Religion and politics in Elizabethan England: The life of Sir Christopher Hatton 9781526159502

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Religion and politics in Elizabethan England

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Politics, culture and society in early modern Britain General Editors Professor Alastair Bellany Dr Alexandra Gajda Professor Peter Lake Professor Anthony Milton Professor Jason Peacey This important series publishes volumes that take a fresh and challenging look at the interactions between politics, culture and society in Britain in the period between 1500 and 1800. It seeks to counteract the fragmentation of current historiography by encouraging a variety of approaches which attempt to redefine the political, social and cultural worlds, and to explore their interconnection in a flexible and creative fashion. Series volumes seek in some way to question and transcend traditional interdisciplinary boundaries, such as those between political history, literary studies, social history, divinity, urban history and anthropology, thus contributing to a broader understanding of crucial developments in the early modern period. Britain is here taken in a broad sense, and the series also welcomes volumes on imperial and global history that explore Britain’s interactions with the wider world. To buy or to find out more about the books currently available in this series, please go to: https://​manche​ster​univ​ersi​typr​ess.co.uk/​ser​ies/​polit​ics-​cult​ure-​and-​soci​ety-​in-​ early-​mod​ern-​brit​ain

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Religion and politics in Elizabethan England The life of Sir Christopher Hatton Neil Younger

Manchester University Press

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Copyright © Neil Younger 2022 The right of Neil Younger to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. Published by Manchester University Press Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PL www.manche​ster​univ​ersi​typr​ess.co.uk British Library Cataloguing-​in-​Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 978 1 5261 5949 6 hardback First published 2022 The publisher has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for any external or third-​party internet websites referred to in this book, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

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Contents

Preface Conventions Abbreviations Chronology Introduction 1 2 3 4 5 6

Rising to power at Elizabeth’s Court Patronage and religion Religion, reputation and public opinion Domestic and foreign policy Contesting religious policy within the Elizabethan regime Hatton within the Elizabethan regime

page vi viii ix xii 1 13 57 121 143 181 223

Conclusion: Catholicism, conservatism and the Elizabethan regime

243

Bibliography of primary sources Index

252 262

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Preface

This book has been a long time in the making, and I am grateful to many friends and colleagues. For support, conversations, comments and questions, advice, references and help during the past few years, I thank Gemma Allen, George Bernard, the late John Bossy, Nicola Clark, Janet Dickinson, Susan Doran, Ken Fincham, Andrew Foster, Alexandra Gajda, Katy Gibbons, Mark Girouard, Steve Gunn, Simon Healy, Richard Hoyle, James Kelly, Peter Lake, Ceri Law, Katie McKeogh, Noah Millstone, John Morrill, Rosemary O’Day, Glyn Parry, Michael Questier, Alec Ryrie, Malcolm Smuts, Hilary Turner, Lucy Underwood and Rivkah Zim. Various seminar and conference audiences in London, Oxford, Cambridge, Bruges and at the Open University have heard versions of some of this book, and I thank the audiences for their helpful questions and comments, in particular my friends and colleagues at the Tudor and Stuart History Seminar at the IHR. I thank the staff of Manchester University Press, and the readers and reviewers who have commented anonymously on the book. I am grateful to James McNamara for translating sections of Latin for me. I wish to record a special debt to Cathryn Enis, whose astute comments on Hatton and his role in Warwickshire politics helped catalyse my early thoughts about this book, and I thank Richard Cust for pointing out what should have been obvious to me, that what I had envisaged as an article ought to be a book. I thank the librarians and archivists who have helped in the researching of this book for their professionalism, in particular Christine Hiskey and Mac Graham at Holkham Hall, Lynsey Darby at the College of Arms, and Ian Hoult of the Spalding Gentlemen’s Society. I am particularly glad to be able to record my gratitude to my colleagues at the Open University, who have provided an excellent and collegiate working environment during the bulk of the period I have been working on this book; it is an unusual university to work for, but one where I have been very happy.

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Preface

vii

Finally, I thank my wife Kathryn and our children Elizabeth and Alex for their love and support and for filling a happy home, sometimes with more noise and mess than might be thought strictly necessary. However, I dedicate this book to my parents, Alex and Andrea Younger, with much love and gratitude.

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Conventions

References to calendars of documents are given to pages, not to item numbers (where included), except in the case of the Calendar of Patent Rolls. In transcriptions of manuscripts, the use of i/​j and u/​v and the thorn character are modernised; standard contractions are silently expanded. Quotations from editions of early modern sources have not been altered. Old-​style dates are used, with the year assumed to have begun on 1 January.

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Abbreviations

Adams, Leicester and the Court APC

Simon Adams, Leicester and the Court: Essays on Elizabethan Politics (Manchester, 2002) J. R. Dasent (ed.), Acts of the Privy Council of England, new series, vols I–​XXXII (London, 1890–​1907) BL British Library Bindoff, Commons S. T. Bindoff (ed.), The History of Parliament: The House of Commons 1509–​1558 (3 vols, London, 1982) Brooks, Hatton Eric St. John Brooks, Sir Christopher Hatton. Queen Elizabeth’s Favourite (London, 1946) Camden, History William Camden, The history of the most renowned and victorious Princess Elizabeth (4th edn., London, 1688) CCED The Clergy of the Church of England Database 1540–​1835, www.thecle​rgyd​atab​ase.org.uk Collinson, Bancroft Patrick Collinson, Richard Bancroft and Elizabethan Anti-​Puritanism (Cambridge, 2013) Collinson, Patrick Collinson, The Elizabethan Puritan Elizabethan Movement (Oxford, 1967) Puritan Movement CP Cecil Papers, Hatfield House CPR Calendar of the Patent Rolls preserved in the Public Record Office, Elizabeth I, various editors (London, 1939–​2014) CRS Catholic Record Society CSPD Robert Lemon and Mary Anne Everett Green (eds), Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series, of the Reigns of Edward VI, Mary, Elizabeth (6 vols, London, 1856–​70)

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x CSPF

Abbreviations

Joseph Stevenson et al. (eds), Calendar of State Papers, Foreign Series, of the Reign of Elizabeth (23 vols, London, 1863–​1950) CSPI H. C. Hamilton et al. (eds), Calendar of State Papers relating to Ireland, of the Reign of Elizabeth (11 vols, London, 1860–​1912) CSPSMQS J. Bain et al. (eds), Calendar of the State Papers relating to Scotland and Mary, Queen of Scots, 1547–​1603 (13 vols, 1898–​1969) CSPSp Martin A. S. Hume (ed.), Calendar of Letters and State Papers, relating to English Affairs, Preserved Principally in the Archives of Simancas, Elizabeth (4 vols, London, 1892–​99) EHR English Historical Review FSL Folger Shakespeare Library Hammer, ‘Cecil-​ Paul E. J. Hammer (ed.), ‘Letters from Sir Robert Hatton Letters’ Cecil to Sir Christopher Hatton, 1590–​1591’, in Ian W. Archer et al. (eds), Religion, Politics, and Society in Sixteenth-​Century England (Camden Society, 5th ser., 22, 2003), 197–​267 Hammer, Paul E. J. Hammer, The Polarisation of Elizabethan Polarisation Politics. The Political Career of Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, 1585–​1597 (Cambridge, 1999) Hartley, T. E. Hartley, Proceedings in the Parliaments of Proceedings Elizabeth I (3 vols, Leicester, 1981–​95) Hasler, Commons P. W. Hasler (ed.), The History of Parliament: The House of Commons 1558–​1603 (3 vols, London, 1981) Hassall, ‘Books’ W. O. Hassall, ‘The books of Sir Christopher Hatton at Holkham’, The Library, 5th ser. 5:1 (June 1950), 1–​13 Hatton Letterbook BL, Additional MS 15891 HEHL Henry E. Huntington Library, San Marino, California HMC Historical Manuscripts Commission HMCS HMC, Calendar of the Manuscripts of the Manuscripts of the Most Hon. the Marquis of Salisbury (24 vols, London, 1883–​1976) Holkham MS Holkham Hall, Norfolk, MS F/​LCJ1 Kervyn J. M. B. C. Kervyn de Lettenhove and L. Gilliodts-​ Van Severen (eds), Relations politiques des Pays-​Bas et de l’Angleterre, sous le règne de Philippe II (11 vols, Brussels, 1882–​1900)

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ix

Abbreviations

xi

Lake, ‘Two Peter Lake, ‘A tale of two episcopal surveys: the episcopal surveys’ strange fates of Edmund Grindal and Cuthbert Mayne revisited: the Prothero Lecture’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 6th ser., 18 (2008), 129–​63 LPL Lambeth Palace Library MacCaffrey, Wallace T. MacCaffrey, Queen Elizabeth and the Making of Policy Making of Policy, 1572–​1588 (Princeton, 1981) Memoirs Harris Nicolas (ed.), Memoirs of the Life and Times of Sir Christopher Hatton (London, 1847) Murdin, William Murdin (ed.), A Collection of State Papers State Papers relating to Affairs in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth, from the Year 1571 to 1596 (London, 1759) NRO Northamptonshire Record Office ODNB H. C. G. Matthew and Brian Harrison (eds), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, 2004) Pollen & John Hungerford Pollen SJ and William MacMahon MacMahon, SJ (eds), The Ven. Philip Howard Earl of Arundel 1557–​1595 (CRS 21, 1919) Remembrancia W. H. Overall and H. C. Overall (eds), Analytical Index to the Series of Records known as the Remembrancia. Preserved among the Archives of the City of London A.D. 1579–​1664 (London, 1878) State Trials T. B. Howell (ed.), A Complete Collection of State Trials, Vol. I (London, 1816) STC A Short-​Title Catalogue of Books Printed in England, Scotland and Ireland and of English Books Printed Abroad, 1475–​1640, compiled by A. W. Pollard and G. R. Redgrave, revised and enlarged by W. A. Jackson, F. S. Ferguson and K. F. Pantzer (3 vols, 1986–​91) Strype, Annals John Strype (ed.), Annals of the Reformation and Establishment of Religion (Oxford, 1824) Thrush & Ferris Andrew Thrush and John P. Ferris, The History of Parliament. The House of Commons, 1604–​1629 (6 vols, Cambridge, 2010) TNA The National Archives Wright, Queen Thomas Wright (ed.), Queen Elizabeth and her Times Elizabeth and her (2 vols, London, 1838) Times

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Chronology

1540

Hatton born

c. 1555

? At Oxford

1560

May (26)

Enrols at the Inner Temple

1561–​62

Christmas

? Performs at court as part of Inner Temple revels

1564

Spring

Appointed a gentleman pensioner

1566

Dec

Attends James VI’s christening in Stirling

1568

27 July

Granted the reversion of the keepership of Eltham

1573

5 June

Hatton takes leave of Queen for Spa

c. 15 Sept.

Hatton returns to England

14 Oct.

Birchet attack on John Hawkins

March

John Aylmer appointed Bishop of London

12 Nov.

Hatton sworn of the Council

1577

1 Dec.

Knighted

1578

Feb.

Made receiver of first fruits & tenths

1579

Dec.

Anjou marriage debates

1583

25 Oct.

Somerville’s ‘assassination attempt’ against the Queen

4 Nov.

Arrest of Francis Throckmorton in London

16 Dec.

Guildhall trial of Somerville

Feb.

Savelli letter about the ‘letters of Lord Hatton’

March/​April

Hatton retires from court for ‘many days’ over the death of George Best

July

Execution of Francis Throckmorton

1584

1585

19 Oct.

Signed the Bond of Association

Jan.

Batson mission

newgenprepdf

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ix ii

Chronology 21 June

xiii

Death of the Earl of Northumberland

July

Start of war with Spain

12 Sept.

Hatton appointed Lord Lieutenant of Northamptonshire

13–​15 Sept.

Trial of Babington plotters

20–​21 Sept.

Execution of Babington plotters

12–​15 Oct.

Trial of Mary, Queen of Scots

8 Feb.

Execution of Mary, Queen of Scots

29 April

Hatton appointed Lord Chancellor

21 Nov.–​6 Dec.

Elizabeth at Ely Place

1588

20 Sept.

Hatton elected Chancellor of University of Oxford

1589

4 Feb.–​29 Mar.

Parliament

9 Feb.

Bancroft’s Paul’s Cross sermon

4–​6 June

Hatton entertains Elizabeth at Ely Place

Nov.

Hatton entertains Elizabeth at Ely Place

July

Hacket affair (executed 28 July)

October

Talks with Charles Paget

20 Nov.

Hatton dies at Ely Place

1586

1587

1590 1591

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Introduction

Sir Christopher Hatton is perhaps the least well known and well understood of major Elizabethan political figures. He rose further in his lifetime than any of his colleagues –​from the lower levels of the gentry to become Lord Chancellor. He was a major political figure for twenty years: first from about 1571 as a prominent royal favourite, then from 1577 as a privy councillor. At the peak of his power, during the last few years of his life, he was the Queen’s most important living favourite; he was Lord Chancellor, the most senior layman in England; and he was the regime’s leading spokesman in Parliament, one of its most important public faces. He had not one but two palatial houses in his home county, one of them, Holdenby, the largest house in England. He was a power in the land –​and all this in his late forties, before an untimely death barely into his fifties.1 In terms of his importance in the politics of the reign, he should probably be placed after only a handful of figures: the Queen herself, Burghley, Leicester, Walsingham, Essex and Robert Cecil. Yet historians have accorded him scarcely a tithe of the attention that the others have received. Insofar as he features in standard works on the polit­ ics of the reign, it is usually in connection with his part in the events leading up to the death of Mary, Queen of Scots, including the Babington Plot and the Parliament of 1586–​87; very often, he is mentioned only as part of the roster of senior figures who died between 1588 and 1591. Echoes of his romantic reputation as the ‘dancing chancellor’ persist, and Hatton is very seldom taken seriously by historians. He is almost universally described as kindly or generous, bordering on harmless. For Collinson, ‘all the evidence points to a generous side to his nature’.2 Edith Sitwell described him as a ‘kindly, loyal, rather foolish person’.3 Alan Haynes portrayed him virtually as a simpleton: ‘compared with Leicester, the proud and dangerous politician with “something of the night” about him, Hatton was a dormouse under the flight of the hawk’.4 Wallace MacCaffrey commented that Hatton’s ‘is a baffling career to understand, in large part because its early

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Religion and politics in Elizabethan England

stages are so shrouded in obscurity’.5 It is difficult now to remember that Hatton was genuinely a politician of importance. Susan Doran has written that ‘contemporary commentators generally dismissed ... Hatton as a political lightweight’, and there is an element of truth in this, though most recognised that someone with such great influence over the Queen was not easily disregarded.6 Where he does feature in political analysis, his role is downplayed, as when Patrick Collinson referred to him as ‘the favourite of the hour’ in connection with the fall of Grindal; in fact, he was a leading royal favourite for about twenty years, and influential in Church affairs for most of that time.7 In this way, it is sometimes acknowledged that Hatton was an important figure, but with little detail to substantiate or explore how or why. This has undoubtedly led his political influence to be underestimated. There are in fact three full biographies of Hatton, but none is fully satisfactory. The oldest but still the best is Eric St John Brooks’s study of 1946, a lengthy, thorough and scholarly work. It has drawbacks: aside from its age, the author was not truly an expert on political or religious history, although he is stronger on Hatton’s cultural patronage. The book is also marred by the lack of full scholarly apparatus.8 The second, by Alice Gilmore Vines, is sketchy and highly derivative, especially of the work of Sir John Neale.9 The third, by Malcolm Deacon, is again thorough, but unscholarly and also lacking full notes.10 None deals satisfactorily with Hatton’s political career in light of recent historiography.11 Much more usefully in this regard, Susan Doran has recently provided a substantial essay on Hatton and his relationship with the Queen, although again it by no means exhausts the s­ ubject.12 It should also be added that a number of recent articles have begun to explore Hatton’s role, particularly regarding religious policy, in specific phases or episodes in Elizabethan politics.13 There are two main reasons for Hatton’s neglect. The first relates to the existing picture of the historiography on Elizabethan politics, into which it is difficult to integrate him. The currently dominant historiographical consensus on Elizabeth’s regime places strong emphasis on its intrinsically Protestant nature.14 Previous interpretations of Elizabethan politics stressed the role of faction as an organising mechanism; in this model, Lord Burghley was the leading figure of a group advocating a moderate and peaceful policy, while the Earl of Leicester led a group which favoured more aggressive commitment to Protestantism both at home and abroad. Burghley and Leicester were presented as rivals and court life as characterised by mutual distrust and dislike, with struggles over both patronage and genuine policy differences.15 This view was fundamentally challenged in the 1980s by Simon Adams, who argued that there is very little evidence for conflict between Burghley and Leicester, and plenty of evidence of co-​operation on most of the key issues of the reign. Other leading figures such as Walsingham, Hatton and

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Introduction

3

Sussex were depicted as working with them in a generally co-​operative government.16 Patrick Collinson’s work on the ‘monarchical republic’ of Elizabeth I tended to reinforce this sense of an elite which was collegiate and solidly Protestant.17 It was this group, for example, which mooted the temporary creation of a republic in England to avert the disaster of the succession of a Catholic monarch, which worked to counter the strength of Catholicism in England, and which agitated for decades to have Elizabeth put Mary, Queen of Scots to death. In this model, the key point of friction arose not between ministers or groups of ministers, but when ministers tried to get the Queen to do something which they all agreed was necessary, but which she declined to do out of hesitancy or meanness. So as Pam Wright put it, ‘the principal contenders for power seem to have decided that while competition was healthy, full-​blown factional disputes were a destructive and time-​consuming diversion from the serious business of running the country and lining their pockets’.18 The core of this interpretation, with its rejection of any notion of long-​ running conflict between Burghley and Leicester, has held up very well. Yet there are problems with it. One is that this interpretation is chiefly applicable to the mid-​Elizabethan period, the 1570s and 1580s, and it largely leaves aside the more troubled years of the 1590s (which Adams specifically argued was a period of faction), and it says relatively little about the 1560s; indeed, Adams never claimed it to be a key to understanding the politics of the entire reign. A second issue is that this approach has tended to argue that only the handful of individuals mentioned had any real influence in Elizabethan politics, and therefore has encouraged a focus on a very small number of people. The most important problem, however, is that very often Adams’s ori­ ginal arguments are oversimplified and taken to imply that Elizabethan politics was virtually devoid of conflict or disagreement on significant matters. The key issue here is the definition of faction. Adams defined faction narrowly, to mean a relatively organised political group with an acknowledged leader and policy preference as well as (crucially) an opposition: ‘a faction was a personal following employed in direct opposition to another personal following. A faction struggle could involve disputes over patronage or debates over matters of State, but its essence was a personal rivalry that over-​rode all other considerations.’19 Therefore to say that there was no narrowly defined faction in Elizabethan life is by no means to say that there was no disagreement or conflict. Yet this is how it is often taken. Thus Krista Kesselring, writing about the crisis of 1569, notes (citing Adams) that ‘in recent years, however, evidence for such factionalism, at least prior to the 1590s, has melted away’.20 Natalie Mears argues that ‘generally the inner ring of counsellors worked together consistently’.21 Patrick Collinson

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Religion and politics in Elizabethan England

agreed that ‘too much attention has been paid to factional in-​fighting as the main principle of politics’.22 It should be said that not all historians have fully subscribed to this model of the Elizabethan regime, but it would be fair to say that it has become the dominant view.23 Perhaps somewhat ironically, this re-​interpretation of Elizabeth’s government has arisen at a time when the Protestant character of the people of Elizabeth’s England has increasingly been questioned. Historians such as Patrick Collinson, Christopher Haigh, Peter Lake, Alexandra Walsham, Michael Questier and others have increasingly stressed the relative weakness of the Protestant religion and its enforcement by the State in this period. There has been an immense amount of work on the continuing vitality of English Catholicism in various forms, including so-​called ‘church papists’, those who remained Catholic at heart but conformed to the law and attended Protestant services.24 Needless to say, at the same time there were intense debates about the nature of the Protestant Church itself. There was, therefore, an ongoing debate about religion in England, with continued dispute and conflict, although this is usually depicted as occurring largely outwith the regime itself. These respective models of the Elizabethan political scene and the Elizabethan religious scene arguably do not sit alongside each other well. One way in which political historians have assimilated this new picture of the religious climate of Elizabethan England into the political narrative has been to stress the elements of uncertainty and fear of the future within the regime. The regime depended for its survival on the life of one woman, and for most of the reign the person apparently best placed to succeed her was Mary, Queen of Scots, a ruler who would likely seek to pursue a very different religious policy. There was a fear that the Elizabethan settlement might be swept away like that of Edward VI in 1553. Furthermore, at certain points (such as the crisis of 1568–​72 and the Anjou match debates of the late 1570s), it looked plausible that the settlement might be substantially adjusted to be more favourable to religious conservatives. There were a number of possibilities for the future, which might arise at any time.25 As historians such as Paul Hammer have pointed out, this concern often meant that leading Elizabethan politicians were held together by fear of external forces or events –​the Spanish, Mary, Queen of Scots, the English Catholics. As he rightly argues, these were particularly powerful during the mid-​1580s, when events pressed one after another: the Throckmorton and Babington plots, the outbreak of war in 1585, the execution of Mary in 1587 and the Armada crisis in 1588. How applicable this scenario is to Elizabethan politics as a whole is, however, questionable, since issues often arose that split the leading politicians –​the crisis of 1568–​69, various debates over the Queen’s marriage, various religious debates and so on.

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5

Introduction

5

Hammer argues that after these short periods of tension or crisis, ‘political life returned to normal’.26 While Hammer is certainly right that the conduct of business ostensibly carried on fairly harmoniously, this arguably underplays the depth of the disagreements, over (for example) ecclesiastical policy. This book argues that the example of Christopher Hatton suggests that some qualifications to this model of Elizabethan politics are necessary. While the argument for a generally co-​operative and solidly Protestant core of the regime centred on Burghley, Leicester and Walsingham is not contested, this book argues that the extent to which Hatton fitted well into that group is much more doubtful. Hatton did not share the relatively hot Protestantism of these men; quite the reverse. At the very least, his religion was conservative. Furthermore, in a number of important respects, most notably over matters concerning the Church, he took a markedly different approach than did the strong Protestants on the Privy Council. At times, he pursued policies which challenged his colleagues, and in several important cases he carried the day. Indeed, this book argues that in some of these cases it can be shown that he worked with other like-​minded men within the regime to successfully oppose the approaches favoured by Burghley and his fellows. Thus Hatton does not fit well into the standard model of the Elizabethan political system, and this has contributed to his neglect by historians; although he may be noted as an anti-​Puritan, the usually occasional mentions of his political interventions appear to fit no pattern and are thus overlooked. The very fact that he does not fit into this model of the regime, and is nevertheless regarded as a significant figure, is in itself an argument for paying closer attention to what he was doing. The second major reason for Hatton’s neglect is the archival record –​ or specifically the lack thereof. Hatton did not leave a substantial archive, either personal or political. His personal correspondence is largely gone; even his will does not survive.27 Prominent ministers and favourites received huge amounts of correspondence, petitions, requests, reports from contacts or agents and so on, as the massive volume of Lord Burghley’s papers demonstrates; in Hatton’s case, very little survives. A cache of twenty-​seven very informative letters from Sir Robert Cecil to Hatton in 1590–​91, which must have originated in Hatton’s archive, gives an indication of how much has been lost.28 It is not clear why his papers have disappeared. There are large collections of Finch-​Hatton family papers at the Northamptonshire Record Office (mostly legal and property documents) and at the British Library (seventeenth-​century and later correspondence), but they are largely bare of Hatton’s personal papers.29 Clearly a large volume of manuscripts were destroyed or discarded. This may well have happened soon after Hatton’s death. There is no sign that there was an effort to secure Hatton’s papers or incorporate

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Religion and politics in Elizabethan England

them into the state papers. Possibly one or more of his secretaries or servants appropriated papers, as happened upon the deaths of some leading Elizabethan politicians. However, the family’s affairs were in some disarray after Hatton’s death. After the death in 1597 of his short-​lived heir, Sir William Hatton, his widow, Elizabeth Cecil, and her new husband, Sir Edward Coke, took possession of a good deal of property, so possibly some papers went astray there.30 Evidence of Hatton’s career is sparse even in the state papers. Unlike leading Elizabethan record-​keepers like Burghley and Walsingham, Hatton never held an office with significant responsibility for record-​ keeping. The state papers do contain some well-​known letters from Hatton to the Queen, for reasons which are again unclear.31 In addition, as we shall see, some of Hatton’s contacts or connections may not have been the sort of thing which one wanted to commit to paper.32 This lack of Hatton material in the public records has hobbled historians since his own time, just as the prominence of the Cecil family’s papers has magnified their importance. William Camden, for example, famously wrote his Annales drawing heavily on Burghley’s papers, which may help explain why he does not say a great deal about Hatton. There are however a number of manuscript volumes relating to Hatton. The most important is a letterbook, now British Library Additional Manuscript 15891.33 In many ways, this is not especially illuminating; much of it consists of requests for patronage or help. Nevertheless, we would know a great deal less about Hatton without it –​it contains the principal evidence for his relationship with Bishop John Aylmer, for example. It is silent, however, on the vast majority of Hatton’s contacts with covert Catholics, of which, as we shall see, there were a great many. The book conceals and misleads as much as it reveals, therefore, especially in its print edition, which sorts the letters into chronological order and gives a spurious air of completeness. It is also very variable in its coverage, primarily containing documents from 1578 to the mid-​1580s. The contents were published, along with other papers and a mostly reliable linking narrative (partly derived from marginal notes and comments in the manuscript), by Harris Nicolas in 1847.34 Various other volumes of papers connected with Hatton survive: a volume relating to Mary, Queen of Scots which was probably compiled for Hatton’s use; a manuscript volume of largely routine correspondence relating to Hatton’s role as Lord Lieutenant of Northamptonshire.35 There are also some estate papers. We know something of Hatton’s book collection.36 There are also various surviving material items: several interesting portraits, a cameo, a set of armour, an astrolabe. This adds up to rather more than we have for some significant Elizabethan politicians (the third Earl of Sussex, for example), but much less than we

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7

Introduction

7

have for Leicester, Walsingham and above all the Cecils. There is no sense at all that we have a decent proportion of his day-​to-​day correspondence. Above all, there are very few personal letters; the earliest letter written by Hatton dates from 1572, when he was already 32 and an established favourite (it is a letter to the Queen).37 Similarly, there are very few official memoranda, policy papers, agendas for Council meetings and so on, papers that survive in great profusion for the Cecils and allow us to say so much more about their activities and their thinking. If Hatton had the sort of thoughts that Burghley had, about, say, the creation of quasi-​republican interregnal English polity, we simply do not know it; we cannot track his private thoughts in that way. In this sense, the fate of his houses serves as a metaphor; Kirby is largely a roofless ruin, Holdenby has disappeared almost entirely, and his London house survives merely as a street name. The lack of a substantial surviving Hatton archive leads us to be very tentative on many aspects of his biography. Since Hatton is universally recognised as one of the leading figures of the reign, however, it is not satisfactory to allow this to close off serious study of him; he is too important to ignore. In this respect, the recent tendency for Elizabethan politics to be studied through biographies rather than institutions such as Parliament or the Privy Council has ill-​served Hatton, since such studies naturally highlight well-​documented individuals. The work of Michael Graves, Stephen Alford, Norman Jones and others on Burghley, Simon Adams on Leicester, John Cooper on Walsingham, Paul Hammer, Alexandra Gajda and Janet Dickinson on Essex have been extremely valuable, but do less justice to poorly documented figures. This book (while admittedly quasi-​biographical in nature) is intended partly to rebalance historiographical attention to less well-​evidenced figures of the Elizabethan political scene, and crucially to view events from a non-​Cecilian perspective. This also means that this book contains more speculation than might be wished. It may be that other historians will draw different conclusions from the evidence presented here; it may also be that further evidence will emerge to prove or disprove elements of what is written here. Nevertheless, I have sought to draw the best possible conclusions from the available evidence. In fact, the problem with Hatton is not unlike the difficulty in studying Elizabeth I herself: in both cases, the vast majority of their words, thoughts, plans, intentions, manoeuvres and so on are completely lost to us and always will be; the relationship between Elizabeth and Hatton mostly went this way too. In this sense, one can argue that there is a great deal which we simply cannot be certain about in Elizabethan history. Hatton has left us no explicit statements about his religion at all, nor for that matter about any other major policy in detail. Burghley has left us countless memos and notes laying out his thoughts on myriad subjects; for Hatton

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there are almost none. The only slight recompense is a fair few quite detailed speeches in Parliament, although these can hardly be expected to reveal his inner thinking. He seems a shadowy figure, appearing in existing literature as a walk-​on character: a favourite, occasionally as an effective performer in Parliament (although it is seldom asked what made him effective). We have no real sense of his agenda, his strategy, what he was trying to achieve. However, this book suggests that quite a lot can be put together about what his actions reveal about his opinions and attitudes. It should also be said that ambiguity and uncertainty also affects the characterisation of contemporary religious views. This book seeks to characterise the religious beliefs of many individuals, many of whom are poorly documented. It is often impossible to be specific or precise about their views or actions, which may in any case have changed over time in response to many factors. Unless otherwise qualified, it uses ‘Catholic’ in a relatively strict sense, to indicate individuals who believed themselves to adhere to the doctrine of the Catholic Church; ‘crypto-​Catholic’ to indicate secret Catholics; ‘conservative’ to indicate those whose views may be unclear, but appear to have been sympathetic to some form of Catholicism or conservative Protestantism; and ‘conformist’ to indicate those of whatever religion who adhered to the laws around religious practice. This book does not claim to be a conventional biography of Hatton; the sources scarcely allow that. It is primarily a study of Hatton’s political career, and in particular of what seems to be the most interesting and surprising feature of it: his religious attitudes and the effect they had on his politics and on the course of Elizabethan politics more broadly. It is argued that a clearer understanding of these points forces us to look at the Elizabethan regime and the period more broadly in a significantly different way. By extension, it explores the consequences of Hatton’s views on court politics –​particularly religious politics –​in the context of the wider State and national religious politics. The structure of this book reflects the problem of sources. The first three chapters look at Hatton the man, attempting to draw as rounded a picture of him as possible. Chapter 1 surveys the evidence for his early life and his arrival at court, and goes on to look at his personality and intellect and his relationship with the Queen. Somewhat less conventionally, Chapter 2 seeks to amplify our picture of his character, and in particular his religious attitudes, by looking at the people he chose to surround himself with and patronise, particularly the extraordinarily large number of Catholics of various descriptions who appear in those networks. Chapter 3 develops this by looking at his reputation: how contemporaries regarded his views, again focusing in particular on his religion. Overall, these provide a prima facie case that Hatton was, if not a Catholic himself, then at least a man who is set

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Introduction

9

apart from many leading members of the Elizabethan regime by virtue of his apparent tolerance towards Catholics and lack of hot Protestant attitudes. The second half of the book returns to Hatton’s political career, both laying out a more detailed account of his role in politics than has hitherto existed, and simultaneously assessing whether a fuller appreciation of his religious views changes our understanding of what went on within Elizabethan government. Again, the nature of the sources make it impractical to attempt a conventional chronological narrative, and so the issues are approached through four thematic chapters which assemble the often scanty evidence of Hatton’s views or approaches to specific issues to attempt to form a clear interpretation. Chapter 4 looks at his role as a minister, part of the tightly knit elite around Elizabeth I who directed domestic and foreign policy, and Chapter 5 addresses the crucial question of his place in the religious history of the reign. Chapter 6 seeks to draw conclusions about Hatton’s personal religion, and the conclusion reflects on how a fuller understanding of Hatton, his attitudes and his actions, affects our broader picture of the Elizabethan regime –​and more widely post-​Reformation England –​as a whole. In order to clarify the chronological relationship of the events discussed in these mostly thematic chapters, a chronology of Hatton’s life has been provided.

Notes 1 He died on 20 November 1591. 2 Collinson, Bancroft, 51. 3 Edith Sitwell, The Queens and the Hive (Boston, 1962), 412. 4 Alan Haynes, Walsingham: Elizabethan Spymaster and Statesman (Stroud, 2004), 67. 5 MacCaffrey, Making of Policy, 448. 6 Susan Doran, Elizabeth I and Her Circle (Oxford, 2015), 143. 7 Patrick Collinson (ed.), ‘The prophesyings and the downfall and sequestration of Archbishop Edmund Grindal 1576–​1583’ in Melanie Barber and Stephen Taylor with Gabriel Sewell (eds), From the Reformation to the Permissive Society (Church of England Record Society 18, 2010), 1–​41. 8 It should also be noted that in at least one case Brooks borrows a passage word-​ for-​word from Froude (who was in turn paraphrasing a letter of Mary, Queen of Scots): Brooks, Hatton, 153; J. A. Froude, The History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Defeat of the Spanish Armada (London, 1870), V, 11. 9 Alice Gilmore Vines, Neither Fire nor Steel: Sir Christopher Hatton (Chicago, 1978). 10 Malcolm Deacon, The Courtier and the Queen. Sir Christopher Hatton and Elizabeth I (Milton Malsor, 2008).

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11 Joan Wake was at one time working on a biography of Hatton, but it never saw the light of day. E. M. Tenison, Elizabethan England: Being the History of this Country ‘In Relation to all Foreign Princes’ (13 vols, Leamington Spa, 1933–​ 61), VII, 66 n.1. 12 Doran, Elizabeth I and Her Circle, Chapter 6. 13 Lake, ‘Two episcopal surveys’; Cathryn Enis, ‘The Dudleys, Sir Christopher Hatton and the justices of Elizabethan Warwickshire’, Midland History 39:1 (Spring 2014), 1–​35; Glyn Parry, ‘Foreign policy and the Parliament of 1576’, Parliamentary History 34:1 (February 2015), 62–​89. 14 Neil Younger, ‘How Protestant was the Elizabethan regime?’, EHR 133:564 (October 2018), 1060–​92. 15 See Conyers Read, ‘Walsingham and Burghley in Queen Elizabeth’s Privy Council’ EHR 28:109 (1913), 34–​58; J. E. Neale, ‘The Elizabethan political scene’ in Neale, The Age of Catherine de Medici (London, 1963), 145–​70. This also paralleled the arguments for the role of factions during the reign of Henry VIII then being made by Eric Ives and David Starkey. 16 Adams, Leicester and the Court, 18–​19. 17 Patrick Collinson, ‘The monarchical republic of Queen Elizabeth I’, in his Elizabethan Essays (London, 1994), 31–​57; Patrick Collinson, ‘The Elizabethan exclusion crisis and the Elizabethan polity’, Proceedings of the British Academy 84 (1994), 51–​92. 18 She goes on: ‘This modus vivendi among the leaders chimed nicely with the instinct of everyone else to run with the hare and hunt with the hounds. And it was not until the rise of Essex that the situation changed.’ Pam Wright, ‘A change of direction: the ramifications of a female household, 1558–​1603’, in David Starkey (ed.), The English Court: from the Wars of the Roses to the Civil War (London, 1987), 147–​72, at 170. 19 Adams, Leicester and the Court, 14. 20 Kesselring, Northern Rising, 36. 21 Natalie Mears, Queenship and Political Discourse in the Elizabethan Realms (Cambridge, 2005), 56–​7. 22 Collinson, ‘Monarchical republic’, 40–​1. 23 See for example Susan Doran: ‘it would be a mistake to conclude that the absence of “faction” in a narrowly defined sense meant that harmony always prevailed in political life’: Monarchy and Matrimony, 216; Diarmaid MacCulloch writes that ‘Adams is less inclined than I am to emphasise conflict at the Elizabethan Court’: Diarmaid MacCulloch, The Later Reformation in England, 1547–​1603 (2nd edn., Basingstoke, 2001, 145–​6, n. 2); Paul Hammer writes that the consensual model of Elizabethan politics ‘may have gone too far in playing down conflict in Court and the privy council’ (Hammer, Polarisation, 2). 24 See for example Christopher Haigh, English Reformations: Religion, Politics, and Society under the Tudors (Oxford, 1993); Alexandra Walsham, Church Papists: Catholicism, Conformity and Confessional Polemic in Early Modern England (Woodbridge, 1993); Ethan H. Shagan (ed.), Catholics and the ‘Protestant Nation’: Religious Politics and Identity in Early Modern England

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Introduction

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(Manchester, 2005); Michael C. Questier, Catholicism and Community in Early Modern England: Politics, Aristocratic Patronage and Religion, c.1550–​1640 (Cambridge, 2006). 25 See for example Collinson, ‘Exclusion crisis’; Stephen Alford, The Early Elizabethan Polity: William Cecil and the British Succession Crisis, 1558–​1569 (Cambridge, 1998). 26 Hammer, Polarisation, 389. 27 Adams has noted that neither Hatton, Walsingham, Ralegh nor Howard of Effingham ‘left any personal papers at all’: Simon Adams, ‘At home and away: the Earl of Leicester’, History Today 46:5 (May 1996), 22–​8, at 24. The situation with Walsingham, however, is ameliorated by the fact that many of his political papers and correspondence remain. 28 Hammer, ‘Cecil-​Hatton Letters’. Hammer prints these letters from copies of c. 1620, but does not note that they presumably originated in Hatton’s archive. The fact that they entered the market for historical manuscripts, which was buoyant in the early seventeenth century, may indeed suggest that some of Hatton’s papers were purloined by his secretaries and later sold, a not-​uncommon phenomenon. Alternatively, Hatton’s heirs may have allowed antiquarians to examine and copy Hatton’s papers, or sold them legitimately. 29 The male Hatton line ended in 1706, with the death of the 1st Viscount Hatton; his daughter Anne married Daniel Finch, 2nd Earl of Nottingham, and thus the Hatton property (including Kirby Hall) descended to the Finch-​Hatton earls of Winchilsea and Nottingham. The typescript catalogue of the Finch-​Hatton MSS at Northamptonshire Record Office, compiled by Joan Wake in 1937, suggests that the Hatton muniments were kept at Kirby until the early nineteenth century, were moved to Haverholme Priory, Lincolnshire, and then Buckfield, Basingstoke, before being deposited with the Northamptonshire Record Society in 1930. The 11th Earl sold a large quantity of manuscripts to the British Museum, where they were catalogued as BL Add. 29548–​29596 and Additional Charters 19788–​22613. These include a great many seventeenth-​century letters of the Hatton family. 30 This is hinted at in NRO, FH3713A & B. By this route, Coke obtained 120–​ 200 of Hatton’s books, some now at Holkham Hall, others since sold. Hassall, ‘Books’, 1–​4. The notion that the papers were lost shortly after Hatton’s death is supported (a) by the fact that Christopher, first Lord Hatton (1605–​70), had significant antiquarian interests and would surely have preserved Hatton’s papers if he could and (b) by the survival of seventeenth-​century Hatton manuscripts at the BL: clearly the seventeenth-​century Hattons were careful with documents. P. I. King, ‘The historian’s evidence: family and estate records in the Northamtonshire [sic] Record Office’, Northamptonshire Past and Present 1:6 (1953), 11–​16, at 14–​15. 31 SP 12/​89/​47, 12/​91/​45, 12/​91/​52, 12/​92/​16 and 20, 12/​142/​8 and 22, 12/​194/​ 40. It has been speculated that these came into the state papers via Thomas Windebank, who at times acted as a kind of private secretary to the Queen, and his son Francis, Secretary of State under Charles I: CSPD 1547–​80, xii–​xiii.

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32 On the reluctance of even the Earl of Leicester to discuss controversial religious opinions in private correspondence, see his letter to Robert Beale, quoted in Adams, Leicester and the Court, 229. 33 Entitled ‘A Booke of Letters receaved by Sir Christopher Hatton, Vicechamberlayne to the Queene’s Majestie, from sundry parsons, and procured by hym to be written in this same booke’, this volume was compiled by Hatton’s secretary until 1587, Samuel Cox, which explains the sudden dropping off of material after that date and also some curiously half-​hearted efforts to conceal evidence of Cox’s quarrels and reprimands by altering signatures in the MS, at ff. 133r.–​139r. The MS has an incomplete early modern foliation and a complete modern one, which is used here. The selection principles are puzzling: the items are not in chronological order, a few letters appear twice, and it contains a good deal of non-​Hatton material. In 1836 it was owned by the antiquarian William Upcott, but its earlier provenance is unknown: Original Letters, Manuscripts, and State Papers. Collected by William Upcott, Islington (privately printed, 1836), 31–​2; Memoirs, preface, vi. 34 Memoirs. Nicolas omitted a few items, e.g. ff. 19r.–​v., 66r., 91v.–​92r., 115r., 148r.–​v., 152r.–​3v. 35 BL Egerton 2124, published as Conyers Read (ed.), The Bardon Papers. Documents Relating to the Imprisonment & Trial of Mary Queen of Scots (Camden, 3rd ser. 17, 1909), xiii–​ xiv. The provenance of these papers is unknown. NRO, FH124, published as Jeremy Goring and Joan Wake (eds), Northamptonshire Lieutenancy Papers and other Documents 1580–​ 1614 (Northamptonshire Record Society 27, 1975). I have not systematically examined the records of the Court of Chancery during Hatton’s time as Lord Chancellor, as these seemed unlikely to provide material evidence of his views. 36 Hassall, ‘Books’. This evidence is discussed further in Chapter 1. 37 Memoirs, 20–​2.

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1 Rising to power at Elizabeth’s Court

Christopher Hatton was probably born in 1540 in Northamptonshire.1 Camden described his family as ‘more ancient than wealthy’, and it is true that the Hattons of Hatton were an old family originally from Cheshire. Hatton’s immediate ancestors formed a cadet branch of this family, who had migrated south. Hatton’s great-​ grandfather Henry Hatton married Elizabeth Holdenby, who eventually came to be the heiress of Holdenby. Their son John lived at Bletchingley in Surrey; John’s son William married another Holdenby, his second cousin Mary, and eventually came to inherit the estate.2 Holdenby, a few miles north-​west of Northampton, was the family’s only significant estate.3 Hatton’s father William, about whom very little is known, was usually styled a gentleman rather than an esquire, placing him in the minor ranks of the gentry.4 He was not prominent in Northamptonshire and never seems to have served as a justice of the peace. No doubt he played some small role in local affairs, but no record of it survives. Nor did William go into the law or trade to increase his fortune –​he seems to have been simply a modestly prosperous country gentleman.5 The future Lord Chancellor was in no sense brought up in poverty, therefore, but his origins were at more or less the lowest level of the political elite, the humblest of gentry. In rising to great prominence from minor gentry, Hatton was comparable with both administrators such as Nicholas Bacon and William Cecil and with royal favourites such as Charles Brandon or George Villiers, favourites of Henry VIII and James I and Charles I, respectively, who became Dukes of Suffolk and Buckingham. William Hatton died in 1546, when Christopher Hatton was about six.6 The property was inherited by Christopher’s elder brother, Francis, who was admitted to the Middle Temple in 1553 but died young.7 This left Christopher, the second son, as heir. A third son, Thomas, lived longer: he was also admitted to the Middle Temple, in 1559, married his stepsister Ursula Newport in 1567, but was dead by 1573.8

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Religion and politics in Elizabethan England

We have no specific evidence about Hatton’s childhood whatsoever; he presumably lived a largely bucolic Northamptonshire existence. Nor do we have any detailed records of Hatton’s life before he came to court; as noted above, no extant letter or document written by Hatton is dated before 1572, when he was already a successful man.9 With regard to his education, we can only speculate. It has been conjectured that his education was supervised by his uncle, William Saunders.10 Although Hatton remained close to his Saunders relatives throughout his life, Hatton’s mother and his stepfather seem more likely influences. Either way, this does not get us very far, since we know next to nothing about Hatton’s mother, father and stepfather either. Since Hatton was an accomplished courtier by his mid-​twenties, it must be assumed that he began at an early age to learn the necessary skills. He must have learned to ride very skilfully, since he was later an able jouster; he may also have learned to dance and play music or speak foreign languages (at the very least Latin). The seventeenth-​century writer Anthony Wood is our only source for the fact that Hatton attended Oxford, as a Gentleman Commoner at St Mary Hall during Mary I’s reign; the normal age for this would be about 15 or 16, so Hatton may have gone up in 1555 or 1556. The principal of St Mary Hall from 1556 to 1561 was William Allen, who later went into exile and became a cardinal and leader of English Catholic exiles, so it is certainly interesting to speculate on a possible early influence on Hatton. Wood notes that Hatton did not take a degree.11 One might expect Hatton to have spent perhaps two years at university, but again he dips entirely out of view for a number of years. He is next traceable in London, where on 26 May 1560 he became a member of the Inner Temple, one of the four Inns of Court.12 Again, this was a common course of education for young gentlemen, although it was far from universal for members of the lower gentry to attend both university and the Inns. That Hatton did so may suggest that he planned to enter the law; the fact that he took no degree at Oxford by no means rules this out.13 As we will see, he had close relatives who were senior lawyers, and since he was not especially well-​off, there is some logic to this notion; success in the law was a proven route for humble gentry to prosper in a respectable fashion. Nevertheless, while we cannot assess Hatton’s diligence, there is little sign that he obtained an advanced knowledge of the law, and it does not appear that he was called to the Bar.14 It was normal for gentlemen with no intention of becoming lawyers to spend time at the Inns developing social polish: singing, dancing, writing poetry or plays, oratory and so on. For fashionable young men, many with aspirations to become courtiers, the Inns provided a convenient base for both London and the court. It may be that Hatton learned relatively little

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15

law because he was busy with other pursuits, which indeed shortly drew him into more glamorous circles. The Inns also put on elaborate festivities, which were sometimes performed at court. Hatton became quite a prominent member of the Inn, in its social life at least, as we will see.15 Hatton received a high-​quality education, therefore, and this did not come cheaply; his time at the Temple may have cost £40 a year, a substantial sum for a humble gentleman with relatives to support. Hatton was also buying land at this point, albeit on a small scale: in February 1560, he paid Lewis Dyve £111 13s 4d for lands in Holdenby and nearby Church Brampton.16 It is true that as the eldest surviving son, Hatton presumably had access to whatever family assets existed, and he may have received legacies of some kind. It may also be that Hatton had a wealthy patron, who perhaps recognised in him exceptional personal qualities, and foresaw great things for him. The most likely candidate here would be his cousin, the judge Sir Edward Saunders; an alternative possibility would be his stepfather Richard Newport, whose 1565 will notes that Hatton (among many others) owed him money, but does not state how much.17 In terms of Hatton’s early religious experience, we have only circumstantial evidence. The period of Hatton’s youth and upbringing in the 1540s and 1550s was of course one of religious turmoil, as Henry VIII’s government passed through more or less radical periods of reform, that of Edward VI pursued more thorough Protestantism, and Mary I returned to Catholicism. The evidence suggests that regardless of the climate of the time, Hatton’s family circle adhered to Catholicism. His father’s 1545 will bequeathed his soul to ‘Almighty God to our blessed Lady St Mary and to all the Companie of Heaven’, a clearly Catholic formulation, as well as leaving money for prayer for his soul and those of others, something that was not uncommon at that date but was certainly on the decline.18 Hatton’s mother Alice, daughter of Lawrence Saunders of Harrington, came from a Catholic family, and after William Hatton’s death she took as her second husband Richard Newport, a Warwickshire lawyer and JP and also a Catholic.19 Hatton was in Oxford during the reign of Mary, when it was a Catholic university. By the time he studied at the Temple, Elizabeth had come to the throne and begun to restore Protestantism, although the sympathies of many lawyers remained strongly Catholic well into Elizabeth’s reign.20 Between his family, Oxford, and the Temple, therefore, Hatton was nurtured in conservative circles throughout his early life. Brooks wrote, surely rightly, that Hatton ‘was almost certainly brought up as a Catholic and was probably ... a crypto-​Catholic’ in the 1560s.21 Hatton’s legal studies were interrupted within a couple of years of arriving in London, as he embarked upon court life. The precise circumstances of this are, again, unclear. For wealthier gentlemen, occasional or regular

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attendance at court was normal, and in practice it was open to anyone with the financial resources to appear suitably dressed and the education to behave appropriately. Hatton was not of his own resources in such a financial or social league. Again, the entrée of wealthier young men at court would likely be secured by relatives or friends with an established position there. We are therefore left to speculate how Hatton got there. Hatton had two powerful contacts at court, but his links with each were fairly weak. Firstly, he had some slender links with the Parr family, the most famous member of which, Catherine Parr, was queen of England during Hatton’s childhood. Catherine wrote in 1548 to her then husband, Lord Admiral Thomas Seymour, recommending a ‘Master Hatton’, who must at that date have been Christopher’s elder brother Francis, so some meaningful connection clearly existed.22 Later on, her brother, Marquess of Northampton and a magnate in that county, was prominent throughout the mid-​Tudor period to his death in 1571, but there is no evidence of a relationship between him and Hatton. We have no way of assessing whether Hatton really owed his career to these links or whether they were too remote to be decisive, although it is intriguing that Princess Elizabeth was living with Catherine for the first half of 1548 –​she might conceivably have become aware of Hatton’s family at that early age. Hatton’s second contact was his cousin Sir Edward Saunders. Saunders was a prominent judge, a former protégé of Thomas Cromwell, appointed Chief Justice of Queen’s Bench by Queen Mary, and a considerable figure in Warwickshire. Saunders was a confirmed Catholic, and accordingly fared less well under Elizabeth, being demoted to Chief Baron of the Exchequer. This naturally limited his utility to Hatton, although it must have been helpful at the Temple.23 Saunders and Hatton were clearly on good terms: Hatton was named as the overseer of Saunders’s 1576 will (and bequeathed the judge’s best gelding) but since Hatton was by then an important figure, this does not necessarily mean that Saunders advanced his career when he was merely a humble provincial gentleman.24 Nor is it likely that Saunders was particularly influential at court. Enis speculates that, in view of their Temple connection, Robert Dudley (whose ideological position was then fairly flexible) may have been an early patron of Hatton, but again this cannot be proven.25 It may well be that one of these contacts helped Hatton to begin his court career. Nevertheless, Hatton could only attain the position with the Queen, which he did on the basis of his own charms, whether physical or courtly. The trigger for Hatton’s entrée to court appears to have been a court performance of Inner Temple dramatics. At Christmas 1561–​62, the Inner Temple put on a particularly lavish set of revels, partly to express their gratitude to Robert Dudley for a significant favour he had done them. Part of these depicted the court of Palaphilos, an idealised prince played by Dudley,

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in which Hatton performed the role of master of the game, a sufficiently significant role that he was allowed to admit a member to the Inner Temple without fee ‘in respect of his charges as master of the game’.26 A separate element of the revels was the play Gorboduc, which dramatised the calamitous consequences of a monarch’s failure to settle the succession, and was widely interpreted as a plea for Elizabeth to marry, preferably to Dudley. Gorboduc was performed first at the Temple at Christmastide 1561–​62, and again at court on 18 January 1562.27 It is not certain, however, either that Hatton played a part in Gorboduc or that the Palaphilos section of the entertainments (which did feature Hatton) was performed at court, though Marie Axton suggests that they probably were. Even if he did not act at court, he may have attended.28 On this or a similar occasion, Hatton attracted Elizabeth’s attention. If Dudley intended this, no mention of it is found in their later dealings; it is ironic that an entertainment glorifying Dudley had the effect of introducing a significant rival to the court. What about Hatton attracted Elizabeth’s attention? Again, we have no direct evidence from either side, but Hatton’s looks, his bearing or manner must have had much to do with it. Undoubtedly Hatton was regarded as good-​looking. The artist Nicholas Hilliard, who painted a miniature of Hatton near the end of his life and was presumably a good judge of men’s appearances, described him ‘a man generally knowne and respected of all men amongst the best fauours, and to be one of the goodlyest personages of England, yet had he a very low forhead’.29 And undoubtedly the then 28-​year-​old queen had an eye for attractive men. Once Hatton’s looks secured him an opening, he was presumably able to speak to her and take the opportunity to charm her. This was certainly the explanation adduced by his contemporaries. In 1582, Anthony Munday reported that the English Catholic exiles in Rome believed that Hatton ‘pleased ye Queene so wel, dauncing before her in a Maske, yt since yt time he hath risen to be one of ye Counsell: with other words, which I referre for modestie’.30 John Clapham relates that ‘Hatton, being a young student in an Inn of Court, was first made known to the Queen in a show or device presented before her at a festival time; whereupon being called to her service, she made him one of her pensioners.’31 Camden attributes his ‘favour with the Queene’ to his ‘being young, and of comely talnesse of body and countenance’, which won him promotion to the gentlemen pensioners, and his ‘modest sweetnesse of manners’, which won him further advancement into the privy chamber and higher honours. Robert Naunton, similarly, wrote that he ‘came into the Court, as his opposite, Sir Iohn Perrot was wont to say, by the Galliard, for he came thither as a private Gentleman of the Innes of Court in a Mask, and for his activity, and person, which was tall, and proportionable, taken into her favour’.32

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Hatton had, therefore, caught the Queen’s eye, and he parlayed her initial interest in him into a more substantial position at court, apparently over a couple of years. He dips out of sight during 1562 and 1563, with nothing known about his activities. He presumably continued to attend court, hoping to develop the Queen’s interest in him. In 1564, he re-​emerges, possibly, it has been speculated, owing to an appearance in another court masque.33 In spring (the precise date is unknown), he gained his first, crucial foothold in court office, entering the Queen’s service by being appointed a gentleman ­pensioner.34 The band of fifty gentleman pensioners was a guard of honour to the Queen, charged with guarding the presence chamber, the most important formal reception room of Tudor palaces. Mostly composed of members of families rather more wealthy and prestigious than Hatton himself, who in time might be promoted to higher office, it was an impressive position, though not one with real political significance. The same year, the Queen ordered armour to be made for Hatton (though he had to pay for it ­himself).35 Hatton had, therefore, formally arrived at court. Perhaps related to this, earlier in the same year, on 26 February 1564, Hatton granted his most significant asset, his estate of Holdenby, to his relatives William Saunders and Bartholomew Tate. It may be that the aspiring royal favourite pawned his most important asset to secure the money needed to outfit himself for a career at court (he retook possession in 1567).36 If so, he gambled his fortune on the deeply uncertain path of royal favour, and was lucky enough to have it pay off. Although mentions of Hatton in the records are very scarce for the 1560s, he evidently spent the next years participating in the pastimes of the court. He was a prominent jouster as early as 1565, an important mark of prestige and prowess.37 Some courtiers (such as Philip Howard, Earl of Surrey and Arundel) announced their arrival at court by staging elaborate tournaments, but such ego trips would have been beyond Hatton’s purse.38 Hatton’s prominence must, however, attest to real skill as well as royal favour. In the 1571 ‘Challenge of the Four Knights Errant’, Hatton, the Earl of Oxford, Charles Howard of Effingham and Sir Henry Lee as challengers engaged with twenty-​seven ‘defenders’ over three days (on this occasion, it was Oxford who attracted most attention).39 In January 1579, during a visit by Duke Casimir of the Palatinate, Hatton and Philip Sidney played the most prominent parts.40 Hatton seems not to have been as enthusiastic a jouster as some; he is not recorded as participating in a tournament held in June 1572 in honour of the visiting duc de Montmorency, for example, and by 1581, when more detailed lists of jousters begin to survive, he had apparently ceased to compete.41 This was no doubt due to his increasing political stature and desire to adopt a more statesmanlike persona. Another classic courtly pastime was writing. There is no evidence that Hatton wrote poetry, but he did collaborate with four other authors on

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a play called Gismond of Salerne, which was presented before the Queen, probably in 1568; Hatton wrote Act IV. Like Gorboduc, the play depicted a state facing trouble owing to the lack of an heir, in this case because King Tancred refuses to allow his daughter, Gismond, to marry. In this sense it must be seen as part of the pressure to marry and secure the succession which was being put on Elizabeth from virtually every quarter in the 1560s, although the message that a good ruler should treat his or her heir appropriately could be taken as referring to either Mary, Queen of Scots or Catherine Grey. It would be unwise to read much about Hatton’s personal views into this.42 Above all, however, Hatton showed a willingness to spend infinite time with the Queen. Many councillors, nobles and leading court figures spent lengthy periods away from court on their estates or attending to government business in London or Westminster. Hatton seems to have made a point of eschewing such self-​indulgence; he provided the Queen with the congenial company she wanted. It has been calculated that in 1579, for example, he can barely have been absent from court for more than a week at any point.43 Simon Adams has observed that Hatton’s rise was ‘steady but slow’, at least compared to the likes of Ralegh or Essex, and that ‘his rise was not as meteoric as is often claimed’; similarly, Susan Doran has argued that Hatton’s ‘special relationship with the queen’ cannot be traced earlier than 1571.44 But as Adams also points out, Elizabeth often rewarded her servants agonisingly slowly, obliging them to prove their loyalty and diligence for many years before receiving promotion. So while the evidence is sparse, it is likely that Hatton’s favour was gradually developing over the years following his appointment as a gentleman pensioner. Through the later 1560s, he increasingly became part of the furniture at court, and clearly more than just another one of the gentleman pensioners, many of whom remained fairly obscure and were never promoted. In 1564, he was prominent enough at court to escort a Scottish ambassador, Sir James Melville of Halhill, to the royal presence, and in 1566, in his only formal diplomatic excursion, he accompanied the Earl of Bedford’s embassy to Scotland for Prince James’s christening. This was not a pleasant trip, since the English representatives believed that they were ridiculed during one of the entertainments; perhaps surprisingly, Hatton took especial offence and said that were it not for Mary’s presence, he would have ‘put a Dagger to the heart’ of the French courtier responsible.45 Hatton did not sit in the parliamentary session of 1566, since it was a second session of the Parliament elected in 1563, but in 1568, he received a significant mark of favour from the Queen, the office of keeper of the royal park of Eltham, which, although not a first-​rank royal residence, was a substantial structure, occasionally used by the Queen, and it provided Hatton with a residence as well.46

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Again in 1568, he made an exchange of lands with the Queen, receiving the site of Sulby Abbey with associated lands in return for Holdenby, which she then granted back to him on a forty-​year lease (and later granted to him outright).47 By 1569, William Cecil seems to have recognised that he was slightly more than a bit-​player, since he personally entered Hatton’s name on lists of local gentry which were almost certainly roll-​calls of men who could be counted on to support the regime in the event of major r­ ebellion.48 His inclusion here can hardly have been due to his wealth, which was negligible, but must have arisen from prominence at court. Late in 1570, he obtained from the Queen a pardon for one Henry Stanley, who had been found guilty of murder.49 His first recorded New Year’s gift to the Queen was in 1571 (unfortunately the 1569 and 1570 rolls are missing).50 He first sat in Parliament in 1571, representing Higham Ferrers (he was also returned for Boston, a sign that he was not short of powerful friends).51 In May 1571, his jousting attracted the attention of a correspondent of the Earl of Rutland.52 The same year, the Queen used him as a personal messenger to a judge, on one of the regular occasions when the royal whim collided with the impartial course of justice.53 This gradual progress accelerated markedly in 1572. He was appointed Captain of the Guard, probably on 13 July, and made one of just two Gentlemen of the Privy Chamber on 20 July.54 As well as patronage and prestige, both of these offices provided large amounts of one of the most valuable currencies of court life: close access to the Queen. Around this time we find the earliest evidence of another mark of special favour, the Queen’s nickname for him of ‘Lids’, the significance of which is unknown.55 He was known at other times as her ‘Sheep’, ‘Mutton’ and her ‘Pecora Campi’ (beast of the field), which perhaps alluded to loyalty and obedience; the last of these, for example, derives from Psalm 8, which describes the animals under man’s dominion.56 There are several other signs that Hatton substantially grew in political importance in 1572. He carried a message from the Queen to the House of Commons, and was allotted prime accommodation when the court visited Burghley at Theobalds.57 The first surviving letter from Hatton to Elizabeth is dated the same year.58 Similarly, in January 1572, Hatton was mentioned by some conservative plotters aggrieved at the fall of the Duke of Norfolk and the rise of Cecil and Leicester; one of these, Edmund Mather, talked of Hatton alongside Leicester as ‘perfumed and courtelyeke’ favourites who ‘had more Recourse unto her Majestie in her Pryvye Chamber, than Reason would suffre’.59 Hatton was therefore becoming well known beyond court. By early 1573, he was seen as a man with influence over the Queen in political matters, even by senior ministers such as Burghley and Knollys.60

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An important piece of evidence –​the first detailed piece of information about Hatton’s life –​is a letter to Hatton from Edward Dyer in October 1572.61 It appears that Hatton felt himself wronged by Elizabeth in some way, apparently over her affection for ‘my Lord of Ctm’ or possibly ‘Crm’.62 This mysterious name (presumably the result of possibly multiple transcription errors) may refer to the Earl of Oxford, another handsome young newcomer at court, about whom Hatton was complaining in letters to Elizabeth in 1573, or it may refer to another court rival.63 Hatton probably feared that his place in Elizabeth’s affections would be usurped, and was considering how to respond. Dyer reminded Hatton that he must submit to his sovereign whatever his private feelings, and not cause dissension at court. While a conventional enough point, the suggestion that Hatton might conceivably do otherwise suggests a very close relationship with Elizabeth. ‘For’, Dyer went on, ‘though in the beginning when her Majesty sought you (after her good manner) she did beare with rugged dealing of yours, untill she had what she fancyed, yet now, after satiety & fullness it will rather hurt than helpe you.’ This suggests that Hatton’s close relationship with Elizabeth, and his high favour at court, had been marked by some kind of infatuation, at which point Hatton was confident enough to play hard to get (a distinctly high-​risk strategy). Yet when was that ‘beginning, when her Majesty sought you’? Was it when he first came to court, or in 1564, when he became a gentleman pensioner, or in 1571 or 1572, when he emerged as a more substantial favourite? We do not know, but Hatton’s relative obscurity throughout the mid and later 1560s suggests the latter: that Hatton initially attracted the Queen’s eye as a purely ornamental addition to the band of pensioners, continued to be a minor figure for some years, and only around 1571 achieved more substantial success as a result of a (no doubt platonic) love affair with the Queen, suddenly becoming flavour of the month. 1572 was therefore very much his ‘breakthrough’ year, but he had served his time. Robert Naunton dismissed him snobbishly as ‘a meer vegetable of the Court, that sprung up at night, and sunk again at his noon’.64 He was probably referring to Hatton’s lack of antecedents or posterity at court, which was indeed striking; most of the major figures at Elizabeth’s Court had some connection with previous generations of courtiers, even supposedly ‘new men’ such as Burghley or Walsingham. By this point Hatton had become the only court favourite to approach Leicester’s place in the Queen’s favour, and Leicester probably became somewhat alarmed. In May 1573, when Hatton was ill, there was talk at court that Leicester was seeking to push him aside. Gilbert Talbot reported to his father, the Earl of Shrewsbury, that ‘now is there devices, chefely by Lecester (as I suppose) and not withoute Burghley his knowledge, how to

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make Mr Edward Dier as great as ever was Hatton; for now, in this tyme of Hatton’s sicknes, the tyme is convenient’. The plan, apparently, was to persuade the Queen that Dyer, who was himself ill, was sickening because of royal displeasure –​which is of course precisely the sort of thing that Hatton might do; Dyer was supposed to out-​Hatton Hatton. Whether this was any more than gossip is unknown, but it is a mark of the perception that Hatton’s favour was by then sufficient to worry so well-​established a court fixture as Leicester. It is also unclear whether this was related to Leicester and Burghley’s perception about Hatton’s influence on religious matters.65 Whether Hatton actively sought to become involved in politics or advocate a particular political stance during his first years at court is another question which is very poorly documented. A few snippets of evidence, however, hint that Hatton aligned himself not with the keen Protestants centred on William Cecil, but with the more conservative old nobility such as Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk, Henry Fitzalan, 12th Earl of Arundel and William Paulet, 1st marquess of Winchester.66 These men had mostly served under multiple Tudor monarchs and as such tended to have greater sympathy towards Catholicism. This would not be an illogical thing for Hatton to do: they were a powerful group. Indeed, there is no evidence of close relations between Burghley and Hatton before they became colleagues on the Privy Council in 1577. At this early point in the reign, pressure on Catholics was minimal, and if Hatton was in fact adhering to a broadly crypto-​Catholic line, it would not have been unduly problematic. If this was so, then it is likely that Hatton also leant towards those conservative aristocrats when their simmering rivalry with Cecil and his allies erupted into crisis in 1568–​72, not least since an impartial observer might well have predicted they would defeat Cecil (particularly given that Leicester was on board with the scheme for much of the time). One fact supporting this is that Norfolk commended Hatton to his son in his last letter, writing that ‘Mr Hatton is a marveylous const[an]t freind, one yt I have been much beholding unto.’ Norfolk commended William Cecil too, but this was probably because Cecil had emerged as victor in the struggle, and Norfolk wanted his son to make the best of it.67 Another snippet pointing to the same conclusion is that Mary, Queen of Scots’s agent, the Bishop of Ross, stated in an interrogation in 1571 that he had approached Hatton through a mediator to request his help, ‘when he had accesse to the Queen’, in reaching a settlement between Elizabeth and Mary; however, ‘Mr. Hatton sent word by hym [the intermediary] agayn he wold not medle in that matter for he was suspect all redy, & som said that a Scottish man resorted unto hym.’68 The fact that Hatton ‘was suspect all redy’ is regrettably all we know about this, but it is suggestive. On the other hand, Hatton stated to the Queen about this time that he was blamed for the fall

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of Norfolk and Mary, the new religious laws and other matters ‘that most displeased your nobles’, though he may have been referring to general perceptions that he was some kind of evil counsellor –​which is itself a sign that he was perceived as being influential by about 1573.69 Further evidence that Hatton steered a course independent of the hot Protestants comes from a report sent to Burghley in 1572 about some of Hatton’s relatives. This noted that a group of Northamptonshire and Leicestershire gentry, including at least one of Hatton’s relatives, William Saunders, had spent some time complaining about the state of things. One of them, Thomas Hesilrigge of Noseley, had ‘very sore railed on your Honour, and emongest other thinges he affirmed that the Lorde Treasourer had destroyed and spoiled three noble houses, viz the Duke of Norfolk and thearles [of Northumberland and Westmorland] that fledde out of the Northe [following the rebellion]. And saide that nowe yow had erected your pyle at Burghley, demaundinge, who shoolde destroye that?’ The report went on to say that William Saunders and his brother Francis ‘in all theire doynges preferre Mr. Hatton above your honour, in saienge that one daie they hoped to see wherein Mr. H. shoold have one steppe before yow and give yow the glike’. Naturally the Saunders hoped that their cousin Hatton would attain a powerful position, but their comments lamenting the failure of the Northern Rising and the rise of Lord Burghley counted as quite dangerous talk, and supports the idea that Hatton and his relatives were on the conservative side of the religious spectrum.70 Finally, the notion that Hatton was associated with a conservative religious position and that this was publicly known is supported by the Puritan Peter Birchet’s attempt to assassinate him in October 1573.71 All of this suggests that at the time of the crisis of 1568–​72, or at least towards its latter end, Hatton had taken on a meaningful political role. This leads us back to the question of why Hatton suddenly came to prominence in 1572. As we have seen, it may simply be that Elizabeth felt that he was sufficiently well-​seasoned and ready for promotion. It may be that some kind of love affair had developed. But a more politically oriented possibility is that Hatton was promoted as a conservative in the wake of the execution of Norfolk and the defeat of the conservatives at court. It may be (although this can only be speculation) that Elizabeth felt that a more prominent conservative at court would act as a sop to the Catholics, or provide her with a channel of communications to Catholics. Hatton began to be given public responsibilities at this point. In August 1572, he was made a commissioner to investigate losses suffered by Spanish shipowners in England since the trade embargo imposed in 1568, a move linked to the restoration of relations with Spain then being negotiated (perhaps Hatton’s Catholic sympathies were seen as making him suitable for

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dealing with Spaniards).72 More discreetly, he acted as a personal messenger from the Queen (see below). Almost as soon as he was made Captain of the Guard, therefore, he began to be inducted into the responsibilities of government, and was perhaps being eyed for higher office. Behind the scenes, his role and influence was probably considerable. As the 1570s progressed, Hatton became increasingly prominent in political matters. In June 1574, the ambassador in Scotland, Henry Killigrew, considered Hatton significant enough to include him (along with Burghley, Leicester and Walsingham) in the select list of leading figures to whom he wrote personal reports about his progress. Interestingly, Killigrew not only told Walsingham that he was doing so but sent him a copy, suggesting that the forward Protestants were concerned about what he was up to.73 This may be the earliest indication that Hatton (aged 34 and not a privy councillor) was of real significance in matters of policy, not merely patronage. As we find elsewhere in Hatton’s career, the tone of Killigrew’s letter suggests a careful and conscious attempt to persuade a colleague who was not very well informed and potentially rather sceptical to toe the party line Walsingham was attempting to enforce, particularly given Hatton’s ability to influence the Queen. Ultimately this was a means of attempting to influence the Queen via Hatton, but no reply from Hatton has been found to indicate what he thought of this. Hatton was also sending patronage requests to the Council, although they were not necessarily granted.74 By 1575 he tried to intercede with the Bishop of Winchester (Robert Horne, a strong Protestant) for an unknown clergyman whom he had dismissed.75 He played a significant role in parliamentary and court debates over a possible intervention in the Netherlands in 1576, and a foreign observer expected him to join the Council.76 By March 1577 he appears to have been powerful enough to engineer John Aylmer’s appointment as Bishop of London, an extremely important development which is considered in detail in Chapter 5.77 On 12 November 1577, however, Hatton’s rise to power was completed with his swearing in as Vice-​Chamberlain of the Royal Household and a privy councillor.78 Shortly afterwards he was knighted, alongside Francis Walsingham.79 A seat on the Privy Council confirmed Hatton’s place in the political elite, and we will return to his political career in later chapters.

Hatton’s trip to Spa, 1573 One interesting episode from Hatton’s early career is his 1573 trip to Spa in the Spanish Netherlands, his only continental visit and a reasonably well-​ known incident.80 Yet it is perhaps not as clear-​cut as it seems. The accepted

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view is that he went to recover from illness, and he genuinely seems to have been ill in May 1573; Gilbert Talbot wrote on 11 May that he was ‘sicke still, It is thought he will very hardly recover his disease, for it is doubted it is in his kidnes. The Queine goeth almost every day to see how he dothe.’81 On 23 May, Francis Talbot wrote that ‘Mr Hattoun be reason of his greate syckenes is minded to gowe to the Spawe for the better recoverie of his healthe’.82 Hatton also mentions in one letter being ‘black’, because of ‘this disease’.83 Nevertheless, he could have gone to Buxton or Bath rather than making a long and laborious journey to Spa. The Privy Council issued a placard on 29 May 1573 for him ‘to passe over the seas for recovery of his helthe’ and he took his leave from the Queen on 5 June.84 The Queen’s ship Bark of Boulogne transported him to Dunkirk (it also brought him back from Calais around 15 September).85 He went on to Antwerp,86 where he met Champagney, the governor of the city, who in 1576 came as an envoy to England.87 The Spanish looked after him, and ‘every attention’ was to be shown to him.88 He was also accompanied by Dr Julio Borgarucci, a royal physician who was later mixed up with the fall of Archbishop Grindal. Hatton was by no means travelling incognito, therefore; his movements were discussed in England.89 Furthermore, while in the Netherlands he received representations from both sides of the confessional spectrum. The first came from the Catholic side: a printed open letter addressed to him at Spa, asking him to use his access to the Queen to deliver her a copy of the Treatise of treasons, the Catholic polemic against members of her regime.90 The second came from a Huguenot nobleman, Bertrand de la Tour, who wished to warn the Queen of England about plots by Catholic powers to invade England. De la Tour had had ‘some discourse with a certain English baron’ at Aix la Chapelle and having thereby come to the knowledge of somewhat that concerned the safety of the whole kingdom of England, he would not conceal it. ... Hearing that a certain noble knight, a captain of the queen’s guards, was in the Spaw, he thought it his duty to certify the said officer, being a person very devoted to her majesty, of certain matters, which a great many princes were contriving, and endeavouring to bring to pass against the kingdom of England, and of the manner by which they thought to invade it on every side.

Despite his apparent resolve to contact Hatton, our knowledge of this comes from a paper signed by De la Tour, another French witness and an Englishman, William Bromfield, now in Burghley’s papers (perhaps Hatton handed it over to Burghley). These suggest that Hatton’s presence in Spa was far from discreet, adding to the sense that he was not merely travelling for his health.91

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What, then, was Hatton doing? If there was indeed a political motive for Hatton to travel to the Netherlands, then there are two possibilities. The first relates to relations with Spain. This trip came shortly after the restoration of trade with the Netherlands, which was declared 30 April 1573 and was part of a broader diplomatic effort which led to the treaty of Bristol the following year. The Dutch revolt was faltering, and following the resumption of trade, Elizabeth ‘made a strong personal initiative to persuade Philip to accept her mediation’ in the Netherlands.92 Philip II even told the papal nuncio in Madrid in June that Alva had hinted that a reconciliation between England and Rome was on the cards. Hatton may therefore have been a personal envoy, part of a campaign by Elizabeth to restore good relations with Spain; he would have been a suitable candidate for this as he was not closely linked to ministers hostile to Spain, such as Burghley.93 This is plausible, but has only very scant support from the Habsburg side: the fact that Hatton met with Champagney, and one 1576 mention in a letter to Cardinal Granvelle which referred to ‘Milord Hatten, qu’at esté ambassadeur vers nostre Roy’, which conceivably suggests that Hatton was seen as such by the Habsburg officials.94 A second and perhaps more likely (though not mutually exclusive) possibility relates to English domestic politics. Following the failure of the Northern Rising, a substantial number of English Catholic renegades had ended up in the Spanish Netherlands, either having fled or having used the pretext of going to take the waters to go overseas; some did in fact travel to Spa, others to Antwerp. In May 1570, Francis Englefield was at Antwerp, ‘where twenty or thirty people had come in recent months on pretence of taking the Spa waters ... The rebels at Spa included a leader of the rising, the Earl of Westmorland, and Lady Northumberland ... The queen made repeated attempts to flush these renegade English from the Low Countries, but to no avail.’95 Hatton may therefore have been sent to try to persuade them to make their peace with the government and come home. He certainly made contact with some of them: some of his attendants were involved in an affray with those of the Countess of Northumberland. On 12 August, it was reported in England that ‘My lady Northumberlands men & his had som fraye togyther but my lady was banyshyd from thens forthwith upon it.’96 If Hatton was trying to reach out to English Catholics, the most obvious target would have been the Earl of Westmorland, whose return the English government sought to arrange either by persuasion or by kidnap.97 Westmorland’s wife was Norfolk’s sister, so if Hatton had a good relationship with Norfolk (as Norfolk stated), this would make Hatton a suitable emissary. Burghley himself was keen to bring the exiles back to England; he maintained quite lengthy correspondence with some of them, and had an

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agent, John Lee, actively seeking to achieve this (Lee appears to have ceased his activity in early 1573, which may have been connected to Hatton’s mission).98 Thus the possibility emerges that Hatton was operating with the acquiescence of not only Elizabeth herself but the regime more generally –​ that he was regarded and employed as a kind of papist-​wrangler. This may also have been linked to the restoration of relations with Spain, since there was already talk that the Catholic refugees may have been sent back to England, and this was indeed promised in the treaty of Bristol.99 There is nothing concrete to support this in the surviving letters sent by Hatton to the Queen during his travels, although it may be significant that these letters were preserved in the state papers. Although they are mostly concerned with his sorrow at being absent from her presence, there are some hints of business being conducted: ‘I have received great honour in these Countries for the love they bear you, or rather their fear of your greatness. I perceive they are careful to exercise all good parts, how unworthy so ever the person be unto whom they use them [i.e. Hatton]; but of these things, and others, I have advertised Mr. Heneage, whose report of the same I humbly beseech you to hear.’100 Any sensitive matters would most likely have been entrusted to messengers rather than letters. Hatton also adverted to speculation about his purposes in Spa in a letter to Lord Paget, saying ‘What ever you here of me towchynge matter beyond seas know for certen my Lord that I have done nothynge but with dew consideracion & that I ought.’101 If, as seems likely, Hatton was seeking to persuade Catholic exiles to return, it is very interesting that he was regarded as a suitable person to do so –​someone whose official position was relatively junior, but whose favour with the Queen made him a credible emissary.

The rewards of office As Hatton grew in the Queen’s favour, he received increasingly valuable rewards which helped him to sustain the enormous expense of life as a senior courtier, and which also help us to track his rise. The first noteworthy reward was the grant in 1568 of the reversion of the keepership of Eltham Park, to which he succeeded in 1571; in 1580, he added the keepership of Greenwich Park. These granted a small salary, but greater opportunity for dispensing patronage, as well as the use of a house. Hatton hosted the Queen for hunting here in 1581, and in 1576 he entertained an ambassador from the Habsburg Netherlands, Champagney.102 In 1572, Hatton was granted Corfe Castle in Dorset, which provided opportunities for patronage, including nomination of MPs, and as we shall see, the potential for involvement in piracy.

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Beginning in 1571, the Queen granted Hatton many small, scattered parcels of land or profitable rights throughout the kingdom; one 1586 grant, for example, contained 82 separate groups of land or rights, stretching from Devon to Yorkshire.103 Often these were remnants of monastic lands remaining with the Crown, which he either kept or sold on. Some were (in theory at least) paid for, although whether Hatton ever delivered the purchase prices is unclear.104 Hatton also received straightforward gifts of money: £50 in 1574, and from 1575 an annuity of £400.105 From 1578, he was always given the most valuable New Year’s gift: 400 ounces of gold, when Leicester only got 100 (presumably this reflected the fact that Leicester had received other rewards, including large grants of land).106 Even these, however, did not go very far at court. Already in 1575, Hatton claimed to be £10,000 in debt.107 To rise to genuine political significance, he needed a serious income. The real profits of government service came either from holding an office with major patronage power (which enabled the holder to accept inducements from suitors; Lord Burghley’s mastership of the court of wards is a classic example108) or from handling some aspect of royal finance, enabling the holder to ‘borrow’ money. The Queen provided Hatton with two such opportunities. The first was the farm of the customs on French and Rhenish wine imports, which essentially subcontracted the collection of the relevant customs dues to Hatton in return for a fixed fee paid to the Crown. This was granted in 1577, was periodically renewed, and was administered by two of Hatton’s most important servants, Edward Dodge and Peter Houghton; it finally expired in 1593. This brought in several thousand pounds a year: by 1593, when Dodge and Houghton were paying the Crown £6,000 a year, a rival bidder offered to double that sum, suggesting that the annual profit must have been well over £6,000.109 Hatton’s second opportunity was his appointment as receiver of first fruits and tenths in February 1578.110 This made Hatton (or his deputies) responsible for handling an important aspect of clerical taxation, worth £20,000 or more to the Crown annually.111 Elizabeth granted this to a courtier with (to say the least) little accounting experience because she expected him to use the income for his own benefit –​in effect, to borrow it. Hatton died owing the Queen £42,139 5s of this money, which over thirteen years, from 1578 to 1591, amounts to over £3,000 a year.112 Thanks to these, Hatton’s income must have skyrocketed between 1577 and 1578. He was also not shy to promote his followers’ money-​making schemes. He engaged with one William Tipper, who obtained royal permission to revive the practice of hostage, whereby foreign merchants in London were obliged to lodge with English counterparts. This caused considerable unhappiness with the merchants in question, but does seem to have been

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exercised for some years in the 1570s and 1580s, and probably brought in some income for Hatton. Later on, Tipper was involved in attempts to make money from the discovery of concealed lands.113 Similarly, Hatton’s clients Henry Macwilliam and Robert Colshill obtained letters patent to act as informers in 1571, again presumably with Hatton’s backing.114 On another occasion in 1578, when some Spanish merchants had had property confiscated, Hatton proposed to the ambassador that he arrange its release in exchange for a cut.115 These probably testify more to the urgency of his need for money than straightforward cupidity, but again they reflect the ways in which those with the ear of the Queen sought ways to profit. In addition to her other generosity, Elizabeth secured him a London house, Ely Place, by notoriously rapacious means. Ely Place had for centuries been the London house of the Bishop of Ely: a large and comfortable residence with spacious gardens, on Holborn. Others before Hatton had coveted it, but it was Hatton who succeeded in 1576 in gaining a twenty-​ one-​year lease of parts of the premises on a modest rent; he immediately began to spend considerable sums (he claimed £1,900 in the first year or so) on the building. Legal fault was found with his lease, however, and in September 1577, under strong royal pressure, Bishop Cox was induced to convey a mortgage to the Queen, who in 1578 passed it on to Hatton. The precise legal status of Hatton’s tenure remained contentious long after his death, but for practical purposes Hatton took possession of much of the site (the bishops continued to use other parts). He proceeded to build a new house, or at least substantial new buildings, to the west of Ely Place proper, a site which later gave its name to Hatton Garden. Strictly speaking, therefore, the house should be referred to as Hatton House rather than Ely Place but in practice the names were used interchangeably.116 Although we know little about the building, it must have made an attractive house, though not as grand as many noblemen’s London houses, such as Cecil House.117 During Hatton’s time as Lord Chancellor, the Court of Chancery often sat there, as, occasionally, did the Privy Council.118 Hatton was never given that most select badge of favour, a peerage. Elizabeth’s peerage creations were notoriously few, and Hatton was perhaps hampered in any ambitions he had in this direction by his birth (although a similar birth status had not hindered Charles Brandon, or William Cecil). In 1589, when a major round of peerage creations was mooted, Hatton was pencilled in to be created Baron Purbeck. No doubt he would have welcomed this, but the plan was dropped.119 He did receive the next best thing, the Garter, although (again perhaps in recognition of his humble birth) only towards the end of his life, in 1588, alongside the earls of Essex and Ormond.120 Hatton’s various offices and gifts from the Queen therefore secured him a substantial income. Part went on his building, principally at Holdenby.

