Anna of Denmark: Queen in Two Kingdoms 1789973414, 9781789973419

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Anna of Denmark

Anna of Denmark Queen in Two Kingdoms

Steven Veerapen

Peter Lang

Oxford • Bern • Berlin • Bruxelles • New York • Wien

Bibliographic information published by Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data is available on the Internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Veerapen, Steven, 1987- author. Title: Anna of Denmark : queen in two kingdoms / Steven Veerapen. Description: Oxford ; New York : Peter Lang, [2022] | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2021042658 (print) | LCCN 2021042659 (ebook) | ISBN 9781789973419 (paperback) | ISBN 9781789973426 (ebook) | ISBN 9781789973433 (epub) Subjects: LCSH: Anne, Queen, consort of James I, King of England, 1574-1619. | James I, King of England, 1566-1625--Marriage. | Great Britain--History--James I, 1603-1625. | Queens--Great Britain--Biography. | Great Britain--Court and courtiers--History. | Great Britain--Social life and customs. Classification: LCC DA391.1.A6 V44 2022 (print) | LCC DA391.1.A6 (ebook) | DDC 941.06/1092 [B]--dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021042658 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021042659 Cover design by Brian Melville for Peter Lang. Cover image: Wikimedia Commons ISBN   978-1-78997-341-9 (print) ISBN   978-1-78997-342-6 (ePDF) ISBN   978-1-78997-343-3 (ePub) © Peter Lang Group AG 2022 Published by Peter Lang Ltd, International Academic Publishers, 52 St Giles, Oxford, OX1 3LU, United Kingdom [email protected], www.peterlang.com Steven Veerapen has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author of this Work. All rights reserved. All parts of this publication are protected by copyright. Any utilisation outside the strict limits of the copyright law, without the permission of the publisher, is forbidden and liable to prosecution. This applies in particular to reproductions, translations, microfilming, and storage and processing in electronic retrieval systems. This publication has been peer reviewed.

Author’s Note

It has become common practice in academia to refer to the consort of James VI and I as ‘Anna’ of Denmark, and so I refer to her as such throughout the text. She is often, however, known by the Anglicised ‘Anne’ of Denmark. In her own lifetime, the queen invariably signed herself ‘Anna R’ and this was evidently her own preferred spelling of her name. It is worth noting also that Anna was titled queen consort of four kingdoms: Scotland, England, Ireland and, in accordance with England’s quixotic continental claims, France. However, during her tenure as consort, she resided in and followed the traditions of two monarchies –​those of Scotland and England –​as France had its own separate monarchy and heritage, and the Irish crown had pertained to England since 1171 and been formally granted to Henry VIII by the Irish parliament during the early English Reformation (meaning that queens consort of England became queens consort of Ireland, there having been no tradition of separate Irish queens consort for several hundred years beforehand). Finally, references to primary and secondary sources are provided in the bibliography; individual manuscripts, however, are cited in the footnotes when relevant, to avoid repetition.

Contents

Introduction

To Be a Consort and Wear a Crown

1

Part I Denmark

13

The Danish Girl

15

The Old Young Man

27

The Princess Bride

39

By Weltring Waues

49

Vehement Winter

59

Part II Scotland

67

Anna, Our Welbelovit Queene

69

The Woman of Property

83

All of Them Witches

91

The Invention of Tradition

109

Strange Bedfellows

123

Catholic Queen, Kirk and Killer King

131

And Either Victory or Else a Grave

149

viii

Contents

Part III England

159

Hail and Welcome, Fairest Queen!

161

Our Queen Is a Catholic in Heart

169

Blessed Are the Peacemakers

185

Rumour Doth Double

197

Two Fair Youths

207

Loss and Marriage

221

Suns That Set

235

Will Ye No Come Back Again?

247

For Sure No Good Prince Dies

259

Bibliography

267

Index

281

Introduction

To Be a Consort and Wear a Crown

In June 1603, during an exceptionally hot summer –​especially for Scotland –​Queen Anna crossed from her adopted nation of Scotland into her husband’s newly acquired realm of England. A tall and attractive woman, she must have looked in wonder at the outpourings of joy and the in-​pouring of strangers, dressed fashionably in elaborate ruffs, suits and petticoats pinned into flounces on drum or cartwheel farthingales, each come in their finery to seek places in her household. Among them was one Blanche Swansted, ‘tire woman in ordinary’ to the late Elizabeth, whom King James had ordered to Berwick-​upon-​Tweed to style his wife’s hair in a manner appropriate to an English queen. Anna had, after all, learnt over the previous decade to play the role of consort to a Scottish king. She would now be required to reassess that role in light of becoming consort to an English one. Yet she did not become, as her husband apparently intended, a shadow of the late Elizabeth; indeed, her portraits show that, notwithstanding Blanche Swansted’s ministrations, the new consort retained and developed her own hairstyles and fashions. It was a move symbolic of her overall mission to learn not from the previous English queen regnant but from consorts of the country’s past. Due to the length of Elizabeth I’s reign, England had not seen a queen consort since the death of Henry VIII’s last queen, Katherine Parr, in 1548. The country had not, in fact, seen a royal consort at all since the marriage between Philip II of Spain and Mary I, which had ended in the latter’s death in 1558. Thus, as Queen Anna set foot in Berwick, she was stepping into unknown territory in a number of ways. This was not, however, the first time she had been launched into an unfamiliar role, for when she had married James VI and become queen of Scots in 1589, she had also been becoming consort of a nation which had long been without one. Scotland’s history of royal spouses was every bit as

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introduction

chequered as England’s, with Margaret Tudor and Marie of Guise gaining power following the deaths of their husbands (the former immediately, only to lose it, the latter sometime later, only to find herself embroiled in civil war in defence of it). Male consorts had followed, with Mary Queen of Scots seeking to redefine, unsuccessfully, the terms of king consortship by creating Lord Darnley Henry king of Scots but refusing to share the reins of power with him, before marrying his murderer (only for him to receive no official or international recognition and to die insane in a Danish prison). The histories rehearsed above are well known. Innumerable volumes have been written on Henry’s wives, on Mary I of England, and even on Elizabeth I’s many abortive courtships. Likewise, there are countless texts, comprising academic articles, scholarly studies, popular histories and fictional accounts of Mary Queen of Scots’s colourful marital exploits. It is therefore surprising that, comparatively, there has been little written on Anna of Denmark. She was, after all, the first royal consort to follow in the often-​bloody footsteps of the more famous royal spouses of two much-​ studied kingdoms. Her biography was recounted in the charming Lives of the Queens of England by Agnes Strickland and updated in 1970 by Ethel Carleton Williams in her Anne of Denmark: Wife of James VI of Scotland and I of England. Both writers do well in acknowledging that the queen’s reputation as a drunkard are based on historical misreading, and any student of Anna owes a debt of gratitude to the antiquarian efforts of each. Unfortunately, both tend to portray her as a somewhat scatter-​brained, petulant woman whose forays into the political arena were minimal and usually based on highly personal affections and grudges. To Strickland, memorably, the queen was ‘undeniably inferior, both in education and intellect, to most of the royal ladies whose biographies have occupied our preceding volumes’.1 In more recent decades, scholarly interest has been revived in Anna, albeit not yet to the extent that it remains active in study of her predecessors and successors in the annals of English queenship (or consortship). Due to her patronage of some of the period’s finest poets and designers, she has become something of a darling to literary historians, who have 1

Agnes Strickland, Lives of the Queens of England, VII, p. 237.

Introduction

3

produced a considerable –​and excellent –​body of work on her famous masques and artistic endeavours. John Leeds Barroll’s Anna of Denmark, Queen of England: A Cultural Biography, for example, charts her life in terms of her significant cultural contributions (chiefly to the genre of the court masque), although certain errors in her biography are present and little consideration is given to her early life or political career. More accurate and superbly readable is Susan Dunn-​Hensley’s Anna of Denmark and Henrietta Maria: Virgins, Witches, and Catholic Queens, which places under the lens the queen’s faith and the politics of display present in her masques. These much-​needed studies are largely in line with a renewed interest in Jacobean court culture, of which the queen was the primary mover. What tends to be overlooked, however, is that Anna’s masquing –​which has become the focus of so much scholarly attention –​took up comparatively little of her life. The celebrated masques and courtly revels were hugely important, of course, in disseminating her agenda as a consort –​but they took place only a few times each year at most, being confined to the Christmas periods and discrete courtly occasions, such as weddings or investitures. At the time of writing, Jemma Field has only recently had published her exemplary Anna of Denmark: The Material and Visual Culture of the Stuart Courts, 1589–​1619, which considers the queen as a lens through which to view female agency and the connectivity present within kinship networks as they operated in the period. In Helen Matheson-​Pollok, Joanne Paul and Catherine Fletcher’s edited collection, Queenship and Counsel in Early Modern Europe, Anna Whitelock’s ‘Reconsidering the Political Role of Anna of Denmark’ has also provided an excellent and much-​needed reconsideration of the queen’s political career at both courts, albeit a somewhat short one, as necessitated by the requirements of a contribution to a thematic collection. Maureen Meikle, too, has done extraordinary work in excavating Anna’s household and politico-​religious endeavours via a series of articles. No modern popular history exists, however, and Anna of Denmark remains to many a minor figure in the saga of the Stuarts. Why? The answer seems to be that the Strickland view of the dim-​bulb queen, more interested in dancing than in politics, lingers. For too long she was considered a weak and insubstantial figure in comparison to other women of her age: she had no great rivalries, she made no great speeches and

4

introduction

she could claim no great martial victories. Anna did not leave the mark of an Elizabeth I or even a Mary Queen of Scots because she did not inhabit the same role that they did. Nor did she even reach the heights, in terms of political power, of a Catherine de’ Medici. Yet, unfortunately, she has been most often –​and unfavourably –​compared to Elizabeth. Indeed, there seems to have been some contemporary confusion about her position during and shortly after her death: James sought to style and then bury her in the manner of Elizabeth; and in John Reynolds’s 1624 Vox Cœli, the deceased Anna was depicted in the company of Henry VIII, Edward VI, Elizabeth I, and her late son Henry, as one of a number of rulers –​and, interestingly, notable anti-​papal icons –​voting against the proposed Spanish match of James’s heir, Prince Charles. Anna was a queen consort, not a queen regnant. Her agency was thus circumscribed by her role, and it is that role –​or, more specifically, one aspect of that role –​queenship –​that has led to the renewal of scholarly interest in her. In assessing Anna’s navigation of the political spheres of two nations, the more appropriate comparative figures are her fellow early modern Scottish and English consorts, male and female. Here we will see the difference in her treatment by historians. Every other consort of the sixteenth century, from Elizabeth of York to Philip II in England, and Margaret Tudor to the 4th earl of Bothwell in Scotland, has had multiple monographs, popular novels and academic journal articles scrutinising their lives, accomplishments and contributions. Problematic, perhaps, is the dearth of material Anna left behind (though even greater lacunae in terms of direct primary material have not inhibited innumerable, excellent studies of, e.g., Anna of Cleves or Catherine Howard). Anna’s letters are relatively few, and in order to gain a picture of her, it is necessary to visit a variety of other sources, from the always-​reliable Calendars of State Papers, Hatfield Papers, Scottish inventories, and the observations of courtiers (notably the indefatigable John Chamberlain). From these, and of course from the range of literary and artistic works she commissioned from a host of writers and artisans, it is possible to reconstruct something of her personality. What emerges is a somewhat stubborn, artistic, fiercely loyal patroness and dilettante, who was by turns incredibly canny and tactful, remarkably single minded, often

Introduction

5

rather humorous and predominantly good-​natured. Her motto, ‘honour goes before life’, was one she took seriously, and her primary interests were in safeguarding first her own perceived rights and later the prestige of her children. In tracing her biography, what is striking is how different aspects of her character came to the fore during her consortship of her two adoptive nations: in Scotland, she was determined and factionally active, both in terms of pursuing her own goals and uniting with her husband in those goals they shared; in England, she sought to use soft power, refraining from involving herself in the courtly intrigues and scandals which came to dominate the Jacobean court. The reasons for this, it will be argued, lie in the differing nature of consortship and the legacies she inherited from previous holders of the titles in each kingdom. In Scotland, the history of consorts in the early modern period had been colourful: Margaret Tudor, wife to James IV, had achieved the position of ‘tutrix’ to her son only to be deposed upon her remarriage; Madeleine of Valois (first wife to James V) had died shortly after her arrival; Marie of Guise (Madeleine’s replacement) had fought for the regency only to be deposed by rebellious reformers; Francis II (first husband of Mary Queen of Scots) had not set foot in the country; his replacement, Darnley, had been assassinated; and Bothwell (Mary’s last husband) had been run out of Scotland and died in a Danish prison. The regency and subsequent deposition of the previous female consort, Marie of Guise, had left an especially powerful, misogynistic legacy. It had, in fact, heralded a development in Scottish intellectual thought which was less about articulating the power of royal families and more about limiting that power in favour of theocracy. Indeed, when Marie of Guise had fallen, those who opposed her had caparisoned their treason in the trappings of (unofficial) parliamentary authority and operated as a semi-​republican government, signing letters sent from Scotland as the ‘state of Scotland’. The Reformation, carried out under the illegal parliament of 1560/​1, had in effect established a body independent of the Crown (unlike, e.g., in England, whose long saga of Reformation was driven by reformist and counter-​reformist monarchs). What that parliament did not do, however, was establish the ecclesiastical infrastructure of the new Scottish Kirk –​an oversight which meant that the Reformation contained much unfinished business which would become a matter of fierce dispute during Anna’s tenure as consort.

6

introduction

The opinion of the Kirk was unequivocal. Seizing James VI by his coat sleeve in 1596, the Calvinist preacher Andrew Melville called him ‘God’s sillie vassal’ (i.e. simply God’s instrument or tool) and told him that there were two kings and two kingdoms in Scotland: ‘There is King James, the head of the commonwealth; and there is Christ Jesus, the king of the Church, whose subject James the Sixth is, and of whose kingdom he is not a king, not a lord, not a head, but a member.’2 Such a belief only pushed Anna further down the agenda: she was simply to be the wife of a secular sovereign, who ought at most to set a godly example to her husband’s female subjects. This, then, was the inheritance of consortship which James’s queen was to receive in Scotland: a catalogue of expulsions from power, deposition and assassination. The previous early modern Scottish consorts, male and female, had almost all met the challenge of producing heirs; yet they had subsequently met unfortunate fates, being deposed, opposed, and murdered as they attempted to exercise their traditional duties and rights.3 The monarchy itself was rebuilding power after periods of minority, rebellion and deposition, and in a cultural atmosphere in which the intellectual elite promoted the idea that the king was subject to his country’s national Kirk and his wife inferior to him and, further, ideally prohibited from meaningful power by virtue of her sex. If the century had begun as one in which consorts were traditionally allowed to act as agents of diplomacy with the expectation of wielding independent power should their spouses predecease them, it then witnessed consorts limited in their actions and lambasted from the pulpit and in print. It drew to a close with a king fighting to restore centralised authority in defiance of an emerging Church, and whose own hold on power was consistently –​and boldly –​questioned. By the 1590s, a Scottish queen consort (or, for that matter, a king consort) was expected to be a passive subject to her sovereign, operating in the political sphere only with royal consent, and with limited ability to offer counsel if and when it was sought. He or she did, of course, have control 2 3

Church of Scotland, The Scottish Kirk, p. 29. The exceptions –​those who did not produce heirs –​were the short-​lived Madeline of Valois and the equally short lived (as consort) 4th earl of Bothwell, whose twins miscarried.

Introduction

7

over his or her own household, and thus was free to distribute patronage independently. In the eyes of the world beyond the household, the consort was expected to encourage good behaviour and reinforce domestic ideals of servitude to authority in ways that would set a moral example (Anna would be condemned by staunchly Presbyterian moralists for, e.g., her dancing, and criticised for failing on occasion to accept the king’s will). He or she might have limited opportunities to exploit factionalism by providing an alternative political site –​and figurehead –​to the sovereign’s court, of course –​but this was certainly not encouraged, as the example of Darnley demonstrated. Nevertheless, in charting her course, as will be seen, Anna slipped into the role of Scotland’s royal consort quickly on arrival, and immediately ascertained –​and pushed back against –​infringements made on her ability to control her household. If the power of consortship in Scotland had witnessed a decline over the sixteenth century, nor did the role provide a sinecure in England. The era’s first royal wife, Elizabeth of York (consort to Henry VII) had occupied a role which her husband had, in order to shore up his claim to the throne, made as subservient as possible to his own. At this time, the mediaeval traditions of English consortship were still in effect, with the role comprising the ability to operate as semi-​independent femmes sole; a heritage of intercession –​an inherently political action –​dating back at least as far as Philippa of Hainault; and diplomatic expectations grounded in reconciling domestic and, if possible, international differences.4 As Louise Tingle has noted, historically ‘the queen’s influence extended not only to the king and royal court, but also to wider artistic and literary culture’.5 Yet direct power was also very much in evidence; throughout the mediaeval period, performance of and engagement in increasingly elaborate rituals and ceremonies had foregrounded the consort’s role in the developing state.6 However, following Elizabeth, the marital exploits of her son, Henry VIII, would witness shifts in the expectations of royal consorts: Katherine of Aragon represented a late blooming of royal marriage as a means of 4 5 6

John Carmi Parsons, ‘Ritual and Symbol’, p. 66. Louise Tingle, Chaucer’s Queens, p. 5. Carmi Parsons, ‘Never Was a Body Buried’, pp. 332–​336.

8

introduction

assuring secular alliance, and in her time she would be a patroness of the arts, a keen giver of charity, an ambassador and –​importantly –​England’s ‘governor’ and ‘captain general’ in her husband’s absence. What she failed to do, however, was provide a surviving male heir. Although the king toyed with the idea of marrying his daughter by Katherine, Mary Tudor, to her cousin Charles (thereby adopting Charles as a surrogate son whose subsequent son might rule England independently), he ultimately decided to dissolve the Spanish union. The catalyst for this was his desire to possess one of Katherine’s ladies, Anne Boleyn. Anne, however, also failed in her primary duty –​and proved herself too willing to advance political interests of her own –​and was executed on trumped up charges of treasonable adultery. There followed Jane Seymour, who provided a single male heir but did not long survive the difficult birth. In her place came Anna of Cleves –​Henry’s foray into politico-​religious alliance. On the failure of this marriage (which marked a break with the old tradition of royal marriage alliances), he wed the far younger Catherine Howard. Catherine, however, proved to have had a past; on learning of it, Henry despatched her to the block. His final wife was Katherine Parr, who in some ways revived both Katherine of Aragon’s intellectually minded consortship (albeit from a reformist perspective) whilst foregrounding (surrogate) motherhood and, crucially, proving herself capable enough to be given the regency during Henry’s last military venture. There were lessons to be learned from all these women, and Anna of Denmark would learn them well. For one thing, certain avenues had been closed to her –​or, at the least, made more difficult to access. Intercession had proven, under Jane Seymour (who unsuccessfully attempted to intercede on behalf of the Pilgrimage of Grace rebels), to be a pleasant fiction, with the king’s mercy governed by himself (and, in any case, the Marian tableau of the saintly queen pleading on her knees before her husband was of lesser value following the Reformation).7 Arguments –​particularly religious ones –​with the sovereign were dangerous, as Katherine Parr had 7

Despite its historical associations with Marian iconography, the process of English intercession was not a victim of the Reformation. The reformist Katherine Parr, for example, was petitioned by the equally reformist Sir Thomas Smith of the University of Cambridge to intercede with her husband in securing the advancement of

Introduction

9

demonstrated (the martyrologist John Foxe having widely publicised the story of her enraging the king with reformist debate). Thankfully, Henry’s willingness to see consorts executed was not inherited by any of his successors, but the lessons of Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard were also stark: royal wives could be brought down by the machinations of courtiers and counsellors, who might well use the private life of the consort to sow discord and stoke division between sovereign and spouse when it suited them.8 For the first time, essentially, Henry had made clear that an English consort’s private life and personal conduct were matters of state security. A good consort would know that he or she was watched, reported upon and secure only as long as they retained the favour of the monarch. The ability to present herself as a mistress of alms had also fall into abeyance following the Reformation. The prevailing theological position, even in the early days of reformist thought, was that good deeds secured salvation in the afterlife (rather than being, as would later be argued, an entirely separate, secular, moral imperative governed by a rational approach to state-​building).9 By the time of Anna’s tenure in England, conspicuous charity had become somewhat unfashionable –​an act associated with pious papistry, despite the fulminations of Puritan preachers who, ironically enough, lamented the loss of what had once been a thriving devotional practice. She would, therefore, engage primarily with it when petitioned to do so by secular figures, as when the royal physician, Henry Atkins, successfully bid her and James re-​establish St John’s Hospital in Buckinghamshire, thereafter named Queen Anne’s Hospital, in 1616.10 Yet there were encouraging lessons too. Queens consort of England could wield direct power as governors and regents, and there remained

8

9 10

learning in the teeth of the king’s acquisition of the colleges under the Chantries Act (1546). The legacy of Henry’s queen-​killing remained a live issue well into the next century. As Leanda de Lisle notes, Charles I’s wife, Henrietta Maria, was warned that there had been queens of England who had lost their heads. See Leanda de Lisle, The White King, p. 47. Brian Pullan, ‘Catholics, Protestants, and the Poor in Early Modern Europe’, pp. 441–​456. James Joseph Sheahan, History and Topography of Buckinghamshire, p. 482.

10

introduction

the possibility of taking a lead in fashioning the cultural identity of the realm. The latter would not only be a matter of genuine interest to Anna but would be absolutely crucial in mitigating against a growing distrust of foreigners and foreign royal matches. Anna of Cleves had lamented that ‘England is England, and we are strangers’ and, by the middle of the century, the 1554 marriage between Mary I to Philip of Spain had led to attacks on the queen grounded in a growing English xenophobia. If distrust in European royal marriages had been simmering in England over the century, it reached fever pitch with the possibility of England being subsumed into the Spanish empire. Robert Pownall’s 1557 invective provides a useful flavour of the kind of opposition Mary faced in attempting to present herself as wedded to her nation: [She is] another Athalia, that is an utter distroier of hir owen kindred, kyngdome & countrie, a hater of her own subjects, a lover of strangers & an unnatural stepdame both unto the[e]‌& to thy mother England.11

By marrying out of the realm, the queen had excited distrust in her own Spanish lineage and handed her opponents a means of othering her. The marriage would be ultimately unsuccessful, in that it both stirred up anti-​Spanish opposition and failed to produce issue (Mary experiencing only phantom pregnancies and stomach pains likely caused by the cancer which killed her in 1558). Increasingly, to love strangers (foreigners) was to hate England and, as the century wore on, the vocal celebration of the ruling elites’ Englishness would become part of the rhetoric of rule. As Anne Duggan has noted of mediaeval female consorts, ‘most … were foreigners in a foreign land’; by the end of the sixteenth century, the problem was that foreign matches become not unfashionable, but distrusted.12 This was an issue which Anna of Denmark –​foreign and married to a foreigner –​would find novel means of counteracting, and at a time when hatred of foreigners had widened to encompass not only the Spanish but, especially, the Scots. 1 1 12

Robert Pownall, April 1557, STC 19078. Anne Duggan, Queens and Queenship, p. xviii.

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Introduction

11

It is difficult to overstate just how much the legacy of the sixteenth-​ century consorts affected those who came later, not least James VI and I’s wife. Most obviously, the provision of a male heir took on totemic importance during Henry VIII’s reign. Only when that had been accomplished could a queen consort safely explore other avenues of consortship –​counsel, intercession and cultural engagement. English consorts existed to provide heirs to the throne and then, in the secondary aspects of their roles, they were expected to promote cultural pursuits; to avoid disagreements and disputes, especially with the sovereign; they were to reject overt political factionalism; and, importantly, they were to allow no scandal to attach to themselves. If they could not help their foreignness, they were at least required to find some means of mitigating it. It is almost certain that one of the reasons behind James VI’s accession as James I was that his wife had fulfilled the primary function –​ successful motherhood –​before the death of Elizabeth. This allowed him to present himself as a family man rather than a dynastic dead-​end, and it allowed Anna to come to England ready to take up the secondary aspects of her role as consort. As a result of Henry VIII’s religious changes, the conflict with Spain which dominated the latter part of Elizabeth’s reign, an increasingly muscular English parliament, and a growing reformist movement which had succeeded at least in ensuring that Catholicism dwindled to an othered minority, questions arose also on the nature of monarchy –​and these were to be of pressing importance to King James. What was an English king and what were the limits of his power? What was the nature of his religious role? Did his position exist to show or withhold mercy? To make laws or safeguard them? These would percolate throughout the sixteenth century and explode in the seventeenth. And if the role of the king was a matter of debate, so was the role of his consort. In striving to provide answers, Anna of Denmark would plot her own path. In doing so, she would not only draw on the functions, perquisites and traditions established by those who had preceded her –​she would take them further, seeking to ensure at all turns that her rights were recognised, her security assured and her shortcomings attenuated.

Part I

Denmark

The Danish Girl

The castle at Skanderborg, overlooking the waters of the Lillesø on the Jutland Peninsula, was new, the old building having been radically refurbished in the renaissance style by Denmark’s king, Frederick II. Frederick had the luxury of time and money to build. As a –​nominally –​ elected monarch, he ruled over a stable, staunchly Lutheran southern-​ Scandinavian kingdom which had, further, direct control over Norway, as well as the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein. Denmark was on the brink of a boon period. The civil wars of its reformation had resulted in Protestant victory and the ensuing peace meant that the country could take advantage of its naval capabilities and the trade benefits afforded by the strategic position of its Øresund, known in English as ‘the Sound’. Indeed, Frederick himself was intent on building an enormous fortress from which to assert his dominion over the waterway. This was heady stuff for a nation which, at the start of the century, had had its sovereign ranked by Pope Julius II as the king least worthy of precedence (the king of Denmark ranking behind the kings of Poland, Bohemia, Cyprus, Navarre and Hungary, but ahead of the dukes of Brittany, Burgundy and the Palatine).1 Frederick’s decision to refurbish Skanderborg was an expression of his confidence and of the wealth which had accrued to him and his nation, partly as a result of peace and partly owing to the income which fell to him from seven bishoprics spread across Denmark and Norway. Further, he boasted ‘the tolls of Elsinore, besides a revenue of 200,000 dollars … from the duties on Hamburg and Rostock beer’.2 Frederick had, in 1572, married the 14-​year-​old Sophie of Mecklenburg. He was thirty-​eight at the time and had allegedly been in love with one of his subjects, Anna Hardenberg. In his search for a more suitable bride, his eyes fell on Sophie, daughter of 1 Francis Lieber, Encyclopædia Americana –​Volume 3, p. 40. 2 Strickland, Lives, VII, p. 239.

16

the danish girl

Ulrich, duke of Mecklenburg and Elizabeth of Denmark, whom he first met at Nykøbing Castle. It appears that, prior to his marriage, Frederick, who had ruled as king since 1559, had been something of a wild child. Upon this most respectable of marriages to a royal bride, his sister Anna, electress of Saxony, wrote, Your Royal Majesty once has set upon leaving Your terrible, abominable Existence and [has joined] into a God-​pleasing and Christian Position and has made friendly and marital ties to a royal House of equal Origin, Class and Birth which will bring your Kingdom Honour.3

This does not appear the stuff of great romance, nor should we expect it to. The marriage was a clear political move on both sides, though Frederick evidently learnt quickly to bear towards his wife a considerable degree of affection, as suggested by his private letters, which were uniformly loving in sentiment.4 What the young bride thought of her husband is unknown, but it does appear that they got along fairly well and her own letters suggest a reciprocal affection.5 Unlike many monarchs, Frederick is not recorded as having ever taken on mistresses, though he continued to provide decadent tables and to foster an international reputation –​which would persist well into the next century –​for hard drinking amongst his countrymen. On the 12th of December 1574, the news broke out of Skanderborg that Sophie had given birth. Disappointingly, it was another girl.6 Frederick and Sophie already had a daughter: their eldest child, Elizabeth. The girl born that winter’s day was christened Anna, later known to history as Anna (or Anne) of Denmark, probably after her great-​grandmother, Anna of

3 4 5

6

Poul Grinder-​Hansen, Frederik 2, p. 152. Grinder-​Hansen, Frederik 2, 287 f. The obvious caveat here stems from our earlier recognition that royal consorts –​ and Sophie was a successful one –​were wise to frame their letters in accordance with their husband’s wishes. Witness, for example, Katherine Parr’s letter to Henry VIII, quoted in the introduction. Ethel Carleton Williams, Anne of Denmark, p. 1, claims he burst into the bedchamber to fulminate against the queen for birthing another female.

The Danish Girl

17

Brandenburg or, less likely, her great aunt, Anna, duchess of Courland.7 She was thereafter swaddled –​wrapped tightly in crisp linens in the traditional belief that restricted movement would ensure that her limbs grew straight and strong. In young Anna’s case, the result proved to belie the efficacy of the practice; she would, according to her later physician, who presumably had it from her, be unable to walk without support until she was nine, with this early disability likely justifying her later passion for dancing. Despite the disappointment of a second female, the Danish royal couple was able to retain a sense of harmony and affection. This was in keeping with the tenets of Lutheranism to which Frederick II and his kingdom subscribed. In his 1522 treatise, ‘The Estate of Marriage’, Luther wrote, Now you tell me, when a father goes ahead and washes diapers or performs some other mean task for his child, and someone ridicules him as an effeminate fool, though that father is acting in the spirit just described and in Christian faith, my dear fellow you tell me, which of the two is most keenly ridiculing the other? God, with all his angels and creatures, is smiling, not because that father is washing diapers, but because he is doing so in Christian faith.8

There is of course no suggestion that Frederick II washed his daughter’s diapers, but there is reason to believe that his relationship with his wife remained one predicated on love and duty, seeded with respect and obedience on her part. As William R. Garrett has noted, the Lutheran conception of marriage was one which helped birth the idea of the modern nuclear family: ‘Thus Luther’, he writes, ‘denied the sacramental status accorded to marriage by Roman Catholicism, while still describing marriage as a “blessed office” which not only serves as a dike against sin by 7

8

Probably the first is correct. Anna’s elder sister, Elizabeth, was likely named for Queen Sophie’s mother, Elizabeth of Denmark. It might well be that Sophie and Frederick went back a further generation in naming their second daughter. After naming the male heir, born in 1577, Christian (thus allowing him to continue to the line of Christians when he became Christian IV), Frederick and Sophie returned to the maternal style of naming for their next child, a son, born in 1578 and christened Ulrik, after his maternal grandfather, Ulrich III of Mecklenburg-​Güstrow. The association with the maternal side is well underscored by Duke Ulrich and Elizabeth of Denmark raising Frederick and Sophie’s children. Martin Luther, ‘The Estate of Marriage’, p. 70.

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providing a legitimate channel for the expression of sexual drives, but also affords human beings with the strongest and happiest bonds of all earthly ties.’9 Certainly, given the rate at which Sophie and Frederick would produce issue, the sexual imperative was well served by their marriage. The inclusion of love between husband and wife was explicitly based on scriptural authority: ‘Husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself.’10 For the wife’s part, duty and obedience were owed, and Sophie evinced this in her well-​expressed concern for her husband’s wellbeing, as in 1575 when he suffered a bout of malaria. This aspect of marriage –​a scriptural demand for obedience given in return for love –​was much expounded by Calvin and thus to have special interest to Anna, who was destined to marry into the Calvinist atmosphere of Scotland. As Garrett further notes, ‘Calvin also prescribed a considerable degree of parental –​largely paternal –​control over children, based on the order of nature and the clear teaching of the scriptures … and over the course of time, this religious legitimation of marital love and parental concern acquired ever increasing force until it helped usher in the emergence of the modern family.’11 Yet the world of the Danish court was not wholly modern. Indeed, if one accepts that reformist thought tended towards a paternal ideal of family life –​however loving and full of concern the dominating father might be –​it remained as itinerant as any early modern court. Frederick was an industrious ruler who, like many sovereigns, travelled, hunted widely across his dominions and his seven royal castles, and was in all ways loath to remain in place. That being the case, and in an effort to ensure stability of upbringing, the royal couple determined to pass the immediate care of their young daughters to Sophie’s parents, Duke Ulrich and Duchess Elizabeth, at the old Wendish castle at Güstrow. This decision differs from those made for the care of royal infants afforded by other monarchies in the period, which tended to prefer giving children their own households ruled by loyal, aristocratic attendants. Frederick and Sophie 9 10 11

W. R. Garrett, ‘The Protestant Ethic’, p. 225. Ephesians 5: 28. Garrett, ‘The Protestant Ethic’, pp. 227–​228.

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were intent on keeping the governance of their children in the family, and it is even reported that the queen took the unusual step of nursing them through childhood ailments when possible. Güstrow, presided over by Anna’s grandparents, provided a stable if chilly and somewhat austere backdrop to her earliest years. The renaissance would not sweep away the old building until 1589 and she thus learnt to deport herself as befitted a royal child in the forbidding castle which crouched above the provincial town. Here also she would have been nursed and weaned at about 2 years old.12 When Queen Sophie’s first confinement following Anna’s birth approached, in March 1577, Duchess Elizabeth travelled to Frederiksborg Castle in Hillerød to be with her daughter, who was then under the care of her chief court mistress, Inger Oxe, the foster mother of the acclaimed astronomer Tycho Brahe and three midwives.13 Happily, good news soon came to the nursery in Güstrow that the queen had given birth to the male heir –​Christian –​ on the 12th of April. Duke Ulrich followed in his wife’s footsteps, reaching Copenhagen ahead of the christening on Trinity Sunday on the 2nd of June. There followed an outpouring of thanksgiving and a flowering of pageantry which served the dual function of celebrating the fecundity of the Oldenburg dynasty and announcing Frederick II’s intention of securing the throne for the infant. Although the monarchy of Denmark was, legally speaking, elective, in practice the reigning king traditionally put forward his eldest surviving son for nomination unopposed. The christening of the future Christian IV was noteworthy for a number of reasons. Firstly, it demonstrates the vibrant cultural atmosphere which prevailed in the Danish court of Anna’s childhood. The festivities included a mock battle between the Philistines and the Hebrews and school dramas reflecting on the duties of the sovereign and his wife. Erasmus Laetus was to write in laudatory tones that the ‘baptism of Christian was at the same time to be the baptism of Denmark. Denmark was now the

1 2 13

Louise Tilly and Joan Wallach Scott, ‘Women, Work, and Family’, p. 35. Inger Oxe had been sister to Peder Oxe (d1575), who had been finance minister and steward of the realm. The family was not far from power and thus neither was Sophie.

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only country in the world where true faith ruled unchallenged!’14 Nor were more visceral pleasures left unattended; the guests and citizens were treated to a feast comprising ‘1250 chickens, 8000 eggs, 700 lambs, 400 pigs, 100 smoked boars’ heads, and 1600 dried flounders’.15 To delight the eye, ‘a wonderful dance of Moorish fools’ was staged.16 Central to the event, and of relevance to Anna’s future roles, was the conspicuous system of gift exchange.17 Most famously, the aristocratic godparents, Hans Skovgaard and Anne Parsberg, provided their young charge with a splendid gilt silver cup known as the ‘Rose Flower’ as an acknowledgement of the honour done them in being asked to stand as ‘gossips’ and to demonstrate their thanks at the gifts they had received from the royal family on their own wedding.18 Yet, as Poul Grinder-​Hansen has noted, At the same time the cup and its symbolism hinted at the ideal of the generous lord, stressing the hospitality and accessibility expected from the king, an ideal as common to king and nobility at the renaissance court of the sixteenth century as it had been in the previous centuries. The more humble gifts mentioned in private account books of the time point to the fact that people did not necessarily give someone a gift to obtain something in return. Sometimes gifts were simply given to sustain the social order of which the donors were a part.19

Gift exchanges were as important in forming and solidifying social networks, securing and reciprocating patronage and demonstrating loyalty and friendship in Scotland and England as in Denmark, and it seems that Anna learned the lessons of her childhood court. She was, in her time, to be a prodigious gift giver (and receiver) and to make the most of this fairly complex means of emphasising the social order –​and the consort’s place in it.

1 4 Janus Møller Jensen, Denmark and the Crusades, p. 332. 15 Williams, Anne of Denmark, p. 3. 16 Stephen Orgel, ‘What Is an Audience?’, p. 45. 17 For the importance of this aspect of early modern monarchy, see Felicity Heal, The Power of Gifts, especially pp. 121–​148. 18 Grinder-​Hansen, ‘Aspects of Gift Giving in Denmark’, pp. 114–​124. 19 Ibid.

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The Danish royal court was thus no hard-​drinking backwater but a colourful and intellectually stimulating hub for renaissance thought, culture and custom. It provided –​and rigorously fought for –​patronage of the emerging sciences, from Paracelsianism to iatrochemistry.20 It fostered, too, interest in the arts, with Queen Sophie patronising playwright Hieronymus Justesen Ranch, historians Arild Huitfeld and Anders Sorensen Vedel and of course her chief court mistress’s foster son, Tycho Brahe. Yet the expensive celebrations could not last. A week after the festivities, the newly christened infant was sent to join his sisters in the royal nursery at Güstrow, there to embark on the upbringing peculiar to the period. The lives of early modern children were governed by routine and styles of education varied widely depending on the humanist bent of those in charge of raising the child. Of principal importance to Lutheran thinking were, again, Luther’s own pronouncements: Above all, the foremost reading for everybody, both in the universities and in the schools, should be Holy Scripture –​and for the younger boys, the Gospels. And would to God that every town had a girls’ school as well, where the girls would be taught the gospel for an hour every day either in German or in Latin.21

The corollary of Luther’s much-​vaunted promulgation of scriptural studies conducted in the native tongue, however, meant that children –​unless aided by determined tutors –​were likelier to prefer studying in languages they understood rather than Latin. Anna thus did not learn the plethora of languages which a rigorous humanist education might have produced, but at this stage conversed in Danish and Low German. Nevertheless, life with her sister Elizabeth and her grandparents was far from stultifying. Duke Ulrich was celebrated as a ‘Nestor’, his wisdom thus being said to rival the mythical king of Pylos.22 As she was also the daughter of a king (Frederick I of Denmark), Anna’s grandmother, too, was a devout and austere woman who could provide instruction in the conduct required of 20 Jole Shackelford, ‘Paracelsianism and the Orthodox Lutheran Rejection of Vital Philosophy’, pp. 210–​211. 21 Luther, ‘Embedded Commentary in Luther’s Translation’, p. 121. 22 Albert Myers, An Illustrated Catalogue, p. 73.

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a princess. The daughters of kings, she knew well enough, were intended for strategic alliances (as she had been, as her daughter had been and as she expected her two young charges to be). As a consequence, they must be instructed in obedience, in the provision of gentle arts such as embroidery and music, and in dancing (the latter of which, as noted, Anna was unable to engage in in her extreme youth). What is immediately noticeable in Anna’s early education is, however, that it lacked the rigour found in earlier generations of women. The grand hopes of early sixteenth-​century humanists –​Juan Luis Vives and Thomas More, for e­ xample –​had not discernibly improved the educational lot even of royal ladies. The blossoming of interest in teaching women to the same degree as men, and which had seen figures such as Elizabeth Tudor (then the Lady Elizabeth and not expected to attain the throne) and Mary Queen of Scots enjoy studies in languages, history and the classics, had given way to a focus on narrower fare. As the English writer Elizabeth Joscelin was to put it in her The Mother’s Legacy to her Unborn Child (1624), I desire her bringing up may bee learning the Bible, as my sisters doe, good housewifery, writing, and good works: other learning a woman needs not; though I admire it in those whom God hath blest with descretion, yet I desired not much in my owne, having seene that sometimes women have greater portions of learning than wisdome, which is of no better use to them than a main saile to a flye-​boat, which runs it under water.23

Though published after Anna’s tenure in England, this treatise very much captures the direction of travel which had been coming to dominate even royal circles. In this way, women did not necessarily benefit from the renaissance; focus was placed predominantly on their religious instruction, and early tuition centred more on dictating behaviour –​discretion, good works and the principle of obedience –​than it did to scholarly accomplishments. If Anna was to evince a taste for learning in later life, such as her mother had, it would be idiosyncratic and defined by her political and cultural tastes.

23

Elizabeth Jocelin, The Mother’s Legacy, p. 49.

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Citing the languages acquired by Christian in his youth, Clare McManus has made a compelling case for the other Danish royal children enjoying similar levels of education by dint of what she calls ‘an educative structure’.24 This is an argument refined further by Mara R. Wade, who suggests that similarities in style and language between Christian IV’s and Anna’s later letters indicate a shared education.25 This does not, however, offer much in the way of illumination, nor is it surprising. Even princely boys were, in their earliest years, raised in female-​centric households and typically not introduced to the masculine world –​and its expanded educational opportunities –​until between the ages of 4 and 7. Christian and his younger brother Ulrik, both Anna’s junior, would therefore naturally have been raised with the girls –​and neither boy would begin formal education until Christian was seven and Ulrik five (at which point their horizons expanded significantly beyond Anna’s). We should therefore not be surprised to find that Anna spoke German –​the language of the Danish court –​and vernacular Danish as her brothers did.26 At any rate, the royal children were to be rusticated with their grandparents only until Christian was 2 years old. Then, Frederick’s conciliar body, the Riksråd, raised objections to the Danish heir being raised in the dukedom of Güstrow. The king complied, and the infant Christian, along with his two sisters, returned to Denmark where a new brother, Ulrik, had joined the family, and were placed under the direct care of their mother. Anna was thus able to witness consortship first-​hand and at an age at which she was able to understand it.

2 4 Clare McManus, Women on the Renaissance Stage, p. 66. 25 Mara R. Wade, ‘The Queen’s Courts’, pp. 53–​54. 26 The question of whether Anna understood Latin –​and if so, how much –​at this stage is thornier. McManus suggests that she had attained it, attributing this to the education provided by her family and citing as evidence the decision of the Edinburgh burgesses to provide pageants on her arrival in Latin, because she then spoke no Scots. However, those organisers of her welcome might simply have assumed Latin to be a continental lingua franca and a culturally significant language capable of demonstrating their own wit, as it was. On leaving Denmark, Anna had in fact been using French to communicate with her Latin-​fluent husband –​something that the burgesses failed to recognise.

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Queen Sophie was, by the standards of the age, a notable beauty, blonde-​haired and blue-​eyed: a youthful counterpoint to her bluff, outgoing husband. She was, further, a maternal figure, with all the disciplinary attributes which motherly care denoted in the period. As a Danish consort, she was barred from direct political influence; nevertheless, she ran her own household, set and maintained the standards expected of her ladies, settled domestic disputes and, as has been noted, exercised soft power via patronage and sponsorship of cultural activities. In raising her daughters, she tempered love with instruction in those arts Anna would have begun to learn in her grandparents’ household: spinning and embroidery were considered suitable pastimes, and study of devotional texts remained high in regard. A report sent to William Cecil, Lord Burghley, in England remarked of Sophie that she was a ‘right virtuous and Godly princess which with motherly care and great wisdom ruleth her children’.27 Whether Burghley’s agent was inspired by the Bible or whether Sophie actively sought to project scriptural ideals, it appears that the report leant heavily on Proverbs 31, 26–​29: ‘She openeth her mouth with wisdome, and the lawe of grace is in her tongue. She ouerseeth the wayes of her housholde, and eateth not the bread of ydlenes. Her children rise vp, and call her blessed: her husband also shall prayse her, saying, many daughters haue done vertuously.’28 Those children rising up were joined by Augusta, born in April of 1580. Later in the year, Frederick moved to officially nominate Christian as his successor: a step which undoubtedly he had had in mind since the christening and the Riksråd had foreseen since before the royal children were brought back to Denmark. The system operated by votes, with nominators drawn from across the kingdom. The results, however, were a foregone conclusion, and the prince was elected at the Diet of Odense in 1580, ‘on which occasion there were English musicians and a French dancing master with the court’.29 In return, Frederick ceded the territories of Schleswig, Hans and Adolph as fiefdoms to their respective dukes and the Riksråd

2 7 Harriet Warner Ellis, Denmark and Her Missions, p. 33. 28 Proverbs 31, 26–​29. 29 Wade, ‘Scandinavia Triumphans’, p. 241.

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was assured of its rights on the prince’s eventual accession (a neat demonstration of the collaborative if not contractual nature of governance).30 Nevertheless, it was not until 1584 that the estates of the realm paid official homage. In the meantime, Sophie continued to prove –​as though proof were needed –​her fecundity. Further filling out the nursery were Hedwig, born in 1581, and finally John, born in 1583. When considering her success as a royal consort, no one could accuse Queen Sophie of failing to perform her primary function. The future of the Oldenburg dynasty was entirely secure. The family thus completed, on Sunday, the 14th of June 1584, Frederick and wife and children assembled at Viborg in Jutland, which boasted both an ancient cathedral and a Swedish-​built mediaeval castle, much improved throughout the sixteenth century. On the Monday, the king and the young prince appeared on a ‘richly decorated tribunal’ in the town square, holding hands as the chancellor, Niels Kaas, opened proceedings with an oration on the solemnity of Christian’s nomination.31 Anna and the other females of the family paid their ceremonial homage, followed by the counsellors of the Riksråd, the nobility, the clergy and the commons. Throughout what must have been a lengthy and tedious round of hand shaking, the 3-​year-​old Christian reportedly conducted himself well. For her part, Anna was to get her first taste of grand public ceremonial; it was certainly not to be her last. As with the christening, the prince’s public oath and election to the position of king-​in-​waiting was followed by festivities. A Danish play by Sophie’s client, Hieronymus Justesen Ranch, titled Kong Salomons Hylding (the Acclamation of King Solomon) was performed, with Christian thematically presented as Solomon, recognised by an aged King David as his heir.32 The extent to which this biblical identification imprinted itself on Anna is impossible to know. However, she would see just such a regal identification repeatedly throughout her life; her future husband would persistently and successfully attempt to identify himself with Solomon, albeit for reasons –​as will be seen –​of his own. 3 0 Krista Kodres and Anu Män, Images and Objects, p. 166. 31 Ibid. 32 Ibid.

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The revelry lasted for three days, after which the Danish court made a circuit of the country to establish the prince’s election in the principal territories: from Odense to Ringsted in Zealand to Lund. The peripatetic court did not conclude this round of theatrical ceremonies until July, whereupon the first decisive educational break was made between the children, with Christian and Ulrik despatched for formal studies to Sorø Academy. Deep academic immersion was for male issue, not for daughters; the cluster of royal girls was left to continue practising embroidery and receiving religious instruction under their mother’s gaze. Denied access to institutions of scholarship and political office which were opened to growing males, intelligent women were likely to do what intelligent people will –​they sought alternative imaginative, creative outlets. This was still an age of women managing grand estates and properties; widows running businesses; and women writing closet dramas and studying poetry in elite circles. Nevertheless, despite their separation, for the rest of her life Anna was to remain deeply attached to her brothers, especially Christian, and the bonds forged in her earliest years were to prove of considerable political capital in her later life.

The Old Young Man

With the succession of Denmark settled, the purpose of the clutch of female children Sophie of Mecklenburg had produced was crystallised. This, naturally, meant finding them husbands who would do their nation honour and provide, ideally, lasting alliances. Such matches were thorny affairs, much discussed and debated, and apt to be mooted, made, broken and remade according to the shifting sands of international politics. If princesses were destined for grand marriage alliances, they required an appropriate set of prospective husbands; royal suitors were always preferable. Born in 1566, King James VI had ruled Scotland nominally since the deposition of his mother in 1568, acting as titular sovereign under various ill-​starred regencies.1 Raised in the household of the earl of Mar at Stirling Castle, his upbringing was a blend of traditional classical education and experimentation, as his first tutor, the widely respected George Buchanan, sought to put into practice his own theories of kingship by instilling in his pupil modern ideas of godly kings, subject to their people’s acceptance (ideas which were, in later life, to repel James far more than enthuse him). In a Latin verse to the Englishman Thomas Randolph, Buchanan outlined his educational goals: I would have him a lover of true piety, deeming himself the veritable image of highest God. He must love peace yet be ever ready for war. To the vanquished he must be merciful; and when he lays down his arms he must lay aside his hate. I should wish him to be neither a niggard nor a spendthrift, for each, I must think, works equal harm to his people. He must believe that as king he exists for his subjects and not for himself, and that he is, in truth, the common father of the state.2 1

2

Four regents ruled in young James’s name: his uncle the earl of Moray (assassinated in 1570); his paternal grandfather the earl of Lennox (assassinated in 1571); his guardian the earl of Mar (who died, possibly after being poisoned, in 1572); and his second cousin the earl of Morton (who might have been the poisoner, and who was brought down and executed in 1581). P. Hume-​Brown, George Buchanan, p. 254.

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His text is rich in two things: what his young charge must do and what he, as tutor, regards as his role in fashioning this, his ideal paragon. Notable is, once more, the image of the king as ‘father of the state’: that idealised Protestant perception of kingship. This had taken root in the country particularly due to the periods of regency under firstly the Catholic regent, Marie of Guise, and the subsequent personal rule of her Catholic daughter. Few familiar with the period can have escaped the beliefs of that key architect of the reformation, John Knox, as laid out in his The First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstruous Regiment of Women. Knox expounds colourfully on his theme: To promote a Woman to bear rule, superiority, dominion or empire above any realm, nation or city is A. Repugnant to nature. B. Contumely to GOD. C. The subversion of good order, of all equity and justice.3

To Knox, the promotion of women to positions of power is triply wrong: it is unnatural, it is irreligious and it is, from the perspective of secular governance, an invitation to chaos. He speaks not only of Scotland, but of all nations. Nor is he shy about the reasons for his opposition to female power: they are accursed by ‘their naturall weaknes, and inordinat appetites’.4 His postlapsarian view recognises that ‘woman in her greatest perfection was made to serve and obey man, not to rule and command him’, and that ‘she was made subiect to man by the irreuocable sentence of God’.5 None of this is particularly surprising: early modern women were continually and increasingly enjoined to obedience, silence and submissiveness. It is, however, difficult to know how persuasive Knox’s book was on an individual level. What is more interesting is to consider how it formed part of a wider discourse on the role of royal women: a discourse 3 John Knox, The First Blast of the Trumpet, p. 6. 4 Knox, The First Blast of the Trumpet, p. 8. 5 Knox, The First Blast of the Trumpet, p. 9.

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which largely held that women in power –​excepting those cases in which men might find biblical precedents to excuse them –​were distrusted. The reformation itself has long been recognised as a period which reinforced patriarchal norms and, certainly, much of Scotland’s political elite continued to voice a preference for male rule. Given the flowering of misogyny which had marked Protestant politico-​religious thought, particularly in Scotland, it is clear that, though the king was father, the royal consort would have no public role as national mother. In the paternal discourse which would dominate James’s view of kingship in later life, he too would ignore his actual wife and instead favour the conceit that he was father and husband to his realms. Neither Buchanan nor, later, James, were exceptional in giving scant regard to women’s roles in the political sphere. The old tutor was, as part of his education of the prince, deeply involved in the public slandering of Mary Queen of Scots, notwithstanding he had once had a warm relationship with her. Nevertheless, James would make significant educational advancements during his youth at Stirling Castle, perfecting Latin, Greek and French, in additional to his native Scots, and amassing a library of some 600 books.6 Buchanan’s teachings were augmented by those of the more agreeable Peter Young, as well as forays out into the hunting fields; but the king’s early life had been dominated by learning and only relieved by his burgeoning sexuality, sparked by the arrival and company of his attractive French cousin, Esmé Stuart, in 1579. Though over 20 years older, Stuart was to set the pattern for those men who were later to become James’s lovers, at least in terms of manners and habits. The young king’s tentative entry onto the political stage began in 1578 when, likely at the connivance of his then keeper, Alexander Erskine of Gogar, he accepted what had been a token offer of resignation by the Regent Morton. Morton thus tottered, losing the regency as James (as his grandfather James V had done at a similar age) sought recognition as a ruling sovereign, but he did not fall. The quondam regent recovered and 6

As Caroline Bingham notes in her survey of the range of books catalogued, learning English does not seem to have been high on James’s tutors’ agenda. See Bingham, James VI of Scotland, pp. 40–​41.

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clung to power as the premier lord of the council, continuing to exercise semi regal powers –​and overseeing James’s entry into public life –​until his ultimate fall from grace in 1581, when his part in Darnley’s murder (Morton admitted foreknowledge) finally caught up with him. With the fall of the last regent, James took up the full reins of power personally.7 He was rapidly developing into a spare, bookish young man, and his sexual tastes have been a topic of much scholarly discussion. Almost certainly, he was bisexual with a marked preference for men.8 This, however, mattered nothing in terms of a match; what mattered was that he safeguard the Scottish succession. The problem James faced was that, even on assuming his personal reign, his mother remained immured in English captivity, having fled to Queen Elizabeth’s realm in the hope of armed support against her rebels (and instead finding only a show-​inquiry into the mysterious death of Darnley, during which she was found neither guilty nor innocent but imprisoned nonetheless). James’s own relationship with Elizabeth was outwardly warm, or as warm as it could be between two mutually suspicious and distrustful correspondents. As his mother once had, the young king was perpetually aware that the virgin queen might die childless at any moment and he, as a descendant of Henry VII through his daughter Margaret Tudor, had a strong claim to the English throne. To Mary Queen of Scots’s chagrin, James decided to do nothing to improve her situation and instead embarked independently on a peace treaty with England. In 1585, Elizabeth wrote to her ‘dear brother’ (the English queen invariably preferred corresponding 7 8

James’s personal rule began in 1584; however, the king was not legally recognised as having full authority by parliament until his twenty-​first birthday in 1587. Michael B. Young has explored the king’s sexuality in his King James and the History of Homosexuality. It has been argued in the past that the king simply used a system of favourites akin to his predecessor, Queen Elizabeth (who famously had nonsexual loving relationships with favourites). This is unlikely. The French poet Théophile de Viau would write, ‘And it is well known that the king of England /​fucks the duke of Buckingham [ James’s last favourite].’ James’s tactile nature suggests physical intimacy, and it is notable that the rise of his first major favourite coincided, as will later be seen, with the apparent cessation of sexual activity with his wife. Few still cling to the idea that the king was simply good friends with those select men whose looks attracted him and whom he brought into his bedchamber and/​or bed.

The Old Young Man

31

in the diplomatic language of siblinghood when addressing fellow sovereigns) of a foiled Catholic plot to free Mary. James, for his part, assured her that he opposed all such plots, as well as refuting rumours that his subjects were fighting against English colonists in Ireland. By June 1586, the treaty the pair had hatched was ready: Elizabeth wrote north of her delight at James’s ‘gladsome acceptance of my offered amity together with the desire you seem to have engraven in your mind to make merits correspondent [i.e. to return the friendship]’.9 This amity matured with the offering of a greased palm of friendship. The Treaty of Berwick, signed on July 5th 1586, pledged Anglo-​Scottish amity and mutual defence against the Catholic powers of Europe. For his trouble, James was awarded £4,000 a year from England’s coffers: a pension, though James preferred to call it his ‘annuity’. Only the lingering problem of Mary remained, haunting the political stage in the British Isles like Hamlet’s father’s ghost. Yet with Anglo-​Scottish peace assured, Queen Elizabeth’s counsellors –​notably her spymaster, Walsingham –​were free to lure the Scottish queen into a plot which would finally provide a legal route to her execution. Thus, the tangled affair of the Gifford channel (by which agent provocateur Gilbert Gifford provided Mary with a means for secret letters to be smuggled in and out of her prison, blithely unaware that the channel of communication had been set up by Walsingham) began; soon enough, the Babington Plot began in earnest and, once Mary agreed in principle to the plans laid for her freedom by Anthony Babington and the Jesuit John Ballard, Walsingham’s trap was sprung. Mary found herself accused of and tried for treason against Elizabeth. Despite her neat legal swerve that an anointed sovereign could not be tried for treason against a sister sovereign –​that fate being reserved for subjects of the putative victim –​the Scottish queen went to the block at the fortress of Fotheringhay in February 1587. She was 44 and, by this time, a sickly, stout, though still remarkably dignified figure. Though James voiced face-​saving protests against his mother’s fate, the truth was that he welcomed being free of her shadow. He was finally sole king, with no deposed mother to claim his throne. Thus freed of any 9

Elizabeth I, Collected Works, p. 261.

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questions regarding his sovereignty of Scotland, he put in train his search for a suitable bride. The question of James’s marriage had been live since at least 1582, when the king was celebrated in Alexander Montgomerie’s ‘The Navigatioun’: Nou callit Scotland, as we haif hard report Of wandring fame vhilk fleeth ay athort Quhair presently beginneth for to ring So sapient a young and godly King. A Salomon for richt and judgement. In every langage he is Eloquent. All lands about do beir of him record. He is the chosen vessell of the Lord.10

The poem was, as these things tended to be, enthusiastic in its stated desire for a godly king who would restore Scotland’s degraded fame. It does, however, introduce us to what would become one of James’s favourite images, and one which he would continue to associate himself with: Solomon, the biblical king known for his judgement. As has been noted, the future Christian IV was celebrated via the same precedent. The Scottish king, on his ceremonial entry into Edinburgh in 1579, had already been firmly associated with the biblical king; at the West Port: ‘King Solomon was representit with the twa women that contendit for the young child. This done, they presented unto the king, the sword for the one hand, and the sceptre for the other.’11 For James, however, the comparison was to have dynastic power. As he had inherited his mother’s claim to the English throne, it was incumbent upon him to make the most of it. Though he was descended from Henry VII via Margaret Tudor, he was not a Tudor himself. The rich world of classical allusion did, however, allow him to project a link between himself and the Tudor monarchs. Henry VIII had been conflated with Solomon 1 0 11

Alexander Montgomerie, Poems, p. 235. Robert Chambers, Domestic Annals of Scotland, I, p. 131.

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in Holbein’s Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, in addition to being associated with David in Jean Mallard’s psalter.12 Similarly, Elizabeth herself had enjoyed a tradition of association with the biblical kings, David and Solomon included. The crafting of James as Solomon, which he would embrace wholeheartedly, therefore served the dual purpose of presenting him as a godly and wise ruler and offering him a biblical link to the later Tudor monarchs which worked in tandem with his dynastic claims.13 As ever, renaissance allegory worked on multiple levels, inviting a range of meanings and interpretations. This early enthusiasm for the young king, and efforts on Scotland’s behalf to find him a suitable match, were hampered by the successful coup against him in the summer of 1582, which has become known as the Ruthven Raid, and which made James a virtual prisoner for a year. Ostensibly, the coup, carried out by a band of malcontents calling themselves the Lords Enterprisers, was predicated on Catholic influences (chiefly the king’s cousin, Esmé Stuart, raised to the title of 1st duke of Lennox, and Captain James Stewart, raised to the earldom of Arran) which had surrounded the young king; in practice, the result of the Ruthven Raid was that the cabal’s leader, the 1st earl of Gowrie, took on the reins of government and set about ensuring a hard-​Protestant regime with an iron grip on royal expenditure. This turn of events had pleased Elizabeth in England. It did not please young James. The king escaped his captors in the summer of 1583; he would harbour a lasting enmity towards the Ruthvens of Gowrie thereafter. Nevertheless, the political fallout included the loss of Esmé (whom the king had been forced under duress to banish and who had subsequently died in France), and, by the end of 1585, the once dominant earl of Arran had also lost power. James, once free, had also been endowed with a deep suspicion of the Kirk, which had viewed his captivity with equanimity and given it spiritual sanction. It was thus that, in 1585, marriage negotiations again became a significant issue in Scottish politics. James might have returned to power, lionising himself to the English ambassador, Sir Francis Walsingham, as ‘an absolute 12 1 3

Thomas P. Campbell, Henry VIII and the Art of Majesty, p. 233. See William Carroll Tate, Solomonic Iconography in Early Stuart England.

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king’ in 1583, but he was nevertheless perennially short of cash and vulnerable to faction.14 As Amy Juhala has noted, ‘financing of the court and household was always a concern, and Scotland’s coffers in the latter part of the sixteenth century were not plentiful. New sources of funds needed to be discovered.’15 One of the great boons of marriage was, of course, the opportunities it provided in seeking out sizable dowries. Previous Scottish monarchs, as has been seen, sought matches based predominantly on prestige and dynastic interests. James V, for example, had sought French brides of considerable rank; Mary Queen of Scots had wed a dauphin, sought a Spanish prince and ultimately married Darnley, who allowed the retention of the Stuart name and helped her neutralise a potential rival for the English throne. Denmark, however, was not a European superpower. What it was was a country of growing commercial importance (and it would soar higher under Anna’s brother, Christian IV). It had, further, religious attractions in its established Lutheranism and, from the perspective of the Danes, it allowed the question of the Orkneys to be settled. These islands had been pledged in lieu of a dowry by Christian I of Denmark (in his role of king of Norway), when James III of Scotland had married Christian’s daughter Margaret. The cash which was mooted to buy them back had never been paid, and so the islands remained under the Scottish Crown. Frederick II saw in a match between one of his daughters and Scotland a chance to recover the islands; the Scots saw an alliance with Denmark as a means of averting a potential war with the seagoing Danes and the opportunity to increase trade opportunities, though, on the debit side, neither James nor his counsellors had any intention of ceding the Orkneys. But a Danish bride was not the only possibility, and so began one of the century’s many rounds of diplomatic horse trading as options were narrowed down. Although a Spanish Habsburg match had been briefly floated –​at least by the Spanish –​in 1584, the Danes were the first to get in a serious bid. Danish ambassadors arrived in Scotland in 1585 and were conducted 1 4 15

Peter C. Herman, Royal Poetrie, p. 168. Amy Juhala, ‘Household and Court of King James VI’, p. 11.

