THE COURT
See where she comes, lo! where,
In gaudy green arraying,
A prince of beauty rich and rare
Pretends to go a-Maying.
_Triumphs of Oriana._
I
ELIZABETH AND JAMES
[_Bibliographical Note._--The formal history of the period is
covered, with the exception of the years 1588-1603, by J. A.
Froude, _History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the
Defeat of the Armada_ (1856-70), and S. R. Gardiner, _History
of England from the Accession of James I to the Outbreak of the
Civil War_ (1863-84). A beginning towards filling the gap has
been made in vol. i of E. P. Cheyney, _History of England from
the Defeat of the Armada to the Death of Elizabeth_ (1914), in
which the organization of the court and administration is very
fully treated. For specifically social history may be added J.
R. Green, _History of the English People_ (1877-80), an
expansion of the same writer's _Short History of the English
People_ (1874), and H. D. Traill, _Social England_ (1893-7).
Shorter surveys are A. D. Innes, _England under the Tudors_
(1905), A. F. Pollard, _History of England, 1547-1603_ (1910),
G. M. Trevelyan, _England under the Stuarts_ (1904), F. C.
Montague, _History of England, 1603-60_ (1907), all with
detailed bibliographies, of which Professor Pollard's is
notably full and good. The chief contemporary chronicles are
those of Holinshed (1577), Stowe (1580, &c.), and Camden
(1615-25), while personalia and Court details are preserved in
R. Naunton, _Fragmenta Regalia_ (1641), J. Finett, _Philoxenis_
(1656), E. Bohnn, _Character of Queen Elizabeth_ (1693), and
the malicious pamphlets collected by Sir W. Scott in his
_Secret History of the Court of James the First_ (1811). Court
life is the main theme of L. Aikin, _Memoirs of the Court of
Queen Elizabeth_ (1818) and _Memoirs of the Court of James I_
(1822), and of A. Strickland, _The Life of Queen Elizabeth_
(1840), while the best biographical studies of the sovereigns
are E. S. Beesly, _Queen Elizabeth_ (1892), M. Creighton,
_Queen Elizabeth_ (1896), and T. F. Henderson, _James I_ and
_VI_ (1904). Court ceremonies are treated in J. Nichols,
_Progresses of Elizabeth_ (2nd ed., 1823). Contemporary England
is pictured in W. Harrison, _Description of Britain_ (1577),
and W. B. Rye, _England as Seen by Foreigners_ (1865), and the
extracts in J. D. Wilson, _Life in Shakespeare's England_
(1911). The studies of social details in N. Drake, _Shakespeare
and his Times_ (1817), and G. W. Thornbury, _Shakspere's
England_ (1856), are now superseded by the combined work of
many collaborators in _Shakespeare's England_ (1916), where
special bibliographies on numerous subjects will be found.
Shorter books of interest are H. Hall, _Society in the
Elizabethan Age_ (1886), H. T. Stephenson, _The Elizabethan
People_ (1910), and P. H. Ditchfield, _The England of
Shakespeare_ (1917). London may be specially studied in C. L.
Kingsford's edition (1908) of J. Stowe's _Survey of London_
(1598) and in W. J. Loftie, _History of London_ (1883), H. B.
Wheatley, _London Past and Present_ (1891), T. F. Ordish,
_Shakespeare's London_ (1904), W. Besant, _London in the Time
of the Stuarts_ (1903), _London in the Time of the Tudors_
(1904), _London South of the Thames_ (1912), H. T. Stephenson,
_Shakespeare's London_ (1905), J. A. de Rothschild,
_Shakespeare and his Day_ (1906), H. A. Harben, _A Dictionary
of London_ (1918), and the publications of the _London
Topographical Society_; Westminster in J. T. Smith,
_Antiquities of Westminster_ (1807), and E. Sheppard, _The Old
Royal Palace of Whitehall_ (1902); and the royal houses
generally in F. Chapman, _Ancient Royal Palaces in and near
London_ (1902), R. S. Rait, _Royal Palaces of England_ (1911),
A. W. Clapham and W. H. Godfrey, _Some Famous Buildings and
their Story_ (1913), and the numerous monographs cited in the
notes to the present chapter. Perhaps the most useful books of
general reference are _The Dictionary of National Biography_,
G. E. C[okayne]'s _Complete Peerage_, W. A. Shaw's _The Knights
of England_, and _The Victoria History of the Counties of
England_.
Behind and beyond these treatises, much social and personal
material is available in prints or abstracts of official and
private letters and analogous documents. The following is not
an exhaustive list of sources. There are the _Calendars of
State Papers_, of which the _Domestic_, _Foreign_, _Scottish_,
_Spanish_, and _Venetian Papers_ are the most valuable. There
are the Privy Council minutes in J. R. Dasent, _Acts of the
Privy Council_ (1890-1907), and those of the Welsh Council in
R. Flenley's _Calendar_ (1916). There is, unfortunately, no
collection of the letters missive of Elizabeth. There are full
texts, by no means only of treaties, in T. Rymer's _Foedera_
(1704-35). Proclamations are calendared in R. Steele,
_Bibliography of Royal Proclamations_ (1910-11), and London
civic correspondence in _Analytical Index to the Remembrancia_
(1878). There are the _Reports of the Historical Manuscripts
Commission_, covering private collections, of which the
_Hatfield MSS._ (papers of Lord Burghley and Sir R. Cecil) are
by far the most important, while the _Rutland MSS._, _Loseley
MSS._ (Sir T. Cawarden and Sir W. More), _Pepys MSS._ (Earl of
Leicester), _Finch MSS._ (Sir T. Heneage), and _Middleton MSS._
are also useful. With these may be classed J. E. Jackson,
_Longleat Papers_ (_Wilts. Archaeological Magazine_, xiv,
xviii, xix), I. H. Jeayes, _Catalogue of the Muniments at
Berkeley Castle_ (1892, George Lord Hunsdon), and H. W.
Saunders, _Stiffkey MSS._ (1915, Sir Nathaniel Bacon). There is
a long series of collections of letters from the seventeenth
century onwards, in some of which the interest is mainly
diplomatic, in others ecclesiastical, in others again personal;
_Cabala_ (1654, Lord Burghley), D. Digges, _The Compleat
Ambassador_ (1655, Sir F. Walsingham), E. Sawyer, _Winwood
Memorials_ (1725), F. Peck, _Desiderata Curiosa_ (1732), A.
Collins, _Sydney Papers_ (1746), T. Birch, _Memoirs of Queen
Elizabeth_ (1754, Anthony Bacon), S. Haynes and W. Murdin, _A
Collection of State Papers_ (1740-59, Lord Burghley), L.
Howard, _A Collection of Letters_ (1753), H. Harington, _Nugae
Antiquae_ (1769, 1804, Sir J. Harington), Earl of Hardwicke,
_Miscellaneous State Papers_ (1778), E. Lodge, _Illustrations
of British History and Manners_ (1791, 1838), A. Clifford,
_Sadleir Papers_ (1809), H. Ellis, _Original Letters
Illustrative of English History_ (1825-46), A. J. Kempe,
_Loseley MSS._ (1835), T. Wright, _Queen Elizabeth and her
Times_ (1838), G. Goodman, _Court of King James I_ (1839), J.
P. Collier, _Egerton Papers_ (1840, Sir T. Egerton), H.
Robinson, _Zurich Letters_ (1842-5), T. Birch, _Court and Times
of James I_ (1848), J. Bruce, _Letters of Elizabeth and James
I_ (1849), J. Bruce and T. T. Perowne, _Correspondence of M.
Parker_ (1853), S. Williams, _Letters of John Chamberlain_
(1861), I. H. Jeayes, _Letters of Philip Gawdy_ (1906). There
are biographies, in which also collections of letters are often
included; J. Smyth, _Lives of the Berkeleys_ (_c._ 1618),
_Memoirs of Robert Carey_ (1577-1627), J. Strype, _Sir T.
Smith_ (1698), T. Birch, _Henry Prince of Wales_ (1760), N. H.
Nicolas, _William Davison_ (1823), E. Nares, _William Cecil
Lord Burghley_ (1828-31), J. H. Wiffen, _The House of Russell_
(1833), J. W. Burgon, _Sir T. Gresham_ (1839), N. H. Nicolas,
_Sir C. Hatton_ (1847), W. B. Devereux, _The Devereux, Earls of
Essex_ (1853), J. Spedding, _Francis Bacon_ (1861-74), E.
Edwards, _Sir W. Raleigh_ (1868), E. T. Bradley, _Arabella
Stuart_ (1889), B. C. Hardy, _Arbella Stuart_ (1913), E. Gosse,
_John Donne_ (1899), L. P. Smith, _Sir H. Wotton_ (1907), Mrs.
A. Richardson, _The Lover of Queen Elizabeth_ (1907), A. H.
Mathew and A. Calthrop, _Sir T. Matthew_ (1907), C. Stählin,
_Sir F. Walsingham und seine Zeit_ (1908), M. A. E. Green,
_Elizabeth Electress Palatine and Queen of Bohemia_ (1909), A.
Cecil, _Sir R. Cecil, Earl of Salisbury_ (1915). The Camden
Society has published the diaries of John Dee (1842), Henry
Machyn (1848), John Manningham (1868), Sir Francis Walsingham
(1870), and Sir Roger Wilbraham (1902). Finally the
ambassadorial dispatches analysed in the calendars are
supplemented, for Scotland by Sir James Melville's _Memoirs_
(1827), for the Netherlands by J. Kervyn de Lettenhove,
_Relations politiques des Pays-Bas et de l'Angleterre_
(1882-1900), for Spain by the _Correspondencia de Felipe II con
sus embajadores en Inglaterra_ (_C. D. I._ lxxxvii,
lxxxix-xcii) and the _Viaje de Juan Fernandez de Velasco á
Inglaterra_ (_C. D. I._ lxxi), and for France by many
publications, of which C. P. Cooper, _Correspondance
diplomatique de La Mothe Fénelon_ (1838-75), the _Mémoires_
(1850) of the Duc de Sully, and _Ambassades de M. de la Boderie
en Angleterre_ (1750) are the richest in court detail.]
AT the close of the Middle Ages, the mimetic instinct, deep-rooted in
the psychology of the folk, had reached the third term of its social
evolution. After colouring the liturgy of the Church and the festival
celebrations of the municipal guilds, it had attached itself, in an
outgrowth of minstrelsy, to the household of the sovereign, which had
now definitely become, with the advent of the Tudors, the centre of the
intellectual and artistic life of the country. It will be manifest, in
the course of the present treatise, that the palace was the point of
vantage from which the stage won its way, against the linked opposition
of an alienated pulpit and an alienated municipality, to an ultimate
entrenchment of economic independence. On the literary side the _milieu_
of the Court had its profound effect in helping to determine the
character of the Elizabethan play as a psychological hybrid, in which
the romance and the erudition, dear to the bower and the library,
interact at every turn with the robust popular elements of farce and
melodrama. It is worth while, therefore, to attempt to recover something
of the atmosphere of the Tudor Court, and to define the conditions under
which the presentation of plays formed a recurring interest in its
bustling many-coloured life.
In every court the personality of the sovereign is naturally a dominant
factor. Who shall say with what bitter discretion learnt in the hard
school of adversity, or with what burden of secret policy for the
shaping of the nation's destiny in critical hours, Elizabeth mounted the
steps of her throne when her summons came in 1558. Our concern, at
least, is with externalities. Elizabeth, at twenty-five, was a young and
attractive queen, with her full share of the sensuous Tudor blood, and
of her father's early gust for colour and for amusement, for jewels and
for pageantry. 'Regina tota amoribus dedita est venationibusque,
aucupiis, choreis et rebus ludicris insumens dies noctesque,' wrote one
of her own subjects in 1563; and the dispatches of the Spanish and
Venetian diplomatists strike the same note.[1] Although these things had
their appeal for her to the end, she was perhaps not so utterly absorbed
in them, even at the beginning, as the observers thought. Yet it was
assuredly the love of excitement and spectacle, no less than the desire
to win the heart of London, that led her to encourage by her presence
the revived folk-festivals of the citizens and the lawyers, the morris
dances and May-games by land and water, and the Midsummer watch, which
she hurried from Richmond to behold _incognita_ from the Earl of
Pembroke's house at Baynard's Castle. There was much talk of marriage
for her in these early years. Philip of Spain himself, incredible as it
now sounds, the Kings of Denmark and Sweden, the Archdukes Charles and
Ferdinand of Austria, the Duke of Nemours, the Earl of Arran, and of her
own subjects, the Earl of Arundel, Lord Robert Dudley, Sir William
Pickering, were some of the possible consorts whose names passed from
mouth to mouth. The gaiety of Whitehall was enhanced by the outward show
of courtship, the embassies and their trains, the gifts and compliments,
the receptions and banquets. But it soon became apparent that, from
policy or from temperament, the Queen had no serious intention of
trusting herself in marriage. Gradually the troops of suitors faded
away. Dudley alone was left, and with Dudley the Tudor lack of
reticence, which had already brought Elizabeth into trouble as a girl,
permitted familiarities wherein hostile and interested critics soon
found material for a scandal. Whether her heart or her senses, now or at
any time, were touched cannot be said. After all, Dudley had, as time
went on, to share her favours, such as they were, with Hatton and with
Oxford, with Heneage and with Raleigh and with Blount. But it is to our
purpose that, when the embassies were gone, and Elizabeth became more
and more involved in the web of political intrigues, and began to lose
her looks and her health, the court which had started so brilliantly
might well have sunk into the commonplace of middle age, had it not been
for the presence of a band of high-spirited youths, bound in the
interests of their careers to maintain the traditions of official
gallantry, and above all to incur no small expense in leading the revels
for the recreation of an imperious and critical mistress. For although
Elizabeth loved magnificence, she loved economy more. The repair of a
ruined exchequer was one of the primary objects and triumphs of her
statecraft. Her household, although stately, was by no means on her
father's, or even her sister's, scale of expenditure. The splendours of
her jewel-house and even of her wardrobe largely owed their origin to
the _strenae_ of successive New Years. A similar policy governed the
ordering of her amusements. Her Christmas annals afford no parallels to
the costly masks, with their marvels of architectural decoration, which
had glorified the court of Henry and were to glorify that of James. Her
masks, at least those she paid for, were dances, not pageants. The great
spectacles of the reign were liturgies, undertaken by her gallants, or
by the nobles whose country houses she visited in the course of her
annual progresses. The most famous of all, the 'Princely Pleasures of
Kenilworth' in 1575, was at the expense of Dudley, to whom the ancient
royal castle had long been alienated. Gradually, no doubt, the financial
stringency was relaxed. Camden notes a growing tendency to luxury about
1574; others trace the change to the coming of the Duke of Alençon in
1581.[2] Elizabeth had found the way to evoke a national spirit, and at
the same time to fill her coffers, by the encouragement of piratical
enterprise, and the sumptuous entertainments prepared for the welcome of
Monsieur were paid for out of the spoils brought back by Drake in the
_Golden Hind_.[3] The Alençon negotiations, whether seriously intended
or not, represent Elizabeth's last dalliance with the idea of matrimony.