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Part was inevitably spent on maintaining the lifestyle of a leading courtier and politician: clothes, gifts, probably gaming debts. Much of it must have gone on the expenses of his entourage, which as we will see grew large. For whatever reason, he was relatively seldom put to the great expense of entertaining the sovereign: he did not put on large-​scale entertainments, as Leicester, Burghley, Sussex and others did (perhaps because the Queen never visited his country houses), but in 1579 he gave a ‘great banquet’ for the Queen, probably at court.121 He also hosted the Queen at Ely Place/​Hatton House several times while Lord Chancellor: on 21 November to 6 December 1587, when there was ‘very great’ entertainment; on 19 August 1588 (when Hatton paraded his contingent of troops assembled during the Armada crisis), on 1 May 1589, 4–​6 June 1590 and again in November 1590, and finally on 11 November 1591, when she came to see him on his deathbed.122 Hatton also spent a great deal on land purchases throughout the 1570s and especially the 1580s, and built up a considerable landed estate. In 1578–​ 79, he purchased the newly built Kirby Hall in east Northamptonshire for £3,000, presumably on the strength of his newly acquired income from the wine customs and the first fruits.123 He made a sustained effort to build up his landholdings in west Northamptonshire, around Holdenby. He left his heir a landed estate worth about £5,000 per annum, an impressive accumulation, certainly on a par with very wealthy gentry or even flourishing peers.124 The estates in Northamptonshire seem to have been worth at least £1,600 per annum, even without Holdenby.125 He also purchased significant holdings in Lancashire, Cheshire, Dorset, Ireland and elsewhere. It is often claimed that Hatton bankrupted himself building Holdenby or serving the Queen, or died bankrupt; Sir John Fortescue’s comment about his ‘broken estate and greate debtes’ is often quoted.126 This is somewhat misleading. At the time of his death, Hatton certainly had large debts, but they were mostly to the Queen. As has already been noted, it appears to have been the Queen’s intention that Hatton would fund his political career on revenues ‘borrowed’ from her. This was necessary if she wanted to elevate an almost landless minor gentleman to a senior minister, given that ministers in this period covered many of the expenses of their official business from their own pocket: secretarial services, intelligence gathering, hospitality and so on. In turn, however, the Crown would ultimately recoup the debt. Hatton’s debts were large, but manageable (and indeed they were managed), and he was never insolvent. Since he invested much of his income in land, the Queen effectively lent him money to endow his family with an estate, the income from which would fund the repayment of the money owed.127 This said, following Hatton’s unexpectedly early death, his heirs faced protracted difficulties over his debts to the Crown and others (the latter seem from one paper to have amounted to at least £23,647).128 The heirs sold off a good deal of possessions, including £4,300 worth of jewels

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(almost all that Hatton owned); Bess of Hardwick bought some of these, as well as several valuable sets of tapestries.129 Most or all of this money went to repay debts. Sir William also quickly sold off lands worth £14,682 to repay debts, including lands in Ireland.130 The process of settling Hatton’s estates was made particularly difficult because Hatton’s immediate heir, Sir William Hatton, himself died only six years after Hatton, in 1597. After Christopher Hatton’s death, the Exchequer seized most of the estate, but in 1595 Sir William obtained a very generous lease on the lands. Unfortunately, Sir William’s death in 1597 meant that a dispute ensued about possession between his widow Elizabeth Cecil and her second husband, Sir Edward Coke, Attorney-​General, and the next heir, Christopher Hatton II, who was then only about 16.131 However, even after this lengthy battle, the family remained prosperous enough for Christopher Hatton II’s son, also Christopher, to be created Baron Hatton of Kirby in 1643.132

Hatton’s personality Hatton is generally regarded as a lightweight, frivolous figure on the Elizabethan stage: influential, certainly, but insubstantial. The soubriquet of the ‘dancing chancellor’ which has stuck to him throughout the centuries is an eloquent testament to this, containing as it does the implication that Hatton had no other claim to authority than the decision of a woman attracted by his looks and his courtly graces rather than his intelligence, competence or honour. Ben Jonson was harping on this string as early as 1601, when lines were cut from his Cynthia’s revels in which a courtier says that he was beginning to be ‘i’ the very high way of preferment. And [if] CYNTHIA had but seenne me dance a straine, or doe but one trick, I had beene kept in court.’133 At the start of the next reign, when Jonson wrote an entertainment held at Althorp for Queen Anne, there was no need to avoid offending Elizabeth and he could refer to Hatton openly, in a dig which must have tickled a Northamptonshire audience. Referring to some morris dancers, a character says: And though they dance afore the Queene, Ther’s none of these doth hope to come by Wealth, to build another Holmby [Holdenby]: All those dauncing dayes are done, Men must now haue more then one Grace, to build their fortunes on.134

The stress on Hatton’s dancing implies that he was seen as slightly effete or even effeminate. While gossip about courtiers might seem trivial, these were ultimately critiques of the Queen herself for making men favourites and

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even councillors on flimsy and feminine grounds, and thus can be seen as a matter of very significant political interest and part of an anti-​favourite and anti-​court discourse. That said, Hatton was not in general painted as an evil counsellor or over-​mighty favourite along the lines of Leicester’s depiction in Leicester’s Commonwealth (this was also because he was less high profile). Similarly, as part of the general dismissal of Hatton’s significance, he is not generally seen as having much of an intellect, but to have relied on his looks, his charm and his dancing. This is probably rather unfair. It is obvious that he had the courtly polish and wit necessary to prosper at Elizabeth’s Court; he could hardly have done so well in attending her if he was not amusing. His intellect and learning was another matter, however. There is no evidence of his time as a student, aside from the fact that he took no degree; certainly in later years, when in high office, he showed an intelligence attuned to the practical rather than the theoretical. He was notably impatient with the evasion of plotters, although there may have been something of a pose in this.135 The distinctly hostile Naunton wrote that ‘he had a large proportion of gifts, and endowments, but too much of the season of envy’, not a verdict that rings particularly true.136 Clapham said ‘his gifts of mind ... were neither altogether ordinary nor excellent’ and that he was a fine public speaker, but also ‘very passionate and, being provoked, a violent and implacable enemy’ –​which again does not seem especially accurate.137 Yet a good deal of evidence suggests an intellect which was, if not prodigious, at least serious. He wrote one act of a play.138 He deployed Latin quotations (both classical and biblical) in his oratory.139 He had a substantial library, considerable parts of which survive, chiefly those parts appropriated by Sir Edward Coke, the second husband of Hatton’s heir’s widow. Coke seems to have taken those of Hatton’s books of which he did not already have a copy, in particular more than seventy-​five Italian books.140 The quantity of these make it highly likely that, as contemporaries such as Gabriel Harvey and Thomas Bedingfield said, Hatton spoke Italian; on one book he wrote a sentence of Italian.141 If he had equivalent numbers of books in French or other languages, they do not survive. The books are wide-​ranging in content, though with only a fraction of the whole surviving, drawing conclusions about his interests is inevitably hazardous; he clearly bought works on a wide range of topics, including works of poetry and chivalric romance (Ovid, Petrarch, Boccaccio, Orlando furioso, Tasso’s L’Amadigi) and many histories, both ancient and modern (Thucydides, Arrian, Polybius, Plutarch, Livy, Valerius Maximus, Procopius, Guicciardini, Jerónimo Osório and others), as well as one Italian book on cookery.142 Many of the surviving books contain Hatton’s initials or signature, suggesting that he paid at least some attention to them (surprisingly enough one of the books on which he

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wrote his motto and a few other words is an Italian translation of Beza’s Confession of faith).143 He was also a significant literary patron, notably of Italian works, as we will see in Chapter 2.144 More strikingly, it seems clear that Hatton took active steps to prepare for various of his political responsibilities, often seeking expert counsel. In 1572, when he began to take on a major role in the House of Commons, he sought advice on its workings; the treatise which was prepared in response has been variously attributed to Thomas Norton and Hatton’s cousin, Bartholomew Tate.145 While Lord Chancellor, he sought advice on his role of presiding over the House of Lords from the clerk of the parliaments, and on his powers in maritime causes.146 He possessed two volumes of speeches by Lord Keeper Nicholas Bacon, who was thought to be a fine orator.147 He also possessed at least a couple of books on rhetoric.148 These suggest that Hatton consciously worked to achieve both procedural and technical knowledge and the rhetorical ability for which he was later highly regarded. Hatton also showed a sustained interest in up-​to-​date surveying and cartographical techniques. In the 1580s, he commissioned surveys of his estates in London, Northamptonshire and Dorset from Ralph Treswell. The Northamptonshire surveys were Treswell’s earliest recorded work, and since Treswell had previously carried out extensive ‘paintinge worke’ at Ely Place, it may be that Hatton was behind his move into surveying.149 In 1581, he presented Sir John Petre with ‘the booke called Euclyddes Elementes of Geometry & other instrumentes to measure withall’ (probably the 1570 translation for which Hatton’s friend John Dee wrote a preface).150 The servant Hatton sent to deliver these gifts was John Browne, who in the mid-​ 1580s is found in Ireland, producing the earliest maps of Mayo and western towns such as Galway.151 Hatton’s client, the Privy Council clerk Anthony Ashley, translated the pioneering navigational treatise The mariner’s mirror at Hatton’s ‘commandment and charge’, and in 1588 published it with a dedication to Hatton.152 Hatton himself owned a high-​quality astrolabe from the great Louvain house of Arsenius.153 Hatton was also the patron of Peter Morris, a Dutch hydraulic engineer, from at least 1575 to 1580, when Hatton wrote to the Lord Mayor of London in his support. Morris pioneered a highly effective new system for pumping water around the city which continued in use for centuries.154 Clearly Hatton had an interest in a range of new technological developments and played a significant (and hitherto largely unnoticed) role as a patron, comparable with the interest in maps of fellow councillors such as Lord Burghley.155 All of this reflects Hatton’s role as a patron of voyages of exploration.156 He sponsored Frobisher’s voyages in search of the North-​West Passage in the late 1570s.157 More importantly, he was a major patron of Drake’s circumnavigation of the globe in 1577–​80; it is unclear precisely how much

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he subscribed, but he profited to the tune of £2,300.158 He seems to have contributed a small ship, the Marigold, one of the five on the voyage, and appointed John Thomas to command it, as well as sending two of his servants: John Brewer, who served as Drake’s trumpeter and in 1580 brought news of his return to court, and the enigmatic Thomas Doughty.159 Thus Hatton seems to have had a major role in arranging approval for the expedition, and Drake made much of Hatton’s support, renaming his principal ship in honour of Hatton’s crest, the Golden Hind.160 The fact that Drake chose to thus flatter Hatton (rather than other supporters of the voyage, such as Leicester and Walsingham) is striking, and suggests a closer link with Hatton than is always recognised (as does the fact that no fewer than three men associated with Hatton went on the voyage). Although it need not be recapitulated here, much controversy has raged over the precise nature of Doughty’s relations with Hatton, Drake and others, and the circumstances in which he was executed by Drake, apparently as an assertion of authority, in Patagonia in July 1578. At any rate, this did not put an end to Hatton’s patronage of Drake: in 1584, he was willing to invest £1,000 in Drake’s proposed Moluccas voyage.161 He probably invested in Drake’s West Indian voyage of 1585–​86 too.162 Linked to this was Hatton’s patronage of John Dee.163 Dee dedicated his General and rare memorials pertayning to the perfect arte of navigation to him in 1577. Roy Strong has made much of the dedication of Dee’s work to Hatton, suggesting that Hatton was a strong advocate of imperial exploration and expansion and had an ‘obsession with Elizabeth’s imperial dignity’.164 Yet it is possible to overstate this; like all Elizabethan politicians, Hatton was interested in the New World and the riches it promised both for England and for himself, but he knew that England had necessarily to be concerned above all about the Continent. Glyn Parry’s more recent account argues that Hatton’s links with Dee owed more to the shifting winds of court politics vis-​à-​vis Spain.165 In light of his evident interests in navigation and mapmaking, there may also have been an element of genuine curiosity in his sponsorship of exploration, as well as the hope of financial reward. Altogether, therefore, there is evidence of a range of intellectual interests and scholarly application for which Hatton is not usually credited; he was perhaps not quite so unlike the scholarly and serious Burghley and Walsingham as is usually thought. Historians such as John Neale have argued that Hatton’s political and oratorical abilities exceed his lightweight reputation, an assessment which stands up well.166 Certainly, as we shall see, he was more than capable of seizing a political moment and utilising it to pursue his ends.

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Hatton and the Queen Finally in this chapter, we must consider perhaps the central fact of Hatton’s life: the virtually unswerving favour he enjoyed from the Queen; as long as the Queen lived, he was almost entirely untouchable. It is surely a mark of Hatton’s exceptional qualities that in a court filled with brilliant minds, talents and wits like Sidney, Ralegh and Bacon, he won the Queen’s high favour and was the person that she chose to spend much of her time with. He was almost the perfect favourite, and is remembered as such. In 1596, Francis Bacon told the Earl of Essex that, although he found it irksome to submit himself to the monarch’s whims, he should explicitly ‘allege’ Leicester and Hatton ‘(as oft as you find occasion) for authors and patterns. For I do not know a readier mean to make her Majesty think you are in your right way.’ As Bacon suggested, if Essex had imitated these favourites, or even pretended to do so, he might have had a longer career.167 But as Bacon implied, Hatton had done what Essex and others resisted: subordinated himself to Elizabeth almost completely. Hatton, uniquely among Elizabeth’s favourites, never married, and avoided the difficulties that the likes of Leicester and Ralegh experienced when they did so. Indeed there is practically no sign that Hatton had any kind of love life whatsoever. There is some evidence from Welsh genealogies that he had an illegitimate daughter called Elizabeth, who in turn bore an illegitimate daughter by Sir John Perrot. While not intrinsically improbable, we have no further evidence of this at all. To all intents and purposes, he had no immediate family to distract him from royal service.168 Hatton undoubtedly worked at this task. More than any other senior political figure, perhaps, he played the game of a suitor to the Virgin Queen. He assiduously gave Elizabeth expensive and carefully chosen gifts throughout his career. Whereas many ministers’ New Year’s gifts were perfunctory, often just gold coins or plate, Hatton’s gifts were invariably elaborate, personalised and presumably specially wrought items of jewellery. In 1572, for example, he gave her a jewell ‘called Nyzande of golde fully garnishedd with Rubyes and Dyamondes, and flowers sett with Rubyes with one perle pendaunte/​and an other in the Toppe’, something which must have been a considerable expense for a young courtier. In 1575, he presented her with a golden bird containing a pomander and decorated with a lozenge-​shaped diamond, a ruby, emeralds and a sapphire. In 1578, he came up with a jewel of gold ‘wherein is a dog leding a man ouer a bridge the boddy fully garnesshed with small diamonds and rubys and thre small perles pendant’ –​the precise significance of the dog is unclear. The gifts became more and more elaborate as the years went by.169

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Hatton’s letters to the Queen followed very much the same approach.170 They are often cited as the epitome of Elizabethan courtly behaviour, of the practice of the ‘cult of Elizabeth’, replete as they are with submissive adulation.171 They reflect the view that, in John Guy’s words, ‘to succeed at Court politicians had to pretend to be in love with the queen’.172 Hatton’s letters certainly do this, especially earlier in his career: the oft-​quoted series of letters from 1573, for example, reflect the approach of a man still not fully established (the lovesick tone recedes slightly in later letters). Nevertheless, to the end of his life he frequently reminded her of his devotion: in 1591, when he did not follow the court on progress, he deputed Robert Cecil to tell Elizabeth that their parting made ‘your [Hatton’s] life so melancholy and fedd yow with solitary conceipts as yow should esteeme your life but a death untill yow came to her presence’.173 Above all, his letters emphasise, he loved her: ‘Love me; for I love you’.174 He loved her, he said, so passionately that separation from her was worse than death, and reassurance of her affection was the utmost comfort. She was the sun that warmed him; she was almost a goddess to him; he often described her in terms invoking religion or worship, and in a letter to Heneage he referred to her as ‘that holy saint’.175 He, by contrast, was a ‘beggar’, a ‘poor and discomforted despairing servant’, a ‘slave’.176 Indeed his letters had a tinge of eroticism, as when during an outbreak of plague in 1580, he sent the Queen a ring which ‘hath the virtue to ex[pel] infectious ayres’ and was be worn ‘betwixt the sweete dugges, the chast[e]‌nest of most puer constancye’.177 These were not, of course, simple love letters: they stressed political messages which closely reflected Elizabeth’s attitudes to the nature of the service she expected. The reiteration of his love clearly reflects Elizabeth’s concern for personal and exclusive loyalty to her, rather than mere obedience to the impersonal institution of the Crown. Hatton also emphasised that he loved her service, again stating that he was loyal to her alone. Elizabeth hated ingratitude in her servants, so he stressed his appreciation for the favours she had bestowed on him: ‘I am yours, as, whatever God and you should have made me, the same had been your own.’178 Elizabeth disliked courtiers presuming too much on her favour, so he made clear that he did not seek more than she chose to give: ‘God knoweth I never sought nor wished more wealth than to live worthily in your most sacred service.’179 These suggest that Hatton was highly practised in hitting the notes which most pleased the Queen. Hatton’s devotion to Elizabeth was also demonstrated in his building and artistic patronage. He presented his house at Holdenby as a temple to her, and vowed never to visit it until she did.180 It has also convincingly been argued that he commissioned at least one portrait of her, Quentin Metsys’s ‘Sieve’ portrait, which codedly lauded her virginity (Hatton or a man in his livery is depicted in the background).181

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These issues were personal but they were also highly political. They were quasi-​literary tropes suitable to the genre of chivalric romance that pervaded Elizabethan court discourse, in which the hopeless suitor lays his love before the lady, but they were also an accurate reflection of Elizabeth’s political position. She was a woman, and (in Hatton’s early years at court) still a relatively young one; someone with potentially a weak power base, surrounded by domineering males, and always fearful of those who looked to her successor (or even usurper). She must have seen how smoothly most politicians shifted from loyalty to her brother, to Queen Jane, to Queen Mary, and finally to Elizabeth herself. Loyalty to the Crown was cheap, but she wanted loyalty to her personally, and she valued it very deeply. This ­loyalty –​both personal and political, as was inevitably the case in a personal monarchy –​was at the heart of the trust she placed in Hatton, the foundation of his career and status. Robert Cecil reported Elizabeth as saying that ‘never any man loved her trulier’ than Hatton.182 Thus Hatton was not being irrational in stressing over and over that his loyalty was to her person, and clearly Elizabeth relished its continual repetition. These letters are some of the best evidence we have for the relationship between Elizabeth and Hatton, but we should be cautious about reading too much into them. Firstly, they were naturally written when Hatton was away from court, which was not particularly often; when a leading courtier was away from court, it was often because he had offended the Queen and needed to apologise. By definition, they tended to be especially servile and oleaginous, and may not be a very accurate representation of how Hatton behaved with the Queen in person. Again for this reason, the corpus of Hatton’s letters to Elizabeth is not especially large (only ten letters in the Memoirs), nor are there poems or other writings. The people who wrote really long expositions of courtly life and love (one thinks of the Faerie Queen) were seldom very high in favour themselves, because if one was in favour, one was generally too busy to write. Secondly, it should be remembered that letters like this may have been written with the knowledge that they were liable to be read by others and their contents more widely known. Thirdly, there was the question of the dangers of being away from court: there was an especially pressing need to remind the Queen about one’s virtues when rivals might be exploiting one’s absence. His power came from the Queen’s favour, and attention to her was the centrepiece of his activity, and he worked hard at doing so. He had no other claim to political status. Nor did Hatton seek to counter this reputation by attaining any conventional qualifications for a high-​level political career. Clearly he did not possess the right which noblemen claimed to counsel the monarch. Nor did he seek to win a military reputation, as Leicester or Philip Sidney did, although he could have taken arms against the northern

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rebels in 1569–​70, or in the Netherlands in the 1580s. Hatton was still commissioning expensive armour in the mid-​1580s: a set of jousting armour in 1585 (now displayed at Windsor Castle) and another shortly afterwards. This is puzzling, since he ceased jousting some years prior; they may have been intended for display, or perhaps for use at musters. More interestingly, the Almain Album also shows a set of field armour made for Hatton, which may indicate an intention to fight against Spanish invasion which did not come to fruition; Hatton did not even take a nominally prominent role in the defence against the Spanish Armada, as other privy councillors did.183 These again made it easy for both contemporaries and historians to dismiss Hatton as a lightweight. Nor was he an administrator, lawyer or bureaucrat, bringing his knowledge and intellect to the service of his sovereign. One might say that was of no practical use at all. He was a pure courtier and royal favourite, and in that sense he is different to almost any other major minister, excepting perhaps the lesser royal favourite, Hatton’s friend Sir Thomas Heneage. Furthermore, as a bachelor from an obscure family, he was not part of the networks of family relations that linked other leading Elizabethan figures, whether the Protestant administrators, the conservative aristocracy or the mid-​Tudor new men of Dudleys and Sidneys. As with virtually all of the leading figures of the reign, Hatton and the Queen had various fallings-​out over both policy and personal matters. As we have seen, there was a serious row in about 1572–​73, when Dyer advised Hatton to know his place and remain submissive.184 Hatton wrote to Elizabeth referring to her ‘violent course of evil opinion’ towards him, over his ‘unthankfulness, covetousness, and ambition’.185 This may simply have been the growing pains of Hatton’s shift from favourite to serious statesman, a shift which the Queen ultimately intended and wanted, but which the likes of Leicester and Essex also found tricky at times. He also hints that he was being attacked by others. Perhaps Elizabeth felt that he had got carried away by his growth in status and needed to have his wings clipped. In 1579 she was angry about his opposition to the Anjou match; the Spanish ambassador, Mendoza, reported that Hatton ‘was a week without seeing her’, but this seems to have been a relatively minor tiff.186 In 1582, Hatton had a definite panic over the prospect of being eclipsed by Ralegh: he wrote a letter and sent tokens via Heneage.187 Yet Elizabeth, who was intensely loyal to long-​standing servitors, was angry at the suggestion that Ralegh might replace Hatton (in fact Hatton himself had to deny speaking ill of another courtier in one of his own letters188). On one occasion in 1585 she angrily rebuked the Lord Chamberlain for temporarily placing Ralegh in Hatton’s lodgings at court, leaving him briefly homeless, and said that ‘she had rather see him [Ralegh] hanged, then equall him with

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you [Hatton], or that the worlde should thinke she did so’.189 That Elizabeth rebuked Ralegh so humiliatingly says much about her regard for Hatton. There was another row in 1584, over the Queen’s refusal to allow proceedings against Oliver St John, who had killed a follower of Hatton’s, the explorer George Best, in a duel. On this occasion Hatton left court for Holdenby and remained there for some time, before Elizabeth sent for him and he wrote a grovelling letter of apology for his ‘too high ­presumptions’.190 Best died in March (the precise date is unclear) and Hatton wrote his grovelling letter on 3 April, so his rustication was not too lengthy. More broadly Hatton must always have felt under potential threat. He was probably always second in her affections after Leicester, and she had other favourites, major and minor: Oxford, Ralegh, and at the very end of Hatton’s career, Essex. The court was a competitive arena, although Hatton does not seem to have been the victim of many serious attempts to bring him down or limit his influence (of course some of the rows between Hatton and Elizabeth might well have been stoked by others). Such things could happen, as they did when in 1568–​69, the aristocratic grandees on the Council led by Norfolk and Arundel sought to bring down Cecil, or when Robert Cecil and his allies targeted Essex in the 1590s. Nor did Hatton ever fall into a prolonged period of disfavour over policy comparable with Leicester after his acceptance of the governor-​generalship of the Netherlands, Burghley over the execution of Mary, Queen of Scots, or Essex over several issues. In that sense, he had more consistent favour than almost any other senior minister (Robert Cecil perhaps excepted), although this was partly because he was less politically adventurous. His relationship with Elizabeth was a deep and intimate friendship, and, like Leicester, Hatton probably went some way towards occupying the emotional niche that a husband otherwise would have filled. MacCaffrey suggests that their age gap meant that ‘the relationship was always to have something of the air of an older woman’s fascination for a younger admirer’, although there were only about seven years between them, so the gap was nothing like that between Elizabeth and Essex, for example.191 If Hatton’s letters are a slightly slippery source, the evidence of a close personal relationship between favourite and sovereign is abundant. Whether they were ever lovers is of course an entirely separate matter. Unlike Leicester, no-​one seems to have seriously proposed Hatton as a potential husband of the Queen, probably because his origins were too humble, though the thought must have crossed his mind.192 Yet given the unusual situation of an unmarried female monarch, it was inevitable that there would be rumours about her sexual conduct, and it was equally inevitable that, as a very close servant of the Queen and an attractive man,

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Hatton, like Leicester, would be mentioned in this connection. As we have seen, in 1572 Edmund Mather made insinuations about his access to the privy chamber.193 Archbishop Parker reported a case of a man accusing Hatton and Leicester of being ‘suche toward her, as the matter is so horrible, that they wold not wryte down the wordes’ (he was also hoping for a repeat of the St Bartholomew’s Day Massacre in England and that Henry VIII’s and Elizabeth’s bones would soon be burned at Smithfield).194 Lupold von Wedel, who visited England in 1584–​85, reported the rumours that the Queen ‘is said to have loved [Hatton] after Lester’.195 Mary Stuart, no doubt in an attempt to provoke Elizabeth, reported hearing similarly scandalous rumours from the Countess of Shrewsbury, Bess of Hardwick, in about 1584.196 Such stories were still circulating in 1600.197 Modern historians, however, have almost unanimously dismissed such claims. As Hatton’s friend Sir John Harington reported this is most probable the man lyves yet to whom Sir Christopher Hatton, the goodliest man of person of all the favourites her Highnes hath had, did sweare voluntarily, deeply, and with vehement asseveration, that he never had anie carnall knowledge of hir bodye, and this was also my mother’s [Isabella Markham] opinions, who was till the xxth yeare of hir Majestie’s reigne of hir privie chamber, and had bene sometyme hir bedfellowe.198

The most likely interpretation of this is that Harington’s reference to ‘the man lyves’ refers to someone of whom he had knowledge, perhaps Harington himself. The one exception, surprisingly enough, is the editor of Hatton’s papers, Harris Nicolas, who wrote that Hatton’s letters to Elizabeth ‘breathe the devotion and tenderness of a Lover rather than the humility and duty of a Subject’, and ‘will probably raise a strong doubt upon her Majesty’s right to her favourite and well-​ known designation [‘virgin’]’.199 His evidence for this is two undated, unaddressed letters preserved in John Harington’s papers, which, had Hatton been the recipient (and there is no sign at all that he was), would suggest that he importuned to be her lover, and she gently rebuffed him.200 Hatton’s favour with the Queen provided the foundation for his political career, since he could persuade her to do things which others could not, in either of the two primary categories of early modern political manoeuvring: matters of ideology or policy, or matters of patronage or personal advantage. Hatton was an extremely effective and powerful patronage broker, one of a handful of people who could reliably obtain favours from the Queen. In 1574, it was noted that ‘the Queen had commanded the Earl of Leicester and Sir Christopher Hatton, her chief favourites, to forbear moving suits to her; and when the Secretary went to her with private suits, he could get neither yea nor nay. And if these two aforesaid persons were

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forbidden to move suits, “then,” said he, “had we need within a while to have a horse or an ass to carry bills after us, increasing daily, and never dispatched.” ’201 Even very senior figures relied on Hatton’s ability to obtain the Queen’s favour on personal matters both large and small. Sir Nicholas Bacon asked Hatton to secure permission for him to go down to the country.202 Walter Mildmay asked for help in a suit of his cousin’s.203 Walsingham asked Hatton to excuse some poor penmanship on a letter, since it might annoy the Queen; on another occasion, Hatton soothed Elizabeth’s unhappiness at Walsingham over his daughter Frances’s marriage to Philip Sidney.204 In Burghley’s case, Hatton repeatedly used his good offices in the affairs of the seventeenth Earl of Oxford, husband of Burghley’s daughter Anne. These were issues that mattered a great deal to the persons concerned, and by taking this kind of approach, Hatton stored up credit with other powerful men; Burghley specifically noted on one occasion that ‘though I cannot always pay my debts, yet I use to acknowledge them many times to move my creditors to accept my good-​will in towardness of payment’. Clearly, Burghley’s goodwill was well worth having.205 This extended to political matters too, since the need to gain the Queen’s consent for whatever Burghley, Leicester, Walsingham or others wanted was one of the key points of friction of the reign.206 As Hammer notes, Hatton ‘had a special ability to deal with the Queen’, which at times made the conduct of business in his absence problematic; right to the end of his career, Hatton’s influence was perceived to be almost indispensable.207 Hatton was a route to the Queen, a gatekeeper to her, and the fact that Elizabeth had only a very small circle of intimates made this doubly significant. Even someone like Thomas Heneage, a well-​established, long-​standing favourite (second-​rank, perhaps, but he made it to the Privy Council), sent his own letters to the Queen to Hatton to be delivered to her.208 He was able to manage the Queen’s moods and help navigate his friends through them: Sir John Harington recorded that ‘The Queene seemede troubled to daye; Hatton came out from her presence with ill countenaunce, and pulled me aside by the girdle, and saide, in secrete waie, “If you have any suite to daie, I praye you put it aside, The sunne dothe not shine.” ’209 This was well known abroad too: the Earl of Morton, regent of Scotland, wrote to Walsingham that the Scottish ambassador in England was to ‘addres him self unto Mr Vicechalmerlayne for the better knallege of hir hienes mynd, and obtening of the mair speady dispatche of his legationn’; James VI wrote similarly in 1586.210 This gave him a wider public status too. Letters or book dedications to him were often intended for the Queen. As Susan Felch points out, many dedications were not really intended for the benefit of the dedicatee but for the ears of the Queen herself.211

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Another immensely powerful role he played was as a mouthpiece for the Queen, both in sending out orders and information from her and receiving information to pass on to her. One manifestation of this was his frequent role taking royal messages to Parliament, evidence of his close access to the Queen which could scarcely be more prominent to the political elite.212 Another was writing letters at her command, for example a letter rebuking the Earl of Rutland in a matter concerning a servant of hers, Thomas Markham, in which he adds nothing of his own but merely ventriloquises her.213 He passed on messages to ministers such as Burghley, writing letters on the Queen’s behalf; on one occasion Sir Thomas Heneage had to deputise, writing to Leicester at the Queen’s command about important Scottish affairs and other matters, noting that Hatton’s ‘hedde’ was ‘not well able to endure to wryte without great payne’.214 Even something as personal as sending the Queen’s condolences to Burghley on the death of his son-​in-​law was entrusted to Hatton.215 Clearly, this made Hatton privy to a huge amount of very sensitive information, both on policy and on the personal affairs of the kingdom’s most powerful people. For much of this time he was a privy councillor anyway, and therefore part of the political elite, albeit holding an office in the court rather than in the administration, but spending so much time by the Queen’s side, handling information and requests coming and going, made him a power-​ broker on a scale that many privy councillors would have envied. Likewise, the Queen might send him to resolve issues of concern to her. On an occasion in 1582, Sir Walter Mildmay told Hatton that the Queen was angry with Mr Yelverton for some reason, but that he ‘doubteth not fully to satisfie you, when it shall like you to here hym’ –​here, Elizabeth was angry, and Hatton was told to hear the matter.216 Hatton was thus an intermediary for some of the most powerful in the land. A good example can be found in his contacts with the Talbot family, the head of which, George, Earl of Shrewsbury, was perhaps the richest nobleman in England. The two corresponded cordially, exchanging gifts and favours: Shrewsbury sent Hatton venison from Yorkshire, and Hatton reciprocated with favours at court.217 In 1582, for example, Shrewsbury’s son Henry Talbot showed Hatton a letter which Shrewsbury planned to send to the Queen on the subject of his acrimonious marriage with Bess of Hardwick; Hatton read it and made detailed suggestions on how to redraft it to better appeal to the Queen.218 On another occasion, Hatton wrote to Shrewsbury at the Queen’s command to express her satisfaction at Shrewsbury’s improved relations with his heir, Gilbert Talbot, who took Bess’s side in the dispute: It hath pleased her Hyghnes to conceave & interprete, that your Lordship hath vouchsafed theise fatherly kynde partes, of your love & affections towardes

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hym, the rather for her sake, and for the honorable conceipt which she houldeth of his [Gilbert’s] vertue and merit: In which respect, she hath expresly commaunded me to yelde unto your Lordship in her name, her manifold most pryncely thanckes: and withall, do assure yow, that the more you shall cherishe & favor such a sone, the more your Lordship shall advance her honor, and your owne reputatione: [Gilbert] beeing to her Majestie & the state, a very sufficient servant, and to your self a comforable staff in your ould yeares, not unworthy, in respect of the hope & towardlynes in hym, to succeede his most honorable & greate auncestours. And herein, her Majestie desyreth your lordship to remember, what woordes she spake of hym, and the opinions which she delyvered of hym to your self, at her [sic; recte ‘your’] last beeing with her, which her Hyghnes willed me to tell yow, is synce increased through the experience & increase of his merit & service. I assure you, my good Lord, your honorable dealing with hym, hath gratly contented her Majestie, who, in her gratious favor, is glad to see you comfort & incourage hym, in his honorable dispositions & course of service, with your fatherly love & kyndnes.219

Hatton’s prose here intertwined the Queen’s comments with his own so that they are virtually impossible to disentangle; even a very close reading cannot fully ascertain which is which. No doubt Hatton was aware of this; he surely wrote as he did precisely to demonstrate that point. This was the essence of the well-​known axiom that in the early modern court, access was power. Everyone at court and even in the wider political nation knew that anything one told to Hatton could or would get to the Queen, and everything that Hatton said might well have come from her. Even the sixth Earl of Shrewsbury, a privy councillor and knight of the garter, gaoler of a queen, master of innumerable acres and thousands of tenants, had to work through and heed the second son of a Northamptonshire gentleman. For Elizabeth, this was surely a virtue. Indeed, Mary, Queen of Scots wrote in 1574 that Elizabeth’s ministers were so divided by religion and competing claims over the succession that Elizabeth trusted only Hatton, Walsingham and other ‘particuliers’ (meaning, presumably, independent figures, who did not plot for the succession). Furthermore, according to Mary, Elizabeth warned her ministers what might happen after her death, saying ‘that she would return after her death, to see your murders, quarrels, and divisions in this country. ... And she advised the said Hatton not to purchase lands [héritages], nor to build houses, for, she being dead, he could not live.’220 This may or may not be an accurate report of Elizabeth’s badinage, and it surely overstates the intensity of plotting over the succession, but it contained some deep truths: all of Elizabeth’s ministers had deep concerns over the future, and those like Hatton who relied purely on her favour knew that their futures were entwined with hers.

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Thus Hatton rose from virtually the humblest level of the provincial gentry to a position at the right hand of the monarch and high in the hierarchy of the State, to wealth, status and posterity –​a remarkable, even stunning turn of fortune’s wheel. On such chance manifestations of the monarch’s whim rested the careers of many early modern politicians. So while MacCaffrey is right that the early stages of Hatton’s career are obscure, the trajectory is familiar –​it was the epitome of the early modern court favourite. It would be wrong to dismiss his influence purely on these grounds; Walsingham and Burghley were not entirely different. As Hatton’s political career developed, it may be that he developed independent political weight, but ultimately he remained the Queen’s man.

Notes 1 No record of his birth has been found; the Holdenby parish registers do not survive for this period. As he died on 20 September 1591 aged 51, a 1540 birth is likely. For an unverifiable speculation about his birthday, see C. W. R. D. Moseley, ‘A portrait of Sir Christopher Hatton, Erasmus and an emblem of Alciato: some questions’, Antiquaries Journal 86 (September 2006), 373–​9, at 373. 2 Camden, History, 458. On Hatton’s ancestry, see Brooks, Hatton, 22–​7, 383–​7. As Brooks shows, Hatton dedicated considerable effort to tracing his pedigree, and heralds working on his behalf engaged in the creative genealogy characteristic of contemporaries in pursuit of distinguished antecedents: Brooks, Hatton, 22–​3 and Chapter 7; see also Hassall, ‘Books’, 11. Pedigrees linking Hatton to distinguished people include BL Harleian Roll O. 15; BL Harleian 1500, ff. 7–​10. 3 Hatton seems also to have inherited a manor in Old, a few miles north-​east of Holdenby, although Brooks believed it had been sold in 1532; Brooks, Hatton, 384; VCH Northamptonshire, IV, 202. 4 E.g. in the 1544 will of his father-​in-​law, Lawrence Saunders: TNA PROB 11/​ 30/​232. On Hatton’s immediate ancestors, see also Brooks, Hatton, 24–​6; Walter C. Metcalfe (ed.), The Visitations of Northamptonshire Made in 1564 and 1618–​19 (London, 1887), 27. 5 He was buying land, albeit on a very small scale: Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII, XIV, Part 2 (London, 1895), 11. 6 Memoirs, 2. His will is dated 1 December 1545: NRO, FH 4092 (copy). 7 H. A. C. Sturgess (ed.), Register of Admissions to the Honourable Society of the Middle Temple From the Fifteenth Century to the year 1944, Volume I (London, 1949), 21. 8 Ibid., 24; NRO, FH/​A/​A/​2586; Brooks, Hatton, 26–​7. Since there is no sign that Hatton brought him to court even after he obtained high favour and court office, he may have died early in this period.

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9 Memoirs, 20–​2. 10 Memoirs, 2. 11 Anthony à Wood, Athenæ Oxonienses (London, 1813), I, 582; Brooks, Hatton, 28, 61. Robert Persons was later a student here. 12 Brooks, Hatton, 28–​9. The surviving records do not allow certainty, but if Hatton was called to the bar, it is surprising that it was never referred to, for example when he became Lord Chancellor. 13 I am grateful to Rosemary O’Day for advice on this point. 14 Brooks, Hatton, 29–​30. On the Inns of Court, see Felicity Heal and Clive Holmes, The Gentry in England and Wales, 1500–​ 1700 (Basingstoke, 1994), 270–​3. 15 Alan H. Nelson, ‘The universities and the Inns of Court’, in Richard Dutton (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Early Modern Theatre (Oxford, 2011). 16 Holkham MS, f. 25v. 17 TNA PROB 11/​48, f. 250r. 18 NRO, FH4092. Peter Marshall, Reformation England 1480–​1642 (London, 2003), 55. 19 Cathryn Enis, ‘The Dudleys, Sir Christopher Hatton and the justices of Elizabethan Warwickshire’, Midland History 39:1 (Spring 2014), 1–​35, at 3; Cathryn Enis, ‘The Warwickshire Gentry and the Dudley Ascendancy, 1547–​ 1590’ (PhD thesis, University of Reading, 2011), 72. 20 Wilfred R. Prest, The Inns of Court under Elizabeth I and the Early Stuarts 1590–​1640 (London, 1972), Chapter 8. 21 Brooks, Hatton, 61; see also 183. 22 HMCS, I, 57; Samuel Haynes, A Collection of State Papers (London, 1740), 62. Brooks, Hatton, 41–​2. The nature of the Parr connection is obscure; the Parrs were close to the family of Hatton’s stepfather’s first wife, Ursula Ferrers (see ‘Ferrers, Edward (1524x7–​1564)’, ODNB), but the connection may have been neighbourly rather than genealogical, as the Parrs had extensive property in Northamptonshire. 23 Saunders was also recorder of Coventry and as such prevented the proclam­ ation of Queen Jane in 1553, arranging for Mary to be proclaimed. Bindoff, Commons, III, 271–​2. 24 Enis, ‘The Warwickshire Gentry and the Dudley Ascendancy’, 131. TNA PROB 11/​58/​517. 25 Enis, ‘The Warwickshire Gentry and the Dudley Ascendancy’, 130. 26 D. S. Bland, ‘Arthur Broke, Gerard Legh and the Inner Temple’, Notes and Queries NS 16 (1969), 453–​5. 27 Various dates are given for the first performance, but Twelfth Night 1562 seems most likely. Irby B. Cauthen (ed.), Gorboduc or Ferrex and Porrex by Thomas Sackville and Thomas Norton (London, 1970), xi–​xii. 28 Elizabeth Goldring, Faith Eales, Elizabeth Clarke and Jayne Elisabeth Archer (eds), John Nichols’s The Progresses and Public Processions of Queen Elizabeth I: A New Edition of the Early Modern Sources (5 vols, Oxford, 2014), I, 206–​12; Marie Axton, ‘Robert Dudley and the Inner Temple revels’, Historical Journal

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13:3 (1970), 365–​78, at 374. On Gorboduc, see Susan Doran, ‘Juno versus Diana: the treatment of Elizabeth I’s marriage in plays and entertainments, 1561–​1581’, Historical Journal 38:2 (1995), 257–​74, at 260–​3; Henry James and Greg Walker, ‘The politics of Gorboduc’, EHR 110 (1995), 109–​ 21; Norman Jones and Paul Whitfield White, ‘Gorboduc and royal marriage politics: an Elizabethan playgoer’s report of the premiere performance’, English Literary Renaissance 26 (1996), 3–​16; Jessica Winston, ‘Expanding the political nation: Gorboduc at the Inns of the Court and succession revisited’, Early Theatre 8:1 (2005), 11–​34. 29 Philip Norman (ed.), ‘Nicholas Hilliard’s treatise concerning “The Arte of Limning”, with introduction and notes by Philip Norman’, The Volume of the Walpole Society I (1912), 1–​54, at 26. Hilliard painted a miniature, now in the National Portrait Gallery, in which Hatton is wearing the Garter which he received in 1588; he still looks relatively youthful and strong-​featured. 30 Anthony Munday, The English Romayne lyfe (London, 1582; STC 18272), 15. 31 John Clapham, Elizabeth of England. Certain Observations Concerning the Life and Reign of Queen Elizabeth by John Clapham, ed. Evelyn Plummer Read and Conyers Read (Philadelphia, 1951), 91. 32 Robert Naunton, Fragmenta regalia, or observations on the late Queen Elizabeth, her times and favorits (1641; Wing N250), 27. 33 A masque was held at Richmond on 9 June 1564 for visiting French ambassadors, in which it has been suggested Hatton played a role. This correlates well with his appointment as a gentlemen pensioner about that time, but no evidence for his participation appears to exist. For the masque, see Albert Feuillerat (ed.), Documents Relating to the Office of the Revels in the Time of Queen Elizabeth (Louvain, 1908), 116. 34 Memoirs, 5–​6. 35 SP 12/​34/​33. 36 Holkham MS, f. 14r. However, in November the same year, Saunders granted the manor of Harrington to Hatton and his brother Thomas to have until 1602 or 1603 (Holkham MS, f. 92r.; Brooks, Hatton, 43). This is puzzling, since the nine-​month interlude seems to rule out a direct exchange of lands. The uncertainty about the relative worth of the manors and whether payments were made makes it impossible to draw firm conclusions, but conceivably Hatton’s relatives were investing in his potential for a lucrative court career by providing him with ready cash (by purchasing Holdenby) and with an income from Harrington. 37 Brooks, Hatton, 50–​5. For the 1565 joust, see also Thomas Hearne (ed.), Joannis Lelandi Antiquarii De Rebus Brittanicis Collectanea (London, 1770), I pt. II, 667–​8. 38 Nichols, Progresses, III, 40–​56. 39 Nichols, Progresses, I, 696, 698–​ 701; Memoirs, 8; HMC, Rutland, I, 92; Alan Nelson, Monstrous Adversary. The Life of Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford (Liverpool, 2003), 69 (May 1571).

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40 Correspondance Diplomatique de Bertrand de Salignac de la Mothe Fénélon (Paris and London, 1840), IV, 88–​9; A. L. Rowse, Ralegh and the Throckmortons (London, 1962), 70. 41 Nichols, Progresses, II, 20–​3; Roy Strong, The Cult of Elizabeth (pbk. edn., London, 1987), 206. 42 It was published in a revised format in 1591 as Tancred and Gismund; it is based on a story by Boccaccio. See Martin Wiggins and Catherine Richardson, British Drama, 1533–​1642: A Catalogue, vol. II: 1567–​1589 (Oxford, 2012), 22–​6; Jane Kingsley-​Smith, ‘ “Gismond of Salerne”: an Elizabethan and Cupidean tragedy’, Yearbook of English Studies 38:1/​2 (2008), 199–​215; Marie Axton, The Queen’s Two Bodies: Drama and the Elizabethan Succession (London, 1977), 56–​8. Kingsley-​Smith argues that the play favoured Catherine Grey’s claim, since the published version was dedicated to the wives of two men who had acted as Catherine’s custodian in the 1560s, though whether Hatton know or approved of this is unknown. 43 Hasler, Commons, II, 276. 44 Simon Adams, ‘Eliza enthroned? The court and its politics’, in C. Haigh (ed.) The Reign of Elizabeth I (London, 1984), 55–​77, at 70; Susan Doran, Elizabeth I and Her Circle (Oxford, 2015), 145. 45 G. Scott (ed.), The Memoires of Sir James Melvil of Hal-​hill (London, 1683), 46, 76–​7. See also Brooks, Hatton, 55–​7. 46 See below, p. 27. 47 Memoirs, 7. TNA E 211/​91/​B, indenture between the Queen and Hatton, 17 April 1568, whereby Hatton sold her the manor of Holdenby, mentioning his ‘good trewe and faithfull service’; in return for Holdenby and £169 10s she gave him the site of Sulby Abbey. These do not appear to be entered in the patent rolls until 1570: CPR 1569–​72, no. 269, and for the 1572 grant in fee simple, CPR 1569–​72, no. 2285. 48 SP 12/​59/​15, 12/​59/​16 (?October 1569). These were not complete lists of JPs, and seem to deliberately exclude hard-​line Catholics or otherwise untrustworthy gentlemen. 49 TNA KB29/​206, f. 48r. I am very grateful to Glyn Parry for bringing this to my attention. See also CPR 1572–​75, no. 1301. 50 Jane A. Dawson (ed.), The Elizabethan New Year’s Gifts Exchanges 1559–​1603 (Records of Social and Economic History, new series 51, Oxford, 2013), 160. 51 Hasler, Commons, II, 276. 52 HMC, Rutland, I, 92. 53 CSPD 1547–​80, 416. For a similar occasion in which Hatton was involved, see Memoirs, 256–​61. 54 Captain of the Guard: Raphael Holinshed, The first and second volumes of chronicles (1587; STC 13569), III, 1238. Gentleman of the privy chamber: BL Lansdowne 59, f. 43v. Scraps of evidence for his management of the Guard can be found in BL Additional 5750, ff. 104, 121, 124, 126. 55 SP 12/​89/​47, at f. 145v. (Memoirs, 20–​2).

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56 Sheep: Memoirs, 28, 158, 277; Mutton: Memoirs, 28, 115, 450; Pecora Campi: Memoirs, 277, 297. For a possible garbled mention of ‘Pecora Campi’ in 1591, see Hammer, ‘Cecil-​Hatton Letters’, 257. Nicolas also cites ‘Bell-​ wether’ as a nickname, although this does not seem to appear in any of the letters he prints: Memoirs, 275. 57 HMCS, XIII, 110. 58 Memoirs, 20–​2. 59 Murdin, State Papers, 203–​4; HMCS, II, 8, and see also 2, 3, 7–​9. See Wallace T. MacCaffrey, The Shaping of the Elizabethan Regime: Elizabethan Politics, 1558–​1572 (Princeton NJ, 1968), 423–​4. 60 Wright, Queen Elizabeth and her Times, I, 466; HMCS, II, 49. 61 BL Harleian 787, f. 88r.–​v. (Memoirs, 17–​19). 62 Nicolas reads ‘Ctm’ but ‘Crm’ is also possible: Memoirs, 18. 63 This said, Oxford does not seem to have been at court very much in late 1572: Nelson, Monstrous Adversary, 88–​9. 64 Brooks, Hatton, 40. Naunton, Fragmenta regalia, 27. On Naunton’s bias against Hatton, see Alice Gilmore Vines, Neither Fire nor Steel: Sir Christopher Hatton (Chicago, 1978), xiv. 65 LPL MS 3197, f. 79, 11 May 1573 (printed in Edmund Lodge, Illustrations of British History (London, 1791), II, 101; see also Memoirs, 23–​4. 66 Brooks argues that this is likely: Hatton, 60–​1. 67 Quoted in John Bayley, The History and Antiquities of the Tower of London (London, 1825), II, 473. 68 CP 6/​68 and 80 (26 October 1571), also printed in Murdin, State Papers, 29. 69 Memoirs, 21 (c. 1572 or 1573). 70 CP 202/​106 (HMCS, II, 38), information of John Osborne, 1572. The letter to Burghley reported Osborne’s comments; he was clearly unnerved by such outspoken complaint, and offered to say more; he was a cousin of the Saunders and Hattons. 71 See Memoirs, 31–​2; this incident is discussed in more detail below, pp. 130–2. 72 CPR 1569–​ 72, no. 3088; CSPD 1547–​80, 463 (where the document is misdated). 73 CSPSMQS IV (1571–​4), 678–​9; CSPF X (1572–​4), 524; CSPSMQS V (1574–​ 81), 5–​8, 23–​4, 176–​7. For background to Killigrew’s mission, see MacCaffrey, Making of Policy, 405–​7; he was essentially trying to support Regent Morton, keep him dependent on England and prevent him turning to the French, and to discuss the possibility of sending Mary to be imprisoned in Scotland rather than England. 74 SP 12/​95/​3, 12/​95/​4. 75 Surrey History Centre, 6729/​9/​106. 76 See below, pp. 153–4. The envoy, Champagney, commented that ‘je croy que ceste Royne sera bien ayse de trouver occasion pour le faire Milord et luy donner entrée au Conseil’. Kervyn, VIII, 280. 77 ‘Aylmer, John (1520/​21–​1594)’, ODNB. 78 APC 1577–​78, 85.

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79 John Dee recorded that this took place on 1 December 1577: J. O. Halliwell (ed.), The Private Diary of Dr John Dee (Camden old series, 19, London, 1842), 4. BL Cotton Claudius C. III f. 221v. dates it to November, at Windsor. 80 Brooks, Hatton, 93–​103. 81 LPL MS 3197, f. 79, 11 May 1573 (printed in Edmund Lodge, Illustrations of British History (London, 1791), II, 101). Copies of his safe-​conduct from the Queen are in BL Stowe 749, ff. 57–​8. Both Strype and Nichols wrongly date Hatton’s trip to Spa to 1574: Strype, Annals, II, i, 499; Nichols, Progresses, II, 191–​2; the letter that appears to be relied on surely belongs to 1573 as it refers to the imminent fall of Edinburgh Castle and Sir Henry Lee’s presence in Edinburgh: it is printed in Joseph Hunter (ed.), Hallamshire: the History and Topography of the Parish of Sheffield (London, 1819), 84. The confusion seems to have arisen because the letter mentions plans for a progress to Bristol, which took place in 1574. 82 FSL X.d.428 (123). 83 Memoirs, 28. 84 APC 1571–​75, 108. Memoirs, 27. 85 Marion Colthorpe, The Elizabethan Court Day by Day, ‘1573’, pp. 16, 36, citing Navy accounts, https://​folg​erpe​dia.fol​ger.edu/​The_​E​liza​beth​an_​C​ourt​_​Day​ _​by_​Day (accessed 30 June 2017). 86 He is puzzlingly noted to be in Antwerp in a letter from Benedetto Spinola to Burghley, dated [Dec] 1573; Hatton was being ‘solicited to obtain payment of the money’ by the merchants of Genoa and Lucca. This must be misdated. CSPF X (1572–​4), 451. 87 A. L. P. de Robaulx de Soumoy (ed.), Mémoires de Frédéric Perrenot, sieur de Champagney, 1573–​1590 (Brussels, 1860), 355. 88 CSPSp 1568–​79, 472; Kervyn, VI, 748, 756–​8, 798, 817. 89 See letters of 6 and 12 August from Sir Henry Neville to John Thynne, the latter noting that Hatton was soon expected back in England and ‘is very well recoveryd & hath had great entertaynment lyk a prince ther’. Longleat House, Thynne Papers IV, ff. 1, 3. See also Archbishop Parker wondering whether Hatton would be back soon on 17 August: Nichols, Progresses, II, 58. 90 See below, pp. 121–3. 91 BL Lansdowne 17, ff. 10–​11, translated in Strype, Annals, II, i, 375–​7. 92 MacCaffrey, Making of Policy, 193–​5. 93 J. M. Rigg (ed.), Calendar of State Papers, Rome, 1572–​8 (London, 1926), 115–​16. 94 Charles Piot (ed.), Correspondance du Cardinal de Granvelle 1565–​ 1583 (Brussels, 1887), VI, 28. 95 Phyllis May Hembry, The English Spa, 1560–​ 1815: A Social History (Rutherford NJ, 1990), 9–​10. 96 Longleat House, Thynne Papers IV, f. 3. See also Robert Lechat, Les Réfugiés Anglais dans les Pays-​Bas Espagnols durant la règne d’Elizabeth (Louvain, 1914), 229. 97 ‘Neville, Charles, sixth earl of Westmorland (1542/​3–​1601)’, ODNB.

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98 Conyers Read, Lord Burghley and Queen Elizabeth (London, 1960), 141–​4. 99 Calendar of State Papers, Rome, 1572–​8, 110. R. B. Wernham, Before the Armada: The Growth of English Foreign Policy 1485–​1588 (London, 1966), 327.. 100 Memoirs, 27. 101 Staffordshire Record Office, D603/​ K/​ 1/​ 10/​ 15 (undated, but clearly written shortly after his return). 102 CPR 1566–​69, no. 1377. Susan Pittman, ‘Elizabethan and Jacobean Deer Parks in Kent’ (PhD thesis, Kent, 2011), 125–​30. A sixteenth-​century range of buildings at Eltham was described on a plan by John Thorpe as the ‘Lord Chancellor’s lodging’: ‘Woolwich’, in An Inventory of the Historical Monuments in London, Volume 5, East London (London, 1930), 101–​113. 1581: CSPSp 1580–​6, 141. Champagney: William Segar, Honor military, and ciuill (1602; STC 22164), 200. 103 CPR 1585–​86, no. 227. 104 See for example CPR 1569–​72, nos. 1795, 2282, 2285, 2557, 2982, 3354, 3358; CPR 1572–​75, nos. 484, 2916, 3222; CPR 1575–​78, nos. 1350, 2297; CPR 1578–​80, nos. 212, 437, 1299, 1332; CPR 1580–​82, no. 1339; CPR 1586–​87, no. 151; Holkham MS, f. 281 (1579 grant of the college of Llandewi Brefi, Cardiganshire); VCH Leicestershire, IV, 441 (1582 grant of the advowson and rectory of Humberstone, Leicestershire, which Hatton quickly sold on). 105 CPR 1575–​78, no. 13; BL Lansdowne 18, f. 204; Holkham MS, f. 296. 106 Memoirs, 8; Dawson, The Elizabethan New Year’s Gifts Exchanges, 241, 261, 283, 315, 342, 361, 367, 378, 397; even before this, as early as 1571, he received startlingly generous New Year’s gifts, see ibid., 167, 180, 200, 221. 107 BL Lansdowne 20, f. 144. 108 Joel Hurstfield, The Queen’s Wards: Wardship and Marriage under Elizabeth I (London, 1958), 262–​9. 109 BL Lansdowne 25, ff. 14, 50; SP 12/​140/​29; BL Lansdowne 37, f. 217; BL Lansdowne 60, f. 184; Frederick C. Dietz, ‘Elizabethan customs administration’, EHR 45:177 (Jan. 1930), 35–​57, at 45, 52; SP 12/​252/​70; BL Lansdowne 30, ff. 36–​7; CPR 1587–​88, no. 401. 110 Hatton had what may have been a small-​ scale precursor of this role as Remembrancer of the Exchequer from 1 May 1572, but it is not clear whether he played an active role here, or whether it was simply a sinecure. CPR 1569–​ 72, no. 2451; Holkham MS, f. 296. 111 Holkham MS, f. 296 gives the date as 1570, but this appears to be an error. On first fruits and tenths, see G. R. Elton, The Tudor Constitution: Documents and Commentary (Cambridge, 1965), 42. 112 Bodleian, Tanner MS 97, f. 6. During Hatton’s time in office, the exchequer received around £16,000–​17,000 yearly from first fruits, whereas after his death the receipts rose to around £23,000–​24,000 yearly. F. C. Dietz, The Exchequer in Elizabeth’s Reign (Northampton, MA, 1923), 84–​7. 113 Brooks, Hatton, 222–​30. 114 Glyn Parry and Cathryn Enis, Shakespeare before Shakespeare: Stratford-​ upon-​Avon, Warwickshire, and the Elizabethan State (Oxford, 2020), 98.

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15 CSPSp 1568–​79, 605, 609, 610. 1 116 Brooks, Hatton, 145–​51, with greater clarity on dating supplied by Holkham MS, f. 138. For other mentions about the Queen pressurising the Dean and Chapter of Peterborough to grant Hatton a lease, see APC 1571–​75, 341. 117 The most detailed account of Hatton’s acquisition of and alterations to Ely Place is Jan Walters, ‘Architectural Planning and Behavioural Conventions in the Re-​Use of Spiritual Properties in Sixteenth-​century London’ (PhD thesis, Oxford Brookes, 2016), 165–​206. 118 J. Payne Collier (ed.), The Egerton Papers (Camden o.s. XII, 1840), 125–​7. CSPF XXIII (Jan–​Jul 1589), 248. 119 David McKeen, A Memory of Honour: The Life of William Brooke, Lord Cobham (2 vols, Salzburg Studies in English Literature 108, Salzburg, 1986), II, 556–​62; CSPSp 1587–​1603, 515. 120 For an account of their installation as knights, see Bodleian, MS Ashmole MS 1115, f. 69r.–​70v.; Hunsdon and Worcester presided as deputies for the occasion, on 23 May 1588, with Arthur Lord Grey assisting. 121 CSPSp 1568–​79, 655. 122 Mary Hill Cole, The Portable Queen. Elizabeth I and the Politics of Ceremony (Amherst and Boston MA, 1999), 215. On the 1587 visit, see I. H. Jeayes (ed.), Letters of Philip Gawdy of West Harling, Norfolk, and of London to Various Members of his Family 1579–​1616 (Roxburghe Club, London, 1906), 25–​6. On 1588: CSPSp 1587–​1603, 418–​19. 1589: Letters of Philip Gawdy, 51. June 1590: John V. Kitto (ed.), St Martin-​in-​the Fields: The Accounts of the Churchwardens’ 1525–​1603 (London, 1901), 423. He hosted Turenne there in 1590: Nichols, Progresses, III, 528. 123 Various dates have been given for this purchase, but the sale seems to have been completed over the winter of 1578–​79: NRO, FH/​C/​A/​D/​0602; Holkham MS, f. 105r. 124 NRO, FH3713A. Lawrence Stone has him owning land worth just £498 p.a., a major underestimate. Lawrence Stone, ‘The anatomy of the Elizabethan aristocracy’, Economic History Review 18:1&2 (1948), 1–​53, at 17. 125 Thrush & Ferris, Commons, IV, 591. 126 BL Cotton Caligula E. VIII, f. 183, printed in Joseph Stevenson (ed.), Correspondence of Sir Henry Unton, knt. Ambassador from Queen Elizabeth to Henry IV. King of France, in the Years MDXCI and MDXCII (Roxburghe Club, London, 1847), 177; also cited in Memoirs, 499. For other mentions, see Clapham, Elizabeth of England, 92. 127 For a brief outline of this approach, see Adams, Leicester and the Court, 82. 128 HEHL, EL 6234. 129 Jewels: HEHL, EL 6234 (the only jewel retained was ‘one blewe saphire which he used to weare at his shirt string’ –​perhaps the cameo portrait of Elizabeth which Hatton is holding in one of his portraits). The tapestries were Flemish, commissioned for Holdenby: Helen Wyld, ‘The Gideon Tapestries at Hardwick Hall’, West 86th 19:2 (Fall–​Winter 2012), 231–​54. They are now in the Long Gallery of Hardwick Hall.

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130 HEHL, EL 6234. The Irish lands were bought by Roger Dalton for £1,600: CSPI 1601–​3, 603–​4. 131 The best account of this affair is Thrush & Ferris, IV, 590–​3; see also Hasler, Commons, II, 279–​81. 132 The estate seems to have been worth about £7,000 p.a. in the early seventeenth century: SP 16/​280, f. 19v. 133 Janet Clare, ‘Art made Tongue-​Tied by Authority’: Elizabethan and Jacobean Dramatic Censorship (Manchester, 1990), 83–​4; Debora Shuger, ‘ “Paper bullets”: texts, lies, and censorship in early modern England’, in Dennis Kezar (ed.), Solon and Thespis: Law and Theater in the English Renaissance (Indiana, 2007), 163–​96, at 166–​7. 134 Ben Jonson, The workes of Beniamin Ionson (London, 1616; STC 14751), 877. 135 See below, p. 184. 136 Robert Naunton, Fragmenta regalia, or observations on the late Queen Elizabeth, her times and favorits (1641; Wing N250), 27. 137 Clapham, Elizabeth of England, 91–​2. 138 One other literary work has been attributed to Hatton, a Treatise concerning statutes published under his name in 1677 (Wing H1142). This attribution seems unlikely, and no contemporary manuscript or mention has been found; for scepticism about his authorship, see Anthony à Wood, Athenae Oxonienses (London, 1691–​92), I, 583; S. E. Thorne (ed.), A Discourse upon the Exposicion & Understanding of Statutes (Seldon Society, London, 1942), 10. 139 Conyers Read (ed.), The Bardon Papers. Documents Relating to the Imprisonment & Trial of Mary Queen of Scots (Camden 3rd ser. 17, 1909), 25–​6. 140 Hassall, ‘Books’, 7; W.O. Hassall (ed.), A Catalogue of the Library of Sir Edward Coke (New Haven, 1950), 3, 5, 13, 16, 17, 32, 34, 36, 47, 49–​51, 53–​7, 62–​3, 66, 68, 70, 71, 73–​4, 80, 82–​3, 87–​95. 141 Hassall, A Catalogue of the Library of Sir Edward Coke, 63; Jason Lawrence, Who the Devil Taught Thee so Much Italian? Italian Language Learning and Literary Imitation in Early Modern England (Manchester, 2013), 28; Thomas Bedingfield, The Florentine historie (1595; STC 17162), sig. Aij. 142 Hassall, A Catalogue of the Library of Sir Edward Coke, 47, 49–​51, 53–​7, 89–​94. 143 Hassall, ‘Books’, 8. The words were ‘Lege et perlege: Hatton’; ‘sola salus servire deo: sunt coetera nugae’ (to serve God is the only salvation; all else is a trifle); ‘Tandemsi [sic] g Δ H’. 144 In light of this, it is rather puzzling that William Rankins chose to dedicate his attack on foreign fashions The English ape, the Italian imitation, the footesteppes of Fraunce (1588) to Hatton. 145 BL Harleian 253, ff. 32–​6. G. R. Elton, The Parliament of England, 1559–​1581 (Cambridge, 1986), 322–​9 (Norton); Hasler, Commons, III, 478 (Tate). This is a very practical guide to dealing with parliament. 146 FSL, V.b.303, ff. 145–​6; see Elizabeth Read Foster, ‘The painful labour of Mr. Elsyng’, Transactions of the American Philosophical Society 62:8 (1972), 1–​69, at 16; Elton, Parliament of England, 323. The Folger manuscript is probably a

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later copy. See also BL Harleian 6994, f. 148. Maritime causes: BL Lansdowne 830, ff. 67–​8. 147 BL Harleian 398; BL Add. 32379, apparently presented by ‘Tho: Mynatts’, a Star Chamber clerk, to Hatton when he was Lord Chancellor (probably on his appointment), noting that he had obtained the letters from Anthony Bacon (1558–​1601), c. 1585; the MS has remains of Hatton’s binding and signature. Mynatts notes that he includes material on the treasons of ‘Ballard & others’, not all of which have been punished, and which Mynatts was somewhat involved in, although this does not appear to be in the volume now. 148 Hassall, A Catalogue of the Library of Sir Edward Coke, 62. 149 NRO, FH/​ H/​ A/​ 0272; Mark Forrest (ed.), Ralph Treswell’s Survey of Sir Christopher Hatton’s Lands in Purbeck 1585–​ 6 (Dorset Record Society 19, 2017); J. Schofield, The London Surveys of Ralph Treswell (London Topographical Society no 135, 1987), 1, 5–​6, 9. I owe this suggestion to Mark Girouard. 150 Essex Record Office, D/​DP A19 (Petre accounts, 1580/​1). 151 CSPI 1574–​85, 464, 479, 482. J. H. Andrews, ‘Sir Richard Bingham and the mapping of western Ireland’, Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. Section C: Archaeology, Celtic Studies, History, Linguistics, Literature, 103C:3 (2003), 61–​95, at 66. Hatton sold a manor in Dorset to a man of this name in 1572: CPR 1569–​72, no. 2473. 152 Hasler, Commons, I, 354–​5. G. R. Crone, ‘ “The Mariners Mirrour” 1588’, The Geographical Journal 119:4 (Dec. 1953), 455–​8. 153 ‘Museum’, http://​sgsoc.org/​the-​mus​eum (accessed 27 Janaury 2020). 154 ‘Morris, Peter (d. 1588)’, ODNB; Remembrancia, 550–​1. 155 On Burghley, see Peter Barber, ‘England II: monarchs, ministers and maps, 1550–​1625’, in David Buisseret (ed.), Monarchs, Ministers and Maps: The Emergence of Cartography as Tool of Government in Early Modern Europe (Chicago and London, 1992), 68–​77.; there is a brief mention of Hatton at 90 n.63. 156 Brooks, Hatton, 182–​96. 157 Brooks, Hatton, 193. 158 K. R. Andrews, Drake’s Voyages: A Re-​assessment of their Place in Elizabethan Maritime Expansion (London, 1967), 64. 159 John Thomas: Derek Wilson, The World Encompassed: Drake’s Great Voyage 1577–​1580 (London, 1977), 43. This ship seems to have been lost shortly after passing through the Straits of Magellan, in September 1578: Andrews, Drake’s Voyages, 69. Brewer and Doughty: W. S. W. Vaux (ed.), The World Encompassed by Sir Francis Drake (Hakluyt Society, 1st ser., 16, 1854), 171, 206; Andrews, Drake’s Voyages, 64. 160 Vaux, The World Encompassed, 205–​6, 215–​16; Andrews, Drake’s Voyages, 64. These references by Drake occurred when he was seeking to assert his authority over his crew, and were in effect name-​dropping. 161 Mary Frear Keeler (ed.), Sir Francis Drake’s West Indian Voyage 1585–​ 6 (Hakluyt Society, 2nd ser., 148, 1981), 12, 52 n.3. 162 Keeler, Drake’s West Indian Voyage, 12.

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163 For examples, see Thomas Hearne (ed.), Johannis, confratris & monachi Glastoniensis, chronica sive historia de rebus Glastoniensibus (Oxford, 1726), II, 508, 511. 164 Roy Strong, Gloriana: The Portraits of Queen Elizabeth I (London, 1987), 103. 165 Glyn Parry, The Arch-​Conjuror of England: John Dee (pbk. edn., New Haven and London, 2013), 124–​5. 166 J. E. Neale, Elizabeth I and her Parliaments 1584–​1601 (London, 1957), 438. See also Hammer, Polarisation, 42. 167 James Spedding (ed.), The Letters and the Life of Francis Bacon, Volume II (London, 1862), 42. 168 Brooks, Hatton, 358–​9, noting a legal agreement of 1583 which may conceivably have been some kind of settlement for this daughter. The Welsh genealogies note that the illegitimate daughter of Perrot and Elizabeth Hatton married Hugh Butler of Johnston. There is a very obscure mention of a courtesan called ‘Ancilla (Mr Hattons handmayde)’ by an English writer in Venice, but whether this refers to her having spent time in England or whether it was just an obscure joke (or for that matter another Hatton altogether) is unknown. Nelson, Monstrous Adversary, 138. 169 Dawson, Elizabethan New Year's Gifts Exchanges, 160, 176, 192, 214, 231, 252, 274, 299, 324, 353, 386. The quotes are from Nichols, Progresses, II, 5 (1572), 228 (1575), 532 (1578). 170 Memoirs, 20–​2, 25–​30, 153–​4, 156–​8, 367–​8, 450–​1, 496–​7. 171 See, for example, Helen Hackett, Virgin Mother, Maiden Queen: Elizabeth I and the Cult of the Virgin Mary (Basingstoke, 1995), 78–​80, 81–​2; Christopher Haigh, Elizabeth I (2nd edn., Harlow, 1998), 98. 172 John Guy, ‘Introduction –​the 1590s: the second reign of Elizabeth I?’ in Guy (ed.) The Reign of Elizabeth I: Court and Culture in the Last Decade (Cambridge, 1995), 3. 173 Hammer, ‘Cecil-​Hatton Letters’, 258. 174 Memoirs, 26. 175 Memoirs, 26–​7, 155, 157. 176 Memoirs, 30, 153. 177 BL Harleian 416, f. 200 (Memoirs, 155–​6). 178 Memoirs, 21. 179 Memoirs, 21. 180 Memoirs, 155. 181 Strong, Gloriana, 101–​3. 182 Hammer, ‘Cecil-​Hatton Letters’, 258. 183 See the Almain Armourer’s Album. A. V. B. Norman and Ian Eaves, Arms and Armour in the Collection of Her Majesty the Queen: European Armour (London, 2016), 123–​44. This armour is in Hatton’s heraldic colours of blue and gold, and decorated among other things with the letter ‘E’. It likely cost around £500: ibid., 137. Hatton gave two sets of armour (including that now at Windsor) to Leicester: ibid., 140. The Armada campaign: HMC Foljambe, 56. 184 Memoirs, 17–​19. 185 Memoirs, 20–​2.

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186 CSPSp 1568–​79, 704, 709. For another undated row, in which he denied speaking to foreign ambassadors, see BL Harleian 6993, f.75. 187 Memoirs, 275–​8. 188 Memoirs, 496–​7. 189 Hatton Letterbook, f. 154v.–​155r. (Memoirs, 415). 190 Memoirs, 366–​8. 191 MacCaffrey, Making of Policy, 449. 192 Ibid. 193 Above, see p. 20. 194 John Bruce and Thomas Thomason Perowne (eds), Correspondence of Matthew Parker, D.D. Archbishop of Canterbury (Parker Society, Cambridge, 1853), 400–​1; Wright, Queen Elizabeth and her Times, I, 440–​1 (Parker to Burghley, Sept 1572). 195 Gottfried von Bülow (ed.), ‘Journey through England and Scotland made by Lupold von Wedel in the years 1584 and 1585’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 9 (1895), 223–​70, at 263. 196 This letter is printed in Patrick Collinson, The English Captivity of Mary, Queen of Scots (Sheffield History Pamphlets 1, Sheffield, 1987), 50–​3, from Alexandre Labanoff (ed.), Lettres, Instructions et Mémoires de Marie Stuart, Reine d’Écosse (London, 1844), VI, 51–​6. 197 SP 12/​279/​48. 198 Clements R. Markham (ed.), A Tract on the Succession to the Crown (A.D. 1602) by Sir John Harington Kt of Kelston (Roxburghe Club, London, 1870), 40–​1. 199 Memoirs, vi. Cf. J. A. Froude, History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Defeat of the Spanish Armada (London, 1893), X, 318. 200 Memoirs, 30, note b., and see John Harington, Nugæ antiquæ, ed. Henry Harington (2 vols, London, 1804), I, 115–​18. Nicolas’s line has since been followed, rather injudiciously, by, for example, Elizabeth Jenkins, Elizabeth the Great (London, 1958), 167–​8. 201 John Strype, The Life of the Learned Sir Thomas Smith (Oxford, 1820), 140. 202 Cecil Papers 161/​31 (HCMS II, 189). 203 Memoirs, 233–​4. 204 Memoirs, 268–​9, 327–​8 (19 March 1583). 205 Memoirs, 177 (1581). For more on this affair, see Nelson, Monstrous Adversary, 270–​1 (where this letter from Burghley to Hatton is mistakenly said to be addressed to Walsingham), and for other examples involving Burghley, Hatton and Oxford, see SP 12/​98/​2, Memoirs, 321–​4. 206 Wright, Queen Elizabeth and her Times, II, 193–​4. 207 Hammer, ‘Cecil-​Hatton Letters’, 216, 254, 261. 208 SP 84/​8/​5, f. 9. Heneage was in the Netherlands at the time. 209 Harington, Nugæ antiquæ, I, 175–​6. 210 SP 52/​27/​47; HMCS, III, 168. 211 Susan M. Felch ‘ “Noble Gentlewomen famous for their learning”: the London circle of Anne Vaughan Lock’, ANQ: A Quarterly Journal of Short Articles, Notes and Reviews 16:2 (2003), 14–​19.

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12 See p. 146. 2 213 BL Add. 46367, f. 63r.–​v. (c. 1581). Another example, in a matter in which the Queen had been petitioned by one of her ladies, Katherine Newton: SP 46/​34, f. 144. On this occasion, Hatton adds his own support in the matter, noting that ‘Mistress Newton being my verie frende, and one to whome I have allwayes ben muche beholding’. 214 Memoirs, 300; SP 12/​155/​43. 215 Memoirs, 280. 216 Hatton Letterbook, 90r.–​v. (Memoirs, 248). 217 LPL MS 699, f. 31; see also LPL MS 3200, f. 35. 218 Longleat, Talbot MSS, vol. I, f. 75, printed in G. Dyfnallt Owen, Calendar of the Manuscripts of the Most Honourable the Marquess of Bath preserved at Longleat, Wiltshire, Volume V: Talbot, Dudley and Devereux Papers 1533–​ 1659 (Historical Manuscripts Commission 58, London, 1980), 39–​40. 219 Longleat, Talbot MSS, vol. I, f. 209, printed in Owen, Talbot, Dudley and Devereux Papers, 65; see also Gilbert Talbot dining with Hatton: ibid., 92. 220 Labanoff, Lettres, Instructions et Mémoires de Marie Stuart, IV, 196–​207, at 199.

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2 Patronage and religion

On 20 September 1586, in St Giles’s Fields, some of the most notorious Catholic plotters of Elizabeth’s reign were put to death. Over the summer of 1586, a group of young Catholic gentlemen nominally led by Anthony Babington had been planning a drastic solution to the problems of their co-​religionists, an act which would realise the worst fears of much of the Protestant political nation. They planned to murder Elizabeth, free Mary Stuart from prison, place her on the throne of England and accomplish a revolution in English religious policy. In many ways their plotting seems amateurish, even farcical, yet they successfully made contact with the imprisoned Mary, and received her blessing. The central flaw in their plan was that their group was deeply penetrated by agents of Sir Francis Walsingham, with the aim of enticing Mary to giving her consent to regicide and thereby bringing her to the block. Once Mary had done so, Walsingham was able to roll the group up, and in mid-​August all the main participants were arrested. After exhaustive interrogation, they were tried on 13 September and condemned to be executed.1 One of the executions on 20 September was a young Dorset gentleman called Chidiock Tichborne. As was customary, the condemned were permitted to address the crowd. After the obligatory acknowledgement of the justice of his sentence, Tichborne spoke eloquently, hinting at the dilemmas of conscience which his inability to conform to the State religion had forced on him and drawing the sympathy of the crowd: I am sorie I have offended the Quene, and I have offended more then I shall receave punishment for, and yet I never entended the death of her Majestie, but I was privie to all there actions. ... Yt was Mr. Babington, my deare friend whose heade here standeth, that made me privie of all these matters. I maye very well compare the state of Mr. Babington and myselve to the estate of Adam before his falle, to whose subjection all thinges were obediente, onlie the tree of lyffe forbidden. So wee havinge the world at will, were accompted the happiest that were ever dwellinge or abidinge in London; no place forbidden

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Religion and politics in Elizabethan England us, no one thresholde to stoppe us, the streetes as we passed by admired us; only her Majestie’s lyffe was the tree that we oughte not to have towched. ... But lette me not deceave you; I am ... a true catholique, and now cannot chaunge.

