept him long waiting, asking if Buxton sent sound men halting home. But I never did hear him commend the place, nor the entertainment half so much: and did sware that he wished he had tarried three weeks longer with his charge ... but, saith he, it hath, and would have cost my friends deeply. His L. wished her Majesty would progress to Grafton and Killingworth, which condition he would see Buxton this summer again. But the next year is threatened that journey. I can send your La. no more unpleasant news but that his Lo. hath said with me in vows that he will be as tender over your Lord and yourself, and both yours, as over his own health: and my Lo. is very careful over his two young cousins, Mr. Ed. and Mr. Hen., to have them placed at Oxford, wishing that he may find of his kindred to work his goodwill upon, as he hath done hitherto on many unthankful persons. Good madam, further you my good Lo., your husband’s disposition that way for your son Charles.... And therewith I end; in very humble sort. The 9th of July, 1577.

“Your La. ever at command, “RIC. TOPCLIFFE.”[45]

Everything as regards the Talbot and Cavendish family was going well—merrily as a marriage-bell, so far as “Bess” was concerned. The widowhood of her youngest daughter, Lady Lennox, did not affect her. It was only one more tool to her hand in scheming for the Queen’s favour, the Queen’s largesse, and in balancing any foolish and unwise notions which the Countess might have previously entertained in regard to Queen Mary’s cause.

Mary, it may be recalled here, had had more than one chance of marriage with Lord Leicester. He had, so to speak, meandered in and out of her affairs, now as suitor, now as go-between. As recently as 1574, three years previous to his Buxton visit, he seems for the second time to have entertained thoughts of making her an offer of marriage, whereas previously he had used his influence on behalf of the Duke of Norfolk’s wooing, and again with a view to averting his condemnation. In 1574 Mary was so firmly impressed with his attitude towards her that she advised her relations in France to pave the way for friendly overtures with a gift to Leicester. She was also about this time very anxious to refurbish her wardrobe, and took a great interest in securing brilliant and becoming materials and millinery of the kind most in vogue: “Send by and by Jean de Compiègne,” she writes, “and let him bring me patterns of dresses and samples of cloth of gold and silver and silk, the most beautiful and rare that are worn at Court, to learn my pleasure about them. Order Poissy to make me a couple of headdresses, with a crown of gold and silver, such as they have formerly made for me; and tell Breton to remember his promise, and obtain for me from Italy the newest fashions in headdresses, and veils and ribbons, with gold and silver....” There was no blindness about the way she regarded the possibility of such a marriage. She held that Leicester’s motives were anything but romantic or altruistic. But if so powerful a suitor could be secured, and above all seduced from allegiance to Elizabeth, Mary had no objection to the match. Her letters to France are full of allusions to him:—[46]

“Leicester talks over M. de La Mothe to persuade him that he is wholly for me, and endeavours to gain over Walsingham my mortal enemy to this effect.”

And again: “M. de La Mothe advises me to entreat that my cousin of Guise, my grandmother and yours, will write some civil letters to Leicester, thanking him for his courtesy to me, as if he had done much for me, and by the same medium send him some handsome present, which will do me much good. He takes great delight in furniture; if you send him some crystal cup in your name, and allow me to pay for it, or some fine Turkey carpet, or such like as you may think most fitting, it will perhaps save me this winter, and will make him much ashamed, or suspected by his mistress, and all will assist me. For he intends to make me speak of marriage or die, as it is said, so that either he or his brother may have to do with this crown. I beseech you try if such small device can save me and I shall entertain him with the other, at a distance.”

How this letter reveals her impulse for romance, her pathetic, dogged attempts to believe herself all-powerful!

Leicester, naturally, was far too cautious to take the tremendous risk involved, and contented himself with keeping at a distance and in exchanging polite and friendly letters with the Shrewsburys, such as the one quoted on page 170. He was an adept at this kind of sugary testimonial. Certainly no finer instance could be given in support of the dignity, virtue, and innocence of an intriguing and busy lady from the pen of an arch-courtier—a man accused of wife-murder, seduction, poisoning, and political treachery.