They gave way to that historic pose of unapproachable virginity, whereby
an elderly Cynthia, without complete loss of dignity, was enabled to the
end to maintain a sentimental claim upon the attentions, and the purses,
of her youthful servants. The strenuous years, which led up to the final
triumph over the Armada in 1588, spared but little room for revels and
for progresses. They left Elizabeth an old woman. But with the removal
of the strain the spirit of gaiety awoke. The entertainments during the
progresses of 1591 and 1592 hardly yield to those of 1575 in the cost
and ingenuity of their symbolical devices. Essex, the darling of these
later years, perhaps found it easier to keep the court alive with tilts
and masks, than to play his required part in the sentimental comedy. The
love of the dance endured with Elizabeth to the verge of the grave. Her
share in the Twelfth Night revels of 1599 was reported to Spain with the
sarcastic comment that 'the head of the Church of England and Ireland
was to be seen in her old age dancing three or four gaillards'. A year
or so later, she was still dancing 'gayement et de belle disposition' at
the wedding of Anne Russell, and in April 1602 she trod two gaillards
with the Duke of Nevers.[4] It was near the end of her life, too, when
her desire to see Falstaff in love inspired Shakespeare, to the regret
of those who sentimentalize over Falstaff, with the racy English farce
of _The Merry Wives of Windsor_. During these last years of all, there
was a touch of fever in her restless activity. She needed much
entertainment both within doors and without in the course of 1600, and
her wearied statesmen resented the arduousness of the progress upon
which she resolved on the verge of sixty-seven. She went a-Maying at
Highgate in 1601 and at Lewisham in 1602. During the next winter her
councillors provided a special series of festivities, with the object of
inducing her to spend Christmas in London, instead of at Richmond; and
we learn that the Court 'flourisht more then ordinarie' with plays, only
a month before the indomitable lady took to her bed, and died of no very
clearly ascertained disease, but in 'a settled and unremoveable
melancholy'.
When James came to London he adopted the traditional splendours of the
English Court, in place of the simpler style of living to which he had
been accustomed in Edinburgh. His scale of expenditure, indeed, was from
the beginning far in excess of Elizabeth's, and landed him before long
in considerable embarrassment of the purse. For this there were various
reasons: the necessity of keeping up supplementary establishments for a
queen consort and an heir apparent, the personal inclination of Anne of
Denmark for ostentatious prodigality, the crowd of hungry Scots
demanding provision for their needs; above all, no doubt, the absence of
any statesmanlike instinct for financial control. There is plenty of
evidence that the dignity and sobriety which, on the whole, had
characterized Elizabeth's Court soon vanished under the lax rule of her
successors. But extravagance and wantonness, although deplorable in
themselves, are not necessarily unfriendly to the arts. The transference
of the leading companies of players to the direct service of the royal
households made it clear that the drama would occupy no less important
a place in the new order of things than it had done in the old. And in
fact the yearly tale of performances at court soon doubled and trebled
that which had sufficed for the Christmas 'solace' of Elizabeth.
Doubtless the King had some personal taste for the drama, though perhaps
less than other members of his family.[5] He had long entertained the
English actor, Laurence Fletcher, into his service and shown him high
favour, and Jonson is our authority for the statement that Shakespeare's
plays did 'take', not only 'Eliza' but 'our James'. But his great
preoccupation was the hunt, to which he hurried on every opportunity,
regardless of the discontent of London and even of the claims of
business. Anne, on the other hand, brought up in a court which had been
one of the first to come under the influence of the English players
abroad, and wedded into a court from which the Kirk had never succeeded
in expelling the French habits of amusement domiciled by Mary Queen of
Scots, found her chief pleasure in the spectacular arts; and to her
influence is mainly due that great development of the Jacobean mask,
which gave such scope to the exercise of courtly pens, and to the
remarkable decorative genius of Inigo Jones.[6] Anne's interest in all
forms of the drama, which even led her to the innovation of visiting a
theatre, was fully shared by the royal children, and combined in Henry
Frederick, Prince of Wales, with a passion for the knightly exercise of
the tilt to prolong into the seventeenth century the Renaissance
tradition of spectacular feats of arms. The death of this beloved
prince, to whom the thoughts of England, disillusioned of his father,
turned as the hope of the future, fell near the end of our period. The
splendour of the Court festivities reached a climax with the wedding of
the Princess Elizabeth in 1613, and faded even before the death of Anne
herself in 1619. It had its revival under Henrietta Maria.
The Court was a movable institution, constituted by the actual presence
of the sovereign. Abundant choice both of 'standing houses' or 'houses
of abode' and of country manors was available.[7] The most important
palaces, under Elizabeth, were five in number, Whitehall, Hampton Court,
Greenwich, Richmond, and Windsor. All of these stood upon the river, and
all except Windsor and in part Greenwich dated structurally from the
reign of Henry VII or that of Henry VIII. The ancient palace of
Westminster, with its royal chapel of St. Stephen and its great hall
built by William Rufus and rebuilt by Richard II, served for coronations
and for the housing of Parliament and the courts of justice. But it was
no longer used as a royal residence, and the name of one of its
principal chambers, the 'white hall', had been transferred to the
neighbouring structure of York Place, originally begun by Wolsey, and
surrendered to Henry VIII, a fruitless sacrifice, at the moment of the
great Cardinal's downfall in 1530.[8] This was the metropolitan palace.
It was an extensive and irregular pile, covering many acres. Through its
centre ran the highway from London to Westminster, piercing two arched
gateways, of which the northern one was the work of Holbein. The hall
and chapel, with the royal lodgings, galleries, and privy garden, stood
on the east, and were connected with the river by a flight of privy
stairs. On the west, reached by galleries over the gateways, were many
additional lodgings, grouped round a cockpit, a tennis-court, and a
tilt-yard. At the back of these lay St. James's Park.[9] Richmond and
Hampton Court, a few miles up the river, and Greenwich, a few miles
down, were all accessible by river as well as by road, and the royal
barge lay ready in its bargehouse opposite Whitehall, off Paris Garden
on the Surrey side. Both for Court and city the Thames was a frequented
water-way. Richmond had been built by Henry VII to replace the older
palace of Sheen, destroyed by fire in 1497.[10] Hampton Court, also upon
the site of an earlier royal manor-house, was like Whitehall a monument
of the architectural taste of Wolsey, and like Whitehall became part of
the spoil of Henry VIII, by whom it was completed.[11] Greenwich owed
its origin to Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, who gave it the name of
'Placentia' or 'Pleasaunce'. It had been enlarged by Henry VII and was
the birthplace and the favourite habitation of Henry VIII.[12] Windsor,
on the other hand, which stood in a wide hunting domain some score or
more of miles up the river, was an ancient fortress of the English
kings. William the Conqueror had built it; William of Wykeham had added
to it for Edward III, who established the college of St. George within
its walls upon an older foundation of Henry I, and made it the
habitation of his chivalric Order of the Garter. Elizabeth modified the
mediaeval aspect of the castle, by adding a library and a garden
terrace.[13]
Some older royal residences in London had long been converted to other
purposes. The Tower served as a wardrobe or storehouse and a prison, but
was only occupied by the sovereign on the eve of a coronation.[14] The
Wardrobe on St. Andrew's Hill was assigned to the Master of the Wardrobe
as an office and personal lodging.[15] The Savoy held a hospital,
together with various sets of lodgings.[16] Baynard's Castle had been
granted to the Herberts, nominally as keepers, in 1546.[17]
Crosby Hall was the abode of wealthy merchants.[18] Somerset House, the
unfinished palace of the Protector on the Strand, had been made over to
Elizabeth as princess by Edward VI in 1552. She sometimes occupied it,
in order to be near the city, but more usually kept it available for
foreign visitors or favoured courtiers.[19] For the latter purpose it
was supplemented by Durham House, farther westwards on the Strand, which
Henry VIII had acquired by exchange from the see of Durham in 1536.[20]
Most of the ecclesiastical buildings, which had reverted to the Crown on
the dissolution of the religious orders, such as the Blackfriars, the
Whitefriars, and the Charterhouse, had been alienated.[21] Elizabeth
retained the priory of St. John in Clerkenwell, and placed there some
of the minor Household offices, including that of the Revels.[22]
Somewhat retired from the press of city life lay St. James in the
Fields, built on the site of an old leper hospital by Henry VIII in
1532. It ranked almost as a country house. A park, enclosed in 1537 and
adorned with the artificial water known as Rosamund's Pool, separated it
from Whitehall, and on the other side of it stretched the enclosures of
Hyde and Marylebone Parks.[23] There were many country houses still
farther afield. Oatlands, on the Surrey border of Windsor Forest, served
for hunting.[24] To this, and to Nonsuch in Surrey, the Queen often made
resort.[25] Eltham, in Kent, was another hunting ground, convenient of
access from Greenwich. Visits were paid from time to time to Havering
Bower in Essex, Enfield in Middlesex, Hatfield, where Elizabeth had
lived as a princess, in Hertfordshire, the monastic spoil of Reading
Abbey in Berkshire, Woodstock in Oxfordshire, and the ancient capital of
Winchester in Hampshire.[26] But for the most part these, and yet other
royal castles and manors in more distant counties, slept peacefully
under the privileged sway of their constables and keepers.[27] There
were some changes at the succession of James. Somerset House was
assigned to Queen Anne, and a not very successful attempt was made to
re-name it Queen's Court. This appellation was revived when the creation
of an Earl of Somerset in 1613 seemed suggestive of confusion, and then
abandoned in favour of Denmark House.[28] Nonsuch, Havering, and
Hatfield, with many other manors, were also assigned to Anne as part of
her dowry. Hatfield was exchanged in 1607 with Lord Salisbury for
Theobalds, to which James rather than Anne appears to have taken a
fancy, and the transfer gave occasion for a characteristic entertainment
by Ben Jonson. Oatlands was given to Anne in 1611 and Greenwich in
1613.[29] At the beginning of the reign Oatlands had been the royal
nursery for Henry and Elizabeth, and it continued to be Henry's country
home for some years.[30] Elizabeth, however, was soon placed in the
charge of Lord Harington, first at Exton in Rutlandshire and then at
Combe Abbey in Warwickshire. When she came to Court in 1608, a house was
found for her at Kew. Both she and Henry sometimes resided at Hampton
Court and at Whitehall, where they were lodged in that part of the
palace known as the Cockpit, on the border of St. James's Park.[31] But
St. James's Palace itself was reserved for the ultimate use of Henry,
and here he set up his establishment as Prince of Wales in 1610 and died
in 1612. Richmond and Woodstock were given him for country houses, and
at his death he was also buying up interests in Sheen House and
Kenilworth.[32] For Charles Holdenby or Holmby House in Northamptonshire
was bought in 1605, and on his brother's death he succeeded to St.
James's.[33] The King was thus left with Whitehall, Hampton Court, and
Windsor as his principal palaces. Naturally those of his wife and son
remained available for occasional visits, and the hunting facilities of
Theobalds and Woodstock were an agreeable addition to those of Hampton
Court and Windsor themselves.[34] But they did not suffice for James,
who set about providing himself with hunting quarters in various
localities. The most important of these was Royston Priory, on the
borders of Cambridgeshire and Herts., which he bought after a year's
trial in 1604 and enlarged into a house of some pretensions.[35] Others
were at Newmarket, Thetford, Hinchinbrook, Ware, and Woking, while
stables were kept up at St. Albans and Reading.[36] Theobalds, Royston,
and Newmarket were all reached by a private road, maintained, like the
King's Road to Hampton Court and another to Greenwich, by James
himself.[37]
The arrangement of the principal rooms of a Tudor palace can be well
studied on the plan of Hampton Court.[38] There is a great Hall, and at
the back of it the entrance to a Great Chamber. At Hampton Court and
Richmond this appears to have served also as a Guard or Watching
Chamber, but at Whitehall the Guard Chamber and the Great Chamber were
distinct.[39] Out of the Great Chamber opens the Presence Chamber, and
out of this again the Privy Chamber, which gives admittance to the
private apartments of the sovereign. These included one or more Parlours
or Withdrawing Chambers, as well as the Bed Chamber.[40] From the
opposite end of the Great Chamber runs a gallery, which passes round two
sides of a court and leads to the royal Closet, overlooking and forming
part of the Chapel. Into this gallery also opens the Council Chamber.