Towards the end of his short speech, he spake to one Mr. Fulwell, one of Sir Christopher Hattons gentlemen, that he woulde comende him to all his fellowes and aske them all forgyvenes, and lette not these my unnatural dealinges be anie waie offensive unto them. And that it maie be saide that one of Mr Vyce Chamberlaines men had attempted her Majesty’s destructione, it can be no scandall unto them that be free from it. I desire his honowre to forgeve me. Yf yt please the people to praie for me, I am willinge. ... Hee hanged longe, and yet was alyve when they rypped him.2

For a convicted traitor and would-​be assassin of the Queen to stand upon the scaffold and inform the crowd of citizens that he was a servant of one of the Queen’s closest councillors is extraordinary. His protest that it was ‘no scandall unto them that be free from it’ surely rang hollow. Onlookers must surely have wondered whether Hatton, who as Vice-​Chamberlain and Captain of the Guard had responsibility for the Queen’s safety, associated with violent Catholic extremists as a matter of course. We have no record of the crowd’s reaction; surely there was some disquiet. Perhaps some thought he was lying –​although, as we shall see, he was not. The connection between Tichborne and Hatton was, however, a fact that some took care to conceal. The relevant passage is found in some manuscript versions but is omitted from the version in Robert Beale’s papers and from the printed State Trials, suggesting that Tichborne’s connection to Hatton was too delicate to be spoken of publicly, though widely known among the political elite.3 As this chapter will show, Tichborne was merely the tip of the iceberg of Hatton’s Catholic associates, which are to be found in every aspect of his patronage network throughout his life: his family, his personal servants, the recipients of his cultural and artistic patronage, and his associates among the gentry in the country at large. Some justification is called for in dealing with Hatton’s patronage here. It is certainly true that it is a neglected subject. More importantly, however, it helps to compensate for the thinness of Hatton’s archive. We have little of Hatton’s private or personal correspondence. We have a good sense of the political stances he adopted when in power, but these are potentially compromised indicators: his positions were inevitably affected by his perception of what was politically feasible or advisable, the views of colleagues or most importantly the views of the Queen. We can, however, identify with some certainty Hatton’s patronage network, and this can tell us a great deal about him. This analysis assumes that

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Hatton generally chose to associate with and extend his favour to people with similar views to himself. Indeed, it assumes that we can gain a truer reflection of what he thought or believed by what he did than by what he said. This approach has of course been used before to help assess the religious attitudes of early modern political figures: Linda Levy Peck’s study of Henry Howard, Earl of Northampton, for example, dwells extensively on his conservative clientage network, and on the other side of the spectrum, Simon Adams’s work on Leicester helps to demonstrate his commitment to forward Protestantism through study of his network.4 For this reason, this chapter seeks to explore Hatton’s patronage widely, but focuses on the more interesting and surprising aspects: his patronage of Catholics (his patronage among government officials and among churchmen is discussed in Chapters 4 and 5, respectively). In line with this, it provides as much detailed evidence as possible for the scope, extent and nature of Hatton’s links with Catholics. Many people asked an influential man like Hatton for help or support, but not all of them received it, and those who merely wrote him a hopeful petition or letter are not of interest. In line with the tendency to downplay his political significance, historians have generally dismissed Hatton’s patronage network. MacCaffrey painted him as a political loner: ‘he was not part of any family or factional grouping ... [he] avoided identification with any partisan interest, keeping on civil terms with the established figures’, and ‘he made no attempt to found a clientage or espouse a cause’.5 Adams, similarly, has commented that, in comparison to Leicester, Hatton ‘had hardly any friends at all’; ‘there was never a Hattonian faction’; and neither Hatton nor Ralegh ‘possessed more than a microscopic following’.6 The evidence suggests that this argument is much too dismissive. In fact, Hatton had a significant clientage, although, as we shall see, it was quite different to (and lesser than) those of Leicester and Burghley. One reason for this neglect is that (as we have seen) Hatton is so poorly documented, and it is naturally often difficult to reconstruct his patronage. Lack of evidence has also sometimes led to his followers being ‘misattributed’ to other patrons. The analysis in this chapter draws on often fragmentary evidence, and although some case-​studies can be fleshed out in detail, others are more tentative. Often it is not possible to be precise about the religious attitudes of Hatton’s contacts, obscure and ill-​documented as many of them are. That Hatton had many clients should come as no surprise; ministers of his seniority and favour inevitably attracted followers, especially given his ability to obtain favours from the Queen. Furthermore, Hatton was ten years younger than Leicester and twenty years younger than Burghley, so there was every reason to think that he would remain a leading minister

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for a long time (he died aged 51, an age at which Burghley was starting the most influential period of his career, having defeated his enemies in the crisis of 1568–​72). Thoughtful watchers of the political scene must have expected that he represented the future, and accordingly have sought to stay on good terms with him. That well-​informed observer Thomas Phelippes told Thomas Barnes, late in Hatton’s career, that Hatton ‘hath great dependencye’.7 Another contemporary observer, John Clapham, commented that ‘in household expenses he was magnificent and attended with many followers’, continuing rather elliptically, ‘some he used for their advice and direction in matters belonging to his office, and others for ministerial places, now and then observing formality to shadow greater defects’.8 Like other major patrons, he issued livery coats: one is listed in an inventory of one of his followers, the printer Henry Bynneman.9 It was also part of his role as a minister to maintain an extensive group of followers. This added to his stature, and the Queen drew on her ministers’ followings to recruit her own ministers and servants; they helped to bring forward promising young men, placing them in positions at court or in the government from where they might rise. This chapter assesses Hatton’s patronage as a whole, but focuses on the elements which are particularly surprising: his links with Catholics, crypto-​ Catholics and conservatives, and the nature of those links. The analysis considers in turn the different kinds of relationship through which patrons typically constructed a network: the patron’s personal servants and household, his friends and clients at court, his kin and contacts in rural gentry networks, links among the wider political nation, and his scholarly and artistic patronage.

Protestant clients It should be said at the outset that by no means all of Hatton’s clients were Catholic, or even conservative. By virtue of the way in which patronage networks developed over time, by means of the accretion of various kinds of links between a rising man and his associates, political clienteles tended to exhibit a degree of diversity, including in religious terms.10 The earls of Leicester and Essex, who had many followers among soldiers and the gentry, had significant numbers of Catholic-​leaning clients, yet overall they clearly tended towards Protestantism, and in Leicester’s case towards the Puritan end of the spectrum.11 In Hatton’s case, it was the reverse: conservatives and Catholics were very strongly represented, yet plenty of Hatton’s clients were perfectly orthodox. Inevitably, as a senior minister, he needed to deal with Protestants.12 Many were moderate Protestants and a few were even

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forward Protestants or Puritans.13 His secretary, Samuel Cox, for example, had godly leanings.14 One of Hatton’s most prominent long-​ term clients was Sir Richard Knightley, the godly Northamptonshire magistrate: he and Hatton seem to have been genuinely friendly, and Hatton was godfather to Knightley’s son. Hatton’s stepfather Richard Newport referred to Knightley as ‘my cosin’ in his will, so Hatton may have regarded him as a relative of sorts.15 One crucial point here, however, is that they were also neighbours and fellow magistrates. Within the county elite, it was natural to maintain a certain level of civility, often reinforced by cordial personal relations; Knightley himself married a member of the very conservative Fermor family. Knightley was famously implicated in the Martin Marprelate affair, since one of the tracts was printed on his estate. In November 1589, he was arrested and imprisoned, tried before Hatton and others in Star Chamber, and released upon a fine of £2,000. It is often claimed that Hatton and Whitgift interceded with the Queen on Knightley’s behalf, but there seems no concrete evidence for this, and in fact £2,000 was a very large fine, which hardly suggests Knightley got off lightly.16 Hatton was also very friendly with Philip Sidney, which was no doubt genuine, but also because Sidney, always on the make, wanted Hatton’s help to advance (and in one case to obtain a grant of money out of recusancy fines). It is also the case that the clearest marks of their friendship come at the time of the Anjou match, when Hatton was co-​operating more closely with Leicester than was normal.17 Hatton was also very helpful to the 2nd Earl of Essex later in life, as we shall see. Beyond this, some fairly forward Protestants thought it worthwhile petitioning Hatton for favours or help. Some of these were men with whom Hatton had official dealings: John Stubbs, author of the Gaping Gulf, was one, a man with whom he shared little but opposition to the Anjou match.18 Another surprising link was Thomas Norton, the ubiquitous man-​of-​­business to hot Protestant privy councillors, whom he does seem to have helped and to have been genuinely friendly with. They probably came into contact over parliamentary management: when Norton was in trouble in 1582, he refers to having carried out tasks at the commandment of Mildmay and Hatton, then the government’s chief managers in the Commons. Although an obscure episode, Norton’s travails seem to have related to opposition to the Anjou match (which would explain Hatton’s otherwise surprising involvement on his behalf).19 It has also been speculated (though there is no clear evidence) that Hatton protected the radical Puritan Job Throckmorton in the controversies over his speech in the 1586 Parliament criticising James VI, and again over his possible involvement in the Martin Marprelate tracts.20

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The stout Oxford Protestant Laurence Humphrey also appealed to Hatton in a case concerning Church jurisdiction, in which he perhaps thought that the anti-​Puritan Hatton would be supportive. Humphrey was clearly wary, requesting that he be allowed to refute any complaint about him that Hatton heard; he trod equally carefully when writing at the time of Campion’s interrogations and trial, saying that he lamented Campion’s case ‘and crave[d]‌of God his reformation’.21 Few of these, however, appear to have been strictly speaking Hatton clients; they were more in the nature of occasional requests to a powerful man. Not everyone who appealed to a patron benefitted meaningfully from his patronage. One exception to this is Tobie Matthew, quite a forward Protestant, although probably a son of Catholic parents, whose numerous requests for patronage were even by sixteenth-​century standards irritatingly persistent and obsequious, so much so that one wonders whether they were kept for their entertainment value.22 Many of Hatton’s servants, clients and associates, however, were not Protestant –​a large proportion in fact, and more than any other significant political figure of the reign. We will begin by exploring networks arising from his birth and origins: his kin and his neighbours, both of which connected him to gentry across the Midlands and beyond, and his local influence in areas where he held land. Secondly, we will look at the servants and clients he patronised as a minister and royal favourite. Both of these interrelated networks lead us quickly into Catholic-​leaning circles, and sometimes into very extreme Catholics.

Hatton’s kin As we have seen, what we know about Hatton’s early life suggests that his immediate family inclined towards Catholicism, which is not especially remarkable in the context of the 1540s and 1550s. Hatton’s own father and elder brother died too early to have a very strong influence on him, and we know nothing about his mother, or about Hatton’s relations with any of them. Hatton’s relations with his father’s kin were not close. It is striking that he adopted as heir his sister’s son, as we shall see. Only after this did he name a paternal relative as an heir. His closest relative on his father’s side was his first cousin, John Hatton (d. 1587), an obscure figure. Hatton granted him annuities of at least £66 13s 4d from 1581 onwards, a substantial but hardly princely sum which does not suggest a close relationship.23 Nor did Hatton arrange glittering marriages for his kinsmen; John married a daughter of Robert Shute, a judge (his son, Sir Christopher II [1581–​1619],

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became head of the family in 1597). Hatton also got ‘his kinsman and servant’ Francis Hatton made clerk of the peace of Shropshire.24 More remote relations on his father’s side included the Dutton family, distant cousins in Cheshire, with whom Hatton was on friendly terms.25 They were notably Catholic: in 1581 they were suspected of harbouring Edmund Campion, and their house was searched by the sheriff of Cheshire.26 Hatton took on his young cousin Peter Dutton as a servant, during which time he travelled to Rome and was, according to Sir Edward Stafford, the ambassador in Paris, ‘in the inquisition’, which may have been cover for a sojourn in Rome.27 There were also many recusant Hattons in Oxfordshire who may have been distant cousins.28 Hatton was much closer to his mother’s kin, a sprawling network of connections across Northamptonshire, Warwickshire and Leicestershire. His mother’s second marriage to Richard Newport (d. 1565) provided important links. Newport was a strong Catholic (his first wife was Ursula Ferrers, also from a stout Catholic family), and this may well have had an influence on Hatton, since it implies that Hatton grew up in a Catholic household. The Hatton-​Newport link was reinforced by two further marriages: firstly, Hatton’s brother Thomas married Richard Newport’s daughter Ursula.29 Secondly, Hatton’s sister Dorothy (who died about 1569) married her step-​brother John Newport and had a son, William. Upon his father’s death in 1566, Hatton obtained the wardship of young William Newport, and later adopted him as his heir (he is usually known by his adopted surname of Hatton).30 William Newport alias Hatton is a shadowy figure, partly because of his early death, but while he inherited Hatton’s property, he was not a political heir to Hatton in the way that Robert Cecil was to Burghley or the Earl of Essex was to Leicester. He attended Oxford, travelled abroad, sat in Parliament for Hatton’s borough of Corfe, and served as a local governor in Northamptonshire, but never achieved distinction.31 He seems to have had even-​handed relations across the religious divide in Northamptonshire: leading roles at his funeral at Holdenby in 1597 were played by the Puritan Sir Richard Knightley, the moderate Sir Thomas Cecil (his father-​in-​law), and the Catholic Thomas Tresham.32 Sir William married first a daughter of Judge Francis Gawdy (who possibly had Catholic sympathies), and secondly Elizabeth Cecil, Burghley’s granddaughter. Neither marriage produced children.33 Following John Newport’s death, Hatton’s sister Dorothy remarried, choosing another Catholic Warwickshire lawyer, William Underhill of Idlicote (d. 1570), whose son William also became Hatton’s ward.34 Hatton therefore had two wards with significant Warwickshire estates, both sons of Catholic fathers.35 Hatton handed over the wardship of William Underhill to Robert Brokesby of Shoby, his mother’s cousin.36 The younger William

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Underhill, Hatton’s ward, who perhaps grew up in Hatton’s household, was evidently a Catholic, being imprisoned in 1579 but shortly after released (quite likely on Hatton’s intervention). He died in 1598, and it later emerged that he had been poisoned by his eldest son, Fulke; the family estates were inherited by the younger son, Hercules, also a Catholic.37 Hatton delegated his brother-​ in-​ law William Underhill to manage his nephew Newport’s estates, suggesting good relations.38 Hatton was close to several members of his mother’s family, the Saunders of Harrington and elsewhere, whose religion was mixed. Some clearly were conservative: as we have seen, Hatton’s uncle William Saunders disliked William Cecil and preferred the Duke of Norfolk, although his will is non-​ committal, bequeathing his soul to ‘Almighty God, my Saviour and Redeemer’.39 Certainly, Hatton’s older cousin, the judge Sir Edward Saunders, was a lifelong Catholic; as Chief Justice of Common Pleas during Mary’s reign, he presided over the trials of Ambrose and Guildford Dudley and Lady Jane Grey.40 Yet the judge’s brother, the clergyman Lawrence Saunders, was a Protestant, burned at the stake under Mary.41 The wills of other Saunders cousins are unenlightening.42 There was a strong strain of Catholicism among the Saunders, therefore, but the evidence does not permit us to go further. Hatton remained very close to his Saunders relatives throughout his life. His uncle William Saunders was one of his closest men-​of-​business until his death in 1582; he was closely involved in the purchase of Kirby from the Staffords, for example.43 In 1579, along with Bartholomew Tate, he welcomed Lord Burghley to Holdenby on Hatton’s behalf.44 Hatton was overseer of his will, and was to receive his best gelding. His son married a daughter of Henry Macwilliam, a courtier friend of Hatton’s, and his daughter married George Villiers, whose son by a second wife became Duke of Buckingham. Hatton also acted as executor of his cousin Ambrose Saunders’s 1586 will.45 Bartholomew Tate was Hatton’s first cousin and a substantial gentleman in Northamptonshire (he served as sheriff in 1585–​86); he was also a JP in Warwickshire from 1579, which points to Hatton’s influence. He was also involved in Hatton’s land dealings.46 Although sometimes described as a Protestant, this ‘receives no confirmation from the Catholic sympathies of the husbands he chose for his daughters’.47 His daughter Anne, for example, married a Tresham.48 Bartholomew’s elder son William sat in Parliament for Corfe Castle in 1593 and held office there, and the younger son Francis, a noted antiquarian, was involved in Hatton’s land transactions; the two were also involved in dealing with Hatton’s debts after his death, as trustees for Sir William Hatton.49 Bartholomew Tate’s widowed mother subsequently

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married Andrew Wadham, whose family were later Catholic or crypto-​ Catholic; they were also related to the Catholic Tichborne family.50 The Brokesbys of Shoby were another branch of Hatton’s family with strong Catholic connections. Hatton’s maternal grandmother was a Brokesby, and they had continued business links; as we have seen, Hatton handed over the wardship of his sister’s stepson, William Underhill, to Robert Brokesby, a moderate Catholic.51 Robert’s son Edward, who married a daughter of the prominent recusant Lord Vaux, was more radical; he had links with Thomas Pound, who we will meet later. Through Pound, Brokesby met the Jesuit Robert Persons and helped to shelter him when he arrived for his mission in 1580; he allowed Persons and his associates to set up their printing press at Green Street, his house in East Ham.52 Thus Hatton’s kin networks extended to quite politically radical Catholics. Ties of blood were further extended by wardship. In 1572, for example, Hatton obtained the wardship of the two daughters of Henry Keble of Humberstone, a Leicestershire gentleman.53 Keble’s widow, Jane, was by 1586 a recusant.54 Hatton sold the wardship to his cousin Francis Saunders.55 In due course, one daughter, Elizabeth, married Anthony Colly of Glaston, a relative by marriage of Hatton’s close servant, Francis Flower. The other, Margaret, married into the Bowes family, among whom there were also recusants and who had connections with Hatton’s clients the Ropers of Eltham. The series of connections here makes it possible that Hatton’s acquisition of the wardship was not accidental and that he was a powerful patron of the family.56 Hatton’s kin network, stretching across the Midlands, remained relatively closely integrated and in many cases became involved in the land and business interests which the unexpected success of their kinsman opened up. This was probably accentuated by the fact that Hatton had no wife or children and thus never developed the kinship connections which they would have brought. Hatton naturally sought to exert influence on his relatives’ behalfs (probably in many ways which cannot now be traced), and some found marriages within his court circle.

Hatton and Northamptonshire Catholics Hatton’s home county of Northamptonshire was home not only to many Puritan-​leaning gentry, and indeed prominent politicians such as William Cecil and Walter Mildmay, but also to several notable Catholic families. Hatton had very good links with his Northamptonshire neighbours the Treshams, for example. There may have been an edge of tension between the long-​established

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but embattled Treshams, and the newly risen Hatton, but Thomas Tresham and Hatton seem to have been on genuinely friendly terms: Hatton sent Tresham stone for his building and there was probably quite a lot of contact regarding their respective works at Holdenby and Rushton.57 More significantly, Hatton was a patron of William Tresham, Thomas’s brother, an ardent Catholic. Thomas credited Hatton with first obtaining William’s release from prison (presumably this was for lack of conformity in religion and occurred in the 1570s); William wrote that he ‘bare more perfect affectione’ to Hatton ‘longe and faithfully before he was a Counsellor’. Hatton obtained him a place as gentleman pensioner –​in fact, Tresham took Hatton’s own place as a pensioner, after Hatton’s promotion to Vice-​ Chamberlain in 1577. Hatton had extracted Tresham from serious trouble and started him on a potentially promising career. The Treshams became politically problematic in 1581 owing to their links with Edmund Campion, who had converted Thomas to recusancy. Tresham and his kinsmen and allies Lord Vaux and Sir William Catesby were arrested and interrogated. During his first interrogation, Tresham was informed by ‘one Mr Flower dwelling in Northamptonshire’ that Campion had confessed all his associates and helpers to the government.58 This may well be Francis Flower, one of Hatton’s most important servants, in which case his implicit invitation for Tresham to submit to the government echoes other attempts by Hatton to encourage Catholics to conform. Later on, Thomas Tresham sought Hatton’s aid in his troubles.59 In September 1581, William Tresham was also called before the Council for questioning; the following January he fled to France. He wrote to Hatton at the time of his flight, complaining that Hatton had had called him a ‘papist galliard’ and abandoned him at the behest of Leicester. He warned Hatton against Leicester and suggested that in time to come, Hatton might find the Treshams useful friends, presumably adverting to the possibility of a future Catholic monarch. Whether Hatton really betrayed Tresham is unclear and perhaps unlikely; it may be that Hatton’s opposition to the Anjou match convinced Tresham that he had abandoned the Catholic cause and sold out to Leicester. The affair caused Hatton considerable embarrassment, as Tresham left behind him letters denouncing Leicester, the Council and even the Queen; Elizabeth, predictably, was furious that her gentleman pensioner had fled overseas, and Hatton was clearly perturbed.60 While in Paris, Tresham was probably part of the group of exiled Catholic courtiers who had advocated the Anjou match, and in exile worked on the notorious libel Leicester’s Commonwealth.61 Tresham repeatedly sought to return to England, in 1583 via the ambassador Sir Edward Stafford and in 1588 by means of Hatton’s help; in the end he returned in 1603.62 Despite

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all this, Hatton continued to profess friendship and sympathy for Thomas Tresham.63 For Hatton, this sort of embarrassment was the inevitable consequence of staking his credit on men like the Treshams, who sought to reconcile Catholicism and loyalty, but could not always do so. Along with Lord Vaux, Sir William Catesby and others, Thomas Tresham was tried in Star Chamber in November 1581 for sheltering Campion. He was convicted and fined 1,000 marks.64 After this, Tresham was either in prison or under house arrest for over ten years. Hatton was either unable or unwilling to seek his release, but did not desert Tresham entirely: late in 1582, he apparently lent money to Tresham by buying an annuity of £16 from him.65 Since Tresham’s money problems related primarily to fines imposed on him by the government, this is striking. Near the end of Hatton’s life, his servant can be found pleading for the relaxation of the conditions of an imprisoned Tresham client, the recusant Thomas Colwell.66 Hatton was probably on decent terms with the Catesbys as well; Sir William Catesby was Thomas Tresham’s brother-​in-​law, and was tried with him in 1581. His son Robert was a Gunpowder plotter.67 In May 1582, when he was still in prison over the Campion affair, Hatton moved a motion to his fellow councillors that Catesby be granted extended liberty from prison owing to his wife’s illness.68 Hatton was also friendly with the Brudenells of Deene, a wealthy family in east Northamptonshire, and very close neighbours to Kirby Hall. Hatton stayed with them at least twice, in 1576 and in 1580, when there was smallpox in the house at Kirby. John Brudenell, head of the family from 1587 to 1606, was not a recusant, but had numerous Catholics within his family and household.69 In 1588, Thomas Tresham addressed a letter to Robert Brudenell (John’s younger brother) at Hatton House; it is likely that Hatton’s Northamptonshire neighbours placed their sons in Hatton’s household for a spell, to have a taste of the metropolis, visit the court and so on.70 John Brudenell was also prominent at Hatton’s funeral, as an assistant to the corpse.71 As their difficulties with the government grew from about 1580, many of Hatton’s Catholic Northamptonshire neighbours were forced to sell land, in several cases to Hatton himself: he bought land in Church Brampton and Rothwell from Tresham late in 1581, in Gretton from William Catesby the same year, and in Chapel Brampton from Vaux in 1582.72 The significance of this is unclear. Was Hatton preying on families in difficult circumstances, asserting his new ascendancy over older families? Or, more interestingly, was Hatton seen as a sympathetic buyer, who might even sell the land back if circumstances became more favourable? This latter possibility is supported by the fact that Tresham wrote to Hatton in 1591, offering him the sale of an impropriation.73

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Overall, therefore, it is clear that Hatton was a sympathetic neighbour to Northamptonshire Catholics; not a leader of them in any sense, but someone who supported them as far as he could in legitimate and legal activity, and sought to mitigate the consequences of their transgressions.

Hatton’s local influence in Northamptonshire Although he had no wife or legitimate children, Hatton purchased large amounts of land in Northamptonshire and elsewhere. This would usually indicate that he intended to found a dynasty, yet the fact that he never made any moves towards marriage makes this puzzling. Clearly the main reason for not marrying was the need to preserve the royal favour which was founded on his intimate friendship with Elizabeth. What, then, was the estate for? On one level, it was an assertion of his power and status. On another, it would descend to heirs of his name one way or another: his family continued to be prominent locally and to have some standing at court for many years, and indeed attained a viscountcy. The land was also an insurance policy for Hatton. Ultimately, of course, Hatton predeceased Elizabeth by over a decade, but being about seven years younger than her, Hatton might well have planned for a future in which he would lose power and retire to the country. Perhaps he would still be able to marry and beget an heir.74 Hatton’s acquisitions were concentrated in Northamptonshire, both by purchases and by grants from the Queen in Chapel Brampton, Wellingborough and elsewhere.75 In particular he built up lands around Holdenby itself, at Church and Chapel Brampton, East Haddon and so on.76 Certainly the scale of the house he built at Holdenby as well as the purchase of another very large house at Kirby suggest that Hatton envisaged a long-​term future. At 352 by 216 feet, Holdenby was almost absurdly large, ‘just as magnificent and appreciably larger’ than Burghley’s mansion of Theobalds.77 The garden facade in particular, with a central block of bay windows flanked by regular ranges of ten windows on either side, must have been an astonishing sight; as a single facade, it is hard to think of an Elizabethan parallel. Furthermore, the house was prodigiously spacious internally, since the two longest ranges were early examples of ‘double pile’ planning, with rooms facing both outwards and into the two internal courtyards.78 The external ornamentation was relatively restrained, compared to the fanciful towers, pyramids and so on adorning Burghley House, but internally, it was undoubtedly richly decorated; Burghley commented on the ‘stately ascent from your hall to your great chamber’, and the ‘largeness and lightsomeness’ of the rooms.79 There was a decorative scheme of coats of arms of nobility and Northamptonshire gentry on three obelisks in the great hall, similar to

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heraldic displays employed by Burghley (at Theobalds), Thomas Tresham (on the Market House, Rothwell) and others.80 Hatton lavished care on the house: there were extensive and elaborate gardens and a park of 606 acres in 1587.81 Furthermore Hatton reorganised the estate: between 1584 and 1587, the common fields at Holdenby were enclosed.82 He also paid at least £166 for new bells in Holdenby parish church.83 Barnaby Rich described the house thus: ‘for the brauerie of the buildings, for the statelinesse of the chambers, for the rich furniture of the lodgings, for the conue[n]‌iance of the offices, and for all other necessaries appertenent to a pallas of Pleasure: [it] is thought by those that haue iudgement, to be incomparable, and to haue no fellowe in England’.84 Although 1571 is sometimes suggested as the starting date of building at Holdenby, it is unlikely that Hatton could afford to build on this scale at that date. Only by about 1577 could his finances have supported it, so the dates suggested by Girouard of 1577–​83 seem likely. However, Girouard also very plausibly conjectures that Holdenby may have been started as a much smaller house in the early 1570s.85 Famously, Elizabeth never visited it (but nor did she visit Burghley House, not far away near Stamford). There is no sign that Holdenby or Kirby were Catholic centres in the model of ‘seigneurial Catholicism’, whereby powerful gentry protected local Catholics in and around their households, if for no other reason than because Hatton spent little time there. According to Barnaby Rich, however, Holdenby was bustling even in Hatton’s absence: Such worthie port and daily hospitalitie [are] kept [there], that although the owner himselfe vseth not to come there once in two yeeres, yet I dare vndertake, there is daily prouision to found conuenient, to entertaine any Noble man with his whole traine ... And how many Gentlemen and strangers, that come but to see the house, are there daily welcommed, feasted, and well lodged. ... To be short, Holdenby giueth daily reliefe to such as be in want, for the space of six or seuen miles compasse.86

Unfortunately there is little evidence about how accurate this is. The only known member of staff there is one James Furness, whom Hatton granted an annuity; he was later surveyor of works at Moulton Park and architect at Paulerspury for Sir Arthur Throckmorton, so it is possible that he was the architect of Holdenby.87 Hatton clearly valued his position in Northamptonshire, with the sheen of ancestral status it provided. The prominence of Northamptonshire gentry at his funeral, for example, suggests his desire to accentuate this, as do the heraldic displays and the reported hospitality at Holdenby. Yet, although Hatton was a JP in Northamptonshire from 1569 until his death, his local influence was relatively limited, and he does not seem to have asserted

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himself in local affairs on a detailed level.88 Hatton held several lesser local offices: warden of Rockingham Forest, Chief Steward of the Honour of Grafton and of the Duchy of Lancaster lands in Northamptonshire, and keeper of Brigstock Parks.89 These would have had useful patronage attached, although again there is no evidence to assess how Hatton used it. It may be that his influence was greater in Warwickshire, where it was wielded through kin and allies.90 The generally Puritan tone of west Northamptonshire and Northampton itself may have been another factor. Ultimately, however, he was rarely in the county, and his influence is very difficult to identify. In September 1586, he was appointed Lord Lieutenant of Northamptonshire, a major promotion and a position of great prestige –​ by definition, it was preeminent in the county.91 Burghley greatly resented being passed over as lieutenant ‘in that Country where my principal house is and my name and posterity are to remain at God’s will, and where I am no new planted or new feathered gentleman’. He went on ‘I never had hap to have any such credit in the country as others my inferiors in degree but not in suffering have had’, apparently referring to Hatton.92 Hatton was not an especially conscientious Lord Lieutenant, and tended rather to protect the county from the military demands of the Council than act as an effective local enforcer.93 As in other counties, most of the real work was carried out by the deputy lieutenants, Sir Richard Knightley, Sir Edward Montague and Sir John Spencer, who were appointed by the Council. Knightley and Montague were very firm Protestants, even Puritans, although Spencer was a moderate. The signs are that Hatton worked well enough with these men; as we have seen, he seems to have been genuinely friendly with Knightley. What they really thought of him can only be imagined. However, Hatton exerted influence at various times by appointing as captains of the militia horse his conservative cousin Edward Saunders and the more or less open Catholic Edward Griffin of Dingley; Knightley and Montague would never have dreamed of appointing them.94 It is notable that, while the Privy Council regularly emphasised that militia captains should be ‘knowen to be well affected in religion’, Hatton made no mention of this.95 The appointment of George Fermor as deputy lieutenant in 1590 is also suggestive. Fermor was a prominent gentleman in Northamptonshire and he accompanied Leicester to fight in the Netherlands in 1585–​86, where he was knighted.96 Yet Fermor named his eldest son Hatton, indicating his primary loyalties, and he served as an assistant to the corpse at Hatton’s funeral. He was a church papist who had links with Jesuits. His father was a committed Catholic into Elizabeth’s reign, and married a member of the equally Catholic Vaux family, linking George to the Vaux-​Tresham

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network with which he continued to be associated into the early seventeenth century.97

Hatton and Midland Catholic networks Through his kinship and local connections, Hatton had extensive links with many often interrelated gentry families in Northamptonshire, Leicestershire and Warwickshire. Some of these were relatively innocuous. A Francis Beaumont, for example, appears in some of Hatton’s land dealings, working with George Gascoigne, between 1568 and 1583.98 Although we cannot be certain, this was most likely the prominent lawyer and later judge of this name, father of the playwright. Beaumont had close connections with the Vaux-​Tresham circle, although his career made it necessary for him to conform.99 Hatton’s links in these circles often led quite quickly into controversial connections, however. A striking example is provided by his multiple connections with the Catholic family from which originated an abortive attempt against the Queen’s life. This was the Arden-​Somerville family network centred on Edward Arden, a Warwickshire landowner of fairly openly Catholic inclinations, an ally of the Throckmorton kinship network, and a prominent local opponent of the Dudleys.100 On 25 October 1583, Arden’s mentally unstable son-​in-​law, John Somerville, set off for court, proclaiming his intention to assassinate the Queen: he said he ‘meant to shoot her with his dagg [pistol], and hoped to see her head on a pole, for that she was a serpent and a viper’.101 Since he made no secret of his intention, he was quickly stopped; the entire family were arrested and there was a detailed investigation. Hatton was linked to this group partly through Arden Waferer, a cousin of the Ardens who was a lawyer and man-​of-​business for Hatton, but more importantly through a close associate (and according to Parry a relative102) of the family, Hugh Hall. Hall was a Catholic priest, apparently a former monk of Bordesley Abbey and Marian priest rather than a seminarian.103 Hall was linked to ‘a network of priests (most of them former monks) associated with Evesham Abbey which kept in close touch long after the Dissolution’.104 During interrogation after Somerville’s arrest, he confessed that he had spent fourteen years living in Catholic households, including those of John Talbot, Sir John Throckmorton, Lord Windsor and Ralph Sheldon.105 His cover was supplied by his genuine work as a gardener: he worked on the gardens of Catholic gentry including (as early as 1568–​69) Talbot, Lady Vaux, and possibly Thomas Tresham.106

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Hall was not purely concerned with tending to Catholic spiritual needs, however. He also seems to have visited the English seminary at Rheims, and according to the government agent William Herle, he had been involved in smuggling subversive books from France into England, perhaps under cover of buying plants: John Gyllpin tolld me ij yeres synce & more ... he mett att Roane with Hawll the preest, who amongest Trees & plants, & under Reames of white paper that he browght over hither, there were sedycyows bookes packed together very conynglye together, that allso he was then a mynister of messayges & practises, & he was suspected to have had Hydes bookes then, to be dispersed by his menes in England, the methode wherof was a descriptyon of all the states of England, & of the persons of the nobilytye, Cowncellors, & others well affected to God & our Soveraigne, in the sclanderest maner & most reprochefull that might be, onlye the Erlle of Sussex & som others were reverentlye spoken of, this remembrance towching Hawlle may serve to bryng som other thing to to lighte.107

This cannot be corroborated, but the government evidently thought it possible. Hall had been intimate with the Somerville household directly prior to the assassination attempt. Just days before, he made speeches which ‘towched her Maiestie greatly in honor’ in Somerville’s house and may have helped stir Somerville to action; before doing so, Somerville sent to Holdenby to ask Hall to hear his confession. Thomas Wilkes, the Council clerk who investigated the conspiracy, believed Hall was at its centre.108 A former Marian priest tending to gentry families was not in itself too unusual, but Hugh Hall also had strong connections with Hatton. Most obviously, he worked on the garden at Holdenby. The garden there had a section called ‘ye Rosiary’, which, it has been speculated, may have been ‘an abstruse reference to the mysteries of the Rosary’ (alternatively it may have been for growing roses).109 Whether he performed priestly functions within Hatton’s household is unknown, but it may be significant that as a legally ordained priest, he would have been regarded as much less dangerous by the authorities.110 Leicester’s Commonwealth, which is generally sympathetic towards Hatton, calls him Hatton’s priest, in a passage describing how Leicester had deceived or worked against the Queen, Norfolk, Shrewsbury and Hatton.111 Certainly Hall’s links to Hatton did not prevent him from maintaining his contacts within Catholic circles. He confessed to meeting the Catholic Sir Thomas Cornwallis in Suffolk and again, in 1582, at Ralph Sheldon’s house at Beoley, Worcestershire, where Cornwallis and his son-​in-​law Thomas Kitson asked Hall to celebrate mass. Within three days of that, Cornwallis

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and Kitson passed through ‘Holmby’ on their way home, on which occasion, he claimed, ‘they had no conference with him of anything but of gardens and orchyards’.112 Whether this is the case or not, it is striking that a Catholic priest in Hatton’s employ entertained prominent Catholic gentlemen at Hatton’s house. Following Somerville’s ‘plot’, several members of the family were put on trial; Somerville apparently committed suicide and Arden was executed. Hatton was a judge at the trial, along with other privy councillors and judges.113 Hall was tried in the Guildhall, found guilty and sentenced to death –​though he was not executed, perhaps because of a quiet intervention by Hatton.114 As in other cases, the government strenuously insisted that Somerville was not mad, but was simply a traitor.115 This, of course, meant that his actions could be taken to blacken the reputation of the entire Catholic community, and potentially their supporters in government as well. Interestingly, Herle believed that the conspiracy was revealed by Hatton’s own servant, Francis Flower. He wrote that: Frawnces Flowr is demed to have opend the gappe for discovery of Hawll the preest & others of that familye, butt nott of dutye to the Q[ueen] nor of zele to Religyon, being an Atheist him sellf & lowse. His polycye is sayd, to have byn partly for revenge, butt cheefflye for credite … The matter of Hawll the preest is devyded bettwen Somerfilld & him, the deciphreng of others of that Trowpe belongyng to his master, is ascribed only to him.116

There are two important points here: the claim that Flower revealed the Catholic networks behind the plot, and secondly the suggestion that there were ‘others of that Trowpe belongyng to his master’ –​that is, other Hatton associates were involved, something which Hatton would of course want to conceal. Neither can be substantiated, but they are revealing of Herle’s assessment of Hatton’s entourage.117 Indeed, these events cast Hatton in a very bad light and surely harmed his credit among those who knew the full story. According to Robert Southwell, the aftermath of the affair led to a crackdown on Catholics, and ‘amongst others one of the Queen’s Council, and a prime favourite of hers, seeing that on occasion of the aforesaid rumours a priest had been seized in the courts of his mansion, has retired to his house in the country, and called upon all his followers to guard him’.118 Clearly this refers to Hatton and Hall, and although there is no clear sign either that Hatton retreated to the country or that Hall was arrested at Holdenby, it suggests that Hatton was publicly embarrassed.119 While the prosecution clearly resulted from Somerville’s own actions, the backdrop to it was Leicester’s desire to destroy the Ardens and other conservative or Catholic families who challenged his dominance in Warwickshire

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(who were in several cases supported by Hatton). Consequently Leicester sought to exploit the ‘plot’ for these purposes. Whether this was an attempt to actually bring down Hatton is debatable. Parry and Enis suggest that it was, but while it is clear that Hugh Hall was being looked at very closely, it is not clear that Hatton’s colleagues on the Council believed him to be complicit in treason or wanted to destroy him.120 However, as Parry and Enis also persuasively argue, these events enabled Leicester and his allies to highlight the Catholic threat in order to thwart Whitgift’s attack on the Puritans in the Subscription Crisis. This was typical of a political dynamic centring on the contest for control of the public debate over which was the greater threat, Catholics or Puritans, which was partly predicated on the fact that Hatton (and others like him) protected the former and pursued the latter.121 Yet this should not be taken too far; the subscription campaign was not ended by this, but continued throughout 1584, and Hatton suffered no lasting damage; as Parry notes, the official investigation ‘studiously ignored Somerville’s links to Hatton’.122 Hatton also had long-​term connections with another member of the Throckmorton network, Ralph Sheldon of Beoley. We have already seen that Hatton and Sheldon were both patrons of Hugh Hall. In 1580, however, at the time that official policy towards Catholics was beginning to tighten in response to the start of the Jesuit mission, Sheldon was arrested for refusing to attend church for ten years or more. He was imprisoned in London for four months, at the end of which he agreed to conform. According to Robert Persons, he did so partly due to the appearance of a book, written by a Catholic and circulating among imprisoned recusant gentlemen, which argued that ‘it was not a sin to go to the heretical churches in order to avoid persecution, if at least there was a protest that this was done in obedience to the Prince’.123 Sheldon’s decision to conform was a blow to those Catholics advocating determined recusancy rather than quiet conformity; Persons writes that the ‘fall’ of Sheldon, ‘a very powerful and rich man’, ‘caused so much talk and scandal to the rest’ that it was criticised by other Catholics. He reported a pasquinade reading ‘Sheldon is fallen; and do you ken why? Through oves et boves et pecora campi [sheep and cows and beasts of the field]’.124 This phrase (taken from Psalm 8), it is argued, suggested that Sheldon had conformed in order to preserve his material wealth.125 However, historians have not previously noted that pecora campi was also one of Elizabeth’s pet names for Hatton, and was current in 1582. The rhyme may, therefore, be a coded suggestion that Hatton had interceded to encourage Sheldon to conform –​one might say, to bring Sheldon into the fold of Hatton’s compromised conformity rather than the obstinate and disruptive, if principled, stance of recusancy.126 Hatton and Sheldon continued to associate

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in the late 1580s: Sheldon’s account book records that he went to supper at Hatton’s on 6 November 1587, and also records tips to Hatton’s servants in 1587 and 1588.127 A 1594 confession of a plotter against Elizabeth suggests further connections between Hatton and Sheldon: it cites Sheldon’s nephew, Edward Williams, as commenting that when the campe was [the army to resist the Spanish Armada in 1588, when many gentry sent soldiers at their own expense], he [Sheldon] sente by me to Sir Christofer Hatton then Lo: Chauncellor 20 horsemen and 500li more to ayde the Spanyards then the Queene.

Hatton later protected him from the authorities, he said: He tolde us furthermore that his unckle Sheldon was condempned in diverse sommes of money at an Assyze for not cominge to churche that yeare his Cosyn Winter was Sherive of the Shire:128 But my unckle (said he) wrote to the L: Chancellor thereof, who ymediatlie wrote downe unto the L: Cheife Baron that he should not procede against him, writinge that he was at churche at his chappell at London when in truthe said Williams he was not at London at that tyme.129

It seems clear, therefore, that Hatton was protecting Sheldon, one of the most prominent Catholics in the West Midlands.130 Another prominent Midland Catholic was Lord Paget, who maintained an extremely cordial correspondence with Hatton from at least 1572 to 1580: Hatton acknowledged gifts of a horse and a hawk, sought to intercede with the Queen for a Catholic exile, apologised for being unable to find a court job for a Paget servant and so on. Paget clearly thought it well worth cultivating such a well-​placed and sympathetic ally at court. By 1580 Hatton was clearly the more powerful; Paget was imprisoned for his religion, and Hatton made clear to him that the price of his release was conformity: ‘I pray you that you will com too the churche and soo you shall be the best welcomyd man too our congregacion in this world’ –​again, as with Sheldon, Hatton encouraged his friends to at least outwardly conform.131 It should be recognised that the gentry discussed in this section were in most cases significant figures in their own rights, members of the county elites, local office-​holders, MPs, people with connections among the aristocracy and often some presence at court, and many of them emerging as leaders of an incipient Catholic community. Within the context of Warwickshire, the growing local dominance of the Dudley earls of Leicester and Warwick threatened them, and as Cathryn Enis has recently argued, it may well be that the surprising return of conservatives such as Sir John Throckmorton, Edward Arden, Francis Gawdy and others into local office in the mid-​1570s reflected Hatton’s growing power, as well as that of his cousin Sir Edward

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Saunders.132 If so then Hatton was able not only to protect his local associates, but to promote them as well. Hatton’s patronage could be significant in negotiating the balance of power in the provinces. It seems doubtful that Hatton deliberately sought to engage Leicester in a contest in the Arden-​ Somerville case, but as Simon Adams has observed, in faction fights like this, the tail often wagged the dog, and courtly patrons were dragged into contests by the actions and agendas of their local clients.

Landholdings elsewhere Hatton’s wider patronage clearly reflected the pattern of his landholdings elsewhere. Hatton had a major estate in Dorset based on Corfe Castle, which he bought in 1572 as part of a purchase of various lands costing in total £4,761 18s 7½d.133 He received other royal grants of land in Dorset, and also bought land in the area; these purchases seem to have been made in the mid-​1570s, whereas by the 1580s he focused on Northamptonshire, suggesting that Hatton may have considered seating himself in Dorset before concentrating on his home county.134 Hatton was also Vice-​Admiral of Dorset from 6 March 1582 until his death.135 Since it is very hard to see how he could have afforded the stated purchase price of Corfe in 1572, it seems possible that the Queen was keen to establish a trusted courtier in the region. For Hatton, it established a subsidiary base of power and patronage, and although he reportedly ‘much repaired … and amended’ the castle, he seems to have spent little time there.136 His main servant and deputy at Corfe was Francis Hawley, a thoroughly disreputable man who was distrusted by the Council, but stoutly defended by Hatton.137 He was heavily mixed up in the pirate trade, and ‘lived largely upon subventions of one kind or another from the pirates he was supposed to suppress. “They are my masters”, he stated on one occasion.’138 Pirates boasted of Hatton’s protection; on one occasion in 1581, when pirates brought a Spanish ship into Lyme, they would release it only on Hatton’s orders, not on the Council’s.139 No doubt Hatton took a cut from this activity. Perhaps relatedly, Hatton had very bad relations with at least some of the local population; all three of the Star Chamber suits he launched concerned depredations against the castle or its estate.140 There is little evidence about the religious situation in Corfe, although its isolated situation would have suited Catholics. John Clavell, one of Hatton’s men here and MP for Corfe in 1584, seems to have been a conforming Catholic.141 Hatton also made quite extensive purchases in Lancashire and Cheshire, which clearly relate to his ancestry there. The purchase in 1580 of several

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manors from the spendthrift Earl of Oxford, his sometime court rival, may have given him a degree of malicious satisfaction.142 He had various clients from here, such as Hugh Beeston junior, younger brother of another man of the same name, from a very good Cheshire family. He was involved in Hatton’s land dealings in Cheshire.143 He later had an active government career and was a friend of men such as Walter Ralegh and Robert Cecil. He had many Catholic and recusant links among his family (his mother, wife, and daughter), and he was suspected of crypto-​Catholicism himself.144 Hatton also interceded with the authorities on behalf of Catholics in this region, such as the Cheshire Catholic Lady Egerton of Ridley, or the Derbyshire gentleman Nicholas Longford, whom Hatton sought to protect as Lord Chancellor.145 Such intercessions could bring him into or close to conflict with his colleagues, as in 1584, when Sir Francis Walsingham was urging the Earl of Derby and the Bishop of Chester to pursue one Richard Massey while Hatton was urging that his father be treated with clemency.146 Leicester wrote to the Bishop at this time that he should tell Walsingham ‘the braggs of the papists; & by what means [they think] to obteyne frendship at L[ondon, at] the courte. I pray yow do yt effectually, for I must tell it’.147 Surely this was a reference to Hatton and a sign of the tension that his actions in favour of Catholics could cause unless he was extremely careful. Hatton also made purchases in Oxfordshire, mostly from Catholics, including Drew Barantine and the Harcourt family.148 This may be the reason for his association with a group of Catholics who emerge in 1589. After the execution of several Catholic priests and laymen in Oxford, the home village of one of them, Thomas Belson, was searched by the Catholic-​hunter Richard Topcliffe’s men on a warrant issued by Walsingham. They searched the howse of one Mr Englyshe dwellinge in Hollouridge, near to Watlington, and there found a recusante, namynge him selfe Randall, whose sister is wyf to the sayd Mr Englishe, and the same Mr Englishe is my Lo: Chancelors Servant, but his wyf and his mother in lawe beinge in house withe him ar bothe recusantes.

Randall (who was released from the Clink Prison on a bond and required to stay with English, quite likely thanks to Hatton) denied being a priest but admitted to being a recusant, saying ‘he was of my Lo: Mowntague his secte and a redye man to fyghte agaynste the Spanyards as my Lo: Montague was’. No further detail can be found concerning Hatton’s relationship with Randall, but there is a definite connection with John English, to whom Hatton granted an annuity of £10 in 1583; possibly English was an old servant of Hatton’s, who extended his protection to the whole household.149

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Francis Knollys reported this to Burghley and Walsingham, since it took place on his home turf of Oxfordshire, but his heart was not entirely in it: I do stand almost discoraged to serve her Majestie faythfullye agaynste these popishe trayters, and trayterous recusantes, because I do not fynde my self well backed nor countenaunced, in my standinge in defence of her Majesties righte in her supreame governmente agaynste the fowle claymed superioritie of byshopps ... the which her Majesties supreme govermente, I do wonder and am abashede to see that cheif councellors of this estate do not stande to the defence therof, agaynste the sayd byshopps ... Her Majestie cannot be Safe, yf her supreme governmente shalbe suffered to be ympugned by the sayd byshopps, without better defence by councellors of estate, then hetherto hathe ben made or done.

This likely constitutes a series of complaints against Hatton, his protection of recusants and his support of Whitgift (there is also a grumpy postscript saying that it was no wonder there were so many Martinists about).150 Hatton also had more interest in Ireland than is usually remembered. He was involved from the beginning in the Munster plantation, which, after the disgrace of the Earl of Desmond, aimed to establish English settlers on his confiscated lands. Hatton was granted the seignory of Knocknamona, an estate of 10,910 acres in western County Waterford.151 He was also constable of the royal castle of Dungarvan. More significant, however, were Hatton’s partners in this venture, Sir Edward Fitton and Sir Rowland Stanley, two prominent north-​western gentry.152 It is no surprise that his partners were distinctly conservative, some of the most inclined to Catholicism of all the Munster ‘undertakers’. Fitton was strongly suspected of Catholicism (his brother was ordained a priest in 1600), but with Stanley there was no doubt: his son William Stanley betrayed Deventer to Spain in 1587 (his lieutenant, Captain Jaques, was a Catholic former Hatton servant in Ireland).153 Fitton was probably in charge of the practicalities, as he had extensive experience of Ireland, with Hatton acting as the court representative who secured Fitton and Stanley the entrée which other ministers might otherwise have vetoed.154 Stanley later dropped out due to his son’s treachery and was replaced by Sir George Bourchier.155 The undertakers’ primary motivation was no doubt profit, but it is worth considering whether there was a religious motivation too. There were repeated proposals to deal with the problem of religious division by exporting religious minorities overseas. This is of course a more familiar proposition with regard to Puritan settlers in the New World, but there were also proposals to establish colonies for English Catholics –​for example, Sir Thomas Gerrard’s schemes in 1569 and 1570 to colonise Antrim with Lancashire Catholics, and the proposals of Sir William Gerrard and Sir George Peckham in the late 1570s and early 1580s to establish a Catholic

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colony in America (in the early 1630s, this notion led to the establishment of Maryland).156 While there could be no question of official recognition, it is possible that Hatton or his followers thought of their lands as a potential resort for Catholics, which would explain the prominent place of Lancashire men.

Entourage and servants As we have seen, tracing the networks which begin with Hatton’s family and the contacts they gave him throws up many Catholics and conservatives. Of course Hatton could not choose his family or origins, but turning now to look at the friends and servants Hatton chose as his career at Elizabeth’s Court developed, very much the same is true. The most obvious place to start is with Hatton’s entourage and senior servants, the men with whom Hatton spent much of his time and to whom he entrusted his domestic and financial affairs. In assessing these men we have (unusually for Hatton) an invaluable guide in the form of a list of his leading servants while Lord Chancellor. This lists twenty men whom we can regard as the core of his entourage; some are extremely obscure, but we know a good deal about the more important ones, and some significant details about others. Those about whom we can say most are, in order named, ‘my loving frende Mr Doctor Swale’, ‘my Chaplen and lovinge frende Mr Doctor Bancrofte’; ‘my lovinge servaunte Fraunces Flower’, ‘my lovinge servaunte Edwarde Dodge’, ‘my lovinge frende Sebastean Bruskett’, ‘my loving servaunte Peter Houghton’ and Thomas Laughter.157 The most familiar figure here is Richard Bancroft, Hatton’s chaplain and future Bishop of London and Archbishop of Canterbury; he is discussed in Chapter 5. The men named third and fourth, Francis Flower and Edward Dodge, were probably Hatton’s closest servants and men of business; they worked closely together and both had chambers at Ely Place.158 They were deeply involved in Hatton’s personal financial and land dealing, and must have known more of these matters than anyone else.159 They were active in this role by 1581 at the latest.160 Francis Flower was a cadet member of a gentry family in Rutland and a lawyer. He had some literary ability (among other things, he wrote the epitaph for Hatton’s tomb), and may have met Hatton in connection with the Inns revels.161 He was in Hatton’s service by 1573, when he received a printing monopoly, surely by way of Hatton’s influence, which he farmed out for £100.162 He held minor office under Hatton at Eltham Park, and supervised the works at Ely Place.163 Hatton secured him seats in Parliament between 1584 and 1589, and he sat for Corfe in 1593, with

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the patronage of William Hatton.164 He was also a JP in Middlesex by 1588.165 Crucially, he was Hatton’s deputy as remembrancer of first fruits and tenths and was responsible for the ‘kepinge of the Booke of entries, & Caviates of Benefices’; since, as we have seen, Hatton was ‘lending’ himself massive sums of the Queen’s money via first fruits, Flower was pivotal in one of Hatton’s largest income streams. Burghley believed Flower to be fairly openly corrupt, although in fact the corruption was Hatton’s responsibility, not Flower’s.166 There are conflicting signs about Flower’s religion. Warkentin argued that he was a conformist, even a Puritan. He certainly had links with the separatist Robert Browne (who was his nephew) and the Puritan vicar of Giggleswick, Christopher Shute.167 His will suggests solid Protestantism.168 There is also evidence that he was active against Catholic missionary priests: as a JP he was on the bench for at least one trial of seminary priests, where he was described as ‘an upstart gentlemen & Justice, whom God pardon for his unseemly mocking of God’s Priests’. He also interrogated a servant of the Earl of Northumberland, alongside the hot Protestant clerk of the Council, Robert Beale.169 However, the senior branch of his family was Catholic, and made marriages with a daughter of Ralph Sheldon and other Catholic families such as the Collys of Glaston; his cousin and contemporary John Flower was investigated for his contacts with a Catholic priest who was an associate of Campion’s.170 As we have seen, William Herle thought him an atheist who exposed the Hall-​Somerville affair.171 Ultimately it seems likely that he was simply a conformist whose link with Hatton related to his Northamptonshire or Rutland origins rather than his religious tendencies; they were probably distant cousins.172 Through his connection with Hatton, Flower gained some prominence. In 1591, he was the dedicatee of the first, ‘pirate’, printing of Sidney’s Astrophil and Stella.173 Presentable at court, eloquent, and conformist, he was perhaps the acceptable public face of Hatton’s entourage.174 After Hatton’s death left him without a master, he rather abjectly sought Burghley’s patronage, though in 1593 he was still wearing a jewelled ‘H’ in memory of his former master.175 Flower’s colleague, Hatton’s ‘lovinge servaunte’ Edward Dodge, was a much shadier figure, however. Like Flower, his origins were in the minor gentry; his father, John Dodge, may have been a court official under Mary I, and sometimes sent information to Burghley about Norfolk papists, possibly as a loyal Catholic himself.176 Along with his brother-​in-​law Peter Houghton, another Hatton client, Dodge administered Hatton’s lucrative farm of the customs of French wine from 1577–​93, making all three very wealthy. He continued to be associated with Hatton’s heirs for some years after his death.177 He later went into business with Walter Ralegh,

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shipping wooden pipestaves from Ireland, and died owning land in Kent and Gloucestershire.178 Unlike Flower, however, Dodge had clear Catholic sympathies; his will bequeathed his soul to God, Jesus, the Holy Ghost and ‘all the holie companie of Saintes in Heaven’, an unmistakeably Catholic formulation.179 He also had links with Catholic gentry in Kent.180 Furthermore, he had connections with underground London Catholicism. A Catholic informant reported thus in 1586: Theare dwellith in Fetter Lane a gentellwoman called Mistris Fuller, her howse is an apointed Receptacle for the Papistes for theare many of them doe meete and heare Masse sayd by one Harding a preist who some tyme was had in question for conspyring her Majesties death by sorcerye. To this place resortyth Babbington and Barnewell, the one an Ireland man, the other of Darbyshire both gentellmen of good account but of bad dissposytion, theise are the Popes whyte sonnes: for dyvers peeces of service which they doe to Rome against this Realme. Thether also resorteth one Mr Dodge, Sir Christopher Hattons man.

Fetter Lane was a notorious haunt of Catholics.181 There were hints that Dodge was involved via such links in plots against the Queen; in the midst of the Arden-​Somerville affair, Edward Bacon reported to Nathaniel Bacon that ‘ther is a speach that one Dodes towardes Sir Christopher Hatton shold be in pryson. The truth is not known.’182 Perhaps because of these connections (or perhaps because he was not quite of the same social level), Dodge did not receive the same level of preferment as Flower did: whereas Flower became an MP and a gentleman pensioner, Dodge did neither. He was, however, admitted to Gray’s Inn alongside Bancroft, surely at Hatton’s behest.183 A close associate of Dodge’s, and another of Hatton’s men, was Peter Houghton, gentleman, of Fenchurch Street, London, a grocer and a prominent London citizen, alderman and in 1593 Sheriff of London.184 He was noted as a servant of Hatton’s in 1583, in connection with the farm of wines.185 He acted as a receiver for the subsidy in 1587 and, no doubt because of his mercantile operations, had some involvement in cross-​Channel political affairs.186 He was very rich, and lent money extensively: £3,200 to the Earl of Shrewsbury, £6,000 to the Earl of Cumberland.187 It is surprising that so substantial a man would be content to be Hatton’s servant but there can be no doubt about the identification: he named his eldest son Hatton. Houghton and Dodge were involved both in Hatton’s land dealings, in land dealing together and later in some of Sir William Hatton’s sale of lands.188 There is no clear indication about Houghton’s religion, but his kin relations suggest Catholic inclinations. His wife was Edward Dodge’s sister, Mary. After Houghton’s death Mary married Sir Thomas Vavasour, also from a notable Catholic family.189 Houghton’s daughter, also Mary, made

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an excellent match with Sir James Scudamore, a courtier from a prominent and religiously conservative Herefordshire family, whose stepmother Mary Scudamore (née Shelton) was one of the Queen’s closest female servants.190 Sebastian Bryskett is usually regarded as a loose follower of Hatton’s but was by 1584 a senior member of Hatton’s entourage.191 He witnessed legal documents for Hatton.192 He came from an Italian family (originally ‘Bruschetto’) long resident in England and spent time in Italy, studying at Venice and Rome in the 1550s and 1560s and living in Italy in the 1570s. He was in Leicester’s service in the 1560s. Like other members of his family, Sebastian was essentially Catholic; his will stated that he adhered to ‘the true Catholick faithe’ and his sister married a notable recusant.193 As a young man, between 1563 and 1565, the Brysketts were involved in highly discreet contacts between the papacy and Elizabeth’s government with the object of returning England to some kind of obedience to Rome. Sebastian acted as courier between his father Antonio (who passed letters on to William Cecil) and Gurone Bertano, a servant of the Cardinal of Lorraine based in Rome who had contacts with Pope Pius IV and senior members of the curia. Sebastian may have entered Leicester’s service to forward this project.194 It is unknown when Sebastian entered Hatton’s service, but he was close to several people in the Hatton circle. Arden Waferer was the family’s lawyer and an overseer of Sebastian’s will; Francis Alford, the well-​known MP and religious conservative, was the other overseer; Bryskett’s close friend and executor was Robert Brokesby, Hatton’s Leicestershire Catholic cousin.195 Another important client, whose travails reveal some of the tensions stirred up by Hatton’s support for Catholics, was Richard Swale, a Yorkshireman, a lawyer and fellow of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. That college had both orthodox Protestant fellows and simultaneously a significant Catholic profile; the college’s historian has referred to ‘a fervour of Catholic idealism abroad in the College in the 1570s and 1580s’.196 Hatton had several connections with Caius: in 1579 he intervened in the college in favour of one Remigius Booth, later a supporter of Swale, and in 1590 the master, Thomas Legge, witnessed an important document for Hatton.197 In February 1582, Archbishop Sandys of York wrote to Burghley, as Chancellor of Cambridge, asking that Legge should take no more pupils, to breed and train up in popery; as hitherto he hath, and still doth. All the popish gentlemen in this country send their sons to him. He setteth sundry of them over to one Swayl, also of the same house; by whom the youth of this country is corrupted: that at their return to their parents, they are able to dispute in the defence of popery: and few of them will repair to the church.198

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Hatton’s association with Swale dated from the early 1580s, when Swale faced trouble over these religious tensions. A group of younger fellows complained to Burghley, over the heads of the Master, Vice-​Chancellor and visitors, that Legge, Swale and others were ‘rooted in Papistry’ and ‘fosteres of Papists’; the full complaint, comprising eighty-​eight articles, was a catalogue of crypto-​Catholic non-​conformity, all the more alarming in the wake of the Jesuit mission.199 Burghley referred the complaint to the Vice-​Chancellor, who heard it in February–​March 1582, and eventually sent representatives of both sides, including Swale, to Burghley for a decision, albeit with a summary criticising Swale. At this point we have the first evidence of Swale’s connection with Hatton: by June and July 1582, Hatton was writing letters warmly supporting Swale’s claim to a proctorship in the university, describing him as ‘my servaunt’, and ‘a man in truth in whome I repose greate confidence’.200 Around the same time, Burghley wrote to Hatton asking him to refrain from involvement. He called Swale a liar and said that he had ‘abused’ Burghley ‘many ways’ and ‘maintained covertly in the College a faction against the true religion received, corrupting the youth there with corrupt opinions of Popery’. He also noted that Swale was ‘as I perceive, now your man (though I think he was not when he was called before me)’.201 Clearly Swale was not a long-​standing Hatton client, but sought his support when he got into trouble, which suggests that Hatton was seen as the obvious refuge to a crypto-​Catholic who got into trouble. Burghley’s letter was an unusually aggressive warning-​off from one councillor to another, but Hatton ignored it. Eventually, Burghley backed down, and Legge and Swale kept their places. The inability of the Chancellor of the university to enforce his wishes points to an intervention by someone with patronage power of the calibre of Hatton.202 It remains unclear precisely why Hatton was willing to get involved here; was there a bribe? Was he keen to assert himself over Burghley? Or was he simply prepared to assist a Catholic in this way? Swale was still in Hatton’s service over a decade later, and has been described as Hatton’s right-​hand man as Lord Chancellor.203 He witnessed documents for Hatton, and was called his ‘creature’; he surely had Hatton to thank for being made Doctor of Civil Law (1587), Master in Chancery (1587), MP for Higham Ferrers (formerly Hatton’s own seat) in 1589, his appointment (by Whitgift) as Chancellor of Ely, and other favours.204 Swale is noted in the Lansdowne list as having as a profitable duty ‘mynistering of the Oath to all suche as sue lyveries &c or shalbe made free denizens’. During Hatton’s time as Chancellor, Swale also became prominent within the higher ecclesiastical courts, presumably placed there by Hatton (in 1602, in

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the Court of Audience of Canterbury, he pronounced valid the marriage of John and Ann Donne).205 He continued to prosper after Hatton’s death: he was sent in 1600 on a diplomatic mission to Denmark with Bancroft; and in 1603 he was knighted. His precise religious views remain unclear, but his second wife was a Catholic.206 Hatton placed several of his followers in parliamentary seats in the three elections during his time as a senior minister, in 1584, 1586 and 1588. Hatton does not emerge as a major parliamentary patron, partly because Northamptonshire had few parliamentary seats and several rivals for influence (principally Burghley and Mildmay), as well as many substantial gentlemen with forward Protestant views. He may well have placed his servant Richard Knollys or Knowles at Northampton in 1588, although the identification is not certain. Given that Northampton was practically in Holdenby’s back yard, his lack of influence here is surprising, but Northampton was a fairly Puritan town.207 At Higham Ferrers, where Hatton himself sat in 1572, Hatton surely ensured the election of Richard Swale.208 Elsewhere, Hatton was recorder and steward of Huntingdon from 1581, which explains the return of Francis Flower in 1584, 1586 and 1588.209 Hatton had patronage at Corfe Castle too, which seems to have been enfranchised at his request in 1572; his nominees included Sir William Hatton and Francis Hawley, his deputy at Corfe.210 Hatton may have arranged for Richmond in Yorkshire to return his secretary Samuel Cox in 1586.211 As well as Huntingdon, Hatton was chosen as Chief Steward of Andover (May 1589) and Salisbury (November 1590).212 Returning to the Lansdowne list of Hatton’s servants, little can be established about many of the smaller fry, but two had fairly clear Catholic links. Firstly, Thomas Laughter, who was listed as Hatton’s gentleman servant, seems to have been an accountant who had formerly worked for the well-​ known Suffolk Catholic Sir Thomas Cornwallis.213 Secondly, Edward Gage, who cannot be identified with certainty, but was probably one of the several men of that name from the extensive Gage family of Firle and elsewhere, a leading Catholic family in Sussex.214 One member of this family was a Babington plotter.215 Not listed on the Lansdowne list, but closely linked to his business affairs, was Arden Waferer, a lawyer related to the Warwickshire Catholic Arden family. He and Hatton had a fairly close association dating back to their studies at the Temple. Waferer acted as legal agent and man-​of business for Hatton and he was involved in many of Hatton’s land transactions. He also acted as lawyer for the Ardens and other Catholics or conservatives, such as the Earl of Northumberland.216 Waferer was well known to be Catholic.217 In 1585 he was one of the recusants from whom the Council demanded light horsemen for service in the Netherlands. He asked for extra time in

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which he hoped to obtain ‘lettres from her Majesties Cowncell for ther discharge’ –​quite likely something he hoped Hatton would arrange.218 His brother Francis was a Jesuit priest.219 He may well have been involved in Campion and Persons’s Jesuit mission; one contemporary source mentions ‘Greenstreet Mr Wayfarers hovse’. Green Street, in East Ham, was the house where Persons’s covert printing press was based in 1580. Waferer did not own it (it seems to have been owned by Hatton’s cousin Edward Brokesby), but he was involved in land transactions in East Ham in 1581, so it is possible he was involved in some way.220 None of this dented Hatton’s commitment to Waferer. He vouched for him very heartily to Burghley in 1577; Hatton referred to him as ‘my frende’, and as being engaged in ‘necessarie affayres of myne’ in a letter to Burghley; he continued ‘I knowe the man so well, and have knowen hym for these 14 or 15 yeres, even since my fyrst commynge to the Inner Temple ... that I verelie thinke he wilbe well able, to awnswere all matters, that his adversaries shall obiecte against hym.’ It seems like a transparent attempt to get him out of a scrape.221 A gentleman servant of Waferer’s, Israell Frere, also witnessed documents for Hatton; in 1618, still living in Holborn, he was charged with recusancy, and in 1625 was a surety for a man accused of being a Catholic priest.222 Another lawyer whom Hatton protected was the openly Catholic barrister from Somerset John Lancaster, whose election to ‘ancient’ of Gray’s Inn was prompted by Hatton. Lancaster may have been an associate of Francis Flower, but more interestingly had significant links with the subversive Catholic underworld: he provided an alibi for John Colleton, the only defendant at the Campion trial to be acquitted.223 When it comes to Hatton’s lesser servants, the sources are of course thinner. Hatton’s household, like that of any major political figure, swarmed with junior gentleman servants, friends and hangers-​ on. John Stow described how, when he was sworn in as Lord Chancellor on 3 May 1587, he was accompanied by ‘about forty of his gentlemen’ in his blue livery and gold chains, not counting ‘several Pensioners and other Gentlemen of the Court’.224 His funeral lists include thirty-​six gentlemen in ordinary, in addition to senior household staff, musicians, cooks, messengers and so forth.225 Many can be identified only in single incidental mentions. Yet in odd records, Hatton’s Catholic associations continue to emerge. Henry Pyne, for example, was a trusted servant of Hatton’s from at least 1576 to 1588, acting as an intermediary with ministers and ambassadors.226 He later settled on the Munster plantation, at Mogeely in County Cork, being described as ‘a popishe and verie daungerous fellowe: entertayner of priests’.227 A slightly better-​documented case is Hatton’s gentleman servant of twenty-​three years, Henry Lanman. In 1600, Lanman’s son, also Henry,

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travelled to Rome to enter the English College, ultimately becoming a Jesuit priest. He recorded that his father and most of the rest of the family were ‘schismatics’, which almost certainly means that they were church papists (if they had been genuine Protestants, they would have been described as heretics).228 Lanman brought his son into Hatton’s household for a year, then Hatton placed him with one Hawley, a clerk of petty bag and Middlesex JP, in the hope of making a career in chancery, but then Hatton and Hawley both died. Young Henry then entered the service of Viscount Montague, converted to Catholicism and became a seminary priest. He also wrote that his mother ‘lived as a Catholic for many years, but relapsed through fear when Hatton died’. Clearly, then, the family lived under Hatton’s protection with a mixture of conforming and more openly Catholic attitudes, until his death led to stricter conformity.229 Another dangerous connection of Hatton’s was with William Tempest, son of Robert Tempest of Holmside, a prominent rebel in 1569 who later went into exile; this branch of the extensive Tempest family contained numerous Catholic exiles, priests, Jesuits and their supporters.230 William Tempest came to the attention of the authorities in 1582 at the trial of John Payne, a seminary priest who travelled between England and Europe, because on at least one occasion, apparently in 1577, he ‘travailed with a traitors sonne, Mr William Tempest’. Payne admitted this, but said ‘Tempest was an honest gentilman, and never talked with him about treason, neither was it unlawfull to keepe him companie, seeing that he was servant to a right honorable counsellor, Sir Christopher Hatton.’231 Payne was supposedly plotting to kill the Queen, something that was important in the Campion trial and also used against the Earl of Arundel in 1589. Payne was also close to the family of Sir John Petre, the Essex gentleman who, despite his more or less open Catholicism, remained prominent in county government; Payne was executed at Chelmsford in 1582, probably as a warning to the Petres and others.232 Hatton, too, had a cordial relationship with Petre, and as we have seen sent him a volume of Euclid. Petre’s impunity is usually attributed to Burghley’s protection, but it may well be that Hatton played a role too.233 Another link between Hatton, Petre and the Tempests was William Byrd; after the 1569 rebellion, the Queen had granted an annuity of £20 to Dorothy Tempest, wife of the attainted Michael Tempest, and in 1581 Byrd intervened with Exchequer officials to ensure it was paid.234 Again, therefore, tracing Hatton’s associates very quickly leads us into a mixture of elements within the Catholic community: some very dangerous or subversive people, some quiescent or conforming Catholics.

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Courtiers and court patronage Hatton had many friends and followers in the middle ranks of court service (such as gentlemen pensioners), which must naturally have followed from his many years as a courtier and senior court official. There are many records of him taking part in jousts and performances alongside these men, for example.235 He was in effect fulfilling the dream of every gentleman pensioner, and in his turn he was very well placed to provide patronage to his friends.236 A notable example is Thomas Markham, a prominent Nottinghamshire gentleman with many local offices and also a gentleman pensioner at court. The evidence for his association with Hatton is thin, but he was reported to be ‘great’ with Hatton, and to be bereft by Hatton’s death.237 Although Markham was not a Catholic, his wife, Mary Griffin, notoriously was, as were their children, including Sir Griffin, who was involved in plots such as the Bye plot, and Robert, who entered the English College in Rome in 1593.238 A young Markham, probably Robert, was at school in Rome in 1593, hoping to become a priest, whose father ‘was great with the L: Chancelor laste’.239 Thomas Markham’s nephew, Sir John Harington was also a friend of Hatton’s, as suggested by several mentions in Harington’s writing: ‘Who was more magnificent in matters of trew honor, more sumptuows in buildinge, ritch in furnishinge, royall in entertayninge, orderly in maintayninge his howse then Sir Christofer Hatton, late Lord Chawncellor? A man taught vyrtue, framed to wisdom, raysed to honor, by her Majesties speciall grace and choyce.’240 Another court associate was Robert Colshill, a gentleman pensioner and Hatton’s ‘companyon & dere frend’.241 His service at court dated back to Mary I’s reign, and he was at various times a client of the earls of Arundel, Sussex and possibly Leicester; any of these might have involved him in the Norfolk marriage plot, over which he seems to have been interrogated in 1569. His religious views are not clear, but he had good links with conservatives at court. He later became closely associated with Hatton; in 1579, with Bartholomew Tate and William Saunders, he hosted Lord Burghley at Holdenby on Hatton’s behalf.242 A good friend and business partner of Colshill’s was Henry Macwilliam, another gentleman pensioner.243 He had earlier links with Leicester, Burghley and Bedford, but became a Hatton client by about 1579, acting as his go-​ between, for example during the 1581 Parliament.244 He served as jailer of the Earl of Arundel after his attempt to flee England in April 1585. In a letter to Hatton at this time, Walsingham warned Hatton that Macwilliam should ‘look well to his charge’, as Arundel had obviously been receiving

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visitors –​evidently Walsingham was not convinced that Macwilliam was treating his prisoner with appropriate severity.245 Later he was responsible for interrogating Chidiock Tichborne’s wife. His religion is also hard to pin down. He was married to John Cheke’s widow, Mary; his daughter Susan married Hatton’s cousin Edward Saunders (son of Hatton’s man-​of-​business William Saunders) and another married Sir John Stanhope, also a Hatton client.246 Hatton must have had many other friends among the gentleman pensioners, which was his main perch at court from 1564 until he rose to the status of a major royal favourite about 1572. One was John Farnham, another gentleman pensioner, an older man and an old associate of Norfolk, and also with links with the Manners, Lord Buckhurst and others; he left Hatton an agate engraved with the Virgin.247 Another may have been Robert Wiseman, who like Hatton became a gentleman pensioner in 1564 and was strongly suspected of Catholicism and sympathy for the Duke of Norfolk and the northern rebels. Despite this, he retained his court position, and was employed on government business between September 1587 and December 1591 –​ almost exactly the period that Hatton was Lord Chancellor.248 A third may have been Thomas Bedingfield, who dedicated a translation of Machiavelli’s History of Florence to Hatton. Bedingfield was a member of a very prominent Catholic family although himself a conformist.249 Bedingfield also had links with others in Hatton’s circle, including Sir William Hatton, Thomas Churchyard and Henry Macwilliam.250 His nephew, the head of the family, asked Hatton to oversee his will.251 Hatton was also a friend of John Roper, a Catholic, who served under him in the Queen’s Guard and was probably a relation of William Roper, Sir Thomas More’s son-​in-​law.252 It has not previously been noted that Hatton had closer links with this prominent and prestigious Catholic kinship network, however.253 From 1573, in a very unusual connection, an indenture was made ‘for the paiement of CC markes [200 marks, or £133 6s 8d] yerelie to Christofer Hatton Esquier duringe his liffe made by the iij Ropers’.254 We can only speculate about why this was. It may relate to Hatton’s office as Keeper of Eltham –​Hatton may have granted something to the Ropers (a house, or land perhaps) in return for this substantial annuity; a more intriguing alternative is that Hatton somehow undertook to protect the Ropers from the authorities –​that he was effectively being retained by them. Hatton certainly acted as a protector of the Ropers. Around the start of 1578, John Roper’s house was searched by Bishop Aylmer’s men, who discovered Catholic paraphernalia –​not merely prayer books or rosaries, but ‘vestmentes, ables [sic] and suche other trumpery ornamentes of the Masse’, which suggests that clandestine masses were held there. Aylmer apologised profusely for having harassed his patron’s friends, disclaiming responsibility.255 Hatton did not sever the connection, however: in 1580, Christopher,

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son of John Roper, was admitted to the Inner Temple without payment, at Hatton’s request.256 Despite their close association with one of the greatest martyrs of the English Reformation, this branch of the family were fairly conformist, which fits the profile of many Hatton clients.257

Court Catholics and the English missions Many of those discussed up to now were relatively moderate figures, whose religion may have been Catholic or Catholic-​leaning, but who sought to maintain a facade of conformity and eschewed political expression of their faith. However, one does not have to move very far through Hatton’s circles to come across more dangerous figures. While quiescent Catholics might be tacitly tolerated both at court and the counties, there were two classes of Catholic activity which were treated with the utmost severity: dealings with foreign-​trained seminary priests or Jesuits, and plotting against the Queen. Examples of both are to be found among Hatton’s networks of patronage and friendship. As the generation which remembered pre-​Reformation and even Marian Catholicism died out, the character of English Catholicism began shifting. The most obvious symptom of this tendency was the beginning of the English missions by seminary priests and later Jesuits, which –​as Bossy and Haigh have famously noted –​made particularly strong connections with the aristocracy and gentry, including courtiers. In many cases, these formed a fairly extremist element of the activist Catholic underground in London and the provinces. The perceived threat of these missions to the Elizabethan settlement was such that the regime pursued these priests and Jesuits with more energy than it did any other Catholics: the pursuit of the first Jesuit missionaries, Edmund Campion and Robert Persons, was a particularly sensational soap opera in 1580–​81. It is therefore remarkable that, again, Hatton had a large number of contacts within such circles. One friend was Thomas Pound, a gentleman with powerful connections among the conservative aristocracy, including the earls of Southampton and Sussex; he and Hatton were friends at the Inns of Court and later at court. A writer of some ability, he wrote a wedding-​feast entertainment attended by the Queen for the Earl of Sussex and also entertainments performed at Kenilworth. However he converted to Catholicism in 1570 and became a Jesuit lay brother in 1578, spending much of the 1570s, 80s and 90s in prison. Pound was a close associate of Campion and Persons when they arrived in England in 1580; he put them in touch with George Gilbert, and he advised Campion to issue his ‘Brag’, challenging the Elizabethan regime.258 It is unclear how close to Hatton he really was, but in an emotional petition

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to Hatton from prison in 1580, Pound referred to their former friendship, describing himself as ‘your old acquaintance & companion both in courte and before in Inns of courte’ and thanked Hatton for interceding with Bishop Aylmer for him.259 Pound later grew more strident in his opposition to the regime (displaying a picture of Mary, Queen of Scots on his prison cell wall, for example), so possibly Hatton cut ties with him.260 Pound was part of a circle of Catholic gentry who aided priests during the first stages of the English Jesuit mission. At the centre of this circle was George Gilbert, with whom Hatton does not seem to have had concrete links.261 Much more certain, however, were Hatton’s links with other members of the group: his cousin Edward Brokesby, William Tresham, Anthony Babington, and Chidiock Tichborne.262 While Hatton himself probably had little desire to see foreign-​trained priests take a prominent role in England, therefore, he had plenty of friends who did. Also linked with this network was another priest, Ralph Betham, who in 1584, having returned to the Protestant fold, provided the government with an account of his Catholic contacts. These included links with Campion and recusant gentry such as the Dormers. Another of Betham’s contacts was Richard Norris, a seminary priest who had taught at Gloucester Hall, Oxford, an institution very popular with crypto-​Catholic gentry and nobility.263 Norris was imprisoned in the Marshalsea late in 1581, was banished in January 1585, but returned in May the same year, only to be banished again in 1587.264 Betham recounted that ‘about Christmas was foure yeares’ (late 1579 or early 1580), I was conversante with the saide Norys at tymes for the space of a quarter of a yeare in London aboute the same tyme he brought me to be confessed by him in a lodginge which he had then in Holburne in the fayre house which Sir Christopher Hatton buylte of bricke a lytle above Holburne bridge almoste over against Sainte Andrews churche in Holburne.265

This precisely describes Ely Place, where Hatton had been rebuilding in brick.266 The notion of Hatton providing lodging for an undercover Catholic priest who then used it for meetings with co-​religionists is remarkable. It is possible that Hatton did not know; he was usually at court and probably spent much less time at Ely Place than his senior servants, but at the very least it proves that elements within his entourage were willing to welcome Norris onto the premises. Furthermore, Betham was moving in a Catholic network which included several other individuals with links to Hatton: he heard mass in a house in Fetter Lane, for example, along with George Gilbert and ‘one Perpointe’, possibly Gervase Pierrepoint, the Nottinghamshire gentleman who accompanied Campion into the provinces while Gilbert escorted Persons.267

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Gilbert’s wealthy gentry circle in London leads us to a yet more extreme Catholic circle, that of the Babington plotters. As we have seen, the plotters were mostly wealthy young Catholic gentlemen, many with links to the court. Astonishingly, multiple Hatton clients were deeply involved in the plot.268 Henry Dunne or Donne was a servant of Hatton’s, working for him in the First Fruits Office, and living in a ‘lodginge over agaynste Syr Christofer Hattons’, apparently in or near Ely Place, ‘where Ballard dyd lodg’, presumably at some earlier point.269 He was probably a relative of the poet John Donne, who was himself closely linked to Catholic networks.270 As the authorities knew, Henry Dunne had many connections in the Catholic underworld. He seems to have been involved in the attempt of Philip Howard, Earl of Arundel, to flee to the Continent in 1585. He was interrogated in the matter by (of all people) Hatton himself, who apparently pronounced him ‘but simple’ rather than culpable. On that basis, Walsingham agreed to release him (though he may have had ulterior motives at this juncture).271 Walsingham also, however, noted that ‘I have long sythence knowen that D[unne] hathe bene a collector of releife for the Seminaries’ –​that is, he collected money from wealthy Catholic laymen to support seminary priests in England. This is both a remarkable thing for a servant of the Queen’s Vice-​Chamberlain to do, and an extraordinary thing for Walsingham to have put directly to Hatton, since it amounted virtually to a challenge.272 Dunne is also recorded to have persuaded others to convert to Catholicism.273 A year later, Dunne was involved in the Babington Plot and is sometimes listed as a servant of Dodge’s, although this may reflect a tactful reluctance to implicate Hatton in scandal.274 In Camden’s account, he is mentioned as working in the First Fruits Office but the connection with Hatton is not noted (though the link with first fruits might have been a hint to those familiar with Hatton’s offices).275 Like the rest of the plotters, he was tried and executed in September 1586. As we have seen, another Babington plotter was Chidiock Tichborne, a member of a Catholic Dorset family. He entered Hatton’s service in Spring 1586, when he was already known to be a Catholic, having been imprisoned for aiding a priest. According to Penry Williams, ‘he was a known Catholic and was interrogated in 1583 about some “popish relics” that he had brought back from abroad, where he had gone without leave; and in June 1586 accusations about “popish practices” were laid against his family’.276 Tichborne also had links with Christopher Anketill, one of Hatton’s disreputable Corfe Castle officials; in 1585 Tichborne rented a house in Dorset from Anketill.277 When in late summer 1586 the plotters were rounded up, interrogated, tried and sentenced to death, Hatton participated not only in the

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interrogations but at the trial too.278 This must have been excruciatingly embarrassing for Hatton, who surely can have had no idea what his servants were doing. Yet talk of the scandal was all around the court and London. The Spanish ambassador, Mendoza, reported that an unnamed secretary of Hatton’s, ‘a strong Catholic’, was arrested after the conspiracy was exposed; perhaps this was Dunne.279 On 19 September 1586 (the day before his death), Babington himself wrote to an unknown addressee, asking him to speak to Flower or another of Hatton’s gentlemen and try to obtain a pardon through either Ralegh (offering him £1,000) or Hatton, saying he could do more service if he were pardoned.280 While the conspiracy was still being planned, another of Hatton’s men, one Knight, procured another significant conspirator, John Ballard, a passport to go abroad. Thomas Phelippes, one of Walsingham’s aides, told his master that There was great meane made unto me at my coming away for one Thorowgood by your Honour’s favor to passe the sea. It was pretended that he sought to avoyde Mr. Vicechamberlain’s wrathe being one towched with the death of Best. But it was a notoriows enemye who was the setter on of the sute and Mr. Vichamberlens man and it was whispered unto me that it shold be Ballard to passe under that fayned name. I was not assured and therfore rejected the motion although a good gratification were spoken of which made it more suspiciows. Howbeit I have had even in this cowntrye inckling it shold be he or as badd a man. If it please yowr Honour by Berdon and my man to trye [i.e. test] it by a warrant which yow may stoppe by a counterwarrant to be sent to the porte of Rye, where he may be apprehended, if good come of it I wold be glad, if not he shall have no great injurye if it be Thorowgood and Mr. Vicheamberlen may beare the name.