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to Dunfermline Palace, in the great hall of which they intended to introduce their nation’s expectations and demands. The negotiations did not get off to a good start. On being advised by the king that plague threatened the town and invited to go instead to St Andrews with a royal escort, the ambassadors set out on foot, finding no horses put at their disposal. This can have done little to endear the Scots to the Danes, and Frederick had indicated that the question of the restitution of the Orkneys must remain a priority, match or no match (which can hardly have endeared the Danes to the Scots). Nevertheless, discussion between James and Frederick, bobbing with marriage talk and foundering with the problem of the Orkneys, continued. This increased diplomatic activity, naturally, reached the ears of Queen Elizabeth. As she had during Mary Queen of Scots’s personal rule, the English queen thought it her right to have a say in any marriage negotiations conducted by Scottish monarchs. Her reasoning is obvious yet her means typically baroque; she wished to dictate Scottish policy under the veneer of her conditional acceptance of a Stuart succession, implying –​but only ever implying –​that she had an interest in the marriage of anyone who might eventually attain her throne. The problem was that, in practice, she appears to have wanted first Mary and then James not to marry at all, perennial deferment being her favoured approach. Ideally, from Elizabeth’s perspective, no Stuart monarch would ever marry. The fact that this might lead to complications after her lifetime appears to have been a matter of supreme indifference; in the short term, she was opposed to her potential successors complicating Anglo-​Scottish relations by taking on a spouse. Queen Elizabeth’s pique, however, brought her diminishing returns, as it had with James’s mother during Mary’s own search for a spouse in the early-​to-​mid 1560s. The Scottish king was set upon marriage –​and upon a suitably grand one. By long tradition, the monarchy of Scotland was a primus inter pares one, with the monarch the first amongst equals in the upper nobility.16 This, however, was a belief successive sovereigns had sought to abrogate via a building up of the Crown’s power. By choosing a spouse 16

Most obviously this is apparent in the titling of Scottish monarchs as king or queen ‘of Scots’ rather than the territorial mastery conferred by ‘of Scotland’.

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drawn from one of the great and ancient houses of Europe, a sovereign was in a sense adding to his own display of majesty. It was for this reason, indeed, that several royal wives –​Margaret Tudor, the short-​lived Madeleine of Valois, and James’s grandmother Marie of Guise –​had been chosen.17 As the 80s wore on, two clear roads to the altar became apparent: a Danish match or a grand continental alliance with Scotland’s former ally, France. The prospective brides were either a daughter of Frederick or Catherine de Bourbon, the sister to the Calvinist Henri of Navarre (who would become the Catholic Henri IV of France in 1589).18 These competitors were discussed at length throughout the decade, as the youthful king considered the pros and cons of matching with the older Catherine (born in 1559 and thus 7 years his senior) or one of the Oldenburg princesses. The Navarre match, though likely to prove suitably grand, risked dragging Scotland into France’s religious wars. The Danish match promised to extend the wrangling over the Orkneys. Yet the Danish alliance might be brokered to provide a substantial dowry (too substantial according to King Frederick), whereas marriage with Navarre seemed likely to be more costly than otherwise, given the state of French finances and the risk to the Scottish purse caused by potential entanglement in continental war.19 Both options meant firm Protestant alliances, but Henri and his sister had embraced Calvinism –​as James had –​whereas Denmark’s faith was predicated on strict Lutheran doctrine. Perhaps intending to make mischief and cause delay, Elizabeth first indicated support for one then the other, objecting strenuously to the Danish marriage just as it gathered momentum over its competitor. Yet marriage alliances were not entirely predicated on politics. There remained the question of the personal attractions of the prospective spouse. Happily, for example, James V had found himself much charmed by both his French brides; on meeting Madeleine of France, indeed, he had thrown himself behind that match much against her father’s initial intentions. 17 Known to history as Mary or Marie of Guise, contemporary accounts invariably call her Mary of Lorraine. 18 Henri was the monarch who infamously converted with the alleged acknowledgement that ‘Paris is worth a mass’. 19 Cynthia Ann Fry, ‘Diplomacy and Deception’, pp. 57–​59.

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Mary Queen of Scots had likewise forged a strong bond with the young dauphin, the two having met as children, and she had been quite willing to project mutual attraction as the driving force behind the Darnley marriage. James, understandably, was keen to know the relative merits of his potential brides, much as Henry VIII had sought as much trustworthy information as he could when setting out on his own ill-​fated quest for a political match. This is hardly surprising. Catherine of Navarre was reputedly ‘old, cracked, and something worse if all were known’, whereas the eldest Danish princess –​Elizabeth –​was in her early teens and, if her mother was any indication, of fertile stock.20 This view would be countered, however, by the visiting French poet du Bartas (by whom James was much impressed) who furnished the king with a portrait of Catherine and ‘a guid report of her fair qualities’.21 This flirtation with the French was not likely to win any good reports of King James in Denmark. In 1587, following his mother’s execution, James received correspondence from Frederick which brooked little equivocation; it demanded either a firm commitment to marriage or the immediate restitution of the Orkneys. James’s response was to play the game of diplomacy, brushing off his putative father-​in-​law’s demands, with feigned regret and bonhomie, as being a result of his ‘slackness’ in wooing. He sent into Denmark one of his old –​and by far his favourite –​tutors, Peter Young, accompanied by Sir Patrick Vans, Lord Barnbarroch, a member of the privy council.22 In June, the two men sailed aboard the Lion of Leith, eventually reaching Antvorskov and meeting with Niels Kaas (Frederick himself delayed meeting in person for some days due to toothache). This was not Young’s first visit; in July 1586, he had been similarly employed, and at this point portraits had been exchanged. It was on the back of these, presumably, that their 1587 mission 20 Alan Stewart, The Cradle King, p. 106. 2 1 Strickland, Lives, VII, p. 248. 22 Sir James Melville has left us an intriguing, if potentially biased, view of Young: he ‘was more gentle [than Buchanan] and loath to offend the king at any time, and used himself warily as a man that had mind of his own weal, by keeping of his Majesty’s favour’. This is telling inasmuch as it offers us a view into what kind of man James favoured platonically: from his youth, he preferred those who showed him deference rather than giving him orders and injunctions.

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was to discuss the Orkneys and treat for a match between James and Anna’s sister, Elizabeth. When Young’s embassy returned to Scotland the following year, the eldest Oldenburg girl was indeed recommended. Though shorter than her younger sister, she was a notable beauty. Elizabeth of Denmark, however, would prove elusive. As a result of the protracted negotiations, hampered as they were by discussion of the islands, the question of the Navarre match, and Elizabeth of England’s vigorous attempts at obstruction, Frederick had pledged his eldest daughter elsewhere: to Henry Julius, duke of Brunswick-​Lüneburg, thereby taking her off the table. With one potential bride out of the running, attention fell upon the alternative Frederick suggested: his second daughter, Anna, who was by the late 1580s a tall and becoming girl, well-​proportioned enough, by the standards of the day, to have procreative potential. Nevertheless, she was still only a second daughter and thus of less attraction to a king whose study of Scottish history inclined him to believe that he was the ninth sovereign of his royal house and directly descended from over 100 Scottish sovereigns. Freed of tutelage and thus able to plot his own course, James was set on a match commensurate with his dignity.23 What Anna made of being cast into the position of would-​be bride to the distant king of Scots is unknown. Of more immediate concern to her, no doubt, was the political situation in Denmark. As negotiations ground on, her father, that outspoken and covetous king who had long hinged the Scottish match on discussion of the Orkneys, fell ill. On the 4th of April 1588, he died at the age of 53 with nothing regarding his second daughter’s marriage concluded. His death would not only make Anna a king’s sister as well as a daughter, but it would offer her the opportunity to see first-​ hand how a royal consort long marginalised politically might come to seek power for herself.

23

His views on his early education are well known. He would ban Buchanan’s De Jure Regni in 1584 and later claim that he was frightened of an English courtier due to the fellow’s resemblance to his old tutor, Buchanan.

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The Danish succession was certain enough, as Frederick had ensured it via the election of his son, who acceded to the throne as Christian IV. Given his age –​he was only 11 –​there immediately rose the question of who would govern on his behalf during his minority. The 28-​year-​old Queen Sophie, long kept out of the political sphere by her husband, sought the regency, but she found herself obstructed by the Riksråd –​particularly by Chancellor Niels Kaas and Jørgen Rosenkrantz –​ which intended for her to retire to Nykøbing Castle, where she had first met her husband. Unwilling to go quietly, the dowager queen asserted her resistance by taking charge of Frederick’s funeral arrangements, in the cortege of which she would take an active part as it conveyed the body to its burial place at Roskilde Cathedral on the island of Zealand. When the great public spectacle of the funeral was over, however, dowager and Riksråd continued at loggerheads. The solution found was for the queen consort to remain in Copenhagen with her daughters, where she might enjoy the position of guardian to the new king during his minority. Here, then, was a direct lesson offered to Anna, albeit a difficult one. Her mother had shown her the means by which a consort might negotiate for power and yet also the means by which she might be denied it. Queen Sophie had, after all, failed to gain what she had sought –​the regency –​ and had instead gained a softer power in being allowed to advise her son. It should not therefore surprise us that Anna was to set considerable stock in the ability to have direct influence over her own first-​born son. With Frederick dead and the dowager and her daughters still close to the centre of power in Denmark –​in the capital and near the new king –​Sophie was able to advance her interests in land ownership and the marriages of her children. The match between Anna and King James was thus a priority: it had, thanks to James’s prevarication (not helped by his ongoing interest in the Navarre marriage) and Frederick’s quixotic fixation on the Orkneys, reached a state of stalemate. Other suitors looked possible,

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including the soldier-​prince Maurice of Nassau (stadtholder of most of the provinces of the Dutch Republic), but the rapidly deflating Scottish match remained the most likely. Sophie sought to rectify the stalling talks by sending a portrait of her second daughter to Scotland in the hopes that it would prove as successful as that of her first-​born which had helped keep negotiations afloat in 1586. Her goal was to dissuade James from the Navarre match and sway him to Denmark using her daughter’s not inconsiderable personal charms. More convincing to the Scottish king, however, would be public opinion, as demonstrated by the mercantile class of Edinburgh. On the 28th of May 1589, riots –​supposedly endorsed by Peter Young, who had become Anna’s partisan following his party’s visit to Denmark –​ broke out. To the merchants, a match with Denmark made sound economic sense. Further, as Cynthia Fry has recognised, they had long ‘preferred the Danish match because of the control Frederick II had of the Sound and were worried lest the Navarre match drew Scotland into a war that would damage her trade with Spain’.1 James, as with many early modern monarchs, was wary of riots and routs. On the 2nd of June, he appointed George Keith, Earl Marischal, to travel to Denmark with Lord Dingwall and John Skene to formalise the match with Anna. He had, he claimed, prayed for guidance on the subject of his marriage and God had answered: he was thus ‘resolvit to marry the Danish princess’.2 Nevertheless, his demands for a dowry remained extreme: ‘ten hundred thousand pounds Scots’ was his price.3 Given the sum, questions arise as to the seriousness of his intentions: was his goal that the match should be turned down? Did the weak state of his finances lead him to hope and believe that the sum would be paid in full? Did he expect the requested dowry to be an opening offer, subject to negotiation? It seems likely that his aim was to get what he could out of Denmark, playing on Sophie’s obvious desire for the marriage to go forward. This is further evidenced by his raft of further demands: formal recognition of Scottish sovereignty over the Orkneys; mutual anti-​Catholic support; free 1 Fry, ‘Diplomacy and Deception’, p. 62. 2 Strickland, Lives, VII, p. 249. 3 Calendar of the MSS of Salisbury, 3, p. 421.

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trade for Scottish merchants (a nod to the rioters); military support should Scotland be invaded; and, more dangerously, similar support should James be required to press his rights to any foreign title (in other words, should Elizabeth die, and he be obstructed from claiming the vacant southern throne). The king’s earnestness for the match was ultimately proven by his dropping the astronomical financial settlement and accepting a dowry of 75,000 thalers or 100,000 florins (about £150,000 Scots); in return, the Danes, now free of Frederick’s long obsession, agreed to let the Orkneys remain in Scottish hands at least until Christian came of age. James’s sudden desire for Anna seems strange and it can only be partly explained by the actions of the Edinburgh rioters. What seems likely is that a combination of factors led to his confirming the match. Indeed, the king himself would write a surprisingly open letter addressed to his subjects later in the year, which justified his decision: As to the causes, I doubt not it is manifestly known to all how far I was generally found fault with by all men for the delaying so long ... I was alone, without father or mother, brother or sister, king of this realm and heir apparent of England. This my nakedness made me to be weak and my enemies stark. One man was as no man, and the want of hope of succession bred disdain. Yea, my long delay bred in the breasts of many a great jealousy of my inability, as if I were a barren stock.4

This curious letter, and the need James perceived for it, has recently been suggested as constituting evidence of the king’s awareness that his subjects knew of his sexual interest in men.5 The marriage, coming after such lengthy delays and drawn-​out negotiations, is thus interpreted as a means of James silencing rumours touching on his masculinity. Probably this is correct (the ‘disdain’ being a coded reference to rumours about his sexuality, given he was then engaged in some form of affair with Alexander Lindsay, whom he would ennoble in 1590 as Lord Spynie) –​but, again, only partly. Notable in the letter too are the direct and indirect references to England: James announces himself ‘heir apparent’ without qualm (and certainly without Elizabeth’s approval) and makes an oblique reference 4 Stewart, The Cradle King, pp. 110–​111. 5 M. B. Young, ‘James VI and I’, pp. 540–​567.

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to her single state. As is well known, then as now, Elizabeth reputedly lamented on hearing of James’s birth in 1566 that ‘the queen of Scots is lighter of a fair son, and I am but a barren stock’.6 Whether she truly said it or not can never be known with certainty, but it was reported by James Melville in his memoirs. Although these were not published until the following century, Melville was alive and well when James wrote his letter, and he would in fact be knighted at Anna’s coronation. Thus, it is apparent that in finally agreeing to marry –​and to marry Anna of Denmark –​James was intent on publicly rebuking Elizabeth, who remained, whatever she said publicly, against him marrying. With a characteristic lack of subtlety, he further chose to publicly draw attention to the marriage not only in its defiance of the English queen, but in its ability to provide what she never could: a future, stable succession. His letter provided not only justification but public insult, however veiled, to the woman who had attempted to thwart him. The relationship between James and Elizabeth, always interesting, frequently strained and often mutually suspicious, would continue in its odd combination of playfulness and resentment. Anna, in due course, would find herself drawn into it. For the moment, however, Queen Sophie was jubilant. She had not only succeeded where her husband had failed –​in matching her second daughter with a king –​but she had managed to attenuate the outrageous financial exactions James had hoped to win out of Denmark’s coffers. Further, it was well known that the Scottish king stood in line to the English throne and that his wife thus looked likely to one day be consort of the two mainland British kingdoms; in considering the proverbial long game, the dowager had thus managed something of a coup which would greatly strengthen Danish interests in northern Europe in the future. When the marriage treaty was signed in late July, plans for the wedding were immediately put in train. From the beginning, Sophie sought as much influence over proceedings as possible, this being what she considered her personal success. Whereas the Riksråd sought a parsimonious affair, the dowager queen was set upon her daughter’s wedding to the king of Scots being celebrated with as much public display and ceremonial as possible. This is significant, 6

Jane Dunn, Elizabeth and Mary, p. 244.

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given that the event (or, as it turned out, events) were to feature Anna in her first major public role. Throughout her life, Anna of Denmark was to set great store by public spectacle, and we can see the birth of what would become an expensive fascination in the festivities of her youth. Royal weddings themselves were variable affairs –​for example, Mary Queen of Scots’s first two featured spectacles and revelries, whilst her third was muted; Henry VIII’s were routinely conducted privately –​but they offered the opportunity for political capital. This Sophie knew. It can be reasonably supposed that her intentions for the Scottish match were about aggrandising Anna and, as much, about declaring her own victory in achieving the match and thus advertising the political skills which the Riksråd was resolved to keep in check. For her own part, on the 28th of July, Anna was reported –​albeit by Thomas Fowler, an English spy in distant Aberdeen –​as being ‘so far in love with the Kinges majeste as it were deathe to hir to have it broken of, and hathe made good proffe divers ways of hir affecyon, which his majeste is apt inowghe to requite’.7 At fourteen, Anna appears to have thrown herself into preparations for queen consortship with all the enthusiasm of youth. Three hundred tailors were employed to work on her gown, and the capitals of Europe were canvassed in a bid to fill out her wardrobe. One gown, as Williams records, was ‘of peach and parrot coloured damask with fish-​boned skirts lined with wreaths of pillows round the hips’.8 This was not pure ostentation, and neither was it vanity. Maria Hayward has successfully demonstrated the ways in which Henry VIII and his consorts used dress and other material accoutrements to enhance and project images of wealth and splendour, which were vital components in maintaining an air of majesty (and thus legitimising authority).9 This move towards the politics of dress and display had only increased as the century wore on, with jewels and clothing taking on complex allegorical meanings, and the trend would continue (with James himself, remarkably, remaining all but immune). In seeking for Anna a great wardrobe, Sophie was stressing the 7 CSP, Scotland, 10, p. 118. 8 Williams, Anne of Denmark, p. 14. 9 See Maria Hayward, Dress at the Court of Henry VIII.

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financial muscle of Denmark and the reach of her daughter’s continental links. The masculine court of James, which had been bereft of glamour since the reign of Mary Queen of Scots, was to be invested with an outward show of majesty which the Scottish king himself had hitherto lacked.10 Nor was splendid dress the only weapon Anna was to have in her armoury. As befitted her station as a queen consort-​to-​be, new liveries were worked up and a silver coach ordered, with the intent that it should travel with her and thereafter be used to convey her on processional journeys. Coaches were a rare sight in Scotland in the 1580s. It should be noted, however, that these fashionable novelties had a history of association with foreign consorts marrying into the country. Marie of Guise had brought one from France on marrying James V and there is mention in the Treasurer’s Accounts in July 1538 of one Alexander Napier being paid ‘for the mending of the quenis sadill and hir cheriot [coach] in Sanctandrois’.11 Already, and whether deliberately or not, Anna was being positioned as the latest in a line of foreign consorts of Scotland, with all the pomp that a continental marriage expected. The princess herself, however, was engaged in the more mundane task of learning French (she spoke no Scots but knew well enough that French was a courtly language in which James was expert) and sewing shirts for her future husband. This last would prove surprisingly apt given the roles in store for her. At least one previous early modern English consort had been associated with the domestic task of sewing shirts for her husband. Eric Ives records what has become a celebrated incident in the life of Anne Boleyn, when the insecure consort raged volubly on discovering that her predecessor, Katherine of Aragon, was still attending to Henry VIII’s linens (the role of royal seamstress being one Katherine had enjoyed during her tenure as queen consort).12 Marie of Guise, too, had been found at Falkland Palace, assiduously adding gold thread to the shirts of James V.13 These vignettes demonstrate one of the aspects of consortship in which Anna of Denmark 1 0 Roger Lockyer, James VI and I, p. 12. 11 Chambers, Domestic Annals of Scotland, I, p. 20. 12 Ives, Anne Boleyn, p. 175. 13 Treasurer’s Accounts, Vol. 7, pp. 253–​254.

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was clearly being instructed: a queen consort was expected to keep up an image of cosy domesticity by attending to her king’s clothing. The overall idea was that the consort was thus the first wife and –​ideally –​mother in the nation, as careful of her husband’s comforts as she was of his sexual and dynastic needs. George Puttenham’s popular Arte of English Poesie, published in the year of Anna and James’s marriage, made explicit the expectation of a wife. ‘We limit’, he wrote, ‘the comely parts of a woman to consist in foure points, that is to be a shrew in the kitchin, a saint in the church, an angell at the bourd, and an ape in the bed.’14 Though she occupied the highest female role in a nation ruled by a king, the queen consort was required to conform, at least outwardly, to the demands of a goodwife. Yet King James had his own views on women, probably forged in the fire of his early education. A poem likely written in his youth set these out: Even so all women are of nature vaine And cannot keip no secret unreveild, And quhair as once thay do conceave disdaine, Thay are unable to be reconceild, Fulfillid with talk and clatteris but respect, And oftentimes of small or none effect. Ambitious all without regaird or schame, But any mesure gevin to greid of geir, Desyring ever for to winn a name With flattering all that will thaime not forbaire, Sum craft thay have, yit foolish are indeid, With liying quhyles esteiming best to speid.15

The jaundiced view of women as covetous, ambitious, chattering, and full of misguided confidence and wiles is fairly typical of misogynist literature of the age and, given the king’s upbringing, it is not particularly surprising that he should express it. It is somewhat ironic, however, that the accusation cast against females as unable to keep secrets was one his father had faced far more than his mother (and with good reason).16 Further, 1 4 15 16

George Puttenham, The Arte of English Poesie, p. 299. James VI and I, The Poems of James VI of Scotland, pp. 92–​93. Darnley, the late Regent Morton claimed, ‘was such a bairn [child] that there was nothing told him, but he revealed it to her [Mary Queen of Scots]’.

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the claim that women cannot be reconciled after discovering a slight but rather harbour grievances is one that, whilst it admittedly would apply fairly well to Anna, would become a hallmark of James’s own attitude towards his enemies, at least during his majority in Scotland. It was nevertheless with the requirement that she please such a husband that Anna assiduously sewed shirts, was measured for dresses, and looked forward with every appearance of joy to her upcoming nuptials. Her putative husband likewise threw himself into paroxysms of love, at least according to the acidic comments of Fowler on the 5th of August: This Kinge desyred so moche the lady as he regarded not any other matter nor wold stand apon it. Whereapon they made a publike provisyon for hir transportynge hether and maryage withowt dowt, which so knowne in most partes of Urope it were, they thinke, the greater disgrace bothe to the lady and all that Cowncell if it shold not goo on … though they [the Danes] would fain have the match go forward, they are so proud that they will not add 20 dollars to the portion they have set down, which is but 100,000 dollars, which they say is all her father left her; but it is thought they have bestowed part of her money upon the provisions made for her coming hither, for these men who have come home say she has much plate, fair hangings and household stuff, jewels, horses, and their furnishings: probably there is more spoken of than is true.17

As we have seen, the Danes –​at least under Queen Sophie’s watch –​ had no intention of providing inadequate wedding preparations nor of misleading the Scots as to the value of Anna’s new belongings. James’s apparent desire, however, is worthy of some exploration. It is true he evinced much romantic feeling –​vocally, at least –​to give the appearance of having been transported with passion. Certainly, this was the impression he intended and by which he hoped the convention he summoned at Edinburgh for the 10th of August would be induced ‘because of their interest in the league with Denmark … [to] contribute more bountifully towards this marriage’.18 His true feelings are, however, impossible to 17

18

Fowler, it should be noted, had a somewhat skewed view of marriage at this time. On August the 12th he was writing to his estranged wife, ‘My Besse, I have receaved your angry, thretening letter by Mr. Nanton, whom I thanke for it by your owne confession …’: CSP, Scotland, 10, pp. 129–​151, 176. CSP, Scotland, 10, pp. 114–​129, 164.

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know, although his subsequent actions would indicate that he had determined upon presenting on the international stage a chivalric ideal, possibly as a further remedy to slights cast upon his sexuality. At any rate, the Danish royal family gathered at Kronborg Castle, a magnificent, spired fortress overlooking the Sound. Probably most famous as Shakespeare’s Elsinore, the castle had been radically overhauled by Frederick II (it now boasted a queen’s gallery and a new dancing hall, and its exterior was reclad in Scania sandstone) and provided a fitting location for the splendid wedding Sophie had engineered. Once again the Earl Marischal travelled to Denmark and, on the 20th of August, he stood proxy for James in a Lutheran marriage ceremony to the 14-​year-​old Anna, thereafter escorting her to the newly heightened west wing and briefly lying beside her on the bridal bed to symbolise the already-​signed and sealed contract. Such marriages were hardly novel; indeed, it was fairly common for female consorts to be married twice –​first by proxy in their home country and then again on arrival in their spouse’s kingdom.19 It was unthinkable, particularly from the Danish perspective, that the young bride would arrive in Scotland as anything other than its legally sanctioned queen consort. Anna of Denmark was now Anna of Scotland, queen consort of a kingdom she had never set foot in and wife to a king she had never seen. James professed himself eager to rectify this and Anna, for her part, was quite prepared to undertake the journey to Scotland and take up her new role as quickly as possible. The weather, however, would not prove as eager to unite husband and wife.

19 Of direct relevance, Katherine of Aragon had married Arthur Tudor by proxy before marrying him in England at St Paul’s Cathedral, and Margaret Tudor had been married by proxy in January 1502 at Richmond before marrying in person in Edinburgh the following August.

By Weltring Waues

The North Sea is notoriously tempestuous, and its hazards have always been well known. On the 1st of September, Anna of Denmark was ready to sail for her new home with a fleet of eighteen warships, laden with the material wealth with which she and her mother hoped she might imprint her prestige on Scotland.1 The fleet was led by Admiral of Denmark Peder Munk of the Gideon and Admiral Henrik Knudsen Gyldenstierne.2 Despite this combined naval experience, the English diplomat William Asheby wrote to Walsingham that ‘the Queen’s arrival is uncertain, depending upon wind and weather: it is thought it will be about the 20th’.3 This was to prove optimistic. Although Queen Elizabeth had by this time had the ‘gracious mind to yield the King all honour at his marriage’ –​in truth she had little choice –​and despite James eagerly making ‘great preparation at Leith to receive her’, contrary winds prevented Anna and her company –​which included such council-​mandated luminaries as scholar Niels Krag, diplomat Breide Rantzau and Dr Paul Knibbe –​from reaching Scotland. With them, too, was James’s proxy, the Earl Marischal, whose task it was to represent Scottish interests in the events which unfolded. Rather than making the journey smoothly, the ships were thoroughly battered and clawed at by ferocious storms which compelled them to make for the Norwegian coast (then Danish-​controlled territory). The Gideon, which housed Anna, sprung a leak, with Munk himself reduced to crawling to the new queen to inform her that the combined prayers of 1 2

3

CSP, Scotland, 10, pp. 162–​186 The ships noted are: Josaphad or Josafat their flagship, Samson, Joshua, Dragon, Raphael, St Michael, Gabriel, Little Sertoun (Lille Fortuna), Mouse, Rose, the Falcon of Birren, the Blue Lion, the Blue Dove (Blaa Due) and the White Dove (Hvide Due). See: Carl Frederik Bricka, Kancelliets brevbøger vedrørende Danmarks indre forhold i uddrag, pp. 242–​243: CSP, Scotland, 10, p. 289. CSP, Scotland, 10, pp. 51–​162, 224.

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the learned gentlemen aboard were proving ineffective. As cannon broke loose and rolled about the decks –​one reportedly nearly crushing Anna herself –​prayers and fasting were ordered by King James, who was growing increasingly panicked at the lack of ships arriving at Leith Harbour and the unwillingness of his council to allow the earl of Bothwell to sail out to retrieve the royal bride. Scotland itself was not immune to the inclement weather then battering northern Europe. James, enthusiastically preparing his country for its new queen, had begun assembling ladies fit for the new royal household. Tragedy struck in September when the ferry carrying Jane Kennedy, who had been a great favourite of Mary Queen of Scots and was intended to be installed as first lady of Anna’s bedchamber, was lost in the Firth of Forth en route to the capital. This sad end –​and the whole saga of what would be a terrible early winter –​was to have dark and horrifying repercussions, when the following year focussed minds on the causes of the foul weather. For the present, however, attention was placed not on why these unforeseen events were happening but on what was happening. Things got little better for the Danish party once Norway had been gained. In October, news of the fleet finally reached Scotland. It was reported that Anna ‘is in good health, and her company, but sorely beaten with the seas. She put out twice for this coast, but both times [was] driven back by contrary winds’.4 This was brought to the king by privy counsellor Andrew Sinclair, who had been in Denmark as part of the Earl Marischal’s train. Sinclair further reported that ‘the Quene and all the flete has bene in greit payne and dangier, having at five severall tymes bene drevin bak be storme and contrarious wyndis, sundrie of the schippis being lek [springing leaks], and specialie that quhairin the Quene wes’.5 The ship conveying Sinclair back to Scotland was, fortunately, able to weather the storms well enough to reach Edinburgh and give the king his news. Here we see the first glimpse of Anna’s personality. As James champed at the bit for her arrival, her Danish gentlemen sought to convince her to return to Denmark and there to wait out the winter before attempting the voyage again in the spring of 4 5

CSP, Scotland, 10, pp. 162–​186, 236. CSP, Scotland, 10, pp. 162–​186, 238.

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1590. Anna, however, made her intentions clear. As Sinclair noted, ‘she is most forward hitherwards’. She herself had lamented, in French, on the 3rd of October, We have already put out to sea four or five times but have always been driven back to the harbours from which we sailed, thanks to contrary winds and other problems that arose at sea, which is the cause why, now winter is hastening down on us, and fearing greater danger, all this company is forced to our regret, and to the regret and high displeasure of your men, to make no further attempt at present, but to defer the voyage until the spring.6 The letter is matter of fact, which would be a hallmark of Anna’s character throughout her life. It was, further, not what James wanted to hear. He might, for one thing, have been concerned about his young bride’s wellbeing. Of equal –​if not greater –​concern was that the romantic tableau he had anticipated, and for which he had finally sped up the marriage, was at risk. He had written to England requesting a visit from Queen Elizabeth’s acting troupe and had sent to the Borders for appropriate victuals, receiving from Lord Derby ‘a brace of fat stags baked after the English fashion … and other provisions … in readiness against her landing’.7 Notwithstanding the fact that many of Scotland’s palaces had fallen into disrepair as a result of disuse ( James was reported as having to make ready Dalkeith, as even Holyroodhouse was not yet fit to receive a queen consort), he was determined that his plans should not go awry. His response to the temperamental weather’s thwarting of his vision was to take to his pen. James had long been a lover of poetry and an avid verse-​maker. He had, prior to the Ruthven Raid, surrounded himself with a band known as the Castalians; after his escape, he had got the old band back together and in 1584 he had published his work under the title The Essays of a Prentice in the Divine Art of Poesy. It was thus a natural move on his part to set down his frustrations in verse, and so he wrote his overwrought ‘a complaint against the contrary Wyndes that hindered the Queene to com to Scotland from Denmarke’. Heavy in classical allusions, his poem is revelatory. The fact of his writing it, indeed, indicates the perfomative 6 7

Calendar of the MSS of Salisbury, 3, p. 438. CSP, Scotland, 10, pp. 151–​162, 218.

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nature of his courtship and foreshadows his soon-​to-​be more physically active enactment of the part of the courtly swain. For the moment, however, he was resolved to despatch Colonel William Stewart (a cousin of James’s forcefully retired old friend, the earl of Arran) and the lawyer John Skene to Denmark to encourage Anna to return with them on Scottish vessels, despite Danish opposition which continued to advise a return to Denmark. Once more, Anna showed her steel: ‘In the end it wes remittit to the Quenis awin choice, quha choissit rather to cum forewart nor pas back.’8 Knowing that his new bride was marooned in Oslo, King James decided to make good on rumours circulating that he ‘haith a resolucion to hazard his owne pa[rson] in the voiage’.9 It has become a commonplace to associate James with cowardice and an almost comical pusillanimity. The popular image of him remains Anthony Weldon’s pen-​portrait of the older king, of gangling gait, wearing a doublet thickly padded against any potential assassin’s blade. Yet the decision he took in October 1589 was not that of a coward. James was well aware, given the circumstances, of the hazards of the North Sea, and yet he was quite willing to risk his person by sailing out during what was by all accounts a particularly bad autumn. Rather than imagining him to be a coward, therefore, it is fairer to say that he was cautious of other people. He disliked crowds and was certainly wary of close physical proximity to strangers. Rather than being evidence of cowardice, this was born of a sensible awareness of his country’s recent history; his father had been assassinated, as had his uncle, the Regent Moray, and his grandfather, the Regent Lennox. Yet nor should we accept the notion suggested by Williams that ‘at this period in his life he was full of romantic dreams, seeing himself as a knight errant about to rescue a maiden in distress’.10 In truth, we have no idea what James thought of himself; we can, however, readily see how he wished others to see him. As with his poetry, James’s highly visible and self-​ imposed rescue mission was part of a conscious effort at self-​fashioning. The king’s youthful course of education had included daily study of history; 8 CSP, Scotland, 10, pp. 162–​186, 238. 9 CSP, Scotland, 10, pp. 162–​186, 243. 10 Williams, Anne of Denmark, p. 18.

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in setting out to claim his bride, the king was following a courtly, chivalric formula which had deep roots in both Scotland and England, and which thus tacitly proclaimed him as a worthy sovereign of both nations. If Henry VIII had sought to present himself as an ardent wooer in his corpulent and ill middle age (albeit he had had to travel no farther than Rochester), and James V had previously done likewise in his 20s, James VI would take on the role himself. Whether or not this helped to lessen rumours about his sexual preferences is debatable. What is not is that, in his attempts to fashion himself as the love-​struck swain, he was emulating sovereigns of both British nations. Naturally, he faced –​and possibly welcomed –​Scottish resistance to his plans. Dramatically brushing it aside, he left behind him a well-​ balanced council endowed with the powers of regency, and took with him ‘the Lord Chancellor, the Justice Clerk, the Lord of Dingwell, [the] Provost of Linclowdane, the Lard Carmic[hell], the Lard of Barnbarrough, Sir William Keith’, and the ever-​useful Peter Young’.11 To this retinue, Juhala adds ‘the lawyer John Skene, and a host of other barons and gentlemen, totalling 300 people in all, sailing in a caravan of five well-​furnished ships’.12 Before setting out, James wrote to Anna a long letter in French, dated the 8th of October, in which he laid out his worries about her safety, wished her ‘a safe, speedy, and happy arrival in these parts’, and swore his affection as ‘one who to you alone has vowed his entire life’. At this stage, he appears to have still been content to commit the voyage of Denmark to Colonel William Stewart, ‘who has often shown alacrity in this affair and is devoted to the service of both of us’ –​at least publicly.13 Part of James’s scheme –​ and a part which was key to making it a chivalrous adventure –​was that it should be veiled in secrecy from its conception. If a venturesome lover were to hazard life and limb to take his bride, it was convention that he should go incognito, with the conceit being that the lady should immediately see through the pleasant fiction. Thus, the king withheld the fact of his intention to go from the 5th earl of Bothwell (Francis Hepburn, 1 1 12 13

CSP, Scotland, 10, pp. 162–​186, 243. Juhala, ‘The Household and Court of King James VI’, p. 52. David Moysie, Memoirs, p. 80.

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who was nephew to the late 4th earl –​the third husband of Mary Queen of Scots) and from his friend and kinsman Ludovic Stewart, 2nd duke of Lennox (son to his late lover, Esmé). On hearing rumours, the pair made clear protestations against their sovereign’s departure. Yet the preparations went ahead, with the fleet of five ships being heavily victualled at Leith, and these two opponents, significantly, were to enjoy control of the country in the king’s absence. The intermittent storms continued to cause problems. James’s intention to depart for Norway on Sunday the 22nd of October was foiled when his ship was damaged by foul weather. Thereafter, things cleared, and he was able to depart, enjoying four calm days on a ship whose sails were decorated with red taffeta, before rough seas returned and washed him onto the increasingly icy Norwegian coast at Flekkefjord.14 This was the first time in his 23 years that the Scottish king had left his native soil. Indeed, his perception of the world had been strictly limited, due to a youth which saw him go no farther than a day or two’s ride from Stirling, to captivity and limited progress around the central belt and up the east coast of Scotland. Customarily, kings travelled abroad for reasons of state –​primarily war or diplomacy. James, freed of the burden of day-​to-​day government, was determined to widen his intellectual and cultural horizons. From Flekkefjord, his party took horse to Tønsberg, where he spent several days (listening, on the 16th of November, to a sermon preached by the Scottish minister, David Lindsay, in the Marien Kirke) and taking up residence in the home of one Jorgen Lauritsen.15 After six days in Tønsberg, he undertook the 63-​mile journey to Oslo, across land which had become a frozen waste in the darkening approach to winter. He was given lodging in the Shoemaker’s Guild and then, according to the memoirs of the notary 1 4 Chambers, Domestic Annals of Scotland, I, p. 193. 15 A painted board has survived which, in English, reads, ‘Anno 1589, St Martin’s Day, which was the 11th day of November and fell upon a Tuesday, came the high born prince and lord, James Stuart, king of Scotland, to this town, and on the 23rd Sunday after Trinity, which was the 16th of November, his Grace was sitting at this pew and heard a Scottish sermon preached from the 23rd Psalm, “The Lord is my shepherd, etc.”, which Magister David Lindsay, preached between 10 and 12.’ See Alexander Hastie Millar, The Wedding Tour of James VI in Norway, p. 152.

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David Moysie, ‘he passed quietly with boots and all to her highness’, who was resident in the Bishop’s Palace. The intention here is obvious –​particularly James’s attempt to convey his eagerness by rushing to meet Anna still clad in his riding boots. This, then was the first time James and Anna met and it is worth considering what each saw. For James, this would have been a tall, fair-​haired young girl with a strong chin and a prominent nose: she was, reportedly, ‘both Godly and beautiful’.16 Like Mary Queen of Scots, however, her surviving portraits do little to suggest beauty, and it is fair to say that she never attained it, though by the standards of the day her good proportions and pale skin made her a fair prospect. For Anna herself, James –​if portraits of him as a young man are to be believed –​was pleasant-​looking, with heavy-​lidded eyes and a neat mouth. Unlike, for example, Henry VIII or James V, there were never reports of angelic beauty circulated about the young king, but, like his new wife, he was well proportioned and still a good distance away from the paunchy, semi-​toothed, gangling caricature his enemies would make of him in his dotage. As when Henry VIII had met Anna of Cleves and attempted to steal a kiss, cultural differences came into play immediately upon the first meeting. James, playing the part in which he had cast himself, ‘minded to give the queen a kiss after the Scottish fashion … which she refused as not being the form of her country’. Unlike Henry VIII, however, James did not depart and reappear, the fiction having been broken and his mood turned sour: ‘After a few words privily spoken between his Majesty and her, there past [passed] familiarity and kisses.’17 The whole affair had been a public occasion, save the private words –​undoubtedly spoken in French and unlikely to have been of much consequence, given Anna’s recent acquisition of the language –​ and both husband and wife had had the tact to pull things together and give the appearance of love which the tableau required. James returned to his bride the following day and this time in the full panoply of state, preceded by six heralds. The riding gear –​the marks of his eagerness –​had been cast off in favour of blue velvet and formally the 1 6 Alexander Crawford Lindsay, Lives of the Lindsays, I, p. 318. 17 Moysie, Memoirs, p. 81.

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pair agreed to marry on the following day, the 23rd of November, at the Old Bishop’s Palace.18 The ceremony was conducted in French by David Lindsay, and Anna was able to wear her wedding gown and thus materially demonstrate her status as bride and queen. In more recent years, stories have abounded regarding an entertainment staged on James’s orders, in which four young Black men danced naked in the snow. The unpleasant epilogue is their deaths from pneumonia.19 This tale no doubt stems from the many truer sequels in which Anna, especially, would be delighted by ‘Moors’. Indeed, a wedding pageant followed, ‘featuring forty-​two men dressed in white and silver and wearing gold chains and visors over blackened faces’.20 Kim F. Hall marks this out as the birth of a Jacobean interest in ‘outsiders’, which was to stand in contrast with Elizabethan insularity focussed on connecting ‘the queen’s bodily integrity with the integrity of the English nation’.21 Even if the tale of the Black quartet dancing themselves to death is a recent invention, however, the exploitation of Black people for entertainment –​which would be a hallmark of James and Anna’s courtly festivities in the coming years –​rings a sour note. The royal couple’s interest in the other would become a manifestation of conquest and control. James and Anna –​and the Scots, and the English, and the Scandinavians –​would thus become associated in a northern European fellowship which called the tune to which other races danced (even if they did not die of pneumonia for it). The fascination with ‘Moors’, which would mark Anna’s future, shared a history with Scottish engagements with blackness, which McManus has traced through Mary Queen of Scots’s reign, back to James IV’s ‘problematic 18

There is some dubiety about the site of the ceremony. The enlightenment historian William Tytler declared the ‘church of Oslo’ as the location. This might obliquely refer to St Hallvard’s Cathedral (now ruined). Recently, Juhala has suggested Akershus Festnin (or the Akerhus Fortress); this fortress was certainly where the subsequent wedding feast took place, though not the ceremony itself. See Millar, The Wedding Tour of James VI, pp. 146–​150. 19 This story is first recounted by John Gade in his 1927 biography of Christian IV. Clare McManus and Michael Pearce cast doubt on its veracity, suggesting –​certainly accurately –​that Gade invented it. 20 Kim F. Hall, ‘Sexual Politics and Cultural Identity’, p. 4. 2 1 Hall, ‘Sexual Politics and Cultural Identity’, p. 5.

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relationship between the Scots and their English queen’.22 As Thorkild Lyby Christensen has demonstrated, Scots especially were held in distrust –​both politically and commercially –​in Denmark, with the unpopular Christian II having been complained about for, amongst other things, favouring them.23 It was thus incumbent upon the new royal couple to project a sense of commonality and, certainly, he and Anna would engage the ‘blacks as other, servile figures; whites of sundry nationalities as part of a common, superior fellowship’ in future public spectacles. Nor was the spectacle of married bliss and young love in the frigid Norwegian air the only thing animating the wedding. Although James had exhorted his people at home ‘for peace and quietness till his returning’, those Scots who had accompanied him were quick to introduce the new queen to the fractiousness of Scottish politics. One of the key members of James’s party was the Scottish chancellor, John Maitland of Thirlestane. Maitland was a younger brother to William Maitland of Lethington, who had been principal secretary to Mary Queen of Scots (and who had in fact died still fighting for her cause in Edinburgh Castle in 1573), and John too had been involved with the Marians. Yet he had been rehabilitated and throughout the late 1580s had argued in favour of the Navarre match. More dangerously, Maitland had also gathered a considerable party of opponents, not least of whom were the earls of Bothwell, Huntly and Erroll, and it is likely that James brought him to Norway both to publicly display the chancellor’s acceptance of Anna as queen and to safeguard him against attack if he were left behind. Although he was an effective politician –​or perhaps because of it –​ Maitland was not especially popular. On the day of the wedding, the Earl Marischal, who had been remained with the Danes in Norway since the initial sailing to Scotland had failed, grew angry at the precedence afforded the chancellor. It was Marischal’s contention that he himself outranked Maitland, having been appointed the king’s envoy. Maitland’s counterargument was that the king, having come in person to fetch his bride, was no longer in need of an envoy. Although the king stepped in to 2 2 23

See McManus, Women on the Renaissance Stage, pp. 75–​76. Thorkild Lyby Christensen, ‘Scots in Denmark’, p. 126.

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make the peace, the pair continued to argue over expenses (with Marischal claiming the right to use a portion of Anna’s dowry to pay his way and Maitland rejecting the claim). Probably the messenger despatched through the snowy wastes to King Christian to discuss the Scottish monarch and his wife’s travel plans welcomed the chance to be away. This was not particularly edifying stuff. However, it did provide the new queen with a view of the kind of political squabbling which would soon enough become familiar. Of more immediate interest to her, undoubtedly, was the presentation on the day following her wedding of her ‘morrowing gift’ –​the Scottish term for the jointure provided for her by her husband. Given Queen Sophie’s interest in land –​both the apportioning and management of it –​the new Scottish queen must have carefully considered what James was offering. Her new property portfolio included the lands of Dunfermline Abbey. This appears a somewhat mean gift (if one considers, e.g., the lands provided for Marie of Guise), and it would in fact form only a part of her jointure, which would constitute the principal means of income by which, alongside her agreed annual income, she would run her household. Her portfolio would, however, continue to grow as James bestowed the palaces of Linlithgow and Falkland upon her. Even so, she had little understanding of her new possessions yet, and the issue of the suitability of her jointure would flare up again. That arrival, which James had intended to take place as soon as he had married her, would, however, be delayed. Contrary to all expectations –​ and especially to Maitland, who was eager to return to Scotland before his enemy, Bothwell, could cause mischief –​the new king and queen would enjoy a colourful sojourn in northern Europe.

Vehement Winter

Famously, James V had used his visit to France in 1536–​1537 to find himself a bride, to gain a better understanding of French architecture and customs and to spend extravagantly so that he might export French elegance back to Scotland. In 1589–​1590, his grandson would use his visit to Norway and Denmark to marry, to demonstrate his religious conviction and thus foster a Northern European Protestant identity, and to insert himself into the vibrant intellectual community which was then thriving on Anna’s native shores. The fleet of ships –​among them the small Falcon of Leith, hired from John Gibson, and the 126-​ton James Royal, hired from Robert Jameson –​ was sent home minus the king and queen. Anna’s mother, the dowager Queen Sophie, was eager not to let the opportunity to host a king pass; a royal visit enhanced the prestige of the host nation and would allow the 12-​year-​old Christian IV to begin enacting the diplomatic aspects of his role in a pleasant, familial setting. James, for his part, was equally eager to remain, and embraced the chance to meet his brother-​in-​law in person and thereby establish a direct, friendly relationship which might be to the benefit of Scotland’s future trade with Danish territories. Further, the Scottish palaces were still not ready to receive Anna, and James had brought his master of works, William Schaw, abroad with him to learn what he could of Northern European architecture (Schaw would remain with the king’s party until March 1590, returning to Scotland ahead of James and Anna).1 The fierce grip of winter prevented the newly-​weds from travelling immediately on receiving Sophie’s invitation, and so they spent the first three weeks of December in Oslo; thereafter, they sledded down the coast on sledges provided by the Danes, staying at the Båhus fortress near the Swedish border before continuing ‘across the frozen-​over Gotha-​Elf, and 1

It was reported on the 20th of December that ‘the werkis in Halyruidhous’ were still underway. See CSP, Scotland, 10, pp. 206–​225, 327.

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the Swedish Landflig, which at that time alone separated Norway and Denmark, through Varbjerg, Halmstadt, and Helsingborg’.2 Excitement and colour emerged in the form of doubts cast about the safety of the royal couple in passing through Swedish territory, but it proved unfounded; James’s servant, William Murray, was despatched to treat with the Swedish king, John III, who in return sent out an armed escort of 300. The Scottish king and queen were thus hosted by John’s brother in great state on New Year’s Day. At Helsingborg, further storms raged, delaying their crossing to Kronborg by three days. At length, however, they arrived and were treated to the blasting of guns in salute. Anna would forever be a woman deeply committed to her family. It was therefore with delight that she met with her mother and siblings in familiar surroundings. This was doubtless something James enjoyed too, never having known any close family members of his own. Having escaped the cold and got to know his bride a little better through the long, cold, tedious journey, he remained committed to publicly displaying his status as a love-​struck newlywed. His next step was to agree with the Danish clergy on the necessity of marrying again, this time by Lutheran rites. The ceremony accordingly took place on the 21st of January, and afterwards James, in a display of largesse commensurate with previous Scottish royal marriages (notably his mother and father’s) bestowed 2,000 thalers upon the castle’s staff.3 There followed a period of festivity, best summed up by James, who signed his letter to Lord Spynie (the former lover whom he had promised to ennoble) out of Denmark, ‘From the Castle of Cronenburg, quhaire we are drinking and driving our [passing our time] in the auld manner.’4 Strong liquor evidently made him generous: following this third wedding, he enlarged Anna’s jointure with the provision of Falkland Palace and its lands. No doubt the short days and long nights of good cheer also went 2 3 4

Frederik Eginhard Amadeus Schiern, Life of James Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell, p. 400. Miles Kerr-​Peterson & Michael Pearce, ‘James VI’s English Subsidy and Danish Dowry Accounts’, pp. 38–​39. It has been suggested that James and Anna occupied apartments in Kronborg since called the apartments of Christian IV. See Horace Marryat, A Residence in Jutland, II, p. 288.

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some way to blocking out the constant squabbling of his party. By this time, the bad blood between Chancellor Maitland and the Earl Marischal had broken out into faction, with members of the king’s entourage forced to take sides according to their allegiances. This honeymoon could not last, of course, but nor could James and Anna go anywhere, given the weather and the season. It was thus decided that they should remain in Denmark until at least April, when Anna’s elder sister (and James’s quondam potential bride) was due to marry Henry Julius, now ruler of Brunswick-​Wolfenbüttel. Interesting to linger on here is the relationship forged between the young Christian IV and his new brother-​in-​law. Anna was already devoted to Christian –​as she was to all of her family –​and it seems that her new husband also made a favourable impression. In the fullness of time, Christian would make repeat visits to his in-​laws, admittedly for political reasons but likely also due to his having established a positive working relationship with King James. James, for his part, would always prove welcoming to the younger Danish king. All was certainly not hard drinking. James, who fancied himself, and with good reason, a scholar and a student was eager to partake of the enlightened thinking which had come to dominate Danish intellectual circles. Although the usual entertainments were staged –​dramas and interludes, hunting and running at the ring –​the king paid visits also to leading thinkers. He spent the 11th and 12th of March in the village of Roskilde, where he visited the cathedral to hear a Latin oration by Mathias, thereafter discussing, ‘with acute perception, predestination’ with the Calvinist scholar (considered too extreme for mainstream Danish theology) Niels Hemmingsen.5 At the University of Copenhagen, Dr Paul Madsen treated the king to an oration, with James returning the favour by delivering a three-​hour Latin speech of his own composition. This earned the king a silver goblet and cover of fine Nuremberg work. Most famously, James took Anna to visit the esteemed astronomer Tycho Brahe, who had been gifted the island of Hven in the Sound, between Scania and Zealand, by Frederick II. Here, the scholar had built a remarkable research facility, comprising an underground laboratory, the 5 Stewart, The Cradle King, p. 114.

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Stjerneborg (or ‘castle of the stars’) and an older, aboveground palatial observatory, Uraniborg. Later drawings of the place show an attractive, walled palace in the style of the high renaissance, ornamented with domes and cupolas. Uraniborg’s interior, however, was less an aesthete’s delight than an intellectual’s: included among its treasures were sextants and quadrants; equatorial armillary spheres; a library; Copernicus’s triquetrum; and a printing press (on the southern range of the complex) which would later publish Brahe’s work on astronomy. All of these wonders likely made a visual counterpoint to the unusual scholar: Brahe, as a result of his truculent nature, had lost his nose to duelling in the 1560s and was thus compelled to wear a false one made of brass. Among Brahe’s possessions was a prominently displayed (no doubt with the best of intentions) portrait of the king’s former tutor, George Buchanan, which had been given by Peter Young in recognition of Brahe’s admiration of the famous philosopher.6 James professed himself delighted at the sight of his former master, whose book on royal rule he had banned from Scotland six years previously. Possibly the king was genuinely pleased to see evidence of Scottish intellectualism having made such an impact globally; more likely he was simply already a talented dissembler. It is surely significant that James took Anna on what was essentially his adventure. It was he, after all, who wrote a letter thanking his scholarly host for ‘your very agreeable and learned discourses’.7 Anna, on the other hand, left no written record, either at the time or later in her life, of her thoughts on the marvels of Uraniborg. This is telling. At 15, of course, she likely had little interest in the esoteric intellectualism of early modern astronomy and science (which always sailed a little close to sorcery). But neither would she develop a scholarly mindset –​at least not as it was understood in the period. In fairness, of course, it should be noted that she had not been raised in the expectation that she should pursue academic studies. Her role was to be one dictated by precedent and, on the visit to

6

Brahe might well have met Buchanan during the latter’s time in Denmark in 1571. See James Gerald Crowther, Six Great Astronomers, p. 41. 7 Williams, Anne of Denmark, p. 24.

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Uraniborg, her duty was to accompany her husband and to show grace. It was not to match wits with him. Nevertheless, there is a curious overlap in their interests here, with James providing the bridge. During his time at the centre of the Castalian circle, the king had associated himself with Urania, the Muse of Astronomy (and, in the renaissance, the begetter of spiritual verse). He and Brahe shared an interest in poetry. Moreover, the astronomer had written his own 234-​line elegy to Urania in his de nova Stella (1573), and in 1602 he would publish his Astronomiae Instauratae Progymnasmata, featuring James’s own commendatory poetic contributions.8 Anna might have had little interest in the science of astronomy, and she was no versifier herself, but she would in time come to appreciate the best of them. Further, she would strive to make poetry a family affair; in time, she would give her son Henry a copy of Guy de Faur’s quatrains –​pithy poems known for their elegance as much as their moralism. It is reasonable to suggest that James encouraged and nurtured her appreciation of poetry, and in Brahe he had a useful adherent in impressing upon the young bride the use of language as a tool of communication, representation and intellectual enquiry. The king and queen’s honeymoon period was thus one of pleasant diversions. James apparently enjoyed the opportunities –​religious and scholarly –​to learn, and he took the time to see to commercial interests, visiting the lately arrived Scottish tapestry-​weaver, Thomas Kingo, who had settled in Helsingborg.9 Scotland, and the necessity of returning, remained constants. In the middle of March, the king’s works master, William Schaw, was despatched home with instructions for the nobility to ensure the ships required to transport the royal party were being prepared. Schaw was charged also with ensuring that Holyroodhouse was –​finally –​brought up to scratch, along with the royal apartments at Stirling and Linlithgow Palace. Orders were given for red velvet to be procured for new hangings and for saddles –​one in black velvet trimmed with gold. These were issued when, later in the month, the trusty Colonel William Stewart arrived in Denmark to assure the king that all was in hand for an April journey. It is 8 9

Adam Mosley, ‘Astronomical Books and Courtly Communication’, p. 121. Christensen, ‘Scots in Denmark’, p. 144.

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clear that James had not only greatly enjoyed the pomp afforded him in Scandinavia but was keen to replicate it in material form in Scotland. Nor could Anna’s mother refrain from attempting to ensure that her daughter suffered no indignity in her future life (Sophie being in a far stronger position to ensure this than, e.g., the aristocratic parents of Darnley had been when he took up the position of Scottish consort). The dowager queen requested that Chancellor Maitland begin setting up the new queen’s Scottish household to Anna’s ‘honour and benefit’.10 In Scotland itself, the duke of Lennox, as first lord of the council, professed the nation desirous of its absentee king and its new queen. Thus, the minister Patrick Galloway was despatched to Denmark to plead for the royals’ return and report on the state of Scotland. This was a politic choice. James was no lover of fiery clergymen and certainly not any who demanded an end to episcopacy and the establishment of a strict presbytery. Galloway had proven –​and would prove –​to be loyal to James’s favoured Kirk infrastructure. The preacher’s delegation arrived in the midst of the celebrations held to mark Elizabeth and Henry Julius’s wedding. This was ill-​timed. James was little inclined to hurry back to deal with the relatively minor issues of rioting Edinburghers and skirmishes, especially when he was being honourably treated as a sovereign lord. Throughout his life, he would develop fixed ideas about the honour and respect due a king, and his visit to Scandinavia –​where he was continually feted –​could only have legitimised his views. The final piece of royal theatre to which James and Anna were subject was the wedding itself. Anna’s grandfather, Duke Ulrich, managed the trip (the severe winter finally having retreated) and thus contributed to a truly familial atmosphere.11 The bride, the eldest Oldenburg girl, was led to the chapel by her brother, the young king, preceded by their younger brothers. Behind came Anna and Sophie, queen of Scots and queen dowager of Denmark. With the marriage made, the season having turned and preparations well underway, it was time for the royal couple to finally turn their thoughts 1 0 11

CSP, Scotland, 10, p. 371. Anna’s grandmother, Duchess Elizabeth, had died in October 1586.

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to Scotland. This was bittersweet for both James and Anna –​he because this had been his first taste of life beyond his troublesome shores, she because the end of this brief honeymoon period meant saying goodbye –​probably for the last time –​to what had been a close and loving family. Only Chancellor Maitland could look upon the king’s return to Scotland with unalloyed glee; throughout, he had lamented the vast expenses James had been incurring and the dangers and schemes his enemies might have been working against him at home. Two days after the wedding, all parties bowed to the inevitable and boarded Admiral Peder Munk’s patched-​up Gideon at the head of a fleet of thirteen ships. They took the crossing –​a more tortuous one than would have been the case from Norway, and still marred by strong seas –​and arrived at Leith at 2.00 p.m. on the 1st of May. For the first time, Anna set eyes on what would be her home for the next thirteen years. With her was a Danish retinue of 200, including her favourite ladies, Anna Sophia Kaas (or Kroas, or Roos) and Cathrina Schinkel.12 The preacher Johannes Sering provided religious instruction; craftsmen such as Jacob Kroger offered material home comforts; and she had a Danish secretary, Calixtus Schein. These at least brought a little familiarity across the sea. The question was how the Scots would receive their first consort in 22 years and their first female holder of the role in 30.

12

Anna Kaas being sometimes called Roos (or simply Sophie or Sophia Roos) derives from a transcription error. It is also often mistakenly stated that she remained with Anna for the queen’s lifetime. In fact, both ladies would depart Scotland with ambassador Paul Knibbe in July 1591; he would leave behind Margaret Vinster.

Part II

Scotland

Anna, Our Welbelovit Queene

When Mary Queen of Scots had arrived back in Scotland following her youth and queenship in France, John Knox had bitterly –​and probably falsely –​portrayed her arrival as having taken place under lowering clouds, the sun allegedly not being seen for two days before nor two days after.1 Anna’s arrival at Leith marked a contrast, too, from the embarkation of the last female consort. Marie of Guise had, due to poor weather, arrived unexpectedly at the little fishing village of Crail before being thereafter conveyed to St Andrews, where celebrations were hastily prepared. By contrast, Anna landed –​with some relief, probably; she would never take to the seas again in her life –​to widespread and choreographed adulation. Now that she was resident in her new kingdom, it was incumbent upon her, James, and the people of Scotland to publicly acknowledge what it meant to be a queen consort. What did her people expect of her? What did she expect of them? Who would give her power and how would she use it? All must be answered in as colourful, splendid and noisy a manner as possible. The town of Leith, much scarred by a century of wars and rebellions, had been rebuilt and James had used his advance messengers to prepare a welcoming force of 200 soldiers. Guns and cannon boomed from the Danish ships announcing the arrival; the Scottish vessels answered in like manner, at the arrangement of the earl of Bothwell. Bothwell, Lennox and Lord John Hamilton then boarded the Gideon to formally welcome 1

Knox wrote, ‘In the memory of man, that day of the year has never seen a more dolorous face of the heavens than was at her arrival. That forewarning God gave to us.’ This account has echoed down the centuries, being sporadically ascribed to a sea mist (or ‘haar’). Interestingly, in Holinshed’s Chronicles, one finds the death of Queen Mary Tudor described as ending ‘the palpable fogs and mists of most intolerable misery’. It therefore seems likely that both men created their tales of foggy weather, intending them to have symbolic and religious force rather than being accurate accounts of conditions.

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the king and queen, before escorting them to a wooden platform near the King’s Wark (an ancient waterfront customs house and upmarket lodging), where the pair listened to an address –​in French –​from James Elphinstone of Innernochtie. There followed a long round of introductions as Anna’s colourful new cohort of noble subjects pressed to meet her –​this despite the king having issued a warning that the new queen was not to be harassed by a bevy of aristocratic women. First, the men of the council, who had been governing Scotland in James’s absence, made their obeisance. John Erskine, earl of Mar –​who would become Anna’s foe –​followed, as did his mother, the dowager countess Annabella –​another enemy in the making. Chancellor Maitland’s wife (whom the queen would take against) and daughter came next; in the fullness of time, Maitland, too, would prove to be a thorn in the queen’s side. The purpose of these presentations was not entirely altruistic welcome on the part of the nobility, nor were they intended merely to please James. Rather, the jockeying for place and position had begun. Anna retained –​and would fiercely fight for –​the right to fill out her household, despite her mother’s entrusting the job to Maitland, and the nobility of Scotland was desirous of attracting the queen’s attention and, hopefully, enticing her to give place to wives, daughters and sisters, who had been much neglected during James’s minority and bachelorhood. When Anna retired to the King’s Wark, James remained to take ‘the chief of the dames by the hand, every one after another [before departing] to the South Leith Kirk in the Kirkgate to praise God’ for their safe delivery from the perils of the sea.2 He then joined Anna and together the pair were forced to remain in Leith for five days; evidently, despite Schaw’s ministrations, Holyroodhouse had not yet received its finishing touches. Yet the lack of a palace did not prevent them from holding a court in miniature; the Scottish nobility thronged them and was introduced to the Danish elites who had accompanied Anna. For the better part of a week, contacts were made and relationships forged between the two nations, bound now in matrimonial alliance.

2

Clara Steeholm and Hardy Steeholm, James I, p. 134.