The Presence Chamber and the Privy Chamber were the essential elements
of the scheme, and had to be contrived, no matter how humbly the Court
was lodged.[41] The Presence Chamber seems to have been open to any one
who was entitled to appear at Court at all. Access to the Privy Chamber,
on the other hand, where Elizabeth dined and supped and sat with her
ladies, was jealously reserved for privy councillors and other favoured
persons.[42] At Whitehall there were also a Privy Gallery and a Privy
Garden, which counted as parts of the Privy Chamber.[43] Occasionally
ambassadors or distinguished foreign visitors might have audience there,
or even in a Withdrawing Chamber.[44] But ordinarily presentations were
made in the Presence Chamber, and here the crowd of courtiers waited on
Sundays for the ceremony of the Queen's going to chapel. Paul Hentzner
has described the scene as he saw it at Greenwich in 1598.[45]
In the Presence Chamber, too, Hentzner saw the royal table laid and the
ceremony of tasting performed, before the royal dishes were carried to a
more private apartment. An ancient custom by which the sovereign
occasionally dined in state in the Presence Chamber, and was served by
great nobles of the realm upon the knee, from cupboards of massy plate,
had fallen into disuse, but was revived by James.[46] In the Hall, or if
more convenient in the Great Chamber, plays were given.[47] For this
purpose the dimensions, in the larger palaces, were fully adequate. The
hall of Hampton Court is 115 ft. × 40 ft., that of Windsor 108 ft. × 33
ft., that of Eltham, locally known as King John's Barn, 100 ft. × 36 ft.
These alone survive, but the hall of Richmond is known to have been 100
ft. × 40 ft., and that of Whitehall 100 ft. × 45 ft.[48] But for an
exceptional entertainment, such as a great banquet or mask, more space
was desirable, and temporary structures, known as banqueting-houses,
were erected as required. The device had already been employed by Henry
VIII. A banqueting-house had been one of the splendours at the Field of
the Cloth of Gold in 1520, and two others, one of which was called the
'long house', or 'disguising house', were decorated by Holbein for the
reception of a French embassy at Greenwich in 1527.[49] Edward VI also
had had a banqueting-house in Hyde Park for the reception of another
French embassy in 1551.[50] In the first year of Elizabeth's reign she
used four banqueting-houses, one for the French ambassadors at
Westminster in May, two others at Greenwich and Cobham Hall in July,[51]
and a fourth at Horsley in August. A later one, prepared at Whitehall in
June 1572 for the reception of the Duke of Montmorency, required 116
workmen to decorate it at a cost of £224. It was hung with birch and
ivy, and garnished with bushels of roses and honeysuckles from the royal
gardens.[52] Finally, one even more elaborate was erected, also at
Whitehall, for the coming of Alençon's ambassadors in 1581.[53] This,
although only constructed of fir and deal, was strong enough to stand
until 1606. James then had it pulled down and replaced by a new one of
brick and stone, which was ready in time for the Christmas festivities
of 1607.[54] This in its turn stood until 12 January 1619, when it was
destroyed by fire, and in its place arose the stately edifice of Inigo
Jones, which still glorifies Whitehall.[55] A supplementary room of more
temporary character was put up for the Princess Elizabeth's wedding in
1613.[56]
The mediaeval court had been largely an ambulatory one. The principal
feasts, at which the King wore his crown, were generally kept in one of
the great cities--Westminster, Winchester, Gloucester; and for the rest
of the year the household passed by short 'removes' from castle to
castle and manor to manor throughout the realm. For this there were
economic as well as political reasons. Many mouths had to be fed, and it
was easier and less onerous upon the country to devour one local
storehouse after another, than to organize an effective transport from
the various sources of supply to a single capital. But with the new
political stability and the enhanced royal wealth, which followed the
coming of the Tudors, a more settled order of things prevailed.
Henceforward the greater part of the year was spent at one or other of
the 'standing houses' within reach of the administrative head-quarters
on the Thames, and the wanderings were confined to a 'progress' of one
or two summer months, during which the sovereign took the air, and
hunted, and made his presence familiar to his outlying subjects. Under
Elizabeth the year may be said to have begun in the middle of November,
when she returned to London, generally by road from one of the Surrey
palaces through Chelsea. The event, at any rate during the later years
of the reign, almost took rank as a ceremony of state. The Queen came by
night, with the Master of the Horse leading her palfrey by the bridle
and a great noble carrying the sword. Ambassadors were invited to be
present, and the Lord Mayor and citizens were called upon to don their
rich gowns and chains and give a torchlight welcome.[57] The date was no
doubt determined, partly by the approach of winter, partly by that of
Accession Day or, as it was often but incorrectly called, Coronation
Day, on 17 November. This anniversary, from 1570 onwards, was kept with
a solemn celebration, which appears to have originated spontaneously in
or near Oxford, to have been adopted throughout the country, to have
been revived during the next reign as an indication of popular
discontent with James, and to have been still traceable in the form of a
holiday at the Exchequer and at the schools of Westminster and Merchant
Taylors in 1827.[58] It was on this day that the tilt-yard of
Westminster blazed with the pageantry and rang with the spears of the
manhood of England, gathered under the leadership of Sir Henry Lee to do
honour to the virgin Queen. The Earl of Essex gave the final touch of
flattery to the occasion in 1592 by appearing in his collar of SS, 'a
thing unwonted', except on days of the most solemn ceremony.[59] In
1588, after the Armada, Elizabeth ordered a renewal of the tilting upon
19 November, which happened to be St. Elizabeth's day, but this second
triumph seems to have been only occasional.[60]
Christmas was ordinarily kept at Whitehall; the occasional substitution
of Richmond, Greenwich, Hampton Court, or even Windsor is sometimes to
be explained by the prevalence of the plague in London, sometimes
perhaps by nothing more than a royal whim. But during the years of
strain which preceded the Armada Elizabeth appears to have shunned
Whitehall as much as possible, not merely at Christmas but at all times,
probably from a sense that her personal security could be better
provided for in some more compact and less accessible abode.[61] Whether
in Whitehall or elsewhere, the twelve days of Christmas, from the
Nativity to the Epiphany, were a season of high revels. I do not find
that Elizabeth, like her father and brother, ever appointed a Lord of
Misrule, although there is some trace of an election of a King of the
Bean on the last and greatest day of all, Twelfth Night.[62] But Twelfth
Night itself, with St. Stephen's, St. John's, Innocents', and New Year's
Day, were regularly appointed for plays and masks, which often
overflowed on to other nights during the period. Sometimes, too, there
was another tilt, or a barriers in the hall or banqueting-room. And on
New Year's Day it was etiquette for the lords and ladies at Court and
many of the officers of the household to present the Queen with the New
Year gifts or _strenae_ which had been immemorial in European courts
since the days of the Roman Empire, while she in turn rewarded the
donors with gilt plate from the royal jewel house and distributed
largess amongst her personal attendants and other customary
recipients.[63]
The revels were renewed for Candlemas (2 Feb.) and for Shrovetide,
either at the Christmas head-quarters or at some other palace to which
the Court had meanwhile removed. Some part of the early spring was
nearly always spent away from Westminster, and during her later years
Elizabeth not infrequently left part of the household behind her and
made a short 'by progress' to the house of Lord Burghley at Theobalds or
that of Sir Thomas Gresham at Osterley or some other favoured courtier.
The rest of the spring and summer was divided between Westminster and
the river palaces, to and from which the Queen went by land or water,
dining on the way, often at Chelsea or at the house of one John Lacy at
Putney, and breaking the long journey from Greenwich to Richmond or
Hampton Court by a night's rest, generally at the archiepiscopal abode
of Lambeth. It was customary to ring the church bells as she entered or
left a parish, and the entries of payments to ringers in the accounts of
churchwardens serve as a convenient clue to her comings and goings.
Easter, with the distribution of alms and washing of feet on Maundy
Thursday, and Whitsuntide were kept as ecclesiastical, rather than
secular, feasts. On 23 April, St. George's Day, the Queen went in
procession about the Court with the Knights of the Garter and the Chapel
in their copes. This was the occasion for the choosing of new knights,
but their subsequent installation at a Garter feast took place without
the Queen at Windsor, whither they rode in great and costly
splendour.[64] During the summer there might be another tilt, and the
Queen is recorded to have kept 'Mayings' on 1 May and to have taken part
from time to time in other survivals of the ancient folk festivals.[65]
About July she started for her 'progress', which might occupy from one
to two months, according to her fancy, or if there was to be no regular
progress, departed for one of the more sequestered houses, Windsor or
Reading, Oatlands or Nonsuch, where she delighted to spend the autumn.
During this period fell her birthday, on 7 September.[66]
The Jacobean calendar underwent certain modifications, largely
determined by the King's sporting instincts. James kept his Court for
the most part at Whitehall, Hampton Court, and Windsor. After the winter
of 1603, when plague held him at Hampton Court, his Christmasses and
Shrovetides were invariably at Whitehall, and hither he always proceeded
at the end of October, in time for the celebration of All Saints' Day on
1 November.[67] On 5 November was kept, after 1605, the anniversary of
Gunpowder Plot, and to this day, in course of time, the winter bonfires
of folk custom transferred themselves.[68] The Twelve Nights, with
Candlemas and Shrovetide, remained the chief seasons for plays and
masks, but the plays were greatly increased in number. One was often
given on All Saints' Day (1 Nov.) to usher in the winter, and others
were called for at intervals during the winter months. James was also
regularly at Whitehall on his Accession Day, 24 March, which, like his
predecessor, he honoured with a tilt.[69] He maintained the tradition of
the progress, generally choosing the direction of such hunting grounds
as Sherwood, Wychwood, the New Forest, or Salisbury Plain; and during
the course of his progress, on 5 August, he celebrated another
anniversary, that of his delivery from the Gowry conspiracy in 1600. On
this day ambassadors were expected to pursue him from London and offer
their congratulations.[70] The progress generally ended at Havering
early in September.[71] Thereafter the household was established at
Windsor or Hampton Court until winter began again. But James's personal
life was a far less settled one than that of Elizabeth. He disliked
London, and at all times of the year, and wherever the Court might be,
he was constantly leaving the greater part of it behind, referring the
transaction of business to the Privy Council, and betaking himself with
the Master of the Horse and Sir Thomas Lake, a clerk of the signet who
acted as his private secretary, to Theobalds or Royston, or some other
hunting box, at which his favourite pursuit might be conveniently
enjoyed. From thence he would hurry back, often for a day or two only,
when some office of state or Court ceremony urgently demanded his
attendance. There is abundant evidence that this abnormal passion for
the chase had much to do with the early unpopularity of James. It led to
neglect of business, the grave inconvenience of ministers, excessive
purveyance, and the trampling of crops; and the popular discontent soon
found vent in libels on the stage and elsewhere. But James said that he
could not lead a sedentary life and must study his health above all
things.[72]
During both reigns the normal tenor of Court life was naturally
disturbed from time to time by some exceptional event. Parliaments
required to be opened in state, although neither Sovereign was fond of
summoning Parliaments.[73] The thanksgiving for the Armada on 24
November 1588 was a notable day of triumph for Elizabeth. James did not
win battles, but he created his son Prince of Wales in 1610 and married
his daughter in 1613 with considerable pomp. In 1607, being in need of a
loan, he fluttered city life by dining with the Lord Mayor on 12 June
and the Merchant Taylors on 16 July.[74] The arrival of extraordinary
ambassadors or other foreign visitors of importance necessitated
frequent provision for their entertainment. The constant relations which
Elizabeth maintained with France led to a number of special missions,
for one purpose or another, diplomatic or complimentary, throughout the
reign. The most interesting of these, from the point of view of an
annalist of Court revels, were concerned with the negotiations, already
referred to, for a marriage with the Duke of Alençon, afterwards Duke of
Anjou and 'Monsieur' of France, the brother of Henri III. These began in
1578 and came to a head in 1581, when a visit by Francis de Bourbon,
Dauphin de Montpensier, and other commissioners in the spring was
followed by another by Anjou himself in November, which lasted over
Christmas to the following February. Both occasions were honoured with
sumptuous tilts and other entertainments. Before and after Monsieur
came in 1572 Francis Duke of Montmorency and Marshal of France, in 1601
Marshal Biron, and in 1602 the Duke of Nevers. Biron appears to have
been a substitute for his master, Henri IV, whom Elizabeth would have
welcomed, but who apparently could not bring himself to face the perils
of the Channel crossing. Chapman puts the comment in the Queen's mouth:
We had not thought that he whose virtues fly
So beyond wonder and the reach of thought,
Should check at eight hours' sail, and his high spirit,
That stoops to fear less than the poles of heaven,
Should doubt an under-billow of the sea,
And, being a sea, be sparing of his streams.[75]
Of visitors from other lands than France may be noted Cecilia,
Margravine of Baden and sister of the King of Sweden, in 1565, Feother
Pissenopscoia, an ambassador in search of a bride for Ivan I, Tsar of
Muscovy, in 1583, and Ludovic Verreyken, ambassador from the archiducal
court of Flanders in 1600. Visits were expected from Mary of Scots in
1562 and from James in 1590, but in fact Mary never came until she was a
fugitive or James until he was King.[76] Elizabeth, however, on her
side, sent complimentary embassies for the intended wedding of James in
1589, and the baptism of his son Henry in 1594. The most important
visitor to James himself was the Queen's brother, Christian, King of
Denmark, who came twice. His elaborate state visit in July and August
1606 left several unpleasant memories behind it. The Kings fell out over
James's indifference to Christian's sister. Hunting bored Christian and
James disliked being outshone by his brother-in-law in running at the
ring. Nor did the subjects more readily mix, for the Danes thought the
English haughty, and the English thought the Danes gross; and in
particular the heavy drinking habits of the north, although by no means
uncongenial to James personally, led to scenes which were scandalous in
the eyes of all who remembered the austerer fashions of Elizabeth.[77]
It was a general relief when Christian decided to abridge the period
originally set down for his stay. He came again, briefly and informally,
in 1614. Other Jacobean visitors were the Duke of Holstein, another
brother of the Queen, in 1604, the Prince de Joinville in 1607, the
Prince of Brunswick, a nephew of the Queen, in 1610, the Duc de Bouillon
in 1612, and the Elector Palatine, for his wedding with the Princess
Elizabeth, in the same year. James received congratulations on his
accession from ambassadors extraordinary sent by the Emperor and the
Kings of France and Spain, as well as from other representatives of
minor powers. Subsequently Juan de Velasco, Constable of Castile, came
as ambassador extraordinary from Spain, with other Spanish and Flemish
commissioners, for the signing of a treaty of peace in 1604, and had the
honour of being waited upon by Shakespeare as groom of the chamber.[78]
In addition to extraordinary ambassadors there were generally also
permanent or 'lieger' ambassadors in residence. These varied in number
with the shifting diplomacies of the time. France was the foreign
country most constantly represented at Elizabeth's Court.[79] There was
generally also a Scottish ambassador. Diplomatic relations with Spain
were broken off in 1584;[80] and there were no Italian ambassadors, in
spite of overtures to Venice, until the last few months of the reign,
when the Doge and Senate sent over the Secretary Scaramelli.[81] The
accession of James and the peace with Spain brought about a considerable
change in international relations, and henceforward there were regularly
'lieger' ambassadors from France, Spain, Venice, and Flanders, as well
as ambassadors or agents from the Dutch states, Savoy and Florence. For
the entertainment of these an occasional dinner or supper with the King
sufficed, together with invitations to such ceremonies of state, revels,
and tilts as were held in ordinary course. But the revels were perturbed
and an infinity of trouble given to the officials who organized them by
the persistent jealousies and disputes for precedence which prevailed
amongst the diplomatic representatives themselves. The records of these
intrigues, which especially centred round the great Court masks, and
often determined the dates on which they were held, occupy much space in
the dispatches sent home to Paris and to Venice, and furnished Sir John
Finet in 1656 with material for the curious pages of his _Philoxenis_.