Apparently, therefore, Knight sought from Walsingham’s officials a passport for Ballard to escape to France, but Phelippes had been tipped off what was happening, and suggested it could be exposed by issuing the passport but sending word to Rye not to accept it; from a list of questions Phelippes later drew up, it appears that this was done. So Phelippes clearly had a very clear idea of the nature of some of Hatton’s men, viewed them as ‘notorious enemies’, and took appropriate countermeasures.281 Another highly suspicious follower of Hatton’s was Jacomo Francisci, known as Captain Jaques, a soldier of fortune, born in Antwerp of a Venetian father. He served as a soldier in Ireland and the Netherlands.282 He was lieutenant of Sir William Stanley’s company in Ireland, and was left in command when Stanley went to fight in the Netherlands; Stanley told Walsingham (while distancing himself from Jaques’s involvement in the Babington conspiracy) that Hatton had ‘put him to me’.283 It is unclear how he became attached to Hatton, ‘who had alwayes bin his especiall good friend and fauorer’; he is routinely referred to as ‘Mr Vice-​chamberlain’s

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man’.284 He may have been acting as a messenger for Hatton in 1582.285 He was certainly active in underground Catholic circles of gentry who mixed with missionary priests and debated violent overthrow of the regime.286 He was reported to be close to Ballard, one of the leading Babington plotters. Thus, like other Hatton followers, Jaques was on the fringes of the Babington Plot. It is not impossible that, as Brooks argues, he was an agent provocateur, conceivably at Hatton’s behest.287 Edward Windsor complained to Hatton in May 1587 that his implication in the plot had been the fault of Jaques and Ballard; he seems to have made accusations against Jaques, but not to have been believed (whether because Jaques was an agent provocateur or because Hatton successfully shielded him is unclear).288 Jaques’ later conduct, however, does not support this, since he became a much more unambiguous, indeed aggressive, Catholic activist. In 1589, he entered the Duke of Parma’s service, and was regularly accused by English spies of encouraging plots against Elizabeth: ‘there is not anie beyond the sea, that doth run a more violent and vnreuerent course against the person of her Maiestie’.289 Two other known Hatton followers were associated with Jaques. Firstly, one Bennett, another former servant of Hatton’s who became a footman of the Queen, and by 1594 was in prison on suspicion of plotting against her life.290 Secondly, Edward Waynman, another soldier, who was in Hatton’s service as early as 1578; in 1589, William Fitzwilliam, Lord Deputy of Ireland, wrote an awkward letter to Burghley explaining that Waynman was suspected of treasonous intrigue with William Stanley, but as he had come to Ireland with Hatton’s ‘honorable opynion’ and recommendation, Fitzwilliam did not wish to inform the full Council of this fact.291 Waynman was heavily suspected of plotting treason with Jaques in 1590, but his guilt is not certain.292 Hatton clearly did not withhold his patronage from the more extreme element of the Catholic community, therefore. Some of these, like Pound or the Treshams, were long-​established friends; some, like Tichborne, seem to have been quite new recruits to Hatton’s service when they got into trouble. In other words, Hatton both maintained relationships with old friends who grew to be relatively extreme, and took on new followers with the same tendencies –​who presumably sought to enter his service because of his reputation as a favourer of Catholics. Not all of these were very close associates of his, as far as we can see, and while he likely knew that his friends associated with priests, it is inconceivable that he condoned attempts against the Queen’s life. But he lent his name and his protection to people with minds which could turn in such directions. There is certainly a sense that some of these tried to be loyal but were tempted to more extreme measures when, for example, they received no preferment at court. Hatton may not have

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sympathised with such people, but he patronised circles where religious ideas that might lead to radical action were common.

Scholarly and artistic patronage As well as the interest in political treatises and in surveying and related skills discussed in Chapter 1, Hatton was a significant patron of writers and musicians. One index of this is the number of books dedicated to him: it has been calculated that he had 50 works dedicated to him, fewer than Burghley (85) or Leicester (114) but more than Walsingham (48), Charles Howard (43) or Philip Sidney (25).293 This is a mark both of his perceived importance in the State and of his patronage in itself, although it is generally very difficult to know whether he had a genuine relationship with those who dedicated books to him (and in most cases the dedications are banal pleasantries anyway). As Calderwood notes, they lean towards the civil rather than the religious.294 Some scholars (and many of the dedications) suggest that this marks a particularly elevated interest in the arts, which may or may not be true. Clearly Hatton had himself written and acted in plays, but his patronage as an older man may simply have conformed with the munificence expected of a great man and a desire to magnify his reputation. It is unclear whether the authors of works dedicated to Hatton could expect serious financial reward; one commentator has speculated that ‘probably it was anticipated that rewards from the dedicatees would at least meet the expenses of publication’.295 Perhaps the most prominent recipient of Hatton’s artistic patronage was the Catholic court composer William Byrd. Hatton was one of many conservative figures (the Earl of Worcester, Lord Lumley, the Earl of Northampton, Sir John Petre) to whom Byrd dedicated works.296 Byrd was a fairly establishment figure at Elizabeth’s Court, but like many others here, his Catholicism sometimes manifested itself in dangerous ways. The work dedicated to Hatton, Psalmes, sonets and songs, contained ‘Why do I use my paper, ink and pen?’, a setting of a poem inspired by the execution of Edmund Campion and highly critical of royal policy. When the poem had originally been published, in the wake of Campion’s execution, the author had to flee abroad and the publisher had his ears cut off. Byrd’s biographer notes that ‘Byrd’s dedication indeed mentions his being emboldened to allow his first work in English (as distinct from the Latin Cantiones he had dedicated to the Queen) to “passe under” Hatton’s “favour & protection.” ’297 Byrd was also investigated and his house searched in the wake of the attempted flight of the Earl of Arundel in 1585.298 Hatton also wrote on behalf of one William Burd, a Cambridge MA, who was seeking a

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schoolmaster’s position; this may have been a relative of the composer’s.299 Hatton’s client, the printer Bynneman, printed some of Byrd’s works. One of Hatton’s more notable academic clients (aside from Richard Swale) was Everard Digby of St John’s, Cambridge, who dedicated two books to his ‘most honorable and singuler good Patron’ in 1579 and 1590; the latter was Euerard Digbie his dissuasiue from taking away the lyuings and goods of the Church.300 Digby seems not to have been a Catholic, although his cousins, the Digbys of Stoke Dry, Rutland, were recusants, one of whom (another Everard) was a Gunpowder plotter. He was however a stout conservative, a ceremonialist and an anti-​Calvinist. In 1588, in an attempt to remove him from the college, he was attacked by William Whitaker, the Puritan master of St John’s, who accused him of ‘papistrie’ and said that he was ‘notoriously suspected’. Burghley and Whitgift supported Digby, but Leicester ensured his departure.301 Another associate was Thomas Crompton, an Oxford civil lawyer and associate of Bancroft who was strongly suspected of popery; Hatton was said to have written on his behalf, and Crompton left his son a gold bowl that had been Hatton’s.302 Nevertheless, Hatton’s literary patronage was in religious terms much more mixed than in other spheres, and was probably only partly driven by religious concerns. It included some strong Protestants, such as John Phillips, author of A cold pye for the papists (1570), as well as an elegy in which Hatton spoke.303 Another was George North, who dedicated The stage of popish toyes (1581) to him, as well as some works of philosophy.304 A third was Thomas Danett, apparently a strong Protestant and Cecil client; he translated the Mémoires of Philippe de Commines into English, first in 1565, then in an expanded edition in 1601, noting that Hatton had read it in manuscript.305 The prolific author on military matters Barnaby Rich claimed in a book title to be Hatton’s servant.306 Aside from this, the only clear pattern in Hatton’s literary patronage is his interest in Italian –​both Italian writers and English translators of Italian works. As we have seen, Hatton almost certainly spoke Italian. One Alessandro Citolini dedicated (and presumably presented) a manuscript Italian grammar to Hatton, apparently between 1570 and 1576.307 Petruccio Ubaldini, whose first court patron was Henry, Earl of Arundel, later dedicated works to Hatton, and Hatton was also a patron of the writer Giacomo Castelvetro.308 James Sanford’s The garden of pleasure, a translation of Guicciardini, was printed in 1573 and again in 1576, the first dedicated to Leicester, the second to Hatton, an interesting indication of Hatton’s growing stature.309 Whether Hatton’s interest in Italian is significant is unclear –​it could indicate links to the Church of Rome, but equally many Italians in England were religious refugees. Most likely it was simply

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a sign of fashionable courtliness, as well as of genuine learning; as Doran points out, Hatton virtually epitomised Il cortegiano.310

Conclusion: Analysis of a patronage network Several points arise from this analysis of Hatton’s patronage network. The first is that it was significantly larger than is usually thought. Adams’s claim that ‘there was never a Hattonian faction’ is fair, especially as he argues for a narrow definition of factions in Elizabethan politics, but there is no denying that very many people can be shown to have been his clients.311 Furthermore, Hatton was often able to promote or direct significant rewards to his clients (Houghton and Dodge, for example), or equally importantly to provide protection to many who might otherwise have faced political or legal jeopardy. Hatton’s rise to the Privy Council and then the lord chancellorship provided ever greater scope to reward his followers. Hatton’s following was probably significantly smaller than that of Leicester’s or Burghley’s. They were very different operations, however: Leicester’s was to a significant extent built for war, and Burghley’s for administration. Hatton, whose significance depended solely on the Queen, was in a different position: he did not necessarily need clients to magnify his political importance in the way that (for example) Leicester, with his pretensions to medieval-​style noble power, did. Hatton never sought make a claim to true primacy in the State, as both Leicester and Burghley plausibly could. All he needed was the Queen. Arguably he gained little by exerting himself on behalf of Catholics, and merely opened himself up to political embarrassment or inconvenience. Nevertheless, a large body of followers magnified his political status in the eyes of observers, as the comments of Phelippes and Clapham quoted early in this chapter suggest. His following also contained figures who might otherwise be thought to have quite different sympathies, such as George Fermor. Given that he fought with Leicester in the Netherlands, one might naturally assign him to the Dudley affinity, but there can be little doubt that he was primarily Hatton’s man (clearly his service in the Netherlands did not reflect commitment to the Puritan cause312). Edward Fitton is another e­ xample –​Burghley has been identified as his chief patron, but given Fitton’s partnership with Hatton in attempting to plant Munster, this should probably be modified.313 Certainly some of Hatton’s connections were relatively loose or short term (although many were not). This probably applied in particular to individuals who were more substantial in themselves –​John Petre, for example, was ordinarily quite capable of standing on his own power and wealth. But this was quite normal by the later sixteenth century, and applied equally to

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Leicester’s network of greater gentry. Patronage was sometimes permanent, sometimes temporary or episodic. Often, individuals had multiple patrons at different times or for different purposes. Nevertheless, there was a solid core of adherents, servants and officials. There are some signs that Hatton’s following had a degree of internal coherence, represented by business partnerships, social ties or intermarriage within the network. The long-​term partnership between Edward Dodge and Peter Houghton is a good example. Several examples of Hatton’s men working together in various ways have been found. Arden Waferer, George Gascoigne, Sebastian Bryskett, John Tyrell, Henry Lanman and Thomas Laughter were jointly involved in land deals in East and West Ham, selling their lease on lands to Houghton.314 Another example was a proposed business venture involving (among others) Dodge, Flower, Houghton, the Brysketts and another Hatton servant, Theophilus Adams.315 A less collegial collaboration took place in 1575, when six or seven of Hatton’s men reportedly assaulted ‘twoe servingmen of one Phillipps, a westernman, at Charinge Crosse’.316 Furthermore, in the absence of anything approaching a full archive, what can be traced now must be only a fraction of Hatton’s patronage network. Given the sensitivity of much of what we have seen, it is surely likely that Hatton would not wish to advertise many of his connections when they were breaking the laws on religion, or helping others to avoid the penalties of doing so. If a few chance survivals show that he was linked to Babington conspirators, was he better able to conceal other such connections? We do not know. Another factor which may obscure his patronage is the fact that he left no political heir. In the case of the Cecils, former followers of Burghley sometimes wrote to Robert Cecil recording their earlier service; the same was true to some extent of the linked clientages of the earls of Leicester and Essex. There was no such link with Hatton’s heirs, who never achieved any political significance. The second key point here is that Hatton’s following had an unmistakable Catholic leaning. Several historians have argued that Hatton was essentially even-​handed in his patronage. Vines called him ‘the refuge alike of Puritan and Catholic’, and MacCaffrey pointed to the fact that Grindal, John Stubbs and Thomas Norton sought his aid.317 As we saw at the beginning of this chapter, there is no doubt that he was friendly with and helpful to many Protestants, and even a few hot Protestants, Norton included. In the case of Grindal, the argument is much more dubious, as we will see in Chapter 5. Yet this handful of examples cannot compare with the numerous cases of Hatton’s strong links with Catholics: Hatton’s favour was quite simply not even-​handed, but was clearly bestowed disproportionately on Catholics or conservatives. Clearly some of these links were more substantial than others,

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but the sheer volume of them makes it impossible to see Hatton as anything other than an obvious patron of Catholics. He had links with many of the most prominent Catholic families in England: Ropers, Treshams, Petres, Gages, Sheldons, Bedingfields. He engaged with recusant Catholics as well as church papists or conformists. Hatton must have been seen among English Catholics as representing one of the most promising paths to success or patronage. An example of this is the case of the crypto-​Catholic Norfolk gentleman and sometime JP Thomas Lovell. According to his local rival Philip Gawdy, Lovell ‘made great suite to serve my L. Chaunceler, dyvers of his men enformed me so. Mr. Goldsmithe and he ar very conversant together, and he is a meane of his preferment. Goldsmith told me very lately that he shold be his man, and haue his lyvery. He meanes to tryumphe over his enemyes.’318 Lovell presumably hoped to use Hatton’s power to pursue his own long-​running local quarrels, and it is revealing that it was Hatton whom he decided to approach. Some of Hatton’s clients were very moderate, and indeed in many cases their religious leanings were not obvious, precisely because they were linked to Hatton. They do not generally appear in standard sources for identifying Catholics (lists of recusants or suspected people, for example), because the servants of powerful men could often evade official scrutiny or prosecution for failure to attend church. People would hesitate before publicly accusing Hatton’s followers of crimes. Often Hatton’s clients were unwilling to commit to recusancy, and wished to prevent their social status or careers being fatally compromised by their religious leanings –​men like the academics Everard Digby and Thomas Crompton, lawyers like Richard Swale or John Lancaster, the musician William Byrd, or indeed many of Hatton’s own servants. Hatton’s intervention and protection can clearly be seen to have advanced the careers (or prevented the hindrance thereof) of men such as this, who would otherwise have struggled. This type of church papist remains neglected by historians, especially with reference to the later part of Elizabeth’s reign, and Hatton’s emergence as a protector of such men –​to whom many of his fellow councillors were a great deal less sympathetic –​ helps to explain the survival of this thread of moderate Catholicism. At the same time, however, other Hatton followers were (or became) much more obvious Catholics; his following in general was considerably more controversial than historians have usually allowed. Clearly Catholics operated with comparative impunity in Hatton’s own houses (Hugh Hall entertaining Catholics at Holdenby, Richard Norris lodging in Ely Place). Indeed, the only one of his leading servants who did get into rows with his colleagues was his secretary Samuel Cox, who was a firm Protestant.319 It is even more remarkable that close friends, relatives and followers of a senior minister were involved in the Campion-​Persons mission, the

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Arden-​Somerville affair, the Babington Plot and (in the case of ‘Captain Jaques’) ongoing cross-​Channel plotting against Elizabeth. These followers were of course much more radical than Hatton himself, which was inevitable given the need for prominent men to maintain at least a show of conformity, and also given that Hatton benefitted from royal favour to a degree relatively few Catholic-​ leaning figures did (a comparison point here is Viscount Montague, who was generally more moderate than his clients320). Hatton seems personally to have steered very clear of subversive elements, but many of his clients were supportive of those within the Catholic community most resistant to conformity or accommodation with the regime, such as the Jesuit missions. During Hatton’s own lifetime these included the Treshams and Hatton’s relatives the Duttons and Brokesbys; after his death the Petres, Sheldons, Ropers, Gages and Fermors.321 These very obviously did not toe the line of moderation and conformity which Hatton arguably pioneered and modelled, but which was much more difficult to sustain without the immunity conferred by royal favour. There seems to have been a clear regional dimension to Hatton’s patronage, with links concentrated in the Midlands, and with lesser clusters of Hatton connections in the north-​west, Dorset and Oxfordshire, linked to family connections and land purchases. Again, this very much parallels what Questier, for example, has demonstrated about the Catholic network of Viscount Montague centred in Sussex; Hatton’s network was clearly affected by religious attitudes, but retained a significant element of more old-​fashioned regional links. Hatton did not, however, have extensive links with Catholics in northern England (Tempest is the only obvious case), whether because they were too dangerous or because they had other court contacts, or simply because of his personal links in the Midlands. In terms of the lifespan of this network, it is clear that several elements of it began very early in his life, notably of course those relating to his kin. As his status at court developed in the 1570s, he was increasingly sought out by those with more distant connections; simultaneously, he developed contacts at court. Hatton did not cease to patronise Catholics as he became more prominent and senior in government, even when he became Lord Chancellor. He does, it is true, seem to have stopped patronising court Catholics such as William Tresham, although such people had become less prominent at court anyway. Yet he was apparently protecting Ralph Sheldon in 1589 or thereabouts, and the Oxfordshire Catholics the same year, and he did not dispose of Catholic-​leaning servants such as Richard Swale or Edward Dodge. There is certainly no sign that during the greatest period of alarm about the threat of Catholics (running from the Jesuit mission in 1580 through to the Spanish Armada) Hatton abandoned his patronage of Catholics, something which might have been politically wise. It is possible, though not perhaps

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likely, that Hatton did not entirely recognise the change that the Jesuit mission heralded within English Catholicism and the accompanying hardening of positions on both sides, which increasingly led his followers into trouble during the 1580s. There is no doubt that his protection had limits, and he had to abandon individual clients when their positions became too hot. In the case of the Treshams, for example, their involvement with Campion and subsequent prosecution became a national cause celebre and could not be swept under the carpet. His more controversial followers were a potential liability if they went too far or if others could exploit their misdemeanours. It was after all the protection of sacramentarian heretics in Calais which served as the pretext for the fall of Thomas Cromwell, and the Earl of Essex’s Catholic links were cited against him at his trial.322 It could be a very serious matter if the monarch chose to make it so. Yet even in the case of something as scandalous as the Arden-​Somerville affair, it is striking that Hatton seems to have extracted his servant Hugh Hall from consequences. It is difficult to trace what became of many of his followers after his death. Some of course went on to other patrons, although no major patron of the 1590s was quite as welcoming to Catholics as Hatton. Some of the closest servants evidently stayed with Hatton’s heirs (Dodge and Flower in particular). Some (such as Catesby and Tresham) went to Essex, who secured relief from imprisonment for Sir Thomas Tresham too.323 Some (like Flower) sought the Cecils’ patronage. No doubt those of his followers who were most concerned with the anti-​Puritan campaign continued under the protection of Whitgift and Bancroft. A key question, then, is why Hatton chose to extend his patronage to so many Catholics? A conspiratorial view might be that he sought to infiltrate Catholic circles in order to betray their plotting, yet this would have involved one of the most successful ‘deep cover’ operations in history, and is simply not credible. A slightly more subtle version of this view would be that he sought to police the line between unthreatening non-​conformity and active plotting, and there may be some merit to this, inasmuch as he represented a kind of success story among Elizabethan Catholic sympathisers; yet the involvement of his contacts with the Arden-​Somerville affair and the Babington Plot suggests that any efforts he made along these lines were only partially successful. In fact, the most likely explanation for Hatton’s patronage of Catholics is probably the simplest: he did it because he thought it the right thing to do. In some cases, as we have seen, the choice was made for him: he could not choose his family. He could choose his friends, however, and it is hardly possible that the high concentration of Catholics around him was not a reflection of his own attitudes. This issue will be explored in more detail

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in Chapter 6. He must consciously have decided that protecting Catholics was worthwhile. He may have done so out of fellow-​feeling or confessional solidarity; it may be that a generous and kindly spirit was an element of this, as is often claimed. He may have been trying to recruit a following to bolster his own position. Taking a broader view, he may have thought that persecution of ordinary Catholics was simply bad policy, a threat to the stability of the State. Such an attitude reflects the Queen’s own disinclination to make windows into men’s souls. This is not a position that can properly be described as politique, since it entailed supporting people who refused to submit fully to the law, but it can be described as a pragmatic stance in support of national unity. Whereas Francis Bacon advised Elizabeth to keep the Catholics down (albeit not desperate) and stick with the Protestants, purely on pragmatic grounds, Hatton may have thought differently.324 Furthermore, at times during Elizabeth’s reign at least, many of Hatton’s Catholic connections were no more problematic than Leicester’s or Burghley’s more extreme Puritan contacts. The Marprelate affair and the trial of Richard Knightley, for example, would surely have been very embarrassing for Leicester, had he still been alive. Hatton’s stance must also mean that he acted as a channel of communication between the regime and the ‘Catholic community’. Given the paucity of Hatton’s archive, there is not much evidence for how this actually worked (it may have been more symbolic and unspoken), but having, for example, Ralph Sheldon to his house for dinner is striking. Surely it was important for the Queen and perhaps the nation that the large constituency of Catholic nobles and gentry had some access to Queen, Council and patronage. Burghley and Walsingham may not have thought so, but their careers were dependent on the success of Protestantism. Hatton’s was dependent on the Queen. In this sense Hatton was a point of contact between Catholics and government. Some of his followers were not satisfied with their position, of course, and were tempted into more dangerous courses, and this made it dangerous to do what he did. Whether his patronage was sufficient to dissuade others from taking this more extreme view is unknowable. In the conventional understanding of patronage relationships, it is normally assumed that in return for their loyalty, a patron was able to channel rewards towards his clients. Clearly, Hatton did so in the case of his closer servants and men-​of-​business: Dodge, Flower, Swale and others gained official positions, profitable jobs and so on. In terms of his wider clientele, it seems likely that the main currency was protection from the law, or from the malicious use of the law by local opponents: either Hatton discreetly intervened to protect his followers from persecution, or the very knowledge that they could call on his support shrouded them in a degree of immunity.

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This could be revealed rapidly in the aftermath of a major patron’s demise. Michael Questier has shown that after the death of the first Viscount Montague, his followers very quickly came under close government attention, from the Privy Council, Richard Topcliffe and so on.325 Elements of this are clearly true in Hatton’s case too. The Council certainly intervened to protect some of his less controversial appointments.326 The sudden loss of standing of some of his closer followers, however, was the subject of mockery at court.327 As we have seen in the case of Henry Lanman’s mother, she chose to discreetly conform after her husband’s employer died. Yet it is possible that Hatton’s patronage was significant on the broader picture of the nation at large as well. Simon Adams has argued that the political strength of puritanism depended on the court patronage of Leicester, Walsingham and their allies, who promoted such people to jobs in Church and State, gave them political credibility, and crucially protected them when they were threatened or attacked by opponents such as Aylmer, Whitgift or the Queen.328 In a direct parallel, cover from a courtier like Hatton could make things easier for many Catholics. Hatton was unique among the conservative figures at court in having this influence with the Queen, and it gave him considerable scope to develop and protect his clients. The same could be said about protection offered by the likes of the Earl of Sussex or Lord Buckhurst.329 It is argued in Chapter 5 that Hatton’s death led to an immediate and marked change of religious climate not only for his own associates, but for the regime as a whole. Just as Leicester’s following included many who are sometimes called Puritan, but who were actually very much on the moderate end of puritanism, so Hatton’s following contained many moderate, loyal Catholics. One difference may be that the hard core of Leicester’s patronage network seem to have had a fairly conscious shared objective of defending and advancing the forward Protestant cause, whereas in Hatton’s case, there was a more diffuse set of possibilities for what they actually wanted: a full return to Rome, Catholicism without the Pope, or simply a conservative Church of England. Hatton’s role (or at any rate the courtly and political role of religious conservatives like Hatton) has a longer-​term significance, therefore. It helps to explain how so many Catholics and crypto-​Catholics remained in prominent positions in public life; at the same time as historians write about the persecution of Catholics, they routinely acknowledge that many fairly open Catholics apparently lived very normal lives. Figures like Hatton help square this circle. Hatton and people like him helped to shape the national religious environment, both in practical and in symbolic terms. After all, if church papists existed in significant numbers, they must be regarded as a political constituency, who needed representation, who in some senses

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demanded and (by their very existence) called into being representation; and Hatton in that sense represented them. All of this suggests that more research is still needed on clientage networks (especially, perhaps, those of more conservative patrons) and what these demonstrate about Elizabethan politics and politicians. In the confessional atmosphere of Elizabethan England, the protection of religious dissidents by powerful patrons could have a significant effect on the religious life of the nation. More concretely, Hatton’s patronage network must lead us to reassess Hatton himself, and his religious beliefs.

Notes 1 For accounts of the Babington Plot, see J. H. Pollen (ed.), Mary, Queen of Scots and the Babington Plot (Scottish History Society, 3rd ser., 3, Edinburgh, 1922); ‘Babington, Anthony (1561–​1586)’, ODNB. 2 BL Harleian 290, ff. 170v.–​171r. (printed in CSPSMQS 1586–​8, 28). 3 In addition to the copy in BL Harleian 290, the same text with slight variations is found in HMC Kenyon, 612–​13, BL Stowe 396, f. 56v.; and also NRO, FH81 (there is no sign that this was ever Hatton’s property, and may have been acquired later; the hand may be early seventeenth century). The version in State Trials, col. 1157 has important differences. Hatton is not mentioned in the account in BL Add. 48027, f. 265v.–​266r., another independent version; there is no sign who wrote this, but as it is in Robert Beale’s papers it is probably the most ‘official’ version. Rachael Lloyd also notes the omission: Dorset Elizabethans at Home and Abroad (London, 1967), 101. 4 Linda Levy Peck, Northampton: Patronage and Policy at the Court of James I (London, 1982); Adams, Leicester and the Court, esp. 177. 5 Wallace MacCaffrey, Elizabeth I (London, 1993), 171; see also MacCaffrey, ‘Hatton, Sir Christopher (c.1540–​1591)’, ODNB. This said, MacCaffrey took him more seriously than most historians, and rates him as ‘universally regarded as co-​equal with Leicester in the Queen’s personal esteem’. Therefore, again we come back to the lack of an archive downplaying his personal significance. 6 Simon Adams, ‘At home and away: the earl of Leicester’, History Today 46:5 (May 1996), 22–​8, at 24; idem, Leicester and the Court, 36, 18. 7 SP 12/​238/​82 (22 March 1591). 8 John Clapham, Elizabeth of England. Certain Observations Concerning the Life and Reign of Queen Elizabeth by John Clapham, ed. Evelyn Plummer Read and Conyers Read (Philadelphia, 1951), 92. 9 This mentions ‘one olde blewe coat of Syr Christofer Hattons lyvery’: Mark Eccles, ‘Bynneman’s Books’, The Library, 5th ser., vol. 12, no. 2 (June 1957), 83. 10 Michael C. Questier, Catholicism and Community in Early Modern England: Politics, Aristocratic Patronage and Religion, c.1550–​ 1640 (Cambridge, 2006), 181.

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11 Adams, Leicester and the Court, 338–​ 9; Hammer, Polarisation, 174–​8; Alexandra Gajda, The Earl of Essex and Late Elizabethan Political Culture (Oxford, 2012), Chapter 3. 12 For some indication of the range of petitions Hatton received, see Memoirs; J. Conway Davies (ed.), Catalogue of Manuscripts in the Inner Temple (Oxford, 1972), II, 714–​38. 13 As Questier points out, the same was true of Viscount Montague’s following, and Montague claimed he did not discriminate: Catholicism and Community, 193–​4. 14 Hasler, Commons, I, 667; Memoirs, xxixff. 15 Godfather: Memoirs, 385. Cousin: Cathryn Enis, ‘The Warwickshire Gentry and the Dudley Ascendancy, 1547–​1590’ (PhD thesis, University of Reading, 2011), 15; TNA PROB 11/​48, f. 250r. See also LPL MS 3200, f. 31. Knightley had a brother, Edward, who was a recusant: Enis, ‘The Warwickshire Gentry and the Dudley Ascendancy’, 245. 16 ‘Knightley, Sir Richard (1533–​ 1615)’, ODNB; Hasler, Commons, II, 406. William Pierce, An Historical Introduction to the Marprelate Tracts (New York, 1909), 207–​8. It seems that Knightley asked Hatton to intercede, but evidence that Hatton obliged has not been found. 17 Memoirs, 128–​ 9, 203, 206, 210–​ 11, 214–​ 15, 417–​ 18, 420; Alan Nelson, Monstrous Adversary. The Life of Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford (Liverpool, 2003), 198–​9; Albert Feuillerat, The Complete Works of Sir Philip Sidney Volume III (Cambridge, 1923), 137–​9. 18 Lloyd E. Berry (ed.), John Stubbs’s Gaping Gulf (Charlottesville, 1968), 110–​12. 19 Memoirs, 234–​5, 242–​3; Hasler, Commons, III, 148; G. R. Elton, The Parliament of England, 1559–​1581 (Cambridge, 1986), 323; Glyn Parry, ‘Foreign policy and the Parliament of 1576’, Parliamentary History 34:1 (February 2015), 62–​89, at 63; Patrick Collinson, ‘Puritans, men of business and Elizabethan parliaments’, in Elizabethans (Hambledon and London, 2003), 75–​6; ‘Norton, Thomas (1530x32–​1584)’, ODNB. 20 Hasler, Commons, III, 493–​4. 21 Memoirs, 135–​7, 208–​9. 22 ‘Matthew, Tobie (1544?–​1628)’, ODNB, and see many examples in Memoirs. 23 BL Additional Charter 19885; Holkham MS, f. 105v. John Hatton’s will does not seem to survive. 24 APC 1591–​92, 166. One Thomas Hatton of Shropshire, possibly a relative, entered the English College in Rome in 1592. W. Kelly (ed.), Liber Ruber Venerabilis Colegii Anglorvm de Vrbe (CRS 37, 1940), 82. 25 Anon., Memorials of the Duttons of Dutton in Cheshire (London, 1901), 41–​6; Francis Peck, Desiderata Curiosa (London, 1779), I, 158. 26 SP 12/​148/​11, printed in Henry Foley (ed.), Records of the English Province of the Society of Jesus vol. III (London, 1878), 703–​4; CSPD Addenda 1580–​ 1625, 35; K. R. Wark, Elizabethan Recusancy in Cheshire (Chetham Society, 3rd ser., 19, 1971), 23, 55, 99, 147, 179–​80.

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27 Memoirs, 350–​1; SP 78/​10, f. 89; Memorials of the Duttons, 44–​5; Wark interprets this to mean that Dutton was studying abroad: Recusancy in Cheshire, 99, 147. Hatton also seems to have interceded with the Bishop of Chester on behalf of the Catholic Richard Massey, Peter’s father-​in-​law: Peck, Desiderata Curiosa, 150–​1. 28 Alan Davidson, ‘Roman Catholicism in Oxfordshire from the late Elizabethan Period to the Civil War (c. 1580-​c.1640)’ (PhD thesis, University of Bristol, 1970), 627–​8. 29 Cathryn Enis, ‘The Dudleys, Sir Christopher Hatton and the justices of Elizabethan Warwickshire’, Midland History 39:1 (Spring 2014), 1–​35, at 3. 30 See also Enis, ‘The Warwickshire Gentry and the Dudley Ascendancy’, 132. Dorothy’s will, TNA PROB 11/​52/​36, gives little clue about her religion. It appears that William Newport’s wardship was initially obtained by the Earl of Warwick, who subsequently granted it to Hatton: Holkham MS, f. 200r. 31 Hasler, Commons, II, 279–​80. 32 Collectanea Topographica & Genealogica III (London, 1836), 291–​2. 33 The Hatton-​Gawdy wedding was the occasion for the famous incident when Hatton deposited his Lord Chancellor’s gown on a chair, saying ‘Lie there, chancellor’, and joined the dancing: Thomas Birch, Memoirs of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth From the Year 1581 till her Death (2 vols, London, 1754), I, 56. On Gawdy’s Catholic sympathies, see ‘Gawdy, Sir Francis (d. 1605)’, ODNB. He may have owed his judgeship to Hatton: Hasler, Commons, II, 178. 34 Enis, ‘The Dudleys, Sir Christopher Hatton and the justices of Elizabethan Warwickshire’, 3; CPR 1569–​72, no. 1916; Brooks, Hatton, 27, 57. 35 Enis, ‘The Warwickshire Gentry and the Dudley Ascendancy’, 129–​33. The latter, William Underhill, sold New Place in Stratford to William Shakespeare. 36 Holkham MS, f. 200v. 37 Davidson, ‘Roman Catholicism in Oxfordshire’, 627; Charlotte Carmichael Stopes, Shakespeare’s Warwickshire Contemporaries (Stratford-​upon-​Avon, 1907), 228–​32. 38 Holkham MS, f. 200r. 39 TNA PROB 11/​67/​61. 40 Enis, ‘The Dudleys, Sir Christopher Hatton and the justices of Elizabethan Warwickshire’, 3. 41 ‘Saunders, Lawrence (d. 1555)’, ODNB. 42 TNA PROB 11/​63/​486 (Blase Saunders, 1576); PROB 11/​69/​469 (Ambrose Saunders, 1586). 43 NRO, FH549; Holkham MS, ff. 46r., 50r., 58r., 105r. 44 Memoirs, 125–​6. 45 TNA PROB 11/​69/​469. 46 Holkham MS, ff. 46r., 68r. 47 Tate may also have written a treatise on parliament for Hatton. Hasler, Commons, III, 478–​9. J. E. Neale, Elizabeth I and her Parliaments 1559–​1581 (London, 1953), 422–​4.

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48 Walter C. Metcalfe (ed.), The Visitations of Northamptonshire Made in 1564 and 1618–​19 (London, 1887), 199. 49 Holkham MS, f. 221. Hasler, Commons, III, 479–​80. Davies (ed.), Catalogue of Manuscripts in the Inner Temple, II, 701. Thrush & Ferris, VI, 493. 50 Hasler, Commons, III, 478. Andrew Wadham was an overseer of Hatton’s father’s will: NRO, FH/​A/​A/​4092. 51 Hasler, Commons, I, 488. See John Fetherston (ed.), The Visitation of the County of Leicestershire in the Year 1619 (Harleian Society, London, 1870), 49. 52 J. H. Pollen (ed.), ‘The memoirs of Father Robert Persons’, Miscellanea II (CRS 2, London, 1906), 29; Gerard Kilroy, Edmund Campion: A Scholarly Life (Ashgate, 2015), 189; Thomas M. McCoog, ‘The English Jesuit mission and the French match, 1579–​1581’, Catholic Historical Review 87:2 (April 2001), 185–​213, at 200. 53 CPR 1569–​72, no. 3282. 54 CSPD 1581–​90, 327. She had by then remarried to Thomas Bowes; see Brian Burch, ‘Hastings v Thistlewaite: the Humberstone monuments case, 1637–​ 1639’, Transactions of the Leicestershire Archaeological and Historical Society 58 (1982–​83), 36–​7. 55 Library of Birmingham MS 3878 (Elford Hall MSS), 109–​13. 56 VCH Leicestershire, IV, 439–​42. 57 On Hatton and the Treshams generally, see Brooks, Hatton, 210–​16. On the stone, see Mark Girouard, Elizabethan Architecture: Its Rise and Fall, 1540–​ 1640 (New Haven and London, 2009), 194; Andrew Eburne, ‘The passion of Sir Thomas Tresham: new light on the gardens and lodge at Lyveden’, Garden History 36:1 (Spring 2008), 114–​34, at 117–​18. 58 Quoted in Gerard Kilroy, Edmund Campion: Memory and Transcription (Aldershot, 2005), 128. 59 HMC Report on Manuscripts in Various Collections, Vol. III (London, 1904), 27–​8. 60 Memoirs, 351–​ 3; HMC Various Collections III, 23–​ 6; SP 15/​ 27A/​ 57. For this affair, see also Brooks, Hatton, 211–​14; Enis, ‘The Warwickshire Gentry and the Dudley Ascendancy’, 183; William Joseph Tighe, ‘The Gentleman Pensioners in Elizabethan Politics and Government’ (PhD thesis, University of Cambridge, 1984), 454–​5; William Joseph Tighe, ‘Five Elizabethan courtiers, their Catholic connections, and their careers’, British Catholic History 33:2 (2016), 211–​27, at 218–​21. William was also a member of George Gilbert’s Catholic Association. 61 D. C. Peck, Leicester’s Commonwealth: The Copy of a Letter written by a Master of Arts of Cambridge (1984) and Related Documents (Athens OH, 1985), 6, 23–​4, 29, 31, 285. 62 Tighe, ‘Five Elizabethan courtiers’, 219. CSPF XXII (Jul–​Dec 1588), 203. 63 BL Add. 39828, f. 74. 64 Jessie Childs, God’s Traitors: Terror and Faith in Elizabethan England (London, 2014), 83–​8. 65 Holkham MS, f. 42r.

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66 HMC Rutland, I, 313; cf. Godfrey Anstruther, Vaux of Harrowden (Newport, 1953), 87–​90. 67 ‘Catesby, Robert (b. in or after 1572, d. 1605)’, ODNB; Brooks, Hatton, 203–​4. 68 APC 1581–​82, 406. 69 Memoirs, 38, 155; Joan Wake, The Brudenells of Deene (London, 1953), 93–​4; Mary E. Finch, The Wealth of Five Northamptonshire Families 1540–​1640 (Northamptonshire Record Society 19, 1956), 151 n.4. There were recusants in the family at least by 1608: NRO, Catalogue of Brudenell MSS, I, 42. 70 HMC Various Collections, III, 43. 71 College of Arms MSS, Dethick’s Funerals, vol. I, pt. 2, f. 277v., 278r. 72 Holkham MS, f. 32, 42, 95, 109; HMC Various Collections III, 28; Childs, God’s Traitors, 91–​2. 73 HMC Various Collections, III, 60. 74 I owe this suggestion to Steve Gunn. 75 Hatton received part of the manor of Wellingborough in April 1576. CPR 1575–​78, no. 1350; Holkham MS, f. 21r. 76 See Holkham MS, ff. 21–​ 116 for an overview of his Northamptonshire property. 77 Mark Girouard, Town and Country (New Haven and London, 1992), 203. 78 Girouard, Town and Country, 205. 79 Memoirs, 126. 80 Mark Girouard, Elizabethan Architecture, 192; Girouard, Town and Country, 208 (an eighteenth-​century engraving reproduced here shows the ruins, including a pyramid). Frank Whigham, ‘Elizabethan aristocratic insignia’, Texas Studies in Literature and Language 27:4 (Winter 1985), 325–​53, at 339, citing John Norden, Speculi Brittaniae pars altera: A delineation of Northamptonshire (1610; rpt. London, 1720), 49–​50. The house is described in G. W. Groos (ed.), The Diary of Baron Waldstein (London, 1981), 113–​15. 81 NRO, FH272 (1587 map of Holdenby). 82 Royal Commission on Historical Monuments England, An Inventory of the Historical Monuments in the County of Northampton III (London, 1981), 103–​9; cf CPR 1575–​78, no. 2685. 83 Emily Sophia Hartshorne, Memorials of Holdenby (London, 1868), 60. 84 Barnaby Rich, Rich his farewell to Militarie profession (1594; STC 20996.7), sig. B. 85 Girouard, Elizabethan Architecture, 192. The building was sufficiently well-​ advanced to accommodate a visit by Lord Burghley by August 1579: Memoirs, 122, 124–​6. 86 Rich, Rich his farewell, sig. B. 87 Furness had an annuity for life of £5 from 1587: Holkham MS, f. 296. On Furness, see Rowse, Ralegh and the Throckmortons, 194. He was apparently still in place in 1595. 88 Hasler, Commons, II, 276. 89 NRO, FH1878; CPR 1584–​85, no. 63; BL Lansdowne 69, f. 191; Holkham MS, f. 35.

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90 Enis, ‘The Dudleys, Sir Christopher Hatton and the justices of Elizabethan Warwickshire’. 91 Jeremy Goring and Joan Wake (eds), Northamptonshire Lieutenancy Papers and other Documents 1580–​ 1614 (Northamptonshire Record Society 27, 1975), 1–​3. Hatton had also served as a commissioner for horse musters in the early 1580s: SP 12/​136/​43; CSPD 1581–​90, 1, 7, 9, 18, 163; Northamptonshire Lieutenancy Papers, 3–​10, and in a commission for militia horse in 1585: BL RP 35, 6. He was also briefly (and with no evident consequence) Lord Lieutenant of Middlesex from October 1590: CPR 1589–​90, no. 200. 92 SP 12/​193/​28. 93 Neil Younger, War and Politics in the Elizabethan Counties (Manchester, 2012), 109. 94 Northamptonshire Lieutenancy Papers, 21, 39; HMC Buccleuch (1926), II, 29–​30; W. J. Sheils, The Puritans in the Diocese of Peterborough 1558–​ 1610 (Northamptonshire Record Society 30, 1979), 39, 71, 105 (Griffin); on Saunders, see p. 88. 95 The council: Northamptonshire Lieutenancy Papers, 16, 35; Hatton: ibid., 34, 38. 96 Adams, Leicester and the Court, 394. 97 APC 1589–​90, 334; Bindoff, Commons, III, 124. Funeral: College of Arms MSS, Dethick’s Funerals, vol. I, pt. 2, f. 277v., 278r. Fermor’s religion: Thomas McCoog SJ, ‘The Society of Jesus in England, 1623–​1688: An Institutional Study’ (PhD thesis, Warwick, 1984), 194; Childs, God’s Traitors, 261, 267, 302–​3, 405. 98 NRO, Holkham MS, f. 15. Also FH1516. 99 Hasler, Commons, I, 414–​15; Thrush and Ferris, Commons, III, 169–​70. His sister Jane was married to Hatton’s cousin Robert Brokesby: Hasler, Commons, I, 414, 488. 100 On the Throckmortons, see Peter Marshall and Geoffrey Scott (eds), Catholic Gentry in English Society: The Throckmortons of Coughton from Reformation to Emancipation (Farnham, 2009). For the entire Somerville episode, see Glyn upon-​ Parry and Cathryn Enis, Shakespeare before Shakespeare: Stratford-​ Avon, Warwickshire, and the Elizabethan State (Oxford, 2020), esp. Chapter 4. 101 ‘Somerville, John (1560–​1583)’, ODNB. 102 Glyn Parry, ‘Catholicism and tyranny in Shakespeare’s Warwickshire’, in Malcolm Smuts (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of the Age of Shakespeare (Oxford, 2016), 123–​38, at 124. 103 A monk: Michael Hodgetts, ‘Elizabethan recusancy in Worcestershire: II’, Transactions of the Worcestershire Archaeological Society (3rd ser., 3, 1970–​2), 82. A Marian priest: P. McGrath and J. Rowe, ‘The recusancy of Sir Thomas Cornwallis’, Proceedings of the Suffolk Institute of Archaeology 28 (1961), 226–​71, at 245; CSPF XVIII (1583–​4), 651. 104 C. Don Gilbert, Catholics in Worcestershire, 1535–​ 1590 (Worcestershire Historical Society Occasional Publications 11, 2009), 14. Another member of this network was Thomas Arderne/​Arden, who was at times ‘based at Kentchurch Court [Herefordshire] with the Scudamores’: ibid., 14–​15.

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05 SP 12/​164/​77; Brooks, Hatton, 216. 1 106 Girouard, Town and Country, 206–​7; Margaret Willes, The Making of the English Gardener: Plants, Books and Inspiration, 1560–​1660 (Yale, 2011), 46. Hall also wrote a ‘discourse of gardeninge applied to a spirituall understandinge’: BL, Royal 18 C.III. Apparently this was at one time in the collection of John, Lord Lumley. See Willes, Making, 45–​6. 107 BL Caligula C VIII, ff. 204–​6. 108 Enis, ‘The Warwickshire Gentry and the Dudley Ascendancy’, 187–​8; Parry, ‘Catholicism and tyranny’, 124; SP 12/​163/​55. 109 Brian Dix, ‘Experiencing the past: the archaeology of some Renaissance gardens’, Renaissance Studies 25:1 (2011), 151–​82, at 167–​8. 110 On the preference of Viscount Montague and other gentry Catholics for Marian priests rather than seminaries, see Questier, Catholicism and Community, 184–​ 6, 191–​2. 111 Peck, Leicester’s Commonwealth, 173. This is obviously not a wholly reliable source, but tended to present distorted versions of the truth rather than outright inventions. 112 McGrath and Rowe, ‘The recusancy of Sir Thomas Cornwallis’, 245. 113 [Anon.], Fourth Report of the Deputy Keeper of the Public Records (London, 1843), 272–​3. 114 Brooks, Hatton, 301; Enis, ‘The Warwickshire Gentry and the Dudley Ascendancy’, 186–​9. 115 Peck, Desiderata Curiosa, I, 138–​9; CSPF XVIII (1583–​4), 651. 116 BL Caligula C. VIII, ff. 204–​6. 117 Parry and Enis suggest that Flower had turned on Hatton, although this is difficult to reconcile with Flower’s continuance in Hatton’s service; Shakespeare before Shakespeare, 133. 118 J. H. Pollen (ed.), Unpublished Documents relating to the English Martyrs Vol. I 1584–​1603 (CRS 5, 1908), 305. See also Enis, ‘The Dudleys, Sir Christopher Hatton and the justices of Elizabethan Warwickshire’, n.125. 119 Hatton did withdraw from court in April 1584, but this was over a different matter: Memoirs, 366–​7. 120 Parry and Enis, Shakespeare before Shakespeare, esp. 132–​3. 121 For these contexts, see Lake, ‘Two episcopal surveys’; Parry, ‘Catholicism and tyranny’, 126. 122 Parry, ‘Catholicism and tyranny’, 127. 123 On the authorship of this book, which is said to have convinced Lord Paget and Sir William Catesby, see Alexandra Walsham, Church Papists: Catholicism, Conformity and Confessional Polemic in Early Modern England (Woodbridge, 1993), 50–​1; the book is SP 12/​144/​69. 124 On the Sheldon affair, see J. H. Pollen, SJ (ed.), ‘Father Persons’ Memoirs (Concluded)’, Miscellanea IV (CRS 4, London, 1907), 4–​5; Gilbert, Catholics in Worcestershire, 18–​20. 125 John Harington, Sir John Harington’s A New Discourse of a Stale Subject, called the Metamorphosis of Ajax, ed. Elizabeth Story Donno (London, 1962),

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238–​40; Jason Scott-​Warren, Sir John Harington and the Book as Gift (Oxford, 2001), 91. 126 This speculation also arises because the pasquinade does not entirely make sense (the quotation does not seem to have been commonly used to indicate material wealth); there is also little obvious reason to give the phrase in Latin unless some covert message was meant. The use of ‘through’ rather than ‘for’ is also suggestive. Persons gave it as: ‘Cascò Sheldono: sapete perche? Quia habuit oves et boves et pecora campi’. Pollen, ‘Father Persons’ Memoirs (Concluded)’, 4. For this as a nickname of Hatton, see Memoirs, 277, 297 (both 1582). 127 I am very grateful to Hilary Turner for bringing these references to my attention and for discussions on Sheldon and Hatton. 128 George Winter of Huddington, sheriff of Worcestershire 1588–​89, a recusant. 129 SP 12/​249/​92. This might be taken to mean that Sheldon’s protector was the Lord Chancellor in office in 1594, but this seems unlikely, since Young appears still to be referring to c. 1588, and in 1594 there was no Lord Chancellor, merely a Lord Keeper, John Puckering. On Williams, who was from a prominent Catholic family from Oxford, see Alan Davidson, ‘Edward Williams of Oxford: a Sheldon servant’, Worcestershire Recusant 25 (June 1975), 2–​4. 130 Francis Edwards, although he otherwise did not regard Hatton as sympathetic to Catholics, agrees, noting that Sheldon ‘had escaped the consequences of his recusancy through his friendship with chancellor Hatton’, though he gives no indication how he reached this conclusion. Francis Edwards, S.J., Plots and Plotters in the Reign of Elizabeth I (Dublin, 2002), 245. 131 Staffordshire Record Office, D603/​K/​1/​3/​42, K/​1/​10/​15–​16, K/​1/​4/​40, K/​1/​6/​9 (quote). 132 Enis, ‘The Dudleys, Sir Christopher Hatton and the Justices of Elizabethan Warwickshire’, esp. 13–​15, 18. Hatton himself became a JP in Warwickshire in 1579, as did Bartholomew Tate. 133 CPR 1569–​72, no. 3358; Brooks, Hatton, 111. 134 CPR 1569–​72, nos. 269 (Purse Caundle), 2282 (Sturminster Newton). BL RP 1210 (sale by William Constantine to Hatton of Alfrington Manor, Dorset, 23/​ 2/​74). 135 J. C. Sainty and A. D. Thrush, Vice Admirals of the Coast (List and Index Society 321, 2007), 16. 136 John Coker [Thomas Gerard], A Survey of Dorsetshire (London, 1732), 53. 137 Hasler, Commons, II, 281–​2; CSPF XVIII (1583–​4), 535; APC 1587–​88, 254; BL Add. 12507, f. 49. 138 Lloyd, Dorset Elizabethans, 8, 29–​ 30, 56–​ 7; Hasler, Commons, II, 281–​ 2 (quote); CSPF XVII (1583), 378–​80. 139 Lloyd, Dorset Elizabethans, 45; CSPF XV (1581–​2), 433. 140 TNA STAC 5/​H53/​24 (23 Elizabeth); STAC 5/​H49/​38 (25 Elizabeth); STAC 5/​ H13/​22 (25 Elizabeth). See Brooks, Hatton, 112. 141 Hasler, Commons, I, 611–​12. 142 Holkham MS, f. 173–​4; George Ormerod (ed.), The History of the County Palatine and City of Chester (London, 1819), III, 122.

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43 Holkham MS f. 173r–​v. 1 144 Thrush and Ferris, Commons, III, 187–​9. 145 Lady Egerton: Peck, Desiderata Curiosa, I, 130–​1; the same letter is reprinted in Memoirs, 309; see also Wark, Elizabethan Recusancy in Cheshire, 33–​4. Lord Chancellor Bromley also wrote on her behalf: Peck, I, 122. Longford: Hasler, Commons, II, 488–​9. 146 Wark, Elizabethan Recusancy in Cheshire, 54–​5; Peck, Desiderata Curiosa, I, 143–​4, 150–​1; Memoirs, 379. 147 Peck, Desiderata Curiosa, I, 150 (emphasis added). 148 CPR 1587–​88, no. 685; Holkham MS, ff. 188–​98. 149 NRO, FH1972. 150 BL Harleian 6994, f. 197r.–​ v; SP 12/​ 205/​ 13, f. 21r; Davidson, ‘Roman Catholicism in Oxfordshire’, 260–​2. 151 Holkham MS, f. 321. 152 On Hatton’s involvement, see Michael MacCarthy-​ Morrogh, The Munster Plantation. English Migration to Southern Ireland 1583–​1641 (Oxford, 1986), 39–​41 and passim. 153 On Fitton and Stanley’s religion, see MacCarthy-​ Morrogh, Munster Plantation, 192. 154 Hasler, Commons, II, 124. 155 APC 1586–​ 87, 364–​ 5 (8 March 1586); MacCarthy-​ Morrogh, Munster Plantation, 192. 156 MacCarthy-​Morrogh, Munster Plantation, 190–​ 1; ‘Peckham, Sir George (d. 1608)’, ODNB. 157 BL Lansdowne 69, f. 195r.–​v. This is not dated but seems to be from about 1589. 158 It is sometimes stated that he and Francis Flower were used to collect recusancy fines, citing SP 12/​149/​74, but in fact the fine referred to in this document related to land dealings: Brooks, Hatton, 280 n.1, 388; SP 46/​57, f. 15 (25 July 1581). Chambers: Jan Walters, ‘Architectural Planning and Behavioural Conventions in the re-​use of Spiritual Properties in Sixteenth-​century London’ (PhD thesis, Oxford Brookes, 2016), 195, 197. 159 See e.g. BL Harleian 2095, f. 247; Centre for Buckinghamshire Studies, D-​C/​1/​ 266; Holkham MS, f. 76r. 160 Holkham MS, f. 46. 161 James Wright, The history and antiquities of the county of Rutland (London, 1684), 136; Jacques Ramel, ‘Biographical notices on the authors of “The Misfortunes of Arthur” ’, Notes and Queries, 14:12 (Dec. 1967), 461–​7; W. J. Tighe, ‘The career of Francis Flower’, Notes and Queries 32:4 (Dec. 1985), 460–​2. 162 Hasler, Commons, II, 141. 163 Susan Pittman, ‘Elizabethan and Jacobean Deer Parks in Kent’ (PhD thesis, Kent, 2011), 136, citing TNA E178/​1163; NRO, FH/​D/​G/​1018. 164 Hasler, Commons, II, 141. 165 J. C. Jeaffreson (ed.), Middlesex County Records Volume I (London, 1886), 180, 202, 214.

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66 BL Lansdowne 69, f. 195. SP 12/​154/​60. 1 167 Germaine Warkentin, ‘Patrons and profiteers. Thomas Newman and the “Violent enlargement” of Astrophil and Stella’, The Book Collector 34 (1985), 461–​87; ‘Browne, Robert (1550?–​1633)’ and ‘Shute, Christopher (d. 1626)’, ODNB; Hasler, Commons, II, 142. Shute dedicated an anti-​Catholic work to him: C. S., A briefe resolution of a right religion (1590; STC 21482). 168 TNA PROB 11/​89/​165. 169 Pollen, Unpublished Documents relating to the English Martyrs, 184–​5; M. A. Tierney (ed.), Dodd’s Church History of England (London, 1840), III, appendix, ccvi. SP 12/​167/​13. 170 Hasler, Commons, II, 142; G. J. Armytage (ed.), The Visitation of the County of Rutland in the Year 1618–​19 (Harleian Society, London, 1870), 30; APC 1581–​82, 362–​3, 396; SP 12/​152/​8. 171 BL Cotton Caligula C. VIII, ff. 204–​6 (Herle to Burghley, 23 November 1583). 172 Hatton’s maternal grandmother and Flower’s paternal grandmother were both Brokesbys, but the precise relationship cannot be definitively proven. Armytage, Visitation of Rutland, 30; Fetherston, Visitation of Leicestershire, 49. 173 Warkentin, ‘Patrons and profiteers’. 174 Warkentin, ‘Patrons and profiteers’, 476. 175 BL Lansdowne 68, f. 234. He later became a gentleman pensioner, so evidently found a new patron. H. S. Scott (ed.), ‘The Journal of Sir Roger Wilbraham’, Camden Miscellany X (Camden Society, 3rd ser., 4, 1902), 6. 176 Francis Blomefield, An Essay towards a Topographical History of the County of Norfolk (Lynn and London, 1769), III, 679; Edward Dodge is misnamed here as Edmund. Letters to Burghley: SP 12/​73/​21 (August 1570), which suggests some familiarity with the Catholics being described. 177 Holkham MS, f. 76r. (1595); NRO, FH3713 (notes on Hatton family financial affairs, 1598); Dodge seems to have been dead by 1598: FH600. Brooks says little about Dodge: Brooks, Hatton, 280 n.1. 178 CSPI 1592–​1596, 83; J. S. Brewer and W. Bullen (eds), Calendar of Carew Manuscripts 1601–​1603 (London, 1870), 109. TNA PROB 11/​91/​21. 179 TNA PROB 11/​91/​21. 180 He was executor of the will of the recusant Audrey Alleyn of Ightham Mote, daughter of the Henrician Catholic William, 1st Lord Paget; see Hasler, Commons, I, 340; TNA PROB 11/​70/​42. 181 SP 12/​190/​62. On Fetter Lane, see also SP 12/​238/​139, 12/​248/​88. 182 A. Hassell Smith and Gillian M. Baker (eds), The Papers of Nathaniel Bacon of Stiffkey Volume II: 1578–​1585 (Norfolk Record Society 49, 1983), 266–​7. 183 Joseph Foster (ed.), The Register of Admissions to Gray’s Inn, 1521–​1889 (London, 1889), 74. 184 Remembrancia, 2. 185 BL Lansdowne 37, no. 93. 186 Alan Haynes, The Elizabethan Secret Services (Stroud, 2000), 149; Charles O’Conor (ed.), Bibliotheca MS. Stowensis: A Descriptive Catalogue of the Manuscripts in the Stowe Library, Vol. II (Buckingham, 1819), 402.

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187 Lawrence Stone, ‘The anatomy of the Elizabethan aristocracy’, Economic History Review 18:1/​2 (1948), 1–​53, at 46–​7. 188 Hatton’s lands: Holkham MS, f. 188v. Land dealings together: CPR 1587–​ 88, no. 1069 (where they are both described as Hatton’s servants). Sales of William’s lands: VCH Warwickshire, VI, 273. 189 Hasler, Commons, III, 553. Thrush and Ferris suggest that he was more inclined towards Protestantism, however: VI, 620. 190 ‘Scudamore family (per. 1500–​1820)’, and ‘Scudamore [née Shelton], Mary, Lady Scudamore (c.1550–​1603)’, ODNB. Dodge left his best horse to Sir James Scudamore and his best diamond to Lady Scudamore: TNA PROB 11/​91/​21. 191 Memoirs, 396; BL Lansdowne 69, f. 195r.–​v. He hunted at Eltham: Hassall, ‘Books’, 12–​14. 192 BL Additional Charter 19886. 193 On the family’s background and religion, see Kenneth Bartlett, ‘Papal policy and the English Crown, 1563–​1565: the Bertano correspondence’, Sixteenth Century Journal 23:4 (Winter 1992), 643–​59, esp. 644–​5. His recusant brother-​ in-​law was another Italian settled in England, Vincenzo Guicciardini. 194 Bartlett, ‘Papal policy’; C. G. Bayne, Anglo-​Roman Relations 1558–​1565 (Oxford, 1913), 208–​17. 195 TNA PROB 11/​80/​195; Deborah Jones, ‘Lodowick Bryskett and his family’, in C. J. Sisson (ed.), Thomas Lodge and Other Elizabethans (Cambridge MA, 1933), 243–​361, at 257, 272, 302. On Alford, see Hasler, Commons, I, 335–​8. 196 Christopher Brooke, A History of Gonville and Caius College (Woodbridge, 1985), 89; see also Ceri Law, Contested Reformations in the University of Cambridge, 1535–​1584 (Woodbridge, 2018), Chapter 6. 197 James Heywood and Thomas Wright (eds), Cambridge University Transactions during the Puritan Controversies of the 16th and 17th Centuries (London, 1854), I, 227; NRO, FH/​600. A copy of Legge’s play Richardus tertius also survives in the Finch-​Hatton archive: NRO, FH/​320. 198 Strype, Annals, II, ii, 342. 199 John Venn, Biographical History of Gonville and Caius College 1349–​1897 (Cambridge, 1901), III, 65; Law, Contested Reformations, 150–​1. 200 BL Lansdowne 36, ff. 88–​9 (Memoirs, 250–​1, 254–​5). 201 Memoirs, 261–​2. 202 On the resolution of this case, see Law, Contested Reformations, 152–​4; Venn, Biographical History, III, 65–​7; Brooke, Gonville and Caius, 88–​92; Brooks, Hatton, 336–​7. 203 The extent to which Hatton relied on his legal knowledge has been disputed, but he was certainly a close follower: Brian P. Levack, The Civil Lawyers in England, 1603–​1641. A Political Study (Oxford, 1973), 273; ‘Swale, Sir Richard (c. 1545–​1608)’, ODNB. 204 NRO, FH/​A/​A/​0600; Holkham MS, f. 303; Memoirs, 261–​2. 205 Louis A. Knafla, ‘Mr Secretary Donne: the years with Sir Thomas Egerton’, in David Colclough (ed.), John Donne’s Professional Lives (Cambridge, 2003), 37–​71, at 61.

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206 This was Susan or Susannah, née Demaistres. John J. Keevil, The Stranger’s 4, 61; F. A. Crisp (ed.), ‘Surrey wills’, in Surrey Son (London, 1953), 43–​ Archæological Collections 13 (1897), 183–​4; CSPD Charles I (1631–​33), 494. 207 Hasler, Commons, I, 216–​17, II, 416; Thrush & Ferris, Commons, II, 291–​3. 208 Hasler, Commons, I, 216. 209 Holkham MS, f. 261; Hasler, Commons, I, 179–​80. 210 Hasler, Commons, I, 150–​1; Thrush & Ferris, Commons, II, 110–​11. 211 Hasler, Commons, I, 289–​90. 212 Holkham MS, f. 309. 213 McGrath and Rowe, ‘The recusancy of Sir Thomas Cornwallis’, 264. Laughter also named other Hatton clients, such as George Gascoigne and Henry Lanman, in his will: TNA PROB 11/​112, f. 41r.–​v., PROB 11/​100, f. 312v.–​313v. 214 On the Gage family, see Questier, Catholicism and Community, passim and see the genealogy at 524; Manning, Religion and Society, passim; David Potter, ‘Sir John Gage, Tudor courtier and soldier (1479–​1556)’, EHR 117:474 (2002), 1109–​46, at 1144–​5. 215 This was Robert Gage, Sir John Gage’s second son: Brooks, Hatton, 227. 216 Enis, ‘The Dudleys, Sir Christopher Hatton and the justices of Elizabethan Warwickshire’, 4, 14. On Waferer’s involvement in Hatton’s affairs, see Brooks, Hatton, 359, 389; Holkham MS, f. 229; BL Additional Charter 19886. He was also lawyer for Sebastian Bryskett and other Catholics: Woudhuysen, Circulation, 243–​4; SP 12/​172/​111. 217 SP 12/​60/​70; SP 12/​118/​69. 218 SP 12/​183/​71. 219 Thomas M. McCoog, SJ (ed.), English and Welsh Jesuits 1555–​1650 (2 vols, CRS 74–​5, 1994–​5), II, 321. 220 Nicholas Harpsfield, The Life and Death of Sir Thomas Moore, ed. E V Hitchcock (Early English Text Society, OS 186, 1932), xiii, 296. In January 1581, a land transaction in East Ham was made between Thomas Bedingfield and Waferer’s friends, including Sebastian Brysket and George Gascoigne, all of whom had links to Hatton: Essex RO, D/​DM T43/​5. 221 BL Lansdowne 25, f. 46 (13 June 1577; see also Memoirs, 39–​40). Hatton takes all the blame himself here; his status with the Queen enabled him to bear considerable weight on his shoulders. 222 Frere (or Fryer) is listed as a servant of Waferer in SP 12/​172/​111. Witnessing: BL Additional Charter 19886 (bond of William Knight, 1584). Recusancy: J. C. Jeaffreson, Middlesex County Records Volume II (London, 1887), 137, 142–​4, 146; J. C. Jeaffreson (ed.), Middlesex County Records Volume III (London, 1888), 5. 223 Geoffrey de C. Parmiter, Elizabethan Popish Recusancy in the Inns of Court, BIHR Special Supplement XI, 1976, 45–​6; R. J. Fletcher (ed.), The Pension Book of Gray’s Inn 1569–​1669 (London, 1901), I, 76; Wilfred R. Prest, The Inns of Court under Elizabeth I and the Early Stuarts 1590–​1640 (London, 1972), 178; Ramel, ‘Biographical notices’. 224 Memoirs, 465.

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25 College of Arms, Dethick’s Funerals, vol. I, pt. 2, f. 281v. 2 226 BL Add. 48000, f. 467v.; CSPD 1581–​90, 546; CSPF XIV (1579–​80), 148; SP77/​2, f. 15; Memoirs, 189, 426. 227 A land transaction between Pyne, Walter Ralegh, Edward Dodge and others makes clear that this is the same man: Chatsworth House, L Box 3 Bundle 7, calendared online at www.celm-​ms.org.uk/​repos​itor​ies/​dev​onsh​ire-​chatsworth-​ house.html#dev​onsh​ire-​cha​tswo​rth-​hou​se_​i​d682​244 (accessed 2 May 2022); Scott, ‘The Journal of Sir Roger Wilbraham’, 24–​ 5; MacCarthy-​ Morrogh, Munster Plantation, 131, 186–​7, 193, 229, 252. 228 Henry Lanman senior appears to have been the obscure figure who was owner of the Curtain Theatre between 1585 and 1592. He was also collector of the Bishop of Ely’s rents in Holborn: Holkham MS, f. 138v. See Neil Younger, ‘New light on Henry Lanman, owner of “The Curtain” ’, Early Theatre, forthcoming. 229 Anthony Kenny (ed.), The Responsa Scholarum of the English College, Rome. Part One: 1598–​1621 (CRS 54, 1962), 87–​8; Henry Foley (ed.), Records of the English Province of the Society of Jesus I (London, 1877), 173–​5. Cf Questier, Catholicism and Community, 202. 230 John. B. Wainewright, ‘The Tempests of Holmside, Co. Durham’, Notes and 3. Tempest was still associated with another old Queries 143 (1921), 21–​ Hatton follower, Edward Gage, in 1606: TNA C78/​114/​12. 231 [William Allen], A briefe historie of the glorious martyrdom of XII reverend priests (1582; STC 369.5), sig. Ciijv–​Ciiij. Kelly, ‘Conformity, loyalty and the Jesuit mission’, 152–​4. 232 I am grateful to Michael Questier and James Kelly for discussions about Payne and the Petres. 233 Essex RO, D/​DP A19 (Petre accounts, 1580/​1), unfoliated, listed under extraordinary charges, August 1581. 234 M. Bernard, ‘Byrd’s Association with the Catholics’, Essex Recusant 14 (1972), 63–​5. Byrd was very close to the Petre family, who had a long association with Payne; this was apparently quite a tight Catholic coterie. 235 E.g. Elizabeth Goldring, Faith Eales, Elizabeth Clarke and Jayne Elisabeth Archer (eds), John Nichols’s The Progresses and Public Processions of Queen Elizabeth I: A New Edition of the Early Modern Sources (5 vols, Oxford, 2014), I, 698–​702 (in which Hatton participated alongside Macwilliam, Colshill and Bedingfield, among many others). 236 For one example suggesting his patronage power at court, see SP 12/​125/​44 (petition of Tho. Tylar, July 1578). 237 Hasler, Commons, III, 19–​20; W. J. Tighe, ‘A Nottinghamshire gentleman in court and country: the career of Thomas Markham of Ollerton (1530–​1607)’, Transactions of the Thoroton Society of Nottinghamshire 90 (1986), 30–​45; R. B. Wernham (ed.), List and Analysis of State Papers Foreign, 1592–​3 (London, 1984), 378; Harington, Metamorphosis of Ajax, 247f. 238 On Griffin, see ‘Markham, Sir Griffin (b. c. 1565, d. in or after 1644)’, ODNB. On Robert, see Kelly, Liber Ruber, 92; Harington, Metamorphosis of Ajax, 250. 239 SP 85/​1, f. 152 r. (report by John Ardern to Burghley, April 1593).

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240 John Harington, Nugæ antiquæ, ed. Henry Harington (2 vols, London, 1804), I, 210. See also below, p. 135. 241 CP 160/​138. 242 Hasler, Commons, I, 633. On 1569: CP 157/​ 1; Wright, Queen Elizabeth and her Times, II, 99; William Joseph Tighe, ‘The Gentleman Pensioners in Elizabethan Politics and Government’ (PhD thesis, University of Cambridge, 1984), 346–​7. Adams places him tentatively as a Leicester client; he (probably) features on the list of Leicester’s clients drawn up by Burghley in 1567. Adams, Leicester and the Court, 152, 204, 208. He may have shifted from dependence on Leicester in the 1560s to Hatton in the 1570s (especially as Leicester became more clearly forward Protestant). 243 In 1571 they received a joint patent to detect usury and other trade-​related offences: CPR 1569–​72, no. 2164. 244 He was dealing with London armourers on Hatton’s behalf: Archer, English Historical Documents 1558–​1603, 111. 245 Memoirs, 420. 246 Hasler, Commons. CSPSMQS 1585–​6, 610. He witnessed a settlement of Hatton’s estates in 1579: Brooks, Hatton, 389. According to Hasler, he owed Hatton a seat in parliament: Commons, II, 278. 247 Hasler, Commons; Tighe, ‘Gentleman Pensioners’, 361–​2. 248 Hasler, Commons, III, 641–​2. There is a mention of a Wiseman in Memoirs, 233, but it is unclear whether this was the same man. 249 Hassall, ‘Books’, 6; ‘Bedingfield, Thomas (early 1540s?–​1613)’, ODNB; Tighe, ‘Gentleman Pensioners’, 323–​4. Bedingfield also dedicated to Hatton a manuscript on ‘Questions of honor and arms’: FSL V.b.104. 250 Along with Sir William Hatton and his father-​in-​law, Judge Francis Gawdy, he was the dedicatee of a work on rhetoric, Angel Day’s The English secretorie (1593; STC 6402): W. Webster Newbold, ‘Traditional, practical, entertaining: two early English letter writing manuals’, Rhetorica: A Journal of the History of Rhetoric 26:3 (Summer 2008), 267–​300, at 291. Woodcock, Churchyard, 161. 251 TNA PROB 11/​76, f. 204. 252 Brooks, Hatton, 200; Letterbook, 61, 322. 253 On More’s descendents, including the Ropers, see Michael Questier, ‘Catholicism, kinship and the public memory of Sir Thomas More’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History 53:3 (July 2002), 476–​509. 254 Holkham MS, f. 132. The Ropers in question included William and Thomas Roper. It is not entirely clear which members of the family these were, but they have may have included the future Lord Teynham. 255 Memoirs, 60–​2; APC 1577–​78, 143. 256 Calendar of Inner Temple Records, I, 309. 257 Questier, ‘Catholicism, kinship and the public memory of Sir Thomas More’, esp. 487–​8. 258 Thomas M. McCoog, The Society of Jesus in Ireland, Scotland, and England 1541–​1588: ‘Our Way of Proceeding?’ (Leiden, 1996), 142, 146, 148; Foley, Records of the English Province of the Society of Jesus, III, 571–​2.

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259 SP 12/​142/​20, f. 68, quoted at length in Brooks, Hatton, 205–​6; Michael Pincombe, ‘Two Elizabethan masque-​orations by Thomas Pound’, Bodleian Library Record 12 (1987), 349–​80; Foley, Records of the English Province of the Society of Jesus, III, 643–​4. 260 Questier, Catholicism and Community, 63–​4. 261 Foley, Records of the English Province of the Society of Jesus, III, 674. 262 On this group, see McCoog, The Society of Jesus, 142–​3. 263 Godfrey Anstruther, OP, Seminary Priests: 1. Elizabethan (1558–​1603) (privately printed, 1966), sv Norris. On Gloucester Hall, see Michael Foster, ‘Thomas Allen (1540–​1632), Gloucester Hall and the survival of Catholicism in post-​Reformation Oxford’, Oxoniensia 46 (1981), 99–​128. 264 John Morris (ed.), The Life of Father John Gerard, of the Society of Jesus (3rd edn., London, 1881), 21, 30; 1585: Anstruther, Seminary Priests; Raphael Holinshed, The first and second volumes of chronicles (1587; STC 13569), III, 1379. 265 SP 12/​168/​25 II, at f. 53r. For Betham’s background, see Davidson, ‘Roman Catholicism in Oxfordshire’, 406–​16. 266 NRO, FH/​D/​G/​1018. 267 SP 12/​168/​25 II. On Gilbert in London, see ‘Gilbert, George (d. 1583)’, ODNB. 268 A letter of Anthony Babington’s appears in the Hatton Letterbook, although it is unclear whether this is due to Hatton’s links with the conspirators or in connection with the investigation and trial: Memoirs, 449–​50. 269 SP 12/​ 192/​ 21; 12/​ 206/​ 75 (apparently a list of Catholics’ houses to be searched: this document is attributed to 1587 but is surely misdated, since Dunne was by then dead). 270 ‘Anthony Babington (1561–​1586)’, ODNB. 271 Memoirs, 418–​19. Despite writing that ‘the person indicated as “D” of this and the following letter has been identified’, Nicolas gives Dunne’s name only as ‘D-​-​-​’; that this was Dunne is clear from a marginal note in the manuscript (Hatton Letterbook, f. 153v.) and from other sources on the Arundel affair. 272 Hatton Letterbook, f. 153v. (Walsingham to Hatton, 29 April 1585). These words, omitted from the version given in Memoirs, 419, are smudged and the sentence is partly lost by damage to the MS, but the essential words are clear. 273 Catholic Record Society Miscellanea II (CRS II, London, 1906), 266. 274 Brooks, Hatton, 280; SP 12/​192/​21; Catholic Record Society Miscellanea II (CRS II, London, 1906), 257. Dunne is named as a servant of Hatton’s in the Lives of Philip Howard and Anne Dacre (as printed in Pollen & MacMahon, Arundel, 114), and as ‘sometyme servaunt to Mr Dodge’ in CP 15/​58. The reluctance to name Hatton is suggested in Pollen & MacMahon, Arundel, n.116. 275 Camden, History, 339. 276 Penry Williams, ‘Babington, Anthony (1561–​86)’, ODNB. 277 On Tichborne, see Brooks, Hatton, 271, 280, 296; Lloyd, Dorset Elizabethans, 91–​100. Tichborne’s wife Jane confessed that ‘she taketh that her husband doth belong to Sir Christofer Hatton’: SP 53/​19, f. 35. 278 See below, Chapter 5. 279 CSPSp 1580–​86, 617.

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80 CSPSMQS 1586–​8, 24. The letter ended up with Burghley. 2 281 SP 53/​18/​61, printed in John Morris (ed.), The Letter-​books of Sir Amias Poulet Keeper of Mary Queen of Scots (London, 1874), 234–​6; SP 53/​19, f. 18r.–​v., which names Knight as Hatton’s man. This may be John Knight of London, a servant who took possession of Hatton’s estates in Ireland: CSPI 1601–​3, 604. 282 Archbishop Loftus mentions him as Hatton’s servant in 1585; he had been serving in Ireland, apparently very bravely, as Sir William Stanley’s lieutenant: SP 63/​117/​31. 283 SP 84/​10 pt. 1/​62, f. 144. 284 E.g. CSPSMQS, VIII, 651–​2. 285 Memoirs, 278. 286 CSPSMQS, VIII, 651–​2, 654–​5. 287 Conyers Read, Mr Secretary Walsingham and the Policy of Queen Elizabeth (Oxford, 1925), III, 18 n.3; Brooks, Hatton, 276–​80. 288 SP 12/​201/​50. 289 CSPD 1591–​4, 398, 421, 424, 426–​7, 429, 431, 435–​8, 473, 490, 533–​4, 546, 553. The apostate Catholic Anthony Tyrrell claimed that he falsely implicated Jaques in treachery when speaking to Burghley in 1586; John Morris SJ (ed.), The Troubles of our Catholic Forefathers, second series (London, 1875), 353, 361, 376, 391, 473; also CSPSMQS, VIII, 652. But on later evidence it seems certain he was anti-​Elizabeth and was a familiar figure in committed Catholic circles. For further evidence of his discussing the assassination of Elizabeth, see Pollen, Unpublished Documents relating to the English Martyrs, 248, 252, 260–​1, 263–​4. L[ewis] L[ewkenor], The estate of English fugitiues vnder the King of Spaine (1595; STC 15564), sig. E2v.–​E3. 290 SP 12/​247/​62; Norfolk Record Office, KNY 710. 291 SP 63/​ 140, f. 81; Lena Cowen Orlin, Locating Privacy in Tudor London (Oxford, 2008), 188. 292 R. B. Wernham (ed.), List and Analysis of State Papers Foreign, 1589–​90 (London, 1964), 156–​9. 293 Franklin B. Williams, Index of Dedications and Commendatory Verses in English Books before 1641 (London, 1962), 90. 294 William Calderwood, ‘The Elizabethan Protestant Press: a Study of the Printing and Publishing of Protestant Religious Literature in English, excluding Bibles and Liturgies, 1558–​1603’ (PhD thesis, UCL, 1977), 191. 295 John Harley, The World of William Byrd: Musicians, Merchants and Magistrates (Ashgate, 2013), 146. 296 Byrd dedicated his Psalmes, sonets, & songs of sadnes and pietie to Hatton 1623)’, in 1588: Woudhuysen, Circulation, 249; ‘Byrd, William (1539x43–​ ODNB; Kerry McCarthy, Liturgy and Contemplation in Byrd’s Gradualia (New York, 2007), 8. 297 Harley, The World of William Byrd, 146–​7. Joseph Kerman, Write All These Down (Berkeley, Los Angeles and London, 1994), 79. 298 BL Egerton 2074, f. 50r. 299 H. B. Wilson, The History of Merchant-​Taylors’ School from its Foundation to the Present Time (London, 1812), 75–​80. This is supported by a connection

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between the departing headmaster of the school, Richard Mulcaster, and the composer. 300 Everard Digby, Euerard Digbie his dissuasiue from taking away the lyuings and goods of the Church (1590; STC 6842). 301 Richard Rex, ‘The sixteenth century’, in Peter Linehan (ed.), St John’s College Cambridge: A History (Woodbridge, 2011), 5–​93, at 85–​7; Debora Shuger, ‘A protesting Catholic puritan in Elizabethan England’, Journal of British Studies 48:3 (July 2009), 587–​630, at 613–​14; Brooks, Hatton, 136–​7. 302 Hasler, Commons, I, 679–​80; Anon, The triall of Maist. Dorrell (1599; STC 6287), 69. TNA PROB 11/​99/​134. 303 ‘Phillips [Phillip], John (d. 1594x1617)’, ODNB; Brooks, Hatton, 353, 356–​7. 304 ‘North, George (fl. 1561–​1581)’, ODNB. 305 ‘Danett, Thomas (1543–​1601?)’, ODNB; Mark Eccles, ‘A biographical dictionary of Elizabethan authors’, Huntington Library Quarterly 5:3 (April 1942), 281–​302, at 288. 306 Rory Rapple, Martial Power and Elizabethan Political Culture (Cambridge, 2009), 68–​9. 307 BL Arundel 258; Hassall, ‘Books’, 7. 308 ‘Ubaldini, Petruccio (fl. 1545–​ 1599)’, ODNB; Woudhuysen, Circulation, 41; K. T. Butler, ‘Giacomo Castelvetro 1546–​1616’, Italian Studies 5 (1950), 1–​42, at 8. 309 Susan M. Felch ‘ “Noble Gentlewomen famous for their learning”: the London circle of Anne Vaughan Lock, ANQ: A Quarterly Journal of Short Articles, Notes and Reviews 16:2 (2003), 14–​19. 310 Susan Doran, Elizabeth I and Her Circle (Oxford, 2015), 143. 311 Adams, ‘Eliza enthroned?’, 70. 312 Adams, Leicester and the Court, 394. 313 Hasler, Commons, II, 124. 314 Essex Record Office, D/​DMs/​T7/​11. 315 TNA catalogue entry for TNA PRO 30/​34/​10. 316 Smith, Baker and Kenny (eds), The Papers of Nathaniel Bacon I, 161. 317 Alice Gilmore Vines, Neither Fire nor Steel: Sir Christopher Hatton (Chicago, 1978), 207; MacCaffrey, Making of Policy, 454. MacCaffrey also cites Hatton’s support for Philip Sidney, which is much better substantiated: see above. 318 I. H. Jeayes (ed.), Letters of Philip Gawdy of West Harling, Norfolk, and of London to Various Members of his Family 1579–​ 1616 (Roxburghe Club, London, 1906), 42; see also A. Hassell Smith, County and Court: Government and Politics in Norfolk, 1558–​1603 (Oxford, 1974), 186 and 181–​92, passim. 319 Hasler, Commons, I, 667; Memoirs, 389–​93, 395–​7, 399–​405. 320 Questier, Catholicism and Community, 205–​6. 321 James E. Kelly, ‘Counties without borders? Religious politics, kinship networks and the formation of Catholic communities’, Historical Research 91:251 (February 2018), 22–​38. 322 Peter Marshall, Reformation England 1480–​1642 (London, 2003), 46. 323 Gajda, The Earl of Essex, 114. 324 In his 1584–​85 ‘Letter of advice to the Queen’: Francis Bacon, Early Writings 1584–​1596, ed. Alan Stewart with Harriet Knight (Oxford, 2012), 22ff.