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On the 6th of May, all was ready for what would be Anna’s first trip through her capital. The projection of majesty was to be the order of the day. Her solid silver coach had come with her from Denmark and, drawn by eight white horses, it bore her and her ladies along the long streets which bisected Edinburgh and the adjoining burgh of the Canongate. James, Bothwell, Lennox, and Lord John Hamilton flanked the coach as it wound its way through the cheers of the citizens to Holyroodhouse, finally refreshed with its red velvet hangings and a queen’s bedchamber fitted with cloth of gold and silver. Holyroodhouse and the considerable efforts made to smarten it had not been the king’s caprice. Rather, the palace, which had first begun to see serious use as a royal residence by James IV as a setting for his consort, Margaret Tudor, had evolved into something more. It had become a locus of royal power and Stuart splendour, remodelled by James V for his French matches, and subsequently wrested from Marie of Guise by the 2nd earl of Arran during Mary Queen of Scots’s infancy. The place thus had significant symbolic value as the centre of the Stuart regime, and it drew much of that value from its association with the royal consorts who had inspired its elevation from abbey lodging house to palace. Scotland, no less than England or any other nation, invested particular cultural cachet in the buildings which housed and projected power and dynastic might. Nor was Holyroodhouse the only building to which attention was being paid. On the 12th of May, the Danish ambassadors Stene Brahe and Breide Rantzau, along with Peder Munk, rode to Falkland to survey the queen’s new estate. Falkland’s keeper, James Beaton of Creich, showed them around and John Skene, who had proven invaluable in the frenetic journeys between Scotland and Scandinavia, issued the charter conferring Anna’s new property portfolio on her. As was the custom, a handful of soil was symbolically handed to Peder Munk as evidence of the transfer of ownership, and the ambassadors were thus free to return to Edinburgh. Anna’s coronation was scheduled for the 17th of May, in Holyrood Abbey’s church. However, there remained much to be done ahead of the occasion. Now that James had a wife, he was determined to make good use of her as both proof of his masculinity and for the opportunities she provided to present himself on the world stage as a leading Protestant monarch and a fit heir to the English throne (he had, after all, done what

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Elizabeth never had, and signalled his desire to be fruitful). Expense, however, remained an issue. As early as 1584, it was reported by the ambassador Monsieur de Fontenay that ‘he misunderstands the real extent of his poverty and weakness’.3 It was perhaps therefore typical that, hoping to impress the world with Scottish financial might, the king rented fifteen featherbeds (at two shillings a night) for Holyroodhouse, as well as booking extra rooms in Edinburgh, each with its own featherbed, coal and candle, in order to impress the expected foreign ambassadors.4 Purple velvet and Spanish taffeta were ordered for Anna’s coronation robe; crimson velvet for the footmen; scarlet broadcloth for covering the furniture of the Danish guests. Yet the king was also quick to plead for silver spoons from his subjects and he requested a loan of silk stockings from his friend, the earl of Mar, with the cheerful warning that ‘ye wad not that your king should look like ane scrub on sic an occasion’.5 Williams ascribes this to James being a ‘mass of contradictions’.6 However, it might be better understood as his –​admittedly rather weak –​attempts to temper his outward spending with his habitually token gestures of economy. His lack of financial sense communicated itself to Anna, who, buoyed by the lifestyle she had experienced as a Danish king’s daughter (or filia regis), expected no less as a Scottish king’s consort. As Maureen Meikle has noted, in Scotland there had not ‘been a Protestant ceremony for a queen consort, so Anna’s coronation would be ground-​breaking’.7 Meikle further contends that the queen ‘could not have known that she would also be the last queen consort to be crowned at Holyrood’. However, this is not quite true. Indeed, both Anna and James must have very much hoped that she would be; both were committed to the idea of an English succession and it is unlikely either thought that Elizabeth would outlive them. Thus, we should see the Scottish coronation within the context of an expected English accession. This might well explain the religious climate which prevailed. The Scottish ministers 3 Claude Nau, The History of Mary Stewart, p. LX. 4 Williams, Anne of Denmark, pp. 28–​29. 5 Strickland, Lives, VII, p. 260. 6 Williams, Anne of Denmark, p. 29. 7 Meikle, ‘Anne of Denmark’s Coronation Entry’, p. 278.

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were alert to any signs of popery, particularly objecting to the process of anointment with holy chrism on the grounds that it was ‘a superstitious rite amongst Christians, borrowed from the Jews’.8 James, however, would brook no opposition to this act. Queen Elizabeth had been anointed and was in fact a stalwart supporter of the practice (part of her sustained but feeble demurrals on the subject of executing Mary Queen of Scots had been that the Scottish queen had been anointed). Naturally, James, who never shied away from theological argument, pleaded scriptural authority as being on his side. He likewise insisted on Robert Bruce ministering the sacraments, in opposition to voluble protest from more Calvinist preachers, who denounced Bruce as an enemy of the presbytery. Again, this might well be seen as James himself distrusting Presbyterianism (which he had done at least since the Kirk had approved his capture and captivity by Gowrie and the Lords Enterprisers as ‘good and godly’); but so too was it Anglo-​friendly.9 Elizabeth and England had retained the episcopal system of Church hierarchy and had recently been withstanding a pamphlet war waged by reforming Puritans. On the day, Sunday the 17th of May, two processions set off from the palace of Holyroodhouse for the abbey at the rear. James went first, in his own purple and ermine, followed by his own considerable household, the nobility (or second estate), clergy (first estate) and knights (as representatives of the third estate). Queen Anna’s separate procession was led by the nobles who had accompanied her to Scotland, wearing diamond-​and-​ gold chains of estate, followed by a further section of the third estate of Scotland (in the form of lairds –​or significant landowners –​and burgesses), along with the Lyon Herald Sir David Lindsay of Rathillet, who ushered Maitland, carrying the queen’s crown in both hands. Then followed the queen herself in her royal robes, supported on the right hand by Thomas Bowes, ambassador from England; on the left by Peter Munch [Peder Munk], the Danish Admiral, and Stene Brahe and Bredou Ranzou [diplomat Breide Rantzau], ambassadors of Denmark.10

8 9 10

Hume-​Brown, History of Scotland, p. 164. Acts and Proceedings of the General Assemblies, 1582, October. William Jones, Crowns and Coronations, p. 310.

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Bowes’s place in the procession is interesting and further underscores the importance which James and Anna attached to England in the organisation of the coronation. Filing in after the queen were the ambassador’s wife; the de facto queen mother, the dowager countess of Mar (who had overseen James’s upbringing at Stirling Castle); Lady Seton; and Maitland’s wife, Lady Thirlestane. Keeping up Anna’s side of things, Anna Kaas and Cathrina Schinkel joined these noble ladies in order to accompany the queen ‘to the place where she was to sit in the church [the sanctuary]; which, all being set [sat] down, Maister Paitrik Galloway, the king’s minister, goes up into the pulpit, and after prayers made, chooses his text out of the 45th Psalm’. The freedom of this choice might be doubted and the hand of the king is evident in it: You love righteousness and hate wickedness; therefore God, your God, has set you above your companions by anointing you with the oil of joy. All your robes are fragrant with myrrh and aloes and cassia; from palaces adorned with ivory the music of the strings makes you glad. Daughters of kings are among your honored women; at your right hand is the royal bride in gold of Ophir.11

Four of the primary actors in the ceremony –​Lennox, Hamilton, Bruce and Lindsay –​then made their public request of the king, which was granted. Empowered, Bruce went on to declare his right to crown the new queen. Then proceeded the anointing, as the dowager countess of Mar went to Anna, undid her gown to reveal her breast, and stood back as Bruce poured on her ‘a bonny quantity of oil’ before covering the bare flesh with white silk. Lennox, Hamilton, and ‘the virgins of Denmark’ (the young women of Anna’s retinue) then took the newly fragranced queen to her tiring chamber, where she was re-​dressed in her coronation robes and thus able to reclaim her place beside the king. James called out for the crown which, being handed to him, he passed to Lennox, who, with Maitland, placed it on her head. All that was then required was for Bruce to take the sceptre from Lord Hamilton and pass 11

Psalms 45: 7–​9.

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it to her, and for William Douglas, 10th earl of Angus, to give her the sword of state, with which she could complete the tableau. We cannot know Anna’s feelings at this moment, but the entire affair was heavy with religious and political significance, which can only have been heady for a 15-​year-​old girl. Nevertheless, this was a moment and a role for which she had been preparing for months if not years. Yet so too was it James’s day, which he had long awaited. The role of the king was paramount and the entire spectacle hinged on what the sovereign granted his wife, as underscored by the ceremonial obeisance made him, the requests asked of him, and the central role of his officers of state and church. Certainly, no witnesses present could have done otherwise but see that a consort of Scotland, even at the moment of coronation, was subject to the will of the sovereign and given what power she might exercise by virtue of his grace and favour. If any doubt of this lingered, Bruce dispelled it, announcing, We, by the authority of the king’s Majesty, with the consent of his states, representing the whole body of his country, place the crown on your Majesty’s head; and we deliver this sceptre to your Highness, acknowledging you to be our sovereign queen and lady, to whom we promise all points of office and obedience, dutiful in those things that concern the glory of God, the comfort of the Kirk and the preservation of his Majesty; and we crave from your Majesty the profession of the faith and religion we profess.12 Lindsay translated the request into Danish, and Anna voiced her agreement: I, Anna, queen of Scotland, profess, and before God and His angels wholly promise, that during the whole course of my life, as far as I can, I shall sincerely worship the same eternal God according to His will revealed in the Holy Scriptures. That I withstand and despise all papistical superstitions, and ceremonies, and rites, contrary to the word of God, and I will procure peace to the Kirk of God within this kingdom. So God, the Father of all Mercies, have mercy upon me.13

12 Strickland, Lives, VII, pp. 262–​263. 1 3 Strickland, Lives, VII, p. 263.

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This was unlikely to have been scripted by the queen herself. Heavy on righteousness, it bears the hallmarks of James’s pen. Inherent in the promise is a rejection of Presbyterian heavy-​handedness and reforming zeal and a reiteration of sound scriptural bases for the king’s interpretation of the faith. The Kirk and its hotter ministers might grumble, but James and Anna would ground their decisions –​and any public ceremonies they undertook –​on the king’s own opinions on what was and was not papistical superstition. Thereafter, Lindsay, in his role as Lyon King of Arms, led a chorus of ‘God save the queen!’ as trumpets joined the sudden eruption of noise. On this wave of acclamation, Anna was led from her seat ‘to a higher place’. Yet what would in the end be a seven-​hour ceremony was still in its infancy. The fiery preacher Andrew Melville, principal of the College of Theologians, went on to deliver 200 verses in Latin. Not to be outdone, Bruce then delivered his own speech on the benefits to Scotland of the king’s marriage to a Protestant princess, asking the congregation to get to their knees and raise their hands in salute and obedience. The individual oaths of homage followed –​and in this Anna might well have remembered, if her memory was prodigious, the oaths sworn to her young brother by the people of Denmark back in 1584. Now, however, she was not a 9-​year-​old fellow subject but the object of devotion. Galloway eventually drew proceedings to a close, taking to the pulpit and pronouncing a blessing. The queen, still wearing her crown and now preceded by Maitland, left the abbey and returned to the palace for an evening of festivities. The state entry itself, in deference to the Kirk, did not take place until two days later (the ministers objecting to civic celebrations taking place on a Sunday). These entries, popular across Europe, were not toothless displays of fawning welcome from a supine populace. They were a point of contact between rulers and ruled. They allowed the civic elite to lay out their expectations of their superiors in an environment conducive to positive reception, and they allowed those superiors to publicly display their commitment to civic interests, and the splendour which backed it up. Once again, Anna’s silver coach was enlisted, with mounted noblemen bearing a pall of purple velvet above it. At the very head of the procession

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marched ‘an absolutely real and native blackamoor’ carrying –​safely –​a sword, with a party of fifty Edinburgh men: For sum wer clad in silver pure, And sun in Taffatie white like snaw: Ay twa and twa in ordour stands, With battons blank into thair hands. Ilk ane in ordour keepit place, Als well the formest as the last, Thir MOIRS did mertch befoir her Grace, Quhile sche intill hir Pallace past.14

The image of these young men, some wearing masks, some with their skin blackened, is arresting, yet it is not novel: it appears to have been based on a similar procession arranged for Mary Queen of Scots’s entry into the capital.15 The poet John Burel, blithely unaware of the concept of racial sensitivity and distinction, equated these ‘Moors’ with the ‘Inds’, or men of the New World. He described them as ‘Leving thair land and dwelling place, /​ For to do honour to hir Grace’.16 Either Burel or the engineers of the procession were, however, somewhat anachronistic in their outlook. As Greg Bak has recognised, the concept of homogenous blackness was rapidly giving way to a nuanced view which acknowledged even intracontinental African variations.17 Nevertheless, the year prior to Anna’s entry, George Peele’s The Battle of Alcazar had depicted Muly Mahamet, the Moor, drawing on the traditional association of a black exterior with a black soul and making the notion of taming and disarming foreigners a then topical and demonstrably British subject. The implication in Edinburgh was that Scotland was staking a claim to the New World, which at the same time England was attempting to gain a foothold in (Raleigh had made futile attempts at colonisation between 1584 and 1587, and he would, the summer after Anna’s coronation, send a scouting party to check on the colonists at Roanoke, only to find they had disappeared; between 1584 14 John Burel, Papers Relative, p. vi. 1 5 McManus, Women on the Renaissance Stage, p. 76. 16 Burel, Papers Relative, p. v. 17 Greg Bak, ‘Different Differences’, p. 201.

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and 1585 he had even kept two Native Americans at Durham House). The English fascination with ‘savages’ then being current might well explain Anna’s adoption of a seal featuring ‘a savage, wreathed about the middle, holding in his left hand a club erect’.18 Yet in this use of blackness, we see the queen’s hand. As noted, Moors had been engaged to dance at her brother’s baptism in 1577. So too did Black people have a heritage in Britain’s renaissances, having been part of the courtly entertainments of James IV and Margaret Tudor (as well as black masks being used in Mary Queen of Scots’s 1561 entry); and, in 1510, Henry VIII and his courtiers had appeared in blackface, with the ladies wearing black silk masks, ‘so that the same ladies semed to be nigrost or blacke Mores’.19 McManus suggests that Anna therefore sought a link between herself and the other, drawing on a Scottish tradition of associating foreign (or foreign educated) queens with the exotic. We might, however, go further, both thematically and geographically. Foreign consorts in both Scotland and England certainly had associations with blackness, but they themselves were invariably apart from it, ruling over it. The conceit was that ‘foreign’ royal women such as Margaret Tudor, Katherine of Aragon and the French-​educated Mary Queen of Scots commanded but stood separate from ‘real’ foreignness, even when that foreignness was counterfeited. As such, they were normalised before and amongst their subjects, despite the differences in nationality and upbringing; the whiteness of their skin, in contradistinction to the ‘black’ masquers, marked these women out as not truly foreign. When set beside Moors, real or false, a White Spaniard looked very much like an Englishwoman; a White Englishwoman like a Scot; a French-​raised White Scot like any other Scot; and, of course, a White Dane looked like a Scot. What is clear is that the queen was fascinated by Black people and considered how they might be of use in projecting her status as queen consort. If pale skin was the contemporary ideal, Anna would repeatedly associate herself as having mastery of the other, tacitly suggesting that she was a woman of global aspirations with a penchant for the British proto-​imperial 1 8 19

Henry Laing, Descriptive Catalogue of Impressions, p. 17. Bernadette Andrea, The Lives of Girls and Women, p. 112.

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spectacle that marked current cultural trends. She thus presented a link between her own past, Scotland’s past and England’s past: the present and the future. The other helped, as always, define what it wasn’t; Anna and her changing guard of canopy bearers (at each station on the journey, a new team of men –​mostly local craftsmen –​took up the poles) were an apotheosis of western normalcy, offering to spectators a ruling class which had tamed and brought into the fold the exotic. The queen and her convoy made their entry through the tapestry-​ covered West Port which led into Edinburgh.20 Here, she was treated to the sight of the assembled magistrates in their robes, before a large globe was lowered from above by mechanical means. It opened to reveal Edina, the physical manifestation of the city (in reality a boy dressed in red velvet with a white taffeta cloak), who gave her the keys to the burgh, as music drifted from musicians on a gallery above. Nor was this all. Handed to Anna also were a jewel and a leather-​and-​gilt Bible encased in purple velvet.21 This marked her godly welcome, backed up by legal authority. The expectation was that the new queen consort would prove a guardian to the established religion. This was a typical demand (Mary Queen of Scots herself had received similar religious gifts-​cum-​cautions). In Anna’s case, too, it was to have personal resonance. She would, in her first year in Scotland, face the railing enmity of Kirk ministers, who criticised the ‘lack and want of godly and virtuous exercise among her maids’ and her ‘night walking and balling’.22 The Kirk would prove no more welcoming and deferential to Anna than it would to her husband. Having been granted access to the city, the procession moved on, through streets thronged with citizens. Edinburgh was bisected by its High Street, which led from the castle down towards the Canongate and Holyrood. It was a compact city, which was increasingly built upwards 20 It is unclear whether Anna and her party spent the night before in Edinburgh Castle, which would make sense geographically, or left Holyroodhouse to the east and took a circuitous route so as to enter at the West Port. 21 The Bible was bought from Nicol Uddart, bound in gilt Morocco leather, and presented in a pocket made of purple velvet supplied by Robert Jousie. See David Stevenson, Scotland’s Last Royal Wedding, p. 144. 22 Kenneth Olwig, Landscape, Nature, and the Body Politic, p. 5.

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rather than outwards. The buildings boasted projecting upper galleries which hung out over the street, and these would have been filled with people hoping for a good view of proceedings. Anna was taken from the Grassmarket up the West Bow, where her visit with James to Uraniborg was recollected in the form of a boy personifying astronomy, named Astronomia but equally signifying Urania. Surrounded by mathematical instruments –​as befitted a representation of the liberal arts –​his job was to deliver Latin verses, devised by Hercules Rollock, foretelling her success as a mother to Scottish heirs. More colourfully, he predicted a shower of rain, which was the cue for those stationed in the upper galleries and windows of nearby houses to cast down a shower of ‘scrotcherts and confects’ –​sugared sweets and comfits. At the Butter Tron, nine maidens provided organ music and sang, whilst another boy recited yet more verses, emphasising the role of the queen as a maternal figure to the arts (and there is reason to believe she took this seriously). With no doubt being left as to her expected role as a mother, the procession moved eastward towards St Giles Cathedral. Outside this forbidding grey structure, which had become the heart of Scottish reformed belief, a stage had been constructed. Here, Virtue stood with her four daughters, Prudence, Justice, Temperance and Fortitude, each wearing black silk and flower garlands. Anna received from Virtue another crown, and the figures of her daughters made clear their expectations of the new queen: that she should not be lazy; that she should love justice and equity; that she should be humble and that she should be temperate. If the words were lost on Anna –​and the noise makes this likely enough, given there was ‘nothing but ringing and tolling of bells, beating of drums, roaring of cannons, with all sorts of musical instruments and singing’ –​then the symbolism was not.23 The daughters of Virtue carried an astrolabe, a sword and scales, a club and shield and an hourglass and bridle. Nor was religion forgotten, as Psalm 120 was sung. Here, a break came in proceedings as the queen climbed out of her coach and was escorted into the cathedral by Peder Munk and Lord John

23

Juhala, ‘The Household and Court of King James VI’, p. 276.

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Hamilton. Robert Bruce was once again present, this time to sing Psalm 107 –​notable for its reference to Anna’s recent experiences at sea: He turneth the storme to calme, so that the waues thereof are still. When they are quieted, they are glad, and hee bringeth them vnto the hauen, where they would be.24

On leaving, Anna was treated to the sight of fountains flowing with wine and a pageant showing the lineage of the Danish kings and the arms of previous Scottish queens consort. This last is particularly significant. It was backed up at the Salt Tron by an artificial tree showing the kings and queens of both nations, as they had sprung from a common root: Christian I of Denmark, Anna’s ancestor but also James’s via Margaret, consort to James III. The Scots and the Danes were quite aware that their new queen was no novelty but the latest in a line of consorts and thus required to learn from the most successful of them. As had been made clear throughout the day, her chief and most pressing goal was to become a mother as quickly as possible: she must help form a new branch of the family tree. For Anna, however, the lesson was not only one of duty but of expectation on her part; she was entitled to the same rights as those illustrious women who had preceded her. Central to those rights were her jointure lands and, helpfully, a nearby pageant showed Bacchus and Ceres (schoolboys again) standing by a laden banquet table which was meant to indicate her morrowing gifts of properties and estates. Once again, a contractual reference was made; an actor who had been reclining on a barrel began tossing gifts of food to the spectators. The new queen was being shown what Scotland owed her and what she owed Scotland. The procession wound on to the last spectacle, held at the Netherbow, which connected Edinburgh to the adjoining burgh of the Canongate. A colourful interlude took place in which –​unsurprisingly –​King Solomon was seen in dialogue with the queen of Sheba. The wise king was gratified by the queen’s gift of balsam. One last schoolboy had been drafted to make the association explicit: Anna was the queen of Sheba and James Solomon. The 24 Psalms 107: 29–​30.

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service that the people now owed her was thus in her husband’s gift. A more material gift came on a silk rope from the gatehouse, in the form of a jewel called the ‘A’ (due to the engraved A for Anna on its case) commissioned by the burgess William Fairlie and crafted by goldsmith David Gilbert. Thus suitably feted –​and counselled –​the young queen and her noisy procession descended out of Edinburgh and returned to Holyroodhouse, whereupon the blackened ‘Moors’ began dancing. The atmosphere of revelry continued apace. On the 23rd, Edinburgh hosted the Danish ambassadors at the Mint, and the following day King James stood up in St Giles and thanked the people for their munificence. Anna’s Danish escort was then waved off on the 26th on ships weighted down with gifts of gold chains bearing James’s image. The king and queen watched from the sands of Leith as a part of her past made ready to leave her in her new realm, sailing off to the boom of cannon from Edinburgh Castle. The ships, once more led by Peder Munk, would again face stormy seas, and by the end of the year what had hitherto been grumbling rumours and whispers about the causes of the endless inclement weather would be blown by the admiral into full-​scale tales of witchcraft which would, in time, reach Scotland. Yet few could have foreseen the horrors lying in store at the close of the festivities. By anyone’s measure, the ceremonial entry had passed off well. It had offered Anna the opportunity to see her new capital at its best and it had given her people a chance to make clear their expectations of her: that she should be fruitful, virtuous, godly, and receptive to commercial interests. From her perspective, she had demonstrated her commitment to Scotland’s past and future, as well as associating herself with wider cultural trends and a willingness to engage with interests beyond Scotland (her eye being as much on the English succession as James’s). More immediately, it had refocused her mind on her property and her rights as a consort: the former her Danish associates still resident in the country would swiftly move to inspect, and the latter she would begin to fight for with much tenacity and questionable wisdom.

The Woman of Property

Anna appears to have decided from the first that her role in Scotland was not simply to be the king’s timid and submissive wife, but to provide a stabilising influence over what had been a masculine court. Where she failed, however, was in her unwillingness to welcome Scottish ladies into her household. One observer, William Dundas, wrote in June that ‘contrary to the humour of our people, [she] hath banned all our ladies clean from her’.1 This was not a particularly wise move. It was, however, a display of power. Traditionally, Scottish consorts had been free to appoint their own households. Even James’s father, Darnley, on being excluded from direct political power, had exercised what autonomy he did have: the freedom to form his own household (albeit he had used it to surround himself with friends, servants and dubious appointees, and engaged endlessly in factional scheming over custody of his son). The ability to choose her own people would be one Anna maintained from the outset of her tenure as consort and she would fight doggedly against any perceived attempt to infringe on her right to do it. Her rights as a consort were foremost in her mind at this time. Not only were the properties she had been gifted a source of income –​they were the physical settings in which the daily ceremonies and rituals of her household could be carried out. One of the first places she and the king visited was her jointure palace of Linlithgow, which had been much altered by James V. The magnificent palace, which would fall into impressive ruin in the seventeenth century, had been a favourite of Scottish consorts throughout the sixteenth. It was reputedly from its tower that Margaret Tudor had awaited news of her husband’s battle at Flodden. Marie of Guise, on first seeing what her husband had done to modernise the palace, had remarked that it compared favourably to the chateaux of the Loire.2 1 Strickland, Lives, VII, p. 265. 2 John Guy, My Heart Is My Own, p. 14.

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Anna appears to have been charmed by the building, with its soft yellow stone, its grand central fountain and its sporting facilities. At least, there is no record of her finding fault with it. What she did find fault with, however, was the behaviour of the king’s gentlemen. On visiting her husband’s chambers, she was apparently insulted by one of them, and thereafter she began to see it as her mission to inject a long-​absent sense of decorum into the Scottish court. The exact nature of the insult is not recorded (it might have been word or gesture), nor is the perpetrator, but what is clear is that the queen found the Scottish court to be, in modern parlance, distinctly ‘laddish’. This was likely not only because of the personnel, but because the Stuarts had long kept court in the French style, with courtiers afforded high levels of access to the sovereign –​even into the royal bedchamber –​ according to rank.3 Under James, this had descended into a somewhat loose and unmannerly system, quite alien to the formalities of the Danish court. As previous consorts before her (and even Darnley had engaged in the lute-​playing, poetics and singing which helped elevate the Marian court) she could be expected to make her own mark on the atmosphere and mood of the place. Before long, it was being reported –​with some asperity –​that James had learned from both his new wife and his experiences in Denmark: ‘Things are beginning to be strangely altered … the pattern of the court of Denmark is greatly before the eyes of our king … the royal household is diminished of the best of his servants.’4 Writing of the development of the Danish court, Sebastian Olden-​Jørgensen has labelled it ‘the household of a prince, a point of contact between the ruler and the elites, a cultural trendsetter, a focal point of patronage and an important institution of regional and international politics’.5 It was thus essential that the communications between prince –​and for this we might read both queen and king –​and people were cordial and decorous. Anna would be responsible in large part for the development of James’s court –​and certainly her own household –​as suitable sites of contact, culture and patronage.

3

The Englishman William Paget (1506–​1563) found at least one Valois king casual and undignified for a monarch. See Lacey Baldwin Smith, Henry VIII, p. 194. 4 Strickland, Lives, VII, p. 265. 5 Sebastian Olden-​Jørgensen, ‘State Ceremonial’, p. 65.

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The next property she visited was to prove a less welcome sight. In July, she took her first trip to Dunfermline, the abbey and lands of which had been her first gift. She and James crossed the Forth by ferry, accompanied –​ tellingly –​by Anna Kaas, Cathrina Schinkel and a body of eight Danes who had remained in Scotland (presumably to ensure that the queen was treated with the appropriate degree of respect). On arriving at Dunfermline, unfortunately, Anna found her new palace somewhat lacking in comparison to the splendour she had known in her childhood and even in the refurbished Holyroodhouse. James had, admittedly, attempted to bring the place up to scratch. In May, William Schaw had received £400 Scots via the king’s precept for ‘the reparation of our house at Dunfermline before the Queen’s Majesty’s passing there’.6 Despite the fact that her carved walnut bed had been imported from Denmark, she was disappointed at the condition of the antiquated buildings, which had not been remodelled externally for ninety years (when James IV had altered and expanded them). The existing palace, though, represented less a disappointment than an opportunity. Anna was determined not only to have old buildings refitted for her, but to inscribe her own tastes on Scottish architecture via new construction projects. In this she was advancing a pursuit already established by her predecessors. Taking an interest also in her landholdings, Marie of Guise had had sent over cuttings of French plants to engraft in her adopted country and, with a more avaricious eye, miners to improve Scottish facilities in her husband’s goldmines at Crawfordmuir in the Lowther Hills. There thus was a definite cultural dimension to consortship, with the incoming foreign consort expected to share, ratify and improve the cultural tastes of the kingdom –​literally, Marie was encouraged to alter the Scottish landscape and help carve out new architectural styles and aesthetics in order to further raise the nation’s cultural credentials within a European context. Marie had also ordered palaces extended and rebuilt for her, and she had been a builder herself. Her palace at Castlehill was constructed after the sacking of Holyroodhouse by Henry VIII’s forces in 1544; though it was torn down in the nineteenth century, it would have been very much 6

Sheila Pitcairn, The Journal Guide to Dunfermline, p. 48.

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visible to Anna. Margaret Tudor, in addition to having palaces refurbished (Holyroodhouse itself being the obvious example), had been treated to ‘a fair palace, built in the midst of a green meadow’, constructed by the earl of Atholl.7 It is thus fair to say that consorts of Scotland were not strangers to altering the landscape of the country, and this was a tradition in which the new queen was quite ready to join. This early visit to Dunfermline thus had the complexion of a survey, and the hunting expeditions that James took her on afforded the opportunity to find a suitable site for a new palace to be constructed. This was to be a custom-​built performative space in which she could enact her own version of consortship. Her eye landed on a site downhill from the old building, and she envisioned a gallery linking the new to the old, though her new ‘Queen’s House’ would not see completion for another ten years. Casting a long shadow too was the fact that the adjoining lands of Musselburgh and Inveresk were excluded from her ownership of Dunfermline. These valuable assets were instead retained by Maitland, who had been granted them in 1587. The seeds of her feud with the chancellor, already sown by his having opposed her marriage and favoured James’s match with Catherine of Navarre, were suddenly watered. Their quarrel would prove ongoing during her early years in Scotland, and it would be grounded throughout in her absolute dedication to what she considered her inalienable rights as a landowner. In this, Anna was aping her mother, Sophie, who had always kept a keen eye on the opportunities that came with landholdings. It is therefore something of a historical irony that, in following her mother’s lead, Anna found herself butting heads with the man Sophie had charged with setting up the new queen’s household. Following the visit to Dunfermline, Anna and James moved on to Falkland Palace, which sits on the principal street of the little burgh of Falkland. Another of the new queen’s own properties, this building had become one of the jewels in the architectural crown of Scotland. James IV and James V had both put considerable time and money into transforming the place from hunting lodge to palace, the latter extending the former’s

7 Strickland, Lives of the Queens of Scotland, I, p. 240.

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additions by adding a tennis court and French architectural features. The palace was not large –​nor was it defensible –​but it was opulent. With her new properties looming in her mind, the question again arose of how Anna was to staff them. As she was now a queen consort, this was no mean feat: required to reflect and magnify her position was a master of the household; a chamberlain; a stablemaster (overseeing a saddler, a horse-​keeper and grooms); gentlemen servants (sewers, cupbearers and carvers, to serve meals at two tables, with the placement of both tables and diners delineated by rank and nationality); gentlemen and ladies of the various chambers; secretaries; chaplains; ushers (one especially to present the queen’s meat); porters; lackeys; wardrobe staff; tailors; seamstresses; embroiderers; glovers; a comptroller; a treasurer; clerks; an almoner; musicians; a physician; a surgeon; an apothecary; an advocate; cellarers; kitchen staff (a cook, his aides and a flesher); a keeper of the vessel house; and a coalman. These positions –​and more –​each represented an opportunity for someone to get close to power, and the filling of them required knowledge of the complex web of kinship networks which made up Scottish society. Further, the rituals for attending upon a consort had been degraded through the tenures of previous consorts (with Darnley disrespected and abandoned, and Marie of Guise eventually rebelled against). A firm hand was needed. James, probably with the best of intentions, assigned a place in her household to Sir James Melville, who had been knighted at the coronation probably in anticipation of the charge he was shortly to be given.8 This was the position of first gentleman of the queen’s household, and principal counsellor in educating her in the ways of her new country. Melville was, further, well suited to the role. An old hand at Scottish politics, he is probably best known today for his Memoirs of My Own Life (first published in 1683). It is from these that we have, for example, his famous account of his meeting with England’s Elizabeth, during which she demanded to know whether she or Mary Queen of Scots was the taller, the fairer and the better at dancing. It was in these pages, too, that he summed up Elizabeth: ‘You think if you 8

Melville had helped rescue James from the Ruthven raiders and thus retained a sterling reputation for loyalty to the Crown.

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were married, you would be but queen of England. Now you are king and queen both. You may not suffer a commander.’9 Melville was a seasoned diplomat and courtier who had travelled extensively and had an intimate knowledge of various royal courts and the personalities they contained; he might thus have proven a valuable ally to the new queen of Scots. Such an assignment was, however, intolerable to Anna, who was intent on ruling over her own appointments. Further, Melville was then around 55 and it appears that his long experience had bred in him a superiority of manner, which would have been obvious to a 15-​year-​old. Disagreement over the imposition of Melville brought out the first contest of wills between king and queen. Having been insulted already by one Scottish gentleman, she was loath to accept an overbearing one infringing on her rights. On receiving Melville, she –​according to Melville –​asked, ‘whether he was ordained to be her keeper’. He retorted that he knew her lineage as the daughter of ‘sa noble and princelie parents … that she needit na keeper, albeit her dignity required to be servit by honourable men and women, both auld and young, in sindre [sundry] occupations’.10 This was courtly dissembling, and Anna was not willing to give way without a show of authority. She was being, she claimed, ‘evilly dealt with’. No doubt she suspected that Melville had been given the task of spying on her (and she was probably right, for James would show himself no slouch in installing men to report on his wife’s activities). Melville claimed that this show of pique was the result of mischief-​making on the part of others, who had warned her against him. He might also have been correct, but what seems obvious is that the queen knew her rights insofar as they touched appointments to her household and she was, from the outset, keen to assert them. There is, however, a happier sequel in that, having made her point, Anna came to value her enforced knight –​or, at least, she managed to disguise her irritation with good grace. According to Melville, she appeared at length to accept his position and he spent his time, in fact, attending her council, ‘sometimes assisting on her exchequer’ and, when she was apart from her husband, he ‘waited only on the queen’.11 Her household by the next year 9 James Melville, Memoirs, p. 122. 10 Strickland, Lives, VII, p. 265. 11 Ibid.

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would be filled out with the acquisition of ‘a master of household [Wilhelm von der Wense, a servant of Queen Sophie, who was replaced in October 1590 by Henry Lindsay and David Beaton], master stabler, secretary [the Castalian poet William Fowler had been appointed her principal secretary and master of requests when she was in Oslo, and had been joined by John Geddie], carver, preacher, tailor, furrier and goldsmith’, as well as ‘ane moir [likely the same man who had carried the sword ahead of her procession of black-​painted Edinburgh men], Hans Poppleman, maister cuke, a notair of the expenssis of the quenis house and several pages, including William Belo, and lackeys’.12 To pay for this, she was to receive ‘£4541 Scots in money’ annually for her living expenses, ‘plus substantial amounts of wheat, barley, oats, capons, hens and geese’.13 The royal couple would thus go on to establish relatively harmonious living conditions. Thus, Meikle is able to furnish us with an image of their arrangements: At the royal dining tables there was a strict segregation of the king’s and queen’s households. They sat at separate tables with foodstuffs furnished from their own supplies … The top tables had wine, meats, bread and ale, whilst those at the bottom only received bread and ale. The meats included were typical of an elite household with beef, mutton, veal, capon, chicken, lamb, fish, dove, tongue, geese and wild meat in season. The only exceptions to all this meat were forty apples and 100 eggs. We know that Anna was particularly fond of beer, rather than the inferior Scots ale, and James ordered beer especially from London for her in 1595.14

It is thus fair to say that, in the opening years of her consortship at least, Anna was able to establish a reasonable measure of economy without compromising her living standards. Her goal, as her husband’s, was to live as well as they could on what they had. This was, however, to be something 12 For the appointment of Geddie, see: GB 227 msDA788.G4B91. An interesting man, Geddie wrote a Latin acrostic for a manuscript of William Fowler’s ‘Methodi, sive compendii mathematici’. Such men provided a vital intellectual flavour to Anna’s household. Fowler would eventually fall out of favour with the queen. His replacement would be the Scottish poet Robert Ayton. 13 Maureen Meikle, ‘Holde Her at the Oeconomicke Rule’, p. 106. 14 Meikle, ‘Hold Her at the Oeconomicke Rule’, pp. 106–​107.

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they grew increasingly unable to do –​yet their expenses, partly due to the depreciation of the pound Scots, were to grow rather than shrink with the passage of time. Neither her property income nor her annual allowance would be able to keep pace with the projection of princely living which was a central part of their shared monarchical agenda, nor with a rapidly growing royal family, nor even with the necessity of maintaining a powerful role as the centre of a network in which gift-​giving was paramount. One of the most persistent accusations Anna has faced is the charge of needless extravagance. This is, however, a criticism somewhat belied by the fact that, when she proved a big spender, it was often out of political necessity. Majesty required rich settings, dress and ceremonial. Settings and ceremonial required people. People required food and drink, clothing, salaries and a steady stream of gifts to cement their support. None of this could be done cheaply. After this tour of her new properties, the queen returned to the capital. She had now seen what she owned: two fine palaces and an old building fit for renewal. These were not, as she would realise in the coming years, suitable sites for building power blocs: they were places for pleasure and peaceful recreation (which in itself tells us much about James’s expectations of his wife). Yet the queen would, in times coming, focus not only on what she had been given but on what she had not. Unlike Marie of Guise, she had not been awarded the critical stronghold of Stirling. On receiving Dunfermline, she had not been given the lordship of Musselburgh. In the period, land was power as well as a source of income, and Anna found herself well enough taken care of in the latter but less so in the former. It would be incumbent on her from 1590 onwards to do what she could with what she had and to fight for what she wanted. The Danish princess was now a Scottish landowner. Yet Scotland was not entirely at peace. As Bingham has succinctly noted, there were three problems awaiting James on his return from Denmark: Presbyterian extremism and ‘aristocratic delinquency’ were two.15 The third was something else which had inadvertently come across the sea with Anna, and which would embrace the other two. It would, further, send shivers through Scotland for centuries. 15 Bingham, James VI of Scotland, p. 127.

All of Them Witches

If the recent rough weather had vexed the king and queen of Scots, it had delighted Satan. Or so, at least, it was soon being said. At the very outset of Anna’s abortive journey from Denmark, around the time she was being sloshed about the Norwegian Sea, Admiral Peder Munk had whispered darkly about the supernatural causes he suspected to be behind the foul weather. He had, he claimed, cuffed the mayor of Copenhagen, unaware that the unfortunate fellow’s wife, Malin, was a notorious witch. In retaliation, supposedly, this cunning woman had raised the wild storms in protest at her husband’s treatment at the admiral’s hands. The outcome, as Melville reports, was soon heard in Scotland: ‘Quhilk [which] storm of wind was alleged to have been raisit by the witches of Denmark, by the confession of sundrie of them when they were burnt for that cause.’1 Scotland itself was no stranger to suspicions of witchcraft, nor, indeed, was England. James’s uncle, the Regent Moray, had upheld laws –​with burning the penalty –​against witchcraft, as had Henry VIII.2 The search for actual, underlying causes of the rise of witchcraft trials across Europe –​ and eventually beyond –​in the post-​reformation period has given birth to a wide body of scholarship. Out of this, it can be argued that the craze had no single cause; in fact, scholars looking at sporadic outbreaks of witch-​ hunts have found that these events tended to be products of conditions unique to each nation that undertook them. The obsession in Denmark, for example, has been suggested to have been –​at least initially –​less interested in heresy as a spiritual crime and more concerned with the principle of maleficia, or sorcery as a means of causing harm, with secular authorities 1 Melville, Memoirs, p. 369. 2 What would turn out to be the deadliest of the laws instituted in Scotland against witches came into force under Mary Queen of Scots on the 4th of June 1563. See Julian Goodare, ‘The Scottish Witchcraft Act’, pp. 39–​67.

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condemning witches becoming part of ‘a sharp rhetoric applied for consolidating the Evangelical faith’.3 In other words, central Danish authorities increasingly persecuted witches not because they meant to right spiritual wrongs, but because the unfortunate alleged witches were considered a threat to the status quo, conceptualised by their ability to pose actual, physical threat to victims. Scotland’s relationship with witches is perhaps even more widely studied, given that it was second only to Germany in the eventual number of people condemned throughout the early modern period.4 However, we should not imagine sixteenth-​century Scotland as a nation constantly choked with the smoke of pyres laden with burning witches, nor of tree branches and gallows creaking with swinging bodies. As Julian Goodare has noted, witchcraft trials tended to occur fitfully.5 In an ambitious study, Parashar Kulkarni and Steven Pfaff have sought to explain this occasional flaring up of witchcraft fears and subsequent trials by ‘linking episodes of sectarian conflict and political struggles over the established Church to the motives propelling witch-​hunts’. Scottish witch-​hunts, they argue, were ‘overwhelmingly initiated and conducted through local ecclesiastical institutions … [these] expressed a competitive strategy to increase the dependence of the population on the Presbyterian faction of the Scottish church and thereby stave off the Crown’s attempts to impose a centralised episcopal Church polity and retain local power’.6 The statistical data here is compelling and, as we have seen, the Kirk was indeed jealous of its privileges, suspicious of the new Danish queen and her habits, and always eager to publicly make clear its importance in Scottish life. However, in what would become one of the most celebrated Scottish witch trials in history, the idea of the Kirk controlling affairs in order to shore up its authority in the teeth of a hostile king who was over-​fond of the episcopal system is problematic. The problem, of 3 4 5 6

Louise Nyholm Kallestrup, Contesting Orthodoxy, p. 6. Peter T. Leeson and Jacob W. Russ, ‘Witch Trials’, p. 47. Julian Goodare, Lauren Martin, Joyce Miller and Louise Yeoman, ‘Survey of Scottish Witchcraft’, http://​www.shca.ed.ac.uk/​witc​hes/​ (archived January 2003, accessed 01/​03/​2021); Goodare, Scottish Witches and Witch-​Hunters. Parashar Kulkarni and Steven Pfaff, ‘Church, Politics, Sectarianism’, p. 6.

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course, is that James himself was an active agent in the witch-​hunt and would go on to become one of history’s most famous persecutors and inquisitors (and, to be fair, sceptics). When the existence of efficacious witchcraft was doubted, James was, for a good part of his life, quick to mount a defence of its being a real and present danger. In the same summer during which Queen Anna was inspecting her new properties and setting up her household, her native Denmark was rounding up suspected witches. This had come about not because of Peder Munk’s dark mutterings, but rather because the admiral had accused the Danish treasurer, Christoffer Valkendorff, of not adequately provisioning the Gideon. Valkendorff ’s defence was to resurrect Munk’s own earlier claims: the state of the ship had not been at fault –​witches had been at work. He named one Karen Weffuers (or Weaver) as the principal agent. She had, allegedly, sent demons to sea in empty barrels, the creatures then raising the seas against the Danish ships. On being arrested in July, Weaver confessed, naming other women as her accomplices, chief amongst them Anna Koldings. Under torture, Koldings confirmed what had initially been Valkendorff ’s suspicions. Her confession was joined by those of Maren Matts Bryggers and Maren Mogensis. Arrested as part of the coven too was Margrethe Jakob Skrivers, the wife of a scrivener. This was, naturally, sensational and horrifying stuff –​these were not malcontent peasant women or cast-​out crones but the wives and daughters of prominent men. More horrifying was the result: twelve women would be burnt at Kronborg for their supposed involvement in raising the storms. What Anna made of events in her native country we cannot know, but, given that the accusations were made by men central to her brother’s government, it is likely she believed them as much as anyone. She had, after all, been the direct victim of the demonic spells: she had witnessed mariners killed at sea and cannon freed from their moorings to roll about the decks. However, it is telling that she would later sympathise with the accused leader of the supposed Scottish witches, which certainly indicates a developing scepticism as the witchcraft craze thickened with political intrigue. Her husband’s thoughts are more well known. James, on hearing about the shocking confessions in Denmark, decided that the witches of Copenhagen could not have worked alone. Not to be outdone by the

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Danes, he set about discovering what evil had been worked by his Scottish subjects in support of the witches across the water. He did not have to look far or for long. A maidservant, Geillis Duncan, confessed –​or was made to confess –​to her employer, Seaton (who, with his son, was likely the main instigator of what followed), the reasons as to why she was quietly leaving the house at night. Probably under torture, she admitted that she had been slipping out to commune with the devil, who attended the church at North Berwick. And the devil naturally liked as many souls as possible to bear witness to his terrible appearance, with his ‘nose like the beak of an eagle, great burning eyes; his hands and legs … hairy, with claws upon his hands and feet like a griffin’.7 ‘In a hollow voice’, he had spoken with upwards of 100 witches, inviting them, apparently, to ‘kiss his arse’ (which was apparently ‘cold, like ice’).8 The hunt was up, and the unfortunate Duncan’s (probably terrified) accusations were damning. Agnes Sampson was, much like the women accused and killed abroad, an unlikely witch, being a ‘renowned midwife’ (an occupation that likely made her association with the devil all the more shocking). Others of the accused were likewise outwardly respectable: Barbara Napier (who would plead her belly and eventually be freed) was a middle-​class Edinburgh kinswoman-​by-​marriage to the Douglas family; Dr Fian (also known as John Cunningham) was a Lothian schoolmaster; Robert Grierson was a ship’s captain; and Euphemia MacCalzean (who would be burned at the stake) was the daughter of the late Lord Cliftonhall, former provost of Edinburgh. Confessions poured out, but at least in one case –​that of Dr Fian –​admission of devilry was recanted. Agnes Sampson would be more forthcoming. After being shaved and inspected for marks of the devil (which her captors claimed she had), she was tortured and sang like the proverbial canary. According to the unfortunate old woman, hundreds of witches converged on North Berwick from far-​flung places, travelling there in sieves (an image Shakespeare could not later resist). In the churchyard, Geillis would play music for the devil, who 7 8

Hyman Shapiro, Scotland in the Days of James VI, p. 89. Rather charmingly, Strickland quietly emends the kissing of the devil’s arse to the kissing of his ears.

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would then preach to his congregation of the damned (and thereafter receive their ceremonial kisses on his backside). At this, even James expressed doubts, only to have them dispelled when Agnes told him Queen Anna’s precise words to him on their wedding night in Oslo. Unfortunately, neither what Anna said nor what Agnes recounted have made their way to us; James, however, claimed the old woman had spoken true, and thus must have come by her knowledge by diabolical means. He thus became an open vessel to further yarns spun by those accused: of the witches gathering toad venom to poison his clothes, and of the coven taking a cat, blasphemously christening it Margaret, tying the severed limbs of disinterred human corpses to it and tossing it into the sea –​by which means, apparently, the foul weather had been produced.9 This was all worrying and frightening enough, but the most shocking revelation emanating from these colourful confessions was yet to come. A wax poppet (doll) had been made by the coven, wrapped in linen and taken to one of the demonic services held near Prestonpans. There, the devil, ‘clad in a black gown, with a black hat upon his head’, had touched it and then passed it around the group.10 Each witch had chanted, ‘this is King James VI, ordained to be consumed at the instance of the nobleman, Francis, earl of Bothwell.’11 No longer just a gaggle of bourgeois townspeople and servants, the group of witches now included –​and acted at the instigation of –​a nobleman. Agnes Sampson would be garrotted and burned at the end of January 1591, but her accusation would live on long after her execution. It would, indeed, be corroborated, as another accused witch, Ritchie Graham, confessed to having conspired with Bothwell.12 9

The word ‘coven’ did not specifically denote a gathering of witches until the 1660s. During James’s time it referred to any gathering or assembly. I use it here for simplicity’s sake. 10 Melville, Memoirs, p. 389. 11 Brian P. Levack, Witch-​hunting in Scotland, p. 37. 12 It has been suggested in various quarters that Bothwell was indeed involved in organising bands of people who fancied themselves witches, and that he even appeared at black sabbaths clad in black with a black mask, playing the role of the devil. Robin G. Macpherson’s extensive biographical study of the 5th earl, however, labels

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The 5th earl of Bothwell, it will be recalled, had played a key role both in the saga of Anna’s deferred journey out of Denmark and, as a kinsman of Ludovic Stewart, 2nd duke of Lennox, in the governance of Scotland during James’s time in Scandinavia. He was, however, a figure of considerable controversy, who was in and out of the king’s favour according to his wildly fluctuating behaviour. He has been variously described as wayward, reckless, dangerous and wild.13 He had earned James’s gratitude when he had helped him escape his captors the year after the Ruthven Raid. Thereafter, however, he had involved himself in various violent and murderous quarrels, and he had been amongst those who had stirred up anti-​English sentiment in 1587, in retaliation for the execution of Mary Queen of Scots. James’s attitude to hazardous nobles was, according to his nature, pacific. He thus attempted to win Bothwell’s loyalty via embracing him into the political fold, first making him a privy counsellor and then advancing him to the admiralty. Bothwell, however, had never met an intrigue he did not like. Thus, even after he had plotted with his fair-​weather friends, the earls of Huntly and Crawford, to seize the king’s person in 1589, he and his fellows had been granted remission, allowing Bothwell to help wage war against the stormy seas. The seeming oddity of the king’s willingness to then let this dangerous fellow play a key role in the governance of Scotland during his time in Scandinavia was summed up by Asheby: Bothwell is able to offend more than any subject in Scotland, for his place and birth and the offices he bears, beside an able and undertaking man ... without him the malcontents dare nothing, so as the winning of him will be the bridle of the rest.14

This was a tactic typical of James: he distrusted many of his nobility –​ and with good reason –​and evidently felt that giving them jobs to do was preferable to having them seek positions of power through more nefarious means.

1 3 14

these claims ‘totally false’. See Macpherson, ‘Francis Stewart, 5th earl Bothwell’, p. 380. See, for example, James Travers, James I: The Masque of Monarchy, p. 106. CSP, Scotland, 10, pp. 186–​206, 276.

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Whilst James might have been willing to forgive Bothwell –​and in doing so hope to neutralise the earl’s ‘personal contacts at the Scottish and English courts, and in his localities’ –​Chancellor Maitland was not.15 The accusation of witchcraft was therefore a boon to the wary chancellor, who had long been the earl’s enemy. It was less welcome to James. The king had not only recently employed Bothwell in the running of Scotland but had had him near his person during Anna’s welcoming reception; he had ridden at James’s side as master of the horse. If Bothwell was the leading part of a vast network of witches, untold dangers abounded. The earl was promptly arrested and warded in Edinburgh Castle. Unfortunately for James, Bothwell had the spirit of his uncle, the king’s quondam stepfather. As the 4th earl had before him, he escaped the fortress and took flight on the 22nd of June 1591, well aware of the fate of his accuser. The news reached –​and terrified –​James, who had been attending a wedding at Tullibardine, where he and his valet had performed in a costumed masque. After a period in the Borders and an appearance at Leith, Bothwell fetched up in the extreme north, gathering a body of 400 men in Caithness. Anna swiftly joined her husband, making another formal entry, this time into Perth –​probably as a display of monarchical strength over the rebels. Throughout 1591, Anna continued to wage war on the earl’s enemy, Chancellor Maitland, over property. In July, she enjoyed the backing of her brother’s government, which sent Dr Paul Knibbe to formally demand that Maitland accept that all grants of land were legally to be put in the queen’s possession. The chancellor, however, had been selling off parts of Musselburgh, in the apparent belief that cash was safer in his pocket than lands coveted by Anna. This naturally stirred her ire, as any attack on her rights always would. It was perhaps her contempt for Maitland, as much as it was Bothwell’s charm, that inclined the queen towards the earl. When Bothwell was put to the horn three days after his escape from the castle, and his lands and offices were given to Lennox, she attempted to intercede on his behalf. As Bowes reported, ‘It is said that her majesty has been moved by Bothwell’s friends to show favour towards him.’ This led to her ‘making suit to the king in Bothwell’s favour, [but she] found him so moved, chiefly 15

Macpherson, ‘Francis Stewart’, p. 179.

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against such as had entreated her to deal therein, as she let it fall, with his good contentment’.16 In letting the matter drop, the 16-​year-​old Anna was wise. In making an attempt at intercession, she was perhaps less so. There existed no great tradition of intercession among recent Scottish royal consorts, with the last great intercessor being the previous Danish queen of Scots, Margaret.17 Darnley had actively argued against his sovereign showing mercy to the co-​conspirators he had betrayed in the Riccio affair; and Marie of Guise had to be asked by her brother, the cardinal of Lorraine, to intercede on behalf of the 3rd earl of Argyll, Archibald Campbell, in September 1538. In neither case had the sovereign acted. Anna, it might be said, was therefore attempting to refresh the role of a Scottish consort –​to return the position of intercessor to it. Her error was in attempting to do so for a man James was not then inclined to pity. An anonymous observer in Berwick, whose claims were retained likely because they cast the state of Scotland in a poor light, was soon to note the people’s great disliking of their queen, for that she proves not with child, so that in the Parliament in November next it cannot be but that great mischief will be ‘ruffling’ amongst them through their many feuds, as they ‘will not let to saeinge openlye’, that so long as this king reigns over them never any luck or grace will be in Scotland. The king from Falkland is drawing towards Dunfermline, where provision is made for him and the queen till the 10th of November, when they come to Edinburgh for the winter.18

As had been made clear at Anna’s coronation, her primary function was to provide an heir. She had now been in her role for over a year and had conspicuously failed to become pregnant. This was, of course, hardly her fault; but the disaffection remained. The observer had an English audience in mind, and English consorts who did not produce heirs had a tragic 1 6 17

18

CSP, Scotland, 10, pp. 539–​552, 586. Margaret of Denmark has been described as ‘most gentle, forbearing and devoted, and extremely religious … and very willing to intercede for others’. Like the mediaeval tradition of pilgrimages, for which pre-​Reformation Scotland was famous, intercession by Scottish consorts had declined during the sixteenth century. See Steve Boardman and Eila Williamson, The Cult of Saints, p. 163. CSP, Scotland, 10, pp. 539–​552, 586.

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history. Scotland had no such history, but it did have a recent record of deposition and misogynistic defamation of powerful women –​and if James went, so did his wife. The means by which this discontent with Anna was disseminated would also prove dangerous. On the subject of Bothwell, Bowes wrote that the ‘Erle and quene [had] som unlifull [unlawful] maner atwixt them: so that none in Scotland dare name the earl to the king, he is so odious to him’.19 Although acknowledging that these might be mere slanders, the fact that such claims were circulating is ominous. Rumours of sexual incontinence had plagued Scotland’s queen regnant and its consorts throughout the period. The slanders attaching to Mary Queen of Scots hardly need rehearsal; yet Darnley, too, had faced accusations of unchastity, as husband and wife were driven apart by scheming courtiers. Marie of Guise had also been linked (falsely) to Cardinal Beaton, and Margaret Tudor had not helped her case by marrying swiftly after James IV’s death (thereafter, her marital history would associate her with a lack of chastity). A key means of stirring up trouble between royal husbands and wives in Scotland, fomenting rumours of infidelity had a pedigree. In this way, the queen could be accused not only of failing to achieve her primary function but of failing to live up to the ‘virtue’ which had been demanded of her at her ceremonial entry. Further, Anna’s outspoken nature made her prey to such accusations: loquacious women were apt to be associated with sexual and moral incontinence. Nevertheless, both queen and king remained united in the face of these accusations. In November 1591, we therefore find Anna interceding with the king on behalf of a Danish victim of English piracy –​an intercession which was supported by James, who wrote on her behalf a letter of complaint to Queen Elizabeth.20 In this way, she successfully revived what had been a thriving mediaeval practice, whereby a queen ‘did not use her own means to grant patronage …but was instead using her influence with the king as currency.21

1 9 Ibid. 20 Meikle, ‘Once a Dane?’, p. 170. 21 Benz, ‘Queen Consort, Queen Mother’, p. 86.

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Anna would thereafter show a willingness to operate independently, writing in her own name to her brother’s Danish council on behalf of travelling Scots. In so doing, she was establishing herself as a political agent but thus, inadvertently, making herself a greater target for slanderous attacks. On the 27th of December 1591, which was spent at Holyroodhouse, the tense period reached its first climax. The outlaw Bothwell appeared, armed and supported by retainers (including Archibald Douglas, son of the earl of Morton). He and his men gained access to the palace via the stables and thereafter marched through the halls unchecked, stealing keys from petrified porters and attempting to burn down the door to the king’s apartments. Ostensibly, the earl meant no harm to the king; his feud was with Maitland. On failing to gain access to James, he therefore attempted to break down the doors to the chancellor’s apartments and, frighteningly, his men set upon Anna’s door with hammers. Her master of the household, Lindsay, mustered her people to her defence, but the attackers were repelled more by the descent of the citizens of Edinburgh, who were as alert to trouble at Holyrood as they had been during the Riccio murder in 1566. There was, however, bloodshed; Bothwell managed to escape with four of his adherents, slaying King James’s master of the stables, John Shaw, along with his twin, Patrick. Eight captured Borderers were summarily hanged, and their master proclaimed a traitor. Neither James nor Anna was to receive much sympathy for this ordeal, however. A day later, the king was lambasted from the pulpit by ministers who essentially condoned the raid. The king was still confronted not just with rebellious nobles but a censorious Kirk. In late January, he rode out in pursuit of Bothwell, but once again suffered indignity: ‘The king and his horse fell into the water of Tyne near to Haddington, where he was speedily rescued, yet not before he was sore wet and troubled with the water.’22 The queen, for her part, continued to be dogged by innuendo. Forced, for their own safety, out of Holyrood and into the townhouse of Nicol Uddart in Niddry’s Close, the royal couple was determined to continue operating

22

CSP, Scotland, 10, pp. 616–​630, 652.

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as the nation’s central authority.23 For Anna, this meant continuing her attempts to fashion herself as an intercessor. On the 5th of February, she indulged in another round of pleading, this time for the life of the surgeon John Nesmithe (or Naysmyth), one of the conspirators. She was, according to Bowes, persuaded to leave off this course by the king’s gentleman, Roger Aston, whose wife, Marjorie Stewart, was one of Anna’s favourite ladies. Yet on the subject of Bothwell she was immovable. As Aston, who was an English agent, himself reported, The king has been of mind sundry times to have hanged him, ‘butt loth to of[f ]‌end’ the queen, [he] is still preserved. All means possible have been made to persuade her, ‘butt wil nott prevele’. Her reason is, she says, the king promised him his life; which promise being once made ‘wold nott have it broken’. I have to deal with the queen in this matter to see if I can ‘breke’ her before my return.24

It is clear that Anna was at this time being viewed by the English as a political agent on her own terms, and one who required attention. Such perceptions were evidently something the queen was willing to encourage. In January 1591, she chose to engage herself in the case of John Douglas, a Scot who had been arrested for murder in London. It appears she was set upon being the king’s conscience in matters of mercy. In this she was behaving conventionally enough; historically, it had been the prerogative of the queen consort to act according to codes of honour, and Anna was certainly always eager to ensure that the public image of the monarchy included the perception that it was an honourable and merciful institution (this in the teeth of criticisms of her husband for being lax and partisan in distributing justice). Yet her eagerness to assume the role of friend to troublesome subjects was only likely to add grist to the mill of those who sought calumnies against her. Slanderous accusations about her were to rear their heads soon enough. Towards the end of February, news reached court that James’s friend, the 23 It is often stated, presumably for dramatic effect, that the king and queen were forced into squalid lodgings. This is hardly likely. Uddart was the provost of Edinburgh and had constructed a house commensurate with his position. 24 CSP, Scotland, 10, pp. 630–​649, 664. By ‘breke’, he likely means speak with and understand.

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earl of Huntly, had slain his long-​time enemy, James Stewart, the 2nd earl of Moray. This blood feud had been going on for some time and was rooted in conflict over control of the north.25 More recently, it had been given new vigour by Moray’s close association with Bothwell and their shared enmity towards Maitland. Rumours soon swirled that James had ordered the earl’s murder. Williams states that Anna herself was drawn into the affair, with gossip circulating that she had ‘commented on his good looks and lovely golden hair’, thus inciting her husband’s wrath; Strickland contents herself with the queen making ‘imprudent commendations of his beauty’; and the Caroline chronicler Sir James Balfour has her call him ‘the properest and most gallant man at court’, with an irate James retorting, ‘ye might have excepted me!’26 Whether Anna made any such comments or not, ballads swiftly sprang up which pointedly wove a romance of the queen as the slain ‘bonnie earl o’ Moray’s’ lover. Once again, her reputation was being attacked. It is difficult here not to suspect Chancellor Maitland of, at the very least, approving these attacks on the queen. In addition to their ongoing property dispute, Anna pointedly refused to stay in her own palace at Linlithgow if Maitland was there. In January, it was reported that the rise of sundry old courtiers … will much weaken the chancellor, who as yet has not recovered, as it is said, the good countenance and ‘conceit’ of the queen which was partly abated upon some speech uttered in the queen’s presence and hearing by the chancellor’s wife touching the favourites of Bothwell’s late attempt, and which the queen conceives much otherwise than the lady meant, as she has sithence explained her words.27

Here we have some evidence that Maitland’s wife, Jean, had been involved in the rumours of Anna’s affair with Bothwell. It is no great leap to suppose that the insecure Maitland hoped to discredit the queen in addition

25 The saga is told in two exemplary publications: see I. A. Olson, ‘The Dreadful Death of the Bonny Earl of Murray’, pp. 281–​310, and the definitive Harry Potter, Blood Feud. 26 Williams, Anne of Denmark, pp. 41–​42; Strickland, Lives, VII, p. 272; Mary Botham Howitt, Biographical Sketches, p. 412. 27 CSP, Scotland, 10, pp. 616–​630, 652.

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to his enemies Bothwell and the slain Moray.28 If this is the case, it did not work. The chancellor was suspended from his office in March 1592 and ordered to remain apart from the court until he was recalled. His rustication at Lethington lasted until April the following year, during which time James took on the role of intercessor, begging Anna to make her peace with him and writing to Maitland to do likewise –​particularly on matters of property. Even Queen Elizabeth joined in, writing to Anna as her ‘dearest sister’ and asking that she find some accord with Maitland. This, if anything, suggests that Maitland had been behind the anti-​Anna rumours; Elizabeth tended to be well furnished with information about the goings on in Scotland, and she was ever keen to exploit division north of the border under a show of keeping the peace. These pleas would bear no fruit, however, until the following year; throughout the rest of 1592, the chancellor would remain outside the daily round of courtly and governmental life. Falkland, even less secure than Holyroodhouse, was the next target of Bothwell, who had blithely disregarded the price on his head and continued a will-​o’-​the-​wisp existence throughout the year. He organised a distraction, having a body of his Borderers fire upon the palace at 2.00 a.m. whilst he and another small company attempted to break through a backdoor into the royal apartments. He was again repulsed, this time by a salvo of artillery from the palace guard; to prevent immediate pursuit, however, he stole all the queen’s horses and fled at 7.00 a.m. Minus her horses, Anna left for the comparative safety of Dalkeith. The instability was far from over. In August, one of her Danish ladies –​ almost certainly Margaret Vinster, who had come to Scotland with Dr Knibbe in 1591 –​fell in love with John Wemyss of Logie. Wemyss was, as a Bothwell supporter, then prisoner in Dalkeith’s guardroom, on the grounds that he had conspired with the wild earl on the Falkland raid. Perhaps with the dead Moray in her mind, Margaret supposedly felt that her lover’s life was in danger. The lady thus took herself directly to the guardroom and presumed on the royal authority to have him released to attend upon the 28 John Matusiak has pointed out that the death of Moray might have been an assassination not by James but by Maitland.