The rival claims of the 'Catholic' King of France and the 'most
Christian' King of Spain to be regarded as the first Sovereign in
Christendom had already caused trouble as far back as 1564.[82] The
question had naturally been in abeyance during the rupture with Spain.
Under James it broke out again, and each ambassador had the strictest
order from his government not to abate a jot or tittle of his full
claims to precedence. James, being _rex pacificus_, had no desire to
commit himself to a decision on so knotty a point, and did his best to
evade it, by not inviting both ambassadors to the same festivity. But
even then one festivity differed from another in glory, and the attempt
to keep an even balance gave rise to endless _tracasseries_. During the
earlier years it seems clear that a variety of causes, amongst which
must be counted his own superior astuteness, a liberal distribution of
bribes, the Spanish proclivities of Anne, and probably also the
deliberate trend of James's foreign policy, enabled Juan de Taxis to
snatch more than one advantage from his French rivals. He secured an
invitation to the Queen's mask both in 1604 and 1605. This double rebuff
led to a change in the French embassy, and a similar success of De Taxis
in 1608 so infuriated Henri IV that he threatened to withdraw his
ambassador altogether, until James judged it discreet to call his
attention to the still unpaid financial obligations which he had
incurred to the English Crown in the previous reign. After the death of
Henri in 1610 and the consequent _rapprochement_ between France and
Spain, the balance of political forces shifted, and, for a time at
least, the English Court laid itself out to gratify rather than
humiliate the French. Minor bones of precedence were worried between
Venice and Flanders, and between Florence and Savoy, while the Spanish
ambassador took offence if he was asked to appear in public with the
representative of the revolted Spanish provinces of the Netherlands.[83]
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1: Francis to Sir Thomas Chaloner (Dec. 1563) in Froude, vii.
92; cf. _Sp. P._ i. 10, 127; _V. P._ vii. 80, 101.]
[Footnote 2: Camden (tr.), 179; Bohun, 345, from R. Johnston, _Hist.
rerum Brit._ (1655), 353; Carey, 2.]
[Footnote 3: _Sp. P._ iii. 91.]
[Footnote 4: _Sp. P._ iv. 650; Chamberlain, 99, 126; _Hatfield MSS._
xii. 253; Boissise, i. 415; Beaumont, 21; Goodman, i. 17.]
[Footnote 5: Carleton to Chamberlain, Jan. 15, 1604 (_S. P. D., Jac. I_,
vi. 21): 'The first holy dayes we had every night a publicke play in the
great hale, at which the king was ever present, and liked or disliked as
he saw cause; but it seems he takes no extraordinary pleasure in them.
The Queen and Prince were more the players frends, for on other nights
they had them privately, and hath since taken them to theyr
protection.']
[Footnote 6: J. A. Lester, _Some Franco-Scottish Influences on the Early
English Drama in Haverford Essays_ (1909).]
[Footnote 7: Scaramelli wrote to the Signory in July 1603 (_V. P._ x.
71) that James had eight palaces on the Thames, of which Hampton Court
was the biggest. Each had its own furniture, which was never taken to
furnish another. I suppose the eight must be Whitehall, St. James's,
Somerset House, the Tower, Greenwich, Richmond, Hampton Court, and
Windsor. Letters of 1602, when Elizabeth was at Oatlands, contemplate
her return to 'Richmond or some other of her houses of abode' and to 'a
standing house' (_Hatfield MSS._ xii. 385, 448). I suppose that these
were the permanently furnished houses.]
[Footnote 8: Cheyney, i. 143, says that the Exchequer court near
Westminster Hall, the gallery of which was built or repaired in 1570,
'served the queen and court not infrequently as a ball-room'; but this
is only an old tradition, for which Smith, _Westminster_, 54, could find
no confirmation in 1807, and for which the records of Court
entertainments certainly furnish none.]
[Footnote 9: The accounts of Smith and Sheppard (cf. _Bibl. Note_) may
be supplemented from W. R. Lethaby in _Archaeologia_, lx. 131; _London
Topographical Record_, i. 38; ii. 23; vi. 23, 35; vii. _passim_. Von
Wedel (_2 R. Hist. Soc. Trans._ ix. 234) describes the palace in 1584.]
[Footnote 10: E. B. Chancellor, _Historical Richmond_ (1885); R.
Garnett, _Richmond on the Thames_ (1896); Chapman, 123; _Survey_ of 1503
in Grose and Astle, _Antiquarian Repertory_; _Survey_ of 1649 in
Nichols, _Eliz._ ii. 412.]
[Footnote 11: E. Law, _History of Hampton Court Palace_ (1885-91); W. H.
Hutton, _Hampton Court_ (1897). De Silva reports to Philip on 13 Oct.
1567 (_Sp. P._ i. 679) that Elizabeth was then at Hampton Court for the
first time since her attack of small-pox there in 1562, after which she
took a dislike to it. It was the largest of all the palaces, 'with 1800
inhabitable rooms or at least with doors that lock' (_V. P._ x. 71).]
[Footnote 12: A. G. K. L'Estrange, _The Palace and the Hospital:
Chronicles of Greenwich_ (1886); Chapman, 9. The building is shown in
Wyngaerde's drawing of _c._ 1543 (Mitton, I). Hentzner was told in 1598
that it was Elizabeth's preferred abode.]
[Footnote 13: W. H. St. J. Hope, _Windsor Castle_ (1913); R. R. Tighe
and J. E. Davis, _Annals of Windsor_ (1858); E. Ashmole, _The
Institution, Lawes and Ceremonies of the Garter_ (1672); J. Pote,
_History and Antiquities of Windsor Castle_ (1749); G. M. Hughes,
_Windsor Forest_ (1890).]
[Footnote 14: R. Gower, _The Tower of London_ (1901-2); Clapham and
Godfrey, 29. Elizabeth was there in 1559, 1561, and 1565.]
[Footnote 15: For its mediaeval use as an occasional royal lodging, cf.
N. H. Nicolas, _Wardrobe Accounts of Edw. IV_, 121, 127.]
[Footnote 16: W. J. Loftie, _Memorials of the Savoy_ (1878); Chapman,
42.]
[Footnote 17: Elizabeth paid visits there in 1559, 1562, 1564, 1566, and
1575.]
[Footnote 18: Chapman, 36; Clapham and Godfrey, 119.]
[Footnote 19: S. Pegge, _Curialia_ (1806); R. Needham and A. Webster,
_Somerset House, Past and Present_ (1905). Elizabeth was there in 1558,
1562, 1571, 1573, 1582, 1583, 1585, 1587, 1588, 1589, 1590, 1593, 1594,
and 1599. She gave lodgings there to Somerset's son, the Earl of
Hertford, and amongst other guests were the Duke of Holstein (1560),
Cornelius de la Noye, an alchemist (1567), the Duke of Montmorency
(1572), and the Duke of Mayenne (1600). Conferences were held there with
Alençon's commissioners in 1581. In 1574 (_Berkeley MSS._ 223) the
keepership was given to Henry Lord Hunsdon, the Lord Chamberlain, who
took up his residence there, and after his death to Lady Hunsdon. In
early documents of the reign, the name Strand House (_P. C. Acts_, Jan.
1563; _Procl._ 496) or Strand Place (_Procl._ 497) occurs; in the patent
of Hunsdon's predecessor John West in 1559 (_Berkeley MSS._ 218) it is
'Somersett Place _al._ Strande House _al._ Somersett House'.]
[Footnote 20: M. A. S. Hume, _A Palace in the Strand_ in _The Year after
the Armada_ (1896), 263; Nichols, _James_, i. 75; Clapham and Godfrey,
151; T. N. Brushfield, _The History of Durham House, London_, in _Trans.
of Devon. Assoc._ xxxv. 539. Elizabeth was there in 1565 or 1566.
Lodgings were assigned to Alvaro de la Quadra, the Spanish ambassador
(1559-63), Cecilia of Sweden, Margravine of Baden (1565), Walter, Earl
of Essex (1572), Sir Walter Raleigh (1584-1603), Sir Edward Darcy (_c._
1600-3). In 1603 James turned Raleigh and Darcy out and restored the
freehold to Toby Mathew, Bishop of Durham, who retained the river front,
and leased the Gatehouse on the Strand. The lease passed to Lord
Salisbury, who built there the New Exchange or Britain's Burse in 1609.]
[Footnote 21: L. Hendriks, _The London Charterhouse_ (1889); W. F.
Taylor, _The Charterhouse of London_ (1912). The Charterhouse, after
temporary use as a storehouse for the Tents (cf. _Tudor Revels_, 13),
was granted to Sir Edward North, afterwards Lord North of Kirtling, in
1545 and the grant was confirmed by Mary in 1554. Elizabeth visited him
there in Nov. 1558 and July 1561. After his death in 1564 the second
lord kept a house in Charterhouse Square, which passed to the Earls of
Rutland and as Rutland House became the scene of Davenant's _First Day's
Entertainment_ in 1656. The main building was bought in 1565 by Thomas,
fourth Duke of Norfolk, and called Howard Place. Elizabeth visited him
there in 1568. On his attainder in 1572, she lodged the Portuguese
ambassador in the house, but afterwards granted it to Norfolk's son
Thomas, Lord Howard of Walden, whom she visited there in Jan. 1603. In
1611 Thomas Sutton bought the Charterhouse from Howard for a hospital.
On the Blackfriars and Whitefriars, cf. ch. xvii.]
[Footnote 22: Clapham and Godfrey, 165; cf. ch. iii.]
[Footnote 23: E. Sheppard, _Memorials of St. James's Palace_ (1894).
Elizabeth was there in 1561, 1564, 1566, 1571, 1572, 1575, 1576, 1581,
1583, 1584, 1588, and 1593.]
[Footnote 24: _V. H. Surrey_, iii. 478. Elizabeth was there in 1560,
1562, 1564, 1567, 1569, 1570, 1574, 1577, 1580, 1582, 1583, 1584, 1585,
1587, 1589, 1590, 1591, 1593, 1600, and 1602.]
[Footnote 25: _V. H. Surrey_, iii. 266; _Gent. Mag._ viii. (1837) 139;
Clapham and Godfrey, 3. Elizabeth was there in 1559, 1563, 1565, 1567,
1574, 1580-5 (yearly), 1587, 1589, 1591, 1592, 1593, 1594, 1595, 1596,
1598, 1599, 1600. The house was begun by Henry VIII and finished by Lord
Lumley, son-in-law of the Earl of Arundel, to whom the property was
alienated in 1556. Elizabeth bought the house about 1590-2. 'Nonsuch,
which of all other places she likes best,' wrote Rowland White in 1599
(_Sydney Papers_, ii. 120).]
[Footnote 26: For Eltham (visits in 1559, 1560, 1576, 1581, 1596, 1597,
1598, 1599, 1601, 1602), once an important palace, cf. J. C. Buckler,
_Account of Eltham_ (1828), Chapman, 1, Clapham and Godfrey, 47; for
Havering (visits in 1561, 1568, 1572, 1576, 1578, 1579, 1591, 1597),
Nichols, _Eliz._ iii. 70, Clapham and Godfrey, 145; for Hatfield (visits
in 1558, 1566, 1568, 1571, 1572, 1575, 1576), _V. H. Herts._ iii. 92;
for Reading (visits in 1568, 1570, 1572, 1574, 1576, 1592, 1601), J. B.
Hurry, _Reading Abbey_ (1901), T. J. Pettigrew in _Journal of Brit.
Arch. Ass._ xvi. 192; for Woodstock (visits in 1566, 1572, 1574, 1575,
1592), E. Marshall, _Early Hist. of Woodstock Manor_ (1873), and ch.
xxiii, s.v. Lee. Elizabeth was at Enfield in 1561, 1564, 1568, 1572,
1587, 1591, 1594, 1597, and at Winchester in 1560, 1574, 1591.]
[Footnote 27: Schedules of royal houses and other possessions to which
places of profit were attached form part of the Fee Lists described in
the _Bibl. Note_ to ch. ii. That of 1598 (_H. O._ 262) includes 37
castles under constables, keepers, or porters, 17 other houses, 11
forests, and 8 parks, together with the Fleet prison under a warden
keeper, the Baths (at Bath) under a keeper, the Haven of the Duchy of
Cornwall under a havenor, the Honour of Tutbury under a steward, and
Paris Garden under the keepers of Bears and Mastiffs (cf. ch. xvi, s.v.
Hope); in all 78.]