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25 Questier, Catholicism and Community, 199–​203. 3 326 One example is John Dewell: APC 1591–​92, 269–​70 (20 February 1591/​2). 327 This was recorded in John Harington’s The Metamorphosis of Ajax: see below, p. 135. 328 S. Adams, ‘The Protestant Cause: Religious Alliance with the West European Calvinist Communities as a Political Issue in England, 1585–​1630’ (Dphil thesis, Oxford, 1973), ch. 1, esp. 35. 329 On Sussex, see James E. Kelly, ‘Conformity, loyalty and the Jesuit mission to England of 1580’, in Eliane Glaser (ed.), Religious Tolerance in the Atlantic World: Early Modern and Contemporary Perspectives (Basingstoke, 2014), 149–​70, at 154–​6 (though Kelly’s argument that Sussex’s actions were directly linked to the Anjou match is not wholly convincing, primarily because of the dating; Sussex’s actions may simply reflect ordinary political protection). On Buckhurst, see Questier, Catholicism and Community, 80 n.43, 83–​7; Rivkah Zim, ‘Religion and the politic counsellor: Thomas Sackville, 1536–​1608’, EHR 122 (2007), 892–​917; Collinson, Bancroft, 53–​4.

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3 Religion, reputation and public opinion

We have seen that the nature of Hatton’s patronage network casts him in a rather different, and more controversial, light than has usually been thought. A related question is that of how he was perceived by his contemporaries: did they regard him as sympathetic to Catholics, or even a Catholic himself? This is to some extent a difficult question. Hatton’s career falls in the period before the survival of comments, libels or epigrams on public figures becomes especially common.1 Nor is this surprising. Elizabethan England was not a society which entertained a high respect for freedom of speech on political matters, particularly with regard to comment about highly placed individuals; while controversial ideas could be published, criticism of political leaders was firmly punished.2 In 1605, for example, one Mr Bernarde was forced to write a letter of apology ‘for accusing Lord Petre of being a Papist’, even though he was widely known to be precisely that.3 Such comments were taboo, and indeed a remarkably effective taboo, with ingrained self-​censorship even among the highest social levels. Elizabethan people accordingly tended to be highly circumspect in their comment on the political or religious attitudes of major political figures. This applied on both sides of the political spectrum; it is rare to see specific reference to the Puritan sympathies of Francis Walsingham, Francis Knollys, or the earls of Leicester and Huntingdon, although they were clearly widely known. Enough evidence survives, however, to say with high confidence that Hatton was widely recognised by people from all points of the religious spectrum as being somewhere on a range from Catholic, crypto-​Catholic, potentially Catholic, or at the very least conservative. Catholics regularly treated or described him as (to one extent or another) one of them. This tendency is evident from very early in Hatton’s career. In 1572, he figured in a publication which sympathetically summarised the Treatise of treasons, the Catholic libel against the regime which painted Burghley and Bacon as the traitorous, Machiavellian and self-​ seeking authors of Elizabeth’s policy. The libel presented Elizabeth as being cut off from all

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alternative sources of information and advice, with the book revealing the truth to her. In a dedicatory epistle to the Queen, Hatton, Elizabeth’s ‘trustie servant’, was asked to pass it to her: It hath ben thought neccessarie to invent and find owt all good meanes whereby the said treatise or at least the Table of the same, might by some more faithful seruant of yours, be addressed to your owne handes: for the which respect it hath bene by meanes conveighed to the sight of your trustie servant Mr. Hatton (and others) who of dewtie and alleageance hath bene thought the most fitt instrument to present yow the same. wherein he shal showe your heighnes, more love dutie and faithful obediece, then those of your Counsaillors, that so many monethes sithence, haue had the treatise it selfe in their handes and concealed the same, either of doubt their practises might be vntimelie discouered and preuented, or in deede for lack of love towardes your heighnes person: which standeth in greater perill then yow can beleeve.4

In 1573, when Hatton was visiting Spa, there was an attempt to get Hatton to carry this out, by sending him a copy of the Table with a letter, which was then also printed. This (ungrammatically) justifies sending it to him by noting that ‘yow were first baptized in the faith Catholicque, [and] your continuance for manie yeres therein’.5 The Catholic Lord Windsor, who was also in Spa at the time, was also sent a copy by persons (he said) unknown, and forwarded it to the Queen herself, protesting his loyalty.6 It is intriguing that Windsor sent it to the Queen and not Burghley, since getting the message to her rather than having it stopped by her gatekeepers was of course the rhetorical strategy of the work itself. This remarkably prominent address to Hatton suggests that as early as 1573, Hatton was perceived as being both powerful and outside the group of committed Protestants who were taken to dominate the regime, and as a means for those of more conservative leanings to access the Queen. It may be that he was seen as part of the rump of the erstwhile loyal conservative Norfolk grouping at court, whose viewpoints the Treatise essentially represented. Hatton forwarded the letter to Burghley, presumably finding it something of an embarrassment –​or conceivably he enjoyed the sense that he might be a threat to Burghley, and publicly recognised as such.7 It was apparently only at this time that the Treatise came to the attention of Elizabeth’s ministers. When Burghley saw it, he wrote to Archbishop Parker on 11 September 1573 that he was ‘beaten with a viperous generation of traitorous Papists: and I fear of some domestic hidden scorpion’; whether he thought that Hatton, who had been the bearer of this bad news, was part of that ‘generation’, or was even the scorpion, cannot be known.8 Given the slightly febrile atmosphere prevailing in 1572 (with the Ridolfi plot and the trial and execution of the Duke of Norfolk), there may have

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been hopes among conservatives that Hatton, the powerful new favourite, might rapidly gain influence; as we have seen, early in 1572, Hatton’s relatives had been hoping that they would ‘see wherein Mr Hatton should have one step above the Lord Treasurer’.9 Similar perceptions of Hatton can be found from more provincial quarters too. In 1578, a conversation between a Cornish Catholic called Gifford and one Zacharias Jones was reported. Gifford lamented that Catholic leaders such as Sir John Arundell had been imprisoned, but ‘their were greater favorars of the cause’. Jones mentioned Hatton and ‘Gifford replyed, that he beleived Sir Christofer did favour that way’.10 This provides some sense that Hatton was perceived by Catholics as some solace and potentially a way to make the regime appear less unfriendly. The Scottish Jesuit William Crichton met Hatton in person in the mid-​ 1580s. Crichton was imprisoned after his involvement in plotting against Elizabeth, but released in May 1587 because he was a Scottish subject and because he had told William Parry that it would be unlawful to kill the Queen. His account of Hatton is as follows: Fr. Crichton dealt by letter with Sir Christopher Hatton, the councillor, and the most familiar of all with the Queen. He knew him to be a Catholic at heart [quem sciuit corde esse catholicum], and he accommodated himself to his humour. Hatton obtained liberty for him from the Queen, and used him with very great humanity. He asked Crichton what princes and Catholics thought about himself. Crichton answered that they felt about him, what mathematicians think about the motion of the heavenly bodies. They have a natural motion from west to east, but still they are drawn by the primum mobile, and carried by motion to the west. Being a learned man, he at once understood that Crichton would have liked to say, that he had embraced heresy to please the Queen; and taking out his purse he gave him 20 angels [about £10] and let him go.

Crichton therefore saw Hatton as essentially a church papist.11 Charles Sledd, who handed the government a dossier on English Catholic exiles in 1580, wrote that a traveller at the English College in Rome, one Ridelstone, was asked ‘whether Sir Christofer Hatton were inas [sic] good credite as he was in tymes paste & of what religione he was supposed to be of, afferminge him to be the only favorer of Catholickes which are in England. The said Ridelstone answered that he knew nothinge of his religione, but his honor increased dalye & was greatly estemed of the Q. Majestie.’12 This suggests that Hatton was regarded as ambiguous: sympathetic to Catholics, but not perhaps wholeheartedly Catholic himself. Of course habitués of the English College in Rome would have a stricter definition of what constituted a Catholic than those on the ground in England. It also suggests concern

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about what he might do in the future: a potential ally, perhaps, but not necessarily to be banked on. The notorious Catholic libel Leicester’s Commonwealth makes several interesting points about Hatton. The book was apparently written in exile by a group of English Catholic laymen like Charles Arundell –​men who had been prominent courtiers, linked to the Howards and supporters of the Anjou match, and who had subsequently gone into exile.13 As such, they may well have been in sympathy with Hatton during his early career, and would have known a good deal about him. The book comprised an extended character assassination of the Earl of Leicester, often embroidering the truth in the process, but its portrayal of Hatton is essentially sympathetic: it mentions Leicester’s attempt to ‘to entrap his well deserving friend Sir Christopher Hatton in the matter of Hall, his priest, whom he would have had Sir Christopher to send away and hide, being touched and detected in the case of Arden, thereby to have drawn in Sir Christopher himself, as Sir Charles Candishe can well declare if it please him, being accessory to this plot for the overthrow of Sir Christopher.’ Hatton was also ‘reported to be of such credit and special favor in Rome as if he were the greatest Papist in England’.14 Hatton was also mentioned in a cluster of Catholic tracts criticising the government in the early 1590s written in response to the 1591 proclamation against Catholics which emerged directly after Hatton’s death.15 These were of course polemical texts, intended to advance the Catholic cause, not least by making the point that the English government was not wholly representative of its people. Their accounts generally read as sensationalised and exaggerated but with a ring of truth, and they often echo contemporary reports (as well as each other). The first to appear was Robert Persons’s Elizabethae Angliae reginae haeresim Calvinianam propugnantis saevissimum in Catholicos sui regni edictum (1592) (often referred to as Philopater), which also appeared in a shorter version, An advertisement written to a Secretary of my L. Treasurer’s of England (1592), where it was presented as a summary supposedly sent to Burghley.16 Here Hatton is included, along with Nicholas Bacon, Burghley, Walsingham and Leicester, as one of the five guilty men who were the ‘causes and instrumentes of all miserie to Ingland’. It is said of Hatton that yf he had any feeling of any religion, he thought the catholique to be the trewer, and that so he had signified diuerse wayes in his life time, and that he had vpon sundrie occasions protested moste earnestly in secret to his frendes (and namely to father William Crighton the Scottishe Iesuite at his deliuerie out of the Tower) that his hand had neuer subscribed to the death of any one catholique, nor neuer should, which yet this awnswerer thincketh not to be trew, considering his authoritie and place he had in the Councell, and the bitter

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speeches, which he openly vsed often times in the starre chamber, and other places against catholiques for maintenance of his creditt.

The passage goes on to point out that in spite of the dreadful proceedings of the Privy Council against Catholics, Hatton and others, even Burghley, ‘most of them in priuate will deny, to their frendes to haue their fingers in’ these actions, ‘wherefore he thincketh Sir Christofer Hatton to haue bin most vnhappie euen in these thinges wherein other men doe thinck him fortunate, which are the fauours had with her Maiestie’. In this verdict, then, Hatton was indifferent to religion, but Catholic leaning; he attempted to moderate actions against Catholics or at least claimed to do so, but ‘for maintenance of his creditt’, he was obliged to denounce Catholics in public. This, of course, was to obliterate the distinction between the mostly loyal, quiescent English Catholics whom (as we have seen) Hatton protected and the renegade Catholics, plotters against the regime and foreign potentates such as the Pope and the King of Spain whom Hatton did indeed attack in Parliament and elsewhere; Persons’s refusal to draw such a distinction, and Hatton’s insistence on doing so, were characteristic of each of them.17 Similar verdicts emerged from various other publications that emerged around the time of Hatton’s death. A slightly more sympathetic note was struck by the Jesuit Joseph Creswell, who, again focusing his comments on the iniquity of the 1591 proclamation, notes that ‘since he was wiser than others or possessed of greater equanimity, I hear that he resisted this edict ... if he had lived, a better and sounder plan might have been accepted’.18 Even Philopater acknowledges that ‘Hatton lived more elegantly and also acted more moderately in the government of the State’ than his contemporaries.19 In a slightly later book by Robert Persons in 1593, the argument was made that ‘the particuler choise & forme of religion which Sir William Cecil & M. Bacon mad[e]‌& persuaded the Queen vnto at the beginning, was no wise or considerate choise’ –​that is, that the English Church was out of step with the rest of Europe, both Catholic and Protestant, ‘so as the laberinth of Inglish state and religion, seemeth hereby to be inextricable, and much approued was the saying of S. Christopher Hatton late chauncelor, to a certayne secret frende of his a lyttle before his death, that the clew twyned vp by thes deuises in Ingland, was so Intanged [sic], as no man possibly could vntwist the same but by breaking al in peces, which he spake to the great grief both of himselfe and him that heard it’.20 Here, then, Hatton is depicted as a critic of the Elizabethan settlement, in private at least. Persons’s account of Hatton was echoed by the Jesuit Pedro de Ribadeneira, writing in a continuation of Nicholas Sander’s stridently Catholic De origine ac progressu schismatis Anglicani, apparently with second-​hand information based on hearsay or opinion within the Catholic community.21 He presented Hatton as a frivolous courtier who came to power through his

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charm and elegance. He was ‘more moderate than his other colleagues and, so they say, at heart a Catholic [in animo Catholicus] and opposed to the shedding of their blood –​but, on the other hand, he had so subjected himself to the Queen’s will, and so desired to please and serve her (lest he fall from her favor and trust) that he did not dare tell her the truth, nor rebuke the other councilors who were more violent and cruel in matters of religion’. Like Persons, then, Ribadeneira does not exempt Hatton from responsibility for carrying out an ungodly policy on the grounds that his heart was not really in it, and confidently assigned his soul to hell. He goes on to say that the 1591 proclamation had been blocked during his lifetime because Hatton was ‘more moderate, and fond of the Catholics in his heart’ and ‘consider[ed] it cruel and prejudicial to the whole kingdom, and because he did not wish the lord treasurer, William Cecil, its author, to have so much influence, to take control of the realm’s affairs, and to favor the Puritan heretics openly, as he did.’22 These contemporary accounts from continental observers are largely ­consistent, therefore, and they proliferate markedly towards the end of Hatton’s life –​by then, he was seen as one of the five leading political figures of the reign, along with Burghley, Walsingham, Leicester and Bacon. Most of the observers discussed up to now were able to judge Hatton only from afar, but a closer view of Hatton came from ambassadors and agents from Catholic powers. Here, the picture is rather more mixed, since the questions of religion and international politics did not necessarily point in the same direction. Early in his career, during the 1570s, Hatton was relatively friendly with Spanish emissaries; in 1573, Antonio de Gueras wrote of him that ‘en su conciencia es ciertamente catolico’ (in his conscience he is certainly Catholic) and in 1576 that Hatton ‘is very friendly and gracious to me’.23 The newly appointed Bernardino de Mendoza saw him as potentially co-​operative and worth cultivating; he recommended offering pensions to Hatton, Sussex, Burghley and Sir James Croft.24 An anonymous correspondent of Don Juan of Austria in 1578 classified Hatton and Croft alongside five prominent figures who were widely recognised as Catholic (Lord Lumley, Viscount Montague, the Earl of Southampton, Sir John Arundell and Sir Thomas Cornwallis) as ‘personnaiges principaulx que [a]‌son temps pourront rendre service’: principal ­people who in time could give service, presumably in a pro-​Catholic interest.25 Hatton also got on very well with the moderate Netherlandish Catholic Champagney in 1576, who made several references to his apparently Catholic style: Hatton spoke ‘avec ung langaige que m’ha semblé de catholicque’; ‘il a parlé avec moi bien ouvertement comme catholicque’; Hatton ‘me parlat ung langaige plus de catholicque que aultrement’; Hatton and James Croft ‘tiennent bon pour nous et sont estimez catholicques’;

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Hatton ‘est de grandissime crédit vers elle [Elizabeth] et tenu plustost pour catholicque que autrement’.26 Chateauneuf, the French ambassador from 1585–​ 90, saw him as a conservative and one who favoured Spain (that is, peace) and the English Catholics; among the four leading ministers, he placed Hatton alongside Burghley in this position, opposing the strong Protestants Walsingham and Leicester. It is likely that this view of Burghley was a feature of his cautious, sceptical attitude to the war in the mid-​1580s.27 Both English and foreign Catholics, therefore, perceived Hatton as being notably sympathetic to Catholics and as such unlike most leading figures at court. Few, it should be said, regarded him as an out-​and-​out Catholic –​Crichton seems to be something of an exception in this regard. As a prominent courtier and then minister, Hatton could not defy the religious settlement in the way a private person could. But he was seen as someone who would favour Catholics both now and in the future. This generally sympathetic attitude towards Hatton changed markedly, at least as far as the Spanish are concerned, in the 1580s; as diplomatic relations between England and Spain deteriorated, the Spanish found Hatton, like other leading ministers, increasingly hostile.28 This was not necessarily a matter of principle on Hatton’s part; in the early 1580s, for example, it related to his support for Sir Francis Drake.29 After the beginning of the war in 1585, Hatton held closely to the party line. By 1587, one Spanish paper noted Hatton to be one of the ‘principal Heretics’ and ‘principal devils that rule the Court and are the leaders of the Council’, which again clearly relates primarily to his attitude to Spain.30 There are some signs that Hatton’s reputation led observers in the Netherlands to fear his influence, on the assumption that his Catholic sympathies would lead him to support Spain. In May 1578, Walsingham wrote to William Davison in the Netherlands that ‘I am informed that ther are harde speeches geven owt ageynst Mr Vychamberlyn by men of the best cowntenaunce ther as overmyche inclyned to Spayne wherin I doe assure you the gentleman receyvethe great wronge.’31 A broadly similar report came from the government agent and odd-​job man William Herle, who reported from Antwerp in May 1582 that there were wild rumours, encouraged by the French, including England is in Armes agaynst the Queen. The papists growen strong, The Queen perplexed with force & difficultye: The Erlles of Lecester & Sussex banded yn grete Trowpes on against another: Bothe of theme comanded to their howses, master Hatton & the Erlle of Sussex becom spaynissh.32

No doubt these were garbled stories, but they demonstrate a perception that Hatton (and indeed Sussex) leant towards Catholicism, and that this

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division underlay Elizabethan politics –​that they were ultimately not natural allies of Leicester. Yet on this score at least, there is little indication that this was accurate. Hatton showed little interest in international Catholicism, even in the form of seminaries and Jesuits, by comparison with figures such as the 13th Earl of Arundel, Henry Howard and their circle. A large part of the explanation for this –​as for so much of Hatton’s career –​is surely that unlike those dabblers in treason, Hatton never needed support from foreign Catholics or the Spanish ambassador. He was secure in his possession of royal favour, and had nothing to gain from any other leader than Elizabeth herself. What Spanish ambassadors liked was not merely Catholics, but pro-​ Spanish Catholics; anti-​Spanish Catholics had little reason to work with them. In other words, the political questions were more relevant than the religious. Furthermore, as we shall see in Chapter 4, while Hatton seems to have been opposed to war with Spain in the 1570s, he had shifted his position by the 1580s. Like some of the Earl of Essex’s Catholic followers, he may have felt that the strategic threat from Spain outweighed any religious considerations. The views of Catholics are largely consistent, therefore. Hatton was the most Catholic leaning of Elizabeth’s senior ministers, and possibly in some sense a Catholic himself. At times, he was sympathetic towards other Catholics, yet he was a party to the persecution of Catholics. Clearly, he was viewed with considerable ambivalence. While he may have been Catholic at heart, he was also an obedient servant of a heretic regime, a collaborator; he condoned the persecutions, even if he did not like them. One might regard such an attitude as even worse than that of sincere Protestants, and it would hardly be surprising if it brought upon Hatton the hostility of more hard-​line Catholics. Those remaining in England might not have found it prudent to articulate such sentiments about a man who might well have been in a position to help them in certain circumstances, but Cardinal Allen, who presumably knew Hatton from his Oxford days, attacked him (though not by name) in his Defence of English Catholics. He notes that, following an accident which might have killed the Queen, Hatton had made a speech stressing the extent to which the security of the realm depended on the Queen’s life, and arguing that confusion and bloodshed might follow her death. Such men, he said, were ‘praised and admired by them that esteem only the present uncertain pleasure of a very few years ... Under pretense of preserving their present state, they are contented to plunge their whole posterity into eternal or very long miseries.’33 Similarly, Philopater criticised Hatton for his compromising approach: Let others, then, excuse Hatton for this great crime; to me it seems that according to the Gospels’ lessons he is worthy of double condemnation, since he

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knew truth and justice, yet acted otherwise, since he received the light and yet was willingly blind because he saw good men and praised them, and yet chose to take sides with thieves and be their ally. Let others judge him happy and most blessed because he was rich and powerful and enjoyed the Queen’s highest favour for so many years; to me he seems for these very reasons to be especially wretched, since these were the temptations by which the devil dragged him to perdition. ... Hatton must plead his case on the basis of his life and conscience, in regard to which neither the Queen’s power nor her favour can rescue the man.34

This was a very plausible and potentially very stinging attack on someone in Hatton’s position: he was trading the long-​term future of English Catholics or England itself for the vain enjoyment of a few years of power and ­position. Certainly there was no doubt about Hatton’s fate: the Catholic propagandist Verstegan joked to Persons in 1593 that the recently deceased judge Sir Peter Manwood had written a letter from hell to Burghley, saying that he had found Leicester, Hatton and ‘sundry others of His Lordshipe’s most familiar freindes, who all woundred [wondered] at his so long stay, considering how long since they have expected him’.35 Indeed, this got to the core of the tension within English Catholicism about whether to compromise or to resist. For the proponents of staunch recusancy, those who refused to countenance any compromise with the regime on religious matters, Hatton might well have been seen as an enemy, a danger and a threat to their version of Catholicism, as perhaps the most prominent example of conformity and someone who (it appears) actively sought to persuade other Catholics (such as Sheldon) to do the same. Whether such an attitude to Hatton and his ilk was widely shared among the English Catholic community is unclear; if people thought that way, they were not so impolitic as to put it down on paper. The alternative position was simply to be pleased to have a friend in high places, and potentially to see some confirmation that the regime was not uniformly hostile to them. Tresham, for example, does not seem to have resented him.

Protestant views of Hatton This view of Hatton is generally echoed on the Protestant side too. Among relatively moderate figures, William Camden, writing some years after his death but with a generally positive tone about Elizabeth’s reign, was happy to record that Catholics thought him ‘more inclinable to their Side’ and a man ‘who was of Opinion, that in matters of Religion neither Fire nor Sword was to be used’.36 Since Camden tended to underplay the Catholic

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ties of Elizabethan ministers, the significance of these comments should not be minimised. On the provincial level, we have signs that Hatton’s Catholic leanings were recognised. His involvement with Babington conspirators, for example, would have been widely known –​we find it in a commonplace book from Lancashire.37 The correspondence of the Norfolk Puritan JP Nathaniel Bacon (son of Sir Nicholas) is an excellent proxy for the opinions and attitudes of forward Protestant gentry –​provincial, but with good links to the capital (he received regular newsletters from his brother Edward) and strong interest in events. Hatton crops up periodically in his correspondence, seldom in a favourable light. Edward Bacon reported on Birchet’s assassination attempt against Hatton, for example, showing considerable sympathy towards Birchet, who was ‘greatly well gyven, untill lately he hath byn somewhat trobled in mynde’.38 In another letter, at the time of the Arden-​Somerville affair, he reports rumours that a servant of Hatton’s called ‘Dodes’ (possibly Edward Dodge) was in prison; he did not comment on this, but placed it between two reports about Mrs Arden, implicitly linking Hatton with Catholic traitors.39 This was therefore something which he did not wish to state explicitly but was willing to imply, presumably assuming that he did not need to spell it out to his brother. Similarly, like other Elizabethan ministers, Hatton was the target of popular libels.40 In 1576, a lampoon ‘greatly libelling’ him was in circulation, after he entertained ambassador Champagney, who was seeking to prevent England going to war in support of the Dutch rebels.41 In 1580 he featured alongside Leicester in a French tract apparently in support of the Anjou match.42 On 26 July 1585, William Herle noted that Hatton was ‘depraved [slandered] more than any man, & as Rumors & yll Brutes with us, as ar whirlle wyndes so is there a hepe of this yll muck blowen before his very wyndowe, to charge his credite & allegiance’.43 This must refer to the death of the 8th Earl of Northumberland, whose death about a month prior was officially a suicide, but was rumoured to be Hatton’s doing. These criticisms of Hatton arose particularly from the more radical end of the spectrum, of course; put simply, he was widely hated by Puritans. The sense that there was a fairly widespread awareness of Hatton’s position is strengthened by several attacks on him which went beyond the verbal and towards the homicidal. The most dramatic of these was the attempted murder of Hatton by Peter Birchet in 1573.44 Birchet, a strong Puritan, was the son of a leading Protestant family in Rye, Sussex. He was an earnest young man who had been studying at the Middle Temple for five years, but with ‘a nawghtye mallencollye humor, and Passion which often tymes would dryve hym to be Jealous, and suspect all men’.45 On a summer trip to the west country, Birchet had for a long period been ‘out of his wits’, exhibiting

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signs of irrational and violent behaviour (including some wild questioning of an unfortunate bride at a local wedding), before returning to London on 8 October.46 The morning of the 14 October, still very unstable, he went early to a lecture by the Puritan Thomas Sampson, returned to the Temple, and after hesitating for a short while, went out to the Strand and attacked a man whom he said he believed to be Hatton. Birchet got the wrong man, however, and instead attacked the sailor John Hawkins, who was badly wounded. When questioned, Birchet stated that he believed Hatton to be a ‘wylfull Papyst and hindereth the glory of God so muche as in him lyethe’, and that therefore to kill such a person was lawful by God’s law, if not man’s; another report stated that Hatton was seen as an ‘evell membre to the common wealth’.47 If the testimony of his Temple associates is to be believed (and they were not unduly sympathetic towards him), Birchet does seem to have been mentally unstable; he later murdered his guard, also believing him to be Hatton.48 Nevertheless, there was a real concern that this was more than the act of a single, disturbed man. Elizabeth, in particular, was furious, perhaps particularly roused by the targeting of her favourite. She sent her own surgeons to look after Hawkins, and Thomas Gorges to ‘visite and comforte hym’. According to Thomas Smith, ‘neither her Majestie, nor allmost any one here, can thynke otherwyse, but that there is some conspiracie for that murder, and that Burchet is not indeede mad’. The Queen, therefore, saw conspiracy, not madness. Smith went on: ‘It is said here that divers tymes, within this fortnight, both by words and writings Mr Haddon hath bene admonished to take hede to hymself; for his life was laide in waite for.’49 Elizabeth initially ordered that Birchet be executed by martial law, and was persuaded otherwise only with difficulty. Eventually she demanded he be closely interrogated as to whether he was part of a conspiracy against Hatton, after which he was executed.50 This fear was also heightened by the timing of the events. As Collinson noted, there were attempts at this point to curb Puritan non-​conformity.51 It is particularly interesting, of course, that Hatton himself was targeted, even though his associates at the Temple stated that Birchet had not been heard to speak against Hatton at all.52 However, Hatton was recently returned from Spa, and if, as has been argued, he had been there attempting to reconcile renegade Catholics to the regime, it could well be that he was perceived to be undermining the Protestant nature of the regime. It may also be related to the publication of the Treatise of treasons; the proclamation against the Treatise of treasons came out on 28 September, two weeks or so previously.53 Either way, it testifies to the fact that Hatton was already perceived as an enemy to the Puritans and a friend to the Catholics.

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For Birchet and others like him, it may have seemed like, having just crushed the conservatives in the crisis of 1568–​72, the enemy had returned. This event was something of a national news sensation; Nathaniel Bacon in Norfolk and John Thynne in Wiltshire received accounts of the ‘so notoryous & so largly publyshed’ event, all noting the intended as well as the actual victim.54 It was long remembered too; Richard Verstegan, the Catholic polemicist, cited it in 1592 as evidence for the disruptive nature of Puritans, as against the peaceful Catholics, who had never ‘attempted to murther any principall person of her Court’.55 While the late sixteenth century saw many political assassinations, such attempts were not common in England (except against the Queen herself), so the fact that Hatton was singled out is interesting.56 A peculiar aftermath to this came the following year, when, along with Burghley and the Bishop of Winchester, Hatton was the putative target of a murder conspiracy which turned out to be a forgery. The ‘plot’ was invented by one Humphrey Needham, an informer on covert puritanism who took to concocting further Puritan excesses; it was supposedly backed by Puritan ministers and the Earl of Bedford, and was ‘discovered’ in a cache of letters handed over to Archbishop Parker’s steward. The fake was discovered, and found to be a money-​making exercise, although Robert Beale suspected it was anti-​Puritan ‘practice’ by Parker. Again, however, that Hatton was seen as a suitable victim for a Puritan plot suggests that he had a widespread reputation for anti-​puritanism (no doubt reflecting the publicity which followed the Birchet affair).57 The second public attack on Hatton came in July 1591, with the affair of William Hacket, an illiterate Northamptonshire man who was hailed as a prophet by a small group of followers. Speaking publicly in London, two of Hacket’s sidekicks, Edmund Coppinger and Henry Arthington, denounced the Queen for ‘giving credite and countenance to the Bishops’ and named Hatton, Whitgift and another privy councillor (Walsham suggests this was Buckhurst) as ‘Opposers of the sincere Religion.’ It was claimed that Hacket intended to force his removal as Lord Chancellor, perhaps even to threaten his life. He was quickly apprehended and tried, and was executed on 28 July.58 Arthington had a record of anti-​Catholic activity in Yorkshire, and the group had links with many radical Puritans, although ironically Hacket had in the 1570s been an employee of Sir Thomas Tresham and possibly a church papist himself.59 This affair has received considerable attention as an example of Puritan or presbyterian enthusiasm; it was extensively exploited in propaganda by Hatton’s anti-​Puritan allies, notably Bancroft and Richard Cosin, and hinted at in Catholic publications too.60 While the Puritans (and, significantly, Burghley) dismissed Hacket and his allies as madmen, their opponents (such

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as Cosin) insisted they were traitors, to impugn Puritans generally, and it is therefore significant that the Crown’s prosecution case at the trial followed the latter line.61 It was clearly no coincidence that at this time, the leading Puritan Thomas Cartwright and others were being tried in Star Chamber; Cartwright’s lawyer Nicholas Fuller was arrested on the same warrant as Hacket.62 The key point here is that Hatton was widely recognised as an avowed and powerful anti-​Puritan figure, whose influence called for a response, if necessary a violent one. Clearly Hacket and his supporters were extreme figures, so it should not be taken that their proposed solution was widely shared, but it does demonstrate that Hatton was seen as someone who was not under the control of Burghley or other Protestant councillors. Part of the reason for this animus must have been that Hatton achieved high office so young: twenty years younger than Burghley and only about 46 when appointed Lord Chancellor, he might easily have been the dominant figure in government for a couple of decades –​though ironically for Hacket, Hatton was to die just a few months later. In spite of these examples, therefore, relatively few comments on Hatton’s religious attitudes have been found for the period of his lifetime. Nor is this surprising; however much Hatton might be suspected of having excessively close Catholic connections, it was not only pointless but positively dangerous to accuse the Queen’s favourite openly. Tichborne’s comments on the scaffold are a rare example of Hatton’s position being publicly spoken of. This of course helps to account for the general obscurity of Hatton’s position. Indeed it is possible to detect a clear conspiracy of silence about Hatton’s Catholic links. In the case of the Birchet affair, for example, Holinshed’s Chronicles reported the incident in detail, but tactfully did not mention who was really being targeted or why, merely that Birchet ‘tooke the said maister Hawkins for an other gentleman’.63 Camden, by contrast, named Hatton, but did not refer to his supposed Catholicism, only that he was ‘an Enemy to the Innovators’, which is glossed as ‘Puritans’.64 As we have seen, the investigation of the Arden-​Somerville affair avoided mentioning Hatton’s links with the group.65 Indeed there are a couple of episodes in which comments of the Queen herself suggest a degree of knowledge and complicity with Hatton’s position. In 1585, when Hatton was busy interrogating plotters, often at his own home, Heneage told Hatton that ‘her Highness thinketh your house will shortly be like Gravesend barge, never without a knave, a priest or a thief’.66 This perhaps suggests that the Queen regarded her Vice-​Chamberlain as something of a poacher-​turned-​gamekeeper. A year later, at the time of the Babington Plot, Camden reports that the Queen ‘when she walked on a time abroade, and saw [the plotter] Barnwell, she beheld him undauntedly, and turning herselfe to Hatton Captaine of the guard, and others, she said,

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Am not I fairely guarded, that have not a man in my Company that wears a Sword?’. Given Hatton’s connections with the Babington plotters, was she adverting to his connections?67 He may well have had some sticky moments, given how easily the Queen might justifiably have held him partially responsible for the Babington Plot.

Hatton’s posthumous reputation Hatton’s death eased the taboo on comment and opened the doors to considerably more frank assessments of his position. Shortly afterwards, the clergyman and lexicographer Francis Holyoake rejoiced that the papists had lost their protector: Great comfort is to the Churche by the death of the Lord Channceller, and apparence of deliverannce to the Ministres [Cartwright et al.], that have untill nowe had none. ... Papistes have no suche shrowde nowe, as appeared by a greate Assemblee of them, nere to Hoburne, convented at a open Masse, and many apprehended and some condemned. And a Man Launderer of the ArcheBB [sic] was one, and not the least.68 I pray God, all the rest of his Men, that are Papistes, may bee lykewise taken. So hurtefull are they to our Land. Nowe comfort is come to the Sainctes of God, when good men beare rule and evill men cutt of, as the Erle of Essex, Chauncellor of Oxford. For whiche Office, the ArcheB (as I heare) laboured to have Lord Buckhurst. ... Therefore lett us bee comforted, in that the appearannces of the grace of the Lord is offred, and some good wordes have by Lord Treasourer been spoken in the Ministres behalf, which I hope in Christe have or will take place.69

The incident Holyoake refers to, the breaking up of a clandestine mass in Holborn, will be examined later, but his comments testify to the hostility with which earnest Protestants regarded Hatton and the influence they believed he had. Similarly, in a throwaway comment, the Puritan John Udall spoke of when ‘the Lord Chancellor was dead and forgotten by such as were sorry for it’.70 Much later, in 1605, Lewis Pickering, a minor courtier and Puritan, recalled to Robert Cecil the terrible fates which had overcome various persecutors of the Puritans, including how ‘the Lord Chancelour Hatton, was suddenly taken, with an (ipso facto) when the ten ministers were produced after 2 yeeres imprisonment’ –​a muddled version of the events of 1591–​92, but revealing of his attitudes.71 These comments of course paint Hatton more as an enemy of the Puritans than as a Catholic or crypto-​Catholic himself, but the swift association Holyoake made between the prospect of release for imprisoned Puritan clergy and the arrest of Catholics shows that these were seen as linked.

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In one of the elegies published about him, there are indications that rumours were circulating about him: ‘as Virtutis comes est invidia [virtue is the companion of envy], so base report who hath her tong blistered by scandalous envie, began as far as she durst, how after his death, to murmure, who in his life time durst not once mutter’. Later on in the piece, the figure of Religion says ‘base report, ware what thy tongue doth spred/​Tis sin and shame for to bely the dead’.72 All of this suggests that Hatton’s religion was a taboo subject, about which many people had views which they were unable to articulate until after his death. Shortly after Hatton’s death, an anonymous ‘lewd libell’ appeared, mocking the plight of Hatton’s now patronless followers Thomas Markham, Henry Unton, Francis Flower, Richard Bancroft, Swale and Dodge. The libel itself does not survive, and is known only from snippets quoted in 1596 in The metamorphosis of Ajax by Sir John Harington, himself a man with many deep Catholic links and sympathies.73 It is not clear whether the libel specifically painted them as Catholics or crypto-​Catholics, but Harington suggests this is how it was interpreted. He discusses it in a long passage in which he describes (in affectionate and jocular terms) various wealthy gentlemen who were widely known as conservatives or Catholics. It seems, therefore, that the libel accused Hatton of being surrounded by disreputable crypto-​Catholic cronies, a suggestion Harington, who was Thomas Markham’s nephew and a friend of Hatton’s, sought to rebut. Again, it assumed that Hatton was at the centre of a network which was, if not Catholic, then close to it, and probably Catholic at heart; he is bracketed with undoubted Catholics like John Petre and Matthew Arundell as well as more moderate conservative figures such as Sir John Spencer. To some extent this was sheer nonsense; Bancroft, for example, whatever one says about him, was not a Catholic. Yet, given that some of these at least were fairly demonstrably Catholic (Dodge and Swale, particularly), this adds credence to the libel. It also offers further evidence that Hatton’s reputation was widely known, and also that his servants were well-​known figures in wider court or London circles.74 Somewhat similar is a brief but vivid snapshot of the impact of Hatton’s entourage on his London parish, in a 1604 work on Church governance by the Puritan lawyer William Stoughton: Let vs suppose, that Mai.[ster] Doctor Bancroft were still Parson of S. Andros in Holborne, and that hee had chosen Maister Harsnet to bee his Curat, and withall that Mai Dodge, Ma. [James] Merbury [another Hatton follower], Maister Flower, and Maister Brisket (all cheefe attendants on his late great Lord and Maister) were inhabitants within the same Parish, & that the chiefe men, of the same Parish, had chosen those to be assistants to him, and to his

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Curat, for the inquisition of the demeanours of all the Puritanes and Precisians within his Parish…

This reads very much like a satirical depiction of the power of Hatton’s establishment within St Andrew’s, but presented as an anti-​Puritan force rather than a Catholic one. Yet, again, the implication that Hatton’s leading servants were at least somewhat recognisable in print is remarkable.75 Perhaps the most frank and stinging Elizabethan account of Hatton came from the Puritan author or compiler of the anti-​toleration pamphlet of 1601, Humble motives for association to maintain religion established.76 He cites the Philopater tract to claim that Hatton was noted ‘for publique and bitter invectives against papists being on[e]‌himselfe’. Whereas during Leicester’s lifetime, it continued, ‘it went for currant that all Papists were Traitors in action, or affection’, after his death, ‘Sir Christopher Hatton ... bearing sway, Puritans were trounced and traduced as troublers of the state.’77 It went on to ask whether ‘there be not some crafty Sinon of Sir Christopher Hattons stamp (as it is imprinted by Philopater) who madeth way in those Troian horses, the popish Bookes’ –​referring here to publications relating to the Appellent controversy.78 In this view, then, Hatton was unequivocally a Catholic, and in his political role nothing short of a wolf in the fold, raised up by the Queen, who tolerated Catholics, repressed Puritans and was liable to open a Pandora’s box of other Catholics. Just ten years after Hatton’s death, this was extraordinarily open criticism of a minister and the Queen. Furthermore, although the point is laboured that Philopater was the source of these accusations, they surely are more accurately seen as cover for what was widely known (or believed) at the time.

Conclusion It seems very clear, then, that Hatton’s tendencies and his links with Catholics were well known within the political classes in London and far beyond. It seems hardly likely that, for example, one of the Babington traitors mentioning his links with Hatton would not have occasioned some comment around London. Certainly it is inconceivable that the Queen and other senior ministers were not fully aware of this; as we have seen, men like Burghley and Walsingham were occasionally willing to say so to Hatton directly. Of course it is not difficult to identify hidden agendas for anyone who might wish to make such claims about Hatton; in the melee of claim and counterclaim of Elizabethan religious politics, in which individuals and groups energetically sought to lay claim to, define, or evade religious categories or definitions, this was common. On the Catholic side, they may

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well be dismissed as wishful thinking, the desire to believe that they had a friend in high places, that there was hope for the future. Catholic writers consistently argued that the vast majority of the population and even the elite of England was at heart Catholic, and if only a few of the leading ministers (Cecil, Leicester, Walsingham) could be disposed of, all would be well. Yet as we have seen, most Catholic commentators were ambivalent about Hatton, describing him as Catholic at heart, or Catholic leaning, rather than Catholic per se –​and indeed open Catholicism would have been impossible for a minister of the Crown. On the Protestant side, attitudes to Hatton could conceivably be dismissed as the kind of paranoid anti-​popery which led later Protestants to accuse the likes of Charles I of popery. Alternatively, Protestant criticisms of Hatton can also be seen as signs of dissatisfaction with the Queen’s tendency to tolerate Catholics or their sympathisers at the highest levels. To attack Hatton was to attack her for being soft on Catholics, or perhaps being foolish. On one level, this does not matter, since the perception was as important (or more so) as the reality in guiding actions. Yet placed alongside the evidence that he did in fact have a significant Catholic following, they are essentially persuasive. Nor is there any sign that Hatton sought to deny any of it. An instructive comparison is Henry Howard, who was willing to speak openly in praise of some Catholics: ‘there were many Catholics which otherwise, but for their consciences, were men well qualified, and good subjects, and loyally disposed to the state’. He publicly acknowledged that he had ‘solicited the king for juster treatment of Catholics’.79 There is no record of Hatton doing anything similar, although this may be a question of lack of evidence, and he did speak robustly against the Pope, the Jesuits and so on in Parliament.

Notes 1 For comments on this type of source, see Pauline Croft, ‘The reputation of Robert Cecil: libels, political opinion and popular awareness in the early seventeenth century’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society (1991), 43–​69. 2 Debora Shuger, ‘ “Paper bullets”: texts, lies, and censorship in early modern England’, in Dennis Kezar (ed.), Solon and Thespis: Law and Theater in the English Renaissance (Indiana, 2007), 163–​96, esp. 165–​6. 3 Hasler, Commons, III, 210. 4 G. T., A table gathered ouut of a booke named A treatise of treasons against Q. Elizabeth (Antwerp, 1572) and A Copie of a Lettre Addressed from Antwerp the xxvi. Of Iune to Mr. Hatton and deliured vnto him at Spaw the 5. Of Iulie. 1573, bound together as STC 23617, sig. *2v.–​*3r.

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5 Ibid., sig. **6r. 6 CP 159/​100, f. 141 (HMCS, II, 53–​4). Windsor later wrote to Burghley denying hostile motives in having sent it, though acknowledging past disputes: CP 159, f. 210 (HMCS, II, 67). 7 Hatton was ‘presented it’ in the printed text, and seems to have been sent it in reality too: see the letter (or perhaps a copy), signed ‘T.G.’ rather than ‘G.T.’ and dated 25 rather than 26 June, in Cecil Papers 7/​82, and printed in Murdin, State Papers, 256 and HMCS, II, 54. See also A. C. Southern, Elizabethan Recusant Prose 1559–​1582 (London, 1950), 317–​18. The author, ‘G. T.’, is not known. It has been argued that ‘G. T.’ was George Turbervile, a Dorset gentleman and author of Catholic sympathies, but this has been widely dismissed: B. M. Ward, ‘Further research on A Hundreth Sundrie Flowres’, Review of English Studies 4:13 (Jan. 1928), 35–​48. However, the inversion of the ‘G.T.’ of the original to ‘T.G.’ by the time the document reached Burghley raises the possibility that Hatton knew who ‘G.T.’ was and wished to protect him. 8 John Strype (ed.), The Life and Acts of Matthew Parker (Oxford, 1821), II, 298. 9 See above. 10 SP 12/​123/​33, f. 103. 11 John Hungerford Pollen (ed.), Mary Queen of Scots and the Babington Plot (Publications of the Scottish History Society, Third Series, III, 1922), 168. This is from a memoir written in exile in 1611 by Crichton himself, now in a Jesuit collection (ibid., 151). Essentially the same translation is printed in J. H. Pollen, ‘Memoirs of Father William Crichton, S.J.: 1584–​1589’, The 24, at 324. On Crichton, see ‘William Crichton Month 139 (1922), 317–​ (c. 1535–​1617)’, ODNB. 12 Clare Talbot (ed.), Miscellanea: Recusant Records (CRS 53, 1961), 220. The same account is in BL Harleian 296, f. 112r. 13 D. C. Peck, Leicester’s Commonwealth: The Copy of a Letter written by a Master of Arts of Cambridge (1984) and Related Documents (Athens OH, 1985), 25ff. 14 Peck, Leicester’s Commonwealth, 173. 15 On this series of tracts, see Peter Lake, Bad Queen Bess? Libels, Secret Histories, and the Politics of Publicity in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth I (Oxford, 2016), Chapter 14. 16 Andream Philopatrum [Robert Persons], Elizabethae, Angliæ Reginae haeresim Calvinianam propvgnantis, saevissimum in Catholicos sui Regni edictum, quod in alios quoque reipub. Christianæ principes contumelias continet indignissimas (1592); [Robert Persons], An advertisement written to a secretary of my L. Treasurer’s of England, trans. R. Verstegan (1592; STC 19885). See also Victor Houliston, Catholic Resistance in Elizabethan England: Robert Persons’s Jesuit Polemic, 1580–​ 1610 (Aldershot, 2007), 53–​ 4. Philopater, which has sometimes been attributed to Cardinal Allen, may be the origin of Brooks’s comment that ‘Allen himself wrote of him that he was one of those who had no doubt of the Catholic faith being true’ (Brooks, Hatton, 62), which

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may in turn be the origin of MacCaffrey’s comment that Allen ‘wrote of him years later, presuming him to be a fellow believer’: ‘Hatton, Sir Christopher (c. 1540–​1591)’, ODNB. 17 An advertisement, 11–​14. 18 Joseph Creswell, Exemplar literarvm, missarvm, e Germania, ad D. Guilielmum Cecilium, consiliarium regium (1592), 8–​9. This and subsequent translations from this work and from Philopater by Dr James McNamara. 19 Persons, Elizabethae, Angliæ Reginae, 21. 20 Robert Persons, Nevves from Spayne and Holland conteyning. An information of Inglish affayres in Spayne vvith a conferrence made thereuppon in Amsterdame of Holland (1593; STC 22994), f. 25r.–​v. Cf a report on this book: HMCS, IV, 498. 21 Nicholas Sander, De origine ac progressu schismatis Anglicani libri tres (Cologne, 1610), appendix, 41–​3; now newly translated as Spencer J. Weinreich (ed.), Pedro de Ribadeneyra’s ‘Ecclesiastical History of the Schism of the Kingdom of England’: A Spanish Jesuit’s History of the English Reformation (Leiden and Boston, 2017), 597–​8. Sander’s work was originally published in 1585, with Ribadeneira’s following in 1593. 22 Weinreich, Ribadeneyra’s ‘Ecclesiastical History’, 599. The notion that Hatton was ‘in animo Catholicus’ was being repeated as early as 1691, by Anthony à Wood, Athenae Oxonienses (London, 1691–​92), I, 583, and Thomas Fuller, The church-​history of Britain from the birth of Jesus Christ until the year M.DC.XLVIII (London, 1655, Wing F2416), bk IX, 153. 23 Kervyn, VI, 748; CSPSp 1568–​79, 492, 527. 24 CSPSp 1568–​79, 605, 610, 668–​9. See also La Mothe-​Fenelon’s comment that Mendoza was ‘well schooled by Mr Hatton’ on 28 July 1574 –​but he also says Mendoza had close dealings with Burghley and Leicester. Correspondance Diplomatique de Bertrand de Salignac de la Mothe Fénélon (Paris and London, 1840), VI, 199. 25 Kervyn, X, 667 (30 July 1578). 26 Kervyn VIII, 162, 207, 221–​2, 268, 277. 27 Alexandre Labanoff (ed.), Lettres, Instructions et Mémoires de Marie Stuart, Reine d’Écosse (London, 1844), VI, 280. 28 See e.g. CSPSp 1580–​86, 175–​6, 192–​3, 304, 345. 29 CSPSp 1580–​86, 55, 59, 140. 30 CSPSp 1587–​1603, 184. 31 SP 83/​6, f. 130. 32 SP 83/​16/​2 ff. 2r.–​5v. For another version of Herle’s story, see CSPF XVII (1583), 596–​7. The reports came from Du Vray, a servant of Anjou. 33 Robert M. Kingdon (ed.), The Execution of Justice in England by William Cecil and A True, Sincere, and Modest Defense of English Catholics by William Allen (Ithaca NY, 1965), 238–​9. 34 Persons, Elizabethae, Angliæ Reginae, 24. 35 Anthony G. Petti (ed.), The Letters and Despatches of Richard Verstegan (c. 1550–​1640) (CRS 52, 1959), 104–​5 (5 March 1593).

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36 Camden, History, 458. Brooks, Hatton, 62. 37 HMC, The Manuscripts of Lord Kenyon (London, 1894), 612. 38 A. Hassell Smith, Gillian M. Baker and R. W. Kenny (eds), The Papers of Nathaniel Bacon of Stiffkey Volume I: 1556–​1577 (Norfolk Record Society 46, 1979), 91 and see also 95–​7. 39 A. Hassell Smith and Gillian M. Baker (eds), The Papers of Nathaniel Bacon of Stiffkey Volume II: 1578–​1585 (Norfolk Record Society 49, 1983), 266–​7. 40 On the culture of Elizabethan political libels in general, see Lake, Bad Queen Bess?. During the great falling out of the Earl of Oxford, Henry Howard and Charles Arundell, the latter was accused by Oxford of writing libels against Hatton: Nelson, Monstrous Adversary, 275. 41 CSPSp 1568–​79, 529. See Kervyn, VIII, 221 on this incident. 42 CSPD Addenda 1580–​1625, 10; Memoirs, 161–​2. 43 SP 12/​180/​47. 44 For accounts of this, see Brooks, Hatton, 61, 104; Collinson, Elizabethan Puritan Movement, 150; MacCaffrey, Making of Policy, 450, and his ‘Hatton, Sir Christopher (c. 1540–​1591)’, ODNB. The date of the event is variously given as 11 or 14 October, but two sources note that it was a Wednesday, pointing to 14 October: BL Lansdowne 16, f. 197v.; Longleat House, Thynne Correspondence IV, f. 11. 45 Graham Mayhew, Tudor Rye (Falmer, 1987), 118 and passim. BL Lansdowne 16, f. 191. 46 BL Lansdowne 16, f. 193v.ff. 47 BL Lansdowne 17, f. 192r. (summarised in Strype, Parker, II, 328); Smith et al., Papers of Nathaniel Bacon I, 91. 48 Nicolas dismisses the notion that Birchet was mad: Memoirs, 32. 49 Wright, Queen Elizabeth and her Times, I, 492. 50 Strype, Annals, II, i, 427–​9. 51 Collinson, Elizabethan Puritan Movement, 150–​1. 52 BL Lansdowne 16, f. 198v. 53 P. L. Hughes and J. F. Larkin (eds), Tudor Royal Proclamations (3 vols, New Haven and London, 1969), II, 376–​9. 54 Smith et al., Papers of Nathaniel Bacon I, 91; Longleat House, Thynne Correspondence IV, ff. 11, 19 (Henry Knollys to John Thynne, 18 October and 19 November 1573). 55 Richard Verstegan, A declaration of the true causes of the great troubles, presupposed to be intended against the realme of England (1592; STC 10005), 41. 56 In terms of attacks on ministers, only one other example has been found, apparently encouraged by the Spanish ambassador Guerau de Spes in 1572: Conyers Read, Lord Burghley and Queen Elizabeth (London, 1960), 46. 57 A. F. Scott Pearson, Thomas Cartwright and Elizabeth Puritanism, 1535–​1603 (Cambridge, 1925), 125–​9; Collinson, Elizabethan Puritan Movement, 154–​5; CSPD 1547–​80, 470; BL Lansdowne 64, ff. 69–​81; HMCS, II, 74–​8; IV, 48–​9 (misdated). On the dissemination of this event, see Smith et al., Papers of Nathaniel Bacon I, 122–​3.

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58 Alexandra Walsham, ‘“Frantick Hacket”: prophecy, sorcery, insanity, and the Elizabethan puritan movement’, Historical Journal 41:1 (1998), 27–​66, at 27–​8; Michael P. Winship, ‘Puritans, politics, and lunacy: the Copinger-​Hacket conspiracy as the apotheosis of Elizabethan Presbyterianism, Sixteenth Century Journal 38:2 (Summer 2007), 345–​69; ‘Hacket, William (d. 1591)’, ODNB; Owen Williams, ‘Exorcising madness in late Elizabethan England: “The Seduction of Arthington” and the criminal culpability of demoniacs’, Journal of British Studies 47:1 (Jan. 2008), 30–​52; cf. CSPD 1591–​4, 75–​6. Collinson, Bancroft, 142. 59 Walsham, ‘ “Frantick Hacket” ’, 32–​7. 60 Walsham, ‘ “Frantick Hacket” ’, 30, 51–​ 5; Williams, ‘Exorcising madness’, 33–​4, 49–​50. Joseph Creswell, Exemplar literarvm, missarvm, e Germania, ad D. Guilielmum Cecilium, consiliarium regium (1592), 5–​6. 61 Walsham, ‘ “Frantick Hacket” ’, 55–​7. 62 On the Cartwright trial, see below, p. 204. On Fuller, see ‘Fuller, Nicholas (1543–​1620)’, ODNB. 63 Raphael Holinshed, The first and second volumes of chronicles (1587; STC 13569), III, 1259. 64 Camden, History, 199. 65 See also Neil Younger, ‘How Protestant was the Elizabethan regime?’, EHR 133:564 (October 2018), 1060–​92, 1071. 66 Memoirs, 426. 67 Camden, History, 340. 68 This was one Edward Knight: SP 12/​240/​109. 69 LPL MS 2004, f. 7. 70 Edward Arber (ed.), An Introductory Sketch to the Martin Marprelate Controversy 1588–​1590 (London, 1895), 15. 71 CP 192, f. 26r (Pickering to Cecil, n.d. 1605). There seems to be a word missing in this sentence, but the point is clear. On Pickering, see Collinson, Elizabethan Puritan Movement, 450, 452. 72 Robert Greene, A maidens dreame vpon the death of the Right Honorable Sir Christopher Hatton (1591; STC 12271). 73 Debora Shuger, ‘A protesting Catholic puritan in Elizabethan England’, Journal of British Studies 48:3 (July 2009), 587–​630. 74 John Harington, Sir John Harington’s A New Discourse of a Stale Subject, called the Metamorphosis of Ajax, ed. Elizabeth Story Donno (London, 1962), 245–​9; H. R. Woudhuysen, Sir Philip Sidney and the Circulation of Manuscripts, 1558–​1640 (Oxford, 1996), 380; Jason Scott-​Warren, Sir John Harington and the Book as Gift (Oxford, 2001), 92; Memoirs, 62. As Scott-​ Warren points out, this libel might have been written by a Catholic aggrieved at his time-​serving or a Protestant. 75 William Stoughton, An assertion for true and Christian church-​ policie (Middelburg, 1604; STC 23318). 76 This pamphlet contains a petition by Thomas Digges, who was dead by the time of its publication, along with other material commenting on material

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more germane to the politics of 1601, among which is found the comments on Hatton; see Peter Lake and Michael Questier, ‘Thomas Digges, Robert Parsons, Sir Francis Hastings, and the politics of regime change in Elizabethan England’, Historical Journal 61:1 (March 2018), 1–​27. 77 Thomas Digges, Humble motives for association to maintaine religion established published as an antidote against the pestilent treatises of secular priests (1601; STC 3518.3), 24–​5. 78 Digges, Humble motives, 25. 79 Peck, Northampton, 81–​2.

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4 Domestic and foreign policy

We have seen in previous chapters that Hatton was probably raised essentially as a Catholic, that he continued to maintain close links with many Catholics, crypto-​Catholics and conservatives, and that he was widely perceived as sharing those attitudes, at least to some degree. The next two chapters will examine Hatton’s political career and involvement in major political debates, to assess whether our knowledge of his religious attitudes affects the picture of his career, and consequently of the Elizabethan regime more broadly. This chapter focuses on Hatton as a minister, his role in the business of government generally, and his relations with his conciliar colleagues and others within the central government. It should be acknowledged that the archival problems here are even more acute than elsewhere; his primary mode of exercising power was behind the scenes, with the Queen alone or alongside her other advisors. Given that Hatton tended not to record his thoughts on paper, it is seldom possible to pinpoint his specific influence on decisions. Therefore, this chapter primarily seeks to establish his approaches and attitudes to the key questions facing the regime during his time as a councillor, and to assess whether and how his religious views –​ apparently so at odds with other leading ministers –​manifested themselves in his policy views. Hatton was appointed a privy councillor on 12 November 1577. There had been rumours of his appointment earlier in the autumn, but characteristically the Queen had postponed matters: sometime in mid-​September, Hatton and Thomas Wilson ‘wear in the counsaile chamber to be sworne and sodainelie ther came a greate lett’.1 Admission to the Council marked a genuinely significant jump in the hierarchy of political influence. Elizabeth’s Privy Council was always a very small and elite group, never numbering more than about twenty men, and often considerably fewer. Its members usually served for life. It never had an absolute monopoly on giving counsel to the Queen –​she took advice and

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information from a significantly broader range of people.2 The Council was, however, pivotal in implementing decisions, from negotiating treaties with foreign ambassadors to the detailed enforcement of policy.3 By joining the Council, Hatton became a person of real political consequence, and gained access to a great deal more political information too. At this point the volume of material in his letterbook becomes more substantial. The vice-​chamberlainship was a senior management role within the court, one of the largest and most expensive financial and logistical operations in the country, comparable to becoming a senior manager in a company employing many hundreds of people. The job involved diverse responsibilities in running the court and its movements: he played a role, for example, in screening court ladies, planning royal progresses and processions and hosting important visitors.4 Like several other senior roles in the household, the vice-​chamberlainship customarily went with membership of the Council; the royal household was an acknowledged route into high political roles. Close personal service in the privy chamber was seen as a testing ground for future ministers: one document composed in 1559 proposes that gentlemen of the privy chamber be ‘chosen of the wysest and honestest sorte of gent in the realm to the intent that as any of the Pryvy Counsaill shall decay they may succeade them in their places’.5 At this point, Hatton was only about 37 years old (the youngest member of the Council in 1577, though not the youngest appointment of the reign6), so it is worth considering exactly why he made the jump from favourite to councillor. It is not clear that anyone other than the Queen had the power to make this happen; Glyn Parry has argued that in 1576 Burghley ‘encouraged Hatton’s rise as Elizabeth’s personal favourite to counterbalance Leicester’, but Hatton’s rise had begun long before that, and there is no evidence that Burghley was behind it.7 Firstly, he was the Queen’s own man, raised up by her will, dependent on her, and without other powerful patrons. In this he was different from almost all the other major figures of the period: Burghley, although promoted by Elizabeth, was a veteran of Edward VI’s reign. Leicester came from a family which had been at court since Henry VII’s reign, the son of a duke and effective regent of England, and had an established clientage network.8 Something similar applies to almost all the leading figures of the period, except for Hatton. He was also someone who more than most of Elizabeth’s councillors had only her interest in mind. Leicester had grand ambitions of his own. Someone like Walsingham might place the future of the Protestant cause over the Queen’s. Great nobles would survive whatever happened. But Hatton had risen with her and would likely fall if anything happened to her.

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In this, in fact, his closest comparison may have been Burghley. This meant that Elizabeth could place a great deal of weight on the honesty and integrity of Hatton’s advice and judgements. There is, however, a question about whether the precise timing of Hatton’s appointment was significant. In November 1577, there were two particular matters which may have encouraged Hatton’s promotion. The first was the crisis around the suspension of Archbishop Grindal, in which, as we shall see, Hatton made his first major intervention into politics. The other was the debate over whether England should intervene in the wars in the Netherlands, in which Elizabeth was, as ever, keen to avoid committing herself.9 In both of these, Elizabeth might have welcomed support on the Council from someone whom she trusted and who might challenge the forward Protestant consensus of Burghley, Leicester and Walsingham. Over the 1570s and 1580s, Hatton gradually moved towards the centre of the regime, becoming one of the most powerful councillors and ultimately Lord Chancellor. Hatton consciously adopted a more statesmanlike style as he grew older and more senior. It has already been argued that as Hatton progressed up the ranks of government, he took active steps to prepare himself intellectually, probably including a conscious effort to develop his oratory. He also changed his behaviour: he stopped jousting at a relatively young age, and he participated less in general court frivolity.10 He changed his dress too: when he became Lord Chancellor, Robert Cecil reported that he had ‘left his Hat and Feather, and now wears a flatt Velvet Cap, not different from your Lordship’s’.11 A document of September 1587 shows him signing an order for velvet and satin, ‘the softeste and gentleste in hande that may be found ... the best that possibly can be made ... and all theise silkes to be blacke for myne owne wearing, the purest that maye be had, whatsoever the pryce be’.12 Clearly he wished to dress more soberly, if not plainly. Hatton did not cease to be a courtier. Indeed as Vice-​Chamberlain, managing the court was a major part of his job. He continued to spend a great deal of time with the Queen, as well as those who visited her. The Spanish ambassador Mendoza, for example, describes a visit to Whitehall, when he was greeted by Hatton in a gallery overlooking the river before being joined by the Queen and the Earl of Sussex.13 Nevertheless, and perhaps surprisingly, Hatton was consistently a very diligent attendee at Council meetings. During his fourteen years as a privy councillor, he is recorded as attending more meetings than Burghley, and in some periods attended more sessions than any other councillor.14 Various caveats apply here: the Council records are imperfect; Hatton was at court more than most ministers, as (until he became Lord Chancellor) he had no other major responsibilities such as Burghley’s obligations in the Exchequer and wards courts, but this is still a significant finding. Hatton did not become

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steeped in paperwork; state papers in his hand or apparently of his authorship are rare, although a handful survive.15 Hatton clearly never sought, or never attained, control of the minutiae of government (fact-​finding, control of administrative procedure and so on) that was so central to the political standing of Burghley, Walsingham or Robert Cecil. We do not find many letters discussing his political manoeuvres, partly because he had few major allies. There is nothing like the immensely close communication between Walsingham and Leicester while the latter was in the Netherlands. Hatton’s letters are often about Elizabeth’s moods and opinions, reinforcing the sense that his role centred on close access to and management of her. Nevertheless, his frequent attendance at Council makes clear that he was closely involved in government business; given that he was more intimate with Elizabeth than most privy councillors, it may be that at times he acted as her spokesman here as he did in Parliament. Elizabeth’s Council had many diverse responsibilities, and all councillors were expected to play numerous roles in troubleshooting, often resolving disputes or quarrels between all sorts of people, both foreign and domestic. In most cases Hatton’s own role cannot be teased out of the Council records, but a few examples of his personal role include arbitrating between two royal servants over a house in 1578; ‘appeasing’ some inhabitants of Northaw, Hertfordshire, where the Earl of Warwick was carrying out enclosures, in 1579; investigating the accounts of the treasurer-​at-​war, Richard Huddlestone in 1586; and managing a forced loan in London in 1588.16 These obviously proliferated as he became more important later in life, and the burden of paperwork must have grown a great deal. Hatton also played an important role as a public face of the government. This had two main forms. The first was as a leading spokesman in Parliament. Early in his career, this particularly involved communicating messages directly from the Queen, especially concerning religion. This is evident in the parliamentary sessions of 1572 and 1576, before he became a privy councillor, but went on throughout his career; in 1581 for example, reproving the Commons for voting for a fast without royal permission.17 This of course gave Hatton prominence and authority as someone whose words might be taken as representing the views of the Queen more widely. As time went on, he became a prominent spokesman for the government as a whole, in fact the leading government spokesman in the Commons in the 1580s, and he was much admired as an orator of considerable gravitas.18 His influence in Parliament was certainly perceived to be very substantial. In 1581, Lord Thomas Howard advised the town of Weymouth against pursuing a bill in Parliament since, he said, ‘Syr Chrystopher Hatton’s countenance and credit wod worke muche agaynst yt, and surely wod overthrow yt, when yt should come to her Majesty’s hands.’19

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Hatton also spoke for the government in other forums. He participated in the speeches given by senior privy councillors to county JPs at the end of the legal terms, in Star Chamber. These were used to lay out the regime’s priorities and exhort the JPs to diligence. In November 1587, for example, he delivered a message about the need for gentlemen to provide for the defence of their countries, and in June 1588, he and Burghley spoke about Cardinal Allen’s criticisms of the Elizabethan regime.20 A further forum for Hatton’s spokesmanship, as we will see in Chapter 5, was the trial of Catholic plotters. This was tremendously valuable for Hatton, as it emphasised Elizabeth’s trust in him, but the Queen herself seems to have particularly valued it too; since Hatton appeared to have less of an independent agenda than (for example) Leicester or Burghley, he may have been more credible as a way to represent her own words or views directly. Hatton was also a senior advisor to the Queen, part of the informal inner ring advising her on key policy issues, initially serving alongside Burghley, Leicester, Walsingham and Sussex.21 Hatton’s inclusion is especially striking in view of his relative youth and his junior official status (the Vice-​Chamberlain was usually one of the lowest-​ranking councillors). This of course makes it all the more frustrating that we can seldom assess in any detail what his influence was. Not all privy councillors were part of this inner ring, and assessments of when Hatton joined it vary widely. MacCaffrey suggests that he was part of a ‘central coalition of ministers’, ‘a team of four sturdy workhorses who drew the coach of state’ from around 1570, while Hammer argues that this only occurred after he became Lord Chancellor in 1587, becoming part of a ‘triumvirate’ with Burghley and Leicester.22 Adams points out ‘he did not participate in a major debate prior to the negotiations over the Anjou marriage in 1578–​9’, which, although it overlooks his role in the fall of Grindal, seems broadly the most accurate.23 Essentially, his rise to serious political responsibility coincided, naturally enough, with his admission to the Council in late 1577. What then was Hatton’s position within the small group of men who formed Elizabeth’s key policy advisors? The current orthodoxy, as we have seen, is that the leading ministers of the 1570s and 1580s were largely united in pursuing the same goals, in particular the promotion of Protestantism. Superficially, this is fair: they clearly did work together with little obvious animosity for long periods. Yet if, as this book argues, Hatton’s attitudes, in religion at least, differed significantly from his colleagues, did this lead to dissent or acrimony between them, as comparable situations did in the 1560s or the 1590s? Were their relations genuinely amicable, or merely politely cautious?24 In general, there is very little evidence of active hostility, something helped both by Hatton’s genial personality and by ministers’ awareness that

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the Queen disliked discord. Hatton participated in the solidarity among senior ministers which marked mid-​ Elizabethan politics. He did many favours for them. His early encounters with Burghley, for example, were very respectful, with each taking advantage of the other’s influence with the Queen and the administrative machinery, respectively.25 They continued to exchange cordial letters, discussing policy and building projects and wearily complaining about the burdens of office and ‘our troblesome courtinge life’, as Hatton once put it.26 There are similar signs of regard with Leicester. Hatton gave Leicester two fine suits of armour, one of which Leicester left back to him.27 Leicester also made Hatton an overseer of his will, and left him ‘one of my greatest basons and ewers gilte with my best George and garter not doubting but he shall shortly enjoye the wearing of it and one of his Armors he gave me’.28 Quite likely Leicester hoped that Hatton would help to protect his widow, whom the Queen notoriously loathed. More persuasive are several very cordial, sympathetic letters between them.29 Hatton wrote a genuinely sympathetic and poignant letter of comfort on the death of Leicester’s son, Lord Denbigh, in 1584.30 It is worth remembering, however, that many such letters were written in the assumption that they would be seen by the Queen, which may explain the exaggeratedly cordial style.31 We also find examples of Hatton allying with other ministers over particular issues, which are sometimes taken to assume that such alliances were permanent states of affairs. For example, Hatton agreed with Leicester in opposing the Anjou match in around 1581, but this was essentially tactical rather than strategic.32 Similarly, Hatton defended colleagues from the Queen’s anger when he saw cause. He (ostensibly) worked on behalf of Archbishop Grindal, when his career imploded over the prophesyings, and more plausibly defended Walsingham.33 Walsingham and Leicester acknowledged Hatton’s support during the controversy over Leicester’s acceptance of the governor-​ generalship of the Netherlands, when Hatton blotted out some passages of a letter of Leicester’s in order to show the Queen and pacify her. ‘Mr. vyce-​ chamberlayne [doth] shewe hym selfe an honnerable, trew and faythfull gentleman towardes you, and doth carefully, and most lyke a good frend, for your lordship.’34 Hatton seems to have tried to mitigate Elizabeth’s anger over Burghley’s role in the execution of Mary; at any rate Burghley sent letters to Hatton for delivery to the Queen.35 This of course stored up credit for himself, making him valuable to others. In many cases, Hatton may have been more concerned about the policy than the man. Nevertheless, there is also evidence of tensions between them. The most obvious potential rivalry was with Leicester. Hatton’s emergence as a favourite in the 1560s and 1570s was inevitably unwelcome to Leicester; Hatton was certainly the most significant rival he had faced. Susan Frye

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identifies Hatton as a new favourite made king of the revels at Epiphany 1566, who embarrassed Leicester in front of the Queen; Leicester threatened the man, and was rebuked by the Queen. This might have been Hatton, but it can only be speculation.36 Conceivably the fact that Hatton’s cousin (and possibly his early patron) Edward Saunders presided over the trial of Ambrose and Guildford Dudley and Jane Grey affected their relationship. Likewise, Hatton may have resented the removal of his stepfather Richard Newport from the Warwickshire commission of the peace in 1562, early in the Dudley ascendancy there.37 As we have seen, it was reported that Leicester attempted to replace Hatton in the Queen’s affections with Edward Dyer in 1573.38 Furthermore, Leicester certainly pursued friends or clients of Hatton’s, for example William Tresham, and the members of the Arden-​Somerville circle.39 A couple of letters from Hatton to Leicester hint at tension. In a letter of June 1578, when Leicester was away from court at Buxton, Hatton wrote that the Queen was very melancholy, and ‘dremithe of mariage that might seeme injurious to hir: makynge my selfe too be ether the man or A paterne of the matter’.40 Although Hatton couches this as a complaint about Elizabeth’s gloominess, given that Leicester was then considering marriage with Lettice Knollys (they married on 21 September), Hatton may well have been warning or needling Leicester about the whirlwind of trouble he could expect.41 At other times there is a distinct sense that their good relationship was stressed a little too pointedly. William Davison told Leicester in 1586 that Hatton ‘protesteth, that he hath, and will, deal honourably with you, and, for any thing I heare, hath perfourmed yt’.42 The following year, Leicester noted in a rather laboured fashion that ‘I have spoken with my Lord Chancelour who is my assured good friend.’43 Burghley was not a rival in the same way as Leicester, and indeed in some older accounts Hatton is depicted as a conservative ally of Burghley, in opposition to the radicals Leicester and Walsingham.44 As Burghley has recently been reassessed as a much more radical figure, this seems increasingly unpersuasive. There is no clear sign that Burghley and Hatton were particularly close or formed any kind of settled partnership. As Adams says, Hatton was ‘very much his own man’.45 Burghley clearly knew about Hatton’s links with potentially extreme Catholic networks (such as the Somervilles), so this was not surprising. Burghley had occasion to raise concerns over some of Hatton’s clients, such as the pirate Callis or Richard Swale, and some tension can be detected in their correspondence.46 Observers also perceived a degree of rivalry in their relationship.47 Walsingham too knew about Hatton’s links (or technically his men’s links) with the Babington plotter Ballard –​as we have seen, he put it to Hatton that his servant Henry Dunne was a collector of money for seminaries.48

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Yet Hatton seems to have been personally friendly with Walsingham; their letters are generally cordial and they seem to have worked well together.49 In the case of other ministers, the general tone of their relationships with Hatton backs up his reputation for geniality. Sir Thomas Heneage was clearly a good friend, undoubtedly built on their long shared experience of serving a demanding mistress. Heneage wrote to Walsingham that only Hatton was a closer friend than he.50 Hatton had very good relations with many of the hotter Protestant councillors, whom one would imagine would have looked askance at many of Hatton’s associations: Thomas Wilson, William Davison, Walter Mildmay.51 As far as relationships with other major political figures who shared Hatton’s sympathy towards Catholics, the evidence suggests general goodwill but not intimate alliance. There is no sign that Hatton had a close alliance with the Earl of Sussex, for example. There are two personal letters from his wife to Hatton saying that they had been friendly, but these may simply be pleasantries.52 There may have been more personal goodwill with Hatton’s allies in the anti-​Puritan campaign of 1588–​91. Lord Buckhurst was friendly with Hatton as early as 1571, and in 1581 wrote to Hatton of ‘the greate heape of the rest of your favours towardes me, which burthen me so muche, as beeing unable to requite them, I must be forced to synck, and fall downe underneath them’.53 This suggests a meaningful patronage relationship. They certainly worked together over the anti-​Puritan campaign.54 Sir John Puckering, who became Lord Keeper after Hatton’s death, seems to have been another client of Hatton’s. Several of Hatton’s followers went on to Puckering afterwards, and Puckering named his second son Hatton.55 He was certainly an anti-​Puritan, and was involved in the campaign against them (although he was also a friend of Thomas Cartwright).56 This suggests that Hatton took the leadership of a somewhat coherent ‘little faction’ on the Council in these years.57 Hatton’s only open enemy among senior politicians is said to have been Sir John Perrot, Lord Deputy of Ireland and later privy councillor, although contemporary evidence for this is scanty, and Perrot was not a very significant figure anyway.58 Sir Francis Knollys, however, really does seem to have disliked him, clearly because of their respective religious attitudes. He wrote with grim satisfaction about the failure of Hatton and the bishops to convict or even hang Cartwright and his fellows (and Knollys was no doubt even more satisfied that he outlived Hatton, nearly thirty years his junior).59 Overall therefore, there are obvious reasons to suggest that Hatton had somewhat tricky relationships with various of his colleagues, and it may stretch the point to refer to them as friends, but certainly there was no major breakdown comparable with the Essex-​Cecil rivalry or the open hostility which several times broke out between Leicester and the Earl of Sussex. Part

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of the reason for this, no doubt, was that he could do them harm with the Queen. There are several occasions when Walsingham, for example, writes of Hatton’s role in preferring his requests to the Queen, something which must naturally have limited how critical or hostile he could be.60 Equally importantly, however, Hatton did not act as a subordinate to his conciliar colleagues, as is sometimes assumed, particular in reference to Burghley. As we shall see, Hatton’s role in religious policy suggests that he was not averse to working around Burghley and pursuing his own approach. There seems no reason to think that Hatton automatically accepted Burghley’s leadership or deferred to his will; while Burghley took to drafting speeches for Hatton, there is no particular sign that Hatton used them.61 Hatton was not a patsy. Nor, however, did he position himself as a malcontent within the regime, someone who fairly openly disagreed with significant aspects of the direction of the regime, as the Duke of Norfolk and others arguably did in the 1560s, or Essex did in the late 1590s. He did not have the necessary independent standing, and probably sought instead to shift policy more discreetly. A further dimension of Hatton’s place within the regime is his patronage of government officials, another aspect of a minister’s power. Hatton had quite a number of followers in important middle-​ranking positions. In keeping with his patronage more broadly, some of these had discernible leanings or connections with Catholicism. Sir Henry Unton, for example, was a close follower; although he enjoyed Walsingham’s and Leicester’s favour, he acknowledged Hatton as his greatest patron. He was brought up in Hatton’s household, was Hatton’s ‘most bounden creature’ and said that Hatton was the patron ‘with whom I was first bredd upp, and to whom (nexte to your Majestie) I was moste bound’.62 He was involved in some of Hatton’s land dealings.63 He was also an intimate friend of William Hatton; they were knighted together in the Netherlands.64 After Hatton’s death he migrated to the Earl of Essex. In 1591 he was appointed ambassador to Henri IV of France, whom England was then aiding with troops; presumably Hatton had a major role in his appointment.65 An affectionate correspondence from the time of Unton’s embassy survives.66 Valentine Dale, the diplomat and civilian, a former master of Hatton’s secretary Samuel Cox, also became his client.67 Sir John Stanhope, although a relation of Burghley’s, was Hatton’s client for many years; he married a daughter of Hatton’s client Henry Macwilliam. Presumably Hatton obtained him the position of gentleman of the privy chamber, c. 1578, and several other fairly lucrative favours.68 He mediated between Hatton and Burghley when there was some tension over Hatton’s links with the pirate Callis.69 Stanhope later prospered substantially: he became Master of the Posts, a privy councillor and, under James I, a baron. Hatton may also have been a patron of Stanhope’s brother Edward, a lawyer

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who became Aylmer’s Chancellor of the Diocese of London in 1579 and was an active anti-​Puritan.70 At a slightly lower level, Hatton also had several clients among the clerks of the Council, those valuable middle-​ranking officials who often acted as ‘men of business’ for senior ministers. Henry Cheke was one: the son of John Cheke, he became Clerk of the Council 1576–​81 and then Clerk of the Council in the North; Cheke named his second son Hatton.71 Thomas Wilkes, another Council clerk, was Hatton’s client by 1585, receiving a valuable (though troublesome) salt patent by his means. In 1587, after Wilkes criticised Leicester’s administration in the Netherlands and suffered Leicester’s wrath, Hatton protected him, although he did not return to work until after Leicester’s death.72 Anthony Ashley, Council clerk from 1587, was another client and owed Hatton his job; his father had been in Hatton’s service at Corfe Castle.73 As a young man, he accompanied William Hatton on his continental travels. As we have seen, he translated The mariner’s ­mirror at Hatton’s ‘commandment and charge’.74 He witnessed a settlement of Hatton’s estates in 1579.75 His religious position is unclear, and it has been suggested that he had Puritan sympathies.76 Yet in 1589 he was acting as a kind of postmaster for the anti-​Puritans: Bancroft was asking for anti-​ presbyterian information from Scotland, which he directed could be sent via ‘Mr Ashly of the Privy Council’.77 Thus Hatton had a good few close followers in significant positions in government, among lesser privy councillors and middle-​ranking figures such as ambassadors and Privy Council clerks. It is not certain that all of these men shared the religious conservatism of others of Hatton’s clients, but some seem to have. Religious conservatives such as the MP Francis Alford, who hovered on the fringes of power without quite attaining it himself, certainly turned to Hatton for help when accused of papistry; Alford said Hatton had ‘hath ever bin my most woo[rthy] & good friend’.78 Although it may be simply due to lack of evidence, there is no sign that these men acted as ‘men-​of-​business’ for Hatton in the same way that men like Thomas Norton or Robert Beale did for Burghley or other forward Protestants: writing supportive propaganda works, helping to manage Parliament and so on.79 Nevertheless, it appears that Hatton was increasingly bringing forward people to a position from where they might advance further. Another example is George Carew, Hatton’s secretary from 1587, who later became ambassador to France and master of the wards.80 It is not clear whether Hatton cultivated informants, either abroad or within England, in order to make himself a more authoritative counsellor to the Queen, in the way that Essex, Burghley and Leicester clearly did, although one agent of his, Henry Pyne, was active on the Continent for many years, and was involved in a number of his political activities.81

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The Netherlands and Anjou Hatton became involved in high policy debates shortly before he joined the Council, in the context of the intertwined debates over involvement in the wars in the Netherlands and, shortly afterwards, the potential marriage between Elizabeth and the French Duke of Anjou. The question of the Netherlands was one of the great foreign policy debates of the reign; in effect the issue of whether England should intervene ran from the outbreak of the Dutch revolt through to Elizabeth’s decision to do so in 1585. There were of course both religious and geopolitical reasons why England might do so; earnest Protestants sought to protect their co-​religionists, but at the same time, the prospect of Spain regaining full control of the Netherlands presented an alarming prospect for Englishmen of any religion. There were two key periods of intense debate: firstly from roughly 1575 to 1578, and secondly in the year or so leading up to the final decision to go to war in July 1585. It appears that Hatton’s position gradually shifted from scepticism in the earlier period to a more hawkish, pro-​war position in the latter. Hatton’s role is less significant in the earlier period, as he was yet to join the Privy Council, but he was still a political player of some stature. Late in 1575, Elizabeth was offered the sovereignty of Holland and Zealand, and the tide seemed to be running fast towards war, supported enthusiastically by Leicester and Sussex (temporarily in agreement) and less warmly by Burghley.82 As Glyn Parry has argued, however, Hatton took a different view, and was active in assisting a peace envoy from the Spanish government in the Netherlands, Frédéric Perrenot, sieur de Champagney, governor of Antwerp and brother of Cardinal Granvelle.83 Champagney cultivated both Hatton and also the apparently sympathetic James Croft and the Earl of Arundel, who were already privy councillors. Hatton greeted Champagney when he arrived for his first audience at Hampton Court, speaking warmly of maintaining good accord between their respective princes, and advising him to avoid raising ‘sour matters’ with the Queen at his audience, as she was in a bad mood.84 Champagney spoke with Hatton as he was leaving, telling him that Elizabeth’s policies could easily lead to war, and that Hatton ‘comme personnaige si principal et tant bien veu vers elle’ should warn her against it. Hatton had frequent encounters with Champagney during his embassy and seemed to be receptive to Champagney’s arguments against intervention; he invited Champagney to his house at Eltham and entertained him ‘like a prince’.85 As we have seen, Champagney made multiple references to Hatton’s apparent Catholic tendencies over the next weeks. According to the Spanish ambassador, Gueras, ‘lampoons greatly libelling Hatton have been circulated, of which M. de Champigny has a copy’ –​presumably suggestions again that Hatton was a crypto-​Catholic, Spanish sympathiser or the like.86

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In the event, the Queen and Council were never able to come to a conclusion in favour of intervention, which may have been affected in some measure by Hatton’s scepticism (which in turn reflected the Queen’s innate caution). Parry argues, indeed, that ‘Hatton, in particular, used this parliament to complete his transition from established favourite to rising politician’, although Hatton’s involvement in ecclesiastical affairs was also an important factor.87 It is possible that Hatton had merely been assigned to placate Champagney, although Champagney generally seemed to trust him (he was still sending Hatton greetings in 1586), and believed that Hatton’s stance made him unpopular with privy councillors.88 Ambassador Gueras also noted that Hatton ‘is a gentleman of distinguished position and desires, above all things, harmony between the two crowns’.89 There is no further evidence of his attitude in 1577, when a commitment of English troops was again seriously considered; MacCaffrey has speculated that the rejection of this option may be connected to Hatton’s appointment to the Council, but there is no evidence of this.90 On its face, a stance against alliance with the Dutch at the risk of war with Spain might appear to make sense for a politician with Catholic sympathies, but in fact Hatton’s later views make clear that this is too simplistic. Hatton seems to have showed no preference or affinity for either France or Spain, and did not seek to cultivate foreign ambassadors. Very shortly afterwards, Hatton was prepared to sponsor Drake’s circumnavigation, with its barely concealed anti-​Spanish purposes. John Dee’s dedication of General and rare memorials pertayning to the perfect arte of navigation, which advocated an active foreign policy, to Hatton in summer 1577 suggests support for such a position too.91 Nor, however, does Hatton appear to have been notably sympathetic to the Dutch. In May 1578, Walsingham wrote to Davison in the Netherlands that Hatton was supportive of the States: I am informed that ther are harde speeches geven owt ageynst Mr Vychamberlyn by men of the best cowntenaunce ther as overmyche inclyned to Spayne wherin I doe assure you the gentleman receyvethe great wronge. For of my owne knowlege I knowe that he most earnestly hathe dealte most effectually with her Majestie in furtheraunce of the States withowt whoes medyatyon thinges I knowe had not taken the effect that they have don.