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royal bedchamber; King James, she lied, had demanded the prisoner’s presence so that he might interrogate him. Given that James was a known lover of interrogation, this was believable enough. It was, however, pure trickery. The guards escorted Wemyss and Margaret to the royal apartments and waited outside. Inside, the loving couple set to work, she taking him to a window and helping lower him out of it via a rope. In the same room, doubtless enclosed behind the thick curtains that made beds little rooms of their own, the king and queen were asleep. When the alarm was raised in the morning and it became apparent what had happened, James wholeheartedly believed that his wife had been in an escapade which had theoretically put both their lives in danger. It is probable that he was right, given the queen’s noted willingness to intercede –​unsuccessfully –​on behalf of Bothwell’s men. She was, too, always committed to her servants and would seldom allow them to be blamed for anything. However, if she was involved, this was pure intrigue. It was dangerous. Yet, after tears and recriminations on both sides (behind closed doors), James reportedly came to laugh off the affair –​perhaps out of policy and in a deliberate rejection of the rumours which indicated strife and infidelity in the royal marriage. At any rate, the king had his faults as a husband, but a lack of tolerance was rarely one of them. For Anna, life had taken on an unpleasant pattern of surprise attacks and periods of tension and unease. These were hardly conditions conducive to pregnancy and it was small wonder that James sought pacification in his kingdom. Scotland was in need of it. In December 1592, the king and queen were celebrating the wedding of the earl of Mar to Marie Stewart (a sister of Lennox) at Alloa, where the queen performed in a costumed masque. Marie was a friend of Anna, receiving gifts of clothing from her. That friendship, however, would sour, and in fact Marie would become one of the queen’s foes and, eleven years later, she would be involved in one of the most unpleasant scenes in Anna’s life. For the moment, though, all seemed well. Yet this pleasant interlude was disturbed by news that one George Kerr had been caught smuggling blank sheets signed by the Catholic nobility out of the country, as part of a Jesuit mission sponsored by Spain. Evidently, plots were being hatched. As 1593 dawned, the king became ever more eager for the feud between

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his wife and banished chancellor to come to an end. In January, as the affair of the Spanish blanks was being investigated, the queen had quite openly expressed her belief that the Maitlands had been her most devious slanderers. James, however, wanted his old and trusted adviser back to help him govern what was a country still deep in conspiracy. The north of Scotland in particular was a hotbed of Catholic plotting; in February, James was even induced to travel there to confront the Catholic earls of Huntly, Angus and Erroll –​only for the men to give him the slip (it was rumoured with the king’s connivance). In seeking out what she believed to be rightfully hers, Anna was invariably forthright. She held firm, demanding that her right to Musselburgh and Inveresk be recognised. A council was appointed by parliament to oversee her estates, its members including Alexander Seton, Walter Stewart of Blantyre, James Elphinstone and Thomas Hamilton, who would thus become recipients of her favour and attention. In the end, Maitland blinked first. Following a visit from James, he wrote to the queen asking –​somewhat brazenly –​how he had offended her and begging to make matters right. In June, the Scottish parliament formally approved her lordship of Musselburgh and on the 15th of July Maitland was given back the £20 he had originally paid for the lands. This was no doubt a victory for Anna, who had never doubted that she had been in the right; she had been short-​changed, cheated out of jointure lands rightfully hers and order had simply been restored. There were other pleasant moments too. She struck up what would be a lasting –​and scandalous –​friendship with another of Lennox’s sisters, the French-​born, Catholic Henrietta Stewart, countess of Huntly. This budding relationship was looked at through narrowed eyes by Bowes, who joined the privy council in trying to persuade the king to cut it short. Naturally, this kind of interference was anathema to Anna, who took pleasure in publicly exhibiting her new friendship, taking Henrietta and her sister, Marie Stewart, to Leith at the end of May to hand gold coins to the mariners whose ships had brought her old friends, the ambassadors Niels Krag and Steen Bille, to Scotland to help her assert her rights to the disputed lands. By September, Henrietta would have cemented her place in Anna’s affections, giving rise to dark rumours of the young queen’s inclination towards the Roman religion.

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Still, despite her victory, she deeply distrusted the chancellor, and probably with good reason. Yet the more violent threat of Bothwell remained. The earl was declared forfeit of his lands in the same parliament which gave Anna hers, and on the 24th of July he returned for another surprise attack. He struck again at Holyroodhouse, this time before 9.00 a.m., and was admitted via the kitchen by Mary, countess of Atholl, daughter of that earl of Gowrie who had imprisoned James in 1582. Mary and her husband, the 5th earl of Atholl, had become good friends of Anna –​much to James’s displeasure –​despite Atholl being suspected as having taken part in the raid on Falkland. Accompanied only by his friend John Colville, Bothwell went straight to the king. James, obviously alarmed, charged both men with intending to murder him –​an understandable reaction, given that Lennox (with whom the king had temporarily fallen out) and Atholl appeared too, the latter with a drawn sword. He fled for Anna’s chamber. The door was locked. But Bothwell had not come to kill the king. In response to the charge, he laid down his own sword and got to his knees, before begging his sovereign to forgive his previous assaults. He was willing, he said, to stand trial on the charge of witchcraft and the multiple charges of seeking James’s life. To emphasise the point, he laid out his long hair at James’s feet and swore his loyalty. The king, supposedly moved to pity –​but more likely by practicality –​agreed to pardon his troublesome subject. News of this bizarre turn of events was quickly circulating, and it was not long before the Danish ambassadors, who were still in town after seeing to the conclusion of Anna’s property dispute with Maitland, sent Sir James Melville to ensure her safety. It was King James himself who went to her, gained entry and led her to a window where they could both be seen alive and well. In a curious echo of his father assuring the citizens that all was well on the night Riccio had been slain and Mary Queen of Scots abused, he called down that ‘things were fully agreed’.29 For the moment, they were. The king was, however, a dissembler –​and he would remain an extremely good one. In reality, once he was certain of his and his wife’s security, he intended to denounce Bothwell as a traitor 29 Melville, Memoirs, p. 415.

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once again: in December, indeed, the earl was ‘denouncit to the horn’.30 This time, there was no lingering tension; the earl first fled north and then left the country. In his absence, James would seek to solidify his nobility against the outlaw. Although he lived on until 1616 and certainly remained a cause for concern on both sides of the border for the next year, Bothwell would eventually die in penury in Naples. The crisis of Bothwell, supposed master of a coven of witches, was over. However, it had laid bare a number of deep and troublesome issues for James and Anna. The queen, who had begun her consortship with promises on both sides, was susceptible to courtly intrigue, factionalism, and slander. Her coveted role as an intercessor had been problematic; any role, in fact, which a consort sought was apt to be nebulous until her primary function had been met. Anna of Denmark, if she wished to be anything in Scotland, would first have to be a mother. In October of 1593, she proved to the world that she could do just that. A victory greater than securing the lordship of Musselburgh rose into view.

30 John Colville, Original Letters, p. xxiv.

The Invention of Tradition

Whispers of the queen’s pregnancy were listened for by all, especially by the king and queen themselves. James was busily attempting to ensure peace throughout his kingdom in October, arranging a convention of ‘noblemen, barons, burgesses, and of the Kirk’ at Perth (later transferred to Linlithgow) to put an end to the machinations of the now submissive Catholics, Angus, Huntly, and Erroll. On the 8th of October, he visited Anna at Holyroodhouse, and it was reported that ‘it is looked that some ladies about the queen shall be removed, unless they shall be stayed by the mediation of the queen, who presently shows herself little pleased with this estate and with the condition of the present courtiers. It is now generally thought that the queen is with child.’1 The ladies in question were Catholics –​chiefly Henrietta Stewart –​and Anna, who insisted on going riding despite her husband’s anxiety about her condition, had no intention of having her household tampered with. The issue of Anna’s sympathy towards Catholics was, throughout the year, a pressing one. Like her husband, she had no great love of the established faith of Scotland in terms of its personnel or the liberties it took in censuring her. Her faith had been, from childhood, Lutheranism, and the overbearing nature of the Kirk –​with its condemnations of both king and queen –​was intolerable. It was likely her preference for Catholic ladies which led Bowes to report to Lord Burghley that I am informed that the Queen here continues favourable to the parties for religion and little likes the present courtiers, and it is thought that the chancellor may recover her favour if he will turn to the course thus liked by her. The report is very general that she is with child, but hitherto there is no full certainty thereof.2

1 2

CSP, Scotland, 11, pp. 184–​214, 148. CSP, Scotland, 11, pp. 214–​235, 170.

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The possibility of a pregnancy led to speculation that Anna and James’s relationship might be mended. They were not quite at loggerheads, but she had certainly ‘complained to the king that sundry near about him have used over-​large liberty in their speeches of her’: it was clear that courtiers were still attempting to divide them via scandalmongering about the queen. From sexual incontinence, these attacks had moved into the religious sphere, leading to the accusation that Anna had been ‘stung with the venom and deceit of Papists’.3 It is fair to say that the queen was thus under attack on two fronts: she had been defamed as a lover to Bothwell and Moray, and she was being condemned as a lover of papistry. Firm news of her pregnancy, therefore, would offer her a shelter. Pregnancies being risky, official announcements tended not to be made until the infant had quickened within its mother’s womb. Yet it is apparent that Anna knew of her condition, and it appeared to soften her. She allowed Maitland to kiss her hand and promised him goodwill in November, and by December, the news was generally known. Elizabeth even deigned to write a short note from Hampton Court on the 21st of December: We … deliver you our most affectionate salutations as one whom we very highly esteem for your virtue, and for your sincere and constant desire to preserve the amity between the two realms, the interruption of which is sought by the subtle workings and malicious practices of the common adversaries. And whereas we understand by divers reports of your present estate, which we are loth to name in direct terms, not hearing it confirmed by yourself, we do by these lines assure you that we as heartily wish you joy of the same as any prince living, and that our love is increased by the remembrance of the friendship between the king your father and us.4

Typically, there is warning as well as flattery and friendship. Elizabeth was well aware of the rumours that Anna was over-​sympathetic to Catholics and also that the Jesuits hoped to reclaim Scotland for the papacy –​those ‘common adversaries’ were therefore the Catholics, and the amity between Scotland and England was implicitly made contingent on Anna turning away from the temptations of her Catholic friends. The reminder

3 4

Ibid. CSP, Scotland, 11, pp. 235–​256, 185.

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given of Anna’s Lutheran heritage, so much prized by the late Frederick II, is a particularly neat flourish. The selection of a site for the royal birth became a matter of discussion. Anna, it was said, ‘hathe good lyking to be at Stirling’ (for, as we will see, good reason) whilst officers of the royal household and other courtiers cavilled over the dangers she might face there from Bothwell, who was still at large and whose pardon had been rescinded.5 Edinburgh Castle, where James had been born, was suggested as a defensible alternative. Maitland was certainly against Stirling; Anna, however, quickly moved to profess herself ‘indifferent’ so long as her safety and that of her unborn child were assured. On December the 27th, James escorted her to the great fortress on its craggy rock overlooking the royal burgh of Stirling. The royal apartments, which had been in a state of disrepair, were hastily dressed against their coming, and she was thus installed in state. By this time, her pregnancy had advanced. Interestingly, the focus of accusations of papistry transferred almost immediately to James: it was Anna, strangely enough, who was enlisted to ‘endeavour to draw the king from the papists and Spanish faction’.6 Clearly, in England, anxiety over retaining friendship with Scotland was increasing; although the first Spanish Armada had failed, it was expected –​ and expectation would prove correct –​that Philip II would continue to try and bring the southern British kingdom to heel by any means possible. And James, though a devout Protestant, was amenable to pretending to anything that might secure his rights to the English succession, which Elizabeth still refused to declare. King James’s flirtation with Spanish-​backed Catholicism would continue, on-​and-​off, and it is worth lingering on. History has depicted Anna as the Catholic convert, but it is arguable that, at least as early as 1593–​ 1594, both husband and wife were willing to double deal in response to Elizabeth’s stalwart refusal to recognise them as her successors. In fact, given that Anna was by nature forthright, it is likely than the canny king was the driving force behind keeping England in a state of suspense by ensuring the Scottish monarchy, whilst being outwardly –​and honestly –​Protestant, 5 6

Ibid. CSP, Scotland, 11, pp. 256–​274, 206.

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maintained a sneaking softness towards the papacy and Catholics. For at least the next decade, the king would attempt to be all things to all men, in the hopes of ensuring his succession met no significant opposition. This was his longstanding policy: in 1583, he had declared that he would be ‘a universal king’, fair to all –​and he would repeat the advice to his son.7 Anna would prove a useful tool in keeping both Catholics and Protestants in good hopes. At Stirling, Anna entered into her confinement. Unlike in England, there were no ordinances laid down for the delivery of children: Scotland had not had a Margaret Beaufort to codify the strict rules to be followed in order to assure sufficient pomp. Yet we know from previous Scottish births and from the standards of the time more generally how the delivery might have gone: the queen would have been closeted in her birthing chamber on the ground floor of the royal apartments; the room would have been kept hot, with hangings decorating the walls and blocking out sunlight; and she would have entered into a solely feminine world. When she was delivered on the 19th of February, the relief was threefold: all had gone well, both mother and child were safe and the baby was a boy. The usual celebratory bonfires lit Scotland, and it was swiftly announced that the new duke of Rothesay, earl of Carrick, baron of Renfrew, lord of the Isles and prince of Scotland would be christened Frederick Henry. Both names had provenance: Henry had been Darnley’s name and Frederick was borrowed from Anna’s father.8 However, another key idea was present here. A convention was developing whereby the Stuarts went by their middle names; King James had been christened Charles James, and at least one of James V’s short-​lived sons by Marie of Guise had been named Arthur Robert, known afterwards as Robert. Yet an older tradition was being set aside. Both Anna and James had, by ignoring the Scottish ‘James’ completely in the naming of their first male child, signalled that 7 8

Alan G. R. Smith, The Reign of James VI and I, p. 23. Writing to Anna’s grandfather, Duke Ulrich, James stressed the Danish connection, writing of the newborn, ‘This our son, and by your highness your long-​expected great grandson, resembles in the whole lineaments of his face that great Frederick of immortal memory, our once most worthy father-​in-​law’. See MSS. Cotton. Calig. D. ii. Art. 86.

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their heir was to be an English king: in time, they hoped, Henry IX rather than James VII. Darnley himself had been named in hopes of eventual kingship of England and it is clear that, in choosing to name the baby for his English grandfather, the king and queen of Scots were looking into the future as well as back at the past. This was Anna’s moment of triumph and a clear and godly sign that her detractors had been wrong in condemning her as irreligious. It seems, at first, she was willing to let the king have his way in the baby’s upbringing. Possibly her mind was more focused on the troubles brewing in her own household. The earl of Huntly, James’s old –​and most troublesome –​friend and the late murderer of Moray, was asked to put himself in ward, which he had no intention of doing. His countess, Anna’s friend Henrietta, had attended the royal birth and was noted as receiving ‘the plurality of her kisses’ (the queen, it seems, had embraced the Scottish habit of demonstrative kissing amongst women). Yet the countess also departed to join her husband in April. The same month witnessed worse than the loss of a friend. Jacob Kroger had been amongst Anna’s train on her arrival from Denmark. By 1594, he was ‘the queen’s jeweller and made most of her jewels himself and had the keeping of most of them’.9 Apparently, merely handling precious stones was not enough, and the lack of prompt payment of his salary further brewed discontent. He joined forces with the Frenchman Guillaume Martyn, the keeper of the king’s pet camel, and the pair absconded with some of Anna’s jewels, hoping to return home via England.10 In May, they met up with the renegade Bothwell whereupon the whole group was arrested by the captain of Tynemouth Castle, the earl protesting his innocence of the theft. He was allowed to lodge with English noblemen, whilst the two thieves were eventually returned to Edinburgh 9 Border Papers, 1, pp. 538–​539. 1 0 A list, ‘by Jacob Kroger of Lunenburg, of the jewels belonging to the Queen of Scots, brought away from Scotland’, read: ‘one chain of pearl, valued at 60 crowns; two bracelets of pearl and gold; and diamond brooch; four diamond rings and one gold; one black bone heart, set in gold, with a pearl hanging therefrom; two double pearl rings for a gown, and some large and small shells and aglets of gold, for setting forth the body of a gown; total value, 805 crowns.’ See CSP, Elizabeth, Addenda, pp. 363–​366.

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and hanged (their pleas that they had been given permission to take the jewels falling short as a defence). In the midst of the celebrations for the baptism, the queen was thus not short of drama. James perceived the arrival of a son as a sign from God too, and he was keen to make the most of it. In addition to using a name traditionally associated with English kings and drawing on the fairly recent Scottish tradition of using the child’s second name as his primary one, he was eager to develop other customs. As his mother had had Elizabeth stand as his own godmother, so too would he request that the English queen play the role for the new prince. The order thus went out to his ambassadors to England in April: Since God has blessed us in the birth of a young son, which we doubt not was advertised to her good liking and contentment, we could not omit, having due respect to the blood, amity and friendship betwixt us, heartily to invite her among the first by these presents to direct witnesses to assist the baptism appointed to be on 15th July next to come.11

The reason for the delay in communications between the British monarchs appears to have been ‘jealousies’ (suspicions) between them (arising in part over Bothwell). At this time, Elizabeth was being particularly guarded in showing too much affection to James, lest she give the appearance of favouring his succession claim. She had thus ignored the birth of Henry in February, James had not written her of it immediately. In his later letter, he therefore affected policy, though it was insincere (no one expected Elizabeth to travel north in person; she had certainly not come for James’s baptism), and it was a neat reminder of the English queen’s own childlessness. He went further, asking his ambassadors to chide the English queen: You shall likewise call to the queen’s remembrance how oft in her letters to us not only was their [his rebels] ‘receipt’ within her dominions disavowed, but also sundry advices interposed, mixed with sharp and vehement admonitions not to suffer such indignities most unseemly for a prince.12 11 1 2

CSP, Scotland, 11, pp. 303–​328, 248. Ibid.

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This was less politic –​but it was honest. The fractious relationship between the two would throughout the year delay the baptism and leave a window of opportunity for Anna to step into the role of intermediary. More salacious was the gossip flying between Scotland and England with regard to the state of the royal marriage. John Colville reported that it is certain that the king has conceived a great jealousy [suspicion] of the queen, which burns the more the more he covers it. The duke [Lennox] is the principal suspected. The chancellor casts in materials to this fire. The queen is forewarned, but with the like cunning will not excuse till she be accused. Hæc sunt incendia malorum [these rumours set dangerous fires], and the end can be no less tragical than was betwixt his parents [Mary Queen of Scots and Darnley].13

This was pure scandalmongering, although its basis was sound enough in that Anna continued to consider Maitland her enemy and the cause of the slanders spoken against her. The shape of these is clear enough from Colville’s follow-​up note: The king repents that he has made such convocation to the baptism, for, ‘upon’ the jealousy mentioned in my last, he begins to doubt of the child. I think he had not been baptized at this time if so many princes had not been invited.14

A double meaning was at play, though it is not difficult to decipher. In Scots ‘to doubt’ could mean ‘to worry about’ –​and the king might reasonably be worried about his son’s welfare on the public stage. It could also, of course, mean ‘to suspect’ (i.e. the child’s paternity): and the reference made to James’s parents’ struggles, which were exacerbated by false rumours of infidelity on Mary Queen of Scots’s part, makes clear that this was the meaning intended. This was manifestly wrong –​in content as well as in reporting the state of the royal marriage –​but it is useful in demonstrating the kinds of attacks which were being made on Anna: her fidelity was being calling into question –​quite ridiculously, of course –​ and as a result so was the parentage of the new prince. It was, as Colville admits, an old game: a means of inflaming division between the Scottish 1 3 14

CSP Scotland, 11, pp. 366–​398, 300. CSP Scotland, 11, pp. 366–​398, 311.

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sovereign and consort. From James and Anna’s perspective, only a grand public spectacle could counter it. The baptism itself would provide another means by which James could press tradition. As his mother had organised a triumphant festival of pageantry at Stirling to mark his baptism, so would he organise an international celebration for his own son.15 James’s love of ‘tradition’ –​or rather his attempts to entrench it –​has attracted relatively little attention. What he would do throughout his kingship in Scotland was to stress the antiquity of his crown and his lineage; to create a sense of custom; and to wed tradition to spectacle in order to gird the monarchy against its religious detractors. The invitations thus went out across Europe and to Scotland’s political elites. The chapel at Stirling Castle, in which James himself had been baptised, was razed, with a new one ordered to be constructed in its stead, ‘modelled on the Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem’.16 Whilst all this was going on –​and the building would take seven months to complete –​Anna involved herself in charitable endeavours and gift exchanges, sending ten ‘great deer hounds’ to her native Denmark and joining with James in giving alms to at least one ‘poor destitute wretch’ who came begging at Holyroodhouse. In Anna’s name, her dowry funds were drawn on, and James followed his mother’s example in a less welcome tradition –​the levying of a tax on his subjects to pay for the elaborate festivities (Mary had raised £12,000 Scots; James would go for £100,000).17 In the event, the baptism would be delayed until the 30th of August, by which time Elizabeth had despatched her ambassador, the earl of Sussex, and representatives had come from Christian IV, the States of Holland, and from Anna’s brother-​in-​law, Henry Julius, and her grandfather, Duke Ulrich.18 15

The links between the 1566 baptism and that in 1594 have been forcefully and persuasively argued by Michael Bath. See Bath, ‘Rare shewes and singular inventions’. 16 Ian Campbell and Aonghus Mackechnie, ‘The “Great Temple of Solomon” at Stirling Castle’, pp. 91 –​118. 1 7 Inflation obviously played a role in the difference in sums but only to an extent. 18 Williams claims that Duke Ulrich and Henry Julius were affronted at not having a special envoy sent to them and ‘refused to ride from Leith with Peter Young’. In fact, the dukes themselves did not come to Scotland. They were reportedly displeased that James had sent his reliable old tutor to them rather than an ‘express

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The details of the baptism itself –​and the pomp surrounding it –​survive in the account of the Castalian poet, and Anna’s secretary, William Fowler. It was to have its suitably grand setting: the new chapel was complete, standing within the castle’s courtyard, and here the first Protestant baptism of a royal heir took place (with James’s predictable insistence on the use of chrism and the Kirk’s equally predictable conniptions). The whole affair was, foremost, a public performance of tradition, of family unity, of dynasty and of strength. To underscore this, heralds and trumpeters split the air at Stirling with proclamations demanding the peace be kept during the baptism, to ‘his Majesty’s honour and estimation of their native country’.19 This was pure theatre and James was aware that there would be a global audience. On the day, the prince was conveyed from his nursery in the palace (in which James had installed his own former nurse, Helen Little), by the countess of Mar and the queen’s ladies, to Anna’s presence chamber. A procession then formed, and the baby was carried to Lennox, who had hitherto held the position of ‘second person’ of the realm. Lennox passed Henry to Sussex, and a succession of Scottish lords (Hume, Livingstone, Seton and Semple) led the way to the chapel with the ducal coronet of Rothesay, towel, basin, and laver. A pall was held over all. Velvet lined the new chapel’s interior, and it was there, in James’s presence, that the bishop of Aberdeen baptised the baby by Protestant rites, largesse was thrown out to the people and the procession returned to the queen’s outer chamber. There is no good evidence that Anna herself was present at the ceremony.20 In this, she was not unlike the previous consort of Scotland, Darnley, who had remained aloof from his son’s baptism, keeping to his apartments throughout. Happily, however, the motivations of the consorts differed wildly; as a woman, Anna was not expected to be present in the chapel yet was free to publicly receive gifts from the ambassadors embassy’, but it was ambassadors they despatched to Scotland. See Williams, Anne of Denmark, p. 48. 19 Strickland, Lives, VII, p. 276. 20 Indeed, the order of ceremonies, written up prior to the baptism, makes clear that she was not to be present in the chapel; the prince’s ‘maistresse nureis and the rokkeris’ were to attend upon him.

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of England, the German states, Denmark and the states of Holland.21 On receiving jewels –​possibly recalling her late troubles with jewellers –​she handed them over to the trustworthy James Melville, who put them in cases and laid them out on a highly visible table in the middle of the chamber. From England, Elizabeth had sent silver plate and golden cups so heavy Melville struggled to lift them. In response to this, Anna would take up her pen and write to the English queen: Madame and dearest sister, Having understood by both your letters and the report of your ambassador … together with your liberal present and gift, the tokens of your kindness, how lovingly and worthily you have conceived of our son, in whom God has blessed us. We are moved by the greatness of such courteous affection to discover our thankful acknowledging thereof, not only by mouth to your ambassador, but by writ unto yourself, that as you have had hitherto the causes of such favourable disposition towards us, flowing from the merits and amity of the king of Denmark, our unwhile [late] dearest father, so we doubt not hereafter, by our deserts and behaviour to enlarge the same and to procure a longer continuance thereunto, and rather the more seeing it has pleased God to bless us in our son, so near in blood belonging to yourself, in whose birth we perceive you to be so well contented that in the universal gladness of other nations, your joy not only has more appeared but surpassed theirs. For the which we render your such worthy and infinite thanks as our mind can conceive, or our letters may discover [show]. Assuring you, if it lies in our power to occur to such honourable deserts by our friendly affection, we shall endeavour ourselves, if not fully to requite, yet at least by discharging, by one way or another, to prove ourselves thankful.22

In this letter, Williams sees the hand of King James. That may be so, but there is no particular reason to believe that Anna was her husband’s cat’s paw. At this time, they were certainly united in their suspicion of the English queen and their desire to gain the recognition of succession rights which Elizabeth refused to give. Further, the reference to the late King Frederick is obviously Anna’s and a suitable surrejoinder to Elizabeth’s reference in her letter to Anna. 21

Like the process of churching, having mothers absent from baptismal ceremonies was a holdover from the mediaeval Catholic church. However, this has not stopped scholars from assuming Anna’s presence within the chapel. 22 Williams, Anne of Denmark, pp. 51–​52.

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The baptism done, there remained the revelries. In the great hall of the castle, Anna took her place at the top table, whilst the ambassadors and guests sat along the eastern side and the Scottish nobility along the western. After the first course, the queen’s Moor once again signified a link to both Scottish and English traditional pageantry by leading a chariot carrying ladies representing Ceres, Fecundity, Concord, Liberality and Perseverance, their mottos sewn into their skirts. It was unfortunate that James’s lion, which had been brought from Holyroodhouse, had been declared too frightening to drag the chariot –​but the Moor was evidently considered a suitable replacement. Once again, Anna’s interest in presenting Black people publicly as servitors –​or, less generously, in deferential servitude –​had taken centre stage. The ladies, having been borne in by the queen’s Moor, performed a ‘silent comedy’. After the chariot had been removed, ‘a most sumptuous, artificial and well-​proportioned ship’ sailed in on waves ‘lively counterfeit with all colours’.23 Emblems and devices covered its taffeta sails, and on its decks were a woman playing Thetis and men representing Neptune and Triton. As a choir sang the 128th Psalm, artificial seafood made of sugar was distributed. As Michael Bath notes, ‘the marine pageantry at Stirling has clear French precedents’ in addition to recalling the king and queen’s experiences at sea.24 However, in following a French style, James was only emphasising continuity between himself, his mother and his grandparents, whilst simultaneously promoting Scottish court festivity as an equal to that found on the continent. If Scottish court pageantry had been allowed to wither following the departure of Mary Queen of Scots, James would re-​establish it. All certainly seemed to present a stable, strong future –​as it was designed to do. It could not last. Within a week, the ambassadors had departed, weighted down with gold chains and, in the Danish ambassador’s case, the deerhounds Anna had provided (rich gifts for a king who had pled poverty and begged Sir Walter Dundas to bring his own silver spoons to the baptismal feast). The question naturally arose as to who would have 2 3 Bath, ‘Rare Shewes and Singular Inventions’, p. 103. 24 Bath, ‘Rare Shewes and Singular Inventions’, p. 107.

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custody of the newly christened prince of Scotland. James, in his frenzy of tradition, had decided: Henry would remain at Stirling Castle under the care of its keeper, his friend the earl of Mar and the dowager countess. In this, his reasoning was that members of the Scottish nobility might band together and capture the infant, deposing James and ruling in the prince’s name. This was, after all, how James had become a ‘cradle king’. Further, Bothwell was still at large, Huntly still in disgrace and discontent a perennial problem. Tradition, he argued, was on his side: it was Scottish custom that the Mar family act as keepers of the heir to the throne. James’s claims have largely been taken at face value. Strickland, for example, asserts that it was ‘part and parcel of the law of Scotland for its heir to be reared in Stirling Castle, under the care of an earl of Mar’.25 Yet this is something of a half-​truth. Certainly, James himself had been raised in Stirling under the old earl of Mar. His mother, however, had been raised in the same castle (after her earliest months in Linlithgow) by his grandmother, Marie of Guise, who had received Stirling as a jointure property; the earl of Mar, it is true, had been one of the infant’s nominated guardians, but only in his capacity as keeper of the castle (he shared the role of guardian with Lords Graham, Livingstone and Lindsay). James V, too, had been raised partly in Stirling under –​for a while –​his mother and a party of guardians comprising the Earl Marischal, the lords Fleming and Borthwick and, as governor of the castle, the earl of Mar. Before this there is found no tradition, custom or law dictating exclusive Mar influence on the royal child. If anything, Stirling Castle had the right to be known as the single stable titleholder of hereditary keeper of the royal heir; it just so happened that the Mar earls had been its keepers when successive royal infants had been lodged there, and Mary Queen of Scots had made the keepership hereditary in 1566, when the infant James had been sent to Stirling for his protection. Further, James V’s mother, Margaret Tudor, had likewise received Stirling as part of her jointure, only giving it up to her young son in 1528 in order to marry her third husband, Lord Methven. There were thus two customs James had broken in his invention of the Mar tradition: the conferring 25 Strickland, Lives, VII, p. 278.

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of Stirling on the queen consort and the permission of the queen consort to oversee the raising of her child, even when politics (Margaret was battling for political authority; Marie of Guise was battling for power with the central authority, the lord governor, Arran; and Darnley was battling his wife and sovereign) necessitated guardians. It thus seems unfair that Anna’s fury at her husband’s will has been variously painted as an expression of maternal horror at separation and a lack of understanding of Scottish law and custom. This it was not. Anna, as we have seen, was extremely sensitive to what she regarded as her rights as a consort. Whilst it was therefore true that Scotland’s heirs had a long association with Stirling Castle, it is also true that the previous female consort had been given that castle, and thus had been allowed to raise her daughter in it, with all the political capital that afforded. Essentially, James was attempting to make inalienable tradition out of what has been the coincidental product of very different circumstances. Custody of the heir’s person was, as he knew –​it had driven his decision –​a guarantor of influence; it assured the custodian a place at the heart of Scottish politics. The example of Marie of Guise proved that James was at best stretching the truth: in collapsing the raising of the heir at Stirling with an imaginary hereditary, legal right of the Mars to stand as royal surrogates, he was depriving his wife of something her predecessor had enjoyed. James, likely, was simply trying to entrench what had been a loose tradition. Anna was intent on asserting a more agreeable and, for her, lucrative one. It is thus in the context of previous consorts, and in Anna’s desire to enjoy the political muscle that the last queen consort had had, that we should view what would become the major cause of conflict between a couple who had, until 1594, lived fairly harmoniously.

Strange Bedfellows

In all cases in which the Mar family had become –​jointly or exclusively –​custodians of Scotland’s royal heir, their services were enlisted because the consorts of the time were in some way in positions of weakness. Mary Queen of Scots had wanted her son kept safely away from his father’s machinations. Margaret Tudor had been deprived of access to her son –​and her jointure property, Stirling –​by Albany, as a result of her second marriage, to the 6th earl of Angus.1 Marie of Guise had, when a party of lords were given custodianship of her daughter, been joining forces with Cardinal Beaton in resisting the acquisitive governorship of Arran. Anna of Denmark had not been given Stirling and the living arrangements of her son would cast her in the role of distrusted consort outside the political centre, despite the fact that she had done nothing to invite this. James insisted that the political landscape was too tumultuous to allow her to have custody of the prince; she, for her part, insisted that her rights were being denied. She would be living separately from the prince if James died suddenly –​whether by an assassin, illness, or accident –​and, worse, she was being publicly associated with consorts who, for various reasons, were deemed at the time to be politically suspect by the central authority. This was unacceptable. Upon the death of James IV at Flodden, Margaret Tudor, for example, had been chosen as ‘tutrix’ or governor to her infant son, James V: a position which allowed parliament to appoint her regent of Scotland in her son’s name. And this was no novelty or aberration. When James II had died, his consort, Mary of Guelders had ruled between 1460 and 1463; before that, on the death of James I, his English consort Joan Beaufort had ruled as regent from 1437–​1439. More recently, James V’s consort, Marie of Guise, had fought for –​and won –​the regency

1

Andrea Thomas, ‘Renaissance Culture’, p. 46.

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on behalf of her daughter, Mary Queen of Scots. Proximity to the heir was thus a right the consort might reasonably expect. Anna, indignant at being deprived of the right to raise her son at Stirling Castle in favour of the Mar family (the dowager countess of which she already disliked) began to mount what would become a lasting campaign against the Erskines of Mar. In doing so, she finally made her peace with the slippery Chancellor Maitland who, for reasons of his own, was only too happy to inflame the growing division between king and queen. That her aims were centred on property rights as much as on maternal desires is suggested by her first move: in March 1595, she begged James that she might have ‘the keeping of the prince and the castle of Edinburgh’, which was also in Mar’s hands. This apparently vexed James, who foresaw trouble: He is highly offended with the plot-​layers of this course, esteeming it altogether to ‘attend’ to his own overthrow. The motioners of this matter to the queen are Buccleuch and Cessford, yet they are not esteemed the ‘ground leeres’ [layers]. The king has sent to the chancellor to know if he were participant of this purpose. He denies that ever he was made acquainted with any such matter; yet he is suspected by reason of the greatness that is between him and the two lairds, by whose means he has become great with the queen.2

Anna’s method of gaining control of her son –​through taking Edinburgh Castle or otherwise –​involved engaging in courtly intrigue. The king’s solution was to outflank his wife and to force Maitland (who detested Mar) to reconcile with the earl (who hated Maitland in return). Yet James certainly began to distrust his chancellor, as Maitland continued to provoke Anna in her quest. In April, he had a ‘long conference’ with her, in which the pair likely continued to scheme. Breaths were held as Anna rode to Stirling that month, and it was supposed that ‘in short time the motion anent [regarding] the young prince will either be utterly buried or quickened’.3 In the event, she attempted nothing, and it was reported on the 5th of April that she had ‘turned again from the chancellor’.4 It was even

2 3 4

CSP, Scotland, 11, pp. 541–​562, 481. CSP, Scotland, 11, pp. 562–​585, 507. CSP, Scotland, 11, pp. 562–​585, 512.

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noted that ‘the queen and old Lady Mar agree very well, and the young prince is well and all there very quiet’.5 It would not remain so. Nor was Anna’s desire for custody of Henry the only reason she was giving cause for concern. On the 24th of March, a Jesuit called John Morton was apprehended at Leith. On being searched, it was found that he brought with him a jewel or tablet of gold or crystal of the breadth of a palm of a hand, wherein is a crucifix with the history of the Passion finely carved in bone, which at the first confession he said Father Crichton [head of the Scots College at Douai, who harboured hopes of converting James] wished him to present to the queen there. At another time he said it was sent by Cardinal Cajetan to the queen, and lastly that it was addressed to Angus. The king, having this tablet, delivered it to the queen.6

Anna’s flirtation with Catholicism was still very much a live issue and it is again to be suspected how much James encouraged the notion that she was sympathetic to the cause. Whilst he never had any intention of converting, he nevertheless still sought to keep Catholic hopes alive. Anna represented a useful tool in this policy and would continue to do so. It might even be that she provided a channel by which he could keep up with the activities of the Jesuits. If so, he was risking their joint efforts by insisting on separating her from power –​and from her son. In May, Anna returned to the theme, using illness as an excuse to avoid the wedding of Lord Glamis at Stirling (this being a marriage which was advantageous to the Mars), and speaking ‘more plainly than before’; Aston believed she ‘would not cease till she has her son’ and noted that ‘we have two mighty factions. What will be the end God knows.’7 The fact that she prized her dignity above seeing her child is further evidence that her goal here was not wholly maternal but political –​the queen was willing to forego seeing Henry if it meant publicly condoning the infant’s custody under her enemies. Her newfound association with Chancellor Maitland had resumed –​ if it had ever really died in the spring –​and she even had time for his wife, suddenly. Her scope, too, increased, and she professed that she ‘earnestly 5 6 7

CSP, Scotland, 11, pp. 562–​585, 516. CSP, Scotland, 11, pp. 562–​585, 512. CSP, Scotland, 11, pp. 585–​603, 552.

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desired’ a portrait of Queen Elizabeth, presumably hoping to enlist English support in her quest.8 A somewhat befuddled –​and rather naïve, for a spy –​Roger Aston wrote to Bowes that the queen is not minded, as far as I can see, to do anything that may offend the king. Although I know her affection is withdrawn in part from the house of Mar and she would be content to have her son out of their hands, yet she is content rather to obey the king’s will than her own affection, till some other occasion intervenes … The queen and the chancellor were never so great. These lords are persuaded that there is nothing meant to them but their disgrace. These things are entertained by such as blow the bellows to set all on fire. Mar and that faction think that they are stirrers up of the queen, and for that cause the king is the more earnest to draw her out of this town. The king’s desire is to be quiet, but the ambition of this time is such that they cannot live without ‘alterrationes’ … I conferred with the queen of such things as were committed to my charge, chiefly concerning her removal, for which I find she had no liking but only to obey the king.9

Anna was playing Aston, who was James’s friend, like a fiddle. Though she was deep in the web of intrigue herself, she was able to confound the English agent with flattery of Elizabeth and disingenuous display to such an extent that he cast the blame for all on the men whom he thought were using her. Evidently, the queen had learnt that bluntness and tears would not work with James, and she had taken instead to masking her involvement in faction. Outwardly, their relationship continued –​and it was noted at the end of May that she was ‘well furtherly with child’.10 Yet she was neither the only game player nor the only one with secret relationships –​and one of them came to the fore due to the Glamis wedding. James had embarked on an affair with the bride, Anne Murray, who became Lady Glamis in May, the relationship probably starting before this. It was, as noted, intended that the king and queen should attend the wedding between Murray and Patrick Lyon, 9th Lord Glamis (a kinsman of that master of Glamis who was even then plotting with Queen Anna). It is impossible to know the precise nature of this relationship, though two 8 9 10

CSP, Scotland, 11, pp. 585–​603, 540. CSP, Scotland, 11, pp. 585–​603, 551. CSP, Scotland, 11, pp. 585–​603, 553.

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sonnets written by James to his mistress have survived –​and one, ‘A dreame on his mistres’, is sexually charged, with the speaker lying in bed as he thinks of his lady. At the time of the wedding, the bride was even identified as the king’s mistress and it is almost certain that the relationship was sexual in nature. It has become common to assume that James was homosexual, and it is certainly true that he had longer and more intense relationships with men (which we can be confident were consummated) but his affair with Lady Glamis is strong evidence of his bisexuality; heterosexual sex seems something he indulged in regularly with his wife and at least occasionally with one other known woman. Whether Anna knew –​or cared –​about his infidelity is unknown. Certainly, it seems that she tolerated his affairs with men. It is possible, though, that her political associations at this time –​ and her refusal to go to the wedding –​were at least partly motivated by knowledge of and displeasure at her husband’s mistress. She thus killed three birds with one stone: she publicly snubbed the lady; she refused to honour the Mars with her presence at a wedding which they had brought about; and she bought time to continue plotting. The wedding between Glamis and Anne Murray also explains some of the divisions in politics which allowed Queen Anna to form her circle of conspirators. The master of Glamis was against the match, and so drawn to mischief-​making with the queen against Mar, who had organised it (his mother being a kinswoman of the bride). The laird of Cessford, too, had a sister whom both he and the master of Glamis had hoped to see become Lady Glamis ahead of Anne Murray. Maitland, of course, was an inveterate enemy of Mar. Yet, at the same time as he was encouraging the queen, Maitland was denying his rumoured involvement and telling James to maintain Henry under the Mars at Stirling (probably to keep up appearances). In response to the plots swirling around the anti-​Mar faction (comprising Anna, Maitland, the master of Glamis, Lord Hume and the lairds of Cessford and Buccleuch –​who were reported in ‘secret conference’ in July), James forced the queen to Stirling, notwithstanding her ongoing sickness. There, he wrote to Mar, noting especially that the earl should not deliver Henry to anyone, ‘and in case God call me at any time, see that neither the queen nor estates, their pleasure, you deliver him till he be 18 years of age, and that

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he command you himself ’. This letter, if Anna had known of it, would have been a stunning blow. It affirmed any suspicions she might have had that the king did not trust her and held her in no more regard than disgraced and politically suspect consorts of the past. It was likely the severe stress she was subjected to throughout the spring and summer that resulted in her miscarrying at the end of July. In the wake of this, a further blow came to the royal couple with what would be the fatal illness of Maitland. The old chancellor had long been an ally of James and more recently a fair-​weather friend of the queen’s and, devious and two-​faced though he was, his death, when it came on the 3rd of October, was a loss. It was also, however, an opportunity. The king’s spending was, as ever, problematic, and in the new year it was decided that a reforming body was needed to oversee the royal finances. The Octavians (named for the eight men employed for the task) were drawn from the council parliament had appointed in July 1593 to manage Anna’s estates, meaning that they had vital connections to the queen.11 Nor did Anna let Maitland’s death put an end to her plotting to gain custody of Henry; instead, she turned her attention to gaining the support of her friend Henrietta’s husband, the Catholic earl of Huntly and his fellow plotter, the 9th earl of Erroll. Henrietta’s sister, the equally Catholic Marie, had married the earl of Mar in September 1593, and thus become countess to the man who was raising Henry; thus, she fared less well. When the countess visited the queen in October, hoping that Anna would help her push Mar’s choice for the new chancellor, she was kept waiting outside the royal chamber for an hour. Religion was evidently not a motivating factor in the queen’s schemes –​ it was a means to an end. Like James, Anna would use Catholics to further her own agenda, and, like James, she would be criticised for it. Unlike her husband, however, she has had her personal faith and her political actions blurred to the extent that, whilst we can see that James feigned Catholic 11

Roger Aston tartly noted that ‘the queen’s council joins with the prior (Alexander Seton) and other of the king’s council for the reformation of the king’s particular affairs’. The Octavians would continue their efforts for a year before being disbanded under pressure from the Kirk; they would, however, be reformed in 1597 and from then on remain a force throughout the reign.

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sympathies whilst never yielding to conversion, Anna’s own faith remains as murky and debateable now as it was then. She would, for example, not scruple to continue courting the Protestant English: in December, she requested portraits of Elizabeth’s favourite, the earl of Essex and his sister, Lady Rich –​both of whom were considered well placed in effecting a Stuart succession, and who were currently involved in secret discussions with James. As 1596 dawned, the queen would, whilst outwardly adhering to her husband’s will, continue to exercise every power she could in gaining what, by then, she had decided was an inalienable right being denied her.

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A great deal has been written on the subject of Anna of Denmark’s faith, and it has now become standard for historians, in writing about King James or any other related subject, to state unequivocally than she converted to Catholicism. This is not based on nothing: Senior Jesuit Albert J. Loomie’s seminal study foregrounded the Catholic catechism the queen had delivered by the countess of Huntly, in addition to detailing rumours dating from the mid-​and late-​1590s which held that she had been converted.1 Maureen Meikle and Helen Payne have influentially argued for Anna’s conversion early in the 1590s, drawing on what contemporary evidence existed.2 More recently, Jemma Field has refreshed the question of Anna’s faith in a landmark study which recognises the queen’s ‘confessional complexities’, in addition to identifying her success in ‘playing the Protestant … to James’s benefit, [but in a way which] ultimately marred the potential for her Catholicism to be used in royal policy’.3 In other words, Field’s Anna is a crypto-​Catholic who conformed to Protestantism outwardly. This chimes with Dunn-​Hensley’s Anna, who ‘had to be careful about revealing her confessional identity’ (which the queen was, though she was certainly not shy about projecting both Catholicism and Protestantism when the occasion called for it).4 Field therefore accepts Anna’s conversion to Catholicism but nevertheless recognises that her actions and behaviour had political motivations and that her apparently Catholic devotional practices –​decorations of private chapels, for ­example –​were not out of line with certain branches of Lutheranism, not least that practiced in Denmark (and Anna

1 2 3 4

A. J. Loomie, ‘King James I’s Catholic Consort’, p. 304. Meikle and Payne, ‘From Lutheranism to Catholicism’, pp. 45–​69. Field, ‘Anna of Denmark and the Politics of Religious Identity’, pp. 87–​113. Susan Dunn-​Hensley, Anna of Denmark and Henrietta Maria, p. 31.

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was in any case an aesthete who, if she had lived longer, might well have been a Laudian High Church supporter).5 The evidence for the queen’s actual conversion to Catholicism is patchy. Firstly, rumours in Scotland, likely fuelled by her attachment to Catholic elites and their wives, were common. Yet so too were rumours that James was soft on Catholics –​and it is generally accepted that his reasons for doing so were politically motivated. As Bingham puts it, ‘since Scottish Catholic leaders were in touch with continental informants, friendliness to those leaders had the additional advantage of keeping the king partly informed as to Spanish activities and intentions’.6 So too did he continue to give hope to English Catholics, in order to minimise resistance to his succession; in so doing, he was attempting to obviate both Spanish and English Catholic objections. It is therefore suggested that he took advantage of Anna’s conversion to further this policy, making it a political tool in his quest for recognition of his right to the English crown. What this theory elides is the fact that Anna too sought her husband’s succession rights and was thus a willing partner in the game. It is notable, as well, that throughout the 1590s, however much they fought over the custody of Prince Henry, Anna and James remained united in their larger goal. They continued to seek recognition in England, and they obviously continued to share a bed. Anna might thus be afforded the same consideration as a political agent as is her husband. That the rumours were widespread is, however, not in doubt. In January 1596, Queen Elizabeth wrote to Anna, rebuking her for neglecting her correspondence and pressing for continued amity between Scotland and England. Appended to the letter, in the English queen’s own hand, was a postscript: ‘Sister, I beseech you let a few of your own lines satisfy me in some one point that is boasted of against you, which this bearer will tell 5

Anna is reported as having owned crucifixes in England. However, as Graznya Jurkowlaniec has demonstrated, Lutherans were not averse to crucifixes and might treasure them as artistic or historical pieces. As we do not know how the queen came by her crucifixes (they might have been gifts and/​or had historical or artistic value to her), we cannot assume that she interacted with them as religious icons. See Jurkowlaniec, ‘Remnants of a Shared Past’, pp. 79–​81. 6 Bingham, James VI of Scotland, p110.

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you.’7 The bearer was the English ambassador, Robert Bowes. Clearly, by 1596, Elizabeth had come to hear tales of Anna’s conversion to the Roman faith and wished to know the truth of it. The second body of evidence that she did, however, convert, is contained in the works of Catholics. Writing to Robert Persons, the Jesuit spy Richard Verstegan did indeed claim in 1593 that Anna was ‘inclined’ to Catholicism: Beeing thereunto partly perswaded by the Lady Huntley, of whome she hathe receaved a Catholique Catheschisme in French, which she much esteemeth; and hath told unto the said lady that she was in her youthe brought up with a kinswoman of hers that was a Catholique.8

This would have been in the wake of the Spanish blanks affair, and it is at least possible that Anna was willing to use Henrietta as a conduit to the plotters. The mysterious Catholic kinswoman has never been found, and, in any case, ‘there is a significant difference between being friendly with Catholics and perhaps even attending a Catholic mass, and fully converting to the faith’.9 However, the origin of the persistent rumours of her decisive break with Protestantism –​the reasons why it was suddenly claimed that this young woman who came from Denmark a Lutheran was now a Catholic –​can certainly be found in the apparent sympathies she showed towards the Roman faith her new friends eagerly introduced her to. Those sympathies are, further, understandable, given the dominant faith in Scotland. Most famously, the Scottish Jesuit Robert Abercromby wrote of Anna and James from Braunsberg in September 1608, outlining his own supposed role in converting the queen at Holyroodhouse in 1600. According to him, Anna admitted to James that she ‘had dealings with a Catholic priest and named me, an old cripple’. James supposedly accepted this and went further, allowing his wife to have access to a Jesuit confessor by appointing Abercromby to the post of keeper of the king’s hawks. Anna allegedly 7 8 9

Calendar of the MSS of Salisbury, 6, 31. Publications of the Catholic Record Society, 52, p. 196. Field, ‘Anna of Denmark and the Politics of Religious Identity’, p. 91.

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received communion up to nine times as a result of this secret channel. Again, this must be treated with suspicion. At the time of writing, the Jesuit had been hounded out of England by James, of whom he had once been gulled into writing, ‘I do not doubt that, if he had a good instructor, he would become in a year an excellent and devout Catholic prince’.10 Further, if he did not turn her to Catholicism until 1600, it seems odd that Elizabeth would have heard of a conversion pre-​1596. As a source of evidence for the queen’s conversion, Abercromby is a problematic one. If Anna converted, the queen made no outward show of her new faith and continued to worship with her Danish chaplain, Johannes Sering, who himself became an avowed Calvinist. Despite voicing a desire to return to Denmark in May 1595 –​on account of the queen having by then become a fluent Scots speaker –​he remained with her until her death. On the other hand, Abercromby himself had asked his superior in 1602 ‘to be allowed to give “certain individuals” permission to attend at times “the sermons of heretics”, when it was not felt hazardous for the individual’s beliefs’ –​indicating possibly that the queen was indeed a permitted ‘church papist’.11 It is difficult to imagine her retaining a more extreme Protestant (who suspected nothing) as her chaplain under those circumstances, however. The third piece of evidence commonly cited is the most powerful: Anna’s own writings. To Cardinal Scipione Borghese, she wrote on the 31st of July 1601, exhorting the courier ‘to publicly confess the Catholic faith from our name towards the Holy Apostolic See’. To Pope Clement VIII, she begged forgiveness for ‘attending the rites of heretics’.12 This would seem conclusive evidence of her conversion were it not for the fact that James, too, was busily writing to the pope in 1599, addressing him as ‘beatissime Pater’ and signing himself ‘obedientissimus Filius’.13 Further, the queen made no attempts to convert or even to sway her children towards the Catholic faith; in writing to the pope, the lady did, therefore, protest too much. These letters thus take on a different complexion: husband and wife were evidently engaged in a charm offensive against the Vatican, hoping 1 0 11 12 13

Thomas M. McCoog, S. J., Pre-​suppression Jesuit Activity, p. 17. Loomie, ‘King James I’s Catholic Consort’, p. 305. Ibid. Jean-​Christophe Mayer, The Struggle for the Succession, p. 8.

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to defang papal support for the Spanish infanta’s claim to the English succession. As evidence of this, we must consider that English queens consort had a long history of influence with the pope, ‘and the pope in turn recognised the queen’s influence by asking her to use that influence’.14 Nor was the office of the pontiff unused to receiving letters from Scottish consorts; Darnley had attempted to win papal support during his marriage to Mary Queen of Scots, although his line was certainly independent.15 It is therefore arguable that, in telling Clement she was a Catholic and hinting at the possibility of James’s conversion, Anna was positioning herself as an English consort-​in-​waiting rather than honestly expressing her secret faith. Given her genuine Catholic friendships, she thus held a role made doubly important by James’s lack of ability to convince: Abercromby, his tune changed from what it had once been, said of the king, ‘He hates all Catholics, except so far as he can make use of them for the purpose of furthering his design of securing the English crown.’16 This was true –​but it was far from what James wanted known. Did Anna, then, truly convert to Catholicism in the 1590s? We do not know and therefore can more safely assume that she did not, especially given the conflicting dates at and means by which it supposedly happened. Was her interior, devotional world a Catholic one? This is absolutely impossible to say, although it is clear she had honest Catholic sympathies, encouraged by her friends. The queen had learned to dissemble, dissimulate and intrigue, and she certainly had no taste for the hard Calvinism of Scotland, but that did not make her a Catholic convert. What of the perennial claims that she did indeed convert and thereafter led a life of private Catholic devotion –​again, becoming a ‘church papist’ with a secret faith? These, too, are problematic. The period was deeply polarised between those who adhered to or were swayed to Rome and those of the various reformed faiths. No one in the public eye could reasonably expect to use reformed Lutheranism as a lasting mask for any shade of Catholicism –​the schism was too deep, and eventually one had to jump either way (which Anna reportedly did, 1 4 15 16

Tingle, ‘Royal Women, Intercession, and Patronage’, pp. 86–​87. Alison Weir, The Murder of Lord Darnley, p. 165. William Forbes-​Leith, Narratives of Scottish Catholics, pp. 270–​271.

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on her deathbed –​although, typically, both sides would claim her). In terms of the actions of Catholic consorts, it is worth noting that she did not engage in the typical activities associated with them: she was not a noted giver of alms (it being a cause for remark when she and James did so), and she showed no interest in using relics during the deliveries of her children or following any of the other Catholic practices last undertaken by Katherine of Aragon in England or Marie of Guise in Scotland.17 In dissimulating, however –​in using religious sympathies to her advantage, keeping people guessing, and giving hope to both sides –​she would have been playing a role not unknown in the period: the politique. It was one, interestingly enough, which a preceding Scottish consort –​Darnley –​had tried. His mistake, of course, was that he had acted in direct opposition to his sovereign.18 We thus arrive at the frustrating conclusion that Anna’s faith was absolutely opaque. We can say, at best, that she was sympathetic to Catholics and quite willing to manipulate the rumours –​which might have toppled another consort –​to her (and her husband’s) political advantage. She might have undergone conversion and believed in the Catholic faith; but the former is somewhat doubtful and the latter unknowable. If she did convert, the ambiguity around the date indicates firstly that she was a master keeper of secrets and secondly that she did not make visible, active use of that conversion outside of very narrow, political parameters. What she certainly never became was a crusading Catholic of the type the Jesuits –​ being a missionary body –​evidently looked for: she made no attempts ever to turn her professed Catholic beliefs into concrete actions, and, though her letter to Clement acknowledged ‘the hostile times’ to Catholicism, it is surely noteworthy that she did nothing to change them but everything to exploit her nebulous religious faith within them. This alone suggests 17 Darnley, the preceding Scottish consort, was a politique rather than a devoted Catholic, and he had been raised as a nominal Protestant in England, despite his mother’s adherence to the old faith. 18 Darnley had attempted, chameleon-​like, to win the support of both Protestants and Catholics by affecting both faiths and courting both sides when it suited him to do so, not with Mary Queen of Scots’s backing but in the hopes of gaining her power and usurping her role.

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that the ambiguity around her faith was more useful than it was genuine; it allowed her to join James in courting the Vatican and pro-​Spanish factions in Scotland, and it kept alive the hopes of English Catholics. It would continue to be of use to her throughout the rest of her life. *** In the summer of 1596, Anna was pregnant again, her condition making it impossible for her to travel to Denmark for the coronation of her brother, who had come into his majority. Instead, the royal couple returned the honour Christian had done them at Henry’s baptism, sending instead ambassadors. In this Anna was personally involved; ‘she gave letters of credit in July … to James Ogilvy of Airlie and a nobleman’s son, John Ruthven, who were both well connected to her household’, on their travelling to Denmark, which indicates that she intended them to deliver personal congratulations (and furnish her with a report in return). The queen was delivered of her second child in Dunfermline Palace on the 19th of August: a daughter, Elizabeth. Once again, the naming was deliberate: it was deeply English, being taken not only from the child’s godmother (Queen Elizabeth once again) but from James’s English great-​ great-​grandmother, Elizabeth of York, matriarch of the Tudor dynasty. The birth of this child, who would become the famous ‘Winter Queen’, was overshadowed, however, by the ongoing battle between Crown and Kirk. Again, the king’s authority was being slighted, as his critic, the preacher Andrew Melville, at this time derided him as ‘God’s sillie vassal’ directly to his face at Falkland. The recently delivered Anna was the especial target of Calvinist censure. Rumours of her Catholicism, whilst useful on the international stage, were anathema to the Kirk. She was pointedly excluded from the minsters’ public prayers, with David Black going further by stating that he and his fellows should not pray for the queen, ‘for she will never do us any good’.19 The problem, as the ministers saw it, was not just that Anna was a possible Catholic, but that she was not a fanatic Calvinist. For the Jesuits, the problem was that she was neither a militant nor even a clear Catholic 19

James Grierson, St Andrews, p. 30.

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either. The enmity of the Kirk sat firmly on the debit side of the policy by which Anna and James hoped to secure the English crown. For James, however, this was arguably useful. His consort might stand as a lightning rod, deflecting attacks which would hitherto have fallen only on him. These attacks naturally did nothing to endear a Lutheran Catholic sympathiser like Anna to the Kirk. Slightly more welcome to the queen was the gift given her by the citizens of Edinburgh on the occasion of Elizabeth’s baptism: a gold casket containing a promise of a 1,000 marks, to be delivered on the princess’s marriage. What would have greatly enhanced her position was the mooted state visit from her brother, Christian IV, who, in June, wrote of his desire to visit Scotland, going so far as to enquire about the availability of lodgings. Unfortunately, this potential shot in the arm of the monarchy came to nothing. Princess Elizabeth, proclaimed –​in an unwelcome reminder of Scotland’s primus inter pares royal origins –​the ‘first dochter of Scotland’, was baptised without the splendour her brother had enjoyed on the 28th of November at Holyroodhouse. It was a comparatively paltry affair, though held in the chapel; rather than an earl, the English ambassador Bowes held the baby, and, prophetically, one of Anna’s ladies, Beatrix Ruthven, was bought a dress of black velvet for the occasion. Thereafter, however, the infant was given into the custody of Lord and Lady Livingstone (the latter raising objections from the Kirk due to her Catholicism), who would raise her at Linlithgow. Tellingly, Anna does not seem to have raised a tumult, nor did she ever attempt to fight for the custody of her daughter, despite her battle for Henry continuing. This should be taken as evidence enough that her motivations in gaining her eldest son were not strictly maternal but deeply political, with the king and queen content to send their daughter hairbrushes and dolls from afar.20 It should also be noted, however, that it was not the time to intrigue: on the 17th of December, riots broke out in Edinburgh provoked by a sermon against the king.

20 Strickland records ‘ane birse to straik [stroke] her hair with … a small piece of satin … and twa babies [dolls] brought for her to play with’. See Strickland, Lives, VII, p. 283.

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Anna attempted to maintain her own authority, making another formal civic entry, this time to Dundee, on the 13th of September 1597. So too did she attempt to shore up her finances and the aura of majesty through the employment of her most famous jeweller, George Heriot, with whom she had done business for several years: he was, by 1597, deacon of the Edinburgh goldsmiths and thus fit to be the queen’s master jeweller and unofficial banker. He would, in the coming years, help fund Anna and James in their attempts to project their authority materially and, interestingly, he would feed the queen’s penchant for giving diamonds –​symbols of constancy –​ as rewards for loyal service. In total, she would spend £50,000 Scots on his services before her move to England. It is in a letter to Heriot (unfortunately undated, but suggested by Strickland as being written when she was in league with Maitland to take custody of Henry) that we also get a glimpse of the queen’s voice: Geordg Heriatt, I earnestlie dissyr youe present to send me tua hundrethe pundes with all expidition, because I maun hast me away presentle.21

She had, as her chaplain noted, become a fluent Scots speaker by 1595, and it is evident that she had a talent for learning languages. Given the phonetic style of spelling current in the period, it seems she spoke Scots with a Danish accent. The year had been dominated by the Kirk, due to the outbreak of another series of witchcraft trials (given greater public attention due to James publishing his Daemonologie), and it was critical that the balancing act between Kirk and Crown be maintained. The role of chancellor remained unfilled, but Anna lobbied for her own candidate for the chancellorship: the art collector and friend of the architect Schaw, Alexander Seton, who had, not coincidentally, been overseeing the council which managed her estates.22 James thus had extra responsibility in countering

21 Strickland, Lives, VII, p. 279. 2 2 In the event, the post would not be filled until 1599, and then by John Graham, 3rd earl of Montrose.