[Footnote 28: Occasionally it was still used as a guesthouse. The
Constable of Castile was lodged here in 1604, the Danish ambassador in
1605, Christian of Denmark in 1606 and 1614. Fuller, _Church History_,
vii. 46, says that the name Denmark House was adopted by proclamation in
honour of King Christian, but I can find no such proclamation. Arthur
Wilson (_Compleat Hist._ ii. 685) dates the change _c._ 1610, and says
that the new name 'continued her time among her people; but it was
afterwards left out of the common calendar, like the dead Emperor's
new-named month'. On the other hand I find Cecil dating from 'Queens
Court' on 6 March 1605 (_S. P. D._ xiii. 15), Chamberlain writing in
Feb. 1614 of the performance of Daniel's _Hymen's Triumph_ that it was
in a 'little square paved court' at 'Somerset House or Queens Court, as
it must now be called' (W. W. Greg in _M. L. Q._ vi. 59, from _Addl.
MS._ 4173, ff. 368, 371), and plays acted by Anne's men 'at Queenes
Court' in 1615 (cf. App. B). The reason suggested in the text for the
second attempt to change the name seems to me a plausible conjecture.
Perhaps 'Denmark House' was tried at Christian's second visit in 1614.
In any case, neither novelty permanently established itself. The first
use of 'Denmark House' I have noticed is in 1615; that of 'Somerset
House' was resumed under Charles I.]
[Footnote 29: Lodge, iii. 62; Birch, i. 279; Devon, 63, 176; _V. P._ x.
87; xiii. 81; _S. P. D., Jac. I_, xxvii. 31; lxv. 79, 80; _V. H.
Surrey_, iii. 478; _V. H. Herts._ iii. 447; Goodman, i. 174; J. E.
Cussans, _Hist. of Herts._, pts. ix, x. 209; Nichols, _James_ ii. 127.
Theobalds, in Cheshunt, had been often visited by Elizabeth; cf. App. A.
James had already been there yearly in 1603-1606, and found it
convenient for Waltham Forest.]
[Footnote 30: Green, 7; _V. P._ x. 71.]
[Footnote 31: Green, 8, 17; _V. P._ xii. 194; Pory to Sir Thomas
Puckering (3 Jan. 1633) in _Court and Time of Charles I_, ii. 213: 'In
case the Queen [of Bohemia] do come for England, I hear that her lodging
appointed in court is the Cockpit, at Whitehall, where she lay when she
was a maid.' On the Cockpit, cf. ch. vii.]
[Footnote 32: Birch, _Life of Henry_, 330; Cunningham, viii; _V. P._
xii. 194, 207; Devon 153, 164, 179; _S. P. D., Jac. I_, viii. 104;
Marshall, _Woodstock_, 174.]
[Footnote 33: Devon, 37, 80; _V. P._ xiii. 81; Birch, i. 41.]
[Footnote 34: James was at Richmond in 1605, 1606, 1607, and 1611, at
Oatlands in 1604, 1606, 1607, 1608, 1610, 1611, 1613, and 1615, and at
Woodstock in 1603, 1604, 1605, 1610, 1612, and 1614. Some of his hunting
trophies are still preserved at Ditchley Park; cf. ch. xxiii, s.v. Lee.
Theobalds, like Royston, he visited several times a year. Evidently it
was more his than Anne's. In 1607 and 1615 his departure from London is
spoken of as going 'home' (Birch, i. 68, 298).]
[Footnote 35: _V. H. Herts._ iii. 253.]
[Footnote 36: _Abstract_, 52.]
[Footnote 37: T. F. Ordish in _L. T. R._ viii. 6. The road crossed
Holborn at Kingsgate.]
[Footnote 38: Law, _Hampton Court_, i. 1.]
[Footnote 39: At the wedding of Princess Elizabeth in 1613 (Rimbault,
163) James went 'from his Privie Chamber, throughe the presence and
garde chamber, and throughe a new bankettinge house erected of purpose
for to solemnenize this feast in, and so doune a paire of stayers at the
upper end therof hard by the Courte gate, wente alonge uppon a stately
scaffold to the great chamber stayers, and throughe the greate chamber
and lobby to the clossett, doune the staiers to the Chappell'; cf.
Pegge, i. 68. Traces of the Great Chamber at Whitehall possibly still
exist, over the building known as Cardinal Wolsey's cellar (_L. T. R._
vii. 40).]
[Footnote 40: Davison to Leicester (1586, _Hardwicke Papers_, i. 302):
'I found her majesty alone, retired into her withdrawing chamber'; Lord
Talbot to Anon. (1587, _Rutland MSS._ i. 213): 'She had my wife called
in to the withdrawing chamber, where no one but the Queen, my Lord, and
Secretary Walsingham were'; Sussex to Burghley (1573, 2 Ellis, iii. 27):
'The Queen sate in the grete Closette or Parler [at Greenwich]'; R.
Cecil to Essex (1596, Devereux, i. 347), reporting that Sir A. Shirley
was 'used with great favour, both in the privy and drawing chambers'.
The 'Withdrawing Chamber' of Law's Hampton Court plan appears to be the
Privy Chamber. They were certainly distinct at Richmond in 1600, for
Vereiken was taken through the Privy Chamber for an audience in the
Withdrawing Chamber (_Sydney Papers_, ii. 170).]
[Footnote 41: Cf. ch. iv.]
[Footnote 42: _H. O._ 154 (1526); _Procl._ 962 (1603).]
[Footnote 43: Pegge, i. 68.]
[Footnote 44: _V. P._ vii. 91 (1559, Montmorency); ix. 531 (1603,
Scaramelli).]
[Footnote 45: Cf. App. F. Von Wedel (_2 R. Hist. Soc. Trans._ ix. 250)
describes the ceremony at Hampton Court in 1584.]
[Footnote 46: _V. P._ x. 46, 121; xi. 430; xii. 273, 547; Gawdy, 132;
Birch, i. 69; Sully, _Mémoires_, 469. Von Wedel, however, saw Elizabeth
dine in state at Greenwich in 1584 (loc. cit., 262).]
[Footnote 47: Cf. ch. vii.]
[Footnote 48: The position of the Hall at Whitehall can be fairly well
identified as extending across Horse Guards Avenue; cf. _L. T. R._ vii.
41.]
[Footnote 49: _Mediaeval Stage_, ii. 189; Reyher, 336.]
[Footnote 50: _Tudor Revels_, 17; _Hatfield MSS._ i. 92, from which it
appears that there was one house only, with a kitchen, and also stands
in Hyde and Marylebone Parks.]
[Footnote 51: _V. P._ vii. 91; Holinshed, iii. 1510; Machyn, 203: 'The x
day of July was set up in Greenwich park a goodly banketting-house made
with fir powlles, and deckyd with byrche and all manner of flowers of
the feld and gardennes, as roses, gelevors, lavender, marygolds, and all
maner of strowhyng erbes and flowrs'; Feuillerat, _Eliz._ 81: 'Robert
Trunckewell ... woorking ... vppon toe modells of the Masters device for
a rowfe and a cobboorde of a bancketinge howse', 97, 106.]
[Footnote 52: Feuillerat, _Eliz._ 163: 'The Banketting House made at
Whitehall for thentertaynement of the seide duke did drawe the charges
ensving for the covering therof with canvasse: the decking therof with
birche & ivie: and the ffretting, and garnishing therof, with fflowers,
and compartementes, with pendentes & armes paynted & gilded for the
purpose. The ffloore therof being all strewed with rose leaves pickt &
sweetned with sweete waters &c.' The details include £9 14_s._ 4_d._
'for flowers broughte into the Cockpitt at White hall with other
necessaries, viz. fflowers of all sortes taken vp by comyssion &
gathered in the feeldes', while William Hunnis, who was keeper of the
gardens at Greenwich, as well as Master of the Chapel, provided 79
bushels of roses, with pinks, honeysuckles, and privet flowers.]
[Footnote 53: Holinshed, iii. 1315, from _Harleian MS._ 293, f. 217: 'A
banketting house was begun at Westminster, on the south west side of hir
maiesties palace of White hall, made in maner and forme of a long
square, three hundred thirtie and two foot in measure about; thirtie
principals made of great masts, being fortie foot in length a peece,
standing vpright; betweene euerie one of these masts ten foot asunder
and more. The walles of this house were closed with canuas, and painted
all the outsides of the same most artificiallie with a worke called
rustike, much like to stone. This house had two hundred ninetie and two
lights of glasse. The sides within the same house was made with ten
heights of degrees for people to stand upon: and in the top of this
house was wrought most cunninglie upon canuas, works of iuie and hollie,
with pendents made of wicker rods, and garnished with baie, rue, and all
maner of strange flowers garnished with spangles of gold, as also
beautified with hanging toseans made of hollie and iuie, with all maner
of strange fruits, as pomegranats, orenges, pompions, cucumbers, grapes,
carrets, with such other like, spangled with gold, and most richlie
hanged. Betwixt these works of baies and iuie, were great spaces of
canuas, which was most cunninglie painted, the clouds with starres, the
sunne and sunne beames, with diuerse other cotes of sundrie sortes
belonging to the queenes maiestie, most richlie garnished with gold.
There were of all manner of persons working on this house, to the number
of three hundred seuentie and fiue: two men had mischances, the one
brake his leg, and so did the other. This house was made in three weekes
and three daies, and was ended the eighteenth daie of Aprill; and cost
one thousand seuen hundred fortie and foure pounds, nineteene shillings
and od monie; as I was crediblie informed by the worshipfull maister
Thomas Graue surueior vnto hir maiesties workes, who serued and gaue
order for the same, as appeareth by record.' Stowe, _Annales_, 688,
copies Holinshed; cf. _Sp. P._ iii. 91. Von Wedel (_2 R. Hist. Soc.
Trans._ ix. 236) saw the house in 1584, and was told that birds sang in
the bushes overhead, while entertainments were in progress. A Record
Office was constructed below the banqueting house in 1597 (_Hatfield
MSS._ vii. 431).]
[Footnote 54: Camden, _Annalium Apparatus_, 6 (c. 12 Oct. 1607), 'Camera
convivialis de novo construitur apud Whitehall'; Stowe, _Annales_, 688,
892, 910, 'the beautiful room at Whitehall'; Devon, 44, 302, 'James
Acheson ... hath, by our direction, formed a model for the roof of our
Banqueting-house at Whitehall'; _V. P._ xi. 86, 'At the close of the
ceremony [mask of Jan. 1608] he said to me that he intended this
function to consecrate the birth of the Great Hall which his
predecessors had left him built merely in wood, but which he had
converted into stone'. But James had been displeased with the building
when he first saw it about 16 Sept. 1607 (_S. P. D._ xxviii. 51).
Goodman, ii. 176, says that the City had to bear the cost in return for
the transfer to them of Blackfriars, Whitefriars, and other liberties
(cf. ch. xvii, s.v. Blackfriars).]
[Footnote 55: Chamberlain to Carleton (Birch, ii. 124): 'One of the
greatest losses spoken of is the burning of all or most of the writings
and papers belonging to the offices of the Signet, Privy Seal, and
Council Chamber, which were under it'; cf. Reyher, 342; Goodman, ii.
175, 187.]
[Footnote 56: _V. P._ xii. 533; Stowe, 916; Birch, i. 229; Finett, 11;
cf. p. 14.]
[Footnote 57: Stowe, 787, 789, 791; Von Wedel in _2 R. Hist. Soc.
Trans._ ix. 256; P. P. Laffleur de Kermaingant, _Mission de Jean de
Thumery_, i. 368, both describing the procession at length; _Mission de
Christophe de Harlay_, 252, 'la coustume a tousjours esté, et mesmes du
temps de la feue Royne de trés heureuse memoire, que les ambassadeurs
residens en Angleterre sont priez d'accompagner les roys, lorsqu'ilz
retournent en leur ville de Londres, après leur progrès'; Goodman, i.
164, 'The Queen's constant custom was a little before her coronation-day
to come from Richmond to London, and to dine with my lord Admiral at
Chelsea, and to set out from Chelsea at dark night, where the Lord Mayor
and the Aldermen were to meet her'. Precepts by the Lord Mayor and other
records of civic expenditure on the receptions are in Arber, i. 510; v.
lxxvii; Kitto, 538; Young, _Barber Surgeons_, 108; Welch, _Pewterers_,
ii. 33.]
[Footnote 58: Camden, 191, 'Anno iam regni Elizabethae duodecimo
feliciter exacto, in quo aureum ut vocarunt diem creduli Pontificii sibi
ex ariolorum predictione expectabant, boni omnes per Angliam laetanter
triumphabant et xvii Novembris Anniversarium regni inchoati diem,
gratiarum actionibus, concionibus per Ecclesias, votis multiplicatis,
laetisona campanarum pulsatione, hastiludiis, et festiva quadam laetitia
celebrare coeperunt, et in obsequiosi amoris testimonium, dum illa
viveret, non destiterunt'; La Mothe, v. 204; Arber, i. 561, 566, 578;
_Sydney Papers_, i. 371, 'the Triumphes of her Coronation'; Ellis, II.
iii. 160, citing _Pauls Cross Sermon_ of T. Holland on 17 Nov. 1599,
published 1601, with a _Defence of the Church of England for keeping
Queen's Day_, for the origin at Oxford under Vice-Chancellor Cooper,
which is perhaps confirmed by the records of the tilt (cf. ch. iv). But
the City churches rang their bells on the day before 1570; cf.
_Westminster_, 18 (1568), 'ringing for the prosperous reign of the
eleventh year of Queen Elizabeth'; Kitto, 248, 'ringing for the quene
the xvij of November 1569', 269 (1572), 'ringing at the quenes
maᵗᶦᵉˢ chaunginge of her raign', &c. _The Chamber Accounts_ for 1595-6
use the term 'Raigne day'. Goodman, i. 98, notes the Jacobean revival.]
[Footnote 59: Birch, _Eliz._ i. 92.]
[Footnote 60: _Sp. P._ iv. 494; cf. Kitto, 407: 'Pᵈ ye iijᵈ of November
to yᵉ Parritoʳ for a warrant to kepe holy yᵉ xixᵗʰ
day At wᶜʰ tyme heʳ maᵗᶦᵉ should a gone to Powles'. The
ceremony, however, was deferred to 24 Nov. There was also a tilt on 19
Nov. in 1590. Von Wedel (_2 R. Hist. Soc. Trans._ ix. 236, 256) says in
1584 that this was a regular day for tilting; but he also says it was the
royal birthday, which was 7 Sept.]