Significantly, however, he went on to say that ‘yt were well that sooche lyke speeches were suppressed: for being so interressted as he is in her Majesties favor yt were more pollecye to make of an ennemy a frende than to make him of a frende an ennemye.92 As this suggests, Walsingham was concerned that Hatton’s support for military action was weak and needed to be cultivated. It seems clear that the forward Protestants such as Davison and Walsingham recognised this and earnestly lobbied him to prevent him disrupting any intervention.93

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This can be seen again during the renewed debates over intervention in the Netherlands in 1578, where Hatton was closely involved alongside Leicester and Burghley, and at times the Queen seemed ready to intervene to keep the French out.94 Again, Hatton seems to have been aiding the supporters of war, trying to persuade Elizabeth to honour her offer of a loan to the Dutch and explaining to Walsingham why Elizabeth was angry with him.95 Yet Walsingham remained so concerned about Hatton’s influence that in August, he assigned the Privy Council clerk Edmund Tremayne to liaise with, and presumably keep an eye on, Hatton, a highly unusual step. Tremayne wrote to Walsingham about ‘the gent[leman], you appointed me unto’ and ‘your friend to whom you committed me’, who is unmistakeably Hatton, and by whom he obtained useful news about the private attitudes of the Queen. This may be because Hatton seems at this time to have had serious concerns that supporting the Dutch would lead to the French gaining control and becoming as serious a threat as Spain; Hatton was ‘afraid lest her money lent to the States, woulde be the verie occasion to bring in the French’, and was ‘so untowardes to the liking of the dealinges of the States, as I much feared least his advice in these cases shoulde much hinder their cause. But I think Mr Somers will tell you the contrarie, who hard him among others deale as soundelie and as earnestlie to the purpose as any man.’96 Hatton was, then, steering his own line, and was never a puppet of others. This question of the Netherlands intersected of course with the question of whether the Queen should marry the French Duke of Anjou, in the hope that Anjou could serve as an English proxy, supporting the Dutch without making them subject to the French Crown. The marriage project was revived in the summer of 1578.97 Again, Hatton was intimately involved in the discussions, for example discussing it with Anjou’s envoy, the Queen, Burghley and Leicester in September 1578, and with the Queen, Burghley, Sussex and Leicester in May 1579.98 Hatton initially showed some positive interest, perhaps hoping that Anjou’s arrival might lead to a more pro-​ Catholic regime in which he could expect more influence. In March 1579, he gave a grand dinner to the Queen, which Anjou’s envoy to England, Jean de Simier and the French ambassador attended (it is not clear if it was in their honour).99 However, by autumn 1579, despite being on the commission negotiating the marriage treaty with Simier, he turned against it firmly. In a Privy Council discussion on the matter in October 1579 he ‘reported his former Assent, and now he is moved to change the same, [and] affirms, that the Pope, King of France, King of Spayne, &c. war against the Queen’s Suerty; this is not so now’ and mentioning ‘Perills in her Person, Religion, her People’s Contentment’.100 It was reported that Hatton was quarrelling with Elizabeth over the match, and he and Leicester were passing Elizabeth

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papers of advice against it, presumably some of the many written by courtiers, churchmen and others.101 This period saw an increasingly hostile semi-​public debate on the issue, epitomised by John Stubbs’s Gaping gulf; Hatton’s opposition to the match presumably explains Stubbs’s begging him for support.102 However, he worked with John Aylmer to promote sermons in London against the Gaping gulf, which was by implication a pro-​ marriage policy, presumably at the Queen’s direction.103 Possibly Hatton was taken aback by the public response to the match. His opposition to the match in autumn 1579 seems to have made him unpopular with the Queen and he apparently went a week without seeing her; there were even rumours that he, Leicester and Walsingham might be removed from the Council.104 This was a serious breach with the Queen, therefore. It was typical of the tortuous nature of this negotiation, however, that by March 1580, the Archbishop of York reported that Leicester, Hatton and Walsingham ‘have earnestly moved hir Majestie to go forward with the mariage, as hir most saftie’.105 In September 1580, Hatton seems to have been resigned to it: he told Walsingham that Yf her highnes meane to marry, I wonder she so delayeth it. Yf she doo but temporize, and will leave it at the last, whatt maye we looke for then, butt that the Pope, with Spayne and France, will yoke them selfes in all yerfull [ireful] revenge ... Wayinge the present accidentes of the woorlde, together in an equall ballance, howe hurtfull they maye be to the safetie of her Majesties most royall estate, and preservacion of her most blessed gouverment, first the weake and broken estate of Ireland, then the uncerten suspected amytie of Scotland, the dangerous action of the Frenche, tendinge to the subversione of the prodestant, the irrecouverable losses & overthrowes receaved lately by the States of the Lowe Countries, and the fortunate and victorious successe of the King of Spayne in Portugale, I can not butt mourne in my hart, to see us besett on all sides with so greate and apparante dangers.106

It may be significant that Hatton’s letterbook contains a letter which, though anonymous and undated, is unmistakeably from a keen Protestant to a supportive government figure, probably Burghley, arguing against a French match and commenting that while the papists would be in favour of it, ‘yet commonweal Papists, that is, such as are but civilly-​wise, will not, for their own safety, in this cause leave you’ –​that is, loyal Catholics would oppose the match out of aversion to disruption or the risk to national security.107 Whether that is true or not, it is conceivable (since this sort of document is not normally found in the letterbook) that Burghley passed the letter to Hatton hoping that this would appeal to him, or help him gauge the public mood. When in 1581 Elizabeth formally pledged herself to Anjou, Camden wrote that ‘Leicester, who had lately plotted and contrived to cross the

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Marriage, Hatton Vice-​chamberlain, and Walsingham, stormed at it, as if the Queen, the Realm and Religion were now quite undone.’108 Mendoza also reports him strongly opposed in 1582, and working closely with Leicester.109 Hatton, he reported, ‘is the person who is most opposed to the marriage’, and had told a servant of Anjou’s that ‘besides the evil which might befall him [Hatton] by the Queen’s marriage, it was to be feared that it might cause a change in what they call their “evangelical” religion, and be a grave danger to the person of the Queen, by reason of the multitude of Catholics in England, who would rise when they had a chief of their own faith’.110 In consequence of his opposition to the match, Hatton appears to have supported Leicester and Walsingham’s bid to persuade the Queen to support the Huguenot Prince of Condé in France rather than make a deal with Anjou. Burghley reported in alarmed terms his arrival at court where he found the Queen meeting privately with Condé, Hatton and Leicester, having concealed the meeting from Burghley and Sussex.111 Thus it is clear that Hatton was strongly committed against Anjou. Why was this? If Hatton was highly sympathetic to Catholics, might he not welcome a Catholic consort for Elizabeth? One potential reason for his opposition is the risk that Anjou would disrupt the religious situation in England: as Hatton said, ‘Perills in her Person, Religion, her People’s Contentment’.112 Yet it is hard to dismiss the notion that the core of his opposition was simply that Anjou threatened his own position with the Queen. Hatton was one of the handful of men whose position with Elizabeth was so intimate that we might reasonably regard them as surrogate spouses. A husband whom Elizabeth actually loved would render him superfluous –​indeed for Anjou he would be positively odious. Therefore his position probably arose from the Queen’s own shift in 1579 from seeing the marriage as a diplomatic manoeuvre to being potentially a love match. But that did not make him one with Leicester; it was a coincidence of interests which may well have arisen from quite different motives. It is however puzzling that Hatton is associated with the ‘Sieve’ portrait of the Queen, celebrating her virginity; although the appearance of a servant wearing Hatton’s golden hind badge strongly appears to link him with the painting, it effectively commemorates an episode in which he helped to thwart her will, a curious subject to draw attention to.113 Clearly, too, Hatton’s opposition to Anjou caused him political difficulties. Other courtiers, such as the group centred on the Earl of Oxford, Henry Howard and Charles Arundel, and linked to other conservative aristocrats, strongly supported the match as a way to improve their own standing. Given the Council’s refusal to support her marriage, there is fairly credible evidence that in late 1579 and early 1580, Elizabeth seriously considered appointing four Catholics to her Council, so Hatton may have been

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in danger of being outflanked by people who made less of a secret of their Catholic leanings, and placed their religion closer to the centre of their political programme. In December 1580, however, Leicester persuaded Oxford to denounce the others as Catholics, and both Howard and Arundel turned to Hatton for support. It is not clear whether Hatton really did give them any practical help, but it is interesting that, under attack from Leicester, they turned to Hatton.114 While the Anjou match died its prolonged death in the early 1580s, the question of English support for the Netherlands remained. While Hatton seems to have stood against intervention in the late 1570s, the indications are that he became more hawkish with regard to the Netherlands and Spain during the 1580s. In July 1580 he appears to have been willing to consider war in support of the States.115 In September that year he wrote to Walsingham about the danger from Spain and the need to respond to the papal attack on Ireland (the Smerwick expedition), but dwelling more on the need to secure Ireland and Scotland rather than go on the offensive against Spain.116 He apparently sent his servants to take £20,000 of the Queen’s money to Anjou in 1581, which suggests he was supportive, and he was perceived by the Spanish to be hostile.117 Despite this, it appears that between 1583 and 1585, Hatton was involved in tentative contacts with Rome that somewhat recall the apparent purpose of his trip to Spa in 1573. They are poorly documented, but the fragments that survive are suggestive.118 In 1583, Edward Unton, the brother of Hatton’s client Henry Unton, visited Italy with intentions that remain unclear.119 He may have been intending to live in exile as a Catholic. However he was arrested by the Inquisition in Milan. His brother Henry sought his release, using the mediation of one Solomon Aldred, who had both English and Roman contacts. It was suspected that Unton was not unhappy at being arrested, and perhaps wished to spend time in Italy, particularly since after his release, he went on to Rome.120 It is also possible that Unton was travelling to Rome on Hatton’s behalf. This is supported by the fact that a second intermediary working for Unton’s release was one Pyne, almost certainly Henry Pyne, a servant of Hatton who was frequently active on the Continent.121 More intriguingly, shortly afterwards, in February 1584, Edward Unton received a ciphered letter from Rotterdam stating that Cardinal Giacomo Savelli had been called to Rome because of ‘litteras domini Hatton que fuerunt intercepte Parisiis’ (letters of Lord Hatton, which were intercepted in Paris), and also noting that ‘the Lord Cardinal is well and salutes you’.122 Savelli was head of the Roman Inquisition and had some responsibility for English affairs; he was a moderate and Anglophile figure, who later corresponded cordially with Burghley.123

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Aldred travelled to England about Unton’s case, and according to Persons, he ‘obtained favour with some of the Queen’s Councillors, and in particular with Hatton … and Walsingham’.124 Although it is unclear who initiated them, Aldred became involved in contacts between England and Rome later in 1584. Robert Persons left several accounts of this, attributing the plan to Bishop Owen Lewis, erstwhile head of the English College in Rome, vicar-​ general of Carlo Borromeo in Milan and seen as no friend of the Jesuits, who used the pretext of Unton’s imprisonment to send Aldred as a messenger to England.125 According to Persons, Lewis’s nephew, Hugh Griffiths, working with Savelli, sent two Franciscan friars, Bourcher and Batson, into England with Aldred.126 There they dealt with English privy councillors, particularly Hatton and Walsingham and discussed ‘moderation in matters of Religion, and [Aldred] brought both Pope Gregory and Sixtus after him into hope that much would be done this way, if Dor Allen and f. Persons would cease to exasperate them with books, &c’.127 Persons clearly perceived all this as a threat to the Jesuit stance on the English regime, and later in 1585 he and William Allen sought to sabotage the project.128 The English perspective is less clear, but Aldred assured Walsingham of his faithful service, and Batson’s mission was facilitated by the English embassy in Paris; on 6 January 1585, Sir Edward Stafford reported to Walsingham that Aldred and ‘one Batson a Jesuit’ were in Paris en route to England and offered to help forward their letters to Rome.129 Clearly nothing ultimately came of this. Persons concludes that the affair ‘fell out afterward to be but dubble dealing, for nothing was done, for the Q. could be brought to no more but to promise but to heare a masse privately in her chamber as Batson tould me afterward in Rome’. Aldred became ‘an open enimy’ and went over to work for Walsingham, and the others died or were dismissed, ‘and so that association was dissolved, which was so strong for a time that many good Caths feared them’.130 It does seem, therefore, as if there was something afoot here, but exactly what is unclear. Leicester’s Commonwealth interprets ‘the late interception of letters in Paris from one Aldred of Lyons then in Rome, to Henry Umpton, servant to Sir Christopher, in which letters Sir Christopher is reported to be of such credit and special favor in Rome as if he were the greatest Papist in England’ as an attempt by Leicester against Hatton, but this does not seem very coherent.131 A straightforward explanation would be that Aldred was simply an English spy, or that they hoped to cause confusion or dissent among the Catholics.132 Yet it seems to have had some credibility in Rome.133 If Walsingham was involved, it seems inconceivable that official toleration of Catholicism was intended, but conceivably Hatton and the Queen were planning some kind of détente, with better treatment of English Catholics exchanged for improved relations with Rome, perhaps

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the suspension of the Jesuit mission; William Allen reported rumours that Aldred was discussing ‘some moderation of the religious question’ with the English councillors.134 John Bossy believed that ‘Hatton was floating feelers to Rome about coming to some deal in the 1580s.’135 The key piece of evidence supporting this is the fact that Hatton and Cardinal Savelli were in contact. A letter of 1588, supposedly from an English spy in Madrid, shows that rumours were circulating about this affair: ‘Our Quene ys sayde here to have sent Batson the Ihesuyte to Rome aboute overture with hys Hollynes to be reconcyled.’136 Either way, given that Hatton seems to have been taking the lead, and his men were involved, it suggests at least that Hatton was the most plausible frontman for such an operation (although Hatton and Walsingham could have been working at cross-​purposes). Ultimately, it does not seem unlikely that Hatton would have been keen on something like what was being speculated. By the mid-​1580s, however, the prospect of war was again growing, and Hatton did not resist it. By 1584–​85 he seems to have been supportive of the consensus on the Council in favour of war, and he spoke at length against Spain in Parliament in 1584.137 Having no hankering for military glory himself, Hatton may well have welcomed Leicester’s absence from court for months on end, on a mission which could easily be predicted to irritate the Queen, just as Essex’s enemies welcomed his despatch to Ireland in 1599. In 1585, Hatton, alongside Burghley, Leicester, Walsingham, Howard, Hunsdon and Knollys, was deputed to negotiate the treaty of Nonsuch, which agreed English intervention, with the Dutch.138 Hatton seems to have compiled some notes on Anglo-​Burgundian treaties for this purpose.139 The outbreak of war may have resulted in Hatton being rather sidelined. Leicester was riding high at that point, as the revival of the lieutenancies showed: Leicester’s Puritan-​ leaning clients took prominent roles in the machinery of warfare.140 Nevertheless, Hatton played his part, alongside other senior ministers, handling cross-​Channel correspondence and affairs on a very secret and often intimate basis.141 His servant, Cox, went over to the Netherlands with correspondence, which again suggests Hatton was closely and actively involved.142 In effect, Burghley, Hatton and Walsingham were jointly managing the Queen during these months, with the common endeavour of maintaining the English expedition. Walsingham and Leicester, with perhaps an undertone of surprise, acknowledged Hatton’s support in their private correspondence, particularly when it came to mollifying Elizabeth’s anger at Leicester for accepting the title of governor-​general of the Netherlands.143 Indeed, as a friend reported to Leicester in March 1586, with Burghley ill, Walsingham out of favour and the Queen keeping to her chambers due to a cold, ‘Mr vyce-​chamberlayne is the man that dealeth most, or rather only,

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with her majestye therin’, a revealing illustration of how powerful Hatton’s position as gatekeeper and intermediary was; fortunately for Leicester, he ‘shewe[th] hym selfe an honnerable, trew and faythfull gentleman towards you’.144 At this time, Sir Edward Stafford, the distinctly conservative ambassador in Paris, believed that Hatton was aligned with Leicester against himself and Burghley, apparently seeing him as a convinced pro-​war figure.145 Hatton’s genuine support of Leicester at this point quite likely dampened down rivalry between them; Leicester wrote of Hatton’s appointment as Lord Chancellor that ‘I am glad to hear that her Majesty will hear of Mr Vice-​Chamberlain for Keeper of the Seal. Surely he will be the fittest for it.’146 Later in 1587 he rather appealingly requested Burghley josh Hatton thus: ‘tell my L. Chancelor he ys a very churll for I have not hard one word of long tyme from him’.147 Hatton also took a leading role defending the war in Parliament in 1586–​87 and 1589.148 Hatton’s heir, William Hatton, also committed himself to the war; having already fought under Anjou in the Netherlands in 1581, he was there again with Henry Unton in 1586, where they were knighted together at Zutphen by Leicester.149 Other followers, such as George Fermor, also took the field. There are signs, however, that ultimately Hatton’s commitment to the war was weak, and stronger proponents of the Dutch still felt the need to lobby him in their support. In February 1585, William Davison sent Hatton rather frantically downbeat assessments of the position of the Dutch and the many successes of Spain, perhaps trying to make him or keep him keen on the intervention.150 In 1587, Robert Beale wrote a lengthy treatise for Hatton, encouraging him to keep faith with the war in spite of setbacks.151 They were most likely wise to do this, as there are recurrent signs that Hatton was interested in the possibility of concluding an early peace, again most likely reflecting the possibility that Elizabeth would turn against the entire affair.152 Tentative moves in this direction commenced just months after Leicester had departed for the Netherlands, pioneered by another Catholic-​inclined councillor, Sir James Croft, and managed through Croft’s contacts and various merchant agents. Hatton seems to have been the first councillor to be informed of these, after Croft himself and Burghley, apparently some time in the first half of 1586.153 Later on Cobham, Mildmay and possibly Buckhurst were told, with Leicester theoretically kept in the dark. Further brief mentions of Hatton’s continued involvement recur in 1587, when he signed a letter about the matter to Parma, which, interestingly, Parma commented on with approval, and in 1588.154 Hatton’s views on this are not recorded in detail. However, his servant Henry Pyne was extensively involved as a go-​between and messenger in 1587 and 1588, being known personally to Parma himself (Robert Cecil noted that Parma ‘begged a dogg of Pyne which he gave him thowgh he

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was little worth’; ‘your lordship wold wonder how fond he [Parma] is of English doggs’). This strongly suggests that Hatton was indeed involved behind the scenes.155 The culmination of these moves was a peace conference at Bourbourg in 1588, at which Hatton’s client Valentine Dale was one of the five English delegates; Dale sent Hatton a report from there on 26 July 1588 (by which time the battle at sea between the Armada and the royal navy was already well-​advanced) suggesting that while the negotiations were proceeding in good faith, there was little likelihood of progress.156 As with others, such as Burghley, therefore, it is likely that Hatton was simply keeping both options open, as the Queen wished. Without being especially keen on war, he would work towards the success of English troops in the field, but nor was he averse to peace in the right circumstances, if the Queen decided on it. What he clearly was not is a firm ally of Leicester’s long-​term policy goals or a committed cheerleader for war. As we have seen, when his client Wilkes criticised Leicester’s conduct in the Netherlands, Hatton defended him against Leicester.

Domestic politics in the 1580s The 1580s were a highly eventful period within English domestic politics, but the middle of the decade appears something of a fallow period for Hatton. Consumed as these years were with a series of panics about Catholic plots and the threat of Mary, Queen of Scots, which were very much encouraged by Burghley, Walsingham and their allies, there is a sense that Hatton was on the back foot. There are signs that he was on bad terms with the Queen in early 1583. The implication of various of his associates in the Arden-​Somerville and Babington plots were clearly significant embarrassments. Hatton’s letterbook is particularly scanty for early 1584; his client Tobie Matthew wrote, possibly at this time, that I am very sory Sir, to heare you geve your selfe to be more pryvate, then you have bene wonte: For solytarynes, is a certayne humour, sooner come, then gone, and yt rather bryngethe contentatyone for a whyle then bredeth commendatyone, or good in the ende. You be not the fyrst Sir, that have lost a good servante, or kepte a badd: or that have founde bothe frendes unfaste, & neighboures unthankfull, undewtyfull followers, & professed enemyes. These thwartes are incidente, yea, & conveniente too somtymes not onlye to checke oure joyes, & to prove oure patyence, but to lett us see, & make us feele the odds, betwene God & men, betwene this, & that other worlde ... I wyll say no more, but shewe your selfe to be your selfe: and geve to your adversary no one foote, unles yt be to gayne two.157

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This suggests that Hatton suffered a loss of favour, a political or private mishap, or perhaps an episode of depression, which remains completely obscure.158 Hatton played a relatively minor role in the Parliament of 1584–​85, when the country was up in arms about the Catholic threat to Elizabeth, and the Bond of Association and Burghley’s interregnum scheme were playing out. From 1585, the war with Spain made his apparent policy of moderation towards Catholics difficult to pursue, nor did the outbreak of war play to his strengths, as Leicester took centre-​stage. Shortly after, Hatton’s links with the Babington Plot caused him embarrassment. He re-​emerged fully to prominence only in late 1588, with Leicester’s death. It might be expected that Hatton would instinctively resist many of the developments of this period, and there are indeed some signs of this. His position towards Mary, Queen of Scots, for example, seems to have been much more pragmatic than that of Burghley and Walsingham, with some signs of friendly relations. Nau, one of Mary’s secretaries, wrote that ‘Hatton luy a faict divers bons offices. Luy offrant par la Contesse de Shreusburye que La Royne d’Angleterre venant a deceder il seroyt prest de venir trouver la Royne d’Escosse avec la garde.’ (‘Hatton has done her divers good offices. He offered by the Countess of Shrewsbury that if the queen of England should come to die, he would be ready to come and find the queen of Scotland with the guard’).159 This must be treated with caution, but Nau stated that Hatton had done her divers good offices, not just one, and furthermore Hatton is the first name listed, preceding Walsingham, Burghley and other councillors. This does suggest a particular degree of sympathy –​ and indeed it would not be so strange if Hatton did seek to keep open lines of communication with the woman who might still have been England’s next monarch. There is also no doubt that many of Hatton’s followers were pro-​Mary, as we have seen. On the other hand, Mary did not spare to repeat the rumour that Hatton was Elizabeth’s lover.160 Nevertheless, Hatton may have regarded the possibility of her inheriting the throne with relative equanimity.161 He was involved in the talks about her release and restoration to power (in association with her son) in 1583–​84; he wrote memos in his own hand both in favour and against her release, which suggests that he was not inclined to stick his neck out for her at that point.162 These memos are, parenthetically, an interesting and very rare insight into his involvement in the political process, showing his ability to marshal evidence and arguments on both sides of a question, very much in line with his parliamentary rhetoric. The intense political crisis centred on Mary in the mid-​1580s must therefore have been tricky for Hatton. As many historians have commented, this period saw the airing of possible courses of action which were potentially

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very radical, in the service of preserving the Protestant regime at all costs. The first of these was the Bond of Association, a national compact to avenge any assassination of the Queen.163 Hatton signed it, of course, like his Privy Council colleagues.164 Yet there is no sign at all that he was involved in its conception or execution. Hatton was at court during October 1584, but played no recorded role in the proceedings whatsoever. Hatton was more prominent when the debates over safeguarding the succession moved to Parliament in the form of the Bill for the Queen’s Surety. Hatton was certainly active in many committees in this Parliament. He spoke for two hours on the problems of Spain, recusants, plots and the Queen’s safety on 28 November 1584.165 However, it was Mildmay who directed the committee to consider a legislative response to these problems.166 Hatton brought a message from the Queen on 17 or 18 December, expressing her reluctance to (in effect) have James VI implicated in actions taken on behalf of his mother.167 After the Christmas recess, Hatton informed the house about the treason of William Parry.168 Finally, he introduced a heavily modified version of the bill on 3 March 1585.169 It is certainly not clear, then, that he was a leading proponent of the plan. During the Christmas recess, Burghley and his allies floated a now famous plan for an interregnum in the event of the sudden death of the Queen, in which Parliament would direct the succession to a candidate acceptable to the Protestant establishment. Again, although Hatton was certainly involved in these discussion, his precise attitude is unknown. As recent research has shown, this plan was criticised even within the regime by ‘one that was no furtherer of this devise’, who pointed to the many difficulties it would invite and suggested urging the Queen to settle the succession in her own lifetime instead.170 This indication that Burghley’s ‘monarchical republicanism’ was not shared by all of Elizabeth’s ministers certainly raises the possibility that Hatton was ‘no furtherer’, especially as the document in question was found in his archive; the author makes references to members of the political nation excluded from Parliament, which may suggest the sort of crypto-​ Catholic gentry found in Hatton’s patronage network and whom he may be taken in some senses to represent. Furthermore, according to Paulina Kewes, Elizabeth, Hatton and Hunsdon all doubted ‘that an interregnum government could assert its authority after her sudden death, let alone settle the succession in an orderly manner’. They believed instead that the succession issue could be eased by ensuring good relations with James VI: ‘Burghley, Walsingham and their godly allies [were] keen to make the Bond law in the parliament scheduled for November, in contrast to Hunsdon, Hatton and above all the Queen who preferred to negotiate with James and, if he proved amenable, avoid cutting him out of the succession. Ultimately the latter course prevailed.’171 This adds to the sense that Hatton was against

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the interregnum plan and may have backed up Elizabeth’s refusal to allow it. Overall, then, the fragmentary evidence suggests Hatton took a sceptical approach to the panicked attempts at radical innovation in this period, quite different from the paranoid concern felt by the likes of Burghley and very much in line with (and perhaps merely in reflection of) the Queen’s more sanguine attitude. After the exposure of the Babington Plot, however, the position had to change. The pressure against Mary grew greatly, both because Elizabeth seems to have been genuinely alarmed about her safety and angry with her cousin, and because of the public pressure. Other Catholic-​leaning councillors, such as Sir James Croft, also adjusted their stances.172 Hatton may have thought that the involvement of his own associates in the plot limited his scope for manoeuvre, and he seems to have accepted that Mary was doomed. In the midst of this, in September 1586, Hatton was appointed Lord Lieutenant of Northamptonshire, a move which was part of a gradual nationwide re-​introduction of the office which was certainly related to the war against Spain and potentially also to the crisis over the succession in the mid-​1580s; as we have seen, Burghley was considerably offended that Hatton was appointed to this role.173 It is interesting, however, that the same month as Hatton was appointed, Mary was moved to Fotheringhay in Northamptonshire. It is conceivable that Elizabeth thought that if she were assassinated, she would rather have Hatton as Lord Lieutenant than Mary’s arch-​enemy, Burghley. Hatton, along with other councillors and nobles, was a commissioner for Mary’s trial at Fotheringhay in October 1586. Even at this point, Mary perceived him to be more sympathetic to her than most. It was his persuasion, in which he used his habitual oratorical technique of appearing to speak from the Queen herself, assuring Mary that she could still prove her innocence, which led her to appear before the tribunal and take part in the trial.174 Later on, Mary ‘calling to Mr Vicechamberlayne’, asked him ‘to delyver her peticion to the Quene & to Mr Secretary’ –​in effect to intercede with Elizabeth.175 Whether he did so is unknown. Hatton’s shift of attitudes towards Mary is also clear in the ensuing Parliament, when he managed the proceedings against her with every sign of conviction in the necessity of her execution. He introduced the topic on 3 November, roundly condemning Mary, he handled and reported on discussions with and petitions to the Queen, and throughout he accorded with the clear preference of both the Commons and the Lords that Mary should be executed.176 Indeed, Hatton was closely involved in the infamous unauthorised despatch of the warrant for Mary’s execution. Once Elizabeth had signed the warrant, the secretary, William Davison, actually took it first to Hatton.

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The two then took it to Burghley, who convened all the councillors at court to agree to despatch it without Elizabeth’s knowledge. It is intriguing that Davison went first to Hatton; the two had cordial relations but seem not to have been close. It may have related to Burghley’s illness, or perhaps Davison wanted to consult a cool head. More cynically, he may have wanted to ensure Hatton took his share of responsibility and ensure that he could not later disavow the decision and seek political advantage from it.177 Despite this apparently pivotal role in the affair, Hatton attracted virtually none of Elizabeth’s considerable wrath in the aftermath; he was the first to see the Queen after she learned of Mary’s death, but her anger fell primarily on Davison and Burghley.178 Davison effectively lost his job, and Burghley was in disgrace and away from court for several months.179 Hatton certainly received some harsh words; Walsingham told Leicester in April that ‘Sir Christopher Hatton hath dealt very plainly and dutifully with her, which hath been accepted in so evil part as he is resolved to retire for a time’ –​yet he was made Lord Chancellor two months later.180 The contrast is a little hard to explain, but it may relate to Hatton’s lack of previous hostility to Mary. Hatton clearly changed his position, then, from one of some sympathy to Mary (certainly very different to the implacable hostility of Burghley and Walsingham) to an acceptance that her death was necessary. The question of why reflects the same question with regard to the Queen, of course; after years of resisting pressure to move against Mary, she genuinely seems to have changed her mind after the Babington Plot, and it is not wholly clear why. Possibly the increasingly threatening noises from Spain played a role. Certainly the fact that James VI was by then old enough to govern England changed matters; he also reduced (if not entirely) his flirtations with Catholicism. All of this made Mary somewhat redundant. This may well be the most important reason why Hatton himself changed his mind; he sensed that the tide was running against Mary and that Elizabeth had finally been convinced, and went along with it (this of course assumes that Elizabeth really wanted Mary executed). He may have been genuinely shocked by her complicity in the Babington Plot, or thought that she was objectively a more serious threat than she had been before. More conspiratorially, the complicity of Hatton’s followers in the Babington Plot may have forced him to support the move. More broadly, however, it very much seems that he steered a more independent course on questions of the succession, as he did in other areas. He was sympathetic and supportive to Elizabeth’s cousin Margaret, Countess of Derby, and apparently also interested in the proposed Arbella Stuart-​ Farnese marriage, which may suggest he was open to a candidate other than James.181 There does not seem to be any particular reason why we

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should assume that, in an acute succession crisis, Hatton would automatically have accepted Burghley’s lead. It is not clear that Hatton was committed to a Protestant succession, as Burghley was. By 1587, however, the matter was moot.

After 1587 Hatton’s apotheosis was his elevation to Lord Chancellor in April 1587, following the death of Thomas Bromley.182 Various sources suggest that Elizabeth first considered appointing both the Earl of Rutland (who died shortly afterwards) and Archbishop Whitgift.183 Whether this is the case or not –​and there is no hard evidence for either –​it appears that Hatton was keen to have the job; as Robert Cecil reported to Burghley, Hatton was grateful for their support during ‘the whole course of this Sute’, apparently meaning the chancellorship.184 Leicester also expressed approval of Hatton’s appointment (whether sincerely or not).185 Hatton was an incongruous choice, since all Elizabeth’s other lord chancellors or keepers were serious lawyers, and while Hatton had studied law and, as a privy councillor, exercised quasi-​judicial functions in Star Chamber, he was not that. There was clearly some concern about his fitness for office, perhaps even on Hatton’s own part: on 1 May 1587, Maynard, one of Burghley’s secretaries, wrote that Hatton had heard that the Queen may have regretted appointing him, and had gone to court to offer to return the Great Seal.186 Some believed that the appointment was intended to remove him from court; as Camden wrote: ‘Hatton was advanced to it by the cunning Court-​arts of some, that by his Absence from Court, and the troublesome Discharge of so great a Place, which they thought him not to be able to undergo, his Favour with the Queen might flag and grow less.’187 This is corroborated by a letter sent to Buckhurst shortly afterwards, noting that ‘there is an intencion in her majestie to call the Lord Chauncellor home againe to Corte for her peculiar service to be at hand, and to advaunce him to the place of the Lord Steward of her Howshould’, a job which would have suited Hatton.188 The notion that his service away from the Queen was a sacrifice to her was still being adverted to by Robert Cecil four years later.189 Perhaps to preserve his perch at court, Hatton retained the captaincy of the guard. As it turned out, Hatton’s performance as Chancellor was judged to be satisfactory, as Camden acknowledged: ‘Yet executed he the Place with the greatest state and splendour of any that ever we saw; and what he wanted in Knowledge of the Law, he laboured to make good by Equity and Justice.’190 Later assessments of his performance have also been complimentary.191

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Soon after Hatton ascended to the lord chancellorship, his status increased further due to the deaths of other councillors, particularly Leicester in 1588 and then Walsingham in 1590. This left him higher in the hierarchy than at any other time, effectively paired with Burghley as leaders of the government. Broadly speaking they continued the traditional co-​operative approach which Elizabeth preferred. With the various crises of the 1580s surmounted, Mary dead, and the war with Spain an existing reality, there were relatively few contentious political issues on hand. Perhaps the defeat of the Armada –​in which Hatton was almost constantly at court, directing the defence as part of the Privy Council –​also generated some good feeling and esprit de corps.192 Some indication of the range of Hatton’s activities at that point can be gleaned from his correspondence with Robert Cecil in 1590–​91: he was busy with the war in France, Scottish issues, the Hacket affair, a speech at the Guildhall, the government of the City of London, intelligence from Spain, naval ventures, as well as the routine management of royal and courtly egos and ambitions.193 Hatton was also closely involved in Irish affairs in this period.194 As the next chapter shows, however, religious issues clearly opened up tensions between Hatton and Burghley. Hatton’s national profile also grew markedly in these years. As Lord Chancellor, he presided over the House of Lords in the 1589 Parliament.195 He was chosen as Chancellor of Oxford in succession to Leicester, as well as steward of Cambridge, and towns such Andover and Salisbury selected him as their High Steward.196 He clearly gained more influence over patronage; the appointment of Henry Unton as ambassador to France, for example.197 The appointment of religious conservatives to significant local roles such as deputy lieutenancies also look like signs of his influence: Hatton’s clients George Fermor in Northamptonshire and John Petre in Essex are examples.198 In these years, Hatton also played an important role in bringing forward promising younger figures to replenish the depleted ranks of the Privy Council. Hatton probably encouraged the rise of his anti-​Puritan allies, such as John Fortescue (who became a privy councillor in 1589) and John Puckering. However, his relations with Robert Cecil and Robert, Earl of Essex are both more important and better documented. Hatton encouraged the appointment of Robert Cecil to the Privy Council in spite of his youth, and was his staunch supporter, as their surviving correspondence in 1590–​91 shows very clearly. He also encouraged and defended Essex, writing to him to encourage him to curb his headstrong approach to royal service; Robert Cecil noted Elizabeth’s comment that Hatton ‘would not suffer her to ­chasten’ Essex.199

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During this post-​Armada phase, Hatton seems to have been stalwart in support of the war. He supported the Portugal voyage of 1589, the counter-​ Armada intended to exploit the temporary weakness of Spain following the failure of 1588.200 He was in fact apparently the only privy councillor to invest, to the tune of £1,000.201 He was increasingly called upon to manage the running of the war alongside Burghley, both in political, diplomatic and administrative terms, and there is no sign that he was unhappy with the expansion of the war into France, which became considerable: first the expedition of Lord Willoughby in 1589–​90, and then in 1591 expeditions by Sir John Norris to Brittany and Essex to Normandy.202 When Essex faced heavy criticism from the Queen over his conduct of the command, a situation similar to that of Leicester in the Netherlands in the mid-​1580s, Hatton joined other councillors in defending him.203 There are still some signs, however, that Hatton was receptive to sceptical commentary on the war; a treatise addressed to him moots the possibility of pulling out altogether, or else engaging more fully.204 Furthermore, there is some evidence of another set of secret cross-​ Channel talks in 1591, between the English government and the Catholic Charles Paget, exiled brother of Lord Paget, who was both anti-​Spanish and personally known to many on the English side as a former courtier. Two proposals appear to have been aired. One was to improve Anglo-​Spanish relations through a marriage between Arbella Stuart, Elizabeth’s cousin and conceivably a candidate for the English throne, and Rainutio Farnese, son of the Duke of Parma, the Spanish commander in the Netherlands. The match might ease the way towards peace with Spain. There is clear evidence of cross-​Channel approaches being made concerning this match, but no sign that Hatton was involved.205 The more intriguing possibility relates to a possible offer of toleration to English Catholics. Unfortunately, the only clear evidence for this appears in Catholic sources. On 26 October 1591 [n.s.], Cardinal Allen wrote to Robert Persons: Charles Paget hath written hither [to Rome from Flanders] to some of the Inquisition that they of the Counsell of Engl[an]d offer him a pass-​port & safe conduct to passe and repasse for treaty of religion, specially with Canterbury and Hatton, who wil he sayth become Cath[olic]s, by w[hi]ch you see what kind of practises these good fellows haue in hand, and with whome they deale.206

In December 1591, Allen wrote to Philip II that Others say that the aim of these Englishmen is to negotiate the concession of religious liberty to Catholics, or the restoration of the Catholic faith in

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England. They say that the Grand Chancellor [Hatton] and the Archbishop of Canterbury are inclined to this, together with some others who favour this marriage: they add that some persons will be sent to the Pope to treat of religious matters.207

By that point, of course, Hatton was dead, and no more can be traced about this affair. As before, it may well have been simply an insincere ruse to divide Catholics. Yet there are two interesting points: that Hatton was again prominently mentioned, and that when shortly afterwards Hatton died, Burghley immediately issued a royal proclamation on measures against Catholics which foreclosed any notion of toleration. If this was no more than a dividing tactic, it was one which Burghley instantly abandoned when Hatton was gone, suggesting that he had never supported it –​which in turn suggests that there may have been some real interest on the English side after all, and that Hatton was behind it. In that sense it would recall the Anglo-​Papal discussions in which Hatton’s client Sebastian Bryskett had been involved in the 1560s. Arguably the time had passed for such notions. There is probably enough evidence to suggest that there was some substance to these various efforts apparently tending to some form of rapprochement with Catholic powers, from Hatton’s Spa trip, to the Unton-​ Aldred-​Batson talks, to these moves in 1591, suggesting that Hatton and others like him had a continuing inclination to pursue this kind of approach. A policy of reconciliation with Catholic powers, cemented by royal marriages, was, after all, a recurrent thread of foreign policy under the Stuarts.

Conclusion During his fourteen years as a privy councillor, Hatton was at the centre of every major policy decision made within the Elizabethan regime, and in that regard it is remarkable and regrettable that it remains so difficult to assess his views. It cannot be doubted that he was a conscientious councillor and was closely familiar with the issues and arguments, since he had often to outline them to the Queen, or communicate her decisions to others, and he had access to the most sensitive papers.208 The nature of these debates –​ private, closely controlled, conducted between the Queen and a handful of other key councillors, and usually oral rather than written –​makes it virtually impossible to isolate Hatton’s role. In contrast to his positions on religious affairs, it appears Hatton was not radically different to other counsellors in most policy debates. Broadly speaking, he supported many of the same policies as people like Walsingham –​ on Anjou, the war, Mary Stuart –​at least at times. It is not clear, h ­ owever, that his influence was crucial in any specific area, or that he originated

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policies, as ministers were clearly able to do, even on the conservative side –​ for example, the Earl of Sussex over the Archduke and Anjou matches or Sir James Croft over the peace talks with the Spanish in 1585–​88. Thus his actions sometimes seem somewhat at odds with his patronage; Hatton does not appear to have comported himself as a ‘Catholic’ politician in any sense (which may have helped to misdirect historians away from his religious leanings). That is not to say that his approach was not at least somewhat distinctive, however. His religious attitudes appear to have been manifested less in support for what might be regarded as Catholic positions, and more in a lack of commitment to any version of the ‘Protestant cause’, either abroad or at home. This ultimately led him to support war with Spain, but in no way through any obligation towards Dutch or French Protestants, purely in defence of England itself. It also led him towards openness to making peace (somewhat comparably, the Earl of Essex is now widely accepted as being motivated more by hatred of the overweening power of Spain than by the Protestant cause.209). In domestic affairs, it ultimately led him to support the execution of Mary, but only when she demonstrated a clear and active threat towards Elizabeth, and there is fairly strong evidence that he was (at best) dubious about the so-​called monarchical republican tendencies of Lord Burghley. What his position would have been in the event of Elizabeth’s death and a succession crisis is very hard to establish. There are also recurrent signs that the wider political community regarded him as more conservative than he may in fact have been, as various overtures from those who sought a change of policy on the war or other matters suggests. In many cases, of course, his policy views were in alignment with the Queen. This was probably a mixture of a generally pragmatic approach to politics, and in many cases supporting –​even perhaps representing –​the Queen’s view. This is not to say that he was a yes-​man; it is always difficult to differentiate whether he agreed with her by conviction or by convenience. Certainly in some cases, he stood up to her, and worked to defend other councillors against her temper. In contrast to many of her councillors, however, he seems to have shared a strong similarity of outlook with Elizabeth which she recognised and valued.

Notes 1 SP 15/​25/​35; see also CSPSp 1568–​79, 546; Wright, Queen Elizabeth and her Times, II, 68–​9; HMC Rutland, I, 114–​15. 2 Natalie Mears, Queenship and Political Discourse in the Elizabethan Realms (Cambridge, 2005), Chapter 2.

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3 For general accounts of the Privy Council, see M. B. Pulman, The Elizabethan Privy Council in the Fifteen-​seventies (Los Angeles and London, 1971); A. G. R. Smith, The Government of Elizabethan England (London, 1967), Chapter 2. 4 A. L. Rowse, Ralegh and the Throckmortons (London, 1962), 104; Remembrancia, 407–​8; A. J. Kempe (ed.), The Loseley Manuscripts (London, 1836), 268–​9; BL Harleian 6993, f. 39. 5 HEHL, Ellesmere MSS 2580 (‘Tuching the redress of the Commynwelth’, 16 May 1559). 6 Burghley was first a privy councillor aged 30 (in 1550), as was Leicester (in 1562); the fourth Duke of Norfolk was just 24 (also in 1562). 7 Glyn Parry, The Arch-​Conjuror of England: John Dee (pbk. edn., New Haven and London, 2013), 207. 8 Adams, Leicester and the Court, 151–​75. 9 On the Grindal affair, see below, pp. 189–91. On the situation with regard to the Netherlands, see below, pp. 153–4. 10 See above. 11 Murdin, State Papers, 588 (HMCS, III, 250). 12 FSL X.c.55 (1). 13 CSPSp 1580–​86, 134. 14 Data compiled from the lists of attendances printed in APC X–​XXI. Hatton recorded more attendances than any other councillor in vols XIII (1581–​82), XV (1587–​88) and XX (1590–​91). 15 Conyers Read (ed.), The Bardon Papers. Documents Relating to the Imprisonment & Trial of Mary Queen of Scots (Camden 3rd ser. 17, 1909), 17–​26, 52–​3, 82–​93, 107–​9; HMCS, III, 270 (memo of suits to the Queen); SP 12/​226/​4 (memo of public business, 2 September 1589); SP 12/​234/​15 (memo of public business, 15 November 1590). 16 APC 1577–​78, 239; Rowse, Ralegh and the Throckmortons, 72; CSPF XXI, pt. II (1586–​7), 83; HMCS, III, 366. 17 Hasler, Commons, II, 276. Hartley, Proceedings, I, 333–​4, 491, 527–​8; II, 77–​9, 150. For examples of him acting as the Queen’s messenger outside parliament, see CSPD 1547–​80, 416, 527, 599. 18 Hasler, Commons, 278. 19 HMC Fifth Report (London, 1876), 579. 20 CSPSp 1587–​1603, 164, 166–​ 7; BL Add. 48027, ff. 691–​ 2; CSPF XXII (Jul–​Dec 1588), 69. 21 Adams, Leicester and the Court, 30. 22 Wallace T. MacCaffrey, Elizabeth I: War and Politics 1588–​1603 (Princeton, 1992), 12, 457; Hammer, Polarisation, 67. 23 Adams, Leicester and the Court, 36. 24 I have argued for a less harmonious and more conflicted picture of the Elizabethan regime in ‘How Protestant was the Elizabethan regime?’, EHR 133:564 (October 2018), 1060–​92, esp. 1089–​90. 25 BL Lansdowne 20, f. 144; Memoirs, 38; SP 12/​98/​2; BL Harleian 6993, f. 39r. 26 Memoirs, 124–​6, 301, 470–​2; SP 15/​25/​123 (Burghley to Hatton, 15 December 1578); SP 12/​ 140/​ 29 (Hatton to Burghley, 22 July 1580). BL Lansdowne

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66, f. 108 (Hatton to Burghley, 25 March 1590): ‘it is too hard for us too suffer this kynd of imputacion [of corruption] that have donn our best too advance her Majesties profitt’. Quote: FSL X.c.204 (Hatton to Heneage, 25 September 1577). 27 A. V. B. Norman and Ian Eaves, Arms and Armour in the Collection of Her Majesty the Queen: European Armour (London, 2016), 140. 28 TNA PROB 11/​73/​1. 29 Good examples include Memoirs, 97, 204, 269–​70. 30 Memoirs, 381–​2; the reply at 382–​3. 31 E.g. Hatton Letterbook, f. 56v. (Memoirs, 68–​70), a letter from Leicester to Hatton, 9 July 1578, referring to his desire to ‘injoye that blessed sighte, which I have ben so longe kept frome. A fewe of theis dayes seeme many yeares ...’; also Memoirs, 262–​3. 32 Most of the evidence for this comes from the reports of the Spanish ambassador, Mendoza: CSPSp 1580–​86, 175–​6, 192, 282, 327. Conyers Read’s belief that Hatton was Leicester’s ‘close friend and staunch supporter’ may also have been significant in perpetuating this notion: Conyers Read, ‘Walsingham and Burghley in Queen Elizabeth’s privy council’, EHR 28 (Jan. 1913), 34–​58, at 41, n. 24. 33 On Grindal, see below, pp. 189–91. Walsingham: Memoirs, 79–​80. 34 John Bruce (ed.), Correspondence of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leycester, during his Government of the Low Countries, in the Years 1585 and 1586 (Camden Society, o.s., 27, 1844), 36, 113, 175–​6. 35 Conyers Read, Lord Burghley and Queen Elizabeth (London, 1960), 372, 374. 36 Susan Frye, Elizabeth I: The Competition for Representation (Oxford, 1993), 58; CSP Venice, 1558–​80, 374–​5. 37 Glyn Parry and Cathryn Enis, Shakespeare before Shakespeare: Stratford-​ upon-​Avon, Warwickshire, and the Elizabethan State (Oxford, 2020), 42–​3. 38 Memoirs, 23. This may well not have been political of course (but Talbot reported that Burghley knew about it). 39 See above, pp. 66, 71; Parry and Enis, Shakespeare before Shakespeare, Chapter 2. 40 J. E. Jackson (ed.), ‘Longleat Papers, No. 3’, Wiltshire Archæological and Natural History Magazine 18 (1879), 36–​7. 41 ‘Dudley, Robert, earl of Leicester (1532/​3–​1588)’, ODNB; the marriage was in prospect for a year before it took place, and was a major source of court gossip: ‘Dudley [née Knollys; other married name Devereux], Lettice, countess of Essex and Countess of Leicester (1543–​1634)’, ODNB. Tenison also interpreted it as referring to Lettice: E. M. Tenison, Elizabethan England: Being the History of this Country ‘In Relation to all Foreign Princes’ (13 vols, Leamington Spa, 1933–​61), III, 160–​1. 42 Bruce, Correspondence of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leycester, 143. 43 G. Dyfnallt Owen, Calendar of the Manuscripts of the Most Honourable the Marquess of Bath, Volume V: Talbot, Dudley and Devereux Papers 1533–​1659 (HMC 58, London, 1980), 81. 44 MacCaffrey, Elizabeth I: War and Politics, 457. 45 Adams, Leicester and the Court, 103.

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46 CP 160/​138 (HMCS, II, 156); for Swale, see above, pp. 82–4. SP 15/​25/​123, f. 225; cf Stephen Alford, Burghley: William Cecil at the Court of Elizabeth I (New Haven and London, 2008), 231–​2. 47 CSPD 1591–​4, 14 (SP 12/​238/​61, Feb. 1591), SP 12/​238/​82. 48 Hatton Letterbook, f. 153v. 49 SP 15/​25/​105; Wright, Queen Elizabeth and her Times, II, 28. 50 CSPF XX (1585–​6), 636–​7, and see various friendly letters in Memoirs. 51 Wilson: Memoirs, 167–​ 8. Davison: Memoirs, 215, 229; BL Harleian 291, ff. 143–​ 5; Hatton was godfather to one of his sons: CSPD 1581–​90, 33. Mildmay: SP 53/​12 ff. 75v., 77v. Mildmay also acted as a trustee for Hatton’s estates: NRO, FH/​C/​A/​K/​2430. 52 Memoirs, 271, 344. 53 HMC, Report on the Manuscripts of Allan George Finch (London, 1913), I, 18; Hatton Letterbook, f. 82v.–​83r. (Memoirs, 190–​1); George Paule, The life of the most reverend and religious prelate John Whitgift, Lord Archbishop of Canterbury (1612; STC 19484), 37. 54 See below, pp. 201–3. 55 Anon, Collectanea Topographica & Genealogica III (London, 1836), n.289. 56 Collinson, Elizabethan Puritan Movement, 407, 411, 499 n.19; Hasler, Commons, III, 257–​8. 57 Collinson, Elizabethan Puritan Movement, 387–​8. 58 Camden, History, 462; Robert Naunton, Fragmenta regalia, or observations on the late Queen Elizabeth, her times and favorits (1641; Wing N250), 25, 27. 59 Wright, Queen Elizabeth and her Times, II, 417. 60 Memoirs, 179, 182–​3, 418, 420. 61 ‘Cecil, William, first Baron Burghley (1520/​ 21–​ 1598)’, ODNB; Hartley, Proceedings, II, 403–​4. 62 Joseph Stevenson (ed.), Correspondence of Sir Henry Unton, knt. Ambassador from Queen Elizabeth to Henry IV. King of France, in the Years MDXCI and MDXCII (Roxburghe Club, London, 1847), 76–​8 (first quote), 225 (second quote). 63 Holkham MS, f. 173. This was in 1580. 64 CSPF XXI (1586–​7), 214. The two were joint secondary dedicatees of a work on music which was dedicated firstly to Hatton: Apologia Musices (Oxford, 1588), by John Case, who dedicated another work to Hatton, Sphæra civitatis (Oxford, 1588). 65 Hammer, Polarisation, 99. 66 Stevenson, Correspondence of Sir Henry Unton, passim. 67 Michael Hicks, ‘Dale, Valentine (c. 1520–​ 1589)’, ODNB; Memoirs, 417; Brooks, Hatton, 364. 68 Memoirs, 474–​6; Hasler, Commons, III, 439–​40; Brooks, Hatton, 156–​7; W. T. MacCaffrey, ‘Place and patronage in Elizabethan politics’, in S. T. Bindoff, Joel Hurstfield and C. H. Williams (eds), Elizabethan Government and Society (London, 1961), 95–​126, at 112. 69 Brooks, Hatton, 114–​15; Hasler, Commons, III, 439; HMCS, II, 156 (1577).

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70 Hasler, Commons, III, 437–​9. 71 Memoirs, 99, 213–​14, 229–​30. 72 CP 163/​113; SP 105/​91, f. 51; CSPF XXI, pt. III (1587), 24, 47, 68, 74, 90. 73 Virgil B. Heltzel, ‘Robert Ashley: Elizabethan man of letters’, Huntington Library Quarterly 10:4 (Aug. 1947), 349–​63. 74 Hasler, Commons, I, 354–​5; CSPD 1595–​7, 286. 75 Brooks, Hatton, 389. 76 Michael Graves, ‘Ashley, Sir Anthony, baronet (1551/​2–​1628)’, ODNB. 77 CSPSMQS X (1589–​93), 226. 78 Inner Temple Library, Petyt MS 538/​10, ff. 11v.–​12r., 13v. He may have been the ‘F. A.’ who wrote to Hatton in 1581: Memoirs, 210. 79 M. A. R. Graves, ‘The management of the Elizabethan House of Commons: The Council’s men-​of-​business’, Parliamentary History 2 (1983), 11–​38. 80 See Hasler, Commons, I, 538–​9; Thrush & Ferris, III, 424–​7; W. J. Jones, The Elizabethan Court of Chancery (Oxford, 1967). He should not be confused with his namesake, the distinguished crown servant in Ireland. 81 See pp. 158, 161–2. 82 MacCaffrey, Making of Policy, 202 83 Glyn Parry, ‘Foreign policy and the Parliament of 1576’, Parliamentary History 34:1 (2015), 62–​89, much of which is followed here. One mention of ‘Atton’ supporting a pro-​war motion in parliament appears to be a misprint for ‘Alton’: compare Kervyn, VIII, 249 with A. L. P. de Robaulx de Soumoy (ed.), Mémoires de Frédéric Perrenot, sieur de Champagney, 1573–​1590 (Brussels, 1860), 393. 84 Kervyn, VIII, 157. 85 Kervyn, VIII, 221; CSPSp 1568–​79, 529. 86 CSPSp 1568–​79, 529. 87 Parry, ‘Foreign policy’, 87. 88 See however Champagney’s comment that ‘toutes ces caresses … me sont suspectes’: Kervyn, VIII, 208. Greetings in 1586: CSPF XX (1585–​6), 674. 89 CSPSp 1568–​79, 527. 90 MacCaffrey, Making of Policy, 224–​8, 451. Hatton was, however, quite closely familiar with events: see FSL X.c.204 (Hatton to Heneage, 25 September 1577). 91 Glyn Parry, ‘John Dee and the Elizabethan British Empire in its European context’, Historical Journal 49:3 (2006), 643–​75, at 661; Dee upgraded his dedication from Edward Dyer to Hatton. 92 SP 83/​6, f. 130. 93 Memoirs, 44–​50, 65–​6; CSPF XI (1575–​7), 84–​5, 150; CSPF XIII (1578–​9), 83–​4. 94 CSPF XIII (1578–​9), 130; MacCaffrey, Making of Policy, 235. 95 The loan: CSPF XIII (1578–​9), 190, 195. Walsingham: CSPF XIII (1578–​9), 81–​2, 100, 173, 175, 187. 96 SP 83/​8, ff. 56r.–​57r. (CSPF XIII (1578–​9), 159). 97 Susan Doran, Monarchy and Matrimony: the Courtships of Elizabeth I (London, 1996), 146ff.

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98 CSPF XIII (1578–​ 9), 183, 186. HMCS, II, 253–​ 4 (Murdin, State Papers, 319–​21). 99 CSPSp 1568–​79, 655. Mendoza thought that Hatton and Leicester were then in favour of the match: ibid., 658–​9. 100 Commission: SP 78/​3, f. 49. Murdin, State Papers, 333 (6 October 1579). Doran, Monarchy and Matrimony, 173; CSPSp 1568–​79, 655, 658, 683, 703–​4; CSPSp 1580–​86, 181. MacCaffrey, Making of Policy, 261–​4. 101 CSPSp 1568–​79, 703–​4; Neil Younger, ‘Drama, politics and news in the Earl of Sussex’s entertainment of Elizabeth I at New Hall, 1579’, Historical Journal, 58:2 (2015), 343–​66, at 349–​50. 102 Memoirs, 141–​3. 103 Memoirs, 132–​4. 104 CSPSp 1568–​79, 704; On the perhaps fanciful rumour that he would be sacked from the council: Clare Talbot (ed.), Miscellanea. Recusant Records (CRS 53, 1961), 229. 105 Edmund Lodge, Illustrations of British History (London, 1791), II, 223. 106 Hatton Letterbook, f. 21v. (Memoirs, 158–​61). 107 Memoirs, 162–​6. 108 Camden, History, 268. 109 CSPSp 1580–​86, 181, 229, 274–​5. 110 CSPSp 1580–​86, 274. 111 BL Cotton Titus B II, f. 438; Read, Burghley, 224–​5; HMCS, II, 329–​30. 112 This is also suggested by Doran, Monarchy and Matrimony, 214; see also CSPSp 1580–​86, 274–​5. 113 Roy Strong, Gloriana: The Portraits of Queen Elizabeth I (London, 1987), 101–​3. 114 Memoirs, 169, 180–​1, 216–​19. SP 12/​151/​51, f. 111v. 115 SP 83/​13, f. 37 (CSPF XIV (1579–​80), 347–​8); MacCaffrey, Making of Policy, 269–​70. 116 Memoirs, 158–​61; this appears in Wright, Queen Elizabeth and her Times, II, 106–​7, misdated to April 1580. 117 CSPSp 1580–​86, 144, 165, 249, 346. 118 I am extremely grateful to the late Professor John Bossy for bringing this affair to my attention; the conclusions drawn are of course my own. 119 For the Unton/​ Aldred episode, see Leo Hicks, ‘An Elizabethan propagandist: the career of Solomon Aldred’, The Month 181 (1945), 181–​91; see also Conyers Read, Mr Secretary Walsingham and the Policy of Queen Elizabeth (Oxford, 1925), II, 425–​8. 120 Hicks, ‘An Elizabethan propagandist’, 184–​5. 121 BL Add. 48000, f. 467v.; SP 77/​2, f. 15. 122 CSPF XVIII (1583–​4), 340–​1. 123 John Bossy, Giordano Bruno and the Embassy Affair (New Haven and London, 1991), 70–​1; Leo Hicks, An Elizabethan Problem: Some Aspects of the Careers of Two Exile-​Adventurers (London, 1964), 14. 124 J. H. Pollen (ed.), ‘Father Persons’ Memoirs (Concluded)’, Miscellanea IV (CRS 4, London, 1907), 127.

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25 Ibid. 1 126 J. H. Pollen (ed.), ‘The Memoirs of Father Robert Persons’, in Miscellenea II (CRS 2, London, 1906), 12–​218, at 184–​5. 127 Pollen, ‘Memoirs of Father Robert Persons’, 34–​5 (quote), 206. 128 CSPD Add 1580–​1625, 153–​4; CSPF XX (1585–​6), 703 (also in CSPSMQS 1584–​5, 11, wrongly dated 30 September 1583). 129 BL Harleian 286, f. 56; CSPF XIX (1584–​5), 231; SP 78/​13, f. 14. 130 Pollen, ‘Memoirs of Father Robert Persons’, 34–​5. 131 D. C. Peck, Leicester’s Commonwealth: The Copy of a Letter written by a Master of Arts of Cambridge (1984) and Related Documents (Athens OH, 1985), 173. 132 For the latter view, see Hicks, ‘An Elizabethan propagandist’, 188–​9; Read, Walsingham, II, 427. 133 Hicks, ‘An Elizabethan propagandist’, 189. 134 Quoted in Hicks, ‘An Elizabethan propagandist’, 186. 135 John Bossy, private communication with the author, 30 December 2013. 136 Henry Ellis (ed.), Original Letters Illustrative of English History (2nd ser., London, 1827), III, 137. 137 Hartley, Proceedings, II, 66, 139–​41. 138 CSPF XIX (1584–​5), 708. 139 BL Cotton Galba C. VIII, f. 93 (copies in SP 103/​33 ff. 144, 155). These are sometimes attributed to Thomas Heneage, Hatton’s successor as Vice-​ Chamberlain. 140 Neil Younger, ‘Securing the monarchical republic: the remaking of the lord lieutenancies in 1585’, Historical Research, 84:224 (2011), 249–​65; Younger, War and Politics in the Elizabethan Counties (Manchester, 2012), 43–​4. 141 See e.g. CSPF XX (1585–​6), 670; CSPF XXI, pt. II (1586–​7), 22, 22–​4, 28–​32; CSPF XXI, pt. III (1587), 427. BL Add. 5935, ff. 14–​15. 142 CSPF XXI, pt. II (1586–​7), 23, 37, 66; Cox brought back a good deal of information from Leicester: see ibid., 18, 37, 66, 77. 143 See e.g. CSPF XX (1585–​6), 192, 196, 231. John Bruce (ed.), Correspondence of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leycester, during his Government of the Low Countries, in the Years 1585 and 1586 (Camden Society, o.s., 27, 1844), 111–​14, 160, 182. 144 Bruce, Leycester Correspondence, 175–​6. 145 CSPF XXI, pt. I (1586–​8), 194. 146 CSPF XXI, pt. III (1587), 21 (Leicester to Walsingham, 16 April 1587). 147 SP 84/​19, f. 34 (Leicester to Burghley, 7 November 1587). 148 J. E. Neale, Elizabeth I and her Parliaments 1584–​1601 (London, 1957), 166–​8, 177–​8, 181–​2, 194–​201. Hartley, Proceedings, II, 291–​3, 388–​90, 398, 414–​24. 149 Memoirs, 188–​9, 201; CSPSp 1580–​86, 222; J. G. Nichols (ed.), The Unton Inventories (London, 1841), li. 150 Memoirs, 412–​13. 151 BL Add 48014, ff. 572–​9. 152 Read, Walsingham, III, 146, 174–​5; MacCaffrey, Making of Policy, 392ff; CSPF XXI, pt. II (1586–​7), 143–​4. CSPSp 1587–​1603, 595.

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53 SP 84/​9, f. 112r.–​v. 1 154 SP 77/​1, f. 356v. (26 September 1587); CSPF XXI, pt. IV (1588), 67–​8. 155 SP 77/​1, f. 381v.; 77/​2, ff. 15, 166v., 228v., 241; 77/​3, ff. 6v., 42v. (the dog). 156 BL Additional 4105, p. 232. 157 Hatton Letterbook, f. 128r.–​v. (Memoirs, 406–​8). The letter is undated; Nicolas suggests late 1584, which from its position in the manuscript is possible but uncertain. 158 On 12 June 1584, Walsingham found the Queen in a contrary humour, possibly he thought ‘uppon somme cause geven by Mr Vyce chamberlyn (who had ben with her not longe before)’. SP 12/​171/​22. 159 SP 53/​14, f. 22. See Brooks, Hatton, 305–​6 for the background to this. 160 See above, p. 40. 161 Brooks, Hatton, 305. 162 Read, The Bardon Papers, 22–​4. 163 Patrick Collinson, ‘The monarchical republic of Queen Elizabeth I’, in his Elizabethan Essays (London, 1994), 31–​57. 164 SP 12/​174/​1. 165 Hartley, Proceedings, II, 66, 139–​41; Neale, Parliaments 1584–​1601, 31–​2. 166 Hartley, Proceedings, II, 141. 167 Hartley, Proceedings, II, 77–​8, 150; Neale, Parliaments 1584–​1601, 35–​6. 168 Hartley, Proceedings, II, 84–​8. 169 Simonds D’Ewes, The Journals of all the Parliaments during the Reign of Queen Elizabeth (London, 1682), 362; Neale, Parliaments 1584–​1601, 51. There appears to be no record of his speech. 170 Catherine Chou, ‘One that was no furtherer of this devise’: (manufactured?) opposition to the ‘monarchical republic of Elizabeth I’, Parliamentary History, 36:3 (2017), 273–​97. Chou suggests that the strongly Protestant tone of parts of the relevant document make it unlikely that Hatton was the author, although Hatton could certainly use this kind of language when called for; see p. 224. 171 Paulina Kewes, ‘Parliament and the principle of elective succession in Elizabethan England’, in Paul Cavill and Alexandra Gajda (eds), Writing the History of Parliament in Tudor and Early Stuart England (Manchester, 2018), 106–​32; Susan Doran and Paulina Kewes, ‘The earlier Elizabethan succession question revisited’, in Susan Doran and Paulina Kewes (eds), Doubtful and Dangerous: The Question of Succession in Late Elizabethan England (Manchester, 2014), 20–​44, at 35. 172 Neale, Parliaments 1584–​1601, 123–​4. 173 Younger, ‘Securing the monarchical republic’. 174 State Trials, 1171–​72; Brooks, Hatton, 307–​8. 175 BL, Cotton Caligula C IX, f. 634r. 176 Neale, Parliaments 1584–​1601, 107, 114–​15, 122–​5, 131. Hartley, Proceedings, II, 214–​17, 219–​21, 377, 381. D’Ewes, 402–​3. 177 Davison adverted to precisely this concern after the event: Mark Taviner, ‘Robert Beale and the Elizabethan Polity’ (PhD thesis, St Andrews, 2000), 218;

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Brooks, Hatton, 313. Hatton supported Essex’s proposal to reinstate Davison as secretary after Walsingham’s death: ‘Cecil-​Hatton Letters’, 211. 178 Taviner, ‘Robert Beale’, 221. When privy councillors sent an exculpatory submission to the Queen ahead of Davison’s trial, it is possible that Hatton chose not to sign it, perhaps suggesting he did not feel in jeopardy: ibid., 229; BL Add. 48027, f. 675r. 179 Conyers Read, Lord Burghley and Queen Elizabeth (London, 1960), 371–​9. Hatton later apparently favoured Davison’s rehabilitation: BL Harleian 290, f. 244r. 180 J. L. Motley, History of the United Netherlands (London, 1860), II, 211–​12, citing BL Cotton Galba C XI, ff. 316–​19. 181 Memoirs, 145–​50, 346–​7. On Arbella, see below, p. 169. 182 His patent as Lord Chancellor was signed 24 April 1587: ‘Hatton, Sir Christopher (c. 1540–​1591)’, ODNB. He received the great seal on 29 April, at Croydon (Whitgift’s palace): LPL MS 178, f. iv. 183 Camden, History, 401; Paule, Life of Whitgift, 37–​8. Buckhurst was also mentioned: ITL Petyt MS 538/​10, ff. 18v., 21r. 184 Murdin, State Papers, 588–​9. It appears that Elizabeth, oddly, considered making Hatton Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster instead at one point. See also J. E. Neale, review of Brooks, Hatton, EHR 62:242 (Jan. 1947), 126–​7 (and also apparently in Times Literary Supplement [27 July 1946], 354). 185 SP 84/​14, f. 78r. 186 Murdin, State Papers, 589. 187 Camden, History, 401. 188 ITL Petyt MS 538/​10, ff. 18v., 21r. 189 Hammer, ‘Cecil-​Hatton Letters’, 228. 190 Camden, History, 401. Cf also James VI’s approving reaction: HMCS, III, 256. 191 W. J. Jones, The Elizabethan Court of Chancery (Oxford, 1967), 40. Collinson calls the appointment ‘unusual but perhaps inspired’: Elizabethans, 66. 192 APC 1588, passim; see also his letters as Lord Lieutentant of Northamptonshire: Jeremy Goring and Joan Wake (eds), Northamptonshire Lieutenancy Papers and other Documents 1580–​1614 (Northamptonshire Record Society 27, 1975). 193 Hammer, ‘Cecil-​Hatton Letters’, passim. 194 CSPI 1588–​1592, 14, 216, 275, 348, 353, 355, 377, 393, 428, 432. 195 For his management of the Lords, see BL Harleian 6994, f. 148. 196 See p. 84. 197 Hasler, Commons, III, 542. 198 Fermor: APC 1589–​90, 334; Petre: CPR 1588–​89, 306. 199 On Hatton’s collaboration with Burghley in bringing forward Robert Cecil, see Hammer, Polarisation, 100–​2, 391; on his help and protection of Essex, see ibid., 85, 87, 343, 391; on both, see also Hammer, ‘Cecil-​Hatton Letters’, 212 (where Cecil’s promotion to the council in 1591 is attributed to Hatton’s ‘suasions’), 242 (quote on Essex) and passim. For a friendly letter from Hatton to Essex, see Murdin, State Papers, 646.

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200 Wallace T. MacCaffrey, Elizabeth I: War and Politics 1588–​1603 (Princeton, 1992), 86. 201 SP 12/​223, f. 87r. 202 See e.g. CSPF XXII, 197, 325, 340, 376; SP 78/​21, f. 268; 78/​23, f. 17; 78/​24, f. 70; SP 105/​ 91, ff. 78–​ 82, 89–​ 90; SP 12/​ 234/​ 15; Hammer, Polarisation, 98–​9, 105. 203 Hammer, Polarisation, 105. 204 SP 84/​37, ff. 195–​7. 205 HMCS, IV, 144 (Oct. 1591); P. Renold (ed.), Letters of William Allen and Richard Barret 1572–​1598 (CRS 58, 1967), 209–​16; Parry, The Arch-​Conjuror of England, 224–​5. The Stuart-​Farnese match had been mooted as early as 1587: David Durant, Arbella Stuart: A Rival to the Queen (London, 1978). 206 P. Ryan (ed.), ‘Some correspondence of Cardinal Allen 1579–​85’, Miscellanea VII (CRS 9, 1911), 42–​3. Persons printed this letter (with Paget referred to as ‘N. N.’, Whitgift as ‘C’ and Hatton as ‘H’) in 1601, attributing it to 7 January 1592, a date which is evidently false because Allen refers to the imminent conclave to elect a successor to Pope Gregory XIV: Robert Persons, A brieff apologie or defence of the Catholike ecclesiastical hierarchie (Antwerp, 1601), sig. F2v. 207 Renold, Letters of Allen and Barret, 209–​11. Evidently news of Hatton’s death had not reached Allen. 208 E.g. CSPF XIII (1578–​9), 81–​2. 209 Alexandra Gajda, The Earl of Essex and Late Elizabethan Political Culture (Oxford, 2012), Chapter 2.

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5 Contesting religious policy within the Elizabethan regime

It was undoubtedly in the arena of religious policy that Hatton’s political influence was most significant. His most important political interventions all centred on religious affairs. This demolishes any notion that he was uninterested in religion, an agnostic or religious neuter. He was clearly unhappy with the state of the Church as moulded by Burghley and other forward Protestants early in Elizabeth’s reign, and when he could, this is what he focused on, even towards the end of his life, when England was fighting a war on several fronts. This chapter will consider two key aspects of Hatton’s role in government with regard to religion: firstly his role in the enforcement of the laws against Catholics of various kinds, and secondly his part in shaping the direction of the Church of England as a whole.