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the Kirk, and his response to the state religion flexing its muscles had been a less theatrical and more political flexing of his own. Exercising his regal right to decide on the location of the General Assembly (at which the Kirk authorities met), he denied Andrew Melville’s desire to have it at his power base of St Andrews and opted instead for Perth. Here, a more compliant meeting resulted, and it convened a commission whose job it was to act as ecclesiastical advisers to the Crown. This deferential commission accepted James’s desire that the Kirk should have parliamentary representation (rather than seeking to be heard via the backdoor): a traditional right which had fallen into abeyance after the reformation, when the clerical estate had been filled with lay commendators. The trick –​or the Trojan Horse, as Calderwood called it –​was that the king could appoint ministers to vacant bishoprics and thus control the Kirk’s people in parliament. For the moment, however, he had successfully pulled off the con. Anna exulted in such triumphs over the Kirk. In January 1598, she attended the Riding of Parliament (its ceremonial opening) and, alongside Henrietta, countess of Huntly and the countess of Erroll, she watched as the forfeited Catholic earls of Huntly, Erroll and Angus were restored to their estates to the blasting of trumpets. Of great support to Anna in her battle with the Kirk was the international prestige afforded in 1598 by the visit of her younger brother, Ulrik. He arrived in Edinburgh on the 14th of March, having come through England without fanfare. There followed a period of happiness for the queen, involving hunting, drinking, dancing and banqueting. In April, English players arrived, earning censure from –​ surprisingly –​the civic rather than ecclesiastical authorities, for the risk their satire posed in rousing mobs. Evenings were spent dining with Lennox (on the 25th of May) and at Riddle’s Court, this last involving £184 Scots-​ worth of sugar confections and sweetmeats provided for the royal family by Anna’s favourite Flemish confectioner, Jacques de Bousie.23 Of discussion, as ever, was the English succession, and plans were mooted to send Scottish ambassadors back with Ulrik to press the Stuart claim on the continent. Anna, as much as James, was certainly behind this; to be queen consort 23

Pearce, ‘Riddle’s Court’, pp. 20–​27.

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of England was simply another right which, as long as Elizabeth held her peace, was not being recognised. Relations between king and queen continued as they had –​positively –​and Anna was pregnant again, being delivered of another daughter, Margaret, on Christmas Eve, 1598, at Dalkeith.24 The infant would join her sister at Linlithgow Palace. The following year, the question of England rose again –​if it had ever truly retreated. The southern kingdom was beset by troubles of its own. Elizabeth was now in her mid-​sixties, obviously still childless and overseeing war against Spain and the eternal, expensive problem of subduing Ireland. In January, Anna’s old friend Niels Krag –​one of the scholars who had attempted to make the crossing from Denmark with her in 1589 –​visited the English court. There, a high-​spirited Elizabeth danced energetically with the earl of Essex before saying to Krag, ‘you might congratulate me because many years have passed, and though asked to renounce my kingdom, though someone [is] not yet so infirm that can still dance like this, and do other things, despite my wasted body’.25 Despite the troubles facing her kingdom, she was not above thumbing her nose at James. She added, pointedly, ‘I would have you reprove the Scots’ envoys’ whose job it was to canvass for the Stuart succession in Denmark. As it happened, she would outlive Krag by a year. Following in Ulrik’s footsteps was a little-​known English comic actor, Lawrence Fletcher, who found his way into the Scottish royal couple’s service. His job was to arrange more visits from English players –​despite the complaints from the city fathers being joined by the Kirk –​and in November, payments were made to ‘Inglis Commeidianis’, who probably performed at Holyroodhouse for the sum of thirteen crowns. Whether they carried messages from or to England is unknown, but it seems likely: both James and Anna had been sending letters to Essex’s spymaster, Anthony Bacon, for years, though the earl himself had spent much of 1599 in Ireland, only returning –​against the queen’s orders –​at the end of September. This

24 Strickland records the spending for the new princess, including sums for ‘ane cradle to the bairn, ane chair for the maistress, four stools for the rockers’. See Strickland, Lives, VII, p. 282. 25 Niels Krag, ‘Relation’, p. 187.

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would be the prelude to Essex’s ultimate tragedy, but that would not inhibit the Scottish king and queen’s use of English contacts. Their own tragedy, however, lay just around the corner. In March 1600, Princess Margaret died, her body being conveyed to Holyrood Abbey for burial. She had been baptised there by David Lindsay only fifteen months beforehand. This was naturally a disappointment both in the personal and political sense, as daughters were valuable commodities on the international marriage market. A larger, stranger tragedy, though, was to follow. James had had a colourful history with the Ruthven family since the raid which took their name, its leader having been William Ruthven, 1st earl of Gowrie. Then, the young king had found himself captive for a year. In the late summer of 1600, the sensational story broke that the king had been lured to Gowrie House by Alexander Ruthven’s tale of having captured a Jesuit with a pot of gold, taking only the hunting party with whom he had been riding at the time. Once at the house, he was taken upstairs in a tower, the doors locked behind him, only to find that Alexander and his brother, the 3rd earl (along with another man, later identified as one Henderson and mysteriously pardoned) were intending to imprison or slay him out of revenge for their father’s execution in 1584. James, in the official version of the story, shouted for help from a window, and, in the ensuing confusion, his hunting party (including the young John Ramsay) made their way to him, joining an affray which left the earl and Alexander dead. James himself was unharmed and keen to turn his deliverance into a national holiday. The only problem was that few people believed his story, including the ministers he demanded trumpet it from the pulpits. Why, given his distrust of the family, did he go so willingly? How did he emerge unharmed? Who was this third man? Was it not too great a coincidence that men he had distrusted should find themselves slain before they could speak in their own defence? It has been suggested that James had tried to solicit sex from Alexander, been rebuffed, and panicked, calling for the murder (and silence) of his putative lover (and his brother). This seems unlikely. Also possible is that the king organised the slaying to be rid of two of his enemies. Again, this seems out of keeping with his character which, though vengeful, was not

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particularly bloodthirsty. More likely is the solution favoured by Maurice Lee: that there was some plot or other laid against the king, but that James invented the secret treasure tale to excuse his going to Gowrie House (whether for unknown reasons of his own or because the Ruthvens were involved in the traffic with England which was at the time endemic). The one thing, however, that might have provoked James to encourage sudden murder was suspicion that he was being threatened or his royal state disparaged. Gowrie and his brother might well have been less than deferential in their demands for monies owed –​the king was then in debt to them –​and James inflated their importunities into an assault, which he cried out to be ended by his sword-​wielding followers. A far more insidious scenario emerged, first being written down in the reign of Anna’s son and, unsurprisingly, it was steeped in misogyny against the queen. As recorded by Strickland, a story sprang up in which the queen had been walking in the gardens at Falkland with Beatrix Ruthven (who, along with her sister Barbara, was a sibling to Alexander and the 3rd earl). Together the pair had come upon the sleeping Alexander, whereupon Anna had been overcome by his beauty and fallen in love. Without waking him, she unlaced a silver ribbon James had given her and tied it round the swain’s neck. James, of course, came upon Alexander, saw the ribbon and went to confront his wife; the day was only saved by Beatrix snatching the ribbon and getting it back into Anna’s hands before James could reach her. The tale, obviously, is even less believable than James’s account of what happened at Gowrie House. It is useful, however, in recalling the kind of slanders which had long attached to Anna whenever troublesome noblemen met unpleasant ends: she had been rumoured to have developed an attachment to Bothwell; she had been rumoured to have developed an attachment to Moray; and now so it was with one of the Ruthvens. Nevertheless, the story was woven into an elaborate tale of revenge, with the king organising the despatch of Gowrie and Alexander Ruthven out of jealousy. Those who created this version of events –​the actual origin of the story in its oral form is unclear –​were certainly akin to those who had long tried to divide the king from the queen via aspersions cast on her fidelity.

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What probably did not help Anna’s case was that she did not believe her husband’s version of events either. On the morning he had left Falkland to go on his hunt, he had supposedly told her ‘that he wished to be astir betimes, as he expected to kill a prime buck before noon’.26 When Beatrix first broke the news to the queen of her brothers’ deaths, Anna burst into tears. She was about five months pregnant at the time and resentful at a fresh outbreak of violence, following on from what had been a period of comparative peace. Her sorrow at the bloodshed continued for two days, during which she refused to be dressed. This was a humiliation for James, and both knew it: it was a declaration to the world that even his wife did not believe his tale. When he approached her, her response marked a contrast to the acclamation of the people of Perth and Falkland at the king’s deliverance. It was reported that Anna expressed her suspicions without reserve, stating that ‘nothing could make her believe that her young friends had been disloyal’ and that ‘she hoped Heaven would not visit her family with its vengeance for the sufferings of the Ruthvens’.27 For his part, James appears to have been abashed by this and to have sought to mollify her; he employed, in Melville’s memorable phrasing, ‘a funambulous [tightrope walking] acrobat … to play strenge and incredible practicks’ before the whole court at Falkland.28 It was critical, from his perspective, that he publicly display harmony between himself and his wife, thereby mitigating the damaging whispers about her lack of belief in his story. Nevertheless, the king remained determined to reduce the Ruthven family entirely, seizing their property and abolishing the earldom and family name. This likely suggests the basic truth of his version of events, it being unlikely that he would advertise his guilt by profiting from it so quickly and obviously. It also shows his capacity for vengeance and malice, which underscored the bluff bonhomie he usually evinced. Beatrix and Barbara were to suffer, with Anna taking on her self-​appointed role as the king’s conscience. Both ladies, along with a Chrisian Ruthven, were banished 26 Strickland, Lives, VII, p. 285. 2 7 Strickland, Lives, VII, p. 288. 28 William Roughead, The Riddle of the Ruthvens, p. 22.

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from court by James. Anna, however, would again adopt the mantle of mediator, appealing for aid to Queen Elizabeth’s principal secretary, Sir Robert Cecil –​a man who, since Essex had fallen from grace after his failure in Ireland, was now James’s primary correspondent in facilitating the English succession. Cecil at this point distrusted Anna, having certainly heard rumours about her Catholic leanings, inflamed by his and James’s go-​between, Henry Howard. But he was eager enough not to offend her. He arranged for Barbara to travel south. In the immediate aftermath of the Gowrie Plot, though, Anna’s health declined, and, for the sake of her pregnancy, she retired to Dunfermline, where her new house was in the final stages of construction. There, on the 19th of November, she gave birth to her second son, Charles (named for Darnley’s brother), whose weakness saw him conveyed in a litter to Holyroodhouse to be baptised by David Linsday, as his sisters had been. Curiously, both of Lennox’s sisters –​Henrietta and the queen’s former friend, Marie, countess of Mar, were present as maids of honour, the latter probably at James’s insistence (and because Anna herself would not be present). Charles was returned to Dunfermline, where his custody was given to Lord Fyvie; on the occasion of the baptism, Lord Livingstone, who remained guardian to Princess Elizabeth, was elevated to the earldom of Linlithgow. James could be enormously sentimental, and it seems that the sight of Anna, who was likewise ill following this birth, moved him. He provided her servants with gifts and had largesse thrown to the populace. In the New Year, he availed himself of George Heriot’s services to provide his wife ‘ane jewel’ worth £1333 Scots.29 Neither the entrusting of another child to a keeper nor the Gowrie affair, strange though it was, appear to have left any more lasting division between the royal couple than any of the other jars which afflicted their marriage. Indeed, as soon as Anna’s health recovered, they resumed marital relations; Anna was pregnant again in 1601, giving birth to Robert, duke of Kintyre and Lorne, on the 18th of January 1602, attended on her childbed by Martin Schöner, John Nesmithe (who, it will be recalled, had been involved in the Bothwell affair years before) and the midwife Janet Kinloch. 29 Strickland, Lives, VII, p. 289.

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Edinburgh Castle fired its salute and James rode to Dunfermline to join his wife, presenting her this time with a diamond. The baby was not conveyed this time to Holyrood, but baptised at Dunfermline Abbey, with festivities in the form of a chivalric tournament and the usual largesse thrown to the people. The only sombre note was the murder, prior to the event, of James Chambers by an English Catholic called Humphrey Dethick. Dethick was examined by the physicians, Naysmyth and Schöner, and declared sane, despite his claims that he was acting out a prophecy he had heard in Spain which had instructed him to kill. He was swiftly imprisoned. The new prince, however, was not a well child. He grew weaker and weaker at Linlithgow, which had become the de facto royal nursery, leading Anna into a depression. This was probably not helped by the Kirk’s attacks on her friends; in April, two of Huntly’s servants were banished for hearing the mass, and his wife, her friend Henrietta, was told to dismiss two of her women for the same crime. Yet the queen assured James, with the emotional strength of several consorts before her, ‘If it please God to take one of our children, He will send us another, for I feel myself with child.’30 Her words were auspicious on the first count: Robert died on the 27th of May. She does not, however, appear to have been pregnant, although she would be soon enough. She nevertheless demonstrated her ability to further both her own interests and those she shared with her husband in the wake of this loss; in September, when James was entertaining the French ambassador to a round of hunting, Anna played her part in entertaining the ambassador’s wife, Anne de Gondi –​and at the same time she furthered her arguments against the earl of Mar. A further victory for one of her own policies awaited. Towards the end of 1602, the banished Beatrix Ruthven was smuggled into her apartments by Lady Paisley and Lady Angus, and the queen and her young friend spoke privately, before the latter was seen off laden with gifts. This was reported to James by Sir Thomas Erskine, whom Anna was afterwards said to ‘loveth worse’, and the king investigated the matter. Finding no evidence of treason on Beatrix’s part, he was 30 This is redolent of both Elizabeth of York and Marie of Guise, who took on the roles of stoics in the face of child mortality. See CSP, Scotland, 13, p. 996.

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convinced by Anna to grant the lady a pension and cease harassing her, notwithstanding her outlawed family name remained ‘hateful’ to him. Further victories –​and further tragedy –​were to come in the following year. In the middle of March 1603, Ulrich, Anna’s grandfather –​the head of her childhood household –​followed his wife into the grave. Nor was death content to take him that month. Despite her energetic dancing in 1599 and the unlikely claim of Thomas Platter in that same year that she appeared ‘no more than twenty years of age’, Queen Elizabeth was failing.31 She appears to have done so fairly rapidly in the wake of Essex’s abortive coup and subsequent execution in 1601, though she did not seriously take a turn for the worse until the spring of 1603. Since Essex’s fall, a panicked James had thrown himself enthusiastically into correspondence with Cecil, the most powerful man in England. Yet it was not one of Cecil’s messengers who gained access to the king’s bedchamber on the 26th of March, but the enterprising Sir Robert Carey, who had taken it upon himself to ride north without a break. His news, so long awaited, was that Elizabeth had died in the early hours of the morning of the 24th. On his knees, Carey acknowledged the delighted James as king of England as well as king of Scots. And Anna, of course, was now queen consort of England.

31

A. Riehl, The Face of Queenship, p. 76.

And Either Victory or Else a Grave

It is probably a mark of Anna’s keen political perception that her first thoughts on learning of her new role appear to have been that she might finally win custody of her son, and thereby ride into England as a prince’s mother. She would not, after all, be going south with her husband: the hazards, as every Scot probably knew, were too great. Neither James nor any of his council could be assured of what kind of reception the new king would meet: it had been reported in England, falsely, that in the weeks preceding Elizabeth’s death the Scottish king had amassed an army to press his claims, and resistance might be put up anywhere on the road south. Anna was again pregnant, and it was unsafe to hazard her on what might prove to be a dangerous journey. The official reason for her later departure, however, was that the late Elizabeth’s ladies must wait until their mistress had been interred before transferring their allegiance to the new queen consort. James’s concerns were almost entirely now in England. He had never visited the country, but an official invitation from what had been Elizabeth’s privy council (hastily renamed the ‘great council’) followed Carey’s arrival. Yet first he had to take his leave of Scotland. He and Anna set out from Holyroodhouse for St Giles Cathedral on the Sunday prior to his journey, where a farewell sermon was preached. Unwilling to miss an opportunity to speak himself, James followed it up with a speech of his own. It was not with much sorrow that he left the country he had governed since his youth (and of which he had been monarch since his infancy), but with ideas of how he might, in time, bring Scotland into line with England in the obedience it showed its sovereigns. Nevertheless, he promised that he would return every three years –​a promise which proved hollow. He commenced his progress south on the 5th of April, bidding the queen goodbye publicly in Edinburgh’s High Street with the instruction that she follow him in twenty days, all being well. He did not bother to visit the children he knew would be joining him soon enough. Instead, he sent

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a letter to Prince Henry, exhorting him to read the book, Basilikon Doron, which he had written as a how-​to manual on kingship. It was in this book that the king had made his infamous comment, often considered a slight upon Anna, that ‘marriage is the greatest earthly felicity or misery that can come to a man’. Less often quoted is the rest of the sentence: ‘according as it pleaseth God to bless or curse the same’. This was ambivalent language, and it does not betray any unhappiness at his consort’s behaviour but rather the conventional wisdom of the period. More interesting is what he reveals about his own relationship with the queen when he dictates what ought to be Henry’s relationship with his future bride: And for your behavior to your wife, the Scripture can best give you counsel therein: Treat her as your own flesh, command her as her lord, cherish her as your helper, rule her as your pupil, and please her in all things reasonable; but teach her not to be curious in things that belong to her not. Ye are the head, she is your body. It is your office to command, and hers to obey, but yet with such a sweet harmony as she should be as ready to obey, as ye to command; as willing to follow, as ye to go before; your love being wholly knit unto her, and all her affections lovingly bent to follow your will. And to conclude, keep specially three rules with your wife: first, suffer her never to meddle with the politick government of the commonweal, but hold her at the oeconomicke rule of the house; and yet all to be subject to your direction; keep carefully good and chaste company about her, for women are the frailest sex; and be never both angry at once but when ye see her in passion, ye should with reason dampen yours. For both when ye are settled, ye are meetest to judge of her errors; and when she is come to herself, she may be best made to apprehend her offence and reverence your rebuke.1

King James had rarely been excessively angry at Anna, and it is probable that much of the reason for this was that at least some of her behaviour and actions (including her religious affiliations) were in accord with his own policy. What she had made of being treated as a schoolchild and instrument of the king’s will is not clear, but it is telling that, on his departure, she too thought of Prince Henry, and, despite her pregnancy, she immediately set about meddling with the ‘politick government of the 1

James VI and I, Basilikon Doron, pp. 97–​98.

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commonweal’ her husband had left in his wake. For the first time since James’s trip to Scandinavia to claim his bride, Scotland was without its king. But it retained its queen consort and its prince. For years, Anna had been cultivating a network of supporters with gifts, friendship, and household positions. Now it was time to activate them. She received from Henry a dutiful letter which included the words, ‘seeing, by his Majesty’s departing, I will lose that benefit which I had by his frequent visitation, I must humbly request your Majesty to supply that lack by your presence (which I have more just cause to crave, since I have wanted [lacked] it so long, to my great grief and displeasure)’.2 This was a summons from the son she had battled long to gain custody of, and she was not going to let the opportunity of the king’s absence –​and the fact that her bête noire, the earl of Mar, was joining him –​slip by. Accounts vary as to the exact nature of what happened next. What seems clear is that, with a body of supporters at her back, the queen rode from Edinburgh to Stirling and demanded her son be handed over to her. Marie, the countess of Mar, refused to allow Anna’s armed supporters entry.3 Although she was Catholic and the sister of James’s great friend, Lennox, the friendship she had had with the queen in the early 1590s had soured, even as Henrietta’s star had risen. When Anna and her ladies –​including Lady Argyll, the young favourite Jean Drummond, Lady Paisley, and the mistress of Paisley –​entered and sat down to dinner, Lady Mar raised the legal authority invested in her family to keep the prince. Anna’s storm of rage, matched by the ladies’ protests against the countess, availed them nothing: the countess had written authority not to release Henry to anyone. At this point, an unpleasant scene took place: Anna fainted and had to be carried to the royal apartments. No doubt terrified, the countess quickly despatched men to follow the king south to inform him of what was happening, and others to those of the council still present in Edinburgh, setting out her version of events and asking for advice. Anna, far more emotional, understandably, sent off 2 Strickland, Lives, VII, p. 296. 3 The formidable dowager countess, Annabella, who had raised James, had died in February 1603.

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her own people to the council. A delegation was sent to Stirling in response to both women’s pleas, and to Anna’s fury, the men of it sided with the countess. Her anger reactivated her illness and the tragic result this time was the loss of the son she had been carrying and her own concomitant illness. Curiously, eyewitness Thomas Hamilton reported that the queen had told her physician, Schöner, that she had ‘taken some balm water that had hastened her abort’: this might have been part of the basis of the slanders the queen was soon hearing and complaining of to James.4 Others continued to fester; in mid-​May, it was reported in Venice that James ‘has issued a proclamation offering rewards for anyone who will discover and seize two Scottish brothers [presumably Ruthvens], who left Scotland with the desperate intention of following him and murdering him in revenge for the murder of the earl, their brother, whom the king caused to be put to death for a reason which no one dare mention, though they say it was because he was in love with the queen’.5 Maitland’s successor as chancellor, John Graham, 3rd earl of Montrose, was quick to defend himself from accusations that the loss of the child had been in any way his fault; Lord Fyvie, guardian of Prince Charles, cautiously took the queen’s part on being sent for by her, writing to James that ‘physic and medicine requireth a greater place with her Majesty at present than lectures on economics and politics. Her Majesty’s passions could not be sa well mitgat and moderat as by seconding and obeying all her directions, quhilk [which] always is subject to zour [your] sacred Majesty’s answers and resolves as oracles.’6 This letter reached James when the king had gained London, and, nonplussed, he despatched the duke of Lennox north, with orders to intercept Mar, who was Lennox’s brother-​in-​law, on the road and accompany him back to Stirling. More importantly, James also sent a letter to Mar, authorising him to release Prince Henry into his mother’s custody, alongside a note to Anna reproving her behaviour. His motivation, in all likelihood, was akin to his employment of the acrobat to entertain the queen following the Gowrie affair: now, more than then, William Fraser, Memorials of the Earls of Haddington, 2, p. 211. 4 5 CSP, Venice, 10, pp. 16–​28, 40. 6 Strickland, Lives, VII, p. 298.

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it was critical that he not lose the acclamation he had been receiving in England as a family man –​a paternal figure with heirs, such as the English had not had in the lifetime of the majority. Mar and Lennox met at York and, with new commission in hand, the earl rode for Stirling. On arriving, however, he found the country raised to turmoil and the queen, still desperately ill, exercised to rage by the sight of him. Anna, unwittingly, had stirred up the question of Prince Henry’s upbringing, and parties of gentry began to agitate for him to be retained in Scotland. The queen was unwilling to be handed her son by Mar, nor to ride through a country plagued by plots to receive him at Holyrood, as Mar’s commission dictated. Further, she was as alive as James was to the importance of political theatre and would not be seen to be being handed the prince through compulsion. It might well be that she was sensitive to the historical parallels present. Unlike the disgraced Margaret Tudor, who had been driven from her son –​and from Scotland –​and only regained access to him through being beholden to the Scottish nobility, Anna was not prepared to suffer indignity. That indignity was her concern is not in doubt. She wrote to James, accusing him of favouring Mar over herself and listing the slanders about her which she blamed Mar and his family for circulating. At a loss, Chancellor Graham wrote too, seeking ‘remeids how the queen’s Grace may rest contentit, and the earl of Mar exonerate of that greit charge that lies on him, of the said prince, and sum order to be taken, how this controversie, likely to arise amang the nobilitie, may be setlet and pacifiet’.7 What is evident here is that, although Anna was at fault for standing on her political dignity, James too deserves blame, not least for the factional fighting which looked set to erupt over the removal of the royal family southwards. In his haste to claim England, the king had not taken adequate care of Scotland’s political scene in the immediate aftermath of his departure. For all his eagerness for the long-​awaited succession, he still left the country too precipitately –​and, ironically enough, had he left Henry in his consort’s

7 Strickland, Lives, VII, p. 299.

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custody all along, she might have proven a more useful support in transitioning Scotland from a kingdom with a royal family to a kingdom with an absentee one. To his credit, James appears to have realised this. He wrote, My heart, Immediately before the receipt of your letter, I was purposed to have written you and that without any great occasion excepting for to free myself from the imputation of severeness, but now your letter has given me more matter to write, though I take small delight to meddle in so unpleasant a process, I wonder that neither your long knowledge of my nature, nor my late earnest purgation to you can cure you of that rooted error that anyone living dare speak or inform me in any ways to your prejudice and yet you can think them your unfriends, that are true friends to me.

Here was a qualified admission that Mar had indeed long spoken in the king’s ear against her; but, typically, James cautioned his wife’s over-​sensitivity by flattering himself that he was well capable of knowing when slander was just that –​and that Mar’s loyalty to James is what mattered. He continued, I can say no more but protest upon peril of my salvation and damnation that neither the earl of Mar nor any flesh living ever informed me that ye was upon any papist or Spanish course or that ye had any other thought but a wrong conceived opinion that he had more interest in your son and would not deliver him unto you.

The nature of the slanders which Anna attributed to Mar, then, were religious. Given that James was said to have known fully about her supposed conversion, this suggests that that conversion was invented; Abercromby’s tale of converting the queen and, with the king’s approval, administering communion to her thereafter, rings false. What seems more likely is that Anna had indeed long sympathised with Catholics and the Spanish cause out of policy (and because her friends leant that way), and with James’s support –​but, in his first absence, her fears grew that her enemies were inflating what she had done (with his encouragement) into full conversion. After all, she would have no cause to complain to him about slanders which hinged on something true which he already knew about. And, if

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she truly had converted and he did not know, it seems unlikely she would write to him complaining that people were advertising it. After commending the bearer –​who would speak privately with her of ‘divers other points’ –​James closed by assuring Anna that, God is my witness that I ever preferred you to all my bairns, much more than to any subject; but if you will ever give place to the reports of every flattering sycophant that will persuade you that when I account well of an honest and wise servant for his true and faithful service to me, that is to compare or prefer him to you, then will neither you nor I be ever at rest or at peace. Praying God, my heart, to preserve you and all the bairns send me a blithe meeting with you and a couple of them. Your own, JAMES R8

From this, we can infer a number of interesting things. By calling Mar an ‘honest and wise servant’, notwithstanding the previous admission that he had been telling him, James, that Anna had gone papist, James seems to be acknowledging his own and his wife’s longstanding secret policy. Evidently, Mar knew nothing about their attempts to appease Catholics by flaunting and making use of Anna’s Catholic sympathies; like a good servant, he had simply, and in ignorance, reported those sympathies –​ and the accompanying rumours of conversion –​to James. A little more ominously, the king seems to anticipate the future of his marriage. He had never had a sexual relationship with Mar, the two having been raised together, but he certainly cautions his wife that she must never be jealous of his relationships with any man. Evidently, he foresaw that, in the future, his sexual affairs would be exclusively with men. This letter did little to please the queen. Her solution to the impasse was to demand a public apology from Mar –​one which would leave no doubt that she was the mistress and he the servant. This he refused to do, and James was forced to intervene again, exhorting her that she should thank her enemy for the good work he had done in helping secure the English succession. The earl had, after all, done yeoman’s work over the years in 8

John Hill Burton, The History of Scotland, 6, p. 170.

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corresponding with Essex, Cecil and even visiting Queen Elizabeth in 1601. Anna’s reply was that she would rather never set foot in England than receive it as a gift from Mar. Dignity was once again central: she would, she wrote, never ‘be in any sort beholden to him’.9 In this, politically she was probably in the right –​it was unwise for a sovereign to owe any crown to a subject, as James ought to have known –​but interpersonally she was in the wrong. Though he had taken part in the Ruthven Raid in 1582, since his rehabilitation in 1585 he had been loyal. James, finally, conceded. From Greenwich, he wrote on the 13th of May, instructing Mar to deliver Henry to any member of the council, ‘to be given to her and disposed of as she pleaseth’.10 Lennox was chosen, as befitted a man so close to the throne, and it was he who took custody of the prince on the 19th with an escort of noblemen intended to then convey both Henry and Anna south. Obviously, Mar was excluded from this noble convoy. It was thus in a public display of her victory that, on the 23rd, the years of struggle for custody of Henry were over. She now had the keeping of the heir: a 9-​year-​old who had her own fair hair but who had the soft features of his father and paternal grandfather, Darnley, in their childhoods. Anna left Stirling with her son, riding with all ceremony; it was Mar who, in the eyes of the world, appeared to be in disgrace. Macabrely, it was reported that her entourage carried with it the foetus of her miscarried son as a means of stilling wagging tongues, which held that her pregnancy and illness has been feigned.11 James had left a power vacuum which needed to be filled. Despite preparing to follow him, the queen was determined to fill it by displaying herself as the remaining head of her family. First, the convoy entered Edinburgh to a salute from the castle’s cannon. Then, from Holyroodhouse, she began organising her own journey to her new kingdom. The coachmaker George Hendry was employed to fashion a new vehicle of suitable grandeur. For its inhabitants, money was spent on velvet, taffeta and satin for new clothes for Anna, Prince Henry, Princess 9 Strickland, Lives, VII, p. 301. 1 0 Ibid. 11 See Sully, Memoirs, 3, p. 112. According to the duke of Sully, Anna’s party carried the body into England. However, contemporary Scottish reports do not make mention of this and there is no record of the burial of the miscarried son.

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Elizabeth (who had grown into a tall girl, as her mother had been), and, colourfully, Thomas Derry, the queen’s fool.12 A new French horse was given to Henry, the better to display him. She provided also for the ladies of her household, handing out her old dresses and tapestries as rewards for faithful service. On the 31st of May, the new coach was ready. Pulled by six horses, it carried Anna and Henry to St Giles. As we know, Anna was not fanatically religious, and certainly she was not Calvinist. This, then, was a chance to publicly advertise her relationship with her son: it marked an end to what might have been perceived as the king’s distrust or recognition of deficiency in her resulting from her long being kept apart from the boy. So too did this moment of pageantry allow the queen to, as ever, display the royal authority against the troubles which had been threatening across the country at the loss of its head of government. Accompanying the queen consort and heir were English ladies, who had already begun to flood over the border to press their services: Lucy Russell, countess of Bedford, and Frances Howard, countess of Kildare, were amongst the vanguard of these place seekers.13 Although illness made it appear that Elizabeth would be unable to join them on the journey –​possibly a psychosomatic illness at the prospect of being parted from Lady Linlithgow, who had raised her –​Anna and Henry delayed no further. Happily, the princess recovered, and was thus able to accompany them. This meant that the family would only be leaving Prince Charles, who was judged ‘far better as yet of his mind and tongue than of his bodie and feet’ to make the long trip south (and who would remain in Scotland until the next year).14 Queen consort, heir to the 12 13

14

Derry’s surname is also variously spelt as Durye or Drury. Anna commissioned at least two portraits of him. Williams names only ‘English ladies’ as being present in Edinburgh. Robert Birrell goes further, indicating that these women were actually present at Stirling with Anna when she was locked in the battle with Mar. Lord Harington, Lady Bedford’s brother, was certainly in Scotland too, as he received the guardianship of Princess Elizabeth from the earl of Linlithgow. Ladies Harington and Kildare lodged at John Kinloch’s house in the upmarket burgh of the Canongate. See MS 19401 f185; Leeds Barroll, ‘The Court of the First Stuart Queen’, p. 202. Edwin Beresford Chancellor, The Life of Charles I, p. 6.

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thrones of Scotland and England, and the first daughter of both nations thus joined Lennox and rode out of Edinburgh for the relatively short journey to English soil. At Berwick, Anna passed out of Scotland. She would never return, nor would Scotland see another consort until Queen Victoria brought Albert north of the border in September 1842. With her went a long history of Scottish consortship; from that point on, royal husbands and wives would reside predominantly in England, and draw upon the traditions associated with the role as it had long existed there. James, in his Basilikon Doron, had laid out his perception of a consort as no more than a bourgeois wife at worst, and a wholly obedient helpmeet in enacting royal policy at best. Anna’s conception of consortship had been composed of various strands, however, many of them dating back to her predecessors. A Scottish consort should be, as she saw it, a parent; a key domestic political agent (ideally through having custody of the heir); a conscience for the sovereign; a diplomatic intermediary between the nation and foreign powers, especially in moments of tension or crisis; a tool in supporting relations with a native realm; an intercessor on behalf of those in disgrace; a player in displays of royal pageantry and authority; and a coadjutant with the sovereign in foreign policy. Tangled up in all this were questions of property rights and privileges, domestic politics, religion and the consequences of reformation, tradition and custom, expenses and interpersonal relationships. Anna had proven herself a success in Scotland, seeing off slander and rumour, ultimately winning the right –​enjoyed by her predecessors –​of custody of her son, and certainly winning, with her husband, the prize of another throne. If less has been written about her than about those consorts who came before, it is probably because there appears less to say about those who made a success of their roles than about those who were toppled, rebelled against and assassinated. In crossing the border, however, she would have to adapt to a position with its own burden of history. Being queen consort in England, as she would soon recognise, was not the same thing as being queen consort in Scotland.

Part III

England

Hail and Welcome, Fairest Queen!

Loyalty was a hallmark of Anna’s character, which was to present difficulties in her earliest days as consort of England. Already, English ladies had been presenting themselves to her in the hope of gaining places in her household, the filling of the English consort’s household being, like the Scottish one, the perquisite of that consort. Anna was doubly a foreigner, being a Danish queen of Scots, and it was essential that she create a household which recognised her new, third identity. To make matters worse, parts of northern England, through which she would soon travel, were then aggrieved at her brother. In May, the mayor and aldermen of Hull had written a joint letter to Cecil, appealing to him once again on behalf of the unfortunate people of Hull who suffered a severe loss because of the action of the king of Denmark [whose navy had seized Hull-​based ships before stripping, beating, torturing, and imprisoning the crews]. The death of the late Queen Elizabeth deprived them of their hopes of restitution, and they can only turn to the king for their relief.1

Yet following James’s instructions to refashion her household along English lines –​in particular filling her bedchamber with English ladies and thus allowing them close access to her person –​was something she was not, at first, inclined to do. She already had a household, and she had spent years filling positions and achieving a political balance based on a ream of kinship ties and bonds of affection and support within it. At Berwick, a troupe of English ladies, including the Ladies Scrope, Rich and Walsingham, waited to receive their new queen. As sweeteners, the women had brought north a selection of jewels and dresses belonging to the late Queen Elizabeth, which James had managed –​not without argument from his aggrieved new English council –​to have sent up. Naturally, all of these women expected the consort of England to provide places for 1

Calendar of the MSS of Salisbury, 23, Addenda.

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them –​in coming to England, she was to leave Scotland behind and begin afresh. Nor was it only English ladies who had flocked to the outpost of England to meet the new consort. The earl of Sussex –​familiar enough to Anna –​and the earl of Lincoln had come full of expectations too, and Thomas, Lord Burghley, brother to Robert Cecil, was there to report that ‘she will prove, if I be not deceived, a magnificent prince, a kind wife, and a constant mistress’.2 With his holdover use of the word ‘prince’, which Elizabeth had often invoked, one can detect a hint of confusion in what exactly the role of consort was to mean. Already the king was being bombarded with petitions, complaints and pleas for place and restitution of perceived wrongs left over from the previous reign. What James demanded –​and needed –​at this time was for his wife to be as accommodating to their new subjects as possible, and thereby to ensure a smooth transition to the new regime. Part of this meant reducing aristocratic anxiety by establishing a strong sense of continuity between Elizabeth’s reign and his own. Further, he was loath to lose any of the goodwill which he had witnessed on his own journey south. This required Anna to allow him to infringe on her rights and accept that he might order her household according to his own political needs. Anna had other ideas. She refused to clear out her household to make way for English appointees, and accepted only Lady Bedford and Lady Kildare, who had proven their worth by crossing the border to meet her. In a repeat performance of her earliest days in Scotland, however, James decided to intervene. The vessel James had chosen to supervise Anna’s household in 1590 had been Sir James Melville. In 1603, it was the duke of Lennox, who was to oversee the rebuilding of the queen’s staff, firstly by installing the Englishman Sir George Carew –​an old seaman and friend of Cecil’s –​as her lord chamberlain (a position which would have given him control of the queen’s upstairs household). Anna was unwilling, as always, to accept any infringement on her right to appoint her own people and she instead insisted on retaining her existing chamberlain, the Scottish Lord Kennedy. A semi-​comic battle of wills was played out, with Lennox the unfortunate 2

Calendar of the MSS of Salisbury, 15, 13.

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go-​between who carried lists of appointees decreed by the king north, and refusals and substituted names south. With a determination not to give up her rights, notwithstanding James’s policy of using her to appease and please the English, Anna left Berwick, travelling with an increased retinue –​still very much comprised of Scots and Danes –​southward. At York, on the 11th of June, the royal wife and children were met with civic pageantry led by the lord mayor and the leading citizens. The second city of England showed its pleasure at their new queen consort by providing a silver cup filled with gold angels, a smaller cup for Henry, and a purse of twenty gold coins for Elizabeth. Anna was well aware of the role she was expected to play: that of the charming, interested lady. Accordingly, she bid the mayor show her the city, which he did, leading her through ‘Monk Bar to Heworth Moor, and then through Tanghall Lane into the Hill Road and back again into the city through Walmgate Bar’.3 On being offered wine, she gamely requested beer. It is interesting to consider what the northern English made of their new queen. By this time, Anna was 28 –​still young, but hardly in the first flush of youth. Despite her repeated childbirths –​and losses –​she retained a slim figure, and she certainly threw herself into the style of the day in terms of her dress and adornments. The late queen of England, of course, had never set foot in the north; and the north itself bore deep scars as a result of its failed rebellion in 1569, against which had been inflicted horrific reprisals. It therefore seems likely that the acclamations which Anna was said to receive in the city were genuine –​and they lasted for four days, with the royal party leaving on the 15th of June. On the 20th of June, the procession reached Worksop, where the 7th earl of Shrewsbury entertained the queen and her people. Shrewsbury had a colourful history with the Stuarts. His father and stepmother, the 6th earl and the famous Bess of Hardwick (who was alive and well in her 80s), had been Mary Queen of Scots’s keepers, and the 7th earl had married Bess’s daughter, Mary Cavendish. Mary was thus aunt to Bess’s granddaughter, Arbella Stuart –​King James’s first cousin on his father’s side. Present also at Worksop was Robert Cecil’s son, William (it then being the custom for 3

James Raine, York, p. 115.

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boys to be raised in other households). The 12-​year-​old William had been shown favour by Queen Elizabeth, who had once given him a gift of jewelled clothing; now Queen Anna would tie a jewel around his ear and have the Princess Elizabeth dance with him.4 Doubtless she knew that Cecil as yet distrusted her and why, and she knew also that she would have to win him over if she hoped to retain any kind of influence in England. The cavalcade moved on through England, from the north to the midlands. At the mediaeval Holme Pierrepont Hall, Bess of Hardwick’s daughter and her husband, Sir Henry Pierrepoint, played hosts. An invitation to Chatsworth from Bess had, unfortunately, been refused –​allegedly vetoed by James. This was a shame. Anna, as evidenced by her commissioning of the Queen’s House at Dunfermline, had an interest in architecture. Even without visiting the celebrated Chatsworth, though, she must have gained an impression of the gulf between Scottish and English building trends. Scotland was, outside of its royal palaces, an architecturally conservative nation. Splendour there was –​in interior decoration –​but, unlike amongst the English nobility, aristocratic Scottish houses had not yet become the magnificent glass and stone, much-​chimneyed showpieces being erected by their southern counterparts. Her Scottish nobility lived only, in fact, in the sort of baronial comfort enjoyed by the English upper gentry. In England, she saw nobles and wealthy lesser elites living like kings and queens. Her future spending was thus, like her husband’s, born of a desire to outdo the proverbial Joneses, and a belief –​an appallingly hard-​ to-​shift belief, to royal officials –​that the sovereign couple of England must truly be richer even than these princely subjects. As the group –​still swelling –​rode on through Nottingham, a pastoral scene was staged, involving shepherds and shepherdesses strewing the road before the royal party with flowers. Huntsmen wearing gold and silver coats drove deer whose horns had been painted with gold leaf, and women dressed as nymphs cavorted in the woods by the side of the road. Anna was no stranger to pageantry, but it was, in her first few years in

4

On 25 December 1600 Livingstone was, on the occasion of the baptism of Prince Charles, created earl of Linlithgow,

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England, to take on a more significant and expensive role in her agenda of consortship than it ever had in Scotland. On arriving at Leicester from Ashby-​de-​la-​Zouche, the current lord mayor and six of his predecessors met the party outside of the town gates, and aldermen joined them, playing the role of footmen in running beside the royal horses as they entered. Once inside, more gifts were presented: another silver cup, this time containing gold nobles, with the usual smaller one for Henry. From Leicester they rode to Dingley Hall, where Sir Thomas Griffin acted as host. Here the queen held court, receiving yet another influx of English ladies. One of these was Lady Anne Clifford, who arrived with her mother, the countess of Cumberland, on the 24th of June, using the friendship of their kinswoman Lady Bedford, whom the pair met with at Rockingham Castle, to gain them credit. Lucy, Lady Bedford, had already established herself in the queen’s affections –​a feat she managed, likely, due to their shared love of the arts and particularly of writing. Anna was as yet a foreigner who did not speak fluent English, and it was through the arts, and particularly poetry, that she would seek to establish herself as a patroness of the English language. She received Lady Anne Clifford with a kiss, and in her diaries, Clifford provides a useful note of who was present: Cecil’s clients, Lady Suffolk, Lady Derby and Lady Walsingham. At this stage, Princess Elizabeth departed with Lady Bedford to visit what would be her future home, Coombe Abbey –​though she would continue the rambling journey her family was making southward for a grand reunion.5 The next stop on the journey was Althorp, which was reached only after a rest at Holdenby House.6 Frequent rests were no doubt becoming necessary –​hundreds of coaches and thousands of horses had by this time joined the royal party, turning the queen’s journey, likely as she wished, into one of the great summer progresses which had been part of Queen Elizabeth’s calendar year. At Althorp, another artistic connection would be made. The host, Sir Robert Spencer, had acquired the services of the London poet and playwright Ben Jonson, who had devised a masque for 5 6

Elizabeth rejoined the court at Windsor; in July, James held her in his arms and invited his courtiers to remark on her beauty. Alternatively known as Holmby.

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the occasion. Jonson had been a client of Lady Bedford, and it appears that his Satyr, which was performed on the lawns in the summer sunshine, won him Anna’s golden opinion. At the outset, a satyr approached the queen and prince directly, stating, ‘That is Cyparissus’s face /​And the dame hath Syrinx grace /​Sure they are of heavenly race’. The paean continued, as a figure playing Queen Mab announced, ‘Hail and welcome fairest queen!’ Curiously, the role of consort was collapsed with that of queen regnant, as a song was sung with the lyrics, ‘Long live Oriana /​To exceed (whom she succeeds) our late Diana’.7 Clearly, the English had no ready analogue for a consort, and the shadow of Queen Elizabeth hung heavy over any iteration of the role of queen. Hunting followed, with Anna successfully killing the two deer which were released by Spencer’s son at the conclusion of the performance. Prince Henry was not forgotten, receiving a gift of a dog ‘of Spartan breed and good’ called Ringwood. England was, at the time, developing a theatrical court convention of including royalty not simply as spectators of elaborate interludes or as objects of veneration (or, in Scotland, censure and counsel) but as players –​ as active parts of the conceit in a manner beyond their simply providing dumb shows and dances. In 1595, the earl of Essex had employed Francis Bacon to pen an interactive drama for the year’s Accession Day festivities. In it, an actor representing Philautia (or ‘self-​love’) broke the fourth wall by imploring the earl to pursue ambitious employment. Through his squire, Essex turned down temptation, drawing the watching Queen Elizabeth into the drama by voicing his devotion to her. This shook the queen, who rose and swept away, remarking that if she had known she was to be the subject she would not have bothered attending. Yet, despite her obvious 7

Ben Jonson, The Works of Ben Jonson, p. 474. Jeremy L. Smith provides a fascinating discussion of the use of Oriana (lover and later wife of the romance hero Amadís de Gaula) in late Elizabethan political discourse. He debunks the idea that Elizabeth was frequently associated with the fecund figure, noting that the association did not become common until Morley’s The Triumphs of Oriana (1601). Jonson was therefore not directly substituting the new queen consort for the dead queen regnant; Anna, as a wife, had better claim to the association than the unmarried Elizabeth, who better fit with Diana. See Jeremy L Smith, ‘Music and Late Elizabethan Politics’, pp. 507–​558.

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distaste for this new form of interactive, topical drama –​or perhaps because of it –​the innovativeness of the form would make it a talking point in London. Queen Anna did not and would not share the late Elizabeth’s disgust at being drawn onto the stage in her subjects’ skits; she, in fact, would seek to control the new form. The party was rapidly outgrowing its various accommodations, and it was decided to move on from Althorp, before the second part of Jonson’s masque could be performed –​a loss that Anna would, in the coming years, remedy. As the ‘infinite number of lords of ladies’ made to leave for Sir George Fermor’s Easton Neston, an allegorical representation of Nobody arrived at the gates of Althorp, leading a ‘morris of clowns’. Further causing delay, a deputation of boys arrived, formed from the sons of the local gentry, addressing their own welcome. After a stay at Easton Neston, where they were reunited with the king, the show was on the road again, this time bound for Anne Clifford’s father’s estate at Grafton, where jousting was to form the entertainment. Here, unfortunately, Clifford notes that her mother and father were all but separated and, despite her pleas, Lady Cumberland could not win the earl’s permission to act as mistress of the house, even on so public an occasion. The ornery Cumberland refused, in fact, to let his wife and daughter sleep under his roof. According to Anne Clifford, the keynote of the progress was youth: a politic choice, given that Queen Elizabeth was dead and England, according to Bishop Godfrey Goodman, ‘generally weary of an old woman’s government’.8 Sadly, this meant that Queen Anna paid little attention to the old guard and instead bestowed her favour upon and leant her ear to the bright young things of her new court. In addition to Lady Bedford, Elizabeth, Lady Hatton and Penelope, Lady Rich (sister of the late earl of Essex, who had survived his downfall, despite his efforts to take her down with him), were marked out for favour. Shown favour at the next stop, Salden House, were also Dorothy, countess of Northumberland (sister to Penelope and the late Essex) and Elizabeth, countess of Southampton (wife to the earl who had been Essex’s great friend and fellow conspirator and who would be restored to favour under the new regime). After this, the grand procession –​about 8

Louis Montrose, The Subject of Elizabeth, p. 212.

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5,000-​people strong –​was now free to drive, clatter, and shuffle onwards to Windsor Castle, about thirty miles upriver from plague-​ridden London. The remarkable progress she had undertaken through England is notable for a number of reasons. Firstly, it again underscores her dedication to her rights as a consort, which she intended to protect as vigorously as she had throughout her life in Scotland. Secondly, and more interestingly, it marks the beginnings of new friendships and associations, both personal and cultural, which would set the note for consortship as she would reinvent it in her southern kingdom. The ride south was a cultural watershed for the queen. Her new friends and various hosts provided a taste of the architectural, visual, and poetic wonders of the English high renaissance. To satisfy her hunger for more, she would have to adapt the role of English consort to that of patroness of these new wonders. England had not seen a queen consort since the 1540s –​not in the lifetimes of most people –​and, as the shape and style of James’s government gradually became clear, it would be for Anna to embark on a process of image-​building (or image-​saving) predicated on the sights she had seen and the contacts she had made on the long, colourful, lyrical ride south.

Our Queen Is a Catholic in Heart

Several issues faced the new royal couple on their succession. The question of how to compose households affected both, and in time James would show himself to be as desirous as his wife of keeping his known servants closest. Religion also loomed large; James and Anna had, after all, been courting Catholic sympathies in the years prior to Elizabeth’s death, and at first the king was keen to retain the goodwill of every section of English society, no matter its religious complexion. The war with Catholic Spain was likewise rumbling on, and James, who always preferred the diplomatic possibilities of peace over the expensive difficulties of war, was keen to end it, much as Queen Elizabeth, on her accession, had been keen to end her sister’s war with France. Most important of all, however, was the necessity of entrenching the new authority quickly. The civic and aristocratic acclamation which the Stuarts had received on the journeys south was welcome, but they did not ensure security on the throne. In March, on Queen Elizabeth’s death, it had already been reported that Catholic priests were declaring that ‘the archduke of Flanders and the infanta are proclaimed king and queen of England’.1 Pageantry, in the form of enacting English ritual, was paramount. The first piece of royal ceremonial intended to mark the new reign took place on the 2nd of July at Windsor Castle, when Prince Henry was invested with the order of the garter. Joining him in this honour were Lennox, the earls of Mar, Southampton and Pembroke and the queen’s brother, the –​ obviously absentee –​Christian IV. Here, James was killing two birds with one stone. By bestowing English honours on Scottish subjects, he was taking the first steps in his pet project of fostering a single British system

1

CSP, James, I, pp. 1–​13.

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of governance, and he was attempting also to ensure good, public relations between England and Denmark.2 With regard to the first of his aims, the king did not get off to an auspicious start. Already, tensions were rising between his Scottish courtiers and his new English ones, and between English courtiers and their English enemies. Most troublesome of all was the newly released –​former Essexian –​earl of Southampton, who does not appear to have learned much from his trial and imprisonment under Queen Elizabeth. At first, he seemed to be doing well, remarking that ‘if [Princess Elizabeth] equals her Majesty some years hence, it will be more, I will be bold to say, than any other princess upon earth will do’.3 However, his charm was superficial. He took the opportunity to resume his feud with Lord Grey of Wilton, whereupon Anna remarked on the troubles caused by Southampton’s late confederate, Essex. The earl retorted (unfairly, given Anna had shown favour to Essex’s sisters), ‘that if her Majesty made herself a party against the friends of Essex, of course, they were bound to submit, but none of their private enemies durst thus have expressed themselves’.4 Lord Grey bristled, and in the queen’s presence, the pair looked set to come to blows. She intervened, reminding them where they were and, with a hauteur worthy of the last queen regnant, she had them marched off under guard to their apartments. James took her part, packing the pair off to the Tower for a spell. More than quarrelling nobles, however, cast a cloud over the new regime. Following this altercation, news spread of the discovery of a plot to oust James as monarch, supposedly with the intention of placing his cousin, Arbella, on the throne. Backed by Spain, the plotters were found to be Lord Grey, Henry Brooke, 11th Lord Cobham and his brother Sir George Brooke. Known as the Main Plot, this ran alongside the Bye Plot (or by, meaning side, plot), in which both Puritans and Catholics were implicated, and, puzzlingly, Sir Walter Raleigh.5 James was more concerned 2

On 19 May he had proclaimed the union of England and Scotland (albeit this would be only a personal union and not anywhere near what he envisioned or wanted). 3 Rosalind K. Marshall, Scottish Queens, p. 13. 4 Strickland, Lives, VII, p. 311. 5 It seems likely that Raleigh, whom James had shown an inclination to dislike and reduce already, became involved only with the hope of learning the details and

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with these plots than in the personal feuds of his new subjects, and he hastily forgave Southampton, upon which Anna wrote, I could not but think it strange than any about your Majesty durst presume to bring near to your Majetie is, one that had offered me such a publicke scorne, for honore gois before lyfe, I must ever thing [think].6

This was honest enough of her; Anna had been and always would be deeply sensitive to the system of monarchy and the curious edifice of honour and deference upon which it was built. Indeed, her partiality towards Spain, which for a time she shared with her husband, was probably more predicated on that country’s strict codes of hierarchy and honour than upon a shared religion. Her complaints had little effect on James, however, who continued to shower the physically attractive Southampton with gifts following the short spell of disfavour, including the keepership of the Isle of Wight and the monopoly on the import of sweet wines (which had once meant so much financially to Essex). Religion, however, was on everyone else’s minds. Towards the end of the month, the bishop of Tricarico, designated by Rome as vice protector of Scotland, England and Ireland, wrote advising the Catholic William Gifford: [He, Gifford] is in the first place to endeavour to compose all remaining differences amongst the English Catholics. He is to exhort them to do nothing against the public peace or anything that may make their religion hateful and suspect. If he can see the queen without offence to the king, he is to assure her of the pope’s paternal affection for her and that he prays for nothing more than that the king whom God has brought to the greatest kingdom on earth may be incorporated in His mystic body, which is the Church, that he may win an everlasting kingdom.7

This suited both James and Anna; it was better that the pope should think he had hopes of winning the former through the latter than that Catholic agents, spies, and dissidents should begin the reign plotting to assassinate denouncing the whole thing to the king, thereby winning credit. Unfortunately for him, it was discovered by the government before he could do so. 6 Strickland, Lives, VII, p. 311. 7 Calendar of the MSS of Salisbury, 15, pp. 193–​224.

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or remove the new monarchy as they had conspired against the old one. Also in July, it was reported to Cecil by Sir John Peyton that Wright, the late banished priest, is come to London, and with him eight more, all young fellows. By chance he light upon me, and I alone have got him a chamber, where his desire is to write books, and, as he saith, upon new matter. In the meantime he saith our queen is a Catholic in heart, and for proof of it, she hath sent unto the Infanta, desiring her to send two Capuchins to Jerusalem to pray for our king and her. And that she therefore hath sent four, whereof two for the king and queen, and two for herself, and further affirmeth that he knoweth there is mutual intelligence between them.8

The rumours thus flying were that both king and queen were closet Catholics, with Anna being whispered of as the primary mover. This was nonsense, but it might be seen as a continuation of the policy both Anna and James had long pursued in Scotland. At any rate, it was certainly the product and consequence of that long flirtation both king and queen –​chiefly the queen –​had had with the Vatican. It suited James to keep the question of religion in the air, and in having Anna as the target for accusations of papistry, he could continue to present himself as the upstanding defender of Protestantism that his upbringing suggested. It was not yet time for him to finally commit himself to any party, so long as both Catholics and Protestants lived in hope. What Cecil, who had engineered the Stuart succession and had as much to lose by its failure as James did, needed was for the king and queen to be swiftly crowned, with the ceremonial accoutrements adding another sense of the Jacobean regime being a fait accompli. As Sybil M. Jack has put it in her definitive account of the ceremony, ‘coronation was the single most important event in any monarch’s life, as the consecration established his or her power and authority’.9 The ideal, of course, would be for the grand triumphal ceremony to take place in tandem with the religious ceremony, but the worsening death rate in London precluded this. Owing to the plague –​which had become one of the worst outbreaks in years, leaving thousands dead in the city –​the decision was taken to hold the ceremony 8 9

Ibid. Sybil M. Jack, ‘A Pattern for a King’s Inauguration’, p. 67.

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with reduced attendees and delay the concomitant festivities.10 Henry and Elizabeth were sent to the relative safety of Oatlands Palace in Surrey and the king and queen went downriver as far as Hampton Court. Rather than lodging in the Tower of London the night before the ceremony before proceeding to Westminster Abbey through the city, James and Anna elected to lodge at St James’s Palace, where the king could hold the customary pre-​coronation dubbing of the knights of the Bath. All was somewhat ad hoc: as Jack notes, ‘the commission for making knights of the Bath –​who had to sit in vigil on the eve of the coronation –​was not issued until 22 July, two days before the knights needed to be ready’.11 On the 25th of July, ‘the day dedicated to the apostle for whom he was named, St James the Greater’, the weather also proved disobliging. The sound of bells, which had rung out from Westminster Abbey for twenty-​ four hours, was suddenly drowned out. Torrential rain fell, thundering down on the barge which carried James and Anna from Whitehall Stairs the short distance to Westminster, and it continued to drench the canopies overhead as they processed on foot to the abbey. Anna had her own train: she went in a robe of crimson velvet with her seemly hair down hanging on her princely shoulders and on her head a coronet of plain gold, followed by the ladies of her household in their crimson velvet robes. She so mildly saluted her new subjects that the women, weeping, cried out with one voice, ‘God bless the royal queen. Welcome to England. Long to live and continue.12

One suspects that this was, in reality, a more meagre turnout than the last queen consort to be crowned –​Anne Boleyn –​had received, given the scenes taking place in the plague-​ridden city. The keynote of the ceremony was tradition, and it followed the precepts laid out in the Liber regalis. The abbey itself was prepared with a curtained ‘pulpit’ (or stage), two thrones of estate ( James’s being set higher) and tiring rooms erected in St Edward’s chapel. All three parts of the ceremony –​the Election, the Consecration, and the Enthronement –​were conducted 10 1 1 12

Strict limits were imposed on the numbers of guests, with earls allowed sixteen attendants and bishops and lords ten. Jack, ‘A Pattern for a King’s Inauguration’, p. 81. David M. Bergeron, Royal Family, p. 71.

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with due ceremony, with John Whitgift, archbishop of Canterbury, presiding and Thomas Bilson, bishop of Winchester, preaching the sermon. The only misstep the king made was by allowing a young nobleman who had caught his eye, Philip Herbert, to step forward and kiss him during the acts of homage. Thereafter, the sacrament of communion took place, and it is here that one of Anna’s much-​discussed actions, seemingly anti-​ reformist actions occurred. When the archbishop came to give her communion, as the ritual demanded, she refused it. This is often taken as proof that she had, by this time, converted to Catholicism. At the time, it was certainly enough to add spice to those scurrilous claims that she was a secret papist. Yet, as we have seen, she was frantically denying genuine conversion in the weeks prior to leaving Scotland, and James himself accepted that she did not pursue ‘any papist or Spanish course’. If Anna were genuinely a secret Catholic and wished to remain one, she would have either gone through with the communion and repented of it or found some means of avoiding the ceremony in advance. She would hardly have gone through the whole ritual only to draw attention to herself at one of its most conspicuous moments. Her refusal, therefore, is likely not to have been a moment of wild Catholic conviction but rather a deliberate public display intended to keep the ball in the air. Catholic friends she might have had, but she was anything but a doctrinaire and the last thing she wanted was to compromise herself, and thus follow the path of consorts who had engaged in politico-​religious argument (and been threatened for it). Nor did she wish to potentially lose her family’s rights in what would inevitably be a bloody and tumultuous reconversion of England. Most importantly, however, her rejection of the Eucharist need not have troubled her even as a Lutheran, given that that that faith’s doctrine held that the Eucharist itself was of far less importance spiritually than the words of the service (and Anna was always an assiduous listener). Thus, she could make her visible refusal and be considered –​usefully –​as a Catholic whilst remaining confessionally a Lutheran.13 Both she and James cannot but have known that observers would likely leap to the former conclusion: they could thereby ensure that Catholic observers 13

Thomas H. Schattauer, ‘From Sacrifice to Supper’, p. 227.

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would remain hopeful of the queen whilst retaining deniability on the grounds of Lutheran observance. As evidence that Anna was up to some connivance with James’s approval, we might consider the obvious: he elicited no recorded reaction, whether anger at or denial of his wife’s apparent and overt reluctance to accept Anglican rites. Further, as time would prove, Robert Cecil’s earlier distrust of the queen reversed –​they became quite companionable –​rather than deepened. A tireless hunter of Catholics and Catholic plotters, it seems inconceivable that he would develop a good working relationship with Anna if her actions had truly been renegade; indeed, he stated quite firmly that she was not a Catholic.14 That James had been friendly to Catholics recently was not in doubt. The Venetian diplomat, Scaramelli, had reported in May that ‘the king continues to support those houses and persons who were oppressed by the late queen … he was afraid of the queen’s intentions and of the negative attitude of the English people towards his succession’.15 Near the end of that month, he reported that the queen, whose father was a Martinist [Lutheran], and who had always been a Lutheran herself, became a Catholic, owing to three Scottish Jesuits, one of whom came from Rome, the others from Spain. Although in public she went to the heretical Church with her husband, yet in private she observed the Catholic rite. With the king’s consent the mass was sometimes secretly celebrated for her. He is much attached to her, and she has obtained leave to bring up her only daughter, a girl of eight, as a Catholic. In order to secure the Protestant education of Prince Henry, the king has kept him far away from his mother; and on his departure he left the prince in Stirling Castle in charge of the countess of Mar, whose husband is the prince’s governor.16

Such were the rumours; such was the success of James and Anna’s exploitation of her Catholic sympathies. Abercromby (who had not yet made his own claims to have converted her) was here morphed into three foreign Jesuits. An imaginary bargain had been struck which would allow the princess to be raised a Catholic. Even the rumours of Anna taking 1 4 15 16

Loomie, ‘King James I’s Catholic Consort’, p. 306. CSP, Venice, 10, pp. 16–​29, 34. CSP, Venice, 10, pp. 28–​42, 66.

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some water to bring on her recent miscarriage had grown –​Scaramelli would go on to report that she ‘flew into a violent fury, and four months gone with child as she was, she beat her own belly’.17 It is somewhat surprising that Scaramelli seemed unable or unwilling to connect James’s fear of the English reaction to his succession with his and Anna’s courting of Catholic opinion, and instead chose to take the latter at face value. If Anna and James (and probably Cecil) were working in concert and using Anna as the proverbial carrot to keep Catholics occupied and docile, it worked. By September, a papal nuncio was writing to James, Moreover, his Holiness has made good offices with the Most Christian and Most Catholic Kings and other princes for peace and a good understanding with you. This good will of the pope has always been growing, so that I know he will not cease to strive to make it more apparent to you and will secure as far as humanly possible that no harm befalls you from Catholics. He will remove from these countries all who are turbulent and mutinous and chastise the disobedient and seditious not only with ecclesiastical but also with temporal pains. He has already ordered all Catholics to revere and obey you.18

James, worried about the plots that had surrounded his otherwise smooth succession, could hardly have asked for more. Indeed, to some it had worked too well. By November, the reports of one Henry Buckberd, who had overheard an Irishman called Grougham, were being forwarded to Cecil: [Buckberd] saith that Dennys Grougham, being at supper at his home a little before the coronation, upon speech had touching the continuance of the Gospel by his Majesty’s coming to the crown, said that the king did but counterfeit to get the people’s good will, until he was crowned; for before he came hither both he and the queen were papists, and so afterwards would prove a rank papist and his queen too; and further, that he would hardly come to his crown, but if he did the said Dennys would lose his head if his Majesty continued half a year after.19

1 7 18 19

Ibid. Calendar of the MSS of Salisbury, 15, pp. 243–​253. Calendar of the MSS of Salisbury, 15, pp. 187. 127.