[Footnote 61: I find no prolonged stay at Whitehall between May 1584 and
Jan. 1589. If her presence in London was necessary during this period
Elizabeth seems to have preferred St. James or Somerset House. She
opened Parliament in Feb. 1586 from Lambeth; there were other visits to
Lambeth and the Lord Admiral's house (Hance's) in Westminster.]
[Footnote 62: _V. P._ vii. 374 (6 Jan. 1566). Machyn, 273, records a
visit to the court of a lord of misrule from the city in 1561.]
[Footnote 63: Cf. _Mediaeval Stage_, i. 238. Nichols, _Eliz._ i. 108;
ii. 65, 249; iii. 1, 445, prints rolls of gifts to and from the Queen
for 1562, 1578, 1579, 1589, and 1600 from manuscripts in the British
Museum and in private hands. A roll for 1585 is noticed in _Arch._ i.
11. Those for 1563, 1577, 1598, and 1603 appear to be among the
_Miscellaneous Rolls of Chancery_ in the R. O. (Scargill-Bird², 363),
but are unprinted. Nichols also prints shorter lists of jewels given to
the Queen for a number of years.]
[Footnote 64: Machyn, 195, 232, 257, 280, 305; _V. P._ vii. 74; Hawarde,
74, 109; _Sydney Papers_, ii. 44; cf. E. Ashmole, _The Institution of
the Order of the Garter_ (1672); N. H. Nicolas, _Orders of Knighthood_
(1841); G. F. Beltz, _Memorials of the Order of the Garter_ (1841).
Henri IV was installed by proxy in Apr. 1600, and the attendance of the
Admiral's men perhaps implies a play (_Hatfield MSS._ x. 118, 269;
Henslowe, i. 120). There are Garter allusions in _Merry Wives of
Windsor_.]
[Footnote 65: Cf. Appendix A. The Chamber Accounts show an annual
payment for a bonfire on Midsummer Day.]
[Footnote 66: _Westminster_, 19 (1579), &c., and Kitto, 364 (1584), &c.,
record the ringing of London bells. It can hardly have been a day for
tilting (cf. p. 19) as the Court was usually in progress.]
[Footnote 67: _V. P._ xi. 57, 59, refers to an 'old custom' of keeping
All Saints' Day in the city (i.e. Westminster) with the Knights of the
Garter and the court; cf. Nichols, _James_, ii. 155. It can only have
been a Jacobean custom, for Elizabeth did not as a rule reach
Westminster by 1 Nov.]
[Footnote 68: Cf. _Mediaeval Stage_, i. 124, 248. _V. P._ xii. 237,
notes ringing on 5 Nov. 1611. Williams, _Founders_, 86, prints a guild
order of 1611 for sermons at Paul's Cross and dinners on 'Coronation'
day, 5 Aug. and 5 Nov., as days 'of meeting for the kings majesties
sarves'.]
[Footnote 69: Cf. ch. iv.]
[Footnote 70: Camden, _Annalium Apparatus_, 2 (Aug. 1603), 'Indicitur ut
hic dies festus celebretur ob Regem à Gowriorum conjuratione liberatum';
cf. Goodman, i. 3; Boderie, i. 283; _V. P._ xii. 26, 196, 409. The
question as to the bona fides of the plot commemorated is discussed by
A. Lang, _James VI and the Gowrie Mystery_ (1902).]
[Footnote 71: Goodman, i. 247.]
[Footnote 72: _S. P. D._ xii. 13; _V. P._ x. 81, 90, 95, 195, 218; xi.
276; xii. 41, 381; Lodge, iii. 41, 108, 110, 141; Sully, 455, 458;
Boderie, i. 310; Winwood, iii. 182.]
[Footnote 73: _V. P._ vii. 23, describes the ceremony in 1559, and Von
Wedel, _2 R. Hist. Soc. Trans._ ix. 260, in 1584.]
[Footnote 74: Cf. ch. iv and App. A. In 1612 the Elector Palatine
attended the banquet on Lord Mayor's Day; Henry's illness kept him
away.]
[Footnote 75: _Conspiracy of Byron_, iv. 25. An undated letter from
Elizabeth to Henri regrets that in spite of 'nostre sejour en deux lieux
si proches l'un de l'autre ... nous sommes tous deux empeschez de passer
la mer'; she adds, 'je me resoudray dans peu de jours de m'en retourner
à Londres' (Sully, 364; Berger de Xivrey, _Lettres missives de Henri
IV_, v. 464). This was doubtless written early in Sept. 1601 when
Elizabeth was at Basing and Henri at Calais. Sully, followed by
Strickland, 678, has an elaborate account of the business, including an
interview between himself and Elizabeth at Dover, but the itinerary (cf.
App. A) makes it impossible that she can have gone to Dover.]
[Footnote 76: _V. P._ viii. 496; cf. ch. v.]
[Footnote 77: Cf. ch. v for Harington's description of a drunken mask at
Theobalds; there is confirmatory evidence in _V. P._ x. 386; Boderie, i.
241, 283, 297.]
[Footnote 78: Cf. ch. xiii, s.v. King's.]
[Footnote 79: Gilles de Noailles, Abbé de Lisle (1559), Michel de Seurre
(1560-2), Paul de Foix (1562-6), Jacques Bochetel, Sieur de la Forest
(1566-8), Bertrand de Salignac de la Mothe-Fénelon (1568-75), Michel de
Castelnau, Sieur de Mauvissière (1575-85), Guillaume de L'Aubespine,
Baron de Chasteauneuf (1585-9), Le Sieur de Beauvoir (de La Nocte)
(1589-98?), Le Sieur Thumery de Boissise (1598-1601), Christophe de
Harlay, Comte de Beaumont (1601-5), Antoine Le Fèvre, Sieur de la
Boderie (1606-11), Samuel Spifame, Sieur des Bisseaux (1611-15), Gaspard
Dauvet, Sieur des Marets (1615-18). Complete lists of lieger and
extraordinary ambassadors, with notes of the manuscripts containing
their dispatches, are given by A. Baschet in _Reports of Deputy Keeper
of the Records_, xxxvii, App. 1, 188; xxxix, App. 573; and C. H. Firth
and S. C. Lomax, _Notes on the Diplomatic Relations of England and
France_, 1603-88 (1906); cf. _General Bibl. Note_, s.v. Beaumont,
Boissise, La Boderie, La Mothe.]
[Footnote 80: The Spanish ambassadors during 1558-84 were Don Gomez
Suarez de Figueroa, Count of Féria (Jan. 1558-May 1559), Don Alvaro de
la Quadra, Bishop of Aquila (May 1559-Aug. 1563), Don Diego Guzman de
Silva (Jan. 1564-Sept. 1568), Don Guerau de Spes (Sept. 1568-Dec. 1571),
Don Bernardino de Mendoza (March 1578-Jan. 1584); their dispatches are
in _Colección de Documentos Inéditos para la Historia de España_,
lxxxvii, lxxxix-xcii, and are calendared, with those of Antonio de
Guaras, a merchant who acted as agent 1573-7, in M. A. S. Hume,
_Calendar of Letters and State Papers relating to English Affairs,
preserved principally in the Archives of Simancas_ (1892-9, cited as
_Sp. P._). The ambassadors 1603-16 were Don Juan de Taxis, Count of
Villa Mediana (Aug. 1603-July 1605), Don Juan Fernandez de Velasco, Duke
of Frias and Constable of Castile, and Alessandro Rovida, Senator of
Milan (extraordinary as commissioners, with John de Ligne, Prince of
Brabançon and Count of Aremberg, Juan Richardot, Councillor of State,
and Ludovic Verreyken, Audiencier, representing the Archduke Albert and
Archduchess Isabella of Flanders, for the treaty of Aug. 1604), Don
Pedro de Zuniga (July 1605-May 1610), Don Fernando de Giron
(extraordinary, 1608-9), Don Alonzo de Velasco (May 1610-Aug. 1613), Don
Diego Sarmiento de Acuña, afterwards Conde de Gondomar (Aug. 1613).
Their dispatches are not in print, but a _Relacion de la Jornada del
Excᵐᵒ Condestable de Castilla_ is in the _Colección de Documentos
Inéditos_, lxxi. 467.]
[Footnote 81: The Venetian ambassadors were Giovanni Carlo Scaramelli
(Secretary, Feb.-Nov. 1603), Pietro Duodo (extraordinary, 1603), Nicolò
Molin (Nov. 1603-Dec. 1605), Giorgio Giustinian (Dec. 1605-Oct. 1608),
Marc' Antonio Correr (Oct. 1608-Apr. 1611), Francesco Contarini
(extraordinary, 1610), Antonio Foscarini (Apr. 1611-Dec. 1615), Gregorio
Barbarigo (Sept. 1615-May 1616). Reports of the state of England by
Molin, Contarini, and Correr are in N. Barozzi e Guglielmo Berchet, _Le
Relazioni degli Stati Europei ... nel secolo decimosettimo_, iv (1863).
The current dispatches are calendared in _Calendar of State Papers and
Manuscripts relating to English Affairs ... in Venice and ... Northern
Italy_ (cited as _V. P._). A report to the Senate by Zuanne Falier and
others who visited England privately in 1575 states that they were
advised by a Bolognese groom of the privy chamber, favoured by Elizabeth
as an excellent musician [? Alfonso Ferrabosco], to suggest the
desirability of an embassy (_V. P._ vii. 524). Retiring Venetian
ambassadors were sometimes knighted and given a lion of England to
quarter on their shields (_V. P._ xii. 163; xiv. 85).]
[Footnote 82: _Sp. P._ i. 382, 385, 403, 451, 545.]
[Footnote 83: _S. P. D., Jac. I_, vi. 21; xii. 16; Winwood, iii. 155; P.
L. de Kermaingant, _Mission de Christophe de Harlay_, 173, 252; De la
Boderie, _Ambassades_, i. 240, 262, 271, 277, 291, 353; iii. 1-192
_passim_; _V. P._ x. 139, 149, 212, 234, 388, 408; xi. 83, 86, 212. I
have given some details in relation to the masks in ch. xxiii; cf. also
ch. vi. There is a connected narrative of the Franco-Spanish disputes in
M. Sullivan, _Court Masques of James I_, which perhaps lays insufficient
stress on incidents occurring at state ceremonies and tilts as distinct
from masks.]
II
THE ROYAL HOUSEHOLD
[_Bibliographical Note._--There is no systematic history of the
household, but the growing tendency, notable in such recent
works as those of Professor Baldwin and Professor Tout, to
dwell on the administrative, as distinct from the
'constitutional', aspect of politics suggests that the gap may
some day be filled. A useful short study is R. H. Gretton, _The
King's Government_ (1913). Of the numerous books bearing more
or less directly on the subject, I give here mainly those which
I have found of practical value in writing this chapter.
Professor Tout's _Chapters in the Administrative History of
Mediaeval England_, of which the first two volumes have
subsequently (1920) appeared, is of course of fundamental
importance. The best worked section is that of mediaeval
origins. The general surveys of W. Stubbs, _The Constitutional
History of England in its Origin and Development_ (1880), and
W. R. Anson, _The Law and Custom of the Constitution_
(1886-92), may be supplemented for the earliest period by L. M.
Larson, _The King's Household in England before the Norman
Conquest_ (1904); for the eleventh to thirteenth centuries by
H. W. C. Davis, _Regesta Regum Anglo-Normannorum_, i (1913), T.
Madox, _History and Antiquities of the Exchequer_ (1769), R. L.
Poole, _The Exchequer in the Twelfth Century_ (1912), J. H.
Round, _The King's Serjeants and Officers of State_ (1911), and
L. W. Vernon Harcourt, _His Grace the Steward and the Trial of
Peers_ (1907); for the fourteenth century by T. F. Tout, _The
Place of the Reign of Edward II in English History_ (1914), J.
C. Davies, _The Baronial Opposition to Edward II_ (1918), F. J.
Furnivall and R. E. G. Kirk, _Life Records of Chaucer_
(1875-1900), and J. R. Hulbert, _Chaucer's Official Life_
(1912); for the fifteenth century by C. Plummer, _Sir John
Fortescue's Governance of England_ (1885), and by the 'courtesy
books' or treatises on domestic service and etiquette in F. J.
Furnivall, _The Babees Book_, &c. (1868, _E. E. T. S._), _Queen
Elizabeth's Achademy_, &c. (1869, _E. E. T. S._), and R. W.
Chambers, _A Fifteenth-Century Courtesy Book_ (1914, _E. E. T.
S._); for the Privy Council by N. H. Nicolas, _Proceedings and
Ordinances of the Privy Council_ (1834-7), J. R. Dasent, _Acts
of the Privy Council_ (1890-1907), A. V. Dicey, _The Privy
Council_ (1887), J. F. Baldwin, _The King's Council in England
during the Middle Ages_ (1913), T. F. T. Plucknett, _The Place
of the Council in the Fifteenth Century_ (1918, _4 R. Hist.
Soc. Trans._ i. 157), E. Percy, _The Privy Council under the
Tudors_ (1907), and C. Hornemann, _Das Privy Council von
England zur Zeit der Königin Elisabeth_ (1912); and for the
Star Chamber, W. P. Baildon's edition of John Hawarde's
_Reportes del Cases in Camera Stellata_ (1894), and C.