Hatton, Catholics and the law Regardless of his personal feelings and associations, Hatton was duty-​ bound to participate in the regime’s implementation of laws relating to religion, and an assessment of how he went about this helps to illuminate how he sought to navigate the tensions between his apparent private beliefs and his public duties. When it came to the passage of anti-​Catholic legislation, Hatton’s role seems relatively minimal, considering that he was a leading government spokesmen in the Commons and later the Lords. In 1581, the important anti-​ Catholic act of this Parliament was initiated by Mildmay, although Hatton played a part in the management of this bill, as of others in the Parliament. He certainly made no recorded moves to strengthen anti-​Catholic provisions; whether he was involved in the apparent watering-​down of the proposals during the course of the Parliament is unknown.1 Hatton was prepared to involve himself in the bill against slanderous or seditious words, however.2 Similarly, there is no evidence that Hatton played any part in the passage of

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the 1585 act against Jesuits, nor indeed whether the absence of significant legislation targeting Catholic laymen between 1581 and 1593, when he was at his most powerful, owes anything to him. Hatton participated in government action to enforce the laws against recusants, seminary priests and so on. Many examples can be found in the records of the Privy Council, which dealt with such matters in often minute detail.3 Few of these cases show him acting alone: more normally, he worked with one or more other senior officials. In January 1585, for example, he was part of a commission for banishing Jesuits and seminaries, but so were all privy councillors and others.4 It is of course hard to infer Hatton’s attitudes to such matters; as a member of the Privy Council, it was virtually impossible for Hatton to avoid participating in such actions to uphold the law. Councillors could not easily pick and choose what letters they signed, especially if the Queen favoured the policy. In view of his support for Catholics in other spheres, it seems likely that he was merely following a policy of ‘go along to get along’. A particularly sensitive aspect of this work was proceeding against priests, since targets were liable to be executed rather than merely admonished or fined. Many of the records for Hatton’s role in enforcing the laws against priests date from the mid-​1580s, perhaps as a result of the heightened state of alarm during that period, perhaps because he felt the need to prove his loyalty at a time when his associates were implicated in affairs such as the Somerville and Babington plots. In 1585, Hatton and Walsingham were involved in moves against two foreign-​ trained priests, Allen Chapman and John Pettyt, in Cambridgeshire.5 The following year there are several records of his role in the imprisonment of priests.6 Again, it is difficult to be certain, but it seems likely that if there was any part of the repression of Catholics in which he participated wholeheartedly, it was proceeding against foreign-​trained priests. When Hatton was appointed Lord Chancellor he was potentially in a position to moderate the legal system’s rigour towards Catholics systematically, especially as his influence was at its height at this time. Yet he seems to have followed Andrew Perne’s advice that he should decide cases ‘without anie respect of … profession, protestant papiste or puritante [sic]’.7 This was in fact a period of intense repression of priests (not, of course, initiated by Hatton personally), something that was probably inevitable given the plots and the war against Spain. 1588 was an exceptionally busy year in this regard.8 There are also records of Hatton’s role in dealing with lay Catholic figures: on the one hand, acting with Walsingham to release from house arrest John Talbot, one of Hugh Hall’s patrons; on the other, taking part with Lord Chancellor Bromley, Burghley, Leicester, Lord Howard and

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Sir Francis Knollys in an interrogation of Richard Shelley about the 1585 Catholic petition.9 Nor was Hatton completely uninvolved with profiting from recusancy fines. There is no sign that he did so personally, but he supported Philip Sidney in his attempt to benefit from fines. Not long after Hatton’s death, Sir William Hatton received a grant of a recusancy fine of £20 plus some of the Queen’s interest in some seized lands from the Lancashire recusant Nicholas Langford.10 This is not to say, however, that the laws were implemented without fear or favour against all Catholics. As noted here, they were executed most firmly against priests, especially seminaries and Jesuits. Obstinate and prominent lay recusants, especially those with links to the aforementioned clergy, were the next most targeted group. Ordinary lay Catholics, especially those who made some token effort to conform, were often left largely in peace. Therefore for someone like Hatton, participation in action against priests was by no means incompatible with sympathy towards many Catholics. This is underlined by considering whether Hatton objected to prosecuting, for example, the Babington plotters. Clearly the fact that they were Catholic could not excuse an attempt to murder the Queen. A similar recognition that Jesuits and seminaries were in effect serving the Pope and the King of Spain (and often acknowledged as such) helps explain Hatton’s position; he probably shared little of the worldview of such men. Hatton played a particularly important role in high-​ profile trials of Catholics, alongside other councillors and judges. He took part in the interrogation and trial of Catholics such as Edmund Campion.11 As we have seen, he was a judge at the trial of the Arden-​Somerville conspirators in 1583.12 He was the lead judge in the trial of William Shelley, who was sentenced to death for treason connected with the Throckmorton plot.13 In 1585, Hatton unfolded the details of the ‘Parry plot’ to the Commons (laying much of the blame on Jesuits), and he was a judge at William Parry’s trial.14 In 1586, Hatton was also closely involved in unravelling the Babington Plot in which, as we have seen, several of his followers were involved. According to one paper, Elizabeth herself gave him some sort of overall charge of the search for the fugitive conspirators, who sought to escape after the first arrests were made; this entailed watches and searches around London and its environs, the river and the Inns of Court. Most intriguingly, Hatton was ‘to sende [messages] to all the Papistes as to Sir Tho: Tressam Sir William Catesbye &c uppon payne of their Allegeance if any thinge by them be had seene or discovered they forthwith signifie the same to him or els to receive noe favour as they have from her Matie’. In this case, Hatton was being used as a line of communication with (hopefully) loyal Catholics.15

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On 12 August he interrogated his own man, Chidiock Tichborne, with Bromley, Burghley and Walsingham; it must have been highly embarrassing.16 He held several conspirators under arrest in his own house (Babington himself, Barnwell and Savage), which was not an unusual practice but ironic in this case. He examined Babington with others on 18 August.17 It is possible that the decision to involve him so closely was a direct response to his links to the plotters, perhaps even a malicious desire to taint him with their treachery, considering how insidious his favour towards Catholics must have seemed to hot Protestants. Burghley later wrote to update Hatton on the apprehension of some of the lesser figures, again with a sense of malicious undertones.18 It is in fact possible that Hatton’s position was in serious jeopardy. On 19 August, the Queen passed a message to Walsingham: Whereas in my last letter I wrote to your honour that none should have sight of the letters she delivered to you at your being here with her majesty, her highness now wills me to signify to you that she is well pleased that Mr. Vice-​ chamberlain have a sight of them, knowing his loyalty and faithfulness to be such towards her that she dares trust him with her life.19

This implies that Hatton was initially being kept out of the loop, suggesting that Elizabeth had some doubts about his conduct. Hatton slightly mysteriously went down to Holdenby in the wake of this. He was there on 2 September, writing to Burghley that he hoped ‘that these our negligences may not tempt Him [i.e. God]’.20 He claimed to be very ill, ‘full of a fever, with stitches, spotting of blood’, but this was a suspiciously convenient indisposition; possibly he feared embarrassing revelations. He came to London for the trial on 13–​15 September, and one suspects he was obliged, or felt forced, to dip his hands in the blood. At the trial itself, he acted as the lead judge, interjecting frequently and melodramatically. He berated the defendants to admit their guilt: ‘O wretch, wretch! thy conscience and own confession shew that thou art Guilty’ he expostulated to Dunne; ‘O Ballard, Ballard, what hast thou done? A sort of brave youths otherwise endued with good gifts, by thy inducement hast thou brought to their utter destruction ... is this thy Religio Catholica? Nay rather, it is Diabolica.’21 This smacks of a man protesting too much, but he may have been genuinely appalled by the version of Catholicism they presented; his last comment quoted here could be taken as an defence of Catholicism, as could his later comment to Barnwell, ‘Then wouldst thou have killed the queen for conscience. Fie on such a conscience!’22 More importantly, Hatton’s disavowal of the men helped to legitimise the trial. Even if Hatton is taken to be a secret Catholic, it was essential for the loyalist position that any Catholic who crossed the line from quiescent believer to violent activist became anathema. Similarly, Hatton specifically criticised

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‘the wicked Priests the Ministers of the Pope’ for leading these young gentlemen astray.23 It was of course common for well-​known Catholics or Catholic sympathisers to be involved in proceedings against Catholic extremists. Catholics such as Viscount Montague and Lord Lumley (as well as many others with Catholic links, such as the earls of Derby, Shrewsbury and Worcester) were commissioners at the trial of Mary, Queen of Scots.24 As Lake points out, on the 1578 progress, it was Sussex who unmasked and denounced Rookwood, the Queen’s host, as a Catholic, suggesting he was made to do so.25 The most effective denunciations of Catholic crimes were made by those sympathetic to Catholics. Performances such as this were to be expected in public. Behind the scenes, however, Hatton was often involved in more emollient approaches to conservatives or Catholics. As early as the Ridolfi plot in 1571–​72, he interrogated the Duke of Norfolk, but this role came to fruition in the 1580s. A good example is the Earl of Arundel, Norfolk’s heir. Arundel sought a career at court in the late 1570s and early 1580s, but failed to make an impression. He converted to Catholicism in 1584, and in 1585 sought to flee to the Continent. He was however stopped at sea and brought to London, where he was examined by ‘some of the Council’ over several weeks, Hatton being much involved in the questioning and reporting back to the Queen.26 His particular role, however, seems to have been to act as a ‘good cop’, a friendly older brother, offering sympathetic advice to keep Arundel out of trouble: The first Examination was upon May day, the which being ended Sir Christopher Hatton … stayed with him [Arundel] after the departure of the rest, and wished him if he loved his life not to conceal any of those things which were already known … Sir Christopher then told the Earl out of good will, promising him if he would set it all down plainly to do his best endeavour to save him from danger. Otherwise the very denial itself would cast more danger upon him than all his friends would be able to save.27

Hatton personified the fact that private Catholic sympathies were compatible with outward conformity and worldly success, and also that the proceedings against Arundel were not simply the vengeful actions of factional enemies, but represented the Queen’s will. Arundel did confess, although whether it much availed him is doubtful. He was not executed, but nor was he released from the Tower, dying there in 1595.28 Various other incidents support this. In 1583, the Privy Council ordered Henry Percy, eighth Earl of Northumberland, to confess any involvement in the Throckmorton plot, giving him the option of doing so either by letter to the Queen or verbally to Hatton.29 When Hatton interrogated Lord Windsor

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after the Babington Plot, Windsor reminded Hatton that ‘your Lordshype sayed to me, that yf your honors shold not exsammen me straygtlye consernynge these causes I myght thynke that your honors shold not dyscharg the parte of carfull servants to the Queens most excellente Majesty’. In this case, Hatton seems to have implied that he was merely doing his duty, and Windsor accepted this (although this only made him more furious when his story was not believed).30 Similarly, Charles Arundel seems to have confided in Hatton when in disgrace after his falling-​out with Oxford: ‘I will, as I have begun, unfold unto you what I meant to impart to her Majesty.’31 Similarly in 1577, when the Cornish Catholic Francis Tregian was interrogated before the Council, the Earl of Sussex took him away to dinner afterwards, and tried to win him ‘through plausible speeches and sophistical reasons, to have drawn Mr. Tregian from his firm resolution in points of religion, and specially to have won him to come to the church’. Again, Tregian was being exhorted to conform to spare the Council from the undesirable necessity of punishing him.32 All of this suggests that precisely because Hatton was seen as sympathetic to Catholics, he played a gamekeeper role, offering a friendly ear to individuals –​often, perhaps, young and foolish aristocrats, who might be easy prey to seductive Jesuits –​to steer them clear of trouble. In most cases, the regime probably hoped to keep Catholic nobles at least nominally within the tent; if they were purged, it highlighted England’s religious divisions and made the regime appear intolerant and vengeful. The signs are that this ‘good cop’ role was assigned to him with the acquiescence of other members of the regime (or at the bidding of the Queen), who assumed that his own loyalty was not doubted. In the Arundel case, for example, Walsingham wrote in very moderate terms to Hatton on the subject, noting that the Queen ‘had heretofore (in point of conscience) dealt gratiously towards Jesuits and Seminaries, men of worse desert’ than Arundel (this uncharacteristic clemency on Walsingham’s part may have been because he wanted Hatton to arrange a suit for his son-​in-​law, Philip Sidney –​an example of how Hatton could parlay his good graces with the Queen into aid for his friends).33 Undoubtedly, however, this approach aligned with Hatton’s own inclination. As we have seen, this reflected Hatton’s efforts to encourage Catholics to offer some outward conformity to the Church. This implies that (as one might assume), Hatton had a consistent policy of trying to preserve a space for loyal moderate Catholics, even though, pulled between hot Protestantism and uncompromising Jesuits, this was increasingly difficult. A much stranger case is that of the death of the eighth Earl of Northumberland.34 Northumberland was a distinctly inconsistent supporter of the Elizabethan regime: he remained loyal in the Northern Rising, despite his brother’s close involvement, but then dabbled in Catholic plotting, being

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involved on the fringes of the Throckmorton plot, which in 1584 landed him in the Tower. There, on 20–​21 June 1585, he was found dead of a gunshot wound. The official finding was that this was suicide, and this was presented to the public at a special Star Chamber session on 23 June, at which Hatton spoke.35 A persistent rumour, however, held that Hatton was to blame for Northumberland’s death: that it was murder, and not suicide.36 Walter Ralegh, writing much later, referred to it as an assured fact, and even Camden declined to defend the regime in this case: ‘What Suspicions the Fugitives muttered concerning one Bailife, that was one of Hatton’s Servants, and a little before appointed to be the Earl’s keeper, I omit, as being a thing altogether unknown unto me, and I think it not meet to insert any thing upon mere Hear-​says and Reports.’37 It is certainly true that the government’s account of Northumberland’s death is confusing and raises suspicions: how had Northumberland obtained the gun? Why were three bullets found in the body?38 The key fact supporting Hatton’s involvement is that Northumberland’s warder, one Thomas Bailiff, was Hatton’s servant, and was appointed shortly before the Earl’s death, and this is indeed suspicious. Additionally, William Shelley of Michelgrove, over whose trial Hatton presided, was Northumberland’s gentleman servant, and had been closely linked to the Throckmorton plot.39 Nevertheless, while Hatton’s servant had means and opportunity to murder Northumberland, it remains wholly unclear what the motive would have been, a problem to which no-​one has suggested a convincing solution. The suggestion seems to be that ‘the government’ wanted him dead –​but why, when Arundel was treated so differently? Northumberland certainly mixed with dubious company, and was potentially dangerous in a succession crisis, but if he was guilty of serious crimes, why not bring him to trial, given that a guilty verdict could reliably be expected?40 And even if Northumberland was to be murdered, why would Hatton assume the responsibility for arranging this, and bearing the accompanying obloquy? There may have been some hidden reason for Hatton to take so extreme a step, but we can only speculate what that might be. Ultimately, there is scant reason to lay this on Hatton’s account. Thus far, this chapter has examined Hatton’s role in the government’s policy towards the issue of Catholicism in England. The picture that emerges is that as a minister of the Crown, he played his part in enforcing the laws against Catholics, but there is little sign that he actively sought to strengthen those laws. In many cases, he encouraged Catholics to conform as far as they could. Thus there is little here that is inconsistent with the picture of his position which has already been laid out: that while he was sympathetic towards Catholics, his position in government meant that those sympathies had their limits. The next section will turn to a different thread

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of his involvement in religious policy: his interventions within the politics and policy of the Church of England.

Church policy and the rise of anti-​puritanism A crucial aspect of Hatton’s career was his stance as an enemy of the Puritans and a leading patron of religious conformists or anti-​Puritans within the Church. As with so much of Hatton’s career, this is another neglected field, Puritans having always been a more popular topic. This neglect certainly extends to Hatton; most histories of the English reformation largely ignore him; probably only Collinson gives him his due. Yet his role in opposing evangelicals in the Church and advancing the careers of figures such as John Aylmer, John Whitgift and Richard Bancroft was arguably his most lasting achievement. By doing this, it can be argued that he had a considerable role in shifting the Church of England away from the forthright Calvinism prevalent in the clerical leadership of the Church under Edward VI and in the early years of Elizabeth’s reign, and promoting a position which would become much more consequential in the early seventeenth century and beyond.41 The question of Hatton’s motivations in this field will be addressed later, but this position was evidently from early in his career. Already by 1573, in his first years as a prominent favourite, he was identified as an anti-​ Puritan. There is a tantalising hint of this in a letter from Edward Bacon to his Puritan-​ leaning brother Nathaniel on 10 June 1573, mentioning Hatton. Unfortunately the letter is water-​damaged, but the legible sections mention something about ‘heare noe more of the prechers’, perhaps suggesting that Hatton was involved in the interrogation of Puritan preachers in Star Chamber in May 1573.42 More sensationally, in October 1573, the attempt on his life by Peter Birchet helped to prompt what Collinson called ‘the second of the four major crises of Elizabethan puritanism’.43 Just a few days afterwards, on 20 October, a royal proclamation was issued ‘in which Elizabeth’s hand is clearly discernible’, criticising bishops and magistrates for failing to enforce conformity to the Prayer Book. Shortly afterwards, the Privy Council set up special commissions to enquire into the Puritans, which in some cases led to the deprivation of Puritan clergy; a warrant was issued for the arrest of Thomas Cartwright, who fled to Heidelberg.44 Clearly Elizabeth already believed that the Puritans needed to be tackled (a more moderate proclamation had already been issued in June45), but the moves taken following the Birchet affair were markedly more severe.46 Although this can only be speculation, in light of later events in which Hatton played important behind-​the-​scenes roles in stirring up the Queen against Puritans,

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it may well be that Hatton helped to persuade Elizabeth to do this –​that the very real peril to her emerging favourite revealed by Birchet prompted her to act more decisively. As Knappen noted, ‘there is nothing more damaging to a political party than an unsuccessful attempt to assassinate a member of the opposite faction’.47 Nor need one assume that Hatton was adopting sinister or Machiavellian methods here; he may have genuinely feared for his safety. Hatton’s anti-​Puritan stance gained prominence when in 1577 his admission to the Privy Council coincided with a crisis in ecclesiastical politics. Indeed, it might be speculated that Hatton’s rise to prominence at that time had something to do with the recent death of an earlier defender of conformity, Archbishop Matthew Parker, who had died in May 1575 after having doggedly tried to enforce the Queen’s preferences within the Church, often with little support from his superiors. It is sometimes forgotten that Parker was deeply committed to promoting defenders of conformity; he had already been pushing John Aylmer for the bishopric of London, and Goodman, Piers and Whitgift for Norwich. Brett Usher notes that ‘from Parker’s point of view, Hatton’s rapid gravitation towards the centre of affairs was the most encouraging development of the 1570s and for the brief remainder of his life the archbishop’s influence, whether by chance or design, was thrown entirely behind episcopal candidates who might also be assured of Hatton’s imprimatur’.48 Of course one does not need this kind of explanation for Hatton’s rise, since his favour with the Queen and the deaths of earlier conservative councillors can account for it anyway, but it may have played a role in bringing him forward, showing the Queen that he could be effective or could get something done for her.

The fall of Grindal Hatton’s first major intervention in Church politics appears to have been his advocacy of John Piers, who was made Bishop of Rochester in April 1576.49 Much more important, however, was his involvement in the fall from royal favour of Elizabeth’s second Archbishop of Canterbury, Edmund Grindal. Indeed it has been suggested that the long delay in Grindal’s appointment to succeed Parker may have been due to behind-​ the-​scenes opposition from Hatton.50 The ‘fall of Grindal’ was in effect a power struggle between the Queen and her archbishop over who should have the final say in the Church. At issue was the practice of prophesying –​gatherings of clergy to hear preaching and discuss scripture and Church matters. For hotter Protestants, these were a contribution to the ideal of a learned preaching ministry, but, as they operated outside the established Church structures and sometimes included

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laymen, they could be seen as unregulated and even subversive. The affair actually began in the summer of 1576 (by which time prophesyings were widespread and well-​established) with the Queen learning of specific ‘disorders’ involving clergy in Northamptonshire and Warwickshire.51 The entire saga need not be repeated here: in short, over the course of nearly a year, a battle of wills between Elizabeth and Grindal ensued, in which the Queen ordered her archbishop to suppress the prophesyings, he refused, and consequently, late in May 1577, Grindal was suspended from his archiepiscopal duties.52 Grindal’s predicament was largely of his own making. Nevertheless, those around Elizabeth had considerable ability to influence her response and whether she would rehabilitate her archbishop or not. In a major mobilisation, the forward Protestants within the regime mounted a campaign to persuade her to relent.53 As Lake has brilliantly shown, they orchestrated the execution of a seminary priest in Cornwall and commissioned a national survey of recusants to demonstrate that the popish threat was much more serious than practices such as prophesyings.54 Elizabeth, however, did not change her mind, and Grindal remained suspended until his death in July 1583. It has often been suggested that Hatton stirred up Elizabeth against Grindal. The fact that the initial complaints originated in Northamptonshire and Warwickshire, the areas of his greatest influence, may even suggest that Hatton was behind this report.55 It was certainly believed by some at the time that Hatton played a role: one manuscript copy of Grindal’s famously offensive letter to Elizabeth notes that ‘Queen Elizabeth [was] moved by Hatton and some other, to restraine the number of preachers, and to putt downe all exercises and conferences among ministers in publik throughe the land.’56 Bishop Cooper referred to ‘one or two of some countenance and easy access unto the prince, that have small liking to that, or any other thing whereby religion may be further published’, arguably an extremely accurate description of Hatton.57 Although the evidence (as so often) is thin, more recent historians have generally agreed. MacCulloch has written that Hatton probably ‘had a part in rousing her anger’.58 Collinson is categorical that ‘Grindal’s troubles had a good deal to do with the influence at Court of Sir Christopher Hatton’; elsewhere he wrote that Hatton’s ‘spectacular rise’ was a ‘palace revolution which had assuredly prompted Elizabeth’s stand over the prophesyings’.59 Lake has also argued that his leap from favourite to councillor occurred because the Queen wished to use his anti-​puritanism to combat radicalism within the Church.60 Others, however, have speculated that she was influenced by more openly Catholic figures at court, such as the earls of Arundel, Surrey, Northumberland and Rutland and Lord Henry Howard.61

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As Usher notes, our interpretation of Grindal’s fall ‘turns finally upon an unanswerable question –​was it Hatton, with or without others at court, who persuaded Elizabeth to sabotage his primacy?’ However, as he says, ‘it is abundantly clear that Hatton’s ascendancy boded ill for the new archbishop’.62 Usher also speculates that Grindal’s expectation of some respite in November 1577 may have been scotched by Hatton’s promotion to the Privy Council at the same time.63 Indeed, Hatton’s rise may explain why Grindal’s period of disfavour (which virtually all of Elizabeth’s ministers experienced at one time or another) continued indefinitely. It is also the case that Hatton had some links with the royal physician Dr Julio Borgarucci, who had accompanied him to Spa in 1573, and Julio was also widely believed (even by Burghley) to have encouraged the Queen against Grindal.64 Efforts were made to persuade Hatton to plead Grindal’s case with the Queen (which again highlights his significance), and he apparently made some kind of effort to do so (Grindal wrote to thank him), but this came a long while into the affair, in April 1578.65 As Usher very plausibly suggests, it may be that Hatton, having established his position, made ‘a perfunctory effort to cover his tracks’ to mend fences with other councillors.66

The rise of Aylmer While the Grindal affair was playing out, Hatton was also involved in another major development in the Church: the appointment of John Aylmer as Bishop of London. Aylmer, some twenty years older than Hatton, had been archdeacon of Lincoln since 1562, but had struggled to fulfil his apparent promise, perhaps because of his increasingly conformist views, but also because, in Usher’s words, he ‘conspicuously lacked’ a patron.67 Aylmer had hardly been friendless: Archbishop Parker had written as early as 1569 that he considered him the best candidate as Bishop of London: ‘the Queen’s Highness should have a good, fast, earnest servitor at London of him, and, I doubt not, fit for that busy governance, specially as these times be, when papists (the Queen’s mortal enemies, pretend what men will) have gotten such courage’.68 There is no record of how exactly Hatton came to be Aylmer’s patron. Certainly Aylmer was active in opposing puritanism: in 1576 he wrote from his parish at Cossington, Leicestershire to Grindal about Puritans and prophesyings in Leicestershire and Northamptonshire, showing some knowledge and more vehemence towards them.69 This may account for his links with Hatton. Both contemporaries and historians credit Hatton with securing Aylmer’s appointment to London in March 1577. Aylmer wrote to Hatton as one ‘whom you have set up yourself’ and later as ‘your own creature’. In 1578,

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it was said that ‘Mr Hatton made Mr Elmer bishope of London to thintent he myght prosequute the pr[esbyterians?] & puretans.’70 Patrick Collinson referred to him as ‘Hatton’s bishop’.71 Again, though, how this was done is unclear. When it came to episcopal appointments, Elizabeth might have taken various advice, including from Parker, yet the decisive voice had normally been William Cecil’s; this had resulted in a bench of bishops who were rather more radical Protestants than Elizabeth was truly comfortable with.72 Aylmer presents a distinct shift in this pattern, since Burghley deeply disliked him and remained hostile to him.73 Thus this represented a real coup for Hatton, and helps to show that he had graduated to the top table. Hatton’s special relationship with Aylmer is underlined by the fact that he was given some sort of special responsibility for overseeing and liaising with Aylmer; as Aylmer wrote to Hatton, ‘it was her Majesty’s pleasure that I should understand her mind by you’ in maintaining discipline in his diocese –​apparently bypassing the usual channels. Again, this was a major step for Hatton, particularly since, with Grindal suspended, the Bishop of London was the senior bishop in the province of Canterbury, and close to being de facto head of the Church. This letter of May 1578 also contains a striking insight into the private instructions that Aylmer had been given; Aylmer appears to be apologetically (even abjectly) seeking Hatton’s approval for his policy of pursuing ‘both the Papist and the Puritan’, with the strong implication that this policy had angered both Elizabeth and Hatton. Since Hatton would have had no concerns about the pursuit of Puritans, he must have upbraided Aylmer for acting against Catholics.74 Remarkably, Aylmer had apparently been sent to London to go after Puritans and leave Catholics alone. Henry Killigrew, for one, thought he was doing just that.75 Hatton’s role here is particularly interesting because Aylmer himself wanted to move against Catholics, writing to Walsingham in June 1577 about the need to increase recusancy fines. In that letter he made two significant points: firstly, that ‘in conferringe with hir Majestie about it, ... hir Majestie be geven to understand that it is mente hereby aswell to touch the one side, as the other indifferentlie, or els you can gesse what will followe’ –​ that is, that he should continue to present himself as pursuing both Catholics and Puritans (even though his focus was clearly on Catholics); and secondly, that ‘if hir Majestie by importunate seuts of courtiers for their friendes be easilie drawne to forgive the forfeytures, then our labor wilbe lost, we shalbe brought into hatred, the enimie shalbe encoraged and all our travile turned to a mockrie’.76 Aylmer was himself navigating a difficult course between his personal views and those of various patrons and interest groups, and if he was soft on Catholics, it appears that it was less of his own volition, and more because of Hatton’s supervision (or the threat of it).

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Hatton’s letterbook contains a good deal of correspondence between Hatton and Aylmer, and between Aylmer and other people, so it is clear that the two stayed in close touch. Other evidence shows Aylmer advising Hatton about personnel in the Church.77 Aylmer was seen as a route to Hatton, and thus to the Queen.78 Even before he became a privy councillor, therefore, Hatton was significant in Church affairs. Hatton was also the patron of other similarly disciplinarian, anti-​Puritan bishops: as we have seen, John Piers was one; another was John Young, appointed to Rochester in 1578, and later a notable Marprelate-​hunter.79 Usher refers to these appointments (along with those of Aylmer and Whitgift) as a ‘Hattonian reaction’ ‘which, emphasizing the puritan rather than the Catholic threat, checked the further steady advance of evangelical episcopacy between 1575 and 1578 ... if future appointments were to follow the pattern so suddenly established, there was little hope of saving the evangelical tradition on which Burghley had based his hopes for the continuing prosperity of Elizabeth’s settlement’.80 However, Hatton’s apparent seizure of the initiative in episcopal appointments was not sustained. Few if any bishops in succeeding years can be shown to have been clear-​cut Hatton protégés, but that does not mean his influence disappeared altogether. Promotion-​seekers still appealed to him, and in later cases there is often little definite evidence either way.81 Usher sees the succeeding period, through to the mid-​1580s, as one of ‘a sullen power struggle at court for Erastian mastery of the episcopal bench’, in which lengthy diocesan vacancies became common –​perhaps because Burghley and Leicester became more effective at countering Hatton’s influence. Hatton’s refusal to support the Queen over the Anjou match in 1578–​80 may have been relevant here.82 There are two other bishops with potential links to Hatton. The first is John Bullingham, made Bishop of Gloucester in 1581. Bullingham was one of Elizabeth’s most extraordinary episcopal appointments: a religious exile not under Mary but under Edward VI, for the first few years of Elizabeth’s reign he refused to conform to her settlement. Martin Marprelate savaged him for his popish tendencies. His appointment has been attributed to Leicester, but he had two suggestive links with Hatton. Firstly, Hatton was granted the advowson of Painswick, Gloucestershire, in 1579, to which Bullingham was presented in 1585.83 Secondly, Laurence Kyte, whom Hatton presented as rector of Holdenby, later became Bullingham’s ­chaplain.84 Hatton may also have been a patron of Edmund Freake. Freake had been an Augustinian canon before the Dissolution and was ordained in 1545; as Bishop of Norwich (1575–​84) he sought to enforce conformity and allied with church papists and even open Catholics to do so.85

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He was transferred to Worcester in 1584, and in October 1588, Hatton was appointed steward of that diocese’s lands.86 Of Hatton’s lesser clerical patronage, relatively little can be said. Aside from Richard Bancroft, only two of Hatton’s chaplains are known, a surprisingly small number.87 Both were sound conformists. Thomas Rogers had early Puritan tendencies but by 1585 had aligned himself with Whitgiftian conformism (he later became Bancroft’s chaplain). A prolific author, he attacked both Catholics and Puritans, and made a very popular translation of the Imitatio Christi.88 Secondly, William James, a conformist supporter of Whitgift who in 1589 preached the virtues of episcopacy at Paul’s Cross.89 Whether Hugh Hall or other priests ever acted for Hatton in a pastoral capacity is of course unknown. In terms of Hatton’s presentations to benefices, a slightly less conformist picture is evident. In his home parish of Holdenby, for example, the first record of a clergyman in Hatton’s time is a curate, John Todd, who is mentioned in the 1565 will of Hatton’s stepfather, Richard Newport, in which he gave ‘to Sir John Todde Curat of Hunyngham [Newport’s home] aforesaide fourtie shillinges to pray for me … at my decease’ –​surely a sign that Newport, a Catholic, expected Todd to pray for his soul.90 By 1580, Todd was curate at Holdenby, and by 1582 he was dead. This suggests that Todd was a family retainer whom Hatton appointed as curate at Holdenby to provide the kind of conservative worship which Newport and Hatton wanted; given his death around 1582, he was quite likely ordained as a Catholic anyway.91 Following Todd’s death, Hatton presented one Laurence Kyte to Holdenby in 1582. He studied at Cambridge, and was newly ordained when Hatton presented him. In 1586, he was also presented to the rectory of Great Houghton, on the other side of Northampton, whose patron was Thomas Tresham –​which suggests he was acceptable to a Catholic patron; in 1596, Sir William Hatton presented him to the rectory of Corby.92 As we have seen, he also became a chaplain to Bishop John Bullingham.93 In addition to his own right to appoint clergy, Hatton used his court favour to influence others, notably by recommending clergymen to the Lord Keeper for presentation to Crown benefices. One of these was Justinian Bracegirdle, presented to Great Billing (near Northampton) in 1573, where he remained until his death in 1625.94 By the early seventeenth century he was prominent in the Northampton ecclesiastical court and can thus be pegged as an anti-​Puritan.95 Overall, therefore, Hatton’s ecclesiastical patronage was relatively small scale. He did not seek to build a conservative Church of England from the bottom up; it was probably more a matter of helping out acquaintances on a case-​by-​case basis. His more significant interventions by far occurred at

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the very high level, using his favour with the Queen to support figures such as Aylmer and Whitgift. He was also the dedicatee of works and sermons by conformists and anti-​Puritans such as Hadrian Saravia and Bancroft himself, William James, Dean of Christ Church Oxford, who preached against Marprelate and Puritans’ ‘heapes of Nouelties’ at Paul’s Cross in 1589, as well as less well-​ known figures such as an apparently obscure anti-​Puritan, John Beatniffe.96 Hatton and Thomas Egerton were ‘the only dedicatees receiving a significant number of dedications of religious works who did not attract at least a couple of Puritans. Egerton was chosen as dedicatee only once, and Hatton never, it seems, by a Puritan.’97 It seems likely that other rising stars of anti-​puritanism gathered in Hatton’s circles, although the evidence is fragmentary at best; Lancelot Andrewes, for example, appears inconspicuously as ‘Mr Docter Andros’ in the list of attendants at Hatton’s funeral.98 Hatton was also a patron of Antonio del Corro, an exiled Spanish theologian who attacked predestination –​but del Corro attracted patronage from both Leicester and Burghley as well.99 Andrew Perne appears to have been another friend.100 We have seen a mention of Samuel Harsnett, but there is no evidence to connect him to Hatton.101

Hatton, Whitgift and Bancroft For a time in the 1570s, therefore, Hatton made a major impact, and seized the initiative in episcopal appointments from Burghley and other forward Protestants. As Brett Usher showed, Burghley vented his displeasure by using his power as Lord Treasurer to impose harsh financial settlements on the new bishops, who owed the Exchequer their ‘first fruits’, a year’s worth of their episcopal income. Whereas earlier bishops had been given long periods in which to pay, Hatton’s clients were not –​unless, as often happened, Hatton or the Queen (presumably at Hatton’s instigation) procured them greater latitude.102 These instances of Burghley’s vindictiveness are one of the few clues to his resentment and alarm about Hatton’s influence. The period of Hatton’s ascendancy from 1577 onwards therefore saw a trend of having the episcopal bench less dominated by the evangelical former Marian exiles who had been prominent earlier in the reign, a trend which continued. Hatton’s most consequential episcopal alliance was of course with John Whitgift. His personal relations with Whitgift are not as well-​documented as those with Aylmer and Bancroft. It is not clear that they knew each other well before Whitgift rose to prominence, although they had associates in common, such as Whitgift’s early patron, Andrew Perne. His early seventeenth-​ century biographer, George Paule, notes that by the time Whitgift became

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Bishop of Worcester in 1577, he was ‘favoured’ by Burghley, Nicholas Bacon, Leicester, Hatton and Walsingham.103 Nevertheless, only a few letters between them survive, and they suggest a much more equal relationship than the submissiveness of Aylmer: sometimes businesslike, as in 1584 (‘I am boulde to use that greate frendshipp, & curtesye, which you most honourablye offered unto me, espetyallye at this tyme in the publique cause of the Churche, & state’) and sometimes more cordial, as when Whitgift noticed his reliance on God and the Queen, but lauded Hatton as ‘a meane’ to her. It may have irked Whitgift to rely on a court favourite to pursue his ends.104 Nor is it clear that Hatton played a major role in Whitgift’s elevation to Canterbury; Usher argued that there were few plausible alternatives, and as an undeniably effective administrator, Whitgift effectively ‘chose himself’.105 Whitgift’s first major initiative as primate was a deliberately provocative effort to impose obedience and uniformity on the clergy by enforcing subscription to three articles confirming that the Prayer Book contained nothing contrary to the word of God, something firm Puritans found extremely difficult to accept. Hatton’s role here is elusive, although it seems likely that he encouraged it.106 As we have seen, Hatton seems to have been either out of favour or under some other cloud in late 1583 and early 1584, so his role may have been more circumscribed than would otherwise have been the case.107 By May 1584, however, Whitgift was asking Hatton to forestall a petition to the Queen or other courtiers by Kent gentlemen protesting about his suspension of clergy for refusal to submit to the articles –​clergy who, in his view, were proposing ‘alteringe & chaunginge of the whole state of govermente in matters Ecclesyastycall, to the dyscredytinge of the relygyone nowe professed, & dysturbinge of this most happye & quyett regymente’; in November, Whitgift sent Hatton thanks via Bancroft for certain ‘notes’ which apparently related to the forthcoming Parliament.108 Since one would assume Hatton fully supported Whitgift here, it is surprising that Hatton put his name to a Privy Council letter to Whitgift of 20 September 1584, protesting the vigour of the campaign against Puritan ministers. This can only reflect wider political concerns: Whitgift was in danger of overreaching; possibly the Queen’s view was shifting; above all, perhaps, the assassination of William the Silent in July had prompted the full-​ scale anti-​Catholic panic which led in October to the Bond of Association, and made the targeting of Puritans rather than Catholics less sustainable.109 Nevertheless, there is no doubt that Hatton continued to be Whitgift’s closest ally in the Council, with Richard Bancroft acting as their go-​between.110 According to George Paule, after the subscription campaign, Whitgift lincked himselfe in a firme league of friendship with Sir Christopher Hatton; then Vice-​chamberlaine to the Queenes Maiestie, and by the meanes of Doctor Bancroft … had him his most firme, and readie vpon all occasions, to impart

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vnto the Queene, as well the crosses offered him at the Counsell Table, as also sundrie impediments wherby he was hindered.111

This clearly indicates the high-​level opposition Whitgift faced (although Paule argues that Burghley was also his supporter) and the tension at the top of government. It is also a very revealing statement of the nature of Hatton’s influence: he was a hotline to the Queen, a way to get the interference of the Council overruled where necessary. Paule is clear that Whitgift’s efforts to ensure that ‘the state of the Cleargie was in good quiet’ were effective ‘especially, so long as Sir Christopher Hatton, the Lord Chancellor did liue’; ‘the Lord Chancellors death much troubled & perplexed the Archbishop; fearing that new troubles would befall him and the Church’.112 Strype, similarly, writes that ‘Hatton was his [Whitgift’s] fast and entire friend and confident’; while Burghley, Leicester and Walsingham all showed clemency to Puritans, Hatton ‘shewed little or no favour to these wayward Ministers, or any of them’.113 Indeed, Hatton has sometimes been depicted as Whitgift’s puppet, his ‘pliant tool’, ‘a mere man of straw’, yet this overlooks Hatton’s crucial role in providing the political support with the Queen which enabled Whitgift to pursue his programme –​as Grindal demonstrates, archiepiscopal power was not in itself sufficient to accomplish change.114 Naturally, this contrasts markedly with the unusually forthright criticism levelled at Whitgift by other ministers, notably Burghley, Francis Knollys, and (in Parliament in 1585) Leicester.115 It may well be that Hatton encouraged Whitgift’s elevation to the Privy Council; appointed along with two other fairly anti-​Puritan figures, Lord Cobham and Lord Buckhurst, in February 1586, he was the only bishop to sit on Elizabeth’s Council. This has usually been attributed to Burghley’s influence, following the assessment of the court observer Roger Manners: ‘The Lord Archbishop we say here was only made a conselor by old Wyllyam to the overthrow of the Puritans, wherat they much malign and yet dare not complayn but in secrett.’116 If that really was the reason for Whitgift’s appointment, then Hatton seems a likelier broker than Burghley. A final crucial ally of both Hatton and Whitgift was Richard Bancroft, who played a key role in the campaign against the Puritans in the years after the Armada. It is unknown how he first came into Hatton’s orbit; according to John Harington, Hatton picked him out from Cambridge and ‘made speciall choyse of him, to be his examiner’, thus bringing him to the Queen’s attention.117 He served as Hatton’s chaplain from about 1580 (when he was already identified as an anti-​Puritan) until Hatton’s death, a long tenure which led Bancroft to be mocked by Martin Marprelate and others as ‘the chaplain’.118 He was personally close to Hatton, and during the 1580s was an intimate member of his entourage, for example mediating a dispute among Hatton’s senior servants.119 He had a chamber in Ely Place, Hatton

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obtained him the living of St Andrew’s Holborn (across the road from Ely Place) in 1584 and presented him to the Northamptonshire rectory of Cottingham in 1586.120 In 1599, Bancroft helped out his heir-​but-​one, also Christopher Hatton, referring to ‘mine old friend and master’, and Bancroft seems to have obtained part of Hatton’s library after his death.121 It seems that at the end of his life, Hatton unsuccessfully tried to usher Aylmer into retirement at Worcester and install Bancroft at London.122 Like Hatton himself, Bancroft’s religious attitudes often led to accusations of crypto-​Catholicism. A satirical epitaph of him reads ‘Here lyes Dick of Canterburie, suspected a Papist/​who liv’d a Machiavellian, and dyde an Atheist.’123 According to the promising young clergyman William Alabaster (1568–​1640), who embarrassingly converted to Catholicism in 1597, Bancroft would gladly have had me home to his howse and use me kyndly, but he was afraid to be suspected for a Papist, for in the olde Lord Chauncelors tyme he was acounted halfe so, which suspition was some what increased by his faverable dealing with me, and to fly the more from that opinion he resolved in a certayne sermon which he preached soone after uppon the Queenes daye to make such a bitter invective against Catholique Religion and such a disclyminge of all papistrie, as if he had byn then newly abiured.124

As Collinson has recently written, Bancroft’s Lancashire upbringing meant he had ‘more or less comfortable relations with the quieter Catholics of Elizabethan England’.125 Bancroft may therefore have found the atmosphere in Hatton’s household, where he can hardly have been unaware of the Catholic sympathies of many of his colleagues, familiar. There is also an obvious parallel with Bancroft’s very cordial relations with various Catholic priests during the archpriest controversy a few years later.126 Bancroft added further heft to Hatton’s continued attempts to resist any moves towards more institutionalised Puritan approaches in the Church. As we have seen, there was a short period in the late 1570s when Hatton was able to exercise a great deal of influence over episcopal appointments. While this was not sustained, Hatton took his place as one of a number of powerful voices on religious policy within the regime. If his role in the ‘three articles’ debate of 1583–​84 is somewhat obscure, he was active in resisting Puritan efforts in Parliament.127 By 1586, Collinson wrote, the Hatton-​Whitgift-​Bancroft group were ‘in the ascendant’, with Whitgift having joined the Council.128 This may slightly overstate the case, particularly given Leicester’s continuing power, but Hatton was certainly prominent in the 1586–​87 Parliament, playing an important role in quashing the ‘bill and book’. His speech against the proposal, probably influenced by Bancroft, discussed liturgy, the cost of the proposed Church discipline and the need

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to preserve the Church’s hierarchy and the royal supremacy –​in the latter respect, significantly, Hatton compared the Puritans to papists.129 As Peter Marshall has argued, this marks a significant shift in the regime’s public positioning of the Church, ‘measuring equidistance from papalist Catholicism and Calvinist presbyterianism’. At the same time, at the Temple Church, Richard Hooker, under the protection of Aylmer and Whitgift, was preaching that Catholics could be saved.130

The anti-​Puritan campaign of 1588–​91 Hatton reached the zenith of his power in Church affairs in the last years of his life, when with his allies he launched a multi-​faceted campaign against puritanism. As Collinson put it, Whitgift, Hatton, Richard Cosin and Bancroft undertook the systematic exposure and repression of organised puritanism. One by one, in 1589 and 1590, the known ring-​leaders of the movement were examined before the High Commissioners and their studies searched for incriminating evidence. ... The evidence gathered by these means was employed in the prosecution of nine ministers, including Cartwright, first before the High Commission and then in the Star Chamber, the aim being to prove judicially that the presbyterian movement had been seditious in manner and intent.131

This was an important episode in the history of the reign and indeed of the English Church as a whole, an important debate within the regime, and, as it turned out, an important defeat of the forward Protestants. The events of this campaign have been laid out elsewhere, so this section focuses on picking out Hatton’s own role in the process; as ever, the lack of a detailed Hatton archive is frustrating; it is especially thin for this period. Nevertheless, there is enough to establish his central position in events, which show Hatton at his most powerful and is the clearest instance of his ability to pursue a policy programme in spite of opposition from his colleagues. Several factors came together to permit this campaign. The first was Hatton’s appointment as Lord Chancellor, which gave him both prestige and practical power in various spheres. More important, however, was the declining strength at court of the Puritans’ allies, with the deaths of the earls of Bedford (1585) and Warwick (1590), Walter Mildmay (1589), Francis Walsingham (1590), and above all the Earl of Leicester in September 1588. All of these deaths, but particularly Leicester’s, removed significant protectors of Puritans, giving Hatton political space to pursue his aims. As an anonymous Puritan writer wrote later, ‘when the Earle of Leicester lived, it

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went for currant that all Papists were Traitors in action, or affection. He was no sooner dead, But Sir Christopher Hatton (noted by Philopater, for publique & bitter invectives against papists being on[e]‌himselfe) he (I say) bearing sway, Puritans were trounced and traduced as troublers of the state.’132 Very shortly after the death of Leicester, the scandal of the Marprelate affair broke. Historians have debated which of these was more significant in permitting an anti-​Puritan push, with both Usher and Richardson emphasising the latter.133 Against this it can be argued that the Marprelate affair would eventually have blown over, while Leicester’s death was permanent. In any case, the two events created a significant opportunity, which could be augmented by subsequent events such as the Hacket affair: John Udall commented that after the Hacket affair, ‘the adversary did take occasion so to slaunder the truth and to disgrace the Professors of the same unto her Majestie’.134 A further factor was the increasing age of Lord Burghley; by the early 1590s, he was clearly trying to reduce his responsibilities and periodically dropping hints about retirement. Hatton may have been making a claim to be Burghley’s eventual successor, or at a minimum to a more powerful position than hitherto. As in virtually all of Hatton’s interventions in religious politics, Hatton’s importance lay not in the detailed micromanagement that Burghley might have used, but in his ability to move the Queen to action and prevent other ministers from curbing the moves against Puritans. As John Guy has pointed out, this seems evident on an occasion in July 1590, when after a three-​day stay at Ely Place, she took up her pen and wrote in her own hand to James VI about the danger of the presbyterians.135 This campaign began in earnest during the sensation caused by the emergence of the Marprelate tracts in the autumn of 1588. These scandalously abusive tracts eschewed theological debating points in favour of stinging personal ridicule of bishops; secretly printed in England and widely distributed, they could not ignored.136 Naturally, the government had to investigate their authors and distributors. The stir caused by such a shocking publication gave Hatton political cover to attack the Puritans; they were so scandalous that they forced moderates like Burghley (who otherwise would have resisted Hatton and Whitgift’s moves) to give at least partial co-​operation to their repression. There is only scattered evidence of Hatton’s role in the Marprelate investigation, which in any case involved many of his allies, both clerical and lay: Whitgift, Bancroft, Cosin, various privy councillors.137 Late in 1588, Hatton and Burghley ordered Whitgift to begin investigating the matter.138 About Easter 1589, the bookbinder Henry Sharpe understood ‘how the Lord Chancellor was offended with him’, which demonstrates that Hatton was involved in the enquiries, and he was later active in examining suspects.139

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In February 1590 Hatton was the leading figure at the Star Chamber trial of Sir Richard Knightley for sheltering the printer.140 In the wake of Marprelate, two prominent orations in February 1589 effectively gave notice that the regime would pursue radical Puritans. The first was at the opening of Parliament on 4 February, when, in the presence of the Queen, Hatton addressed the House of Lords as its presiding officer. He attacked ‘men of a verie intemperate humour [who] do greatlie deprave the present estate and reformacion of religion’, and strictly ordered Parliament not to ‘meddle with anie such matters or causes of religion’.141 Again in his closing speech, it was reported that he ‘did with great zeal reprehend the fanatical humor of the Precision and the Puritan, most impure’.142 Five days later, Bancroft delivered a sermon at Paul’s Cross which attacked Puritans, defended the Church as then established (crucially including the institution of episcopacy) and served as a rallying-​cry to the anti-​Puritan campaign.143 According to Whitgift, it was printed by order of Hatton and Burghley.144 Indeed, it caused an international splash, prompting a response by the Scottish minister John Davidson, partly because Bancroft had criticised James VI.145 Bancroft’s sermon and the anti-​Puritan campaign as a whole was, therefore, already becoming nationally and internationally significant. This came back to bite Bancroft, however: it seems that Burghley (who wrote ominously in the margin of a letter on this point that ‘I have spoken with Mr Bancroft’) sent for him and put to him James’s grievances, forcing Bancroft to submit himself and provide written answers to what he had said; James asked for Bancroft to apologise publicly.146 Burghley probably enjoyed this thoroughly, and it hints at the tension that the matter was causing. Certainly by the time of that episode, Bancroft was quite happy to tell a correspondent sending useful information about the Scottish presbyterian system that ‘the archbishop of Canterbury and the Lord Chancellor will thank him’.147 The investigations prompted by Marprelate opened up many avenues of attack against Puritan clergy, even those with powerful patrons such as the Earl of Essex and Lady Anne Bacon.148 Hatton participated actively in actions against separatists such as Henry Barrow, who was summoned by Hatton’s servant to Hatton’s chamber at Whitehall for examination. The tribunal on that occasion (probably in March 1589) consisted of Burghley, Hatton, Whitgift, Aylmer, Buckhurst and various other lawyers.149 Hatton was also personally involved in the trial of John Udall, another man involved with the Marprelate tracts, in 1590–​91.150 Udall was tried for sedition for his writings; the prosecution, held at Whitgift’s Croydon Palace, was handled by John Puckering, with advice from Bancroft and in consultation with Hatton.151 Udall was eventually sentenced to death; it seems to have been hoped that he would instead submit in return for a pardon, but

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a satisfactory settlement could not be reached, and Udall died in prison in 1592.152 Clearly, Hatton and his allies were attempting through these trials to demonstrate a shift in the regime’s attitude and policy, indicating that under the current dispensation, the degree of latitude offered to Puritans was being narrowed. At the same time, other anti-​ Puritans were on the rise. In June 1589, an array of Hatton’s anti-​ Puritan allies were appointed to the High Commission: Buckhurst, John Wolley, John Fortescue, Valentine Dale, Richard Swale, Richard Cosin and Richard Bancroft (alongside, of course, existing members of various religious persuasions).153 Hatton himself ordered the appointment of five Masters in Chancery, including his Cambridge associates Richard Swale and Thomas Legge, as well as Cosin, as delegates in the court of delegates, ostensibly because of delays in that court, but presumably also to aid this campaign; he ordered all pending matters handed over to them.154 There were other facets to this programme too, suggesting that Hatton was targeting prominent Puritans across a broad front. These included local magistrates such as Edward Donne Lee, an outspoken Puritan JP who had been involved in the ‘bill and book’ campaign in the 1586–​87 Parliament; he was removed from the Carmarthenshire bench by Hatton and restored only after Hatton’s death.155 It included ministers, such as William Hubbock, who, after preaching an offensive sermon at Oxford in 1589, was imprisoned for months and eventually ejected from the university; Hatton drafted a form of submission of his errors for him.156 At the same time, Hatton attacked Puritans’ parliamentary allies. The leading Puritan agitator Peter Wentworth, brother-​in-​law of both Walsingham and Walter Mildmay, with whom Hatton had clashed in Parliament as early as 1576, had written a tract on the succession which addressed the Queen in ‘shockingly frank’ terms. He asked Burghley (with whom he was on cordial terms) to present it to the Queen, and when this failed moved on to the Earl of Essex; at this point the tract became known to the Council –​or, we might surmise, those on the Council who wished to discredit Wentworth and his friends. Wentworth appeared before the Council in August 1591 and was imprisoned in the Gatehouse.157 Writing later, probably in 1595, Wentworth wrote about ‘those that seek not to entrap me (as the late Lord Chancellour did at the Counsell table)’. At the same time he described how Burghley ‘as hee affirmed at the counsell table, had three severall times perused my book, and found no thing but what he thought to be true’, implying that there was a dispute in Council about the book. Since Wentworth was imprisoned, Hatton must have won –​or at least successfully demanded further proceedings.158 Wentworth appears (although the Council register in this period is not always fully coherent) to have appeared before the Privy Council and been committed to prison on 15 August, at a Council meeting attended

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by both Hatton and Burghley during the royal progress at Cowdray, the Sussex house of Viscount Montague.159 On 27 September, Wentworth wrote to Burghley referring to Hatton’s having confronted him about the book, presumably at the Council board, noting that he said ‘that yt came owte of coblers & taylors shoppes’.160 Clearly Hatton was very much on the front foot against the Puritans. The ability of Whitgift and Hatton to mobilise the Queen in these issues was shown in 1591, after the Norfolk Puritan judge Francis Wyndham (along with Edward Coke) launched an attack on the bishops’ use of the ex officio oath in church courts, the key procedural method used in proceedings against Puritans. The matter was brought to her attention by Whitgift, in the presence of the full Council, barring Burghley (who was sick, or claimed to be); her ‘government by her ecclesiasticall courtes’, Whitgift hyperbolically claimed, ‘were lyke cleane to be overthrowen’ by Wyndham and Coke’s actions. The Queen was ‘greatly gryeved’ and ordered that the judges be briefed that this should not spread further, throwing in some anti-​ Marprelate material for good measure.161 In response, the judges, before going on circuit, were assembled before the Council at Hatton’s house; present were Whitgift, Hatton, Howard of Effingham, Hunsdon, Cobham and Buckhurst. They warned the judges about pronouncing on the oath (in effect a warning not to hinder the anti-​Puritan campaign) and also warned from the Queen that any of them that favoured Marprelate were liable to be sacked. Wyndham was then kept back for a personal talking-​to.162 Administering a telling-​off to the entire judiciary was a serious matter, something which demonstrates its importance –​but of course such people could and did protect Puritans in just the same way as Hatton protected Catholics. A further arena in which Hatton was newly able to assert himself was the universities. After Leicester’s death, in September 1588, Hatton was elected Chancellor of the University of Oxford. The expected impact of Hatton within the university was such that some Puritans within the university seem to have tried to get Essex elected instead.163 Hatton was also appointed High Steward of Cambridge, a less powerful position.164 Roles like these had throughout Elizabeth’s reign been held by senior ministers such as Cecil and Leicester. The rise of Hatton to such positions was another marker that he was the man of the future, and probably quite a long-​term future. Hatton vigorously put his anti-​puritanism into practice in Oxford.165 He was very clear upon his appointment about his intention to crack down on Puritan non-​conformity, and took a very hard line with the university authorities. He insisted that those preaching in the university and taking degrees affirmed their conformity to the settlement, along similar lines to Whitgift’s three articles of 1583. This said, rhetorically at least his policy was to be even-​handed in the treatment of both recusants and Puritans.166

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He encouraged the appointment of an anti-​ Puritan Vice-​ Chancellor, Nicholas Bond, in Oxford in 1589; he sought to impose the three articles; he prevented the appointment of a Puritan, John Rainolds, as regius professor of divinity in 1589.167 Again, one wonders what the effect of this policy might have been had Hatton lived another twenty years. Thus while Hatton was clearly not directing the campaign against Puritans alone, he employed many levers of power to which, as Lord Chancellor, he had new access to. The climax of this campaign was the prosecution of that leading light of English puritanism, Thomas Cartwright, and eight other Puritan ministers (strikingly, most of the defendants were from Hatton’s own country: four from Warwickshire and three from Northamptonshire168). Their prosecution, which followed extensive interrogation of Puritan ministers, their associates and other witnesses, was initially in the High Commission, but was brought into Star Chamber in 1591 at Whitgift and Hatton’s order, where they were tried for seditious conspiracy relating to their presbyterian activities.169 Cartwright had of course been a protégé of Leicester’s, and at the time was master of his hospital in Warwick. Burghley apparently stayed away from these proceedings; Sir Francis Knollys, however, did attend, and reported to Burghley how Hatton interrupted the Puritans’ lawyer’s response to the charges. Hatton, he said, had prepared his ground over dinner with his allies: ‘uppon his consultation before taken in the dynyng chamber with my L. Archebyshopp, my L. of Bokhurst, Mr Foskue [Sir John Fortescue], Mr Atturney, & with the two cheeffe Justyces, to which consultation I dyd not approche, bycawse I was not called therunto’. Knollys’s frustration at his inability to prevent those with the Queen’s favour steamrolling over the Puritans is palpable, and the image conjured up of the venerable privy councillor excluded from the consultations on the other side of the room gives a sense of the tension of the situation. Hatton went on to suggest the appointment of a doctor of divinity and a doctor of civil law to assist the judges in the trial, naming respectively Bancroft and Cosin, who were clearly not intended to be impartial assistants, and (perhaps rather mischievously) asked Knollys’s opinion of the idea. Knollys could not reply, because ‘I dowted, whether hir Majestie woold allowe me to speyke my conscyence’.170 In spite of the weight of the campaign against them, and the copious evidence collected, the nine ministers stonewalled very effectively. Further witnesses were examined over the summer and into the autumn.171 The sensation caused by the Hacket affair provided cause to prolong the process.172 The prosecution was, however, unable to secure adequate proof of seditious actions; Knollys later recounted how ‘my lord chieffe Justyce of England perswadid my Lord Chauncelor & the rest after dynner in the Starre Chamber that they should not deale agaynst Cartwright & his

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fellowes untyll they should have matter to prove some sedycious acte’.173 Presumably the investigation might have continued until such evidence was found, but with the death of Hatton in November 1591, with the ministers still in prison, the case petered out.174 Cartwright claimed that ‘(in my Lo. Chancellors life) he [Whitgift] denied me that favour [of temporary release from imprisonment], which he graunted unto other of my fellowes in the same case’.175 We will come to that shortly. A final element of Hatton and Whitgift’s anti-​ Puritan programme, however, was an attempt to institute a new subscription campaign which explicitly affirmed the royal supremacy, episcopacy and the sacraments and ceremonies of the Church of England, and denounced any attempt to introduce presbyteries ‘consisting of doctors, pastors, elders and deacons’ as ‘not only unlawful but also very dangerous for the state of this realm’.176 Robert Beale seems to have been referring to this when he wrote in 1593 that ‘about 4 or 5 yeres past, when the late L. Chancelor and others earnestlie went about, to have enforced a subscription to certaine articles through out the whole realme: which thinge, if it had not ben stayed, was lyke to cause as greate a division, as ever was in the realme’.177 Beale claimed that ‘her majestie was moved to staye that perillous devise, and (god be thanked) the realme hathe continued in better quiet sithe’.178 This is a poorly documented episode; in particular, there is no correspondence from Hatton’s or Whitgift’s side. The various copies of the document imply rather different targets for the subscription campaign: one copy suggests it was intended to be given only to Cartwright and his fellow ministers; another, belonging to John Puckering, calls them ‘Articles entended to have bene offred for preachers to subscrybe’; a third, in Beale’s papers, notes that it was to be subscribed by lawyers and justices as well as clergy.179 Collinson points out that Bancroft had talked about this notion with specific reference to JPs in his Paul’s Cross sermon.180 The dating is also tricky. Collinson places it in February 1591, in line with Burghley’s copy of the document to be subscribed; the copy in Beale’s papers assigns it to March and April 1591.181 It is odd, however, that Beale referred in 1593 to this being ‘4 or 5 yeres past’; possibly the plan was discussed over a longer period. As a political manoeuvre, this is very interesting from Hatton and Whitgift. It obviously resembles Whitgift’s subscription campaign of 1583, but the extension to justices of the peace is significant, since it decisively went beyond the Archbishop’s proper purview. In that sense it recalls efforts to tie the political elite to a particular political programme in the manner of the Bond of Association, an unusual approach for Hatton –​a sign perhaps that methods of mobilising the population which had been pioneered by forward Protestants such as Burghley could be deployed for more conservative and conformist policies too. It paralleled the Bond in that the content was

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superficially unobjectionable, largely representing no more than the state of affairs as it theoretically existed already, but in fact forcing subscribers to disown courses which many of them might well have favoured. It did not of course stray into such dangerous courses as the Bond, with its undertaking to effect lynch law against anyone involved in Elizabeth’s putative murder. Yet it might also have been rather more effective than the Bond turned out to be, since when put into effect, the Bond had been signed by a much larger group than had probably been intended, and thus failed to winnow out any dissenters from the vision of Protestant hegemony which Burghley had in mind. The 1591 subscription, like the articles of 1583, would quite probably have been refused by many more Puritan-​leaning clergy and laymen. Finally, of course, it would have been a very public statement of the prevailing direction of the regime at that point. There is little doubt, therefore, that the keener Protestants in the regime, most obviously Burghley, who wanted Puritans won over by ‘diligence or care … learning or courtesy’, were unhappy with Hatton’s efforts in these years.182 Burghley did not oppose all actions of this kind –​the moves against Marprelate, for e­ xample –​but they went much further than he intended, and as ever he saw them as a distraction from the Catholic threat. More than most phases of Elizabeth’s reign, therefore, this period brought out underlying divisions over religion within the regime. This had always been fairly evident to those who were looking closely; Hatton had never pretended to be part of a pan-​Protestant group at court. When there was a collection for the relief of Geneva in 1582–​83, for example, Bedford, Leicester, Walsingham, Mildmay and others contributed generously; Hatton, Croft and Hunsdon apparently gave nothing.183 By March 1591, however, there was some public awareness of the ‘pike [pique] betwene the Archb & the Tresurer aboute Ecclesiasticall procedings [which] will in time bring forth some quarrell & division amongst them’.184 What is perhaps surprising is that there is no clear sign of a counter-​ attack by Burghley, comparable to those launched in defence of Grindal. Was Burghley isolated, with Leicester and Walsingham gone? Did he see Whitgift and Hatton as too formidable? Was he simply too old? One response may have been the threat of resignation. In May 1591, the Queen visited Burghley at Theobalds. Burghley (by means of an oration by a hermit) claimed to want to retire; in response, Elizabeth gave him a mock charter (issued by Hatton as Lord Chancellor) implying that his retirement should be only partial (among other things it stated that ‘becauz we greatly tender yoor cumforte, we have gyven poour [power] too oour Chaunceloour, too make oout such and so many wryttes as too him shallbe thought good’).185 This is usually interpreted as a way to press Robert Cecil’s claim to office, but tension with Hatton may also be relevant. Was Burghley threatening

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to retire if his counsel was disregarded? Since Hatton co-​operated in the theatrics, was Elizabeth ordering them to continue working together? Was she telling Burghley that if he retired, Hatton would replace him? The lines about the Chancellor issuing such writs as he thought fit rather suggests the latter; Burghley might not have liked that.186 Exactly how concerned Burghley was is hard to gauge, but there are suggestions. As early as Hatton’s speech in Parliament in 1589, Burghley tried to exert control over him by writing a suggested outline, which Hatton largely ignored.187 Burghley’s attack on Bancroft over the offence caused to James VI gave him a rare opportunity for partial revenge. It is striking that the correspondence of Hatton and Robert Cecil in 1590–​91 deals largely with war business, and contains virtually no mention of the religious issues then playing out.188 Hammer argues that ‘the most striking phenomenon is perhaps that the fierce passions which this issue raised were kept in check’.189 Was Burghley’s response simply to ignore the tension with his most senior colleague and hope it would go away? If so, he was lucky that it did. Possibly the Hatton-​Cecil letters suggest that Burghley and Hatton were having difficulties communicating and Cecil was acting as intermediary; there are still friendly letters from Hatton to Burghley in this period, though Hatton could perhaps afford to be friendlier than Burghley, and they still worked closely together on other business.190 One element of Burghley’s calculation was no doubt that an open breach with Hatton might imperil his efforts to usher his son Robert into high office, in particular the office of Secretary of State.

Hatton’s death and the end of the anti-​Puritan campaign This apparent series of setbacks for Burghley was conveniently terminated by Hatton’s death on 20 December 1591. This shifted Church politics literally overnight, and was seen by the Puritans as a huge stroke of luck.191 John Udall thought it useless to seek his own release until Hatton was dead.192 The following February, four Puritan-​ leaning Cambridge college heads wrote to Burghley, noting that since ‘other great personages’ had been ‘cut off by death’, God had thus reserved you for the special good of this Church and commonwealth, and now put into your hands more opportunities than before to good therunto, by removing some great impediments that beforetime might hinder your Christian and honourable intentions ... the papistical adversaries in those times having grown bold and dangerous unto the State, divers of the true friends and lovers of the Gospel (tho’ carying themselves in dutiful and peaceable sort, which we also best like) having tasted in some mesure of more hard severity than many known Papists…

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Burghley, they hoped, could now right these wrongs and favour the ‘true and peaceable professors of the Gospel’.193 He did indeed seize this opportunity immediately. The very day after Hatton’s death, 21 November, Peter Wentworth was released from imprisonment.194 A few days later, on 4 December, Cartwright and his fellows were petitioning Burghley for their release.195 More importantly, these few days saw the publication of a proclamation against seminaries and Jesuits, which abandoned any policy of impartiality towards both religious extremes and inaugurated probably the most serious period of persecution of Catholics of the entire reign.196 Lake writes that it ‘was an initiative with real teeth and real effects’.197 The proclamation itself was dated 18 October, but it and the commissions to implement it were waiting to be issued when Hatton died.198 It appears that they had been held up, as it were on Hatton’s desk; on 31 October, Thomas Phelippes wrote that ‘a proclamation for Jesuits & seminaryes etc [is] printed but not published’.199 Various dates in late November are given for the ultimate publication, but it is clear that the salient point was Hatton’s death.200 This was widely commented upon. Robert Persons, for example, wrote that ‘the very next day after his [Hatton’s] death my L. Treasurer triumphed and gat forth this, [proclam]ation againste Catholiques, which he neuer had done yf the other had liued’.201 Verstegan, a close collaborator of Persons, wrote (wrongly) that Hatton died 28 November, ‘and the following day was published the Queen’s new proclamation, which had been printed two or three times before its publication … partly because the Chancellor had been averse to the publication of this edict, as it is thought’.202 Camden essentially agreed: Which Proclamation, as being very tart and sharp, drew from the Papists several Papers full of virulent Expressions against Burghley Lord Treasurer, as the Authour thereof; wherein yet they commended Sir Christopher Hatton … But he died on the 20th of September [sic], the day before this Proclamation was published.203

The inner workings of the regime’s decision-​making here are obscure, and it is unclear whether the Queen had agreed to the proclamation (perhaps because Hatton had not accompanied the court on progress in August and September), or whether Burghley had merely written and printed it in expectation of Hatton’s imminent death, but combined with Burghley’s other moves in these days, the story appears correct. Guy argues that this should be seen as Elizabeth seeking to balance her government’s anti-​ Puritan moves with some anti-​Catholic ones, but the fact remains that it was a change of policy, which Hatton opposed, and which was implemented only after his death.204

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A prominent trial of Catholics early in December may have been the final element of Burghley’s reassertion of his authority. On 28 November, several Catholics were arrested by Richard Topcliffe during a mass at a house in Grey’s Inn Fields, close to Ely Place. On 4 December, three priests (Polydore Plasden, Edmund Gennings and Eustace White) and four laymen were tried and condemned.205 One of the laymen was Swithin Wells, a Hampshire gentleman who converted to Catholicism about 1583. He had connections with the Babington plotters, which hints at connections with Hatton’s circle; he was interrogated about this, but escaped punishment, which may suggest powerful protection.206 In 1587 he was living in the Earl of Southampton’s house nearby, possibly as a tutor.207 He was also involved in conducting seminary priests from house to house.208 His house in Holborn was said to be a frequent site of Catholic worship. His brother Gilbert was one of the executors of the Catholic 2nd Earl of Southampton, who controlled the advowson of St Andrew’s Holborn, and with whom Burghley advised Hatton to deal to secure the benefice for Bancroft in 1584.209 Another brother, Henry Wells, lived in Purbeck, where he was Hatton’s tenant for a small burgage in Corfe; in 1587 it was reported that ‘very bad men’ passed to and fro there.210 It may be, therefore, that Hatton had significant connections here. The seven executions occurred on 10 December, mostly at Tyburn, but Wells (along with Gennings) was executed outside his own house, and afterwards buried at St Andrew’s Holburn.211 Authors such as Verstegan and the Jesuit Ribadeneira linked these executions with the new reign of terror initiated by the 1591 proclamation, which in turn was permitted by Hatton’s death; Verstegan wrote in March 1592 that ‘the afflicted state of Catholics was never such as now it is’.212 Given that other Catholics connected to Hatton lived in and around Holborn (something of a centre for London Catholics213), it is possible that these executions were a warning to other followers of Hatton’s and a reminder that things had now changed. Of course there had been other executions of Catholics during this period of Hatton’s anti-​Puritan campaign, often in the provinces, but this looks like a public reassertion of the regime’s anti-​Catholicism. This is supported by the jubilant comments of Francis Holyoake, which made clear that with Hatton dead, ‘Papistes have no suche shrowde nowe, as appeared by a greate Assemblee of them, nere to Hoburne, convented at a open Masse, and many apprehended and some condemned.’214

Conclusion Hatton’s role in Church politics stands out as the area of his greatest influence. While his power waxed and waned, during 1589–​91 Hatton and his

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allies dominated ecclesiastical policy, shifting it aggressively in a new direction. Were it not for his sudden death, such a policy may have continued for a long time, especially if Hatton outlasted Burghley, with the possibility of creating a regime in which Catholics were heard sympathetically and Puritans harassed and driven out. This was not certain –​an event like the Babington Plot or the Gunpowder Plot could well have led to another change, but then such events may have been less likely if the government took a more emollient line towards Catholics. Hatton was clearly more in favour of a national Church which could work for or with Catholics than one which accommodated Puritans, a substantially different position to that of the forward Protestants. The question here is what exactly was Hatton’s own role. It seems clear that Hatton was not providing intellectual or theological leadership –​that was the part of Whitgift, Bancroft and so on. Clearly, what Hatton provided was political backing. To describe this dynamic more fully, the dominant note of Elizabethan religious policy at any given moment depended ultimately on royal approval for that policy, and this needed to be wrangled (both obtained and sustained) by one or more minister or ministers. For much of the reign, those ministers were some combination of Burghley and Leicester. In 1589–​91, Hatton seized that role, to Burghley’s considerable displeasure. Thus he provided political backing to plans which otherwise would have been quashed by Leicester or Burghley, and this is made very clearly apparent by the events of November 1591. Hatton also found ready backing from other senior anti-​Puritans –​Buckhurst, Puckering and others willingly followed Hatton’s lead and exploited the political space he had opened up. Nor can it be argued that Hatton was merely the tool of Whitgift et al. Hatton had been actively supporting conservative strains within the Church since before he was a privy councillor, most obviously Aylmer. He was not a puppet, and his sway with the Queen was a very significant, indeed instrumental, contribution to the success of these anti-​Puritan elements. Furthermore, since the anti-​Puritan campaign faltered after Hatton’s death, the notion that Hatton was merely Elizabeth’s proxy or instrument for aligning the Church with her own more conservative views also falters. The rapidity of the change of policy before and after Hatton’s death suggests that infighting in the Council had profound implications on religious policy, regardless of the Queen’s views. The fact that these changes of policy coincided with the deaths not of Walsingham or Burghley, but of Leicester and Hatton is extremely striking: the favourites, not the bureaucrats, emerge from this as more influential than might sometimes be thought. The comparison is not exact, but Hatton can be seen as fulfilling the role of patron to anti-​Puritans and moderate

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Catholics in the same way as Leicester did for moderate Puritans. In both cases, they used the combination of royal favour and extensive connections both within the Church and the country to influence policy. The involvement of figures such as Hatton was crucial in demonstrating to the Puritans that Whitgift had the support of the establishment and the Queen herself. By themselves, Elizabethan bishops did not necessarily carry a great deal of weight, which enabled Puritans to attack them. This was why Whitgift’s subscription campaign of 1583 had fizzled out: faced with the objections of numerous ministers, nobles and local landowners to his attacks on their clergy, Whitgift had to temper his programme.215 In this later campaign, Burghley clearly did not have the political strength to resist, hence his remarkable decision to largely sit the matter out and leave Whitgift and Hatton to get on with essentially whatever they wanted. Thus it appears that 1588–​89 and 1591 both marked significant shifts in religious policy, reflecting first Hatton’s growth in influence after Leicester’s death, and then Hatton’s own death. The anonymous Puritan author mentioned above (p. 199) picked up his earlier story about how the heat of government attention passed from Catholics in Leicester’s time to Puritans under Hatton, concluding: ‘presently after his [Hatton’s] death, there comes forth (by means of the late Lord Treasurer [Burghley]) a proclamation, and commissions throughout the land to inquire for Priests ...’. For this close and interested observer, at least, Hatton’s abbreviated ascendancy witnessed a marked change of policy.216 As we have seen, the rapidity of the shift in 1591 suggests that Burghley wished to make a statement that now that Hatton was gone, things were going to change. Hatton can also be seen as having had longer-​term implications both for our understanding of the nature of Elizabethan politics and for the history of the English Church over the longer term. While the sources make it difficult to provide a full and clear account, Hatton’s patronage helped to sustain a somewhat coherent strain of anti-​puritanism from the mid-​1570s to the early 1590s, helping to check the trend towards strong, even radical, Protestantism which had appeared to be ascendant for the first twenty years of Elizabeth’s reign. Brett Usher, for example, called Grindal’s suspension ‘the ecclesiastical watershed of the reign. The balance of forces within the Church tilted at once in the direction of its more conservative elements.’217 Marshall writes that Grindal’s fall ‘set the Church of England on a new course’, Collinson that it ‘determined the future course of the Elizabethan church’; ‘Barnes, Curwen, Hatton: these are names with which to track an alternative, less evangelical, trajectory for the Elizabethan Church.’218 A number of historians have argued that, rather than appearing as a new-​ minted ideology, the strand of avant-​garde conformity and later Laudianism which developed in the early seventeenth century should be seen as having

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roots throughout Elizabeth’s reign; as Marshall puts it, ‘it is not … an entirely pointless exercise to begin looking in this [Elizabethan] period of “Calvinist consensus” for the roots of what would later be called “Anglicanism” ’, particularly among those who defended remaining vestiges of pre-​Reformation Catholicism, such as vestments and episcopacy.219 It seems unlikely that Hatton held precisely the same theological position as his anti-​Puritan allies. Historians have regarded Whitgift as theologically a Calvinist who believed the Pope was Antichrist, so he must have had qualms about Hatton’s Catholic associates.220 Bancroft was probably more comfortable in this regard (despite this, Whitgift strongly recommended him for Bishop of London in 1595–​96).221 Likewise, it is not clear that Hatton shared all of the anti-​Puritans’ ideas. Towards the end of Hatton’s life, some of his associates (most obviously Bancroft and Whitgift) were articulating novel views about the proper role and powers of the episcopate, and they also faced increasing controversy over the use of the ex officio oath; famously, Burghley compared some of Whitgift’s techniques to the Inquisition. There has also been a tendency to associate late Elizabethan anti-​puritanism with absolutist, even authoritarian, attitudes.222 It is not at all clear that Hatton was committed to these shifts in all of their ramifications; while Hatton may have supported harsh exercise of royal authority towards Puritans, he was less keen on targeting Catholics in the same way, so it may be that he saw these ideas merely as useful expedients in a justified campaign of repression. Ultimately, this was an alliance of convenience that was valuable to both sides.

Notes 1 Hartley, Proceedings, I, 528; J. E. Neale, Elizabeth I and her Parliaments 1559–​1581 (London, 1953), 385–​92. 2 Hartley, Proceedings, I, 545; Neale, Parliaments 1559–​1581, 396–​7. 3 For a sample of such letters signed when Hatton was listed as attending council, see APC 1580–​81, 281–​ 2 (Catholic children being educated overseas); APC 1581–​82, 376 (a survey of recusants), 386 (Jesuits in the diocese of Peterborough), 403 (recusants in Wiltshire); APC 1589–​90, 264–​5 (Jesuit and seminary influence in the diocese of Carlisle). 4 Anthony G. Petti, Recusant Documents from the Ellesmere Manuscripts (CRS 60, 1968), 19–​22. 5 SP 12/​185/​105. 6 ‘The Official Lists of Catholic Prisoners during the Reign of Queen Elizabeth, Part II, 1581–​1602’, Miscellanea II (CRS 2, London, 1906), 241, 267. 7 Westminster Abbey muniments, MS Book 15, f. 85. 8 Geoffrey F. Nuttall, ‘The English Martyrs 1535–​1680: a statistical review’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History 22:3 (1971), 191–​7, at 193.

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9 APC 1587–​88, 102–​3; BL Lansdowne 45, ff. 176–​7. 10 Hugh Bowler, Recusant Roll No. 2 (1593–​1594) (CRS 57, 1965), lxxxiii, n. 331 (16 June 1592). 11 Katherine Duncan-​Jones, ‘Sir Philip Sidney’s debt to Edmund Campion’, in Thomas M. McCoog (ed.), The Reckoned Expense: Edmund Campion and the Early English Jesuits (Woodbridge, 1996), 85–​102, at 96 (for the interrogation of Campion). 12 See above, p. 73. 13 [Anon.], Fourth Report of the Deputy Keeper of the Public Records (London, 1843), 274–​5. 14 Hartley, Proceedings, II, 84–​8; State Trials, col. 1095. He also interrogated Parry with Leicester and Walsingham: Conyers Read, Lord Burghley and Queen Elizabeth (London, 1960), 301. 15 BL Harleian 703, f. 23r. This paper, now in the letterbook of the Sussex Deputy Lieutenant Sir Walter Covert, seems to be unique. 16 CSPSMQS, 1585–​86, 615. 17 CSPSMQS, 1585–​86, 620; Read, Burghley, 345. 18 Read, Burghley, 345. 19 CSPSMQS, 1585–​86, 620. 20 Memoirs, 443; SP 12/​193/​4. 21 State Trials, cols. 1136, 1138; see also Brooks, Hatton, 137 and separate chapter. 22 State Trials, col. 1139. 23 State Trials, col. 1139 (this is not a direct quote). 24 State Trials, cols. 1166–​7. 25 Lake, ‘Two episcopal surveys’, at 148–​9, 158. 26 BL Egerton 2074, ff. 30–​2, 54, 55, 57, 64, 66, 68, 69, 70. 27 The Duke of Norfolk (ed), The Lives of Philip Howard, earl of Arundel, and of Anne Dacres, his wife (London, 1857), 57–​9. As Pollen and MacMahon note, the source of this story is not known: Arundel, 113. 28 ‘Howard, Philip [St Philip Howard], thirteenth earl of Arundel (1557–​1595)’, ODNB. Hatton also sent ‘John Kepere’, Arundel’s secretary, to prison in the Gatehouse in February 1584. ‘The Official Lists of Catholic Prisoners’, 232. Pollen & MacMahon, Arundel, 50. Memoirs, 361–​2. 29 Walter Scott (ed.), A Collection of Scarce and Valuable Tracts (2nd edn., London, 1809), I, 223. 30 SP 12/​201/​50 (Frederick, Lord Windsor to Hatton, 30 May 1587). 31 Memoirs, 218–​19. 32 John Morris (ed.), The Troubles of Our Catholic Forefathers, First Series (London, 1872), 69–​70; Lake, ‘Two episcopal surveys’, 140. 33 Memoirs, 418–​20. 34 Brooks, Hatton, 244–​50; Francis Edwards, S.J., Plots and Plotters in the Reign of Elizabeth I (Dublin, 2002), 83–​8. 35 Scott, A Collection of Scarce and Valuable Tracts, I, 212–​24; ‘Percy, Henry, eighth earl of Northumberland (c.1532–​1585)’, ODNB; Raphael Holinshed, The first and second volumes of chronicles (1587; STC 13569), III, 1410–​11.

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36 See for example Gerald Brenan, A History of the House of Percy (2 vols, London, 1902), II, 21–​9. 37 Brooks, Hatton, 244; Camden, History, 312. 38 Edwards, Plots and Plotters, 83–​6. 39 See Michael C. Questier, Catholicism and Community in Early Modern England: Politics, Aristocratic Patronage and Religion, c.1550–​ 1640 (Cambridge, 2006), 165. 40 Edwards’s claim that ‘a trial should have acquitted him’ seems optimistic. Plots and Plotters, 85. 41 This neglect has been ameliorated by Collinson’s book on Hatton’s protege, Richard Bancroft, although the coverage of Hatton is limited here. 42 FSL, L.d.25. Collinson, Elizabethan Puritan Movement, 148. This said, Hatton left for Spa at around this time. 43 Collinson, Elizabethan Puritan Movement, 151. MacCaffrey also connects the two: Making of Policy, 68. Neither, however, argues specifically that Hatton’s persuasions prompted the Queen’s actions. 44 Collinson, Elizabethan Puritan Movement, 150–​2; Collinson, ‘John Field and Elizabethan puritanism’, 138. P. L. Hughes and J. F. Larkin (eds), Tudor Royal Proclamations (3 vols, New Haven and London, 1969), II, 379–​81. 45 Hughes and Larkin, Tudor Royal Proclamations, II, 375–​6. 46 Collinson, Elizabethan Puritan Movement, 146ff. 47 Knappen, Tudor Puritanism, 243. See also Euan Cameron, The European Reformation (Oxford, 1991), 384. 48 John Bruce and Thomas Thomason Perowne (eds), Correspondence of Matthew Parker, D.D. Archbishop of Canterbury (Parker Society, Cambridge, 1853), 477; Brett Usher, William Cecil and Episcopacy, 1559–​1577 (London, 2003), 132. 49 Brett Usher, Lord Burghley and Episcopacy 1577–​1603 (London, 2016), 31. 50 Matthew Parker died 17 May 1575, and Grindal was nominated on 29 December. On Hatton’s putative role (which seems to be no more than speculation) see Usher, cited in Collinson, Bancroft, 51. 51 Patrick Collinson, Archbishop Grindal 1519–​ 1583: The Struggle for a Reformed Church (London, 1979), 233–​4. 52 Collinson, Archbishop Grindal, 233–​52. 53 Usher, Lord Burghley, 32–​3. 54 Lake, ‘Two episcopal surveys’. 55 Patrick Collinson, Archbishop Grindal, 233; Collinson (ed.), ‘The prophesyings and the downfall and sequestration of Archbishop Edmund Grindal 1576–​ 1583’, in Melanie Barber and Stephen Taylor with Gabriel Sewell (eds), From the Reformation to the Permissive Society (Church of England Record Society 18, 2010), 1–​41, at 6. 56 HMC Hastings I, 433. 57 Peter Marshall, Heretics and Believers: A History of the English Reformation (pbk. edn., New Haven and London, 2018), 518. 58 MacCulloch, Later Reformation, 36.