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Grougham was right in that James and Anna were counterfeiting to get the people’s goodwill, but it was not that they were papists; they simply did not want Catholics attempting to unseat them from St Edward’s chair before James had had the chance to grow comfortable on it. Following this piece of theatre, and with the ceremony over, the party left in procession for the banqueting hall for the conclusion of the coronation. When all was over, they moved on to ruinous Woodstock, whilst preparations were made for a tour of the sweeter airs of southern England. Lord Buckhurst, the lord treasurer, meanwhile, was set upon what would have been of inestimable interest to Anna: the discovery of what were her rights in terms of jointure lands, the revenues of which were –​optimistically –​to cover wages, apparel, and annuities for those in her service. Interestingly, to discover what a foreign-​born queen consort was entitled to, he skipped Anna of Cleves –​whose history of landholdings was complicated by her legal adoption of the title of the king’s sister, and who was in any case only a duke’s daughter –​and went back to Katherine of Aragon. On the 17th of August, Buckhurst explained to Cecil, probably at the secretary’s prodding, that I have not forgotten the business of the queen’s jointure, and notwithstanding the dispersing of the auditors, yet have I sent pursuivants unto them all, as also to divers other officers from whom I have received good light. The present value of the jointure of Queen Katherine of Spain, and what is not in present charge, cannot be known but from all the auditors, from some of whom I have already received answers, but not from all. I have not slacked to send both to them and their deputies … I presently dispatched sundry messengers to divers officers and all the auditors; the return of which, as many as I have, I send now to you, to the end you may see what is done, and inform the king and queen accordingly. I daily expect the certificate of the rest of the auditors, which as soon as they come I will send.20

It is possible to feel some sympathy for him. Yet what is interesting is that Anna’s role was being considered, in the English legal context, as one based strictly on precedent. This is something which Scotland had not offered her, as James had had a somewhat elastic view of tradition and custom, stretching it only as far as suited him. Naturally, Anna was satisfied with 20 Calendar of the MSS of Salisbury, 15, pp. 225–​243.

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her property rights being modelled on a predecessor rather than on her husband’s whim. When King Christian showed an interest in protecting her rights, she thanked him for ‘the care you have had concerning our jointure … [which was such as] King Henry the Eighth, king of England, gave to Queen Katherine, daughter of Spain, in which we have not only had our desire to imitate her that was born a king’s daughter, but his Majesty hath ordained in all other things thereunto belonging so as we are satisfied in the point of honour to be used according to our rank’.21 Unlike in Scotland, her honour as a consort was being satisfied rather than slighted. However, she had no intention of following Katherine of Aragon (who had been a patroness of intellectual humanism and lived her daily life according to an abbreviated breviary) in other respects. Rather, with her property secure, Anna would seek to expand and innovate upon the role of queen consort, making it her own. Her English property portfolio, in any case, initially amounted to the non-​revenue-​yielding Somerset House and Nonsuch Palace, and more lucrative Pontefract Castle and Havering-​ atte-​Bower.22 She would be entitled to £6376 a year with which to run her household –​a sum which she would vastly outspend in her efforts to innovate.23 Assisting her was Sir Thomas Chaloner, whose governorship of her estates would prove of political value; as Chaloner also governed Prince Henry’s household, this kept alive a vital link between queen and heir. Anna also swiftly appointed Robert Sidney her lord high chamberlain and surveyor, whilst his son went to Prince Henry: again, the channels of communication between consort and heir were to be far better than they had been in Scotland. On the 11th of August, the royal couple travelled to Loseley Park, before moving on to Farnham Castle, where they stayed for three nights as the guests of the bishop of Winchester. From there, they went to Thruxton 2 1 Calendar of the MSS of Salisbury, 15, pp. 345–​398. 22 Havering-​atte-​Bower was also ‘one of the traditional manors assigned to English queens’. Though it is not mentioned in the jointure for Anna, the Crown certainly claimed it; after Anna’s death, investigations would be made into those intruding on its lands. In time, the list of Anna’s properties would grow to include Hatfield (in Hertford) in 1607, Oatlands (in Surrey) in 1611, and Greenwich (in Kent) in 1614. 23 Calendar of the MSS of Salisbury, 15, pp. 345–​398.

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House, and then on to Wilton House, where the 3rd earl of Pembroke –​ brother to Philip Herbert, James’s inamorato at the coronation –​played host. Thereafter, the tour continued to the 1st earl of Hertford’s Tottenham House in Wiltshire; Dorothy Unton’s Wadley House in Berkshire; and Lawrence Tanfield’s Burford Priory in Oxfordshire. It is difficult to escape the impression that both James and Anna were engaged not simply in avoiding the plague, but in impressing themselves on magnates in the localities. Though entertaining the sovereign was an expensive business, it was, as the late Elizabeth had known, an honour bestowed on those chosen to act as hosts. Anna herself then remained for a while at Basing House, where she was hosted by the Paulet family. Here, she watched, amused, as the elderly Charles Howard, 1st earl of Nottingham (who had acted as steward during the coronation) began courting one of her ladies, Margaret Stewart. Anna wrote, Your Majesty’s letter was welcome to me. I have been as glad of the fair weather as yourself and the last part of your letter, you have guessed right that I would laugh –​ who would not laugh –​both at the persons and the subject but the more at so well chosen Mercury between Mars and Venus? You know that women can hardly keep counsel. I humbly desire your Majesty to tell me how it is possible that I should keep this secret that have already told it and shall tell it to as many as I speak with, and if I were a poet I would make a song of it and sing it to the tune of Three Fools Well Met.24

This was a playful, affectionate letter. Claims of incontinence of speech were common enough misogynistic attacks on prominent women, and that she was unable to keep a secret was an accusation levelled against Anna often enough. It was untrue. If she had been unable to dissemble and prone to divulging every thought, her religious beliefs, for example, would be far easier to pin down. Her relationship with James, further, remained open and honest, and at this point we see them again acting in concert. Both were deeply invested in having their new English nobility integrate with their Scottish subjects, and cross-​border marriages and courtships were something they encouraged. 24 Howitt, Biographical Sketches, p. 431.

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Anna arrived at Winchester in September and James joined her two days later. Already, the queen was developing what would swiftly become her most famous role as consort: patroness of the arts. Prince Henry and Princess Elizabeth, who had been moved to Nonsuch from Oatlands, were reunited with their parents at Winchester. Here, in the space of eighteen days, another masque, Prince Henry’s Welcome at Winchester, was got together. The result was unimpressive, by the standards of the day. To the French ambassador it was certainly ‘rustic’, or unsophisticated, and Anne Clifford notes, somewhat hyperbolically, that as a result ‘the queen herself was much fallen from her former greatness and reputation she had in the world’.25 Little is known about it and the text does not survive, but it appears to have been an entertainment provided for the family (a term which then encompassed households). It is probably fair at this stage to say that Anna did not emerge onto the cultural scene with a fully formed understanding of the masque form, nor of its political import, and that her error was in staging a pedestrian performance without realising that there was no such thing as private, domestic entertainment in an English royal household. One figure resident at Winchester who viewed the proceedings with jaundiced eyes was Arbella Stuart, who found the whole thing ‘ridiculous’ and who was in any case disinclined to enjoy courtly entertainments. Devoted to study, the king’s cousin was steeped in the traditions of Renaissance learning, which prized classical histories, rhetoric and logic. She was, further, perpetually aggrieved, having been virtually imprisoned by her grandmother under Elizabeth and, worse, having been raised –​and exceedingly well educated –​with the expectation that she might one day be queen regnant herself. Anna, who was rapidly becoming a lover of popular literature, was not a student of the classics; in this she was, however, in the avant-​garde of learning (English literature as an academic discipline would not, after all, be recognised for centuries; even the seculares literas prized study of esoteric foreign texts as a scholastic endeavour). Derisive of the ‘childs plays’ of the court, Arbella thus probably approved of Princess Elizabeth being removed from the jollity to what would be her home for the next several years: Coombe Abbey. If Anna was sorry to 25

Anne Clifford, Diaries, p. 27.

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see her daughter –​who appeared to be taking after her grandmother, Mary Queen of Scots, in developing into a willowy beauty –​there is no record of it. Anna was an affectionate mother, and it is evident she loved her children, but she was never covetous of them unless it was for political reasons, and she generally followed the standards of the time in allowing them to be brought up elsewhere without complaint. It was certainly English custom that royal children be granted their own households and raised in them, and here Anna was happy enough: she was not being denied any rights but rather allowing her daughter to enjoy her own. Neither the removal of her daughter nor the sneering comments on her masque at Winchester appeared to trouble her. After returning to Wilton House in October, Anna redoubled her artistic efforts, connecting closely with Ben Jonson and Samuel Daniel (recommended by Pembroke and Lady Bedford), who would figure largely in her future productions. Soon enough, she would begin employing the architect and designer Inigo Jones, who had consulted with King Christian on works at Rosenborg and Frederiksborg. At Wilton, on the 2nd of December, Shakespeare’s company, the King’s Men, was hired to perform before the king and queen.26 This was a politic move, at least in terms of presenting herself publicly. As a foreigner, patronising the leading lights of the public stage –​who were then invested in promoting English as a language equal to continental romance languages –​allowed the queen to associate herself deeply with her new country’s vibrant literary scene. Anna of Denmark, queen of Scots would swiftly become Anna of the English language, as it was then being promulgated eloquently and to popular acclaim by men like Jonson –​and her attempts would see vindication, for example, in her Italian tutor John Florio’s dedicatory Queen Anna’s New World of Words (1611). Thus far, these expensive entertainments were largely borne by the hosts. Even so, Cecil had already lamented the eye-​watering expenses being run up by the new royal family, so used was he to the parsimonious Elizabeth who had only her own household to trouble the privy purse. During the Christmas Revels, which took place at the magnificent Hampton Court, money was poured into staging more masques, a play 26 Tradition claims As You Like It as the play performed but this is far from certain.

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called Robin Goodfellow (an alias of Puck), and Samuel Daniel’s The Vision of the Twelve Goddesses, which was staged on Sunday the 8th of January 1604. In this, the ladies of the queen’s court would perform, and, famously, Anna would take to the stage herself, appearing as Pallas. A scandalised Arbella noted that, to create the elaborate costumes, the late Queen Elizabeth’s wardrobe was ransacked, her gowns being cut up and refashioned for the new consort’s performance. Over the Christmas period, too, James ordered Lord Knyvett to dig into sealed coffers of the late queen in search of jewels, with a number of chests being brought from Westminster to Hampton Court to be broken open and examined. The symbolism is striking. Anna was not usurping Elizabeth’s place so much as staking a claim: consortship in England would not be an invisible position but a highly public and politically significant one. In the course of the Christmas Revels, the courtier Roger Wilbraham noted that ‘the French, Spanish, and Polonian ambassadors were severallie solemplie feasted, many plaies & daunces with swordes, one mask by English & Scottish lords, another by the queen’s Maiestie & eleven more ladies of her chamber presenting giftes as goddesses’.27 Evidently, Anna had realised that her growing artistic tastes could provide an adjunct to her husband’s political machinations, much as her Catholic sympathies had done. Before long, foreign ambassadors were fighting for places in the audience, and the Spanish ambassador saw enough value in what was being staged to send a copy of The Vision to Philip III. Nor had those Catholic sympathies been forgotten. In January 1604, James held his Hampton Court Conference, during which he adopted his favourite role of the learned theologian. His goal was to respond to the complaints of those influential Puritans who were, quite naturally, suspicious of what they felt were the deficiencies of the Elizabethan settlement and the sneaking papistry of the colourful, display-​loving court. The great fruit of the conference was not, however, a lasting tolerance or accord but the King James Authorised Bible; in terms of doctrinal and ecclesiastical polity, neither the reformist nor the Catholic factions in England found were satisfied by the debates and arguments tabled at Hampton Court. 27

Miles Hadfield and John Hadfield, The Twelve Days of Christmas, p. 94.

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James’s desire to make clear his own staunch Protestantism whilst courting Catholic foreign powers would, eventually, test the patience of one side or another, although which side would snap first was not yet apparent. For the moment, the importance of establishing their roles –​king as absolute governor and religious head and queen as the public face of the monarchy –​was paramount. Anna’s passion for the court masque had begun. In the coming years, these productions would allow her to play a political role and to distribute patronage amongst artistic clients and the ladies of her court. Yet this new role –​that of the dazzling, bejewelled figure whose ethereal performances would act as the early modern equivalent of a modern government’s public relations department –​would invite her longest-​lasting criticisms. The sight of Prince Henry being tossed ‘from hand to hand like a tennis ball’ and ‘the court being a continued masquerade, where the queen and her ladies, like so many sea nymphs or nereids, often appeared in various dresses to the ravishment of the beholders’ was invariably going to scandalise more conservative courtiers used to the previous reign. These were the same chambers and halls in which Elizabeth had walked, danced, and held court; comparisons were inevitable. Criticism was, however, another high price Anna deemed worth paying in her efforts to refashion a role which had lain dormant for decades.

Blessed Are the Peacemakers

Supporting Anna’s new role was her learned council –​a body peculiar to English queens consort, which oversaw their properties. This comprised an auditor, chancellor, clerk, attorney and keeper of the council chamber.1 The semi-​official body had existed for centuries and was tasked with seeing to the queen’s landholdings, and over the course of the sixteenth century it had grown apart from the consort’s household, thereby offering wider opportunities to distribute patronage and preferment.2 The extent to which an individual consort took an interest in the goings on of her council as it operated as a quasi-​judicial body, listening to tenants’ complaints and arbitrating in disputes, was variable, but the opportunity was there. It also provided explicitly for the queen consort to be legally designated a femme sole; or, in other words, writs went out under the consort’s name as an independent legal player as far as the king’s law allowed: she was ‘able to transact business in her own name and to sue and plead in the royal courts’.3 This differed, in legal parlance, from a femme covert, or a woman metaphorically covered by the identity of her husband. However, one should be wary of attributing too much to legal niceties. Anna’s learned council provided both a means by which she could act independently and by which her husband could avoid taking on the burdensome responsibility of paying for her household, being chased for her debts and governing her lands. In practice, her autonomy was limited to her sphere of property and estate holdings and always subject to the king’s potential interference; her independence of action was not secured by her enjoying the legal status of a femme sole. Nevertheless, as she was by 1 2 3

Carolly Erickson, Great Harry, p. 26. Dakota Hamilton, ‘The Learned Councils of the Tudor Queens Consort’, pp. 87–​101. Retha Warnicke, Elizabeth of York and Her Six Daughters-​in-​Law, p. 66.

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now expert in property management, the opportunity existed for Anna to make the most of her council’s operations in the sphere of land ownership: an area of genuine interest to her. Leading it would be Robert Cecil, as high steward of revenue, and the lawyer-​courtier Roger Wilbraham as chancellor.4 Hunchbacked and unpopular, Cecil was possessed of a remarkable mind, an eye for women, and an inveterate hatred of Catholic plots and plotters –​of anything, in fact, which threatened the stability of England and his own position within it. Despite his older brother’s glowing reports of Anna at Berwick, the principal secretary had distrusted his new queen as both a potential papist and a supposedly loquacious woman. The issue of the queen’s alleged Catholicism flared up again early in 1604, when the spy Anthony Standen was caught attempting to smuggle beads and other Catholic items into the country, supposedly for the queen. Standen was a thoroughly slippery figure whose career dated back to James’s paternal grandmother, Margaret Douglas, Lady Lennox. He had gone on to serve Darnley and Mary Queen of Scots, and, in the forty years between then and his arrest in 1604, he had served such varied personalities as Philip II, Francis Walsingham and the 2nd earl of Essex. The question of exactly what his loyalties were, if he had any, has given rise to much scholarly debate. In 1603, James sent him to announce the union of the crowns in Florence and Venice. Standen, however, found his way to Rome, hoping to form a bridge between the new queen and the Vatican which might lead to the reconversion of England (a bridge, it barely needs to be stressed, that a spy would hardly be needed for had Anna already converted). Writing to Father Persons, Standen himself claimed, ‘she ys very assyduous at sermons, so that I am in a stagger what shall become of my tokens’.5 He did not, evidently, know what Anna’s true religious views were, but hoped that she might be won to Rome.

4

5

Included also were Southampton as master of game; Viscount Lisle as surveyor general; George Carew as receiver general; Robert Hitcham as her attorney; Ralph Ewens as auditor general; and Lancelot Lowther as solicitor. Keepers, underkeepers, clerks and serjeants at law were also provided. CSP, James, 5, Addenda, pp. 433–​435.

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At any rate, the spy was caught, arrested, imprisoned and his collection of Catholic items sent to Paris, to be returned by the papal nuncio. The French ambassador, the count of Beaumont, suspected that Standen had, all along, been a tool of the king, who wished the Vatican to think well of him and his succession (and thus to encourage English Catholics to follow suit). He was very probably right. If so, Anna’s 1606 letter to Christina of Lorraine, grand duchess of Tuscany, recommending ‘her subject and servant Anthony Standen, travelling in Italy to quiet his conscience and exercise his religion’, is less provocative than it might appear, and Standen’s own claims to have been representing James at the Vatican might have been true.6 The queen likely was working in concert with her husband to have a former servant (and potential troublemaker if he were left to live in England) recommended for service abroad. We might read in her pleading on his behalf a resurrection of the mediaeval practice of intercessional patronage, whereby a queen could instigate ‘grants, pardons, and appointments for servants’.7 What seems provocative might therefore have been conservative. If intercession had been shorn of its iconographic accoutrements, it had hardly become extinct, and it continued to be of use to both king and queen. What makes this seem obvious is that, again, Cecil appears not to have had any problem with the queen. We can thus conclude that, at some point between his distrust of Anna prior to James’s succession and his installation as a chief officer in her council (and in her husband’s privy council), he learned of the policy behind the royal couple’s tentative pro-​Catholic appearances. The secretary and the queen thus began to develop a good working relationship, and it appears that he began to see the value of the more demonstrative public role she was making of consortship, even if he could never accept its expense. One of the greatest expenses still draining the treasury was, however, something that Queen Elizabeth had left behind: the war with Spain. This James was determined to end. A more immediate cost, however, arose with 6 7

Meikle contends that Anna provocatively wrote the letter due to her Catholicism. See Meikle, ‘Once a Dane?’, p. 176. Benz, ‘Queen Consort, Queen Mother’, p. 86.

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the staging of the much-​delayed triumphal entry to London. This took place in March, when the number of plague deaths had declined. A day or two after the king and queen had visited the Royal Exchange, James, Anna, and Prince Henry were lodged in the royal apartments at the Tower, before commencing their ride through the city to Whitehall on the 15th of March. As usual, elaborate pageants were enacted at principal stops along the way, and enormous wooden-​and-​canvas triumphal arches had been set up, painted and surmounted with statues and gilt. Actors were hired to play the king of the Britons, the ‘Genius’ of the city, St Andrew and St George. From the Tower, the procession –​including judges, nobles, ecclesiastics, knights and ladies –​went up Mark Lane and along Gracechurch Street, moving through the city from there. In a ride which lasted six hours, Prince Henry preceded James, who rode a white jennet under a canopy supported by gentlemen of his chamber. Anna came next, in a carriage drawn by six white mules, and behind her came Arbella Stuart. As had been the case at the queen’s entry into Edinburgh, this ceremony provided a chance for the civic authorities to lay out their expectations of her. Chief amongst them were a desire for peace and increased trade –​these voiced particularly by those foreign merchants who set out tableaux representing their provinces. Peace with Spain, in particular, was much on James’s mind in the months that followed his formal entry into his new capital. His desire was to formalise a treaty, the discussion of which began in May and, accordingly, Juan de Velasco, constable of Castile, arrived in the summer to begin negotiations. Anna also had her own part to play. The Spaniard Juan de Tassis, 1st count of Villamediana, had been present in England over Christmas and had in fact been involved in an altercation with the French count of Beaumont over precedence of invitation to Anna’s masque. The dispute had rumbled on into March.8 The queen, who was rapidly becoming a Hispanophile, was thus eager to encourage her husband’s policy. This was not unusual or unprecedented. Katherine of Aragon had always encouraged Henry VIII whenever he swayed towards the Spanish interest, especially when it might 8

On March the 26th it was reported that ‘none of the Ambassadors were present at any of these festivities [the coronation celebrations], owing to the quarrel for precedence between France and Spain’. See CSP, Venice, 10, pp. 134–​140, 201.

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mean a Spanish match for her daughter Mary, and Anne Boleyn had likewise encouraged her husband in his pro-​French moods. When de Tassis enquired as to whether Anna’s own Somerset House would be available to house de Velasco, ‘his Majesty replied laughing, “The ambassador must ask my wife, who is the mistress.” ’ Anna, for her part, ‘readily assented’.9 The royal couple were, as so often was the case, working in tandem. The Spanish envoys arrived to finalise the treaty in the middle of August, and Anna watched from a barge alongside Cecil –​now Baron Essenden –​as they sailed upriver to Westminster. As was becoming his wont, James was at the time hunting from his new lodge at Royston, and so the earl of Suffolk was required to step in to welcome the Spaniards. When the king returned to London, the Somerset House Conference, as it came to be known, began in earnest, with the newly created 1st earl of Dorset leading the English quiver of lords (Nottingham, Devonshire, Northampton and Essenden) against the Spanish, led by de Velasco and comprising de Tassis, Alessandro Robida, Charles de Ligne, Jean Richardot and Louis Verryken. Discussions of trade with Spanish colonies and aid to Dutch Protestants were on the table and proved thorny, but the Treaty of London was signed on the 16th of August. The long, financially exhausting war between Spain and England, which had been going on for nearly two decades, was over. As a reward, Cecil was elevated from Baron Essenden to Viscount Cranborne and Anna received, as a gift from de Velasco, a crystal cup shaped like a dragon and garnished with gold. Prince Henry was not forgotten, receiving a Spanish horse –​nor was he far from the Spaniards’ minds; de Tassis was soon charged with floating the idea of marriage between the English heir and the Spanish infanta.10 Though this would come to nothing –​when it became clear the Spanish intended it to result in Henry’s being converted to Catholicism and sent to live in Spain –​both Anna and James voiced initial enthusiasm, which would be revived at various points and in various ways in later years. Throughout the year, another prince remained in Anna’s thoughts. Charles was still in Scotland. The royal physician, Henry Atkins, had been 9 10

CSP, Venice, 10, pp. 140–​148, 207. Samuel Rawson Gardiner, Prince Charles and the Spanish Marriage, I, p. 6.

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sent north, and reported back that the prince was gaining in bodily strength and was now able ‘to walk like a gallant soldier, all alone’. This had encouraged the queen, and, despite the dour prognostications of other experts, Charles was able to join her in London in August, before being given into the care of Sir Robert Carey, who was due the honour for having first ridden north to tell the king of Queen Elizabeth’s death. Carey found his charge to be weak, giving the lie to Atkins, and noted James’s desire that the ‘string’ under the boy’s tongue be cut to allow him to speak more clearly. Anna, to her credit, would not hear of this. The operation was not carried out, and the prince continued to develop; he was made duke of York on Twelfth Night with his tongue intact, albeit he had to be carried in Nottingham’s arms. The royal family was further enlarged –​temporarily –​by another visit from Anna’s brother, Duke Ulrik, who arrived in November. The king and queen had last seen him when he had visited Edinburgh. Then, he had refused to drink Queen Elizabeth’s health; now, he was the guest of her successors. As always, there were political benefits to the visits of members of the extended royal family. If Elizabeth had been without notable foreign relatives, Anna had a clutch of them, and the arrival of the duke allowed for another round of visible public display, with England being shown that its new monarchs were part of a continental network rather than rulers of an isolated groups of islands. England was, assuredly, now at peace, and it was time for her to take advantage of it by positioning herself as a nation rich in connections and powerful friends. The only problem was that the hard-​drinking Ulrik was not a particularly personable or diplomatic figure. King James, for all his affairs, was never jealous when his young male lovers married –​in fact, he encouraged them to. When, in late December, the feckless young Philip Herbert wed Susan de Vere, daughter of the 17th earl of Oxford, however, Ulrik threatened the tranquillity of the marriage celebrations by taking offence at the Venetian ambassador being seated on the king’s right, whilst he himself was relegated to his sister’s left. In a fury, he elected to stand throughout the masque, Juno and Hymenaeus, which was staged as entertainment. This episode was largely overshadowed by what has become the most famous event of Anna’s career as a dilettante. On Twelfth Night of 1605, in the Banqueting Hall at Whitehall, was staged the latest Ben

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Jonson-​authored masque commissioned by the queen. This was his Masque of Blackness, which featured Anna as Euphoris, Lady Bedford as Aglaia and a host of other court ladies in various roles. The masque cost around £3,000 and was notable not only for its cast, but for the way in which they were dressed and made up. Rather than wearing black masks, as courtly ladies had in the past, those appearing in this production were ‘painted black, which was a Disguise sufficient, for they were hard to be known’ –​and, complained Dudley Carleton, ‘you cannot imagine a more ugly sight than a troop of lean cheek’d Moors’.11 This, amongst all of the queen’s masques, has received the most critical attention over the centuries. Andrea Stevens has, however, astutely noted that the decision to wear black paint was not necessarily Anna’s, as nothing in Jonson’s annotation to his text indicates how or why vizards were rejected in favour of makeup. The playwright does, though, note that ‘it was her Majesty’s will to have them blackamores at first’ though ‘the invention was derived by me’.12 In other words, it appears that Anna came up with the ideas for her productions and then handed over the reins to those best suited to them: for the words, to the writer; for the sets, to the designer. Anna had, as we have seen, a long and enduring history with the usage of blackness in public display. Never before, however, had she appeared in black makeup herself, and with her ladies similarly painted. In this curious innovation, it is possible that she was attempting to draw attention both to her differences from and her similarities to her new subjects. The plot of the drama, dense though it is when shorn of the spectacle which was crucial to the form, revolves around the daughters of Niger who, on realising that paleness is the apex of beauty, search the world for a place in which to be bleached white in the teeth of their father’s defence of blackness.13 Seeking advice from Aethiopia, they are told that by bathing in sea dew and appearing before the king of Britannia, they might –​by

1 1 12 13

Elliot H. Tokson, The Popular Image of the Black Man, p. 7. Jonathan Israel Shiff, Rhetoric at Play, p. 150. Masque texts are notoriously dry and difficult to read, likely because much of the awe they produced in spectators derived from the use of costume, innovative stage machinery and elaborate sets.

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his ‘light sciential’ –​be whitened and beautified. Stevens makes the convincing argument that ‘the very materials of blackface performance help redefine whiteness and blackness in the context of an emerging British nationalism’.14 This was certainly Jonson’s aim. But was it Anna’s? That is more difficult to guess, as the extent of her direct involvement in shaping the poetic content of her masques is unclear. What seems reasonable, however, is that the queen was conscious that she was a foreigner and yet conscious too that she was of the same ethnicity as her new subjects, who were themselves ethnically the same as her subjects north of the border. By appearing with her English ladies –​the Scottish Margaret Stewart, by then countess of Nottingham, was excused due to illness –​she drew attention to what bound her and her aristocratic women together, at the same time as she played around with the concept of a difference larger than all of them. In this way, the masque supported James’s conception of a single British state, with himself and his family at its head and the people of both nations united under his rule. Impossible to ignore also is the underpinning of the use of blackface by White performers of any generation: it has always involved appropriating alterity with the knowledge –​shared by the audience –​that it is a façade which the white wearer can and will cast off. These daughters of Niger were, in fact, seeking to do just that in their quest for white conformity. The criticism Anna and the masque received was stronger than that which she had faced for the meagre display she had held at Winchester. It seems, therefore, that she again took this into account, and she did not stage another until 1608. Probably this was a decision spurred too by Ben Jonson’s disgrace; later in 1605, he was briefly imprisoned for his Eastward Hoe, which satirised the newly arrived Scottish elites. What Duke Ulrik made of his sister’s performance in Jonson’s masque is not recorded. During his visit, however, he offended Anna so much that she had him barred from her apartments, which caused him to become abusive. This was only partly healed by James who, revelling in his role as peacemaker, brokered a reconciliation between brother and sister.

14

Andrea Stevens, Inventions of the Skin, pp. 99–​100.

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What was becoming apparent was that Ulrik had reasons of his own for visiting England. His mission was to raise an army of English mercenaries to carry into Hungary. In January 1605, it was reported that the duke ‘urges renewal of the war with Spain’.15 With dark rumours of ghostly armies clashing in the Borders filtering south, this war-​talk was hardly welcome to the peace-​loving king or his wife. The trust James placed in Anna despite her brother is, however, noteworthy. Given his long sojourns at the hunt, it was important that affairs of state continued smoothly. Tellingly, he commanded that ‘during his absence for necessary recreation, [his privy counsellors] are to assemble weekly at the queen’s court, to transact business’.16 It is sometimes suggested that, on arriving in England, the royal couple led separate lives. This was evidently not the case, and the pair continued to work well together, if extravagantly. It was, moreover, apparent in early 1605 that Anna was again pregnant, meaning funds would have to be found for another household. This would be the first royal child born to a reigning monarch in England since Henry VIII and Jane Seymour had produced Prince Edward, and the competition for places was as pressing as the rush to uncover the rituals and ceremonies appropriate to the occasion. Anna, after much deliberation, chose one Alice Dennis as her midwife and went into labour in April. The baby –​a girl, named Mary –​was born on the 8th. Greenwich was chosen as the site for the christening, and James, typically, began spending prodigiously, with £300 worth of material ordered. The genealogical chart (today held in the Bodleian Library) illuminated in the form of a tree, which shows James’s descent from Alpin and Anna’s from eleventh-​century Danish and German sovereigns, was updated to include the new princess.17 The countess of Derby carried the baby, whilst Arbella Stuart (who had been appointed carver to the queen in 1604) and Ulrik stood as godparents. Naturally, Anna did not attend, as she had yet 1 5 CSP, James, 12, pp. 185–​22, 11. 16 James also visited Cecil and the rest of the queen’s council and prescribed ‘the manner of conducting processes in the queen’s court at Westminster; and the form of writs of subpoena; the king’s style to be used, but the writs to be witnessed and sealed by the queen. Other proceedings in her court to be the same as those in the duchy of Lancaster’. See CSP, James, 12, pp. 185–​200, 13, 71. 17 Bodleian MSS: MS. Lat. misc. a. 1 (R).

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to be churched, and the baby was delivered into the care of Lord Knyvett at Stanwell, with £20 per week to feed her. The queen’s brother, however, continued receiving honours, being provided with crimson velvet and invested as a knight of the garter. By the time Anna had been churched –​and thus could re-​enter society –​on the 19th of May, it was clear that Ulrik had outstayed his welcome. When he suggested he might remain still longer, James’s nonplussed silence was enough of a hint; the duke finally left at the beginning of June, with a royal pension and £4,000 in his pocket. By this time, Cecil, who had reached the height of his elevation when he was raised to the earldom of Salisbury on the 4th of May, was noting ‘the total expenditure of the queen, including her jointures, grants made to her by the king, bills still unpaid, &c., total £52,260’.18 It is doubtful whether he was much cheered by the letter of gratitude Ulrik sent him from Hamburg when he arrived there. With the disagreeable Ulrik gone and another child in the nursery, the summer of 1605 continued peacefully. In August, Anna accompanied James and Prince Henry on a visit to Oxford, which had not received a royal guest since Queen Elizabeth had visited in 1566. In preparation, around 300 troublemakers were rounded up and clapped in prison. The king and his family arrived in the town on Tuesday the 27th of August, coming south from Woodstock. The city authorities tried to intercept the royal party –​ which was as ever swollen by various retinues –​on the road, with the mayor attempting to deliver a welcome before the university officials could offer theirs. He was cut short by the institution’s chancellor, doctors, proctors and senior masters, who rode out with their gifts, unwilling to be outdone. On reaching St John’s College, James and his family were met with an unusual pageant depicting the three Sybils meeting with Banquo, James’s mythical ancestor (who would, the next year, be more famously depicted in Shakespeare’s Macbeth). An oration was then delivered in Greek, to which Anna remarked that she had never heard the language spoken so well. This was likely a playful joke at her husband’s expense, given James’s self-​proclaimed expertise in Greek (and his Basilikon Doron drew its title from the Greek language). From the north gate, the king led his wife and son, through 18

CSP, James, 14, pp. 214–​227, 59.

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streets lined with academics, on to Christ Church College, where he and Anna were to be lodged (Prince Henry was put up at Magdalen College). The visit lasted for four days, during which James was in his element, attending disputations –​Latin speeches given for and against propositions by academics –​on subjects as varied as theology, natural philosophy and the use of tobacco (which the king abhorred). Anna, for her part, had the chance to be shocked by drama rather than causing shock through it; in a pastoral play, the student actors appeared in a state of undress. Prince Henry managed to remain serious, despite not sharing his father’s passion for learning. The king had the grace not to allow sycophancy to go too far; when the subject arose of conferring a degree on his 11-​year-​old son, James rejected it. An old play written for Queen Elizabeth’s visit nearly forty years before was performed on the second day, to the enjoyment of no one. It is fair to say that, towards the end of 1605, it was becoming apparent that the new Stuart king was firmly entrenched on his throne. He had managed to stave off religious extremists and, with his consort, appeared to be achieving his goal of securing peace by appealing to all of the people most of the time. Even his son looked set to follow in his footsteps in terms of receiving adulation and support if not in intellectual capability. However, this newfound sense of security was soon to be shattered, as king, queen and prince were to realise just how close they still stood to explosive and horrific death.

Rumour Doth Double

Guy Fawkes and the Gunpowder Plot are inextricably associated with King James. Yet, as historians are often keen to point out, the mastermind behind the attempt to blow England’s king and government off the political chessboard was Robert Catesby, with Fawkes simply the munitions expert. The reasons behind the plot are not difficult to understand. It was inevitable that, in his quest to please everyone by playing off both sides, promising much and delivering little, James would make himself unpopular with extremists. He had, along with Anna, encouraged the hopes of Catholics, but neither had, of course, done anything to advance the Catholic cause in England or Scotland. Neither extreme Catholics nor extreme Protestants wanted tolerance: each side wanted the elimination of the other. The discovery of the plot is well enough known. The Catholic William Parker, 4th Baron Monteagle, received a mysterious note warning him against attending the state opening of parliament, as it would suffer ‘a ­terrible blow’. Eager not to be implicated in a plot, he rushed to Salisbury, who took it to James. The king, according to his account, was the one who interpreted the threat as involving gunpowder. Accordingly, a search was made of Westminster. There, in an under-​croft, attending to his store of powder, was Guy Fawkes. Calling himself John Johnson, Fawkes was taken in and interrogated, whereupon the Yorkshire native admitted that his motives were as xenophobic as they were religious: he had intended to ‘blow the Scottish beggars back to their native mountains’.1 This attitude was hardly novel. As much as James was loath to admit it, the Stuart succession, with its importation of a foreign monarchy, was not universally popular, and vicious, anonymous, xenophobic libels abounded: Westminster hall was coverd with lead And so was St. John many a day 1

J. M. S. Daurignac, History of the Society of Jesus, 1, p. 279.

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rumour doth double The Scotchmen have begd it to buy them bread The devill take all such Jockies away. Ha ha ha.2

As the subsequent discovery of lists of houses belonging to or containing Scots proved, racism and xenophobia had not been defeated by the peaceful accession of a foreign royal family; in oppositional circles, they had become potent tools in stirring dissent. This is hardly surprising. The previous sovereign, Elizabeth, could and did boast, ‘I am the most English woman of the kingdom. Was I not born in this realm? Were my parents born in any foreign country?’3 By the early seventeenth century, ‘strangers’ had become objects of suspicion.4 News of Fawkes’s capture spread, and the conspirators fled; eventually, they were cornered at Holbeche House. Killed outright were Catesby and Thomas Percy; John and Christopher Wright received what would prove to be fatal wounds. Less lucky were Thomas Wintour, Ambrose Rookwood and John Grant. Netted also were Everard Digby, Robert Wintour and Thomas Bates; the Jesuit Henry Garnet found himself accused too. Within twelve months, all would be dead. The discovery of the Powder Treason, as it was called, was something of a publicity coup for James and Salisbury, and much has been written about how much the secretary might have known of the plot in advance, allowing it to mature so that the king’s eleventh-​hour deliverance would achieve maximum attention. Whatever the truth of government foreknowledge, the plot itself allowed for a narrative in which extremist Catholics could be clearly defined as the antagonists and the royal family as the protagonists. Still rumours swirled: it was said that he and Anna received mass in their secret cabinet, and that 500 Englishmen had been converted.5

2 3 4 5

V&A MS D25.F.39, fols. 88v-​89r. Simon Schama, A History of Britain, p. 304. One can find cultural ratification of this in the plays of the early modern theatre, such as Shakespeare and Fletcher’s Henry VIII. See Steven Veerapen, ‘European Unions’. SP 46/​61 state papers 46 61 folio 169. I am grateful to Michael Pearce for sharing this MS.

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At any rate, it suited the king’s policy –​and helped dispel rumours of his Catholicism –​to ascribe the Powder Plot to exclusively religious motives than to stir up discussion of his foreignness, which would do little to propel his project of British union. He was essentially trying to cater to two different audiences: to appear a committed Protestant (which, confessionally, he was), and willing to engage with loyal Catholics at home and potentially dangerous ones abroad (he had no intention of becoming, as Elizabeth had, an excommunicated target of Catholic assassins). Anna, whose subsidiary role (after providing heirs) was to foster international alliances and the concomitant prestige, was particularly useful in royal attempts to court the wider world, and ambiguity surrounding her faith was invaluable. Domestically, things were more difficult. The world of popular English scurrility and libel, which had begun to burgeon under Elizabeth as a means of political expression, meant that the king’s forked tongue approach was simply grist for the rumour mill. Soon enough, and partly as a result of the Gunpowder Plot, James’s longstanding game of flirting with the enemy –​which Anna had been involved in –​would reap diminishing returns. Instead of continuing to play it, the king would turn to an infinitely more enjoyable –​from his perspective –​means of engaging with Catholics: a war of words in print, which he fought against papal scholars over the next few years. For Anna’s part, the rumours of her Catholicism would remain useful in discrete political moments: in 1605 she had promised the Spanish envoy that she would do what she could for Catholics (which amounted to little –​following the Plot, she avoided Catholic envoys); in September 1608, it was reported in Spain that she had attended mass at the Spanish embassy in the Barbican (conveniently when it served her turn to endorse a Spanish match); and, as Loomie has noted, ‘each new Catholic ambassador followed the pattern of changing from a reluctant caution to a conviction that Anna shared his belief ’.6 It does not seem to have occurred to Loomie that this might tell us less about her confessional identity than about her political acumen; always, when the question of a match of high prestige was on the table for her children, the queen would attempt to forestall the inevitable cavilling Catholic powers 6

Loomie, ‘King James I’s Catholic Consort’, pp. 307–​308.

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would raise over religion by suddenly giving every appearance of being a Catholic –​without, of course, doing anything which would materially improve the lot of her supposed coreligionists. It might of course have been that her genuinely held private beliefs were simply intermittently useful in the game of politics; but it is equally arguable that rather than being a crypto-​Catholic who feigned Protestantism for political reasons, she was a crypto-​Protestant who feigned Catholicism –​when it suited her to do so, and because she had an interest in its practices –​for the same. Nor should we assume that her sotto voce Catholicism to continental powers was part of a coherent strategy, supported by James or otherwise, but an ad hoc one, to be put into yoke as and when it was useful. What she honestly believed, we cannot know. Messages of thanksgiving and congratulation poured in, not least from England’s former enemy, Spain. No doubt that country breathed a sigh of relief when, in May 1606, examinations ‘of the secret negotiations of Guy Fawkes and Robert Wintour with the king of Spain and constable of Castile, to induce them to support the Catholic cause’ … determined that ‘that nothing was proved … inculpating any foreign prince in the Gunpowder Plot’.7 This was welcome for both England and those foreign nations. Less welcome was the rumour, in the same month, that Anna’s brother, Christian IV, was dead –​another tale that turned out to be false. Further good news indicating the blessed nature of the Stuarts was forthcoming. In March 1606, reports of a royal assassination flew into London. Rumour held that the king had been stabbed, smothered, or even set upon and killed by a party of Scotsmen dressed as women whilst out hunting (foreignness, it seems, still a useful scapegoat in moments of panic). Salisbury flew into action, surrounding Prince Henry and Queen Anna with guards at Whitehall. Word was sent to the Tower that a general defence might be needed, and the civic authorities bristled at the possibility of riots and disorder. Soon afterwards, it became apparent that this was a false alarm. To quell the explosion of rumour and panic, however, James was required to return to London and take part in highly visible civic displays of welcome 7

CSP, James, 21, pp. 315–​319, 6.

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and thanksgiving.8 Usefully, though, the outbreak of relief proved to be an unintentional coup. The royal family could and did present themselves as divinely protected and at the head of a new, global Britain, and they did so again when visiting the New Exchange –​London’s new upmarket ‘bourse’ on the Strand –​where the queen play-​acted haggling with a merchant over a silver plaque depicting the Annunciation. Further cause for celebration arose to paint over the religious and national divisions still lying open as a result of the Powder Plot: Anna, once again, was pregnant. On the 22nd of June, at Greenwich, she was delivered of another daughter, this time named Sophia, for the queen’s mother. The happiness was short lived. The baby was swiftly baptised, owing to her weakness, and within a few hours of her birth she was dead. Three days later, her body was conveyed by a black velvet-​draped barge to Westminster Abbey, where she was interred in a tiny tomb carved, poignantly, in the shape of a cradle. Nevertheless, Anna was still required to remain out of society until her churching. She was thus not yet fit to receive visitors when, in July, her brother, Christian, arrived in England –​earlier than expected –​for a state visit. Visits from foreign dignitaries were common enough, but the appearances of reigning sovereigns from other realms were far rarer. The nearest analogue was the visit of Emperor Charles V, nephew of Henry VIII and Katherine of Aragon, in 1522.9 Unlike his belligerent brother Ulrik, 8

9

Rumours about great personages were expressly illegal under the statute of Scandalum Magnatum –​which can be traced to 1275 and was re-​enacted with changes in the second year of Elizabeth’s reign. Prior to Elizabeth’s accession, it had been reissued by Mary I, and it never lost its political associations (its perennial intent being to prevent rebellions and the spread of popular disaffection, rumour, false prophecy and untrue stories which might provoke civil disobedience). Under James, the common law on seditious libel (attacks on those in power, often handwritten) would be tightened in 1605, explicitly to crack down on defamation likely to cause a breach of the peace. However, it is apparent that this was a legal weapon only to be fired when the state and its governors chose to do so. Philip of Spain had of course visited England more than once but as its consort rather than a feted foreign guest. Similarly, Elizabeth had entertained –​ostensibly discreetly –​the duke of Anjou and the pretended king of Portugal; none of these provided adequately analogous precedents for the state visit of Christian IV.

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Christian was a gregarious fellow, tall and powerfully built, ‘in face so like his sister that he who hath seen the one might paint in his fancy the other’.10 He arrived in England aboard his flagship, The Three Crowns, surrounded by a fleet of warships. James and Prince Henry welcomed him at Gravesend, where they had sailed aboard the new royal barge –​a magnificent glass and gold vessel boasting a roof surmounted with golden turrets, and with glass pyramids, each tipped with gold, at its four corners. On this, the royal party sailed upriver to Greenwich, where Christian, despite his sister’s condition, rushed to her apartments and embraced her. This undoubtedly helped the queen, who was still recovering from the loss of her baby daughter; Anna was always keen to hear the news out of Denmark, and to encourage good relations between her brother’s kingdoms and her own. As she was not yet churched, she could not immediately join in the festivities. Whilst a triumphal entry was planned, during which James and Christian would ride through the city under the usual arches, Anna remained at Greenwich. Her husband and brother, meanwhile, took themselves off to Salisbury’s country estate, Theobalds, where hunting and courtly entertainments were laid on. It quickly became clear, however, that Anna’s presence was lacking at court. In her absence, James appeared unable –​or unwilling –​to maintain order. The result was that, at Theobalds, drunkenness was the order of the day. When the Masque of the Queen of Sheba was performed –​without any input from the queen –​the lady playing the biblical queen tripped over, ‘overset her caskets into his Danish Majesty’s lap and fell at his feet though I rather think it was in his face’.11 Gallantly, Christian attempted to get up and dance with her, but he too fell down drunk and had to be carried off to his chambers, still caked in the jellies, creams and spices which had been spilled over him. The problem with this kind of thing was that it tended to be repeated publicly, adding to the general discontent of people who, in the popular dramas of the day, were increasingly used to seeing foreign courts as dens of iniquity and excess. That the king of England was failing to provide an 10 Nichols, The Progresses, 2, p. 53. 1 1 Graham Parry, The Golden Age Restor’d, p. 59.

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example of godly virtue was made doubly problematic by the fact that he was a foreigner himself. Thankfully, on returning to London, more sober pastimes were found. The ceremonial entry took place: the Great Conduit ran with claret; sea nymphs cavorted on an artificial ocean ruled over by Neptune; Mulciber sat mounted on a dragon; two great rocks were painted with the arms of England and Denmark and supported by giants; shepherds and shepherdesses sang beside giant, painted suns. Christian climbed the steps of the spire-​less steeple at St Paul’s Cathedral, and, after a round of tilting, visited Westminster Abbey on the 4th of August, where effigies of previous kings and their consorts were displayed. By this time, Anna had been through the churching ceremony and was thus free to join in the ‘bear-​baiting, bull-​baiting, and other sports’.12 On the 8th of August, three plays were performed at Hampton Court by the King’s Men. About all that the Danish king failed to do was convince James –​who remained addicted to hunting and was keen to involve the more reluctant Christian –​to join a proposed league of Protestant princes. On the 10th of August, the revelries ended, and the royal family sailed to Rochester for a farewell service, before going on to Chatham to inspect the English fleet. A banquet was held aboard the Elizabeth Jonas, whose interior was decked out with cloth of gold. The following day, Christian played host, treating James, Henry and Anna to gifts distributed aboard The Three Crowns. Anna received her brother’s portrait, in a frame encrusted with diamonds; James was given a Danish cannon cast in copper; and Henry, who was developing a deep interest in ships and shipping, was gifted one of the warships of Christian’s fleet. Fireworks were let off, although the show was something of a damp squib, given that they were discharged in broad daylight; and, at length, Christian made to take his leave. There was, however, one sour note struck at the last. The elderly Nottingham, Lord High Admiral, was aboard. Nottingham spoke no Danish and so could not make himself understood when he attempted to communicate the necessity of departure owing to the hour. Christian, 12

Henry Robarts, The King of Denmarkes welcome, p. 28. This pamphlet, preserved and digitised by the British Library, provides the fullest account of the visit.

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nonplussed, saw no reason why the English royals should leave before four o’clock. As he spoke little English, he held two fingers up to –​he claimed –​signify that it was only two in the afternoon. Nottingham, however, interpreted this gesture as an insult: his wife, formerly Margaret Stewart, was much younger than he was, and he chose to see Christian calling him a cuckold. Brother and sister laughed at the old earl’s misunderstanding, which only provoked a greater sense of injury; it followed the Danish king home, where his secretary received an aggrieved letter from the countess condemning him for not harbouring ‘princely thoughts’ in his breast. In England, Nottingham and his lady continued to express their outrage; they both appeared in Anna’s chambers, with the earl supposedly speaking haughtily to the queen. Anna, for her part, immediately sought James’s support in banishing the countess. This, to her chagrin, came to nothing, and she was further displeased when, in October, her decision to remain at Hampton Court despite the death from plague of a buttery servant raised eyebrows amongst the more critical of her courtiers.13 If James’s star was in the ascendant –​at least in his own mind –​with his escape from the Powder Plotters in 1605, his escape from nothing in particular in 1606, and the prestige bestowed by a visit from a foreign ruler, his cousin Arbella continued to be an awkward source of trouble. Neither the king nor his wife had much time for the serious, disapproving Stuart girl who had once been groomed as Elizabeth’s heir. In the March following his visit, Christian wrote to his sister from Denmark, requesting that she despatch Thomas Cutting, a noted lute player in Arbella’s service. Recommendations of servants shared between the royal brother and sister had recently been strong; in April, Anna had written to Christian commending William Duncan, provost of Musselburgh.14 Keen to keep

13

14

Anna sent Charles to Richmond with Henry, and initially intended to move to one of her country estates, but plague was reportedly ravaging the environs of Greenwich and Oatlands too. Unsurprisingly, James was ensconced at his Royston hunting lodge. Meikle, ‘Once a Dane?’, p. 174.

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up the flow of communication and aid, Anna dutifully wrote to Arbella from Whitehall: Well beloved cousin, We greet you heartily well. Our dear brother’s, the king of Denmark’s gentleman servant hath insisted with us for the licensing your servant Thomas Cutting to depart from you but not without your permission to our brother’s service and therefore we write these few lines unto you, being assured you will make no difficulty to satisfy our pleasure and our dear brother’s desire and so giving you the assurance of our constant favours, with our wishes for the continuance and convalescence of your health, expecting your return as we commit your Highness to the protection of God. ANNA R15

It was a diplomatic letter, but it contains a trace of the steel with which the queen always determined to get her own way. She also had Prince Henry write to Arbella, adding his own voice to the request and, in the event, Arbella capitulated, eager not to lose the financial allowance the king had granted her. In the wake of the Gunpowder Plot, rumour had continued to dog the royal family. However, it seemed that, by the early part of 1607, fortune had indeed favoured them. Yet a number of things had already become clear in James’s reign. His religious policy was far from meeting universal praise and certainly it had done nothing to satisfy everyone; stricter measures against Catholics would be required to battle accusations of papistry in the royal households. The problem of foreignness, too, had been taken on and met, problematically in Anna’s Masque of Blackness and more publicly in the prestige the king and queen had invited into England by accepting Christian IV as their guest. Domestically, the country looked set to unite behind its king, who dreamed of turning his two nations into one; yet, in April, a revolt would break out in the Midlands, with forty or fifty subsequently killed for protesting against land enclosures in June. Scandal, and the rumours which fed it, had been felt even during the Danish visit, and it 15

B. C. Hardy, Arbella Stuart, p. 201.

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would only grow in the coming years. After the seeming height of the escape from destruction –​real and imagined –​the Stuarts would be rocked by a series of tragedies and embarrassments. Unlike under Henry VIII, when wives had been apportioned blame for misconduct at the highest levels, however, it would be the king who was responsible.

Two Fair Youths

The king’s sentimental streak, always prodigious, manifested itself when, at a tournament at the Whitehall tiltyard, a young man carrying the shield of Lord Hay was thrown from his horse. James stood up on his dais for a better view. The lad was a former royal page, Robert Carr (known in Scotland as Kerr), who had been dismissed from service for his lack of grace, and who had had nothing much to commend him. That was, until he had been sent into France by his family, the Kerrs of Ferniehurt, and developed a youthful beauty of the kind which appealed to the king. Lying on the ground, his leg broken, he presented a picture of youth in distress, which was bound to attract the middle-​ aged king’s attention. James immediately ordered his own physicians to attend on the young man, and for the invalid to be carried to Charing Cross to recuperate. The king’s visits to the house in Charing Cross could hardly go unnoticed, and it was soon apparent that James had taken a new lover. It is unlikely that this troubled Anna greatly; she had expressed no particular interest in her husband’s affairs in the past. Always they had fizzled out, with the always-​young minions being married off with the royal blessing. Further, James had continued to perform his conjugal duties with her. Significantly, however, with the rise of Carr, there would be no more royal pregnancies. Anna was certainly still young enough to bear children, and the portrait by John de Critz dating from this period indicates a handsome woman. Her long nose had begun to droop, her chin to drop and her hair had darkened, but her complexion remains clear. Her eyes are still intelligent, she was always well coiffed and dressed, and she appears to have resembled Queen Elizabeth in her younger years insofar as she looks out from her portraits with intelligence. She was ageing better, certainly, than her husband. Whether James turned his back on Anna’s bed due to the deeper love he felt for his new inamorato we cannot know –​but it is certainly possible.

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By all accounts, Carr’s rise was steady if not meteoric. The young man was knighted by the end of the year, made a gentleman of the king’s bedchamber and showered with expensive gifts.1 It was soon noted that James could barely stand to have Carr out of his company; in it, he would smother the favourite with kisses and embraces. To his credit, Carr was aware of his own intellectual shortcomings and, in order to allow his ambition to meet the expectations of his king (and tutor and lover), he cultivated the friendship of the Englishman, Thomas Overbury. The pair had met years before, when Overbury had visited Edinburgh –​probably on a spying mission –​in 1601, and Carr had been a page to Lord Home. All of this Anna watched with a dawning horror; perhaps she realised that, for the first time, her husband had embarked on a serious affair. She distrusted the arrogant young man, and his former employer, Lord Home, whom James raised to the earldom of Dunbar in 1606, had once been charged with ‘watching’ her in 1593 (when she was complaining about the disrespect shown her) in addition to being active against the forgotten Bothwell.2 Nor were things any happier in the wider family. For some time, Princess Mary’s health had been causing concern at Stanwell. On the 23rd of September, one of her chaplains was to be bold in his threnody: For, whereas the new-​tuned organs of her speech, by reason of her wearisome and tedious sickness, had been so greatly weakened, that for the space of twelve or fourteen hours at the least, there was no sound of any word heard breaking from her lips; yet when it sensibly appeared that she would soon make a peaceful end of a troublesome life, she sighed out these words, ‘I go, I go!’ and when, not long after, there was something to be ministered unto her by those that attended her in the time of her sickness, fastening her eye upon them with a constant look, again she 1

2

The issue of Scots filling James’s bedchamber –​and thus creating a de facto political body separate from the privy council and parliament –​was to be a source of simmering resentment on the part of English subjects throughout the king’s reign. In 1610, for example, Sir John Holles had complained that ‘the Scottish monopolise [​ his] princely person, standing like a mountain betwixt the beams of his Grace and us’. However, it should be noted that James had to allow Scottish nobles access to his bedchamber because it was their right under Scottish custom and tradition –​ even if he was also king of England. Some of Anna’s dowry had also gone into Home’s pockets, which cannot have endeared him to her.

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repeated ‘Away, I go!’ And yet, a third time, almost immediately before she offered up herself, a sweet virgin sacrifice, unto Him that made her, faintly cried ‘I go, I go!’3

Go she did, although the account seems somewhat too laced with melodrama to be entirely accurate. Anna was at Hampton Court, which had become one of her favourite royal residences, when Worcester, George Carew, and Robert Sidney arrived to inform her of the loss. The queen, who had visited the sick child during her long illness, guessed the news, and bid the visitors carry it to her husband. She, meanwhile, set about arranging a post-​mortem and seeing to the funeral arrangements, accepting at the same time a visit from Salisbury, who offered his genuine condolences. Mary was buried in Westminster Abbey, her embalmed body interred opposite her sister Sophia’s tomb in the Lady Chapel. Possibly to cheer herself after this loss, Anna returned to her passion for masques. Whereas her previous Masque of Blackness had taken place in the old, wooden banqueting hall –​which had always been designed to be temporary, constructed as it had been by Queen Elizabeth for the duke of Anjou’s visit –​the Masque of Beauty would take place in a new building specially constructed for the purpose. Jonson, once more in favour, penned the script, with the drama acting as a sequel to Blackness. In it, the beautifully dressed and well-​choreographed daughters of Niger –​with Anna and Arbella amongst them –​were shown without their black paint, riding a giant throne carried on a moving island.4 In terms of the drama, they had been restored to beauty. More interesting, however, is the way in which the second masque formed a wider dialogue with the first, meeting the criticism the ladies had faced and refuting it. Here we see that Anna had a keen awareness of public opinion and was sensitive to courting it. James, on the other hand, had begun to care almost nothing for what people 3 4

Everett Green, Lives of the Princesses of England, VI, pp. 94–​95. The ladies included the countesses of Arundel, Bedford, Derby and Montgomery, and the Ladies Chichester, Walsingham, Windsor, Anne Clifford, Elizabeth Girrard, Elizabeth Guilford, Elizabeth Hatton, Mary Neville, Katherine Petre and Anne Winter. Their gowns this time were of orange and silver and green. The letter-​writer John Chamberlain noted that one lady was wearing £100,000-​worth of jewels, with Arbella even more richly clad, and Queen Anna outdoing both.

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thought of him, as long as they did not irreligiously –​in his opinion –​attempt to resist his rule. The only scandal arising from this masque centred on the usual scrambling for precedence and injured pride of the invited guests. Indeed, the performance was delayed from Twelfth Night until the 10th of January, owing to the French ambassador’s anger at his Spanish and Venetian counterparts receiving invitations when he had not. His ire was directed squarely at the Hispanophile Anna –​an easier target than the king –​who had once again shown an interest in the Spanish match for Prince Henry discussed since 1605.5 Adding fuel to the fire, she had been keen to stress the English credentials of such a match; she had claimed when the match was first mooted that her Henry might follow in the footsteps of Henry V by gaining enough power to embark on a recovery of England’s French territories. James attempted to intercede, inviting the Frenchman to dinner with the royal couple. This he refused; he demanded what his fellows were getting, which was to see the masque –​and be seen seeing it. The masque itself was nearly cancelled, but it went ahead; James, however, was careful to ride off to Royston without speaking to his wife after it –​a public display which at least allowed him to retain the goodwill of France. At the performance itself, he gave the lie to the irritation politics demanded he demonstrate following it; he called for an encore. The masque itself was conducted with Anna very much at the helm of the court. A stately dance followed it –​appropriately titled The Queen’s Masque –​and the Venetian ambassador, Zorzi Giustinian, wrote home that it was ‘so well composed and ordered’ that ‘it is evident the mind of her Majesty, the authoress of the whole, is gifted no less highly than her person’.6 He was right. The queen had no intention of letting the court fall to licentious ribaldry as it had in her pregnancy-​mandated absence in 1606. The role she had devised as consort was not now simply the public relations department of the royal court, charged with providing the glamour so obviously lacking in the king, but with actively fixing the faux pas her 5 6

Anna and a ‘number of privy counsellors’ gathered in her apartments and discussed Henry’s prospective bride in January 1605, with the queen showing herself strongly in favour of a Spanish match. See CSP, Venice, 10, pp. 204–​215, 325. CSP, Venice, 11, pp. 77–​90, 154.

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husband made. Order, indeed, had been restored, and the difference between Theobalds’ Masque of the Queen of Sheba and The Masque of Beauty could not have been more marked. Quite deliberately, Beauty, so preoccupied with the restoration of perfect outward appearance, was conducted in a way which enhanced its thematic concerns. Nevertheless, throughout 1608, James enthusiastically continued his love affair. Nor were Carr’s friends unfit for royal favour: in June, Overbury became a servitor-​in-​ordinary, was knighted, and in October, he was given leave to travel to Antwerp and Paris. He would not return until August of the following year, and yet, in the meantime, Carr continued to ride high in the king’s favour. On the 9th of January 1609, he received the lease of the still-​imprisoned Walter Raleigh’s Sherborne Estate –​an indirect insult to both Anna and Prince Henry, who had championed the unfortunate Raleigh’s cause. It is therefore somewhat interesting to note that, on the 2nd of February, Anna staged another of her masques. This was, pointedly, titled The Masque of Queens, known to literary historians not only as one of Ben Jonson’s works but as the first to distinguish the role of the ‘antimasque’: that often comic, disorderly accompaniment designed to emphasise the order of the masque proper. The queen herself was, according to Jonson, responsible for this innovation: he wrote that she ‘commanded me to think on some dance or show that might precede hers and have the place of a foil or false masque’.7 Anna appeared onstage as Bel-​Anna, or beautiful Anna, the apotheosis of virtuous queenship, leading eleven court ladies, each representing another virtuous queen. This in itself was bold. The pun on Bel-​Anna chimes well with the late Queen Elizabeth’s identity as Bellona; here, then, is an answer to men like William Camden, who would lament that the ‘England that breathed her [Elizabeth’s] spirit would expire with her’.8 Not so. Here that spirit is visually, figuratively regenerated in the queen consort. The antimasque provides foils in the form of a witch leading eleven disciples in an unnatural and inelegant dance, supposed to be taking place 7 Jonson, Masques and Entertainments, p. 102. 8 William Camden, Annales, p. 131.

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in Hell, with accompanying smoke and fiery effects. The parade of queens, by contrast, is far more orderly, though both parts are heavy with images of pregnancy and birth. As Katja Pilhuj claims, Both the masque and antimasque present lines of power … that challenge the ostensibly male-​dominated hierarchy that masques have been said to affirm. [Anna] though ostensibly a foreign queen, is now connected to and can potentially draw legitimacy from the line of English kings and queens and the lines that indicate her children.9

It is Pilhuj’s further contention that both parts of Queens form ‘a moving genealogy of powerful queens who seem to “generate” each subsequent ruler, forming their own historical lineage that culminates’ in Anna. In its historical context, this can be argued further. Anna was at this time being publicly threatened by the rise of the king’s new favourite, and, as a consequence, she was happy to appear in an equally public performance which underscored her status as a consort descended of kings and the mother of kings. The masque celebrates –​sometimes gruesomely, as when the witches impregnate the earth –​what is a defining characteristic of female consortship: the ability to produce heirs. By contrast, Carr’s relationship with the king is relegated to something fruitless. The masque itself was as usual an enormous expense, and by May Anna was having George Heriot, who had followed the court down from Scotland, pawn jewels to raise cash, despite her having just purchased a vast quantity of diamonds from him. Upon Overbury’s return, however, Carr once again had his more intelligent friend back, and the pair continued to scheme for power. At Hampton Court, Anna spotted Overbury in the gardens and, when James pointed out the new servitor-​in-​ordinary, she replied, ‘’tis a pretty fellow’.10 It seemed there was little, materially, the queen could do about her husband’s new lover, nor about the friend of that lover. Nor was her role as mediator being given much notice. In March, her old friend Henrietta Stewart wrote to her asking that she beg James to intercede for her husband, who had been made 1st marquess of Huntly in 1599 and more recently imprisoned in Scotland 9 Katja Pilhuj, ‘Mapping Queenship’, p. 26. 10 Williams, Anne of Denmark, p. 135.