Scofield, _The Court of Star Chamber_ (1900). Some of the above
extend to the sixteenth century; but in the main the
Tudor-Stuart period has received less attention than it
deserves. Even the lists of the great officers, as given in the
ordinary books of reference, are generally incorrect. The most
valuable summary is the quite recent one of E. P. Cheyney,
_History of England from the Defeat of the Armada to the Death
of Elizabeth_, i (1914). Samuel Pegge set out to write an
account of the Hospitium Regis and published four sections, on
the Esquires of the Body, the Gentlemen of the Privy Chamber,
the Gentlemen Pensioners, and the Yeomen of the Guard as a
first volume of _Curialia; or an Historical Account of the
Royal Household_ (1791). From the material left at his death,
J. Nichols published two more, on Somerset House and the
Serjeants at Arms, in a second volume of _Curialia_ (1806), and
some fragments in _Curialia Miscellanea_ (1818). Other special
studies are F. S. Thomas, _Notes of Materials for the History
of Public Departments_ (1846), and _The Ancient Exchequer of
England_ (1848), N. Carlisle, _An Inquiry into the Place and
Quality of the Gentlemen of his Majesty's Most Honourable Privy
Chamber_ (1829), E. K. Chambers, _The Elizabethan Lords
Chamberlain_ (1907, _Malone Soc. Collections_, i. 31), W.
Nagel, _Annalen der Englischen Hofmusik_ (1894, _Beilage zu den
Monatsheften für Musikgeschichte_, 26), H. C. De Lafontaine,
_The King's Musick_ (1909), _Lists of the King's Musicians_
(_Musical Antiquary_, i-iv, _passim_). A. P. Newton's valuable
paper on _The King's Chamber under the Early Tudors_ (1917, _E.
H. R._ xxxii. 348) appeared after my paragraphs on the
Treasurer of the Chamber were written, but has helped me to
revise them. An account of the post-Restoration household is
given in J. Chamberlayne, _Angliae Notitiae, or The Present
State of England_ (1669), which became an annual; and this,
with the works of Pegge and Carlisle, were drawn upon for the
historical part of W. J. Thoms, _The Book of Court_ (1838). The
modern household is the subject of W. A. Lindsay, _The Royal
Household_ (1898). A summary, useful for comparison, of the
sixteenth-century French household, is in L. Batiffol, _The
Century of the Renaissance_ (1916, tr.), 92.
There is, of course, ample material for the historian of the
Tudor-Stuart Household when he presents himself. The personal
references of annalists, diplomatists, and letter-writers (cf.
_Bibl. Note_ to ch. i) help out the more formal documents
preserved in large numbers in the Record Office (cf. S. R.
Scargill-Bird, _Guide to Various Classes of Documents in the
Public Record Office_³, 1908) and the British Museum (cf.
sections on _Public Revenue and State Establishments in
Classified Catalogue of Manuscripts_), of which a few have been
printed in _A Collection of Ordinances and Regulations for the
Government of the Royal Household_ (_Society of Antiquaries_,
1790, cited as _H. O._), in J. Nichols, _Progresses and Public
Processions of Queen Elizabeth_² (1823), and _Progresses,
Processions, and Festivities of James I_ (1828), and elsewhere.
The Record Office, in addition to many records, such as those
of the Auditors of Prests (cf. App. B), which relate to the
Household, contains the special archives of the Lord
Chamberlain's Department and the Lord Steward's Department
themselves; both, however, are very fragmentary. The earlier
documents of the Lord Chamberlain's Department mainly relate to
the Wardrobe. The Warrant books only begin about the reign of
Charles I; a selection of entries bearing upon the stage is
given by C. C. Stopes in _Jahrbuch_, xlvi. 92. The papers in
the British Museum are partly official records which have
strayed from their proper custody, partly the collections of
antiquaries, and partly the administrative memoranda of
ministers such as Lord Burghley, Lord Salisbury, and Sir Julius
Caesar. Similar collections in private hands are calendared in
the reports of the _Historical Manuscripts Commission_, and in
particular in the _Calendar of the Manuscripts of the Marquis
of Salisbury_ (1883-1915, cited as _Cecil MSS._ or _Hatfield
MSS._). The most important documents for tracing the history of
the household consist (_a_) of account-books, (_b_) of royal
ordinances and of ceremonials either for the household as a
whole or for some branch of it, to the more comprehensive of
which are sometimes attached schedules of offices with the fees
and other allowances belonging to them, and (_c_) lists of the
actual occupants of offices drawn up from time to time for
various administrative purposes. The most complete lists seem
to be those of officers receiving liveries at coronations and
funerals. These are appended to the special _Accounts_ of the
Masters of the Wardrobe for such ceremonies, and copies,
covering _inter alia_ the coronation (1559) and funeral (1603)
of Elizabeth, the coronation (1604) and funeral (1625) of
James, the funeral (1612) of Henry, and the funeral (1619) of
Anne, are preserved as precedents in _Lord Chamberlain's
Records_, ii. 4-6. On the other hand, it is necessary to
exercise caution in using the very numerous lists which bear
some such title as 'A Generall Collection of all the Offices in
England with their Fees in her Maiesties Gift'. Of these I have
noted the following: _Stowe MS._ 571, f. 6 (1552); _Harl. MS._
240 (1545-53); _Stowe MS._ 571, f. 133 (1575-80); _Stowe MS._
571, f. 159 (1587-90); _Lansd. MS._ 171, f. 246ᵛ (1587-91);
_Cotton MS._, _Titus_ B iii, f. 163ᵛ (1585-93); _S. P. D._,
_Eliz._ ccxxi (1588-93); _Lord Chamberlain's Records_, v. 33
(1593); _Hargrave MS._ 215 (1592-5); _Stowe MS._ 572, f. 26
(1592-6); _Harl. MS._ 2078, f. 6 (1592-6); _H. O._ 241
(misdated 1578) from Peck, i. 51 (1598); _Addl. MS._ 35848
(1605-7); _Addl. MS._ 38008 (1605-7); _Archaeologia_, xv. 72
(1606); _Stowe MS._ 574 (_temp._ Jac. I); _Stowe MS._ 575
(1616). The dates are mostly approximate, rendered possible by
the fact that the occupants of a few of the chief posts are
usually named. The list of 1552 alone has all the names and is
in the full sense an Establishment List. The rest should
probably be regarded not as official lists but as convenient
handbooks prepared for courtiers seeking patronage. Errors of
transcription are frequent, and often recur in several
manuscripts. _Stowe MS._ 574 is interesting, because a second
hand has corrected several errors. It seems pretty clear that
the names of offices were sometimes retained on these lists
after the offices were in fact obsolete. They are not limited
to Household Offices, but are usually arranged in four
sections, Courts of Justice, Household (1, Household proper, 2,
Standing offices; cf. p. 49), Military Posts, Keeperships (cf.
p. 11). They include fees payable in the household, as well as
at the Exchequer; and have prototypes, in less fixed form, in
lists _temp._ Hen. VIII (Brewer, ii. 873; iii. 364; iv. 868). A
more careful list, of somewhat similar type, with names
appended, but limited to fees payable at the Exchequer, is to
be found in the abstract of revenue and expenditure in 1617
printed with the pamphlet _Truth Brought to Light and
Discovered by Time_ (1651, cited as _Abstract_).
But there are no comprehensive ordinances for the Tudor-Stuart
Household, which must largely be studied from its origins. The
best text of the _Constitutio Domus Regis_ of Henry I (_c._
1135) is in T. Hearne, _Liber Niger Scaccarii_² (1774), i. 341;
a less good one in H. Hall, _The Red Book of the Exchequer_
(1896, Rolls Series), iii. 807. For Edward I we have unprinted
ordinances of 1279 (_Addl. MS._ 4565 H; _Lord Steward's Misc._
298), and the description of the palace jurisdictions by a
contemporary lawyer (_c._ 1290) in John Selden's edition of
_Fleta, seu Commentarius Juris Anglicani_ (1685); for Edward II
ordinances of 1318 and 1323 edited from the French original in
Tout, 267, and from a translation by Francis Tate (1601) in
_Life Records of Chaucer_, ii. 1, together with related
Exchequer ordinances in Hall, iii. 908, 930. Ordinances of
Edward III, not known to be extant, are referred to by the
compiler of the _Liber Niger Domus Regis Angliae_ in the reign
of Edward IV. Of the _Liber Niger_ a large number of
manuscripts exist (_Lord Steward's Misc._ 299; _Exchequer T. of
R. Misc._ 230; _Harl. MSS._ 293, f. 19; 298, f. 41; 369, f.
56ᵛ; 610, f. 1; 642, f. 196ᵛ; _Soc. Antiq. MS._). It is not
certain from which of these the bad text in _H. O._ 13 is
printed; probably it used the last two. The _Liber Niger_ is
less an ordinance than an unfinished literary treatise by a
household clerk, probably motived by the actual ordinances of
1478, of which an unprinted copy is in _Exchequer T. of R.
Misc._ 206. An ordinance of Henry VII (1493) and a ceremonial
of the same reign are in _H. O._ 107. The documents of Henry
VIII's time are complicated. There appear to be three sets of
ordinances: (_a_) the Eltham Articles drawn up by Wolsey
(Halle, ii. 56) in Jan. 1526 (_Lord Steward's Misc._ 299, ff.
158, 163; _Exchequer T. of R. Misc._ 231; _H. O._ 137-61, from
_Harl. MS._ 642); (_b_) ordinances related to a 'new book of
household', _c._ 1540 (_H. O._ 228-40); (_c_) scattered
ordinances, _c._ 1532-44 (_H. O._ 208-27). Subsidiary lists and
documents of about the period of (_a_) are in _Lord Steward's
Misc._ 299, and, perhaps with some of other dates, in Brewer,
IV. i. 860. Those printed from a _Dunch MS._ in _Genealogist_,
xxix, xxx, appear to belong to the 'new book' of (_b_). A third
set, of _c._ 1544-6, are in _H. O._ 165-207. Much other
material is scattered through the twenty-one volumes of the
_Calendar of Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, of the
Reign of Henry VIII_ (1862-1910, cited as Brewer), including
some of earlier date than the Eltham Articles.--I need hardly
add that for the purposes of this chapter I have rarely been
able to go beyond printed sources.]
The ordering of court life and ceremonial was in the hands of a group of
departments which made up the somewhat complicated establishment of the
royal Household. But the Household, at a time when the personal capacity
of the Crown was as yet imperfectly differentiated from its national
capacity, was not merely a domestic organization; it was still to a
large extent an instrument of central executive government. It must in
fact be regarded as the direct descendant of the eleventh-century _curia
regis_, through which all the important functions, deliberative,
judicial, financial, and administrative, had been carried out. The
_curia_ had consisted partly of the territorial magnates, earls, and
barons, who had been, or whose fathers had been, the King's _comitatus_
in battle; partly of knights still in attendance upon the King's person,
and hoping some day, in reward for their services, to become territorial
magnates in turn; partly, and to an increasing extent as government
became more complicated and difficult, of clerks whose trained skill
with the pen and with figures made them more practically useful than the
lay knights in all those branches of affairs which entailed book-keeping
and correspondence. All the members of the _curia_, in smaller or
greater numbers, according to the magnitude of the business to be
transacted and the willingness of the lords to leave their estates, sat
with the King from time to time, and advised him as his _consilium_; but
except on great occasions of state it was left to the knights to wait at
his table and order his servants about, and to the clerks to write and
send his letters, and to act as his assessors or his deputies in the
exercise of justice or the collection and spending of his revenue. In
course of time some of the functions of the original _curia_ had become
specialized in distinct departments, which acquired a permanent
habitation at Westminster, ceased to follow the King's wanderings, and
were no longer regarded as part of the personal Household. Thus the
_curia_ as a judicial body became the Courts of Law; the _curia_ as a
financial body became the Exchequer; while at a somewhat later date the
Chancery undertook the double function of issuing royal grants and other
formal correspondence of the Crown, and of supplementing the Courts of
Law by exercising an equitable jurisdiction in cases which ordinary law
was inadequate to cover. To the central _curia_ or Household, still
composed of lay and clerical officers lodged in the King's palace and
eating in his hall, wherever that might happen to be, three things were
left. It ministered to the material well-being and splendour of the
Sovereign himself; it exercised under his personal direction such
functions of administration, for example the control of foreign policy
and war, as had not passed to the specialized departments; and, perhaps
most important of all, it remained potentially able to resume at his
will the exercise of functions precisely analogous to those which had so
passed. This paradox of the duplicate exercise of royal functions,
through the specialized departments and through the Household, lies at
the bottom of an understanding of mediaeval government.
The differentiation of the Courts of Law, the Exchequer, and the
Chancery from the Household was complete by the thirteenth century; but
the same tendency towards the budding off of quasi-independent
departments of state from the administrative nucleus continued to
manifest itself in a minor degree up to and even, for all their
centralizing instinct, within the period of the Tudors. Moreover, as the
scale of the Household became larger and its individual ministers began
to require assistance, there grew up a corresponding tendency towards
the formation of separate offices within the nucleus itself. The
staffing of these offices with servants of various grades, their
responsibilities and interrelations, and the control of them through the
chief officers of the Household, were determined by royal ordinances,
which go into minute detail, and reveal a complex organization, based
upon long-standing tradition, and at the same time flexible in its
capacity of adaptation to shifting circumstances. The main structure of
the Household, as we find it under Elizabeth, appears to have been
already fixed in the time of Edward IV and even in that of Edward II,
although minor changes had been introduced, largely through Tudor
imitation of the French _hôtel du roi_, just as there had been minor
changes under Richard II and his Lancastrian successors, some of which
are noted to our advantage by a clerk of literary tastes, who about 1478
bethought him to compile in the so-called _Liber Niger_ a systematic
account or _rationale_ of the establishment in which doubtless he played
a part. And the beginnings of the same structure can be traced back
farther still, through ordinances of Edward I in 1279 to the
_Constitutio Domus Regis_ as it stood at the end of Henry I's reign in
1135, and even perhaps, so far as the principal officers are concerned,
to the Normanized Anglo-Saxon Court of pre-Conquest days. And after
Elizabeth's reign the structure lasted, again with modifications of
detail, for nearly two centuries more, until it was somewhat severely
overhauled, in a moment of reforming zeal, by what is known as Burke's
Act of 1782.[84] This conservatism of structure may perhaps justify us
in finding an explanation of the tripartite character which the
organization of the Household at every stage displays, as arising
naturally out of the local arrangement of a primitive royal habitation.