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as a Catholic. James intervened, but not on Huntly’s behalf; he took it upon himself to tell Henrietta that Anna had no power over his decisions. In this he was not acting out of sheer high-​handedness, but according to English tradition. As Parsons has argued, the process of queenly intercession, which had its roots in Marian conceptions of merciful intercession, had become increasingly ritualised and artificial by the fourteenth century.11 Under Henry VIII, the limits of English consorts’ ability to intercede in overtly political ways on behalf of others had been defined as being the prerogative of the sovereign, and unacceptable without his pre-​approval. Jane Seymour, for example, had crossed the invisible line which demarcated acceptable and unacceptable intercession and earned dark threats from her king. The notion that a consort might entreat an English sovereign from a place of total autonomy was a pleasant fiction. However, the queen’s determination to exercise her husband’s conscience remained active. It was in 1609 that a reminder of the king’s previous encouragement of Catholic hopes returned to cause trouble. James Elphinstone, 1st Lord Balmerino, the secretary of state for Scotland (and a former financial adviser to Anna) found himself sentenced to death for allegedly having forged James’s signature on letters to Pope Clement VIII in 1599. The problem was that the king had both signed and endorsed the letter at the time, and Balmerino was thus suffering for his sovereign’s historic policy. Anna interceded on his behalf, unwilling to let a servant –​who was also related to her favourite lady, Jean Drummond –​be punished. Her efforts likely helped commute Balmerino’s sentence to imprisonment –​although she could not induce James to admit his prior involvement. Anna’s attention thus focussed on her greatest treasure and the likeliest source of power she had: Prince Henry. The prince was not, despite the legends which have bloomed around him, a particularly good-​looking youth: in fact, his features appeared to combine the strongest aspects of both of his parents. He was, however, fair, strong, martial-​minded and devoted –​curiously –​to sports as varied as swimming, which his grandfather, Darnley, had engaged in, and tennis. He displayed a considerable moralistic streak, which endeared him particularly to the loose grouping 11

Parsons, ‘Ritual and Symbol’, pp. 64–​68.

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of people known as Puritans and, that notwithstanding, he had an innate understanding of how to appeal to crowds. Though he was no scholar, it was evident that his subjects had hopes of him: on his death in April 1609, Lord Lumley bequeathed the prince his enormous library. Henry inherited, too, something of his mother’s penchant for showmanship, which debuted at court on Twelfth Night 1610, when he hosted an indoor tournament –​the ‘Prince’s Barriers’ –​at Whitehall. Here, he entertained his family –​including his sister Elizabeth, who gave out prizes –​with a display of pseudo-​mediaeval pageantry designed to demonstrate the vigour of the coming ruler. In truth, Henry’s principal virtue was his youth. As Queen Elizabeth had astutely noted, the English people were inconstant: ‘They ever mislike the present government and have their eyes fixed upon that person that is next to succeed. More men love the rising sun than the one that sets.’12 James had the odd distinction of coming to the throne as an already-​setting sun, with his son rising in the people’s favour. In March 1510, Anna’s star again shone when her sister Elizabeth’s son, Frederick Ulrich, future duke of Brunswick-​Lüneburg, visited England, to be feted and entertained by Prince Henry. His goal was to present himself as a suitor to his cousin, the beautiful Princess Elizabeth, but Anna was not predisposed to this idea, hoping for a grander marriage than one made intra-​ family. Naturally, the arrival of another royal guest meant further strains on the exchequer. Salisbury, still the premier power in the country after the king, put his faith in his own pet project, the ‘Great Contract’, which would net an annual £200,000 in return for the Crown relinquishing its power over wardships and purveyance. This, however, would prove to be a dead letter. Though James accepted the necessity of putting it to the parliament –​still the one summoned in 1604, which reassembled nominally to approve Henry’s elevation to the principality of Wales and the earldom of Chester –​the members would prove intractable on the subject of money. Royal expenses would continue to skyrocket without remedy. Nevertheless, the young Frederik Ulrich, without a real chance at Elizabeth’s hand, was present when, in June, Henry was invested, with parliamentary approval, as prince of Wales with all the expensive ceremonial 12

Elizabeth I, Collected Works, p. 66.

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the court could muster. Yet James was wary of his son, cautious –​as he had been during the visit to Oxford –​of making too great an icon of him. Due to security concerns –​the recent assassination of Henri IV was on everyone’s mind –​James ruled out his son’s preferred horseback ride to the event. Instead, Henry went by barge to Westminster and on foot from Westminster Hall to the Parliament House, escorted by the earls of Nottingham and Northampton and surrounded by guards. Inside, he bowed three times before his father, who then touched him with the sword of state, put a ring on his finger and a coronet on his head, and then, in one of his deliberate shows of affection, pinched the prince’s cheek. Three days of festivities followed, including an extravagant maritime pageant on the Thames, titled London’s Love to Prince Henry, and a similarly aquatic-​ themed masque called Tethys Festival staged on the 5th of June. Penned this time by Samuel Daniel, the antimasque called upon Anna, as the daughter of a seagoing nation, to play Tethys, the sea goddess, and there was even a role for Prince Charles, who played Zephyrus. The stage was turned into Milford Haven, complete with boats bobbing on false waves, overlooked by giant statues of Neptune and Nereus. In her role, Anna passed the sword of Astraea –​representing continuity between past and future sovereigns –​ to Charles, who gave it to Henry. James’s politics were not forgotten; he watched on, as the passive king of the Ocean, as his son received a scarf sewn by the queen, which represented the interwoven British Isles. The masque proper was deliberately engineered as a family affair, with Princess Elizabeth brought in to play a personification of the Thames whilst Arbella –​who would fall from favour later in the month for secretly marrying Lord Beauchamp, a descendant of Henry VIII’s younger sister –​ played a nymph of the Trent.13 Other British rivers were represented, with Anne Clifford, by now countess of Dorset, dancing as Ayr, Elizabeth Grey as the Medway, and the reputedly beautiful Lady Frances Howard starring as the Lea. The shy Charles, emboldened by his costume –​which boasted 13

Arbella attempted to make use of Anna as an intermediary, sending her a pair of gloves, worked herself, via Jean Drummond. However, Anna could not dissuade the king from harsh treatment any more than she had convinced him to forgive Bothwell in Scotland, and the best she managed was to return a gift. Arbella remained in disfavour, being moved in 1611 to captivity in Durham Castle.

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fairy wings –​managed to ask his mother to join him in the dance and she left her throne and did so, to the music and song of the river maidens. On this occasion, it is fair to say that both king and queen were satisfied by the masque, which emphasised Anna’s connection to the future and James’s chimeric dream of joining Scotland and England in his conception of ‘perfect union’. Later in the year, Henry continued to pursue his own projects. In September, Anna, Charles and Elizabeth joined him aboard his new ship, the Prince Royal –​a fifty-​five-​gun man-​of-​war, built by Phineas Pett, with carvings by Sebastian Vicars and gilding by Robert Peake –​for its launch. On the day, however, the wind rose, and the ship ended up beached in Thames silt. The queen and her younger children were forced, after hours of useless waiting, to return to Greenwich by barge. Henry left too, returning at midnight when the tide had risen and finally overseeing the Prince Royal’s moonlit launch. Doubtless to his mother’s pleasure, the prince also began exhibiting an interest in art. Following his investiture, he was installed in St James’s Palace, where he began, with the aid of Thomas Howard, 14th earl of Arundel, to build an exquisite collection of statuary, portraits and sculptures. On New Year’s Day 1611, he produced his own masque: Oberon, the Faery Prince, written by Jonson. This involved a giant map of the British Isles painted on a curtain, which was drawn to reveal an enormous craggy rock, lit by the moon. The figure of Silenus then prophesied that Oberon would arise to bestow orderly rule: an obvious allusion to James’s project, though, interestingly, not predicted to take place in his lifetime but in his son’s. Henry then entered, in a chariot drawn by two white bears –​possibly captured polar bears –​and music and dance followed. A month later, Anna appeared as queen of the Orient and was led in the dance by her son, in another nod to where her power now lay. Katherine of Aragon had left –​tragically, as circumstances would have it –​an indelible mark on her daughter. Anna was determined to do something similar. A queen consort of England, in her view, was not only an adjunct of the king and his polity but, ideally, a source of love and imaginative influence on the mental development of the royal children. It is fair to say that Henry, for his part, was his mother’s son.14 14 As evidence of Henry’s growing independence, he involved himself in the procurement of a tutor for Prince Charles, appearing at Whitehall to request the post

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With her husband increasingly under the spell of Carr, at least in romantic terms, the queen’s interest was entirely on her children. In February, she received the Tuscan envoy, Ottaviano Lotti, who hoped to win Prince Henry in a marriage alliance with his nation; but Anna remained pro-​ Spanish and was disinclined to see her son wed into to a rich but relatively small state. Nevertheless, it is clear that she was considered, by foreign powers, a figure worth cultivating. Her moments of visual power –​her masques –​were largely confined to designated days of celebration, when they would receive maximum public attention. Otherwise, her days were spent attending to humdrum business: legal affairs arising from her properties, reports from her council, petitions and matters of patronage –​and she at the centre, surrounded by friends and servants each with their own job, whether overseeing access, playing music, serving, carving, or attending to the wardrobes. There was, of course, the compulsory round of wider court ceremonial. On the 25th of March, she attended the Garter ceremony to see Charles invested. Unfortunately, this meant seeing Carr also given the honour –​and in his case, this was an afterthought to what he had received the day before: the earldom of Rochester and investiture as a privy counsellor. Cuttingly, James also awarded the favourite property in Scotland which Anna had hoped to gain for her old friend Seton, who had finally achieved the position of Scottish chancellor in 1604. More unpleasantness followed, as Christian IV embarked on the Kalmar War with Sweden’s King Charles IX in April, and immediately began importuning his sister and brother-​in-​law for aid. The request was redoubled in August, when a delegate of Danish envoys arrived and was lodged in the queen’s own Somerset House. Anna’s mood could scarcely have been improved by the behaviour of the desperate Lady Arbella, who had been languishing under house arrest since the previous year, following her secret marriage. Yet more imprisonment had made her reckless. In June, she disguised herself as a man and attempted to meet up with her husband, Lord Beauchamp –​who escaped the Tower –​with the intent of fleeing to the continent. Nottingham and for Sir James Fullerton. James, however, insisted on Sir Robert Carey, Princess Elizabeth’s governor, and refused to listen to his son.

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Salisbury sent Admiral William Monson to hunt down the renegades at sea. He had little trouble. Arbella was still aboard her ship, waiting for her husband, when the royal Adventure appeared. The daring endeavour had failed, and she surrendered. Beauchamp, who had misunderstood the rendezvous point, managed to escape to Ostend; whilst Arbella was confined to the Tower, he would live free. The queen had done what she could for the king’s cousin, despite Arbella’s contempt. She could do no more. More pleasant was the renewal of one of the queen’s longstanding interests: property. At the beginning of the year, a note had been taken ‘of manors, &c. wherein are no copyholds, not included in the queen’s jointure, nor in the assignment to the prince and duke of York’.15 In late August, Anna was granted the manor and park of Oatlands, which she set about modernising, hiring Inigo Jones to redesign the interiors so that they might better display the portraits with which she would fill it. More colourfully, she began experimenting with silkworm farming there, and a new vineyard would be planted. In the summer, too, Anna’s irritation at the machinations of Carr and Overbury, whom she considered his insolent evil genius, boiled over. Looking from a window at Greenwich Palace, she spotted the pair walking in the gardens. ‘There go Carr and his governor’, she said. In return, Overbury barked laughter in her direction, which she took, understandably, as an insult by a man who thought himself untouchable. As was proper for an English consort, she went to James rather than involving herself in intrigue, and passionately cried out that she would rather return to her brother in Denmark than withstand what her situation had become. Still the queen was a politician, and it did not hurt to remind her husband of her lineage and the strength behind her, especially in comparison to the lowly men he was favouring: she was no powerless domestic consort. James, however, rubbed his hands, shook his head and promised to look into Overbury in council, but he did nothing. Tellingly, the queen’s next move was to go to her son (with whom she was eager to work in concert politically) and then to Salisbury –​the former as he was the future power

15

CSP, James, 61, pp. 1–​5, 19.

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in the land, and the latter because he had become her friend.16 Moreover, Salisbury was as likely to resent the pair who were receiving the lion’s share of the king’s favour as she and Henry were. To Salisbury, she wrote, My lord, The king hath told me that he will advise with you and some other four or five of the council of that fellow [meaning Overbury]. I can say no more, either to make you understand the matter or my mind, than I said this other day. Only I recommend to your care how public the matter is now both in court and city and how far I have reason in that respect. I refer the rest to this bearer and myself to your love. NNA R17

Anna, as has been noted, was more sensitive to public opinion than her husband, and she made the right choice in seeking help. Salisbury was an old hand at dealing with favourites and had seen off the best and worst of them in his time. However, under James and Anna, he had all but worn himself out. The veteran of Elizabeth’s reign had, indeed, once complained that he sometimes wished he waited still on the old queen, ‘with ease at my food and rest in my bed’.18 He had schemed long and hard for a smooth Stuart succession, but the realities of serving a royal family eternally fond of spending money was driving him into an early grave. As evidence of his overwork, Anna’s enemy wrote to Salisbury too, begging the secretary to be a ‘witness of submission …. To the queen’s mercy … because as I understand, her Majesty is not fully satisfied of the integrity of my intent that way’.19 To please James –​because, notwithstanding the queen’s friendship, Salisbury was inherently a king’s man –​he brokered a kind of peace, persuading the king that Overbury and Carr had been laughing at some other 16 Despite his initial misgivings about the queen (before her arrival in Scotland) it is clear that the great statesman quickly grew to like her –​a thing unlikely had she posed a genuine Catholic fifth columnist. 17 Calendar of the MSS of Salisbury, 21, pp. 272–​290, 134, 153. 18 John Forster, Lives of Eminent British Statesmen, p. 92. 19 Godfrey Goodman, The Court of King James I, II, p. 144.

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jest and had neither heard nor seen Anna at the window. Certainly, they had not been laughing at her. Salisbury’s health was failing, and when Carr was given a place on the privy council, he was made fully aware of the direction of travel. His intervention, for a time, brought peace, at least to James, and Anna, who was beginning to suffer from ill health, had the sense to pull back from her opposition. In this she was sensible. Consorts of England had a poor record of winning away their sovereigns from lovers and favourites and attempting to argue with the king could have unforeseen consequences. Not without reason had Katherine Parr disguised her disputations as diversions intended to ease the king’s mind. Wisely had Katherine of Aragon ignored Henry VIII’s affairs; unwisely had Anne Boleyn ignored the king’s alleged advice to ‘shut your eyes as your betters have done’. James was no Henry VIII. However, the lesson remained obvious: it was useless and dangerous to stir up the sovereign’s anger. Queen Anna, however, had something that Katherine of Aragon, Katherine Parr and Anne Boleyn had lacked: a living, thriving son, who would hopefully, in time, support his mother. Her relationship with Henry was strong, close, and she had always sought to maximise the opportunities it afforded, viewing them as a right. She could, if necessary, play the long game. Unfortunately, in the following year, everything would change. The royal family, already shorn of several much-​loved infants, would lose its most prized member.

Loss and Marriage

At the beginning of 1612, only months after Salisbury had affected his rapprochement between queen and favourite, Overbury again managed to cause a breach. When Anna requested and received a promissory note from the king intended to cover her mounting debts to ‘divers artificers of London’, Carr’s adviser announced his own role in securing the note. This infuriated Anna. Yet the duopoly of Carr and Overbury remained only a worrisome annoyance as long as their sphere of influence was limited, and the pair had not yet gained control over government. The indefatigable Salisbury was still at the heart of that, overseeing the mammoth machine of English bureaucracy with the same vigour he had since Queen Elizabeth’s day. Unfortunately, Salisbury’s years in yoke had prematurely aged him. Like his father, his health began to cause trouble. Unlike Burghley, however, he was unable to carry on regardless. Also unlike his father, Salisbury had neglected to groom a replacement (his own son not being notably utile as a secretary). In spring, he went to Bath in hopes of relief. It was likely, however, that he was riddled with cancer. He died ‘in great pain and even greater wretchedness of mind’ on the 24th of May at Marlborough. This was a blow to Queen Anna, who not only relied on him as an administrator but had counted him a friend, visiting him regularly in his final illness. It was an enormous opportunity, though, to those in England with political ambitions. James was not inclined to fill the multifaceted role which Salisbury had held, despite his wife and son pressing for the appointment of Sir Henry Wotton (in the teeth of Rochester’s opposition).1 Rather, he preferred to hold his court in suspense, affecting to attend to the late secretary’s raft of duties personally and putting the unenviable position of lord treasurer in the hands of a commission.2 In practice, this meant handing over considerable power to 1 2

Leeds Barroll, Anna of Denmark, p. 134. Salisbury had been lord treasurer since the death of the previous incumbent, Dorset, in 1608. This post had been his father’s under Elizabeth.

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the favourite, who moved from being a pompous and influential servant of the bedchamber to de facto secretary of state. This, in turn, meant that Overbury was entrusted with the work accruing from increased duties and responsibilities. It meant also that powerful men and women began to consider how best to ally themselves in order to gain their share of what Salisbury had once controlled. This was anathema to Anna and Prince Henry, whom she was grooming to share her views –​and who was developing a sense of pious self-​importance of his own. Yet it was not the queen or her son who brought what was an increasingly untenable situation to an end. Indeed, the royal family was careful to appear in rude health despite the loss of the great secretary. Discussions of Princess Elizabeth’s marriage arose –​and in this Anna was, as her own mother had been on the subject of marriages, in her element. The possibilities included a Spanish match, the prince-​elector of the Rhenish Palatinate (a Calvinist state on the Rhine), the prince of Nassau, the prince of Anhalt and the son of the landgrave of Hesse-​Kassel. Naturally, the queen wished for the highest possible husband for her daughter. In this she would not get her way, as the eventual victor for Elizabeth’s hand was Frederick Casimir of the Palatinate. The contract was signed two days after Salisbury’s death, and very much to James’s satisfaction. For all he had once claimed he would not be a merchant for his own bride, the prospect of a large dowry enriching England’s empty coffers meant that he would not afford his children the same privilege; his goal was to ensure his daughter married into a Protestant state whilst his son went to a wealthy Catholic. Thus, the question of Prince Henry’s marriage, too, was considered. The Spanish match, long preferred by Anna and James, had become a dead letter; the previous September, to their fury, the French regent Marie de’ Medici had skilfully stolen a march on British policy by securing a double match between her daughter Elisabeth and the future king of Spain; and her son Louis with the Spanish infanta, Anne (Henry’s putative bride). Another match had to be found, and quickly, to save face. In March, the prince had given his own views of the frenetic wrangling for his hand, as the Venetian Antonio Foscarini reported: The prince was not disposed towards this match [with Caterina de’ Medici, sister of Cosimo II de’ Medici, grand duke of Tuscany] because the large dower which is

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offered would not come into his hands nor be applied for the good of the Crown but would very soon be scattered by the king’s profusion, besides which he thinks he need have no difficulty in finding money, as he is heir to so many crowns.3

Henry, whose Protestantism was growing militant, reportedly claimed that ‘he would rather marry a subject, which makes people think there may be some particular one in his view’.4 These marriage negotiations were tortuous and, to the prince, unseemly; rather than marrying for policy or affection, he was being bartered for cold, hard cash needed to refill his countries’ perennially empty coffers. What is clear is that there were some areas in which Anna could continue to play an important role, and the marriages of her children were chief amongst them –​and always she was concerned with achieving matches which would secure the highest honour and rank. Anna’s rumoured Catholicism, so large a feature in earlier royal policy, might again come in useful in helping pursue the king’s double-​dealing approach. Unfortunately, Pope Paul V appeared to be entertaining doubts about her, when he wrote in August that ‘considering the inconstancy of that queen and the many changes she had made in religious matters, and … even if it might be true that she might be a Catholic, one should not take on oneself any judgement’.5 These were wise words, and it is probable that if the pope at the time was utterly baffled as to whether Anna was a Catholic, it is unlikely that modern historians will find proof of her conversion. In the summer following Salisbury’s death, James gave his son the royal manor at Woodstock, run-​down though it was, and Henry immediately set about improving it. He hosted both his parents at an outdoor ‘entertainment’ there, despite the appalling heat of the summer, to show his gratitude. The prince, however, was not well. He began complaining of ‘a giddy lumpish heaviness in his forehead, the pain of which obliged him to stroke up his brow and forehead with his hand before he put on his hat’ and it was noted that he ‘did bleed at the nose often and in great quantity’.6 His 3 CSP, Venice, 12, pp. 298–​312, 447. Ibid. 4 5 Williams, Anne of Denmark, p. 200. 6 Thomas Birch, Henry, Prince of Wales, p. 249.

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answer to illness was to push his body further, maintaining a strict regimen of exercise. Elizabeth’s new fiancé, Frederick, arrived in England on the 16th of October, and Henry determined to entertain him. Frederick was received at Whitehall, where James, in a show of his usual bonhomie, declared, ‘suffice it that I am anxious to testify to you by deeds that you are welcome’. Anna, seated beside her husband, remained silent. Henry, on the other hand, was impressed by his new brother-​in-​ law, who was serious and grave –​and his enthusiasm was further excited by the fact that his sister also appeared smitten with her new husband. In support of both the king and Elizabeth, he threw his weight behind the match. Whilst playing host at St James’s Palace, however, he fainted and was forced to bed. Anna’s personal physician, the Genevan, Théodore de Mayerne, was called in and diagnosed a tertian fever. Bleeding the prince caused no apparent improvement, nor did shaving him and applying freshly killed fowl to his head. In truth, Henry had contracted typhoid. By the second week of November, it was clear that he would not recover. In a panic, Anna wrote to Sir Walter Raleigh in the Tower seeking his aid. Raleigh had struck up a friendship with her and Henry, going so far as to write her in 1611, attesting his innocence and seeking her intervention with James over his, Raleigh’s, belief in the riches of Guiana.7 Raleigh duly provided a cordial, mixed in his laboratory in the Tower and comprising ‘pearl, musk, hartshorn, bezoar stone, mint, borage, gentian, mace, sugar, aloes, and spirit of wine’.8 This unlikely concoction appeared, miraculously, to rouse the prince, although only briefly. He again fell into delirium and died on the 6th of November at 18 years of age. His last words, reportedly, were, ‘where is my dear sister?’ In her grief, Anna confined herself to her chambers at Somerset House. This had been the son she had battled to gain custody of for years in Scotland and who, since coming to England, she had begun to fashion in her image of monarchy. James, who had been wary of his son’s popularity

7 8

Anna had heard positive things about Raleigh’s ‘balsam of Guiana’ from the French ambassador’s wife and the pair had subsequently founded their friendship on the subject of the Americas. See Robert Lacey, Sir Walter Raleigh, p. 322. William Hepworth Dixon, Her Majesty’s Tower, I, p. 260.

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(a dirty word in the period) but affectionate towards him as he was to all young people, remained at Theobalds, which the late Salisbury had handed over to the royal family in 1607.9 Predictably, rumours of poison soon circulated, with Sir William Fleetwood lamenting, ‘the prince’s death [which was] owing, not to poison, but to the pestilential fever of the season’.10 Whispers also held that Mayerne had been guilty of malpractice, prompting the physician to pen his own defence, which rested heavily on the favourable post-​mortem report. The most scurrilous rumours, then and since, have been that James himself engineered his son’s death. Needless to say, these are nonsense. In light of the tragedy –​a national one, given the hopes invested in the ebullient prince –​Elizabeth’s marriage had to be delayed, suitable mourning arranged, and Frederick’s retinue fed and lodged for longer. Henry’s body lay in state at St James’s for four weeks, with some outlandish colour added to the grim scene when, in a scene worthy of an antimasque, a stark-​naked madman barged in –​presumably past the bemused guards and members of the household –​claiming to be the dead prince’s ghost. More sombrely, on the 7th of December, a thousand people formed a stately procession to escort the body –​encased in a coffin surmounted by a painted wax effigy –​to Westminster. There, a two-​hour long sermon was delivered by the archbishop of Canterbury, George Abbot. Prince Charles, or ‘Baby Charles’ as he was affectionately known in the family, took on the role of chief mourner. It is sometimes claimed that the two princes had not got along; this is based entirely on one quip of Henry’s, allegedly made when Charles was nine. Placing a bishop’s hat on the younger boy’s head, Henry had claimed that, when he was king, he would make the lad an archbishop, and his robes would usefully hide his weak, rickety legs. Otherwise, the royal children appear to have been remarkably close and loving, with Henry a source of awe to both his surviving siblings. Charles, at any rate, conducted his duties at his brother’s funeral, walking ahead of Frederick. As was customary, the king and queen did not attend, and Henry was laid to rest next to his grandmother, Mary Queen of Scots. 9 10

This deal had gone through on May 22nd, 1607, with Theobalds exchanged for the less opulent Hatfield, which had been one of the queen’s jointure properties. CSP, James, 71, pp. 160–​165, 66.

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Henry, the king who never was, has provided one of the great historical ‘what ifs’. If he had lived to reign, might the civil wars which broke out in his brother’s time have been avoided? It is impossible to say. However, speculation as to what kind of a king he might have made ought always to take into account the elements of monarchy he had learnt from his mother as well as his father. With regard to James, the prince had often enough voiced what he thought unsuitable conduct. From his mother, he had learnt the arts of pageantry, display and the power of culture in fashioning a public persona. Dead princes were not of much use politically, however. Even before Henry was interred, court gossip was turning to the new heir’s marriage: ‘France tries to negotiate it. Those who think of religion wish for Denmark, but the king opposes it, as he desires the marriage to bring him some new alliance. Talk of marrying one infanta of Savoy in Denmark, the other in Spain.’11 Anna’s homeland was very much interested in what became of its king’s last surviving British nephew. So was Anna. *** King James re-​emerged into public life at a service at Christmas, where he appeared cheerful enough, likely in an effort to enthuse the people. Frederick and Elizabeth joined him, and it was already apparent that the two young people were attracted to each other both physically and emotionally. Colourfully, it was noted that the king thereafter retired to bed ‘with a sore toe, but [he] will not have it called the gout’. Over the festive period, Anna, too, was troubled by a similar complaint. When the king went to Hampton Court, and the marriage contract was solemnised, ‘the queen was absent, not from distaste, but a fit of the gout’.12 In reality, this was almost certainly not gout –​but her recurring illness would be referred to as that complaint until the end of her life.13

1 1 12 13

CSP, James, 71, pp. 160–​165, 51. CSP, James, 71, pp. 160–​165, 69. Frederick Holmes has suggested osteoarthritis as a possible cause for the pains which troubled Anna from about the age of thirty-​seven onwards. See Holmes, The Sickly Stuarts, pp. 47–​48.

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Anna was, however, unhappy with the match, and it was later claimed she invented a family joke, greeting her daughter as ‘Goodwife Palsgrave’ (a palsgrave being a count palatine). The jest rested on Frederick being unequal to marriage with a princess –​and, in marrying him, Elizabeth would be reducing herself. As the weeks wore on, and perhaps bowing to the inevitable rather than wishing to be left out in the cold, Anna accustomed herself to the match. The gossips were satisfied that her approval was genuine, probably due to her ostentatious giving of liveries to Frederick’s servants and the affectionate caresses she bestowed on him when they were being watched. For his part, the prince-​elector returned the favour, gifting Anna a French coach. The marriage proper took place on Valentine’s Day 1613, at Whitehall’s Chapel Royal, the day after a water pageant had been staged on the Thames. Anna wore white and was weighted down with £400,000-​worth of jewels, whilst James walked at her side in a black suit and Spanish cape, dazzling in gemstones himself. Elizabeth’s dress was of cloth of silver, and she was covered in diamonds. Despite her fits of giggles, the ceremony, conducted by Abbot, went off well. Thomas Campion and Inigo Jones’s Lords Masque followed, with James reportedly falling asleep during it –​adding further grist to the mill of those who argue that the king lacked lyrical interests. In truth, the masque was reputedly ‘very long and tedious’, and the surviving text bears this out.14 More entertaining was Shakespeare’s The Tempest, which was also performed, and which obviously concludes with the pairing of two young lovers. The following day, Anna watched from a window with her newly married daughter as Frederick rode out at the Whitehall tiltyard. All of this was ruinously expensive, and, in one of his sporadic economy drives, James decided to break up Frederick’s household and send his attendants home. This soured the festive atmosphere, with Elizabeth taking it particularly badly. The couple determined to leave England themselves, with Frederick having claimed his bride. Eventually, in April, Anna took her daughter by barge to Greenwich and then on to Rochester, with the Thameside palaces and fortresses firing off salutes. Cursed as she seemed to be with bad weather at sea, Anna watched and waited as Elizabeth, with Lady Harington and the countess of Arundel as 14

Stanley Wells and T. J. Spencer, A Book of Masques, p. 102.

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her attendants, was again delayed by high winds. There followed a series of embarkations and debarkations until James’s favourite, Carr –​now known as Rochester –​invited the royal party to a banquet at Rochester Castle. From there, Anna said her final farewell to Elizabeth; the winds improved, and the new couple were off. In the midst of all the high-​level activities centring on foreign affairs, Rochester had continued to attend to the daily grind of government with the assistance of Overbury. Complication arose, however, when his own thoughts turned to marriage. The object of his desire was the beautiful young Frances, countess of Essex, who had played the nymph of the Lea in Tethys Festival. The problem was the 3rd earl of Essex. James himself had engineered this marriage in January 1606, as a means of rehabilitating Essex (whose father had been disgraced and executed) and reconciling unfriendly factions. The marriage had, however, been unsuccessful and supposedly unconsummated, with Essex going on an extended European tour between 1607 and 1609. Frances was thus happy to entertain Rochester’s attentions, as was her family, the perennially ambitious Howards. She and Rochester thus found themselves supported by her father, Suffolk, the elderly Nottingham, and Northampton –​a perceptive and intelligent, albeit Machiavellian figure who masterminded the operation that began in earnest in 1613. Whilst these sinister machinations were brewing, Anna became fixated on her son, the new heir, and the barriers she faced in supporting him. James appointed Charles ‘just twenty-​five of Henry’s original household of 250 followers’ and ‘replaced many of Henry’s advisers with his own appointments’, slashing spending as a result.15 The goal was two-​fold: to save money and to prevent a cult of personality growing up around the prince. It was, however, an outrage to Anna, who sought some control over the new heir as determinedly as she had the old. As in Scotland, she was being deprived of her rights: the political capital of having a say in the raising of the heir, and the maternal joy to be derived from doing so. Worse, she felt keenly the diminution in her child’s own rights.

15

Jerry Brotton, The Sale of the Late King’s Goods, p. 53.

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What hampered her efforts was not her will but her health. Over Christmas, she had complained about the dampness of Greenwich, in April she was mourning the departure of her daughter, and soon she found herself in need of medical attention. Mayerne’s advice was that she visit Bath, notwithstanding the fact that its waters had done little for Salisbury. Nevertheless, the queen took it, making a summer progress of her journey out of London, charging her master of the household, the 4th earl of Worcester, with making the arrangements. James bade Anna farewell from Hampton Court, where she stayed two nights with him before moving on to Windsor. At Caversham Park on the 27th of May, she was met by a ‘Cynic’ engaged in dialogue with a ‘Traveller’, after which noblemen disguised as Robin Hood and his merry men sang for her as she rested in her coach. Once inside the house, the queen was invited to lead the revels, which involved male masquers in green satin inviting the ladies to dance. Thereafter, she lodged for the night with Frances Howard’s sister Elizabeth, before being treated to another of Campion’s masques and a lively dance. She left with numerous gifts, chief amongst them a cabinet worth £1500 (although the ambassador of Savoy, who evidently judged Anna a useful contact, was unable to give her his gift; he abandoned his plans to follow her and instead waited for her return in London with his gilt-​and-​silver casket). The party arrived at Bath at the end of April, lodging in the royal apartments in the West Gate.16 According to local legend, the queen was surprised when, inexplicably, the water in the King’s Bath caught fire, forming a pool of flames which extinguished themselves. She utterly refused to take the water there again, insisting on using the municipal New Bath intended for the poor. As a consequence, the New Bath had to be rechristened the Queen’s Bath. As interesting as the story is, it smacks of myth and it is not contemporaneous, being first found in Nichol’s later Progresses. Anna remained in Bath for five weeks (and she would return following a recurrence of gout in August, to be met with pageants presented by the town guilds and dinner provided by the mayor). Nevertheless, her spirits did improve and, when she first left the town in June, in a coach drawn 16

R. E. M. Peach, Historic Houses, p. 4.

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by four white horses, she was also in better shape physically. She lodged in Bristol, where one of the more celebrated episodes of her consortship took place: she was met by the lord mayor and given a purse containing 100 nobles, before being given dinner at Sir John Young’s mansion. In response to this reception, she would indulge in her fondness for giving diamonds, presenting the lord mayor with a diamond ring. Following this, she was driven to the cathedral and treated to a service (obviously Anglican, which raised no objection on her part) by the bishop of Bath and Wells; afterwards, a water pageant was held where the Avon met the Frome, during which an English ship battled two galleys manned by counterfeit Turks. This the queen watched from a specially built throne at Canon’s Marsh. What is notable here is that these types of entertainments, once associated with grand state entries to capitals, had made their way to the provinces –​and for this Anna was undoubtedly responsible. When it came time for her to leave, the people of the city turned out to cheer her and she made one of her most famous remarks: ‘I never knew I was a queen till I came to Bristol.’17 This was probably not just good manners –​and it underscores her ability to woo the people in a way her husband never cared to attempt. The party, bound for Greenwich, rumbled onwards, via Siston Court, reminiscent in its numbers and its grandeur of the late Queen Elizabeth’s progresses. On the Wansdyke Downs in Wiltshire, the boys of Bishop’s Cannings’ choir, dressed as shepherds, sang verses composed by their choirmaster, George Ferebe, who was similarly costumed. The village was, at the time, set on developing a reputation for challenging ‘all England for musique, football and ringing’.18 Anna debarked from her coach to greet them personally, whereupon they began serenading her with their master’s lyrics. These were doggerel, more or less, but the queen had the grace to make a show of appreciation, showering the singers with gifts whilst her entourage applauded. Ferebe would swiftly be appointed a chaplain to the king.19 On the 27th of July, the queen’s gentleman usher, John Tonstall, was 1 7 18 19

John Corry, The History of Bristol, p. 268. William Collings Lukis, An Account of Church Bells, p. 47. Ferebe’s elevation stands as an indication of Anna’s influence. As Croft notes, James was careful about filling ecclesiastical vacancies. See Croft, King James, p. 159.

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issued a warrant (which allowed those bearing it to sue for payment) for £200 to cover the expenses for the trip to Bath. Even if the couple did not, the royal marriage remained in rude health. In that same month, during a hunt at Theobalds, Anna accidentally shot one of her husband’s favourite dogs, Jewel. James assured her that he would ‘love her never the worse’.20 Curiously, these same words had been used by his mother to his father. Then, Mary Queen of Scots had meant them sarcastically; James, however, was genuine. Despite his grief at the loss of his dog, his affection for his ‘Annie’ was stronger. As proof, he displayed his own loyalty by presenting her with a diamond valued at £2,000, claiming it was Jewel’s legacy. As Chamberlain, who recounted the incident, noted, ‘love and kindnes increases dayly between’ Anna and James who ‘were never in better termes’.21 Curiously enough, in the same letter, he notes that the aldermen of London were at the time being ‘pressed to lend £2000 each to the king’. James, at this time, had other things on his mind. In his wife’s absence, he had been totally at the mercy of Rochester, who had the backing of his lover’s family. The goal of the Howards was to secure a divorce for Frances, so that she might wed the favourite. Unfortunately, Overbury proved to be a source of trouble, opposing the potential match of his friend and, worse, counselling Rochester against it. The Howard response was to encourage James to post Overbury to Russia, and the king complied. He had developed a dislike of the man too, probably seeing him as a rival in his desire to be Rochester’s male master. Overbury, however, had refused to be exiled and, in objecting, found himself imprisoned in the Tower back in April, when Queen Anna and Princess Elizabeth were in the midst of their parting. James had no issue with divorce and was quite willing to see the marriage dissolved and for Rochester to claim his bride; it would have no effect on his own relationship with his favourite, as his own marriage to Anna had had none. Further, he cared nothing for the courtly scandal of broken marriages and had in fact seen it all before; in July 1581, his friend the earl of Arran had grown ‘so 20 John Chamberlain, Letters, I, p. 469. 2 1 CSP, James, 74, pp. 196–​198, 49.

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familiar’ with the countess of March that she was required to divorce her husband on the grounds of impotence and remarry Arran (the resultant child demonstrably being his rather than the earl of March’s). As ever, King James simply cared nothing for criticism or what the gossipier of his subjects might have the nerve to say against the actions his friends –​and he –​took. Overbury, however, did not lie peacefully in the Tower. Whilst captive, he presumed to make use of Anna as an intercessor, writing, ‘now others would oppress me, [she will] be as much for me as afore she was against me’.22 This was, however, a false hope, born not of Overbury’s belief in Anna’s contrariness but a misguided belief in the efficacy of traditional queenly intercession. It came to nothing, and he did not live long enough to make any great attempt at begging the queen’s favour. In September 1613, he died suddenly. In quick succession, James then strong-​armed the wavering ecclesiastics into divorcing Essex from Frances on the grounds of the former’s impotence; Rochester was raised to the earldom of Somerset on the 3rd of November; on the 23rd he was appointed treasurer of Scotland; and on the 26th of December he and Frances were wed at Whitehall, in the same place and by the same bishop who had married her to Essex. To pay for the celebrations, James sold off Crown lands; he gave the groom a golden sword; and he showered the bride with jewels to weave through her hair, which, provocatively, she wore loose, to display her virginity. This wedding would prove extremely unpopular. Somerset had never been well liked and, worse, the efforts the queen had long made to ensure the English court was a decorous place and a cultural centre was being dogged, once again, by rumours. The attempts, which both king and queen had engineered, to use marriage as a means of uniting their Scottish and English subjects had already stirred the gall-​filled inkpots of libellers, with one text decrying, ‘They beg our goods, our lands, and our lives, /​They whip our Nobles and lie with their wives’.23 Another, ‘On the Scots’, directed its venom towards Somerset and his ilk especially –​those grubby Scots who had dared to deck themselves out in good English cloth, and who were set on reducing the state of England itself: 2 2 23

Anne Somerset, Unnatural Murder, p. 309. PRO SP 14/​69/​67: I.

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When Scotland was Scotland and England it selfe Then England was troubled w[i]‌th no Scottish elfe But since bonny jocky in England bare sway The English are vanquisht the Scots goe their way with begging with begging &c For now every Scotchman, that was lately wont To weare the cow hide of an old Scottish runt His bonny blew bonnet, is now layd aside In velvet and scarlet proud Jocky must ride A begging a begging &c24

Both Somerset and Scots were proving unpopular. Worse, they were perceived in some circles as a blight on England: a threat to the evidently fragile, touchy, jealous sense of Englishness which monarchs such as Elizabeth had stoked and with which Queen Anna was engaging through her sponsorship of the arts. Initially, the queen had been unwilling to grace the wedding with her favour, but James knew his wife: by helping her in a property dispute –​ involving lands at Greenwich Palace –​he was able to secure her presence and thus dignify his favourite’s marriage.25 Committed, she went further, attempting to shore up what might look to the world like a deeply dubious ceremony by organising and playing a role in a wedding masque, penned by Campion, which involved the three Destinies bringing her a golden tree, a branch of which she used to disenchant twelve noblemen in knightly attire. Performed also was Jonson’s The Irish Masque, which wisely stuck to extolling James’s role as a British unifier and topically touching only the question of Ireland, which was much in the minds of the council. Still, there was grumbling at this strange wedding, a more richly polished mirror of the bride’s first, coming as it did in the wake of the death of its chief opponent. Yet James’s serious desire to dignify it –​and his wife’s reluctant decision to do the same –​would, for a while at least, quell the sense of distaste. Glittering though it was, the marriage would not, however, be the end of the matter. 2 4 Folger MS V.a.345, pp. 287–​288. 25 This would be finalised in February 1614.

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In addition to promoting her children, Anna was invariably delighted by their own good news. Exactly that came in January 1614, when confirmation came that her daughter Elizabeth had given Frederick a son: he was named Henry Frederick, after his late uncle. One of the other great joys in the queen’s later life was the company of her friends, and she always evinced an admirable loyalty to those of long standing. The principal lady of Anna’s bedchamber remained the Catholic Lady Jean Drummond, who had come with her from Scotland, and in February 1614, she was able to celebrate Jean’s marriage to Lord Roxburgh, staging a ‘solemn and dull’ pastoral written by Samuel Daniel, Hymen’s Triumph, at Somerset House.1 In a fit of wedding fever, she also witnessed the marriage of Frances Southwell, another of her ladies, to Sir Edward Rodney of Rodney Stoke, at Somerset House in May. James’s friends, meanwhile, proved more troublesome. His various schemes to raise money to replenish his nations’ coffers had proven unsuccessful. As a result, he had been persuaded to summon a parliament, which both sat and was dissolved acrimoniously in 1614 (with no legislation passed and no monies voted for). Although a new principal secretary, Sir Ralph Winwood, was appointed, the English government was still at a loss as to how to find solvency. James’s response was to consider more actively seeking the support of Spain, conscious as he was of that nation’s riches. The king’s pro-​Spanish views were not born in a vacuum. The question of Charles’s marriage was of more significance than the late Henry’s, as the prince was now the sole heir to three kingdoms. Anna was keen for a Spanish match between Charles and Maria Anna of Spain, daughter of Philip III. This would represent a marriage greater than Princess Elizabeth had made; Charles would gain what James himself had –​a king’s daughter. From James’s perspective, a considerable dowry drawn from the coffers 1

According to John Chamberlain, this cost the queen £3,000.

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of Spain would answer his financial troubles and eliminate the need for calling troublesome parliaments. He would, too, be keeping to his original design of achieving a balance of power by forging links with the Catholics as he had with the Protestants. His partiality for Spain had also developed warmly thanks to the ministrations of the Spanish ambassador, Diego Sarmiento de Acuña, later 1st Count of Gondomar. The ambassador –​who was remarkably effective at his job –​had astutely read James’s character in all its facets, from the bluff friendliness to the smug intellectualism, and he had accommodated himself to them all, making a friend of the king. Equally cleverly, he would inveigle Anna’s favourite, the Catholic Jean Drummond, to spy for him –​a move which no doubt solidified doubts about the queen’s faith. If James was leaning again towards the Catholics, he was in for a rude awakening. Towards the end of July, Anna was dining in Somerset House when her French page Pierre Hugon rushed in to tell her that her brother had arrived. She shook her head in demurral, until, presumably, she heard the commotion, upon which ‘with great difficulty she only managed to receive him at the door’.2 Christian IV had come in secrecy, with only ‘five or six persons’, landing at Great Yarmouth and being rowed ashore (to the horror of the locals, who feared invasion). Word quickly spread about the coming of the Danish king. He had won the Kalmar War in 1613, and thereby turned Denmark-​Norway into one of the great naval powers –​yet still no one believed that his visit ‘was only one of kindness’.3 It was speculated that some other more or less militaristic impulse had driven him to England. With his usual perception, John Chamberlain wrote that that ‘had the earl of Northampton lived, he [Christian] would have complained of him for unreverent usage of the queen’.4 Similar gossip had reached the Venetian ambassador, who reported that ‘the queen wrote to him about some small dispute with the king and asked him to come and find a remedy and also for an appointment in case of an unexpected visit. I am assured that this is one of the reasons.’5 This was not true –​Anna would not reasonably 2 3 4 5

CSP, Venice, 13, pp. 166–​184, 348. CSP, James, 77, pp. 240–​250, 70. CSP, James, 77, pp. 250–​252, 75. CSP, Venice, 13, pp. 166–​184, 356.

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have expected her brother to come over a domestic matter –​but it is useful in indicating that the Howard faction, with Somerset at its heart, were certainly being recognised as Anna’s opponents. Claimed also was that ‘he spoke about marrying the prince here to a daughter of Spain, and that the queen is in favour of it’.6 This would prove to have more foundation, and it was in accordance with James’s own attitude at the time. Speculation proved correct. Christian had come to solicit James’s support against the ongoing resistance he faced from Sweden and its allies. James returned from his summer progress, eagerly organising a round of ‘hunting, bear baiting, fencing, and other amusements’, despite –​as usual –​ his straitened finances (there having continued, naturally, a last days of Rome atmosphere in the royal exchequer, despite the attempts of officials to curb spending).7 The visit was, however, far less convivial and certainly shorter than the one in 1606. Christian staged another fireworks display for his hosts and promptly left a few day after arriving, kissing his sister goodbye at Somerset House and travelling to Woolwich with James and Charles. There, he was left, despite his not being due to sail until the following day. However, the Danish king was not wholly abandoned by his relatives: Anna sent him a diamond ring (again, a symbol of constancy) by Sir George Carew, her vice-​chamberlain. She would not, however, see him again, and his visit, though undoubtedly welcome, had done nothing for her situation. With the Danish king gone, attention at court once again fell upon the favourite. Somerset’s enemies –​chief among them the earls of Pembroke, Hertford and Bedford –​began to formulate a plan to oust him. This scheme involved using a protégé of Sir John Graham named George Villiers to win the king’s affection away from Somerset. Helping them –​inadvertently –​in this was the favourite’s marriage; Somerset appears to have genuinely fallen for his countess, and thus had ceased to devote himself entirely to the king. Villiers, conversely, was a free agent and, with appropriate dressing and grooming, he was able to gradually improve upon his already considerable

6 7

Ibid. CSP, James, 77, pp. 250–​252, 75.

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physical attractions. However, James himself seemed at first immune, being still too willing to lend his ear to Somerset. The fact that they were not replacing a consort seems to have occurred to the pro-​Villiers lords, who grew alarmed at the slow progress they were making in displacing the hated favourite. In desperation, they went to Anna, knowing that she might be of use in advancing another man in her husband’s affections. Indeed, James himself had claimed that the principal men in his life –​his lovers, in other words –​must be approved by the queen, in order that she could not later complain of them.8 Pembroke approached her in the gardens at Greenwich when she and her ladies were walking her greyhounds. Initially, she refused. Her feelings are difficult to imagine. She disliked Somerset intensely, and always had done. However, to agree to put another man in his place was tantamount to admitting to these desperate lords that she was prepared to join in their bawdy pimping of another young man. Realising that her objections were probably on moral grounds, Pembroke brought in the archbishop of Canterbury, George Abbot, who added his own voice to the anti-​Somerset faction (his interest predicated on the Howards’ association with the Catholic, Spanish interest as well as the dislike of Somerset he had borne since he, Abbot, had opposed the dissolution of Frances’s first marriage). Anna provided, as it turned out, to have the coolest political head. She is recorded –​by Abbot, admittedly later –​as having said, Neither you nor your friends know what you desire. I know your master [the king] better than you all; if Villiers get once into his favour, those who shall have most contributed to his preferment will be the first sufferers by him. I shall be no more spared than the rest. The king will teach him himself to despise us and to treat us with pride and scorn. The young, proud favourite will fancy that he is obliged to nobody for his preferment.9

The queen knew her husband as well as he knew her. She knew his delight in raising people up, often beyond their abilities, and, whilst she probably did not mean that James would deliberately instruct a lover to hate 8 Nichols, The Progresses, 3, pp. 81–​82. 9 John Frederick Smith, John Cassell’s Illustrated History, 3, p. 57.

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her (and his other backers), she foresaw that young men raised up would learn from it that they were superior to all about them. On a personal level, she was likely thinking of the contempt Carr and Overbury had shown for her as a consort no longer touched by the king. Overweening pride, too, she had seen in multiple favourites over the years. Anna was, as was often the case, thinking in the long-​term, whilst the politicians, as was often the case, were short-​term thinkers, seeking Somerset’s immediate removal. With her warning made, Anna tentatively agreed to intercede on Villiers’ behalf. She was unwell again, with dropsy suspected in the spring, and in her weak health she decided to push the king in the direction of Villiers, encouraging him to promote the young man. This she could do safely –​it was expected that a consort might push for such favours and James was hardly known for being shy in conferring knighthoods. It was evident that Anna had not given up her political interests, nor had she ceased to engage the heir in exercising them. As she had with Henry, she joined forces with Charles, whom she had nicknamed her ‘little servant’; in March, the two were pressing for Sir Arthur Ingram to be made cofferer of the king’s household, against the objections of the officers of the green cloth (the downstairs staff ).10 By contrast, sponsoring Villiers against the unpopular Somerset was easy. The new man became a conspicuous presence at court. On the 23rd of April, St George’s Day, 1615, Villiers went to the king’s apartments, where James and Anna were waiting to swear him in as a gentleman of the bedchamber. Naturally, Somerset, as lord chamberlain, got wind of this, and he swiftly sent a note to James begging him to make the candidate a mere groom. Abbot, however, was also in the palace, and his own note went to the queen, begging that she ‘perfect her work’, and she redoubled her insistence on the greater position.11 With Villiers before them, the queen played her masterstroke. She asked Prince Charles –​who was, again, her ally –​to remove his sword. Taking it, she knelt before the king and asked him to knight the young 1 0 11

CSP, James, 80, pp. 276–​281, 42. A. T. Thomson, Life and Times, I, pp. 78–​80.

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man in honour of his namesake, St George. The king attempted a joke, pretending to be frightened that she would come at him with the sword, before accepting it and doing the new man the honour. Rather than costing Villiers –​knighthoods were too frequently being sold –​it gave him immediate remuneration in the form of a £1,000 pension. Open warfare with the current favourite was not what Villiers intended, however. Instead, he attempted to befriend Somerset, sending a message, via Sir Humphrey May, requesting to do him service. Somerset’s jealousy was stirred –​probably out of fear for his own position –​and he refused, saying, ‘I will none of your service and you shall none of my favour. I will, if I can, break your neck’.12 This was not the kind of talk James liked and it could only serve to make Villiers more attractive by comparison. And attractive the new man was. Even Anna found herself charmed by him, and he seems to have done everything he could to achieve her favour, despite the fact he was set to become the new third person in the royal marriage. He endeared himself principally in two ways: he sought to ‘lug the sow’s ear’ –​or to encourage the king to behave decorously, as she liked; and he was careful always to show her absolute deference. The pair came to write to one another playing on his servitude, with Villiers signing himself ‘your dog’, just as he did with James. One note from the queen read, My king [kind] dog, Here is a report, that the king would have me meete him a[t]‌Woodstock. He writes nothing of it himself, the iourie [sic] is farre and incommodious, his staie there but three daies. I should be verie glad that would spare me yet if he please not I shalbe readie to performe his pleasure I pray yow, let me knowe it … So wishing yow much happiness, and Continuall faithfulnesses to your Maister, I rest. ANNA R13

Evidently, by the time of the letter’s composition, there had sprung up a mutual sense of domesticity between the pair, with the king as their 12 Thomson, Life and Times, I, p. 89. 1 3 The manuscript of this letter was recently sold at auction. It is undated, but as it refers to Villiers as the ‘earl of Buckingham’ it must have been written between his elevation to the earldom and dukedom.

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shared object of affection. That Villiers and James were entangled sexually (to whatever degree) is strongly implied by a letter of the favourite’s own, in which Villiers wrote to James of their first night at Farnham, when ‘the bed’s head could not be found between the master and his dog’.14 Sharing beds for warmth and companionship was common, even in royal households, but Queen Elizabeth had certainly not shared hers with any of the men she had raised to the position of favourite. James, being a man, could indulge himself sexually with his own favourites without raising quite so much scandal. Anna was probably happy there was no other woman; if there was to be a third person in her marriage, better it was a reliable man who deferred to her and who, further, could behave himself admirably and with grace. The only member of the family not yet charmed was Prince Charles. From the beginning, the heir proved truculent, stealing Villiers’ ring in a fit of pique and thus earning James’s censure. When walking in the gardens at Greenwich in May, the prince also diverted a jet of water from a fountain so that it soaked the favourite. This time, he earned a box on the ears from his father. It would be years before the prince and the new favourite were reconciled. Anna, however, appears not to have tried to force her son into acceptance of her odd marital situation. Still, with Villiers in the ascendent, she continued to perform the duties, as she saw them, of consort. In July, she interceded with the king for her great friend (and a gentleman-​extraordinary and groom of the chamber) Samuel Daniel, asking him to ‘appoint a company of youths to perform comedies and tragedies at Bristol, under the name of the Youths of Her Majesty’s Royal Chamber of Bristol’.15 James’s agreement was a delight to both the queen and her dramatist, not only because it increased cultural production but because it favoured Bristol, 14 Villiers’ letter, written later, questions, ‘whether you loved me now … better than at the time which I shall never forget at Farnham, where the bed’s head could not be found between the master and his dog’. The royal court was at Farnham in late 1615, which provides a date for this –​possibly their first or most intimate –​sexual encounter. Given James’s increasingly poor health, it might be questioned how long sex remained a component of their affair. 15 CSP, James, 81, pp. 291–​300, 12.

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the people of which had shown her such deference. Her days as a central performer were, unfortunately, over. She again turned dropsical, and, as Mayerne said of her, ‘she has faith in the baths which often leads to a cure’.16 In July, when James was at Windsor, the queen was, once again, at Bath –​eased this time not only by the waters but by the knowledge that a more agreeable influence was at work on her husband. This time she had made her journey to the town from Windsor via Colnbrook, Reading, Newbury, Salisbury and Warminster (at the latter of which she was treated to a demonstration of the virginals played by a blind man). In Bath itself, she lodged first at one Dr Stewarde’s house and thereafter nearer the baths, at the home of a man named Hadnethe. As she remained plagued by gout, this visit stretched into September. Despite her ongoing ill health, Anna had not lost interest in her family –​ nor had she lost her political acumen. Throughout 1615, discussions of a potential Spanish bride for Charles progressed apace, with the queen lending her tentative support to what she considered a suitable match for her son, and one which would counterbalance her daughter’s Protestant marriage. Yet, even then, she was too sharp to commit herself fully. In a move worthy of Elizabeth I, who had played the marriage game to the hilt, Anna kept everyone guessing by indicating favour towards Spain and, in October, speaking for an hour with Foscarini and stating that ‘she would sooner see [Prince Charles] married in France than in Spain; she told me why, and concluded by saying that she had left the decision to the king; that at present all negotiations, whether with the one or the other crown, are relaxed’.17 In terms of high politics, the matriarch of the house of Stuart was still very much in play. In addition to her activities with regard to her son’s marriage prospects, Anna was actively involved in protecting the reputation of her husband. A scandalous pamphlet attacking the king and his court, entitled Corona Regia, had been published at Louvain.18 Anti-​monarchical tracts were, 1 6 17 18

CSP, James, 74, pp. 196–​198, 55. CSP, Venice, 14, pp. 31–​42, 54. Corona Regia was falsely attributed to Isaac Casaubon, and it purported to have been printed by James’s own printer, John Bill. It claimed that James was not Mary Queen of Scots’s son and mocked his physical appearance. In the text, the king vomits from over-​indulgence and is ‘curved, twisted, and wretched … perverse’.

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as always, anathema to the queen. Thus, in November, she wrote from Greenwich to Ferdinand de Boisschot, Dutch ambassador to England, and his wife Anna Maria, urging them to suppress the text. The ambassador and his wife were subject to another letter from Anna’s pen some months later, this time encouraging the punishment of Henri Du Puy, professor at Louvain, for his part in the affair.19 Her record as an intercessor might have been variable, but her attempts to protect her family were always robust. Outside the family, the obvious loser in the blossoming romance between king and favourite was Somerset. If he had plans to regain the royal favour, however, they would prove useless. His past was about to catch up with him. Late summer saw the first rumblings of something afoot. Winwood, in his capacity as secretary, had learnt of a supposed confession by an apothecary’s apprentice in Flushing. The boy (who was later identified as one William Reeve, but never seriously investigated by the English government) had admitted to having been ordered by the physician, Paul Lobell, to administer a poisonous clyster (enema) to Overbury on behalf of Lobell’s paymistress, Lady Frances, now countess of Somerset. Quickly, a murder plot began to emerge, with Winwood as the detective. As the revelations mounted, Somerset himself sought to gain a pre-​emptive general pardon, but he was unsuccessful. It was soon enough being reported that Queen Anna counselled the king against granting the falling favourite any such indemnity. September and October were dominated by the investigation. It overshadowed even the sad news that Lady Arbella Stuart, who had been kept in the Tower –​and who, desperate to control something in her life, had refused to eat –​had passed away. Lieutenant of the Tower Sir Gervase Helwys was questioned, quickly confessing that, two years before, he had found Richard Weston, Overbury’s servant,

19

The description of James’s supposed outward faults are intended to be read as humorous manifestations of his moral corruption and laxity. Central to the text’s scathing complaints are that the king immoderately engaged in love affairs with his male favourites, which are suggested as being taken, in private, beyond public kisses and caresses. BL MSS French. ff. 54r–​55v; ff. 56r–​57v.

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suns that set intending to poison Overbury, [which] so terrified him that he had him at his service to deceive those who sent the poisons, by pretending to administer them, but not doing so. At length Overbury being ill, Weston confessed that the apothecary’s servant was corrupted to poison him with a glister [clyster]. Knows none but Weston and Mrs Turner who were actors in it.20

Mrs Turner was the wealthy widow of Dr George Turner, a noted physician. She was also the mistress of Sir Arthur Mainwaring, who had been a carver to the late Prince Henry. The murder plot was soon discovered to be a conspiracy. Mrs Turner, on being taken in, revealed that Frances had promised rewards if Overbury was given the poison she had procured from one Dr Franklin, of Tower Hill. Thus, the agents directly surrounding the dead man were rounded up and executed: Helwys, Turner, Franklin and Weston. All were, however, acting on the directions of the principal actors: Frances and her husband, who had sought to profit by Overbury’s death by being free to marry without his interference. As their own legal condemnation looked likely, the couple found an unlikely ally in the queen. Anna, according to the Tuscan ambassador, was ‘said to favour the earl and countess, even though previously she was bitterly opposed to them’. If true, this is not particularly surprising. Queen Anna could now afford to be magnanimous. She knew her husband’s historic unwillingness to shed the blood of those he had loved, and she was thus evidently positioning herself –​or being positioned –​as an intercessor acting on behalf of the Somersets. This she could do safely enough; there was no danger of intercession bringing about a political comeback on the couple’s part (which Anna certainly did not want). Whether they lost their heads or not, they were ruined politically, and so it harmed the queen not at all to be seen to agree pre-​emptively with what would almost certainly be her husband’s decision to commute the death sentence. The pair went to trial in the spring of 1616, with the pregnant countess pleading guilty and Lord Ellesmere pronouncing the death sentence. Misogynist libellers exulted at this ostensible evidence of the female propensity for villainy. Her husband, at his trial the next day, pled not guilty; 20 CSP, James, 81, pp. 306–​310, 86.

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he too was found guilty and sentenced to death. As expected, however, the king commuted both punishments to imprisonment in the Tower, where the couple would remain until 1622. This roused the fury of the Londoners, who rightly saw that justice had been meted out swiftly against the small fry whilst the principal culprits had been shown mercy. On seeing the queen’s carriage after the trial, a mob mistook it for that belonging to Frances and gave chase, not realising their mistake until it reached Whitehall. Anna, for her part, was well pleased to see justice –​of a form –​served. Her diamond ring this time went to Sir Edward Coke, the chief justice of the king’s bench. The downfall of Somerset had been remarkably swift. The extent to which he had joined in his wife’s murder plot remains a topic of debate; on balance, it is likely that Frances had acted with members of her own family in devising the death of Overbury. Somerset appears to have been a dupe, who accepted the death of his former friend as simple good fortune, and who was no match for his more intelligent wife. At any rate, one favourite had fallen; another had risen. Thankfully for Anna, the risen sun shone more warmly on her and she, in turn, was content.