The palace stood in a court-yard, and it consisted essentially of a hall
where the King feasted and took counsel with his _comitatus_, and of a
chamber where he retired to sleep and to be private, and where he
probably kept his treasure-chest. The duties of his personal servants
fell either in the court-yard or in the hall or in the chamber. In the
court-yard the _constabularii_ drilled the royal body-guard and the
_marescalli_ looked after the horses; in the hall the _dapiferi_ and the
_pincernae_ ministered food and drink; in the chamber the _camerarii_ or
_cubicularii_, aided as time went on by the _clerici_, watched the
King's treasure and his bed, and stood ready to receive and transmit his
personal mandates. Originally, it would seem, there were several
officers of each class. Afterwards they were reduced to one, or one was
chosen as _magister_ over the rest; whatever the process, a single chief
officer, with a group of subordinates beneath him, emerges as
representative of each of the three departments. Perhaps the change was
assisted by the demand of the barons, jealous of the rise in their
absence of new men at Court, to have Household posts conferred upon them
as part of their hereditaments. By the middle of the twelfth century
there were already a hereditary Great Chamberlain, a High Steward, a
High Constable, a Chief Butler, and an Earl Marshal.[85] But,
obviously, if the King was in the habit of appointing two chamberlains
or two stewards, he could make one of each pair hereditary, and still
have another at his own appointment. And he could call on the hereditary
officer to officiate on state occasions and the appointed officer to
officiate in daily life. The hereditary man would have the greater
dignity and the appointed man the greater power. This, rather than
deputation by the hereditary officers, seems to be the explanation of
the existence of a Chamberlain of the Household side by side with the
Lord Great Chamberlain and of a Steward of the Household side by side
with the Lord High Steward. It is really only another example of the
duplication of functions, through officers of state on the one hand, and
Household officers on the other, to which attention has already been
called; with the added feature that in this case the officers of state
seem to have had sinecures from the beginning.
The tripartite organization is traceable clearly enough in the Household
of Elizabeth, as in that of her predecessors. There was, of course, a
close co-operation at many points between the different departments;
and, indeed, the simplicity of the original scheme had inevitably been
interfered with, as the sovereigns began more and more to retire from
their hall and to subdivide their chamber in order to adapt it to the
complicated needs of an increasingly luxurious private life. The
department of the court-yard, moreover, would appear, long before
Elizabeth's time, to have shed many of what must be supposed to have
been its original functions. The hereditary Lord High Constable had left
no _constabularius_ behind him at court, and although the Earl Marshal,
also hereditary, continued to exercise certain functions, such as an
oversight over the heralds, he was in no sense the head of a Household
department. The Knight Marshal, who exercised a jurisdiction over
breaches of peace within the verge (_virgata_) of twelve leagues round
the court, was nominally at least his deputy, but the only other
marshals in the Household were officers of the Hall. Similarly the
oversight of the guard seems to have passed to the Chamberlain. Nor had
the Marshal any longer the responsibility for the stable which the
etymology of his name suggests.[86] The Stable was, indeed, still a
distinct department, but its head was the Master of the Horse, who,
although he ranked as one of the three chief officers of the Household,
was of comparatively recent origin.[87]
By a somewhat troublesome variation in the use of terms, the Lord
Steward's department is sometimes called the 'Household' in a very
narrow sense, which excludes the Chamber and the Stable. The author of
the _Liber Niger_ distinguishes it as the _domus providentiae_ from the
Chamber as the _domus magnificentiae_.[88] Roughly speaking, it
concerned itself with the material necessities, the food and drink, the
lighting and the fuel, of the Sovereign and his court, while all else
that ministered to his personal life and the dignity of his state, his
lodging and his apparel, his entertainments, his study and his
recreations, fell within the sphere of the Chamber. Its original nucleus
was still represented under Elizabeth by the officers of the Hall,
Marshals, Sewers, and Surveyors; but the Hall had shrunk in importance
since the Sovereign had ceased to dine in it, and some of these posts
had long been duplicated within the Chamber itself, and even there were
tending to become honorific rather than effective.[89] The real
functions of the department were now exercised in the subsidiary
offices of provision, which had grown up round the Hall. Of these there
were twenty, each under a Serjeant or other head with an appropriate
staff of clerks, yeomen, grooms, pages, and children. They were the
Kitchen, the Bake-house, the Pantry, the Cellar, the Buttery, the
Pitcher-house, the Spicery, the Chandlery, the Wafery, the
Confectionery, the Ewery, the Laundry, the Larder, the Boiling-house,
the Accatry, the Poultry, the Scalding-house, the Pastry, the Scullery,
and the Woodyard. The department also included the Almonry under a Lord
High Almoner, who was an ecclesiastic, and the Porters. Administrative
control was exercised by the Board of Green Cloth, consisting of the
Treasurer and Comptroller of the Household, and the Cofferer or
household cashier.[90] These had the assistance of a staff of clerks and
clerk comptrollers, known as the Counting House. Above all was the chief
officer of the department, the Lord Steward of the Household. The
Steward, whose name seems to be an exact equivalent for both the Latin
terms _dapifer_ and _Senescallus_, is not likely to have had in the
beginning any priority over the _camerarius_; but historical reasons had
brought him to the forefront towards the end of the thirteenth century,
and thereafter he continued to rank as first officer of the Household.
Henry VIII, following a French analogy, had renamed him Grand Master of
the Household, but the new term had not permanently succeeded in
establishing itself. Under Elizabeth the post was sometimes left vacant.
But it was always filled during the session of a Parliament, for it was
the ancient custom for the lords of Parliament to dine at the Lord
Steward's table in the court.[91] In the absence of a Lord Steward, the
department was managed, under some general supervision from the Lord
Chamberlain, who then became first officer, by the Treasurer and
Comptroller, who were important personages with seats on the Privy
Council. The original _dapiferi_ had had as colleagues the _pincernae_,
but the Chief Butlership was now an hereditary sinecure, and the duties
were divided between the subordinate office of the Cellar and the
Cupbearer, who was an officer of the Chamber.
We come now to the Lord Chamberlain, incomparably the most important
figure at court in all matters concerned with entertainments. The
_camerarii_ and _cubicularii_ are discernible before the Conquest, and
the corresponding Anglo-Saxon terms appear to be _burþegn_, _bedþegn_,
and _hræglþegn_. Perhaps the _hrægl_ or wardrobe was already becoming
separated from the _bur_ or bed-chamber.[92] In the days of William
Rufus one Herbert was _regis cubicularius et thesaurarius_.[93] This was
before the Exchequer under its Lord High Treasurer had branched off as a
separate department of state, but the post of Chamberlain of the
Exchequer continued for many centuries to testify to the original
location of the treasure chest in the _camera_. About 1135 there was a
_magister camerarius_, the equal in salary and allowances of the
_cancellarius_, the _dapiferi_, the _magister pincerna_, the
_thesaurarius_, and the _constabularii_. There were also other
_camerarii_ of lower degrees taking turns of duty, and a special
_camerarius candelae_, ranking lower still.[94] Presumably the _magister
camerarius_ became the hereditary Lord Great Chamberlain, whose
coronation services, which are connected with the charge of the King's
bed-chamber, the handing of a basin and towel at the banquet, and the
preparation of the royal oblations, afford a sufficient indication of
the duties of the court office.[95] And on the retirement of the
hereditary officer from court, it seems probable that one of the other
_camerarii_ advanced to the position of acting _magister_. At any rate,
when the treatise known as _Fleta_ was compiled about 1290, there was a
single _camerarius_ with a _sub-minister_ and other officers beneath
him. Perhaps he was by this time barely the equal of the _senescallus_,
to whom he sat as assessor in the court _de placitis_ _Aulae Regis_,
although he had also an independent jurisdiction over his own officers
and those of the Wardrobe, who were exempt from the Steward's court.[96]
On the other hand he was, as Robert of Westminster calls him, 'custos
capitis regis', and the author of _Fleta_ tells us in another connexion
that 'in hospitio pro regula habetur, quod quanto propinquior sit quis
Regi, tanto dignior'.[97] On the whole it seems probable that, whatever
his traditional status may have been, the practical tendency of the
extensive political use made by Edward I of the Steward and the clerical
officers of the Wardrobe was to throw the Chamberlain into the
background.[98] We also learn from _Fleta_ that it was the business of
the Chamberlain to look after the King's bed and chamber, and that as
fees he had his keep in court, fines from ecclesiastic and lay homagers,
the disused plenishings of the _camera_, and a share of all gifts and
offerings of food made to the King.[99]
After the break-up of the power of the Wardrobe in the earlier part of
the fourteenth century, the propinquity of the Chamberlain to the King
gave him an increasing political importance, and attempts were made by
the barons to secure his appointment in Parliament. Both in that
assembly and in the Privy Council he frequently served as the royal
mouthpiece, and he became the regular channel through which petitions
for the exercise of the royal prerogative of pardon reached the
King.[100] But he continued to discharge his domestic responsibilities,
which are detailed both in the _Liber Niger_ about 1478 and in early
Tudor documents.[101] The Tudor change in the relation between the Crown
and the nobility is well indicated by the fact that, while in the
fourteenth century the Chamberlain had been a banneret or even a simple
knight, in Elizabeth's time the office was an object of ambition for
earls and barons. But the dual functions, political and domestic,
remained unaltered. The 'Lord' Chamberlain, as he was now generally
called, was in regular attendance at court, where his power and
responsibility were alike considerable.[102] He gave personal attention
to the distribution of lodgings in the palace.[103] He made the
arrangements for the progress.[104] He received the ambassadors and
others entitled to a royal audience and conducted them into the
presence.[105] He was liable to be rated by the Queen if there was not
enough plate on the cupboard.[106] He not merely planned the revels but
himself kept order in the banqueting-hall. And for this purpose the
white staff, which was the symbol of his office, was a practical
instrument ready to his hand.[107] The delivery of this white staff to
him by the Sovereign constituted his appointment, which was during
pleasure; and at its determination he delivered it up again. The Lord
Steward and the Treasurer and Comptroller of the Household were
similarly appointed, and it is a picturesque touch that at the funeral
of the Sovereign the Household officers broke their white staves over
the bier.[108] Elizabeth's Chamberlains had a fee of £133 6_s._ 8_d._
and a table and other allowances at court; also a livery from the Great
Wardrobe of fourteen yards of tawny velvet, which had been converted by
1606 into an additional fee of £16.[109]
Elizabeth's first Lord Chamberlain was her great-uncle, Lord William
Howard, a younger son of the second Duke of Norfolk, who had been
created Lord Howard of Effingham in 1554.[110] He was appointed by 20
November 1558, and resigned on becoming Lord Privy Seal in July 1572.
His successor was Thomas Radcliffe, third Earl of Sussex, who appears to
have held office continuously, in spite of occasional absence from his
duties, until his death on 9 June 1583. Then came Charles, second Lord
Howard of Effingham, for a short period from Christmas 1583 or earlier
until his appointment as Lord Admiral about June 1585; and then on 4
July 1585 Elizabeth's first cousin, Henry Carey, first Lord Hunsdon, who
established and handed down to his son the famous company of players
which included William Shakespeare. Hunsdon was himself a soldier rather
than a courtier.[111] He died on 22 July 1596, and the Chamberlainship
passed to William Brooke, seventh Lord Cobham. But on 5 March 1597
Cobham himself died, and the office reverted to the house of Hunsdon in
the person of George Carey, second lord, who retained it to the end of
the reign. By this time he was in ill health, and although he was at
first formally continued in his post with the rest of the household, he
was replaced on 4 May 1603 by Thomas, Lord Howard of Walden, who on the
following 21 July was created Earl of Suffolk. He died on 9 September
1603. Suffolk remained Lord Chamberlain during the palmy days of the
Jacobean revels. But in 1614 he became Lord Treasurer, and on 10 July
the Chamberlainship was conferred upon the then reigning royal
favourite, Robert Carr, Earl of Somerset, much to the disappointment of
Shakespeare's patron, William Herbert, third Earl of Pembroke, who had
to content himself with a promise of the reversion.[112] This, however,
fell in sooner than might have been hoped for. Somerset came to disaster
for his share in the murder of Sir Thomas Overbury in 1615, and on 2
November, shortly before he was sent to the Tower, Lord Wotton, the
Comptroller of the Household, came from the King to demand his seals and
the white staff. He handed over the seals, says our informant, the
Venetian ambassador, 'and as for the staff, which he pointed out to him
in a corner of the room, he might take it'. Lord Wotton replied that the
King did not order him to take it, but Somerset to give it, 'which he
did'.[113] Pembroke was appointed on 23 December 1615 and remained Lord
Chamberlain until 3 August 1626, when he was succeeded by his brother
Philip Earl of Montgomery.[114]
The illness, or employment elsewhere, of a Lord Chamberlain sometimes
rendered necessary the appointment of a deputy. Both Howard of Effingham
and Hunsdon appear to have acted in this capacity during Sussex's tenure
of office; Howard in 1574-5 and Hunsdon in 1582. Similarly Howard de
Walden acted without having the white staff during the second Lord
Hunsdon's illness in 1602, and again for a month before his own
appointment in 1603.[115] There was indeed provision for the regular
assistance of the Lord Chamberlain by a Vice-Chamberlain, an officer who
had existed at least as far back as the fourteenth century, and is
probably indeed the 'subminister' of the thirteenth.[116] Elizabeth's
fee lists provide for a Vice-Chamberlain at a fee of £66 13_s._ 4_d._
and a table at court. But the post was not always filled up. Sir Edward
Rogers held it from 1558 to 1559, Sir Francis Knollys from 1559 to
1570, Sir Christopher Hatton from 1577 to 1587, and Sir Thomas Heneage
from 1589 to 1595. There seem to have been vacancies from 1570 to 1577
and from 1595 to 1601, although Sir William Pickering's appointment was
under consideration in 1572 and Sir Henry Lee's in 1597. During
Hunsdon's illness there was much speculation as to the probability of a
Vice-Chamberlain being appointed. Sir Walter Raleigh hoped for the post,
but in February 1601 it was given to Sir John Stanhope, afterwards Lord
Stanhope of Harrington, who kept it until 1616.[117]