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Due to her increasingly poor health, which included legs which intermittently swelled, and which suffered painful ulcers, Anna had retired from taking centre stage in elaborate masques. However, she was unwilling to give up her interests nor to let her clients suffer for her lack of energy. Resurrecting the love of building –​and perhaps inspired by her brother’s discussion of his building works in Denmark –​she had set Inigo Jones to work on designing a new house for her at Greenwich (though the actual work did not begin until 1616). Her mind had apparently returned to Dunfermline, where her idea had been to construct a new building which connected to the existing ones. The Queen’s House at Greenwich would follow the same notion: it would contain two wings, one within the existing palace and one in the park, connected by a covered bridge. The real difference was that this building had Jones’s genius and his experiences of Italian palazzi behind it. It would boast a cubic hall, a cantilevered staircase and frescoed bedroom ceilings; its exterior would make its southern entrance the first in what would become the defining Palladian style of the seventeenth century. In devising this, queen and architect were dragging the artistic style of England out of the primary-​coloured and gilded, statue-​and ornament-​heavy, fussy aesthetic of the late Elizabethan period and into the classical look of the enlightenment. It is fair to say that Queen Elizabeth would not have recognised (nor, probably, appreciated) the Queen’s House when it was finally completed in 1635. It would belong to the new age. Anna’s interests, still lively, certainly give the lie to the idea that she was a lonely figure left to the shadows in her last years. Anna remained, however, utterly unable to live within her means; her conception of consortship simply did not allow her to do so. This marked a contrast with Queen Elizabeth, who had maintained her household and the image of monarchy she projected without incurring too many debts. Though it does not excuse Anna’s spending, it should, however, be noted

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that Elizabeth had boasted –​literally –​one thing neither Anna nor James could: her double dose of Englishness. Indeed, the old queen had fired up English nationalism, using her parentage as a rallying cry in encouraging support for her authority. Her successors had had to find a narrative which directly countered this energised Englishness, coming as they were from a position of alterity. For both of them, this had involved expending copious amounts of money on image-​building, entertaining and portraying themselves as patrons and benefactors with bottomless pockets –​James was set on projecting his imperial British project and Anna on de-​alienating herself through sponsorship of the English arts and adhering to Ben Jonson’s maxim: ‘language most shows a man’ (or woman).1 Unfortunately for the queen’s servants, someone had to feel around in those pockets. In February 1616, Justinian Povey, the queen’s auditor, noted her entire annual income as £25,929. Her debts amounted to £8948, 3s, 5d.2 When one considers that a single celebration, such as that given on Jean Drummond’s marriage to Lord Roxburgh, cost around £3,000, the lack of economy is startling. Still, attempts were made; Anna’s servant, Roger Lloyd (who attained the curious title of ‘admiral to the queen’, which likely allowed him to enforce claims on wrecks falling within her coastal estates) joined forces with her surveyor-​general, Lord Knyvett, to collect £6,000 worth of old debts on her behalf, though the grant never received assent from the Great Seal. Attempts the following year to revive Elizabethan cloth duties –​with Lloyd and Prince Charles’s secretary, Thomas Murray, at the helm –​would prove equally nugatory.3 Still, economic sense was not something the queen was going to learn in her middle age. Throughout 1616, she continued to watch the rise of Villiers, no doubt with the awareness that her husband had learned nothing from the problems of Somerset. In September, the favourite was created Baron Whaddon, Viscount Villiers, in Anna and Charles’s presence. She and Charles went on working well together; in December, they united in attempting to have Sir Edward Coke made a baron. In November, the 1 Jonson, Every Man in His Humour, p. 53. 2 In 1616, Povey had given her income as £25,929, 7s, 4¾d per annum, and noted debts of £18,948, 3s, 5d –​so some work had been put into reducing what she owed. 3 SP39/​6/​1; E124/​24, f. 130v.

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prince was formally invested as prince of Wales, as his brother had been before him. Unfortunately, ‘sharp weather and his ill health’ prevented a great public show –​which probably suited the king. James did watch from Whitehall as Charles was rowed from Richmond, but Anna herself was unable to attend.4 As close as she had grown to her son, it was said that she feared to come to the investiture ‘lest she should renew her grief for the late prince’.5 If this, rather than her own poor health, was the reason, it was a good thing she did not attend; the bishop of Ely mixed up the names during the sermon, exhorting those present to pray for the new prince of Wales, ‘Prince Henry’. At any rate, the relationship between mother and son remained one of mutual devotion. Charles addressed his letters to his ‘most worthy mistress’ and, touchingly, he wrote, I wish from my heart that I might help to find a remedy to your disease, the which I must bear the more patiently because it is the sign of a long life. But I must for many causes be sorry, especially because it is troublesome to you and had deprived me of your most comfortable sight and many good dinners, the which I hope by God’s grace shortly to enjoy and when it shall please you to give me leave to see you, it may be I shall give you some good recipe which either shall heal you or make you laugh.6

It was reported at the time that Anna loved Charles ‘better than Prince Henry’.7 This was unfair, but what is apparent is that she grew closer to her remaining son after the loss of her eldest. Further sadness plagued the queen. Shortly before Christmas, Lord Roxburgh was given an earldom, but he was dissatisfied at not being given the post of lord chamberlain to Charles. Angrily, he withdrew from court, leading to a brief period of disfavour for Jean. Unsurprisingly, the queen thus spent a miserable Christmas ‘unwell’ at Somerset House. She was not present when Villiers achieved his highest honour yet –​the earldom of Buckingham –​which James bestowed on the 1st of January. She did, however, rally sufficiently –​or force herself –​to attend the Banqueting House to meet the famous Native American princess, Pocahontas, on Twelfth 4 CSP, James, 89, pp. 401–​410, 17. 5 Ibid. 6 Chancellor, The Life of Charles I, p. 15. 7 Goodman, The Court and Times, I, p. 251.

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Night 1617, when she and a Powhatan holy man, Tomocomo, were treated to a performance of Ben Jonson’s The Vision of Delight. Indeed, it was to Anna that Captain John Smith, whose life Pocahontas had supposedly saved in Virginia, wrote one of his accounts, and to whom he begged that the Powhatan natives be treated with respect. It might well have been Anna’s low spirits and general poor health which prohibited her from the other great project that was underway: James’s much-​delayed return to Scotland. He had not kept his promise of repeat visits to his people north of the border, boasting that he governed them as well from London as Edinburgh (which had largely proven true). In his time down south, however, he had been arguing for Scotland to be all but abolished, along with England, in his pursuit of a single British nation, a single rule of law and a single flag (his union flag having been a subject requiring Scottish delegates to travel south to discuss in the summer of 1606). In February 1616, orders had been sent north prohibiting the shooting of game, so that the stocks might rebuild. In May 1616, an Act had been passed north of the border to begin improving the royal residences at Holyrood, Stirling and Falkland, and the following January, a proclamation was issued against the killing of bucks around the latter palace. The cause of delays was cost: there were ‘difficulties in raising a loan of £100,000 from the Aldermen upon security of the royal jewels, and the like sum from the farmers of the customs’ which made the funding of the trip a logistical nightmare.8 Yet James was determined. Advancing old age had made the absentee king increasingly sentimental for the nation he had left behind. Anna was not so sentimental. Her affection was reserved for people and art, and she had those Scots she loved about her and art and artists aplenty where she was. Nevertheless, she was mindful of her Scottish property; the following year, a charter in her name would confer on one David Routh the right to lands once held by his grandfather in her burgh of Dunfermline.9 Moreover, when an English king left his realm, there was a tradition of the consort stepping into his shoes –​if not as regent, then as governor, which was regent in all but name. Indeed, whilst Katherine of Aragon 8 9

CSP, James, 90, pp. 421–​430, 25. St Andrews MSS: msDA890.D9A6 (ms741).

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had been given the titles of governor of the realm and captain general when Henry VIII went to France in 1513, Katherine Parr had been awarded the regency in 1544. It is thus reasonable to assume that Anna expected a similar honour –​a similar right –​when James left England in March 1617, hot on the heels of the death of the lord chancellor, Thomas Egerton, 1st Viscount Brackley. In January, her gout had remained a problem, yet she had been ‘said to aim at the regency if the king goes to Scotland’.10 After having moved to Whitehall, she even attempted to show her fitness, dancing with Buckingham and the earl of Montgomerie at those same Twelfth Night celebrations to which Pocahontas was invited. If her desire was genuine, it was not to be realised. Possibly in a compensatory move, a grant was issued ‘of confirmation and explanation of her former charters, and of addition of some few things to make her former possessions more entire, together with certain liberties and immunities’.11 However, James installed not his wife in power, but Francis Bacon, whom he made lord keeper on the 7th of March. Anna, it appears, held her peace, and she and her husband dined together the following day, when Somerset House, which had been being rebuilt since 1609, was formally rechristened Denmark House. There was cheer also in the form of another wedding when Sir Robert Mansell married Elizabeth Roper, a maid of honour; and that other lady of long service, Jean, Lady Roxburgh, was restored to favour and awarded £3,000 ‘for long and faithful service’.12 It thus seems that Anna, though disappointed, was not furious about being passed over for something which her predecessors had enjoyed. As she bid farewell to her husband, with Prince Charles at her side, it seems likely that her thoughts were now entirely with the heir’s rights rather than her own. In the king’s absence, Anna appeared contented. She brushed over an altercation with one Thomas Watson, who feared the blame for killing one of her greyhounds and, curiously, she sent ‘to have a standing-​cloth made by an Anabaptist at the Hague, as soon as possible’.13 Anabaptists remained pariahs –​early modern bogeymen –​who were routinely accused of 1 0 11 12 13

CSP, James, 90, pp. 421–​430, 8. CSP, James, 90, pp. 439–​456. Ibid. CSP, James, 91, pp. 456–​462.

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atheistic practices. They remained very much ‘the other’ amongst Christian faith groups, and the most recent victim of persecution for Anabaptism in England, Edward Wightman, was interrogated in 1612 chiefly on everything he apparently denied: the Trinity, Christ and God being one being, and Christ’s divinity.14 Anna’s interest in this standing cloth appears to represent another facet of her interest in the marginalised. With regard to her own religion, it was reported in May that ‘she never missed one Lent sermon’.15 Her public confessional identity remained orthodox and was always secondary –​distantly so –​to her regal identities as a king’s daughter and a king’s wife. Perhaps wisely, she did not rigorously and demonstratively attend daily devotions like Katherine of Aragon (whose Catholic displays of piety had admittedly belonged to an earlier generation), nor encourage her ladies in religion like Anne Boleyn, nor preach to her husband or servants like Katherine Parr. Testament to Anna’s success, however, is the fact that her private beliefs remain as elusive and protean as they were to her contemporaries. Bacon, meanwhile, found ruling England both exhilarating and exhausting, and on the 24th of May, Chamberlain recorded that ‘the Council remain chiefly with the queen. The lord keeper has the gout; he jokes, and says he is the first beggar that has had it.’16 She certainly did not waste her time. Days later, a warrant was issued with the purpose of seeking some means of increasing her annual income should she outlive James. Otherwise, Anna seems content to have stayed out of the inevitable power struggles which went on in the absence of her husband, who had taken Villiers north with him. Chiefly, these were fought between Bacon –​ who let power go to his head, growing arrogant and keeping court as though he were a king himself –​and Secretary Winwood, who objected and sought to make mischief. Anna, for her part, wrote to her husband –​excusing the infrequency of her letters as the result of pain, and continuing to address him as ‘my heart’; she oversaw the building work at Greenwich; and, about this time, she saw finished the portrait she had commissioned 14 James had denounced Anabaptists as extreme Puritans in 1603. See Croft, King James, p. 155. 15 CSP, James, 92, pp. 462–​470, 15. 16 CSP, James, 92, pp. 462–​470, 42.

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from the Flemish artist Paul van Somer. This remarkable painting stands quite apart from the images painted of previous consorts –​and previous queens regnant. It depicts her standing in the foreground with her own Oatlands Palace visible in the background to her left. To her right, a black groom in scarlet and gold Oldenburg livery holds her horse, whilst her beloved miniature greyhounds snap at her skirt and stand at her feet. She wears an open-​fronted ruff, which reveals her silk-​covered upper bosom above a green riding habit. Riding gloves and a tall hat, complete with red plumes, join with Spanish cut sleeves in completing her look. Above, an owl –​the symbol of wisdom –​perches on a tree. Floating ethereally in the moody sky over her head is a banner reading, ‘LA MIA GRANDEZZA DAL ECCELSO’ (‘My greatness is from on high’): a favourite motto. Her hair, it is clear, has grown grey and thin, though it is fashionably frizzed, and her ruddy, long face is double-​chinned. Nevertheless, she gazes out in challenge, one hand on her hip, her jaw set. Prematurely aged she was, but the portrait depicts a woman whose will remained firm. The portrait, too, shows wisdom in its choice of setting: Oatlands had by this time become one of Anna’s treasure houses, featuring paintings of her Danish relatives and courtiers like Jean Drummond, who would return to Scotland under a cloud in September, to be succeeded as first lady of the bedchamber by Anna’s English friend, Elizabeth Grey, Lady Ruthin.17 When James returned in August, it was with a visible diminution in his state. He, like his wife, had aged, but more so. His diet had been as poor in Scotland as it had in England, and it was noted that he had grown too fat to ride comfortably. Still, the royal pair managed to attend the wedding of Sir Edward Coke’s daughter Frances to Buckingham’s wastrel brother. Coke, aware of the benefits of allying his child to the family of the powerful favourite, was behind the match, as was the groom’s mother, the ambitious Mary Villiers. The pair had schemed over the marriage, with Coke determined not to give too much in a dowry. Lady Coke, however, had objected strongly to the match, as had the bride –​and mother and daughter had 17

There is some confusion here in that it is often reported that one ‘Lady Ruthven’ took on this role. The confusion arises from the similarity between ‘Ruthven’ and Elizabeth’s husband’s then title, Lord Grey of ‘Ruthin’ (which he bore between 1615 and 1623, after which he was the earl of Kent).

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attempted to run away, only to be hunted down and all but dragged to the altar. James, for his part, was intent on the marriage going forward. It is likely that the king wished to please Buckingham and his family, but so too was he weary and desirous of no more unpleasant scenes with lovers, such as he had faced with Somerset. He thus insisted that Anna attend; her presence added a much-​needed dignity and colour to events. More happily, another marriage remained very much at the forefront of British politics: the still-​undecided match for Prince Charles. In September, Anna firmly renounced the Spanish match, endorsing her son’s betrothal instead to Henrietta Maria or Christine, the young sisters of the French king, Louis XIII. This was no great shock, although it was a blow to James’s Spanish ambitions; Anna had, after all, voiced doubts about the Spanish match two years previously. More pertinently, her falling out with the pro-​ Spanish Jean Drummond and James’s ambassador in Madrid, John Digby, soured her view of Spain: When Sir [ John] Digby some months ago fell out of favour with the queen it was thought that her Majesty would lose all inclination towards the Spanish party, and signs of this became apparent at once. This is thought to be of some moment in its bearings upon the prince’s marriage, although her Majesty has never meddled in affairs of State. The results are now appearing more markedly as the queen has effected almost a revolution in her court, those dependent on Digby or friendly to his party being removed. Among other matters it has appeared like an outrage to see Mrs. Drummond also deprived of her favour, who came with her from Scotland and has always been her first lady. She has been obliged to leave the Court and England and possibly to give up the pension which she received from the Catholic ambassador [Gondomar], and to retire to Scotland her native country.18

All was change, indeed. The affairs of state were heavy –​so heavy that in October Secretary Winwood dropped dead –​a fate which likely saved him from having to answer questions regarding his encouragement of attacks on the Spanish. Raleigh had, finally, persuaded the king to release him from the Tower, and James had agreed not out of any sense of honour, but out of greed. Raleigh’s promise had been that he could discover and procure for England vast quantities of gold out of Guiana. 18

CSP, Venice, 15, pp. 1–​14, 14.

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James’s condition, however, was that the old queen’s favourite must cause no trouble with the Spanish, with whom he was continuing to follow a policy of amity. In June the seadog had gone, with contrary advice from the ailing Winwood. This latest loss did little to improve the constitutions of the royal couple. Anna, though pleased by Raleigh’s release, had fallen ill again herself by the end of the year. Still, she managed to visit her husband at Whitehall, where he too was suffering from lameness in his legs. Together, the pair escaped up the Theobalds Road to the avenue of cedar trees leading to the great country palace, where it was hoped the air might prove efficacious. It certainly did nothing for the queen, who stayed indoors all Christmas, even when news arrived that Elizabeth had given birth to another son, who had been promptly named after his uncle Charles. At the beginning of January 1618, Anna cancelled The Masque of Ladies, which was to be given by Lady Hay. Neither could she attend Charles’s production of Jonson’s Pleasure Reconciled to a Virtue on Twelfth Night. She was, as Chamberlain claimed, ‘in languishing condition’, although it seems she did not miss much; as the catty Nathaniel Brent wrote, ‘the masque of Twelfth Night was so dull that people say the poet [Ben Jonson] should return to his old trade of brickmaking’.19 James rallied enough to go to Newmarket, but the festive period was ‘very dull, chiefly owing to the queen’s absence’ (a sentiment that would be echoed the following year).20 It was certainly an unpropitious time –​even attempts by Suffolk and the Howards to excite James’s lust via the dangling of a new, specially coached young lad –​a shallow attempt to replace Buckingham –​failed to bear fruit. By March, the queen was lying at Denmark House, yet she managed to send the king of France a gift of horses and hounds. James was her fellow in suffering, experiencing another attack of gout. In the shared illnesses of what was, by the standard of the times, old age, the pair drew closer, visiting one another whenever their respective constitutions allowed. Unfortunately, in June, news from across the world threatened to come between them. Raleigh, on the other side of the Atlantic, had found no 1 9 CSP, James, 95, pp. 510–​519, 12. 20 CSP, James, 95, pp. 510–​519, 18.

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gold. He had, however, suffered the death of his eldest son, Wat, during an ill-​advised retaliatory raid on San Thomé (carried out against Raleigh’s orders, when he himself lay ill). It became clear that this attack was ‘disliked by the king, and contrary to his instructions to preserve amity’. Worse, James promised the Spanish that he would ‘punish him as a pirate if he committed any outrage’.21 The king’s foreign policy had, for some time, been pro-​Spanish, and Gondomar, the affable Spanish ambassador, continued to encourage it. As a result, when Raleigh landed back in England and gave himself up to the law, James was determined to make an example of the old man. This was an impolitic move domestically. Raleigh, as much as he had been hated during Queen Elizabeth’s reign, had become as loved after it. He was the last vestige of the old era, which had been gilded in the popular memory, its later unpopularity –​like Raleigh’s –​buried under nostalgia. Anna was fully aware of this, and of the threat her husband’s actions were posing to the image of the monarchy as a pro-​English (or pro-​British, with England holding the whip hand) institution. Her own efforts to retain Gondomar’s goodwill did not amount to much. Of Anna, he gleefully –​and probably erroneously –​reported that she kept two priests at Oatlands, who sang mass to her daily. What seems more likely is that she allowed priests to say mass to those of her ladies who were Catholic. After all, he hedged his bets by adding that ‘she is not a very good Catholic … she favours some Puritans to the scandal of good [Catholic] nobles [likely the Howards]’.22 However, even her exploitation of her much-​storied faith would not have allowed her to overcome the will of the Spanish. Accordingly, she enlisted the help of someone who did have power over James –​Buckingham: My kind dog, If I have any power or credit with you, I earnestly pray you let me have a trial of it at this time, in dealing sincerely and earnestly with the king that Sir Walter Raleigh’s life may not be called in question if you do it so, that your success answer my expectation, assure yourself that I will take it extraordinarily kindly at your hands.23 2 1 22 23

CSP, James, 97, pp. 542–​549, 98. Field, ‘Anna of Denmark and the Politics of Religious Identity’, pp. 102–​103. Charles Kittridge True, The Life and Times of Sir Walter Raleigh, p. 189.

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Unfortunately, Buckingham did not heed her. He, like James, was pro-​ Spanish, and his eyes –​ironically –​were not on the past but, as Anna’s had been, on the future: Charles. He was unwilling to support the queen’s intervention if it meant jeopardising a potential Spanish match for the prince. As a consequence, the death sentence which had been passed against the last living Elizabethan favourite back in 1603 was finally carried out. Raleigh went to the block on the 29th of October in the Old Palace Yard at Westminster. There was, ‘much talked of ’, a comet sighted in the sky prior to his death –​a sure sign, according to contemporary superstition, of the coming death of an important person.24 It might not have marked out Raleigh’s path, however. This failed attempt at intercession would be Anna’s last use of her traditional power as an English consort. She had misjudged the exercise in seeking to change her sovereign’s mind on a matter already decided. She would not make any future attempts. Her health worsened, and soon enough, England was looking at her not in terms of what a consort was supposed to do, but how a consort was supposed to die.

24 CSP, James, 103, pp. 589–​599, 102.

For Sure No Good Prince Dies

Despite the queen’s illness, means were still being found to improve her finances. In November 1618, she was awarded £8,000 per annum, and James £3,000, ‘out of the rent of the earl of Somerset’s forfeited allowance on cloth’.1 She would have little time to make use of it. Lady Ruthin reported an improvement towards the end of the month, yet in December, when the king went to Theobalds, her physicians advised against moving her. The news that Elizabeth had born a daughter, Elisabeth of the Palatinate, probably caused another lift, reported on the 4th. At this stage, the question of her attitude towards her son’s future came to the fore. Foscarini, with whom she had shared a colourful diplomatic relationship in the past, left a detailed and touching portrait of her, noting on the 19th of December her attitude to Charles’s prospective brides: The queen is a princess endowed with the utmost kindness and affability. She is daughter, sister and wife of a king, which cannot to-​day be said of any other. She claims that her greatness comes not from the king but from God alone and her motto runs, My power is from the Most High. She is descended on the female side from the House of Austria, in which she takes great pride … She takes great pride in her beauty, which she carefully cultivates, and to praise it is a sure way to acquire her favour and influence. She is fond of music and has excellent French and one Italian performer. She is passionately attached to her brother, the King of Denmark, and to the prince above all her other children, calling him her little servant. She is very anxious for him to marry in Spain, and does her utmost to that end; she hates a French marriage and opposes it openly, speaking unreservedly against the legitimacy of the Most Christian King and of his brothers and sisters. All this leads her to desire the marriage of her son to any one rather than to France, and this is well known by the Most Christian King and his ministers.2

1 2

CSP, James, 103, pp. 589–​599, 94. CSP, Venice, 15, pp. 384–​401, 658.

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Benjamin Woolley interprets this as one final volte-​face –​from partiality towards France back to Spain –​on the queen’s part, taking place in the final months of her life.3 However, Foscarini was not present in England at this time, and it seems more likely that, far from his having learnt of a final change of heart on her part, he was reporting what he remembered of the queen’s attitude from his time in Britain (the fact that Anna had only one other child living at this time suggests the out-​of-​date nature of his commentary). Nevertheless, Foscarini certainly knew and understood the queen and court better than the Venetian ambassador in extraordinary, who reported in the same month that although ‘the queen is sister of the King of Denmark, [and] a lady of great goodness and virtue … She is unhappy because the king rarely sees her and many years have passed since he saw much of her. She possesses little authority in the court and cannot influence the king’s favour. Some consider her a Catholic because she would never go to the English church, but really her religion is not known.’4 On the final clause, at least, he was correct. Otherwise, as we have seen, the king and queen saw much of each other, Anna knew how to wield authority and influence (albeit not to the detriment of his favourites), and she certainly attended English religious services. The queen spent Christmas at Denmark House. Like the previous festive period, it was a far cry from the large-​scale celebrations she had overseen in the past. She was able, however, to listen to the bishop of London’s sermon on Christmas Day, and she was treated to visits from Charles, Buckingham and James, who took to visiting her twice a week. Having been moved to Hampton Court, which had always been one of her favourite residences, she had a constant companion in Elizabeth Stanley (countess of Derby, whom Anna had first met on coming into England in 1603). Yet it was obvious that she would not last. ‘Danger’, Chamberlain wrote, ‘is apprehended; the courtiers already plot for the leases of her lands, the keeping of Somerset [sic] House, etc.’5 This despite her physician, Mayerne, encouraging her to chop wood to improve her blood flow. According to 3 4 5

Benjamin Woolley, The King’s Assassin, p. 91. CSP, Venice, 15, pp. 405–​422, 679. CSP, James, 105, pp. 1–​10, 2.

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him, her medical complaints were the result of her upbringing in a northern climate and due to her childhood nurses indulging her inability to walk until the age of 9 by carrying her about. There was logic of a kind here, in that her chief complaints were in her limbs, with the pains consequently wracking the rest of her body. What was killing her was, almost certainly, tuberculosis, and what is now called lupus vulgaris had caused the lumps and ulcers on her legs. Anna seemed no more convinced by medical advice either. She summoned her old client Sir Edward Coke and, without reference to the marriage he had made for his daughter, she used ‘most prudent and gracious speeches’ to request that ‘her debts [be] paid out of her own revenues, without troubling the king; and her jewels, &c. to be annexed to the Crown. She expressed her anxiety that the prince should grow up in virtue and honour’.6 The queen was painfully aware that, without her influence, Charles might grow up to resemble more his father than his mother. Once again, towards the end of January, it was thought that she might recover. Even late in February, there were hopes of her. Her brother had not forgotten her; Christian wrote to Lady Ruthin begging her to divert the queen from her melancholy.7 Anna expressed a desire to see her husband, but he was lying ill himself at Newmarket. Charles moved into an adjoining apartment so that he might be near her, and he entreated her to make a will. This raised James’s eyebrow, as he assumed his son was attempting to persuade the dying woman to leave everything to him. When Charles learned of this unattractive suspicion, he took up his pen and wrote to Buckingham, pointing out that it had been James who had first told him to encourage his mother to make a will: ‘My meaning’, he wrote, ‘was never to claim anything as of right, but to submit myself well in this as in all other things to the king’s pleasure.’8 Charles knew that to be an heir shared similar requirements with being a consort, or any other subject –​everything must be seen to be done at the will of the sovereign rather than the self. 6 CSP, James, 105, pp. 1–​10, 54. 7 William Dunn Macray, ‘Report on Archives in Denmark’, p. 38. 8 Chancellor, The Life of Charles I, p. 47.

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On the 1st of March, Anna had the doors of her bedchamber locked, and only the countess of Derby managed to gain entry. She was dismissed quickly. After a visit from her physicians, the queen was left alone with a maid, Anna –​probably the wife of Pierre Hugon, her page. Sometime after two o’clock, she took a turn for the worse. She knew what was happening; she had, reportedly, asked her doctors to warn her when the time was close. The bishop of London, the archbishop of Canterbury, those counsellors in the palace, and Prince Charles were called in. Unfortunately, one of the most unpleasant symptoms of her condition manifested: she had gone blind. In response to her son’s requests as to whether he should take on her properties and discharge her debts, she murmured approval. To the clergymen, she agreed to die in the reformed faith –​or, at least, this is the version which Chamberlain recorded. According to the envoy Jean Baptiste van Male, although the archbishop and the others were present at her death, ‘a few days previously Anna had received a priest who dealt very secretly about affairs of her conscience’.9 Who this priest was, what was said, and how he got in is unknown –​but it seems fitting that, for a queen who had successfully kept her confessional identity opaque, at the last it would remain so. At least one other Catholic source gave a fittingly evasive account: she lay, ‘not professing, being urged, the Protestant religion, nor making any external sign of the Catholic religion’.10 Thus blessed in the reformed faith, and possibly in the Catholic faith, and possibly endorsing neither, she slipped peacefully away, her pains going with her. The news was brought to the king, who professed sorrow in one of his favourite ways: by turning to his pen. In verses composed on wife’s death, he wrote: So did my queen from hence her court remove And left off earth to be enthroned above. She’s changed, not dead, for sure no good prince dies, But, as the sun, sets, only for to rise.11 9 10 11

Dunn-​Hensley, Anna of Denmark and Henrietta Maria, p. 30. Loomie, ‘King James I’s Catholic Consort’, p. 313. In fairness, this source is derived from a Jesuit who had no doubt of Anna’s Catholicism –​her not making an external sign is to be read as her tacitly endorsing the faith. H. Eugene Lehman, Lives of England’s Reigning and Consort Queens, p. 441.

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Notably, there is no mention of deep love or passion; the focus is very much on the loss of the holder of an office –​queen consort –​raised to semi-​regnal status with the use of ‘prince’. Still, it was a loss James genuinely felt. No less was the sorrow felt amongst her courtiers and court observers. Sir Gerard Herbert wrote, ‘The queen is much lamented, having benefitted many and injured none; she died most willingly, and was more comely in death then [than] ever in life.’12 Still, if interest in her will had arisen when she was still alive, it exploded after her death. Sir Thomas Edmondes wrote that ‘she had no pain, and therefore postponed settling her affairs; she answered yea to a question whether the prince should inherit all, after paying her debts and relieving her servants, but it is not thought the king will consent, her property in goods, jewels, &c. being worth 200,000’. Sir Edward Harwood concurred: ‘She verbally left all to the prince, but the king thinks he himself ought to be heir, as nearest to her, and the prince is willing to yield, if the wish comes only from his father.’13 This kind of morbid, posthumous gossip was as unedifying as it is unsurprising. Causing more confusion was her bequest to her other surviving child, Elizabeth. Harwood thought that she had left a jewel to Christian IV, ‘but nothing to Lady Elizabeth’. Chamberlain, however, noted that she had in fact intended a casket of jewels to go to her daughter. This, however, had mysteriously gone missing. Her body was conveyed to Denmark House, embalmed, and left unburied, attended constantly by her ladies. This morbid state of affairs continued for months, with the ladies wearying and spectators flocking to the house to pay their respects. James’s intention was to provide a grand funeral after Easter, and in the meantime, revelry was banned in the city. The problem was, not surprisingly, a lack of ready cash with which to pay for the costs of a funeral befitting her station. She had been the first consort to a reigning English monarch to die in her bed since Jane Seymour, and James, it seemed, had no idea what kind of service was due her; his desire, therefore, was to bury her with all the honour the last regnant, Elizabeth, 1 2 13

CSP, James, 107, pp. 20–​32, 37. CSP, James, 107, pp. 20–​32, 38, 41.

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had received and at three times the expense.14 Yet he had profited less than he might have by her death: Her jewels rated at £400,000, plate £90,000, ready money 80,000 jacobuses [gold coins, worth 25 shillings], beside a costly wardrobe. The king saves £60,000 a year, the cost of her diet, £24,000, her jointure, and £13,000 allowed her on sugars and cloths.15

James was, further, repeatedly plagued by ‘fits of the stone’ and he would in fact suffer the most serious illness of his life up until this point. In April, he was ‘able to sit up a short time, but he does little business, and packets a month old lie unopened’.16 Eventually, however, and despite the reported limit on credit available for black cloth in the city, the funeral went ahead on the 13th of May. Chamberlain was not impressed by the sight of the procession, which he noted was impressive only for its numbers. Some 280 poor women marched, followed by ‘mean’ fellows who served the nobility. The nobles themselves were dressed all alike –​in black –​and ‘came laggering all along’, the ladies in twelve yards of broadcloth apiece and the countesses allowed sixteen.17 The countess of Arundel was chief mourner (she had fought Lady Nottingham for the honour), and she walked with the duke of Lennox (Ludovick: James’s friend from Scotland and brother to Anna’s old friend Henrietta Stewart) and another Scottish peer, the 2nd Marquess of Hamilton. Prince Charles walked before the horse-​drawn hearse, which carried the coffin bearing Anna’s wax effigy. Behind it came her master of horse, Sir Thomas Somerset. There followed another array of lesser nobility and clergy, all appointed places according to rank. Inside Westminster Abbey, to which the procession had marched from Denmark House, the coffin was borne by Pembroke, Arundel and Oxford. It was taken up through the sanctuary, where she had been crowned, and placed under a catafalque designed by Maximilian Colt (Inigo Jones’s design had been rejected). When the service was over, the coffin was quietly 1 4 15 16 17

CSP, James, 108, pp. 32–​42, 69. CSP, James, 107, pp. 20–​32, 54. CSP, James, 108, pp. 32–​42, 50. CSP, James, 109, pp. 42–​50, 32.

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interred in the Henry VII chapel. James, who was still unwell, was not present, as it was not customary for monarchs to attend the funerals of their spouses. As Henry VIII had with Jane Seymour, he stayed away. Unlike Henry VIII, James genuinely grieved the loss of the woman he had long held in deep affection. There is a curious epilogue to Anna’s death and, appropriately, it centres on property. At the end of May, ‘Pierrot [Pierre Hugon], the late Queen’s Frenchman, and her Dutch maid Anna, [were] confined, for embezzling £30,000 worth of her jewels’.18 These were the missing jewels she had intended for her daughter. Historians have long claimed that Dutch Anna, the maid with her in her final hours, was Anna Sophia Kaas, who had come with her to Scotland in 1590. This, however, is not true; that Anna left Scotland the following year. The mysterious Dutch Anna is therefore likely to be Hugon’s wife, Anna Rumler, who was not Dutch but the daughter of a German (and both in any case had been given English denizenship); the pair were evidently accomplices in the theft. Noteworthy also is that Hugon’s claims in defence of his crime –​that he had license to take the jewels from the queen, who had told him to smuggle them into France and use them to found a monastery, where masses could be said for her soul –​have been taken seriously. This is hazardous. For one thing, it is unwise to expect the words of a captured person to be wholly honest –​the ‘witches’ of North Berwick, after all, had not really met with Satan. For another, we have seen from an earlier theft –​when Jacob Kroger and Guillaume Martyn had stolen her jewels in Scotland –​how culprits might lie through their teeth in order to escape justice. We thus might leave this post-​mortem episode out of the still animated discussion of the queen’s faith. Yet these discussions are welcome. Anna of Denmark is not greatly known to the public, not because she led a dull life, but because she was a successful consort, producing heirs and thereafter using accepted channels established by the precedents of earlier consorts to engage politically. This she did via exploiting faction in Scotland and exercising significant cultural patronage in England. A successful queen is, perhaps, of less interest 18

CSP, James, 109, pp. 42–​50, 61.

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to many than a tragic one. This is unfair. Anna was no timid shrinking violent. Rather, she inherited dangerous and, historically, bloody positions as consorts of Scotland and England, and she managed to hold them both, making the most of the opportunities long afforded to each position once her primary function of providing male issue was met. She appears to have known exactly what she was entitled to in Scotland –​her own household –​and asserted her rights from the start. Her primary motivations were always her rights (whether to property or a political voice), the rights of her children, and pursuing what she conceived to be the ideal vision of consortship in two kingdoms. In Scotland, she produced heirs and demanded the right to have access to them, sensitive always to what her predecessors had been given. Further, she sought a style of consortship which was built on display, connection with her homeland, politico-​religious machinations (in accordance with her husband’s policy rather than against it), and decorum. In England, she threw herself, with an alacrity unparalleled by her predecessors, into the cultural sphere, and sought political power by bending, wherever possible, to the king’s will. She indulged in factional entanglements only with wisdom and care and crafted an image of monarchical authority which stressed her place as a foreign consort who nevertheless did more to promote the English arts than any –​even native Englishwomen –​who had come before her. Yet there remains much to be explored in Anna’s life, beyond the usual scholarly avenues of the content of her masques and the thorny question of her faith. Still worthy of close examination are her patronage of London-​ based and provincial theatre companies; her charitable endeavours; her engagement with superstitious and traditional practices (such as the royal touch in the curing of the king’s evil); the physical alterations her presence required in palaces which had long been the domain of a single queen regnant; the ways in which she was subject to and harnessed the persistent problem of rumour and slander; and the differing impacts of her influence on each of her children. It is to be hoped that, in the future, the extravagant Anna, or Anne, of Denmark will cease to be the poor relation in the parade of English and Scottish royal consorts.

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Index

Abbot, George, archbishop of Canterbury  225, 227, 238, 239 Abercromby, Robert  133–​5, 175 Althorp  165, 167 Angus, Archibald Douglas, 6th earl of  123 Angus, Lady Elizabeth, countess of  146 Angus, William Douglas, 10th earl of  75, 105, 109, 125, 140 Anna of Cleves, queen consort of England  4, 8, 10, 55, 177 Anna of Denmark  accidentally shoots James’s dog  231 aids Margaret Vinster  103–​4 appeals to Salisbury  218–​20 appearance of in middle age  208 arrival in Scotland and first journey through Edinburgh  69–​71 attacked by Bothwell  100, 103, 106–​7 attempts to intercede on behalf Raleigh  256–​7 attitude to her daughter’s marriage  224–​7 attitude towards a Spanish match  210 attitude towards Charles  239 birth and baptism of Prince Henry  112–​19 birth and death of Prince Robert  145–​6 birth and death of Princess Margaret  141–​2 birth and death of Princess Sophia  201 birth and naming  16–​17 birth of Prince Charles  145 birth of Princess Mary  193–​4

breach with James over Prince Henry’s upbringing  120–​1 brothers and sisters  25–​6 ceremonial entry into London  187–​8 childhood and education  17–​26 Christian IV visits  326–​7 composition of English household  185–​6 coronation ceremony  71–​6 council appointed to oversee estates  105 death of Princess Mary  208–​9 defends her husband’s reputation abroad  242–​3 disagreements over household  161–​3 disbelieves her husband’s version of the Gowrie affair  144–​5 drawn into Huntly feud  102 early influence on James’s household  84 early interest in Blackness  56–​7 early patronage of English language  181 early political autonomy  101 engages in faction in pursuit of Prince Henry  123–​4 English coronation and religion identity  173–​7 English jointure; tour of southern England  177–​8 enlisted in the promotion of George Villiers  238 excluded from the Kirk’s prayers  137 feud with Overbury and attempts at intercession  212–​3

282 Index fights for and gains custody of Prince Henry  151–​6 final illness, death, and religious and regal reputations  259–​63 first glimpse of personality  50–​1 first masque at Winchester  180–​1 flatters Elizabeth  125–​6 flirtation with Catholicism  125 formation of her household  87, 88–​90 friendly relationship with Villiers  240–​2 friendships with Catholic ladies  105 funeral  264–​5 further rumours against 101–​3  growing dependence on Charles  228 historical reputation  2–​3 increasing ill health  249–​50 indebtedness  248 indicates favour to the Somersets  243–​4 intercedes for Nesmithe  101 intercession  186–​7 involvement in the marriages of her children  222–​3, 235 is unable to attend Charles’s investiture as prince of Wales  248–​9 leaves England with her family and travels south  156–​168 life under Carr’s supremacy  217–​ 20, 221–​2 lives peacefully without the regency  250–​3 maintains Crown authority  139–​40 marriage negotiations  27, 33–​42 marriage treaty signed  42 marries by Lutheran rites  60 Masque of Beauty  209–​211 meets and marries James  55 miscarries  128 miscarries  152, 175–​6

new of pregnancy  109–​10 onset of illness and progress to Bath  229–​31 opposes Carr via the Masque of Queens  211–​2 parts with Princess Elizabeth  228 performs at Somerset’s wedding  233 politic appearance of Catholicism  197, 199–​200 predecessors and precedents as consort  5–​11 pregnancy and birth of Princess Elizabeth  137 preparations for marriage  42–​6 proxy marriage  47 quarrels with Sir James Melville  87–​8 receives ‘morrowing gifts’  58 relationship with children  213–​4, 216 renounces a Spanish match for Charles  254 return to Bath  242 returns to Denmark  59–​60 role in peace negotiations with Spain  188–​9 rumours about the royal marriage  115–​6 rumours of Catholicism  169, 171–​2 shares illness with James  255 slanders against  99–​100, 105 state entry into Edinburgh  76–​82 storms cause to land in Norway  49–​51 studies of  3–​4 supports Raleigh  211 supposed involvement in Gowrie affair  143 switches from favouring a Spanish match for Charles  242 Tethys Festival  215–​6 the question of her faith in Scotland  128–​9, 131–​7

Index theft of property  265 tour of her new properties and plans to build  83–​7 victory over Maitland  105–​6 visit from Ulrik and Masque of Blackness  190–​4 visit of Christian IV  201–​4 visited by Duke Ulrik  140–​1 visits Oxford  194–​5 visits the New Exchange  201 war with Chancellor Maitland over property and partiality for Bothwell  97–​101 winter in Denmark  60–​5 work on the Queen’s House  247 writes to Arbella Stuart  204–​5 writes to Queen Elizabeth  118 Anna, electress of Saxony  16 Annabella, dowager countess of Mar  70, 151n Arran, James Hamilton, 2nd earl of, later duke of Châtelherault  71, 121, 123 Arran, James Stewart, earl of  33, 52, 231–​2 Asheby, William  49, 96 Aston, Roger  101, 125–​6, 128n Atkins, Henry  9, 189–​90 Bacon, Anthony  141 Bacon, Sir Francis  166, 251 Balfour, Sir James  102 Balmerino, James Elphinstone, 1st lord  213 Bath  221, 229–​31, 242 Beaton, David, Cardinal  99, 123 Beaumont, count of  187, 188 Bedford, Lucy Russell, countess of  157, 157n, 162, 165–​6, 167, 181, 191, 209n Berwick-​upon-​Tweed  1, 98, 158, 161, 163, 186

283 Bess of Hardwick  163, 164 Bille, Steen  105 Boisschot, Ferdinand de  243 Boleyn, Anne  8–​9, 44, 173, 189, 220, 252 Borghese, Cardinal Scipione  134 Bothwell, Francis Hepburn, 5th earl of  50, 53–​4, 57, 58, 69–​70, 71, 95–​7, 99–​ 104, 106–​7, 110, 111, 113, 114, 120, 143, 145, 208, 215n Bothwell, James Hepburn, 4th earl of and consort of Scotland  4, 5, 6n, 54 Bowes, Robert  73–​4, 97–​8, 99, 101, 105, 109–​10, 126, 133 Brahe, Stene  71, 73 Brahe, Tycho  19, 21, 61–​3 Bruce, Robert  73–​6, 81 Buchanan, George  27–​9, 37n, 38n, 62 Buckberd, Henry  176 Buckhurst, Thomas Sackville, 1st earl of Dorset  177, 189, 221n Buckingham, George Villiers, earl of  30n, 237–​241, 248, 249, 251–​ 4, 255, 256–​7, 260–​1 Burghley, Lord Thomas Cecil  162 Burghley, Lord William Cecil  24, 109, 221 Calvin, John  18 Carew, Sir George  162, 186n, 237 Carey, Sir Robert  147, 190, 217n Carleton, Dudley  191 Catesby, Robert  197 Catherine de Bourbon of Navarre  36–​ 40, 57, 86 Cecil, Robert, see Salisbury Chaloner, Sir Thomas  178 Chamberlain, John  209n, 231, 235n, 236 Charles IX, king of Sweden  217 Charles, prince of Wales, son of Anna and James  4, 9n, 145, 152, 157, 164n, 189–​90, 204n, 215–​6, 217, 225,

284 Index 228, 235, 237, 239, 241–​2, 248–​9, 251, 254, 255, 260–​2, 264 Christian I, king of Denmark  31, 81 Christian IV, king of Denmark  17n, 19, 23, 24–​6, 32, 34, 39, 56n, 59, 60n, 61, 116, 137, 138, 169, 178, 181, 200, 201n, 202–​5, 217, 236–​7, 261, 263 Clement VIII, pope  134–​6 Clifford, Lady Anne, countess of Dorset  165, 167, 180, 209n, 215 Cobham, Henry Brooke, 11th Lord  170 Coke, Sir Edward  245, 248, 253, 261 Cutting, Thomas  204–​5 Dalkeith  51, 103, 141 Daniel, Samuel  181, 215, 235, 241 Danish witch trials  91–​3 Darnley, Henry, king of Scots  2, 5, 7, 30, 34, 37, 45n, 64, 83, 84, 87, 98–​9, 113, 115, 117, 121, 135–​6, 156, 186, 213 Dennis, Alice  193 Derby, Elizabeth Stanley, countess of  165, 193, 209n, 260 Derry, Thomas  157 Dethick, Humphrey  146 Devereux, Dorothy, countess of Northumberland  167 Devereux, Penelope, Lady Rich  129, 161, 167 Digby, John  254 Douglas, Archibald  100 Drummond, Jean, Lady Roxburgh  151, 213, 215n, 235, 236, 248–​9, 251, 253, 254 Du Bartas, Guillaume de Salluste  37 Du Puy, Henri  243 Dunbar, George Home, 1st earl of  208 Duncan, Geillis  94 Duncan, William, provost of Musselburgh  204 Dundas, Sir Walter  119

Dundas, William  83 Dunfermline  35, 58, 85–​6, 90, 98, 137, 145–​6, 164, 247, 250 Edinburgh Castle  57, 79n, 82, 97, 111, 124 Edward VI, king of England  4 Elizabeth I, queen of England  2, 4, 7, 11 anointment  73 as godmother to Prince Henry  114, 116–​8 as godmother to Princess Elizabeth  137 attitude towards James’s marriage and Scottish politics  33, 35–​6, 38, 41, 42, 49 attitude towards Scotland  30 education  22 executes Mary Queen of Scots  31 identification as Solomon  33 illness and death  147 influence on Anna’s role and legacy to the Stuart dynasty  162, 164, 166, 169, 179, 181, 183, 187, 190, 194, 198, 199, 201n, 209, 214, 233, 241, 242, 247–​8, 263–​4 and James Melville  87–​8 posthumous complaints about  161, 167 refuses to recognise James as heir  71–​ 2, 111, 141 relationship with Anna and James  99 relationship with Mar  156 seeks amity with James  31 suspects Anna of being Catholic  132–​4 writes to Anna  103, 110 Elizabeth of York, queen consort of England  4, 7, 137, 146n Elizabeth, duchess of Mecklenburg  16–​9, 21–​4, 64n Elizabeth, princess of Denmark, sister to Anna  16, 17n, 21, 38, 61, 64

Index Elizabeth, princess of Scotland and England, daughter of Anna and James  appearance  170 baptism and early life  138, 145 bequest from Anna  263 birth  137 gives birth  235, 255, 259 joins family on journey south  156–​ 7, 163–​5 marriage  224, 226–​8 public appearances  214, 215–​6 sent to Oatlands, Nonsuch, and Coombe Abbey  173, 180–​1 Ellesmere, Lord, Thomas Egerton, 1st Viscount Brackley  244 Erroll, Francis Hay, 9th earl of  57, 105, 109, 128, 140 Erskine, Sir Thomas  146 Essex, Robert Devereux, 2nd earl of  129, 141, 145, 156, 166, 167, 170, 171, 186, 228 Essex, Robert Devereux, 3rd earl of  228, 232 Falkland  44, 58, 60, 71, 86, 98, 103, 106, 137, 143–​4, 250 Fawkes, Guy  197, 200 Ferebe, George  230 Fermor, Sir George  167 Fian, John (alias John Cunningham) 94  Fleetwood, Sir William  225 Florio, John  181 Fontenay, Sieur de  72 Fowler, Thomas  43, 46 Fowler, William  89, 117 Francis II, king of France and consort of Scotland  5 Frederick II, king of Denmark  15–​9, 21–​5, 34–​8, 39–​41, 47, 61, 111, 112n, 118

285 Frederick Ulrich, duke of Brunswick-​Lüneburg  214 Frederick, elector of the palatinate  222, 224–​7, 235 Fyvie, Lord Alexander Seton, 1st earl of Dunfermline  145, 152 Galloway, Patrick  64, 74, 76 Giustinian, Zorzi  210 Gogar, Alexander Erskine of  29 Gondi, Anne de  146 Gondomar, Diego Sarmiento de Acuña, count of  236, 254, 256 Goodman, Bishop Godfrey  167 Gowrie, John Ruthven, 3rd earl of  142–​3 Gowrie, William Ruthven, 1st earl of  33, 73, 106, 142 Greenwich  156, 178n, 193, 201–​2, 204n, 216, 218, 227, 229–​30, 233, 238, 241, 243, 247, 252 Griffin, Sir Thomas  165 Güstrow  18–​9, 21, 23 Gyldenstierne, Henrik Knudsen  49 Hamilton, Lord John  69, 71, 74, 80–​1 Hamilton, Thomas  105, 152 Hampton Court Palace  110, 173, 181–​2, 203–​4, 209, 212, 226, 229 Hardenberg, Anna  15 Harington, Lady Anne  157n, 227 Hatton, Lady Elizabeth  167, 109n Hay, Lord James, 1st earl of Carlisle  207 Helsingborg  60, 63 Helwys, Sir Gervase  243, 244 Hemmingsen, Niels  61 Hendry, George  156 Henri IV, king of France  36, 215 Henry Julius, duke of Brunswick-​ Lüneburg  38, 61, 116 Henry V, king of England  210 Henry VII, king of England  7, 30, 32

286 Index Henry VIII, king of England  4, 7, 16n, 32–​3, 37, 43, 53, 55, 78, 91, 188, 193, 201, 206, 213, 220, 251, 265 Henry, Prince of Wales, son of Anna and James  birth and baptism  112–​4, 114–​9 disputes over upbringing  119–​21, 123–​8, 132, 138 early revels and masques  180, 183, 188 funeral  225–​6 gift from Anna  63 household links with Anna  178 illness and death  223–​5 invested as prince of Wales  214–​6 objects to Carr’s rise  219, 222 question of marriage  189, 210, 217, 222–​3 receives gift on peace with Spain  189 receives letter from his father and writes to his mother  150–​1 receives order of the Garter  169 released into Anna’s custody  152–​6 reputation, personality, and interests  213–​4, 216 royal visit of Christian IV  202–​5 rumours about relationship with Anna and James  175 sent to Oatlands and Nonsuch  173, 180 travels south  157–​8, 161–​8 unites with his mother in defence of Lady Raleigh  211 visits Oxford  194–​5 Herbert, Philip  174, 179, 190 Heriot, George  139, 212 Holyroodhouse  51, 63, 70, 71–​3, 82, 85–​6, 100, 103, 106, 109, 116, 119, 133, 138, 141, 145, 149 Howard, Catherine, queen consort of England  4, 8, 9 Howard, Lady Frances, countess of Essex, (see Somerset, Lady Frances Howard, countess of )

Hugon, Pierre  236, 262, 265 Huitfeld, Arild  21 Huntly, George Gordon, 1st marquess and 6th earl of  57, 96, 101–​2, 105, 109, 113, 120, 128, 140, 212 Huntly, Henrietta Stewart, countess (later marchioness) of  105, 109, 113, 128, 133, 140, 145, 146, 151, 212–​3, 264 James II, king of Scots  123 James III, king of Scots  34, 81 James IV, king of Scots  5, 85, 87, 123 James V, king of Scots  5, 29, 34, 36, 44, 53, 55, 59, 71, 83, 86, 120, 123 James VI and I, king of Scots and king of England  affair with Anne Murray  126–​7 agenda for the marriages of his children  222 apparently permissive attitude towards Catholics  102, 103, 111–​2 arranges marriage between Kit Villiers and Edward Coke’s daughter  253–​4 arrives at Flekkefjord and travels through Norway  54–​5 attacked by Bothwell  96–​7, 100, 103, 106–​7 attitude to Bothwell  96–​7, 100 attitude to male lovers  190 attitude towards women  45–​6 awaits his bride  50–​1 Basilikon Doron  149–​51, 158 becomes sole king  30–​2 breach with Elizabeth  114 ceremonial entry into London  188 conception of kingship  29 convinced of witchcraft accusations  93–​7 Daemonologie  139

287

Index daughter’s marriage and the breaking up of her husband’s household  227–​8 decides to marry Anna  41–​2 decides to travel to Norway  52 disagreements with Anna  97–​8, 99, 104, 105 dispute with Charles  261 early identification as Solomon  32–​3 early life  27–​30 ends war with Spain  188–​9 English coronation  172–​5 expenses and the Great Contract  214 falls in love with and elevates Robert Carr  207–​8, 217, 219–​20 financial troubles and partiality towards Spain  235–​7 gives ‘morrowing gifts’  58 Gunpowder Plot  197–​8, 200 Hampton Court Conference  182–​3 illness and sorrow on Anna’s death  261–​3 increases Carr’s power after Salisbury’s death  221–​2 incurs expense on preparing for Anna’s coronation  72 insists on Prince Henry being raised at Stirling  119–​21, 124 intervenes in nullity suit of Lady Essex and arranges Somerset’s wedding  228, 231–​3 introduced to George Villiers  237–​42 Main and Bye Plots  170–​1 marriage negotiations  32, 33–​8, 40–​1 marries Anna in person  55–​7 marries by Lutheran rites  60 Midlands Revolt  205 outflanks the Kirk  139–​40 oversees the Somersets’ murder trial  244–​5 proxy marriage  47

Raid of Ruthven  33 resolves to destroy Raleigh  256–​7 returns to England in poor physical condition  253 returns to public life after Prince Henry’s death  226 returns to Scotland  250–​1 reunites with family  167 riotous reception for Christian IV  202–​04 rumours of assassination  200–​1 rumours of Catholicism  171–​2, 175, 176–​7 sexuality  30 Spanish Blanks affair  104–​5, 133 spending  72, 128 succeeds Elizabeth and leaves Scotland  147, 149 the Gowrie affair  142–​5 tour of southern England  178–​9 tours Anna’s new properties and attempts to direct her household  83–​90 travels to Denmark  59–​60 visits Oxford  194–​5 winter in Denmark  60–​5 witnesses fights amongst his retinue  57–​8 writes to the pope  134–​5 Joan Beaufort, queen consort of Scotland  123 John III, king of Sweden  60 Jones, Inigo  181, 218, 227, 247, 264 Jonson, Ben  165–​6, 181, 190–​1, 209, 211, 216, 248n, 255 Joscelin, Elizabeth  22 Julius II, pope  15 Kaas, Anna Sophia  65, 74, 85, 265 Kaas, Niels  25, 37, 39

288 Index Katherine of Aragon, queen consort of England  15–​6, 44, 47n, 78, 136, 177, 178, 188, 201, 216, 220, 250–​1, 252 Keith, George, Earl Marischal  40, 47, 49, 57–​8, 61, 78 Keith, Sir William  53 Kennedy, Jane  50, 53 Kildare, Lady Frances Howard, countess of  157 Kingo, Thomas  63 Kinloch, Janet  145–​6 Knibbe, Dr Paul  49, 65n, 97, 103 Knox, John  28–​9, 69 Knyvett, Lord Thomas  182, 194 Krag, Niels  49, 105, 141 Kroger, Jacob  65, 113, 265 Kronborg  47, 60, 93 Lennox, Esmé Stuart, 1st duke of  33 Lennox, Ludovic Stuart, 2nd duke of  54, 64, 69, 71, 74, 96, 97, 104, 106, 115, 117, 140, 151–​3, 156, 158, 162, 169, 264 Lennox, Margaret, countess of  186 Lennox, Matthew Stuart, 4th earl of and regent of Scotland  27n, 52 Lincoln, earl of  162 Lindsay, David  142 Lindsay, David of Rathillet, Lyon Herald  73, 74, 75, 76 Linlithgow  58, 63, 83, 102, 109, 120, 138, 141, 145, 146 Livingstone, Lord Alexander and Lady Helen, earl and countess of Linlithgow, guardians of Princess Elizabeth  138, 145, 164n Lobell, Paul  243 Logie, John Wemyss of  103 Louis XIII, king of France  254 Lumley, Lord John, 1st Baron  214

Luther, Martin and Lutheranism  17–​18, 19, 21, 174–​5 Lyon, Patrick, 9th Lord Glamis  125–​7 MacCalzean, Euphemia  94 Madeleine of Valois, queen consort of Scotland  5, 36 Madsen, Dr Paul  61 Maitland of Lethington, William  57 Maitland of Thirlestane, John, chancellor of Scotland  57–​8, 61, 64–​5, 70, 73–​6, 86, 97, 100, 102–​3, 105–​6, 110, 111, 115, 124–​5, 127–​8, 139 Mar, Annabella, countess of  74, 124, 125 Mar, John Erskine, 18th /​1st earl of and regent of Scotland  27 Mar, John Erskine, 19th /​2nd earl of  70, 72, 104, 120, 123–​4, 126–​8, 146, 151–​6 Mar, Marie, countess of  104, 105, 128, 145, 151 Margaret Beaufort  112 Margaret Tudor, queen consort of Scotland  2, 4, 5, 30, 32, 36, 47n, 71, 78, 83, 86, 99, 120, 123, 153 Margaret, princess, daughter of Anna and James  141–​2 Marie of Guise, queen consort of Scotland  2, 5, 28, 36, 44, 58, 69, 71, 83, 85, 87, 90, 98, 99, 112, 120–​ 1, 123–​4, 136, 146n Martyn, Guillaume  113, 265 Mary of Guelders, queen consort of Scotland  123 Mary Queen of Scots  2, 4, 5, 22, 29–​32, 34, 35, 36–​7, 43, 44, 45n, 50, 53–​4, 55, 56–​7, 69, 71, 73, 77–​9, 87, 91n, 96, 99, 106, 115, 119, 120, 123–​4, 135, 136n, 163, 180–​1, 186, 225, 231, 242n

289

Index Mary Tudor, queen regnant of England  1, 2, 8, 10, 69n, 201n Maurice of Nassau  39–​40 Mayerne, Sir Théodore Turquet de  224–​ 5, 242, 260 Melville, Andrew  6, 76, 137, 140 Melville, Sir James  37n, 42, 87, 106, 118, 162 Methven, Henry Stewart, 1st lord  120 Montrose, John Graham, 3rd earl of and chancellor of Scotland  139n, 152–​3 Moray, James Stewart, 1st earl of and regent of Scotland  27n, 52, 91 Moray, James Stewart, 2nd earl of  102–​3, 110, 113, 143 Morton, James Douglas, 4th earl of and regent of Scotland  27n, 29–​ 30, 45n Munk, Admiral Peder  49, 65, 71, 73, 80–​2, 91, 93 Murray, Anne, Lady Glamis  126–​7 Murray, Thomas  248 Murray, William  60 Napier, Alexander  55 Napier, Barbara  94 Nesmithe (or Naysmyth), John  101, 145 North Berwick witch trials  94–​5 Northampton, Lord Henry Howard, 3rd earl of  145, 189, 215, 228, 236 Nottingham, Charles Howard, 1st earl of  179, 189, 192, 203–​4, 215, 217–​8, 228 Nottingham, Margaret Stewart, countess of  179, 192, 204, 264 Nykøbing Castle  16, 39 Overbury, Sir Thomas  208, 211, 212, 218–​ 9, 221–​2, 228, 231–​2, 239, 243–​5 Oxe, Inger  19 Oxe, Peder  19n

Paisley, Lady Margaret Seton  146, 151 Paisley, Marion Boyd, mistress of  151 Parr, Katherine, queen consort of England  1, 8–​9, 220, 251–​2 Paul V, pope  223 Pembroke, William Herbert, 3rd earl of  169, 179, 181, 237–​8 Persons, Robert  133, 186 Philip II, king consort of England  1, 4, 10, 111, 186, 201n Philippa of Hainault, queen consort of England  7 Platter, Thomas  147 Pocahontas  249–​51 Povey, Justinian  248 Puttenham, George  45 Raleigh, Sir Walter  77, 170, 224, 254, 255–​7 Ramsay, Sir John  142 Ranch, Hieronymus Justesen  21, 25 Randolph, Thomas  27 Rantzau, Breide  49, 71, 73 Reeve, William  243 Reynolds, John  4 Riccio, David  98, 100, 106 Robert, prince, son of Anna and James  145–​6 Rosenkrantz, Jørgen  39 Roskilde Cathedral  39, 61 Ruthven, Alexander  142–​3 Ruthven, Barbara  143–​5 Ruthven, Beatrix  138, 143–​4, 146 Ruthven, Christian  144 Salisbury, Robert Cecil, 1st earl of (also Baron Essenden and Viscount Cranbourne)  145, 147, 156, 161, 162, 164, 172, 176–​7, 181, 186–​7, 189, 194, 197–​8, 200, 209, 214, 218–​9, 221–​2, 225, 229 Sampson, Agnes  94–​5

290 Index Scaramelli, Giovanni Carlo  175–​6 Schaw, William  59, 63, 85, 139 Schein, Calixtus  65 Schinkel, Cathrina  65, 74, 85 Schöner, Martin  145, 146, 152 Scrope, Lady Philadelphia  161 Sering, Johannes  65, 134 Seymour, Jane, queen consort of England  8, 193, 213, 263, 265 Shakespeare, William  47, 94, 181, 194, 198n, 227 Sinclair, Andrew  50–​1 Skanderborg  15–​6 Skene, John  40, 52, 53, 71 Solomon  25, 32–​3, 81–​2, 116 Somerset House (later Denmark House)  178, 189, 217, 224, 235, 236–​7, 249, 251, 255, 260, 263–​4 Somerset, Frances Howard, countess of  228, 229, 231–​2, 243–​5 Somerset, Robert Carr, 1st earl of (also Viscount Rochester)  207–​8, 211–​2, 217–​20, 221, 228, 231–​3, 235–​40, 243, 245, 248, 254 Sophia, princess, daughter of Anna and James  201 Sophie of Mecklenburg, queen of Denmark  15–​9, 21, 24–​5, 27, 39–​ 40, 42–​4, 47, 59, 64, 86, 89, 201 Southampton, Henry Wriothesley, 3rd earl of  167, 169, 170–​1, 186n Spencer, Sir Robert  165 Spynie, Lord Alexander Linsday  41, 60 St Giles Cathedral  80, 82, 149, 157 Standen, Anthony  186–​7 Stewart, Colonel William  52–​3, 63 Stirling Castle  27, 29, 74, 90, 111–​2, 116–​ 7, 119–​21, 123–​5, 127, 151–​3, 156–​7, 175, 250 Stuart, Arbella  163, 170, 180, 182, 188, 193, 204–​5, 209, 215, 217–​8, 243 Sussex, Robert Radclyffe, 5th earl of  116–​ 7, 162 Swansted, Blanche  1

Tonstall, John  230–​1 Turner, Anne  244 Uddart, Nicol  79n, 100–​1 Ulrich, duke of Mecklenburg  16, 17n, 18–​9, 21, 64, 112n, 116, 147 Ulrik, prince-​bishop of Schwerin, Anna’s brother  17n, 23, 26, 140–​1, 190, 192–​4, 201 Valkendorff, Christoffer  93 Van Somer, Paul  252–​3 Vans, Sir Patrick  37 Vedel, Anders Sorensen  21 Velasco, Juan de, constable of Castile  188–​9 Verstegan, Richard  133 Villamediana, Juan de Tassis, 1st count of  188 Villiers, George (see Buckingham, George Villiers, earl of ) Vinster, Margaret  65n, 103–​4 Vives, Juan Luis  22 Walsingham, Francis  31, 33, 49, 186 Walsingham, Lady Audrey  161, 165, 209n Weldon, Anthony  52 Wemyss, John, of Logie  Westminster Abbey  173, 201, 203, 209, 264 Weston, Richard  243–​4 Whitehall  173, 188, 190–​1, 200, 205, 207, 214, 216n, 224, 227, 232, 245, 249, 251 Wilbraham, Roger  182, 186 Wilton, Lord Grey of  170 Windsor Castle  168, 169 Winwood, Sir Ralph  235, 243, 252, 254–​5 Woodstock  177, 194, 223, 240 Worcester, Edward Somerset, 4th earl of  209, 229 Young, Peter  29, 37, 40, 53, 62, 116n