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59 Collinson, Bancroft, n.24, 51–​ 2. Patrick Collinson, John Craig and Brett Usher (eds), Conferences and Combination Lectures in the Elizabethan Church: Dedham and Bury St Edmunds, 1582–​ 1590 (Church of England Record Society 10, Woodbridge, 2007), xxxix. See also Collinson, ‘The prophesyings and the downfall and sequestration of Grindal’, 4. This said, Collinson was slightly more cautious in ‘The downfall of Archbishop Grindal and its place in Elizabethan political and ecclesiastical history’, in Peter Clark, Alan G. R. Smith and Nicholas Tyacke (eds), The English Commonwealth 1547–​1640: Essays Presented to Professor Joel Hurstfield (Leicester, 1979), 39–​57, at 47. 60 Lake, ‘Two episcopal surveys’. 61 Glyn Parry, The Arch-​Conjuror of England: John Dee (pbk. edn., New Haven and London, 2013), 119. 62 Usher, William Cecil, 135. 63 Usher, Lord Burghley, 35. 64 Memoirs, 24; Collinson, Grindal, 253–​6. 65 Usher, Lord Burghley, 37–​8; Memoirs, 52–​3. 66 Usher, Lord Burghley, 39. 67 ‘Aylmer, John (1520/​21–​1594)’, ODNB. 68 John Bruce and Thomas Thomason Perowne (eds), Correspondence of Matthew Parker, D.D. Archbishop of Canterbury (Parker Society, Cambridge, 1853), 350; Usher, William Cecil, 132. 69 Collinson, ‘The prophesyings and the downfall and sequestration of Grindal’, 16–​18. 70 Memoirs, 59, 239–​40; SP 12/​123/​33, f. 103. 71 Collinson, Elizabethan Puritan Movement, 167; Collinson, ‘The prophesyings and the downfall and sequestration of Grindal’, 10. 72 When Elizabeth was choosing a Bishop of Norwich in 1575, she consulted Parker, but requested three options: Parker Correspondence, 477. He was however allowed to name his preference. 73 Usher, Lord Burghley and Episcopacy, 57–​61. 74 Memoirs, 55–​6, 58–​9. Both Usher and Vines conclude that Hatton was essentially seeking to protect Catholics: ‘Aylmer, John (1520/​21–​1594)’, ODNB; Alice Gilmore Vines, Neither Fire nor Steel: Sir Christopher Hatton (Chicago, 1978), 48. 75 Lake, ‘Two episcopal surveys’, 144. 76 SP 12/​114/​22. 77 Memoirs, 51–​2, 171–​2, 236–​8, 243–​7, 348. 78 Collinson, Grindal, 263–​4. 79 ‘Young, John (c. 1532–​1605)’, ODNB; Usher, Lord Burghley, 2, 30–​31, 37. 80 Usher, Lord Burghley, 3–​4, 30. 81 See for example Memoirs, 51–​2, where Aylmer asks for his help in appointing William Chaderton as Bishop of Chester; Aylmer stressed Chaderton’s energy against non-​conformists. Usher notes that Hatton may well have been blocking candidates: Lord Burghley and Episcopacy, 116.

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82 Usher, Lord Burghley, 3–​4, 41–​3, 62. 83 Leicester: Usher, Lord Burghley and Episcopacy, 52. Painswick: VCH Gloucestershire, XI, 81. The precise ownership seems to have been confused, so Hatton may not have been involved. 84 ‘Domestic Chaplain: Bishop of Gloucester (CCEd Location ID 234027)’, CCED, accessed 21 December 2021. 85 A. Hassell Smith, County and Court: Government and Politics in Norfolk, 1558–​1603 (Oxford, 1974) , Chapter 10, esp. 213–​16. 86 ‘Freake, Edmund (c. 1516–​1591)’, ODNB; Holkham MS, f. 309. He had an annuity of £10. 87 Three further chaplains (plus Bancroft) are listed at his funeral, but cannot be identified: College of Arms, Dethick’s Funerals, vol. I, pt. 2, f. 281r. 88 ‘Rogers, Thomas (c. 1553–​ 1616)’, ODNB; Collinson, Elizabethan Puritan Movement, 245, 268; on some of his publications, see his Historical dialogue touching antichrist and poperie (1589; STC 21237); Maximilian von Habsburg, Catholic and Protestant Translations of the Imitatio Christi 1425–​1650 (Farnham, 2011), 122; David Crane, ‘English translations of the Imitatio Christi in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries’, Recusant History 13 (1975), 79–​100; Antoinina Bevan Zlatar, Reformation Fictions: Polemical Protestant Dialogues in Elizabethan England (Oxford, 2011), 103; Diarmaid MacCulloch, ‘The myth of the English Reformation’, Journal of British Studies 30:1 (January 1991), 1–​19, at 12. 89 He later became Bishop of Durham. ‘James, William (1542–​1617)’, ODNB. 90 TNA PROB 11/​48, f. 250r. 91 ‘Holdenby (CCEd Location ID 9869)’, CCED, accessed 21 December 2021. 92 ‘Laurence Kite (CCEd Person ID 133722)’, CCED, accessed 21 December 2021. J. and J. A. Venn, Alumni Cantabrigienses (Cambridge, 1922–​53), I, 27; John Bridges, The History and Antiquities of Northamptonshire (Oxford, 1791), II, 297. 93 ‘Domestic Chaplain: Bishop of Gloucester (CCEd Location ID 234027)’, CCED, accessed 21 December 2021. Kyte also witnessed the will of one of Hatton’s cousins, Ambrose Saunders. 94 BL Harleian 473, f. 215v. 95 Andrew Cambers, ‘Reading libels in early seventeenth-​century Northamptonshire’, in Nadine Lewycky and Adam Morton (eds), Getting Along? Religious Identities and Confessional Relations in Early Modern England –​Essays in Honour of Professor W.J. Sheils (Farnham, 2012), 115–​31, at 121–​2. 96 Saravia: Hassall, ‘Books’, 9–​10; Bancroft: ibid., 9; W. James, A sermon preached at Paules Crosse ... (1590; STC 14464); John Beatniffe, A sermon preached at Torceter (1590; STC 1662). 97 William Calderwood, ‘The Elizabethan Protestant Press: a Study of the Printing and Publishing of Protestant Religious Literature in English, excluding Bibles and Liturgies, 1558–​1603’ (PhD thesis, UCL, 1977), II, 190. 98 College of Arms, Dethick’s Funerals, vol. I, pt. 2, f. 281v. 99 Diarmaid MacCulloch, ‘The latitude of the Church of England’, in Kenneth Fincham and Peter Lake (eds), Religious Politics in Post Reformation England (Woodbridge, 2006), 41–​59, at 50–​1.

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100 See Perne’s respectfully joshing letter to Hatton: Westminster Abbey muniments, MS Book 15, f. 85. 101 See above, p. 135. 102 Usher, Lord Burghley and Episcopacy, 31, 37, 62. Usher does not consider the implications, if any, of Hatton’s own post as receiver of first fruits, the means by which he lent himself such lavish sums. 103 George Paule, The life of the most reverend and religious prelate John Whitgift, Lord Archbishop of Canterbury (1612; STC 19484), 21. 104 Hatton Letterbook, ff. 129r. (Memoirs, 371), 130r.–​ v. (Memoirs, 379–​80); J. Conway Davies (ed.), Catalogue of Manuscripts in the Inner Temple (3 vols, Oxford, 1972), II, 897. Hatton visited Whitgift’s residence at Croydon for three days, possibly in 1591: SP 12/​240/​11. 105 Usher, Lord Burghley and Episcopacy, 67–​8. 106 Collinson, Elizabethan Puritan Movement, 245. 107 See Chapter 1, pp. 162–3. See Paule’s comments about Whitgift’s lack of support from the council: Life of Whitgift, 33–​4. 108 Hatton Letterbook, f. 129v. (Memoirs, 371–​2); Strype, Annals, III, i, 332. 109 John Strype (ed.), The Life and Acts of John Whitgift (Oxford, 1822), I, 328ff; Collinson, Elizabethan Puritan Movement, 271–​2. 110 See for example SP 12/​175/​2: ‘Your most honorable frendship .. is & shalbe, his graces contynewall comforte. I am perwaded he never receyved messadge more to his good liking.’ 111 Paule, Life of Whitgift, 36 (emphasis in original). 112 Paule, Life of Whitgift, 55, 57 (emphasis in original). 113 Strype, Whitgift, I, 426. He is referring to the subscription campaign of 1584–​ 85. On their collaboration, see also LPL MS 178, Whitgift’s copies of several Hatton-​related documents. 114 William Pierce, An Historical Introduction to the Marprelate Tracts (New York, 1909), 116–​17, 124. 115 J. E. Neale, Elizabeth I and her Parliaments 1584–​1601 (London, 1957), 81. 116 HMC Rutland, I, 190. 117 John Harington, Nugæ antiquæ, ed. Henry Harington (2 vols, London, 1804), II, 27–​8. 118 In 1597, Whitgift stated that Bancroft was with Hatton for twelve years, and Bancroft was still listed as a chaplain at Hatton’s funeral in December 1591: A. Peel (ed.), Tracts Ascribed to Richard Bancroft (Cambridge, 1953), xviii–​xix; College of Arms, Dethick’s Funerals, vol. I, pt. 2, f. 281r. See also R. G. Usher, The Reconstruction of the English Church (New York and London, 1910), I, 31. Bancroft is mentioned as chaplain in 1584 in Memoirs, 384. On Bancroft as ‘the chaplain’, see Collinson, Bancroft, 76–​7. 119 Memoirs, 404. 120 Memoirs, 384, 404. ‘Bancroft, Richard (bap. 1544, d. 1610)’, ODNB. ‘Richard Bancroft (Person ID 2098)’, CCED, accessed 21 December 2021. Bancroft also had a prebendary in Dublin cathedral: Memoirs, 359. Whitgift was pushing him for the deanery of Worcester in 1586: Cecil Papers 14/​80. 121 Hasler, Commons, II, 279. R. J. Roberts, ‘Sir Christopher Hatton’s book-​ stamps’, The Library 5th ser., 12:2 (June 1957), 119. This Sir Christopher,

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and also one Robert Hatton, were among Bancroft’s executors: S. B. Babbage, Puritanism and Richard Bancroft (London, 1962), 387. 122 Usher, Lord Burghley and Episcopacy, 117. 123 Cambridge University Library, MS GBR/​0012/​MS Add. 4138, f. 49v. (commonplace book of a Cambridge student circa 1611). See also Collinson, Bancroft, 185. 124 William Alabaster, Alabaster’s conversion (1599); www.philo​logi​cal.bham. ac.uk/​alabc​onv/​text.html (accessed 8 September 2017) ‘Alabaster, William (1568–​1640)’, ODNB. 125 Collinson, ‘Bishop Richard Bancroft and the succession’, 97–​8 & 98 n.28. 126 Collinson, Bancroft, 187–​8. 127 Neale, Parliaments 1584–​1601, 62–​3. 128 Collinson, Elizabethan Puritan Movement, 313. 129 Hartley, Proceedings, II, 333–​ 44; Neale, Parliaments 1584–​1601, 158–​61; Hasler, Commons, II, 278. On Bancroft’s part in this, see Collinson, Elizabethan Puritan Movement, 313–​14; Collinson, Bancroft, 57–​8. 130 Marshall, Heretics and Believers, 562–​ 3; Diarmaid MacCulloch, ‘Richard Hooker’s reputation’, EHR 117:473 (2002), 773–​812), at 775–​6. 131 Patrick Collinson, ‘John Field and Elizabethan puritanism’, in S. T. Bindoff, Joel Hurstfield and C. H. Williams (eds), Elizabethan Government and Society (London, 1961), 161); see also Collinson, Elizabethan Puritan Movement, 387–​8. 132 Thomas Digges, Humble motives for association to maintaine religion established published as an antidote against the pestilent treatises of secular priests (1601; STC 3518.3), 24–​5. See also CSPSp 1587–​1603, 431. 133 Usher, Lord Burghley and Episcopacy, 105–​ 6; William Richardson, ‘The Religious Policy of the Cecils, 1588–​1598’ (DPhil thesis, University of Oxford, 1993), 9. 134 Edward Arber (ed.), An Introductory Sketch to the Martin Marprelate Controversy 1588–​1590 (London, 1879), 15. 135 SP 52/​46, f. 5 (Elizabeth to James, 6 July 1590); John Guy, Elizabeth: The Forgotten Years (London, 2016), 161. 136 Joseph L. Black, The Martin Marprelate Tracts. A Modernized and Annotated Edition (Cambridge, 2008). 137 Collinson, Bancroft, 75–​7. 138 BL Lansdowne 103, f. 102. 139 Arber, Introductory sketch to the Martin Marprelate controversy, 94–​104 (deposition of Henry Sharpe, 15 October 1589). 140 State Trials, 1263–​72. 141 Hartley, Proceedings, II, 419–​20. For the presence of the Queen, see Hayward Townshend, Historical collections: or, an exact account of the proceedings of the four last parliaments of Q. Elizabeth (London, 1680), 2–​3. 142 Neale, Parliaments 1584–​1601, 237–​8. 143 Richard Bancroft, A sermon preached at Paules Crosse (1588/​9; STC 1346 and 1347).

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144 Collinson, Elizabethan Puritan Movement, 397; Mary Morrissey, Politics and the Paul’s Cross Sermons, 1558–​1642 (Oxford, 2011), 209. 145 CSPSMQS 1589–​93, 401, 409. Patrick Collinson, ‘Bishop Richard Bancroft and the succession’, in Susan Doran and Paulina Kewes (eds), Doubtful and Dangerous: The Question of Succession in Late Elizabethan England (Manchester, 2014), 92–​111, at 95–​7. 146 CSPSMQS 1589–​93, 420, 428, 432, 448. 147 CSPSMQS 1589–​93, 225–​7. The source was Robert Naunton, nephew of the English ambassador to Scotland and later commentator on Elizabeth’s Court; obviously Bancroft was seeking to discredit English Puritans. On Bancroft and Scotland, see also Collinson, Bancroft, 8–​10. 148 Collinson, Bancroft, Chapters 6–​7, esp. 103. 149 Leland H. Carlson (ed.), Elizabethan Non-​Conformist Texts Volume III: The Writings of Henry Barrow 1587–​1590 (reprinted London, 2003), 130–​38; ‘Barrow, Henry (c. 1550–​1593)’, ODNB. 150 Collinson, Bancroft, 104; Collinson, Elizabethan Puritan Movement, 407. 151 See Puckering’s letters: Strype, Annals, IV, 34–​8. 152 Collinson, Bancroft, 104; Richardson, ‘Religious Policy of the Cecils’, 48–​56. 153 Leland H. Carlson, ‘The court of high commission: a newly discovered Elizabethan letters patent, 20 June 1589’, Huntington Library Quarterly 45:4 (1982), 295–​315. 154 BL Add. 12497, f. 225 (10 Feb. 1590). The other appointees were Drs Forth and Bing. 155 BL Add. 48064, ff. 144–​5; Hasler, Commons, II, 48; Neale, Parliaments 1584–​ 1601, 153; Collinson, Elizabethan Puritan Movement, 311. 156 BL Add. 48064, ff. 150v–​151. Hubbock was later a client of Essex: Collinson, Elizabethan Puritan Movement, 405, 446. 157 Hasler, Commons, III, 600–​1; Neale, Parliaments 1584–​1601, 254–​5; Paulina Kewes, ‘The Puritan, the Jesuit and the Jacobean succession’, in Doran and Kewes, Doubtful and Dangerous, 47–​70, at 53–​4. On Hatton’s earlier encounters with Wentworth, see Brooks, Hatton, 70–​2. On his good relations with Burghley, see CSPD 1581–​90, 664–​5; 12/​240/​21 and 21I. 158 Jean-​ Christopher Meyer (ed.), Breaking the Silence on the Succession. A Sourcebook of Manuscripts and Rare Elizabethan Texts (c. 1587–​1603) (Montpellier, 2003), 117–​18. 159 APC 1591, 389, 390, 392–​3. 160 SP 12/​240/​21I. As Kewes points out, this associated Wentworth with the underground networks of Puritan fanatics out of which the Hacket affair arose, a point which Bancroft later made explicit in print: Kewes, ‘The Puritan, the Jesuit and the Jacobean succession’, 55. 161 A. Hassell Smith and Gillian M. Baker (eds), The Papers of Nathaniel Bacon of Stiffkey Volume III 1586–​1595 (Norfolk Record Society 53, 1990), 118–​20. 162 See Wyndham’s account in Smith and Baker, Papers of Nathaniel Bacon III, 118–​20; also David McKeen, A Memory of Honour: The Life of William Brooke, Lord Cobham (2 vols, Salzburg Studies in English Literature 108,

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Salzburg, 1986), II, 583–​5; A. Hassell Smith, County and Court: Government and Politics in Norfolk, 1558–​ 1603 (Oxford, 1974), 176–​ 7; Collinson, Elizabethan Puritan Movement, 409. 163 Hammer, Polarisation, 79. 164 18 September 1588. Holkham MS, f. 309. He received an annuity of £4. 165 For an account of his installation on 3 October 1588, see BL Add. 5845, 455–​ 7, summarised in Brooks, Hatton, 346–​9. 166 Penry Williams, ‘Elizabethan Oxford: State, church and university’, in James McConica (ed.), The History of the University of Oxford, Volume III: The Collegiate University (Oxford, 1986), 420, 431–​2). 167 ‘Bond, Nicholas (1540–​ 1608)’, ODNB; on Rainolds, see Collinson, Bancroft, 200. 168 Cathryn Enis, ‘The Dudleys, Sir Christopher Hatton and the justices of Elizabethan Warwickshire’, Midland History 39:1 (Spring 2014), 1–​35, at 21. 169 Collinson, Elizabethan Puritan Movement, 411, 417. 170 BL Lansdowne 68, f. 190; Collinson, Bancroft, 113–​14. 171 Collinson, Bancroft, 116–​22. 172 A letter from Phelippes in July 1591, SP 12/​239/​93, suggests that the Queen was annoyed with Hatton and Whitgift for stirring up the forces which led to the Hacket affair. This is accepted by Richardson and Usher, but the letter is ambiguous and Phelippes’s comments should be treated with caution. Richardson, ‘Religious Policy of the Cecils’, 59; Usher, Lord Burghley and Episcopacy, 112. 173 BL Lansdowne 68, f. 97r. 174 Collinson, Bancroft, 123–​6. The inadequacy of the evidence is referred to by Knollys in a letter of 9 January 1592: BL Lansdowne 66, f. 150. 175 Collinson, Bancroft, 126; A. F. Scott Pearson, Thomas Cartwright and Elizabeth Puritanism, 1535–​1603 (Cambridge, 1925), 351, at 473. 176 HMCS, IV, 94–​5. 177 BL Lansdowne 73, f. 7v. 178 BL Add. 48064, f. 110. 179 Strype, Whitgift, III, 261–​2; BL Harleian 6849, f. 179 (undated); BL Add. 48064, f. 88. A further copy: HMCS, IV, 94–​5. 180 Collinson, Bancroft, 58–​9. 181 Collinson, Bancroft, 58–​9; see also Collinson, Elizabethan Puritan Movement, 408. 182 Collinson, Elizabethan Puritan Movement, 411. 183 Patrick Collinson, ‘England and international Calvinism, 1558–​ 1640’, reprinted in From Cranmer to Sancroft (London, 2006), 84–​5. 184 SP 12/​238/​82. 185 For the ‘charter’, see Strype, Annals, IV, 108–​9. It is now at Yale University. 186 James M. Sutton, ‘The retiring patron: William Cecil and the cultivation of retirement, 1590–​98’, in Pauline Croft (ed.), Patronage, Culture and Power: The Early Cecils (New Haven and London, 2002), 159–​79, esp. 165–​70. 187 Hartley, Proceedings, II, 411–​13.

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88 Hammer, ‘Cecil-​Hatton Letters’. 1 189 Hammer, ‘Cecil-​Hatton Letters’, 213. 190 HMCS, IV, 20 (23 March 1590); BL Lansdowne 68, f. 8 (14 May 1591); SP 78/​ 24, f. 70 (22 April 1591, about war business). 191 Collinson, Elizabethan Puritan Movement, 428. 192 Arber, Introductory Sketch to the Martin Marprelate Controversy, 15. 193 Strype, Whitgift, III, 265–​7. See also George Paule’s comments above, p. 197. 194 APC 1591–​92, 75; Neale, Parliaments 1584–​1601, 256. He was later sent back to prison by another notable anti-​Puritan, Buckhurst, where he died. 195 BL Lansdowne 68, f. 135. 196 Hughes and Larkin, III, 86–​93; ITL, Petyt 538/​6, f. 41 (royal commission to Burghley, Hunsdon, Cobham and Buckhurst to execute the office of the Great Seal, mentioning the commissions, 22 November 1591); CSPD 1591–​4, 112–​ 15, 118. 197 Peter Lake, Bad Queen Bess? Libels, Secret Histories, and the Politics of Publicity in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth I (Oxford, 2016), 333. 198 John Guy argues that the proclamation was being drafted in mid-​August, when Hatton was in London and the council at Cowdray Park whilst on the royal progress, but a draft by Burghley is dated 17 October. Guy, Elizabeth: The Forgotten Years, 172. 199 SP 12/​240/​53. 200 CSPD 1591–​4, 123; Smith and Baker, Papers of Nathaniel Bacon III, 127–​30. 201 [Robert Persons], An advertisement written to a Secretary of my L. Treasurer’s of England, trans. R. Verstegan ([Antwerp], 1592; STC 19885), 13. 202 Anthony G. Petti (ed.), The Letters and Despatches of Richard Verstegan (c. 1550–​1640) (CRS 52, 1959), 34, 35, 37. See also Petti, ‘Richard Verstegan and Catholic martyrologies of the later Elizabethan period’, Recusant History 5 (1959–​60), 64–​90, at 85. 203 Camden, History, 458 (emphasis in original). 204 Guy, Elizabeth: The Forgotten Years, 170. 205 Richard Challoner, Memoirs of Missionary Priests (London, 1842), I, 134–​47. 206 ‘The Official Lists of Catholic Prisoners during the Reign of Queen Elizabeth, Part II, 1581–​1602’, Miscellanea II (CRS 2, London, 1906), 261, 267; J. H. Pollen (ed.), Unpublished Documents relating to the English Martyrs Vol. I 1584–​1603 (CRS 5, 1908), 131–​3; Babington: SP 53/​18/​35, 12/​192/​18. 207 SP 12/​206/​74. 208 Questier, Catholicism and Community, 204. 209 Memoirs, 384. 210 HMCS, III, 279 (1587); Hugh Bowler (ed.), Recusant Roll No. 2 (1593–​4) (CRS 57, 1965), 23; Mark Forrest (ed.), Ralph Treswell’s Survey of Sir Christopher Hatton’s Lands in Purbeck 1585–​6 (Dorset Record Society 19, 2017), 8, 148. 211 Henry Foley (ed.), Records of the English Province of the Society of Jesus (London, 1878), III, 295; Challoner, Memoirs of Missionary Priests, I, 142–​4; J. H. Pollen, Acts of English Martyrs (London, 1891), 100–​17.

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212 Spencer J. Weinreich (ed.), Pedro de Ribadeneyra’s ‘Ecclesiastical History of the Schism of the Kingdom of England’: A Spanish Jesuit’s History of the English Reformation (Leiden and Boston, 2017), 599–​600. Verstegan: Pollen, Unpublished Documents relating to the English Martyrs, 209. 213 Lisa McClain, Lest we be Damned: Practical Innovation and Lived Experience among Catholics in Protestant England, 1559–​1642 (New York and London, 2004), 157. 214 LPL MS 2004, f. 7. 215 Collinson, Elizabethan Puritan Movement, 263–​4. 216 Digges, Humble motives for association to maintaine religion established, 25. 217 Usher, William Cecil and Episcopacy, 135. 218 Marshall, Heretics and Believers, 518; Patrick Collinson, ‘Bishop Richard Bancroft and the succession’, in Doran and Kewes, Doubtful and Dangerous, 92–​111, at 98, 99 n.28. 219 Peter Marshall, Reformation England 1480–​1642 (London, 2003), 132–​3; see also G. W. Bernard, ‘The Church of England c. 1529–​c. 1642’, History 75:244 (1990), 183–​206, at 192. 220 See Peter Lake, ‘The significance of the Elizabethan identification of the Pope as Antichrist’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History 31:2 (April 1980), 161–​78, at 161. 221 ‘Bancroft, Richard (bap. 1544, d. 1610)’, ODNB. 222 John Guy, ‘Introduction –​the 1590s: the second reign of Elizabeth I?’, in Guy (ed.) The Reign of Elizabeth I: Court and Culture in the Last Decade (Cambridge, 1995), esp. 11–​13; Ethan Shagan, ‘The English Inquisition: constitutional conflict and ecclesiastical law in the 1590s’, Historical Journal 47:3 (2004), 541–​65.

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6 Hatton within the Elizabethan regime

We have seen, therefore, that Hatton’s conduct might plausibly lead observers to conclude that he was Catholic. In Chapter 1 we saw that his family and early life were probably Catholic; in Chapter 2 we saw that he associated with and protected Catholics throughout his life. Chapter 3 showed that many of his contemporaries thought him some kind of Catholic. Chapter 5 shows that his role in the making of religious policy was consistently focused on bridling the Puritans. The extent of his lifelong support for Catholics (and the lack of equivalent support for moderate Protestants or Puritans) alone provides a prima facie case to think that to some extent he shared the beliefs of those whom he protected and defended. Yet for most of his life he served a Protestant Queen, and for fourteen years was a member of her Privy Council, and he never publicly resiled from adherence to this. What then can we say about his actual religious views? As we have seen repeatedly, Hatton is a poorly documented figure, and nowhere more so than in his religious life. Unsurprisingly, while there is now a good deal of literature on early modern religious identities, it seldom focuses on such opaque individuals; it is very difficult to assess the religious identity of someone who never talked about his religion in detail. Nevertheless, there are many early modern figures whose precise religious views are elusive, especially if they operated in the political arena, where conformity to a legally established Church might conflict to greater or lesser extents with inward beliefs. The religious views of Elizabeth herself require considerable unpacking.1 In the case of Lord Burghley, there are conflicting signs: although recent literature depicts him as a fairly hot Protestant and anti-​papist, he was often perceived at the time as being relatively conservative, and he was friendly to a few individual Catholics.2 There are questions about Leicester, too; clearly he patronised many Puritans, but early in his career, he certainly flirted with Catholicism (probably for reasons of expediency). As Adams points out, it is unclear how ‘theologically literate’ Leicester was, and certainly the same is true of Hatton.3 All of these individuals, of course, conformed to Catholicism during Mary I’s reign.

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In Hatton’s public actions or statements, or in his surviving private letters, he made no clear statement about his personal faith. There is plenty of evidence of conventional piety, for example when condoling bereaved friends, but no theological specificity.4 When seeking clemency towards suspected Catholics, he never defended their religious heterodoxy on its merits or on grounds of the intrinsic benefits of toleration.5 We know next to nothing even about his deathbed, and he left no will. One rare indication about Hatton’s personal religion exists in material form. Holdenby parish church contains a lavishly carved wooden screen between nave and chancel which appears to have been made for Holdenby House. This probably formed the screen through which worshippers entered the lower part of the chapel, while the upper section may have been part of the gallery through which the elite viewed worship. It is hazardous to draw conclusions from this, but it does not suggest that Hatton wished to worship in an austere environment.6 There is occasionally language in Hatton’s letters which suggest keener Protestant attitudes. In 1580 he wrote to Walsingham about ‘this [not ‘the’] devilishe Pope’ and his and Spain’s ‘Romishe purpose’, though this came in the immediate aftermath of a landing by papal forces at Smerwick in Ireland.7 He told Leicester that ‘unto the Gospel of Christ His poor flock do find you a most faithful and mighty supporter’.8 In memos about Mary Stuart, he talked about the risk of ‘the overthrowe of religion’, ‘the religion’, ‘the Papistes’, ‘the treasonable practyse of Papistes and Jhesuites’, ‘the papisticall sedicius hope of present competency’.9 These could suggest conventional Protestant attitudes, although two things cast some doubt on that. Firstly, they all occur in contexts where religion and politics were entwined, when the nation was threatened by Catholic foes, and secondly, they occur when he was addressing Protestant colleagues, so he may merely have been using arguments that appealed to them or suited the matter at hand. His only surviving detailed comments on religious issues are in his parliamentary speeches, especially the handful of set-​piece speeches which survive in detailed records. These are sometimes cited as evidence for Hatton’s orthodoxy, especially his major 1589 speech.10 In all of them, he severely criticised various Catholics. In 1584–​85, he attacked Philip II of Spain and his contacts with English plotters, as well as unfolding the affair of the would-​ be assassin William Parry, excoriating Parry’s religious non-​ conformity and conversion to Catholicism.11 In 1586–​87 his most notable speech was against Mary, Queen of Scots, a woman ‘grounded in papistry’, ‘beinge the hope of all idoletry and, in myne opynion, of a nomber of subiectes terming them selves Catholiques conceyved to be a present possessor of the crowne of England’.12 Thus Hatton undoubtedly referred to the papists as an alien

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and separate group, albeit he did open up a distinction between Catholics who acknowledged Mary as present queen and by implication others who did not. Later in the same Parliament he spoke about the danger of ‘the Papists at home and their Ministers ... it hath touched us in the blood of the Nobility and the blood of many Subjects’, but again his speech concentrated on the Pope and the King of Spain.13 In 1589, his opening speech denounced the Pope as that ‘woolvish bloodesucker’; no English monarch was ‘so diverselie attempted, so malitiouslie persecuted, or so greatlie endaungered, and that in the highest degree, as hir Majestie hath bene through the infinite lewde, cruell and barbarous practises of those most proude and shamelessse [sic] preistes’.14 He also attacked the King of Spain, his former college head William Allen (‘of all the villanous traitors that I thinke this lande ever bred or brought up, that wicked preist, that shamelesse atheiste and bloodie Cardinall Allen, he in deede excelleth’), the Babington plotters, some of whom had been his followers, and Hugh Hall, likewise, laying stress on attacking priests who had led Catholics on to bad courses.15 Thus Hatton certainly criticised Catholics on numerous occasions, not holding back on the actions of successive popes, the King of Spain, and English (and indeed Scottish) Catholic plotters. There is a certain amount of disdainful talk of the mass and so on.16 That said, he also seems generally to have minimised explicit criticism of English Catholics, to leave open a conceptual space for loyal Catholicism. Although it is hard to be certain given that his speeches were usually recorded by others, he often seems to have avoided critical use of the word ‘Catholic’ in his parliamentary speeches (usually preferring ‘papist’), and often using it only with some form of qualification, as in his 1586 reference to ‘a nomber of subiectes terming them selves Catholiques’.17 Arguably his views on English Catholics emerge less from what he said than from what he omitted –​he did not criticise ordinary recusants or suggest they were a great threat, although he did occasionally refer slightly delicately to the existence of disloyal Catholic nobles and gentry in England, such as those publicly known to be involved in plots.18 The overall impression he conveyed was that Catholics were problematic only if they actively adhered to the Pope or plotted against the Queen. This can also be placed alongside his Macavity-​esque lack of involvement in the passage of anti-​ Catholic legislation (see Chapter 5). Perhaps unsurprisingly, therefore, this approach of hostility to the papacy but virtual silence on English recusants could be regarded as the least anti-​Catholic attitude compatible with membership of the Elizabethan regime during the turbulent 1580s, and akin to the principle of not making windows into men’s souls.

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Perhaps more interesting is that Hatton’s speeches also included stout defences of the English Church. In 1587, he made mention of the ‘glorious Gospel’ (or at least this is what is recorded).19 In 1589, he spoke of ‘a countrie which inbraceth without corruption in doctrine the true and sincere religion of Christe’, and praised ‘this Church of England as nowe it standeth in this reformacion’, which was ‘both in forme and doctrine … agreable with the scriptures, with the most auncient generall councells, with the practise of the primitive church, and with the iudgementes of all the olde and learned fathers’.20 He also made a spirited defence of the royal supremacy, attacking the ‘usurped tyrannie’ of the papacy.21 Again, it can be argued that Hatton could hardly do otherwise when acting as the government’s leading spokesman in Parliament. But in many ways the real target of his 1589 speech in particular was not Catholics but Puritans, who were arguably presented as the more insidious threat, since the Catholics were situated as being mostly external, while the Puritans were disturbers of the internal peace of Elizabeth’s Church, critics ‘even amongst hir freinds’.22 As we have seen in Chapter 5, this speech has been seen as positioning the English Church midway between Roman Catholicism and puritanism, perhaps accounting for the attempt to even-​handedly bash both sides. To be highlighting the problem of puritanism a few months after the Spanish Armada is a mark of Hatton’s concern with the issue; indeed the 1589 Parliament did not in fact pass new anti-​Catholic laws, but worried quite a bit about presbyterianism. Hatton’s speeches are therefore at odds with his behaviour towards individual Catholics. Do they prove that Hatton had genuinely adopted Protestantism? There are obvious reasons to question whether his speeches were entirely straightforward. As the regime’s leading spokesman in the Commons, he could hardly speak otherwise: he was defending the Church and the law, representing the Queen and the regime, catering to their views as well as those of his audience, and in several cases responding to either Catholic plots against the Queen or war with Catholic powers. His parliamentary audiences were often aggressively anti-​Catholic. If he had indeed held private Catholic views, articulating them would have ended his political career. Thus, while his speeches cannot be dismissed entirely, it is extremely hard to see them as sincere representations of his personal beliefs. Criticism of the Pope or other Catholics is not, of course, impossible to reconcile with Catholic beliefs. It certainly distinguishes the speaker from Catholics who were firm allies of the papacy like the exiles Allen or Persons, for example. Hatton was primarily criticising foreign Catholics, along with a handful of Englishmen (in 1589 Allen, Nicholas Sander, Campion, and others, including his own former servant Hugh Hall). But he did not argue that all English Catholics were automatically traitors or fifth columnists. The only passage which could be interpreted as doing so attacked English

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Catholic priests for encouraging English Catholic laypeople to ‘playe the wilie ffoxes, to confesse their alleageaunce unto hir in all temporall matters. So it is most manifeste what we maie expect at these men’s handes’ –​but whether the final sentence refers to the priests or the laymen is unclear.23 These speeches hardly stack up against all the evidence of his Catholic leanings. As Brooks wrote, ‘though his position as a statesman of a country threatened by enemies fostered by Rome, forced him to say many hard things of the Pope, there is no evidence that he felt any of that prejudice towards Catholicism that Walsingham and Leicester had’.24 This seems precisely right. Given the inadequacy of the evidence, it is ultimately impossible to be definitive about Hatton’s personal religious views; we can only consider what possible solution conforms most closely to the evidence. Above all, any assessment must take account of three key facts which are if not contradictory then at least in considerable tension: his lifelong support of Catholics; his long-​term support of anti-​Puritans within the Church; and his ability to survive untroubled within the established Church and a regime which was legally Protestant. Taking the third of these points, his outward religious observance, first. There is no evidence that Hatton ever deviated from conformity to the Elizabethan Church either in public or private. Although no specific description of him attending worship has been found, it must be assumed that he obeyed the law, attended services and took communion. Some historians have seen this as sufficient evidence that he was conventionally Protestant.25 Indeed Hatton’s alliance with Leicester over the Anjou match and other issues, while temporary, is sometimes (and clearly wrongly) used to place him in ‘the forward Protestant group in the government’.26 Yet the extensive literature on church papistry demonstrates that outward conformity is insufficient evidence for internal beliefs. One potential solution which has been advanced by, for example, his biographer Brooks, is that his youthful Catholicism gave way to genuine Protestantism later in life. In Brooks’s view, Hatton was essentially a conformist: ‘he conformed, passing from Catholic to Protestant’.27 His ‘private feelings’ were probably ‘more or less’ Catholic, ‘although at this time [1587] Hatton was very far from being a practising Catholic’.28 This would also be supported by Hatton’s parliamentary speeches, particularly his defence of the Church of England in 1589. Although the fragmentary evidence makes it difficult to be certain, it may be that Hatton’s interventions on behalf of Catholics reduced slightly after the early 1580s, although they by no means ceased. A potential cause of this shift might have been the growth of separatist sentiment among English Catholics, as revealed by the plots of the 1580s and the growth of socially disruptive recusancy. Yet a shift

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to genuine Protestantism, too, is difficult to sustain. As we have seen in Chapter 2, there is no sign that he gave up patronising Catholics entirely once he joined the Privy Council or became associated with anti-​puritanism within the Church: he pursued both in parallel. Another possibility is that Hatton should be regarded as some kind of politique, or as the Elizabethan regime might have termed it, a neuter: either he had little personal religious conviction, or he was too pragmatically concerned with the unity of the country and civil peace to favour harsh measures against Catholics. In this regard we might speculate about how he was affected by the Marian persecution of his youth, particularly given that his cousin Lawrence Saunders was a prominent victim. His consistent efforts to encourage conformism among Catholics (such as Arundel, Sheldon and Paget), while hardly controversial in itself, may support this, although again he supported many people who did not conform. Several historians have taken this line: Charles Wilson called him ‘a politique of politiques’, and Collinson argued that he shared the Queen’s ‘secular, disengaged’ approach to religion and its effects on policy.29 Hatton himself cited some arguments that could be seen as following these lines, for example in his speech against the ‘bill and book’ in 1587, when he argued that the changes to church services proposed would ‘drive them by thowsandes either to become atheistes or papistes’.30 This line also reflects historians who account for Hatton’s favour towards Catholics by arguing that he was simply kindly, tolerant and even-​handed. MacCaffrey, for example, suggests he had ‘a tolerant and mild attitude towards religious contention, and there is no solid evidence for ascribing Catholic beliefs to Hatton’. Although he helped Catholics, this argument goes, he helped Protestants too; ‘he was impartial in the distribution of his favors’.31 Again, however, as Chapter 2 demonstrated, he did not dispense favour impartially to all sides, but consistently sought to defend Catholics. Furthermore, Hatton’s most significant political interventions concerned religious matters: his role in the fall of Grindal, and his campaign against the Puritans between 1588 and his death do not suggest politique attitudes. Thomas Cartwright probably did not regard Hatton as kindly and tolerant; insofar as Hatton hated anyone, he appears to have hated Puritans (or, at least, puritanism). In any case, a tolerant attitude towards Catholics was far from an uncontroversial position within Elizabethan government. A somewhat linked possibility is that Hatton had simply no clearer idea of his own religious views than anyone else; that he had lapsed into some form of agnosticism or religious confusion. Alan Davidson, in his thesis on Oxfordshire Catholics, points out that Brooks’ picture of Hatton’s religion is not wholly clear, given Brooks lays out his strongly Catholic links (if anything underplaying them), but does not provide a definitive verdict.

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Davidson suggests that ‘though some of the confusion may be in Brooks’ mind, it is more than probable that most of it was in Hatton’s mind also’.32 Again, however, this fails to explain his quite definite and consistent support for Catholics and anti-​Puritans; he does not seem indifferent. Could Hatton have been a Catholic, then? Given that two of the three key facts mentioned above (his conformity and his support for anti-​Puritans) exposed him to no personal or political jeopardy, while the third one (his support for Catholics) potentially did, there is a natural sense in which it is more interesting. If there was little or nothing to be gained from supporting Catholics, why would he do so, unless he sincerely wanted to? If, then, he was in some sense Catholic, how could that have been possible? Some historians have indeed accepted that he was some kind of Catholic. For J. A. Froude, he was ‘a Catholic in all but the name’, for Julian Corbett, ‘a Papist in his politics’.33 Patrick Collinson says ‘that Hatton was a crypto-​ Papist was not just a fantasy of madmen like Birchet’.34 Glyn Parry is happy to call him a crypto-​Catholic, as is Diarmaid MacCulloch: ‘at the beginning of the 1570s Hatton was probably still a crypto-​Catholic. Progress at Court meant inevitably abandoning any open Catholic sympathies, and in later years Hatton showed no inclination to leave the established Church; nevertheless, he kept more Catholic friends than was common for an Elizabethan statesman.’35 John Bossy regarded him as part of a ‘web of Catholics and sympathisers’.36 At the same time, others have dismissed the possibility that Hatton was Catholic on the grounds of his public actions, such as his participation in the trials of plotters or his anti-​papal rhetoric. Yet this approach lacks nuance. One might theoretically support a restoration of Catholicism (which Hatton may or may not have done) while also thinking that an attempt to do so via regicide was immoral or liable to lead to civil war, or that a Spanish invasion was a medicine considerably worse than the disease. One might reconcile Catholic beliefs with a view that the peace and security of England necessitated the execution of Mary Stuart, or that England would be safer with a small power like an independent Netherlands rather than a large power like Spain or France across the Channel, whichever religion its inhabitants followed. Simply because one was a Catholic did not oblige one to support every scheme dreamt up by other Catholics, or to support foreign Catholic powers. To assume that Catholics all thought alike, or thought purely in confessional terms, and based their analysis of situations on a single form of Catholicism, is unhelpful. In principle, there seems no intrinsic reason to dismiss the possibility that Hatton was secretly Catholic. There are examples of people who kept their Catholicism secret throughout their lives. Charles Danvers, who was executed for his part in the Essex rising in 1601, was found afterwards to have

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been a Catholic.37 He was of course much less high profile than Hatton. Yet it does not seem impossible that, in private, at Ely Place or Holdenby, surrounded by his Catholic servants and with a Catholic priest (Hugh Hall or some other) at hand, Hatton participated in Catholic worship, but barring the discovery of wholly new evidence this is impossible to prove or disprove. We can however speculate on the question of, if he was some kind of Catholic, what that might have been. Certainly it is impossible to see him as a strict Roman Catholic, an obedient son of the Church, since that would have entailed acceptance of Elizabeth’s excommunication and refusal to attend her Church. Furthermore, the nature of Hatton’s Catholic connections suggests a relatively moderate stance. As we saw in Chapter 2, Hatton mostly associated with relatively quiescent Catholics, crypto-​ Catholics, occasional conformists and so on. There were certainly significant links with the English mission, plotting and so on within his networks, and Hatton may have been willing to overlook them, but they seem to be the minority. His links with seminary priests were limited. Surely Hatton did, in fact, regard the actions of the Babington plotters, of Nicholas Sander, Edmund Campion or Robert Persons, as reprehensible, just as he saw the extreme Puritans as quite wrong (though not necessarily wrong in the same way). Similarly, Hatton differed from many active Elizabethan Catholics in showing no interest in international Catholicism; he never seems to have favoured alliances with foreign Catholic powers (most obviously Spain, but also France), as many English Catholics did, either for material support or in hope of enlisting support for English Catholics. Whereas conservative figures such as the Earl of Sussex or Lord Montague inclined towards good relations with Spain on pragmatic grounds, Hatton did not hesitate to attack Spain either oratorically or (in his support for Drake’s enterprises) literally.38 Nor did he favour anything more than tactical alliance with France, to whom other English Catholics looked for support at times.39 Of course, unlike many Catholics, he had no need for financial support from abroad, but nor does he show any sign of hoping for dramatic change in England (again, unsurprising considering his position). This may suggest that if Hatton did inwardly hold Catholic views, he may have been more in the line of Christopher Haigh’s residual Catholicism rather than John Bossy’s revitalised, Tridentine Catholic. Arguably more than anything else, Hatton seems to have been interested in protecting Catholic gentry. One might even say that this stance is what one would expect from someone of his social origins and his generation. From this angle, the Campion-​Persons mission and its sequels presented as great a threat to the likes of Hatton as it did to the Elizabethan regime itself. One model which would fit the evidence is that Hatton was something like a Henrician Catholic. The classic exemplar here might be Stephen Gardiner

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who, under Henry VIII at least, was indisputably loyal to the Crown, conformed to the royal supremacy, but was equally certainly a Catholic at heart and ultimately preferred to return to papal supremacy; he was ‘at heart a papist (albeit a crypto-​papist), as so many of his enemies alleged. Yet his loyalty to the crown was equally sincere.’40 This was of course a model which Gardiner himself abandoned when circumstances changed, but it was a plausible approach for much of the mid-​sixteenth century and beyond, and indeed in the early years of her reign, many of Elizabeth’s own counsellors were in this mould.41 Yet there are serious questions as to whether such a position was sustainable. What worked for Stephen Gardiner in the 1530s, and even figures such as the 12th Earl of Arundel in the 1560s, became increasingly difficult as the English Protestant Church bedded down, and English Catholicism underwent its own shifts. The Jesuit mission and seminary priests, as well as events like the death of Campion, pushed many Catholics into recusancy and away from accommodation with the regime, and indeed many of Hatton’s associates followed that path. Certainly Hatton (unsurprisingly) shows no sign of the alienation from the regime that many Catholics experienced during the 1580s. It may be that the increased hostility he showed towards some Catholics in his speeches of the 1580s reflected greater concern about the direction of English Catholicism more generally. In that sense, Hatton’s approach may appear as a relic of a more uncertain time in the middle of the century, and an increasingly untenable approach. After all, how could English Catholicism be sustained without access to priests? There is no sign that Hatton confronted problems such as this, and perhaps simply internalised his beliefs, seeing no need to act on them. Yet for all the apparent contradictions or inconsistencies of such a position, there were always many within the English Catholic community who claimed to reconcile Catholicism and loyalty to the Crown, along with a rejection of Spain and the Jesuits. Such claims were loudly voiced during the Armada crisis and typified, perhaps, by Viscount Montague.42 Within a few years of Hatton’s death this position was asserted in the ‘Archpriest’ or ‘Appellant’ debate, and moreover the notion was semi-​publicly entertained by senior figures in the regime, most notably Hatton’s protégé Richard Bancroft.43 The Appellants condemned many of the same figures (Persons, the Jesuits and so on) as did Hatton in his parliamentary speeches, claiming to represent the true face of English Catholicism. It seems likely that, had Hatton been alive, he would have warmly encouraged these moves, which it could be argued were the logical extension of what he stood for throughout his career. Clearly these claims often turned on contested versions of the meaning and precise terms of loyalty, however; one clear difference is that the Appellants still professed loyalty to the Pope as head of the Church,

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albeit not the secular authority which the papacy claimed. We simply do not know Hatton’s views on that. Hatton’s attitudes to puritanism may also help to explain his position. The trope, deployed both by anti-​Puritans and by anti-​Jesuit Catholics, that puritanism should not be regarded as a group within Protestantism but as a separate sect, that the religious taxonomy of England should be regarded as tripartite, Catholic-​Protestant-​Puritan, was already well-​established by the later Elizabethan period.44 Potentially Hatton shared this analysis and believed that (moderate) Protestantism could be made compatible with (loyal) Catholicism (whichever side he took himself to be on), or indeed that moderate Protestants needed to ally with Catholics as allies of order and orthodoxy against the disorderly threat of puritanism, and that the Church of England was closer to Rome than Geneva.45 After all, as late as the Parliament of 1587, there were still serious moves to institute presbyterianism in England. In that context Hatton’s position may reflect his genuine concern for good order. The affinity between anti-​Puritans and loyal Catholics surely helps to explain Hatton’s support for both of these attitudes. In some ways this may be regarded as problematic, since, while anti-​puritanism might be seen as closer to Catholicism than other elements within the Church, clerics such as Aylmer, Whitgift and Bancroft were indisputably Protestants, and indeed Calvinists. Hatton’s support for them, then, has several potential explanations. The first is that Hatton was genuinely a conservative Protestant, although as we have seen, this makes his favour towards Catholics rather puzzling; Whitgift might have (for example) manoeuvred to turn an anti-​Catholic bill into an anti-​Puritan one in the 1593 Parliament, but he did not personally patronise significant numbers of Catholics or seek out their company.46 The second is that it was simply politically convenient to follow the Queen’s inclinations, and this is more plausible; for much of her reign, she leaned towards the view that (as she put it in 1592) ‘she is in as much danger of such as are called Purytanes as she is of the Papysts’.47 Patrick Collinson, for example, suggested that Hatton posed as a champion of the anti-​Puritans to outmanoeuvre Leicester.48 Hatton may have perceived that anti-​Puritans were a rising constituency that he could lead. Above all, Elizabeth favoured them. Collinson wrote that ‘to be an echo to the Queen’s thoughts and fears was a safe road to advancement’; MacCaffrey argued that this was a ‘calculated political strategy. Heavily dependent on the royal favor, he saw the defense of the prerogative and the suppression of nonconformity as his logical posture.’49 Similarly, John Guy argued that Hatton ‘shared the queen’s abhorrence of nonconformity’.50 One problem with this interpretation is that Hatton appeared not to abhor Catholic non-​conformity, only Puritan.

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More importantly, it assumes that Hatton had no personal religious views (or no desire to act on them), and again this seems incompatible with continuously protecting Catholics. MacCaffrey’s argument that, since Hatton had no other political capital than the Queen’s favour, he had to follow her lead, is not without merit; yet other ministers also needed royal favour, and they took very different approaches. Arguably Hatton faced more difficulties and invited more trouble by following a position which was anathema to rivals such as Leicester and Burghley. The simplest explanation is that Hatton took this position because he believed it. If, however, Hatton was some kind of Catholic, he might well have regarded support for anti-​ Puritan churchmen as eminently useful, not only because it was popular with the Queen, but because anti-​puritanism appeared to be that faction of the Church which was closest to (if not the same as) his own views, bringing the Church as close to his own position as was feasible and shifting it away from the Puritans. There are several reasons for this affinity. As Collinson points out, anti-​Puritans like Bancroft might well see some Catholics (like the Appellants) as sharing support for ‘an ecclesiastical order of a traditional kind, not so unlike episcopacy as practised in the Elizabethan Church’, a standpoint from which Jesuits and Puritans seemed equally disruptive.51 This is not to suggest that anti-​Puritan churchmen were not firm Protestants. Yet to a non-​dogmatic (and possibly not very theologically literate) Catholic loyalist, a supporter of the royal supremacy, the difference between on the one hand an anti-​Puritan, who defended the ecclesiastical status quo and whose churchmanship was superficially more familiar, and on the other a Puritan might seem considerable. Furthermore, it is possible that Hatton’s efforts to repress the Puritans were part of an attempt to make the Church of England as appealing as possible to Catholics, in the hope of achieving greater unity in the future. Collinson wrote that when Bancroft attacked Geneva in 1593, ‘Catholics saw the opportunity for a pragmatic alliance’; Hatton was arguably a slightly earlier exponent of this.52 Henry Howard, indeed, seems to have recognised this affinity; when he sent his devotional writings (which sought to reconcile loyalist Catholicism with conservative Protestantism) to Whitgift, he recommended that they be examined prior to publication by Lancelot Andrewes and Richard Bancroft.53 Others, too, have argued that quasi-​Catholic opinion was drawn to Laudianism, that ‘a residuum of conservative religious opinion in the Church of England may well have welcomed the initiatives of Archbishop William Laud and other like-​minded clerics’, or that church papists may have provided ‘a popular, parochial basis for seventeenth-​ century “Arminianism” ’.54 More prosaically, one rational reason for a Catholic sympathiser to support attacks on Puritans is that it tended to (or was believed to) reduce

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pressure on Catholics, in a kind of see-​saw of repression. Burghley wrote that Whitgift’s proceedings against Puritan ministers in 1584 were ‘so vehement, and so general against ministers and preachers, as the papistes are thereby greately incouraged, all evell disposed subjectes animated, and thereby the Queen’s Majesties safety endaungered’.55 Such campaigns sent out a public message that Puritans were as much or more of a threat than Catholics, and therefore allowed Catholics to hope for further changes to their advantage; additionally, in practical terms, Whitgift’s campaign caused such a stir that the Church authorities hardly had time to proceed against Catholics. Puritans made a similar argument: John Udall noted that ‘the Papist is on the Bi.[shops’] side, because he can finde shilter [sic] vnder them to hide his idolatry’. If the bishops attacked Puritans, then Catholics ‘may be let alone for a time’.56 Indeed, it has been argued that Udall depicted Hatton in the figure of Tertullus, the Catholic sidekick advising a bishop how to repress the Puritans.57 This is not totally convincing, since Tertullus is depicted as being of only middling status and a scholar, but Udall’s work, which makes some acute jabs at Whitgift, does convincingly suggest the perceived link between bishops, their defenders and the papists. Thus supporting Aylmer and Whitgift might have a material impact on protecting Hatton’s Catholic and crypto-​Catholic friends. An example of this is Bishop Freake of Norwich, who in the mid-​1570s worked in close alliance with well-​known Catholics in his diocese to restrain the indiscipline of Puritan preachers and their gentry allies.58 More broadly, MacCulloch has noted that early ‘proto-​Arminians’ had ‘surprisingly close’ links with ‘the East Anglian Catholic recusant community’ and allied with them against Puritans.59 Further light can be cast on Hatton’s position by comparing him with contemporary figures who appear to have held similar stances. In fact, one does not have to look far for points of comparison; it was hardly unusual for individuals to face conflict between their private religious views and their duties to the law. The early Protestant reformers during Henry VIII’s reign did; Diarmaid MacCulloch has recently commented on Thomas Cromwell’s nicodemism.60 Equally, few would deny that many of Elizabeth’s leading councillors were somewhat more religiously radical than was she (this insight has been central to almost all recent accounts of her reign), nor that in the early years of her reign, many of her councillors were also quite conservative. Indeed, as I have argued elsewhere, there are quite a number of individuals who successfully combined service at high levels of Elizabeth’s government with substantial Catholic links, such as the privy councillors the Earl of Worcester and Sir John Fortescue.61 Individuals of this kind can indeed be found at every level of government. Mary, Queen of Scots was herself obliged by circumstance to enforce the Protestant religious settlement, and she attacked Catholic nobles such

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as the Earl of Huntly, while simultaneously attending Catholic services in her Chapel Royal.62 There are many lesser examples, for example Francis Beaumont, a justice of common pleas, who had a Catholic mother and probably wife, and was himself suspected of recusancy and in 1591 charged with supporting seminary priests, yet prospered in the law and condemned Catholic priests to the gallows.63 William Cordell, master of the rolls until his death in 1581, was also widely recognised as a Catholic.64 Richard Lewknor, a Sussex JP with strong Catholic leanings, whose brother was a recusant, condemned four seminary priests to execution at the Chichester sessions in 1588.65 As Hasler puts it, ‘the Elizabethans were used to gamekeepers and poachers changing roles’.66 Of course for these individuals, their positions might well involve elements of compromise or dishonesty –​ indeed, they almost inevitably did. There are also parallels with other Elizabethan ministers with Catholic links. The Earl of Essex, only slightly later, offers some comparable points. Essex was closely associated with forward Protestant positions at times, and certainly the Puritans hoped that he would succeed his stepfather, Leicester, as their chief protector at court.67 Essex refused to let the Puritan tail wag him, however: his clients included many Catholics, such as his stepfather, Sir Christopher Blount, and close confidants such as Henry Howard and the Earl of Southampton.68 Many of his fellow ‘rebels’ were Catholics, and two of his followers were later Gunpowder plotters, Robert Catesby and Francis Tresham, both from families with which Hatton had connections (this suggests that some of Hatton’s clients transferred to Essex, which would be logical given that when Hatton died in 1591, Essex’s career was taking off spectacularly). Essex also protected the ex-​Jesuit Thomas Wright, and fairly openly mulled toleration for Catholics.69 What differentiates Essex’s Catholic clients from Hatton’s is that Catholics were a much smaller part of Essex’s following, and they were balanced by a wide range of religious positions. Hatton’s network was much more strongly Catholic in character. Despite this, Essex’s Catholic links were used against him by the government after his fall –​a reminder of how dangerous Hatton’s connections would have been had he lost royal favour and become prey to his enemies. Less powerful figures who seem to have dwelled on a blurred line between Protestantism and Catholicism include Hatton’s friend John Harington.70 Another is Henry Constable, a minor courtier, poet and theologian. A 1592 report on Catholic contacts of the Earl of Shrewsbury mentions ‘a book which as I have hearde was written by one Cunstable a kinsmans of my lord & no dowbt a pollitique papist. This booke maketh a reconsiliacion betwixt the ij religions, & before my Lord Chancellors death he shewed yt to many, what pollisyes he hadd thearin I leave to thear consideracions that canne better judge.’71 This appears to be Constable’s Examen pacifique de

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la doctrine des Huguenots (1589), which has been described as a ‘genuine and influential attempt to reconcile Protestants and Romanists which gained a wide readership in Jacobean and Caroline England. Ostensibly the work of a French Catholic, it refuted the argument that the Huguenots should be labelled as heretics.’72 Constable circulated the book ‘among those of his Protestant acquaintance whom he thought might be open to conversion to the relatively moderate views of the Roman Church presented in it’. His relationship with Hatton (if any) is unclear, but Bossy thought that this ‘could possibly be taken to mean that it [the book] had the patronage of Sir Christopher Hatton’.73 Constable later went with Essex to Rouen in 1591, where he declared himself a Catholic, remaining in exile in France; he was later an opponent of the Jesuits in the Archpriest controversy and an advocate of James VI’s claim to the throne, which suggests he was the sort of loyal, moderate Catholic who might appeal to Hatton. The most helpful parallel, however, is with Hatton’s exact contemporary, Lord Henry Howard, younger brother of the fourth Duke of Norfolk. Howard was seen as a Catholic throughout his life; Pauline Croft writes that he ‘accommodated inner commitment to the Roman Catholic Church with a later acceptance of the need for outward conformity to the worship of the Church of England … He attended the Chapel Royal but was widely regarded as a Catholic.’74 He was in and out of favour during Elizabeth’s reign, and was never wholly trusted by her due to his links with the crisis of 1568–​72, his flirtations with Catholic plotting and his ‘close if cautious contact with Mary, Queen of Scots and with the Spanish ambassador’.75 In the closing years of the reign, he returned to favour, becoming close first to Essex and then to Sir Robert Cecil; under James I, he became a leading privy councillor and Earl of Northampton. His position at this point is very similar to Hatton’s under Elizabeth, and many of his political stances echo Hatton’s. His biographer Linda Levy Peck highlights his ‘outward conformity, his emphasis on authority, order and degree, and his attacks on papal power while a privy councillor’.76 At the same time, like Hatton, he protected English Catholics; he steered clear of Jesuits, seminary priests or ‘Catholic ideologues’, but supported Catholic gentry extensively.77 During James’s reign, he was ‘frequently called on to present the Crown’s case against Catholic conspirators and defend the king’s commitment to the established religion’, including speaking against the temporal power of the Pope. He publicly commented on the king’s attitude to toleration; he was sent to talk to ambassadors about policy towards Catholics. Like Hatton, his precise line shifted according to the political climate, most obviously, before and after the Gunpowder plot.78 This again undermines the argument that Hatton’s words and deeds against Catholics rule out personal Catholicism.

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Howard too was a stout defender of the established Church (although he does not seem to have been a major supporter of anti-​Puritans within the Church, and indeed intervened in Church politics much less that Hatton), writing tracts against the ‘peevish puritans’ and supporting royal authority, as well as more general pro-​Elizabeth works and an attack on Philip II.79 John Bossy, however, has argued that Howard went rather further than this: after Howard’s conversion to Rome in 1577, Bossy argues, he continued to regard the Church of England as ‘in principle, part of the Church Catholic’ with a legitimate episcopate, and he sought through his devotional writings to create ‘a devotional corpus which would ... bring loyal and probably church-​papist Catholics and devout members of the Church of England into spiritual accord’.80 Howard’s abhorrence of both Catholic and Protestant extremists also reflects Hatton’s attitudes.81 It is conceivable that Hatton arrived at, or hoped for, a similar position (probably in a rather less scholarly manner), whereby broadly Catholic theology could be reconciled with the royal supremacy, and believed that English people who saw themselves as Catholics could be brought within Elizabeth’s Church. As John Morrill has argued, ‘Hatton was sacramentally (and therefore in terms of soteriology and liturgy) ‘traditional’, but he was also a strong supporter of the royal supremacy. (He was in the mould of Gardiner and not of Pole.)’82 Although, as we have seen, it is impossible to be sure about Hatton’s precise views on the sacraments and liturgy, this seems persuasive. This would be compatible with his attacks on the papacy and defences of the Elizabethan Church in Parliament. Therefore, there are various cases in which figures who are widely regarded as Catholic played comparable roles within politics to Hatton. The ability of figures such as Howard to play leading roles within government while being widely recognised as Catholics makes it very hard to deny the possibility that Hatton might have done the same. The evidence laid out above therefore suggests that the most plausible conclusion is that Hatton was some kind of Catholic at heart, albeit one who conformed to the Elizabethan Church, and who may have genuinely believed in the royal supremacy (though this is less certain). We cannot analyse his doctrinal beliefs in detail, but his support for and association with so many individuals who regarded themselves as Catholics suggests that he also identified himself as being most closely tied to the Catholic faith, whatever he took that precisely to mean. Peter Marshall has commented that ‘a broad definition of Catholicism, one embracing those who hankered after the Latin mass and the calendar rituals of the medieval Church, and who disliked iconoclasm and the new breed of Protestant preachers’ was widely held early in Elizabeth’s reign, and it seems likely that this was broadly the

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position Hatton held to.83 Essentially this is to say that he was probably a church papist, or more accurately (since he does not seem to have been very papalist) a conforming Catholic. Again, the comparison with Lord Henry Howard is instructive. Hatton conformed; so did Howard. Hatton defended the English Church and spoke out against some Catholics; so did Howard. If Howard was a Catholic therefore, might not Hatton have been? A key element of Hatton’s position is that he largely subordinated his religion to his political career. Some of his Protestant colleagues arguably cared more for the ‘Protestant cause’ than for their careers; many prominent Catholics of the period were prepared to risk exile or death for their religion. Support of individual Catholics was the furthest Hatton was prepared to go. In many cases he probably had to make unpleasant compromises, such as participating in the trials and executions of his former followers and perhaps friends, to preserve his position. On some readings this may be seen as a politique position, but he was not neutral –​he clearly favoured one side, but only within the bounds of the politically practical. Whatever Hatton’s personal sympathies, he was by virtue of his position as a royal favourite always committed to Elizabeth’s rule; he was necessarily a supporter of what the government often described as ‘the present state of religion and policy’ and he could only rock the boat to a limited degree. This of course was one of the things which surely recommended him to Elizabeth: unlike (say) the Duke of Norfolk or the Earl of Arundel, who had independent standing, Hatton had come in with her and would, should the matter arise, most likely go out with her. It is of course possible that this is wrong. Perhaps Hatton did indeed become a firm Protestant, and his numerous Catholic associations were simply a matter of personal kindness. We cannot be certain. At the most basic level, the options are that he was either a Protestant who, for no other reason than kindness of heart, and in spite of the risks, extended his favour towards numerous Catholics; or that he regarded himself as essentially a Catholic who conformed merely because if he had been honest about his religion, he would have faced massive personal cost and his career would have been ended. In practice, he sat somewhere on a blurry line between (mostly) conforming Catholics and strongly anti-​Puritan Protestants. Whichever side of that line he was on, he regarded those on the other side essentially as allies against the real threat of puritanism. Determining which side of the line he sat on may be impossible, yet the fact that such a zone existed and was occupied by senior Elizabethan ministers is significant. Hatton’s demonstrably positive attitude to a wide range of English Catholics is in striking contrast to what is regarded as the dominant attitude of the Elizabethan regime.

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Notes 1 P. Collinson, ‘Windows in a woman’s soul: questions about the religion of Queen Elizabeth I’, in his Elizabethan Essays (London, 1994), 87–​118; Christopher Haigh, Elizabeth I (2nd edn., Harlow, 1998), ch. 2; S. Doran, ‘Elizabeth I’s religion: the evidence of her letters’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History 51 (2000), 699–​720. 2 For example, by foreign ambassadors: see above, Chapter 3, p. 127. For friendships with Catholics, see for example P. McGrath and J. Rowe, ‘The recusancy of Sir Thomas Cornwallis’, Proceedings of the Suffolk Institute of Archaeology 28 (1961), 226–​71; James Kelly, ‘Conformity, loyalty and the Jesuit mission to England of 1580’, in E. Glaser (ed.), Religious Tolerance in the Atlantic World: Early Modern and Contemporary Perspectives (Basingstoke, 2014), 149–​70. 3 Adams, Leicester and the Court, 228–​9. 4 See for example Memoirs, 280 (to Burghley), 381–​2 (to Leicester). 5 For example Memoirs, 309–​10, 379. 6 Mark Girouard, Town and Country (New Haven and London, 1992), 208–​10; Peter McCullough, Sermons at Court: Politics and Religion in Elizabethan and Jacobean Preaching (Cambridge, 1998), 23–​4. 7 Memoirs, 158–​61. 8 Memoirs, 381–​2. 9 Conyers Read (ed.), The Bardon Papers. Documents Relating to the Imprisonment & Trial of Mary Queen of Scots (Camden, 3rd ser. 17, 1909), 19–​20, 23–​4. ‘Present competency’ seems to refer to the prospect of Mary displacing Elizabeth, rather than merely succeeding her. 8; ‘Hatton, Sir Christopher (1540–​ 10 See for example Brooks, Hatton, 197–​ 1591)’, ODNB. 11 Hartley, Proceedings, II, 139–​41, 84–​8 (respectively). 12 Hartley, Proceedings, II, 214–​17; J. E. Neale, Elizabeth I and her Parliaments 1584–​1601 (London, 1957), 107. 13 Simonds D’Ewes, The journals of all the parliaments during the reign of Queen Elizabeth (London, 1682), 408–​9. 14 Hartley, Proceedings, II, 414–​24, at 416, 415. 15 Hartley, Proceedings, II, 417. 16 Hartley, Proceedings, II, 139. 17 Hartley, Proceedings, II, 214. 18 Hartley, Proceedings, II, 86, 140, 214. 19 D’Ewes, Journals, 408. 20 Hartley, Proceedings, II, 417, 419. 21 Hartley, Proceedings, II, 415. 22 Hartley, Proceedings, II, 419–​20. 23 Hartley, Proceedings, II, 420. 24 Brooks, Hatton, 208.

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25 Memoirs, 499; J. E. Neale, review of Brooks, Hatton, EHR 62:242 (Jan. 1947), 126–​7; D. B. Quinn, review of Brooks, Hatton, Irish Historical Studies 5:20 (September 1947), 362–​3; Conyers Read, Lord Burghley and Queen Elizabeth (London, 1960), 197, also 237; Susan Doran, Elizabeth I and Her Circle (Oxford, 2015), 149. 26 Conyers Read, ‘Walsingham and Burghley in Queen Elizabeth’s privy council’, EHR 28 (Jan. 1913), 34–​58, at 41 n.24; Conyers Read, Mr Secretary Walsingham and the Policy of Queen Elizabeth (Oxford, 1925), II, 96, 99, 102; III, 80, 90, 336; Amos C. Miller, Sir Henry Killigrew. Elizabethan Soldier and Diplomat (Leicester, 1963), 185 (quote). 27 Brooks, Hatton, 197. 28 Brooks, Hatton, 336. 29 Charles Wilson, Queen Elizabeth and the Revolt of the Netherlands (London, 1970), 69–​70 (emphasis in original); Patrick Collinson, Elizabethan Puritan Movement, 166–​7. 30 Hartley, Proceedings, II, 334; see the discussion in Peter Marshall, Heretics and Believers: A History of the English Reformation (pbk. edn., New Haven and London, 2018), 562. 31 MacCaffrey, Making of Policy, 453–​4. For similar verdicts, see Memoirs, 179–​80, 309, 499; Brooks, Hatton, 205, 210; Alice Gilmore Vines, Neither Fire nor Steel: Sir Christopher Hatton (Chicago, 1978), 69. 32 Alan Davidson, ‘Roman Catholicism in Oxfordshire from the late Elizabethan Period to the Civil War (c. 1580-​c. 1640)’ (PhD thesis, University of Bristol, 1970), 625–​6. 33 J. A. Froude, History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Defeat of the Spanish Armada (London, 1893), X, 317; Julian Corbett, Sir Francis Drake (London, 1890), 47. 34 Collinson, Bancroft, 52. 35 Glyn Parry, ‘Foreign policy and the Parliament of 1576’, Parliamentary History 34:1 (Feb. 2015), 62–​89; Diarmaid MacCulloch, The Later Reformation in England, 1547–​1603 (2nd edn., Basingstoke, 2001), 39. 36 John Bossy, Under the Molehill: An Elizabethan Spy Story (New Haven and London, 2001), 74. 37 Hasler, Commons, II, 15. 38 On Sussex, see Susan Doran, ‘The Political Career of Thomas Radcliffe, 3rd Earl of Sussex (1526?–​1583)’ (PhD thesis, University of London, 1977), 445–​6 and passim; on Montague, see Michael Questier, ‘Loyal to a fault: Viscount Montague explains himself’, Historical Research 77:196 (May 2004), 225–​53, at 235. 39 John Bossy, ‘English Catholics and the French marriage, 1577–​1581’, Recusant History 5 (1959), 2–​16. 40 ‘Gardiner, Stephen (c.1495x8–​1555)’, ODNB. See comments along this line in John Morrill, ‘Richard Bancroft and Anti-​Puritanism (2012)’, Patrick Collinson and his Historiographical Legacy, special edition of History 100:342 (Oct. 2015), 584–​98, at 591. 41 Neil Younger, ‘How Protestant was the Elizabethan regime?’, EHR 133:564 (Oct. 2018), 1060–​92, at 1065–​6.

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42 Michael C. Questier, Catholicism and Community in Early Modern England. Politics, Aristocratic Patronage and Religion, c. 1550–​1640 (Cambridge, 2006), 124, 168. 43 Michael Questier, Dynastic Politics and the British Reformations, 1558–​1630 (Oxford, 2019), 240, 250, 261–​2; Collinson, Bancroft. 44 Questier, Dynastic Politics, 288; Collinson, Bancroft, 187. 45 Peter Lake and Michael Questier, ‘Thomas Digges, Robert Parsons, Sir Francis Hastings, and the politics of regime change in Elizabethan England’, Historical Journal 61:1 (March 2018), 1–​27, at 13. 46 Neale, Parliaments 1584–​1601, 296–​7. 47 Thomas Wright (ed.), Queen Elizabeth and her Times (2 vols, London, 1838), II, 417. 48 Collinson, Elizabethan Puritan Movement, 193–​4. 49 Patrick Collinson, ‘Pulling the strings: religion and politics in the progress of 1578’, in J. E. Archer, E. Goldring and S. Knight (eds), The Progresses, Pageants and Entertainments of Queen Elizabeth I (Oxford, 2007), 122–​41, at 137; MacCaffrey, Making of Policy, 450, 452–​3. 50 John Guy, ‘Introduction –​the 1590s: the second reign of Elizabeth I?’ in Guy (ed.) The Reign of Elizabeth I: Court and Culture in the Last Decade (Cambridge, 1995), 1–​19, at 3. 51 Patrick Collinson, ‘Bishop Richard Bancroft and the succession’, in Susan Doran and Paulina Kewes (eds), Doubtful and Dangerous: The Question of Succession in Late Elizabethan England (Manchester, 2014), 92–​111, at 102. 52 Collinson, Bancroft, 26. 53 John Bossy, ‘The devotional compositions of Lord Henry Howard, 1584–​1596’, in Linda Clark, Maureen Jurkowski and Colin Richmond (eds), Image, Text and Church, 1380–​1600 (Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies Papers in Mediaeval Studies 20, Toronto, 2009), 239–​55. 54 Michael Questier, ‘What happened to English Catholicism after the English Reformation?’, History 85 (2000), 30; Alexandra Walsham, Church Papists: Catholicism, Conformity and Confessional Polemic in Early Modern England (Woodbridge, 1993), 97–​8. 55 SP 12/​172/​1. For Whiftgift’s rejection of any such dynamic, see HMC Bath, II, 26–​7. For this dynamic more broadly, see Lake, ‘Two episcopal surveys’. 56 [John Udall], The state of the Church of Englande, laide open (London, 1588; STC 24506), sigs. E3v., F3r. See also Thomas Digges’s similar comments: Lake and Questier, ‘Thomas Digges, Robert Parsons, Sir Francis Hastings, and the politics of regime change in Elizabethan England’, 12. 57 Peter Iver Kaufman, ‘Prophesying again’, Church History 68:2 (June 1999), 337–​58, at 350; Peter Iver Kaufman, Thinking of the Laity in Late Tudor England (Notre Dame IN, 2004), 131–​2. On the background to Diotrephes, which was printed by the Presbyterian Robert Waldegrave shortly before he began publishing the Marprelate tracts, see Collinson, Elizabethan Puritan Movement, 391. 58 Diarmaid MacCulloch, The Later Reformation in England, 1547–​1603 (2nd edn., Basingstoke, 2001), 41; McGrath and Rowe, ‘The recusancy of Sir Thomas Cornwallis’, 241–​3; A. Hassell Smith, County and Court: Government and

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Politics in Norfolk, 1558–​1603 (Oxford, 1974), ch. 10, esp. 213–​16; Collinson, Elizabethan Puritan Movement, 202–​5. 59 Diarmaid MacCulloch, ‘The myth of the English Reformation’, Journal of British Studies 30:1 (Jan. 1991), 1–​19, at 17. 60 Diarmaid MacCulloch, Thomas Cromwell: A Life (London, 2018), 72. 61 Younger, ‘How Protestant was the Elizabethan regime?’. 62 Questier, Dynastic Politics, 34–​6. 63 Mark Eccles, ‘A biographical dictionary of Elizabethan authors’, Huntington 302, at 294; ‘Beaumont, Francis Library Quarterly 5:3 (April 1942), 281–​ (d. 1598)’, ODNB; Richard Challoner, Memoirs of Missionary Priests (London, 1842), 172. 64 Questier, Catholicism and Community, 154–​5. 65 R. B. Manning, Religion and Society in Elizabethan Sussex. A Study of the Enforcement of the Religious Settlement 1558–​ 1603 (Leicester, 1969), 145; Hasler, Commons, II, 474. 66 Hasler, Commons, I, 30. 67 Hammer, Polarisation, 79–​81. 68 Hammer, Polarisation, 291 n.125; Alexandra Gajda, The Earl of Essex and Late Elizabethan Political Culture (Oxford, 2012), 116. 69 Gajda, The Earl of Essex, 55 and Chapter 3, passim. 70 Debora Shuger, ‘A protesting Catholic puritan in Elizabethan England’, Journal of British Studies 48:3 (July 2009), 587–​630. 71 SP 12/​241/​25 (report by Robert Bainbridge of Derby, 25 January 1592). 72 Anthony Milton, Catholic and Reformed: The Roman and Protestant Churches in English Protestant Thought, 1600–​ 1640 (Cambridge, 1995), 238. On Constable, see John Bossy, ‘A propos of Henry Constable’, Recusant History 6:5 (1961–​62), 228–​37; George Wickes, ‘Henry Constable, poet and courtier (1562–​1613)’, Biographical Studies 2:4 (1953–​54), 272–​300. 73 Bossy, ‘A propos’, 230, 233. 74 ‘Howard, Henry, earl of Northampton (1540–​1614)’, ODNB. The date of his formal reception into the Catholic Church is debated; Croft believes it occurred shortly before his death, Bossy that it was much earlier, in 1577: Bossy, ‘The devotional compositions of Lord Henry Howard’. 75 Peck, Northampton, 9. 76 Peck, Northampton, 9. 77 Peck, Northampton, 17, 55–​7 and Chapter 3, passim. 78 Peck, Northampton, 80–​1, 109. 79 Peck, Northampton, 12, 57. 80 Bossy, ‘The devotional compositions of Lord Henry Howard’, 240, 250. 81 Bossy, ‘The devotional compositions of Lord Henry Howard’, 238. 82 Morrill, ‘Richard Bancroft and Anti-​Puritanism (2012)’, 591. 83 Peter Marshall, Reformation England 1480–​1642 (London, 2003), 170.

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Conclusion: Catholicism, conservatism and the Elizabethan regime

Hatton died in the evening of 20 November 1591, aged only about 51.1 This was not unexpected; in September 1590, he had been actively putting his affairs in order, in November that year he was said to be gouty, and he was not well during summer 1591, when he absented himself from the Queen’s progress to Sussex and Hampshire.2 On 5 September he was reported to be suffering from jaundice, a sign of liver problems, and on 31 October that he was ‘very sicke, & not likelye to recover ... by reason of a strangurye’, but he continued to attend Privy Council meetings regularly until 7 November.3 On 12 November, Richard Broughton reported that he was ‘very sicke of some disease that he often doth make extraordinarie quantitie of water &c.’ When it became clear Hatton would not recover, Elizabeth travelled from Richmond to visit him; as Broughton said, ‘if that will not make him hole I knowe no better remedie’.4 She was at Ely Place on 11 November, and the Council met there on 15 November, which probably means that she was still there.5 According to Brooks, the cause of death was cystitis.6 It is often romantically claimed that he died of grief of mind after the Queen demanded the repayment of the £42,000 of first fruits and tenths money which Hatton had been creaming off for nearly twenty years. Although early historians such as Camden and Clapham mention it, there seems to be no contemporary evidence of this; Hatton was then at the peak of his power, with no sign of loss of royal favour.7 Hatton left no will; he settled his estates by way of deeds and arrangements with his heir. Although he left large debts, he had in 1590 made detailed plans for his heir to settle them and stabilise his inheritance.8 His funeral was on 16 December, at St Paul’s, the procession including 100 poor people, 300 gentlemen and yeomen, ‘with Lords of the Counsell, and other, besides fourescore of the guards that followed’.9 Various poetical tributes were published, but none of them cast much light on his political career.10 His nephew and heir Sir William Hatton erected a tomb to him in St Paul’s whose excessive size, particularly in contrast with the more modest nearby

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tombs of two Protestant icons, Walsingham and Philip Sidney, was widely mocked in later years.11 *** Hatton emerges from this study as a more substantial figure than he has generally been credited with. In the extent of his patronage, his scholarly interests, his attendance record at Council, he was rather more capable and conventional a councillor than has hitherto been thought. This, of course, makes it all the more frustrating that his political role is often so hard to pin down. There are some clear examples of his effectiveness as a political operator, including the fall of Grindal and yet more clearly the anti-​ Puritan campaign at the end of his life. There are other points at which his preferred policy prevailed, but the extent of his role is less clear: his opposition to or scepticism about war in 1576–​77 and after, and to the Anjou match; Whitgift’s subscription campaign of 1583; and his apparent support for war in 1585. There are also recurrent –​though usually poorly documented –​instances of his exploring more surprising approaches, such as various forms of diplomatic overtures with Catholic powers. Clearly, he could effectively influence policy at times. Clearly too, his agenda was independent of and distinct from that of other leading councillors, and his policy was at times successful in the face of Burghley’s opposition. No-​one would argue that his influence exceeded that of Burghley, but some of his interventions were very significant. Many of his stances aligned with those of the Queen of course, but that is not to say he was merely a catspaw; policies promoted by any minister required the Queen’s approval, and again, the speed of the change of religious policy in 1591 suggests that the sudden termination of his active role made a significant difference. Elizabeth’s recurrent tendency to reject or delay her ministers’ more radical or expensive proposals has been well-​noted in recent historiography, and (as I have argued elsewhere), it is somewhat puzzling that Elizabeth should have appointed councillors whose positions she so frequently disagreed with.12 Hatton appears to help explain this, since at various points it seems that Hatton (and allies such as Whitgift) was significant in ensuring she did not have to resist Burghley, Leicester and others alone. In this sense, Hatton was the Queen’s personal ally. Elizabeth was politically (and in some ways emotionally) dependent on Burghley, Leicester and Walsingham, but she often disagreed with their policy preferences and wanted to keep some freedom of manoeuvre. Hatton, partly by conviction and perhaps partly by convenience, was closer to her own positions in foreign policy and religion, so by making him a major political figure, she gained support for her own preferred stances. Hatton was thus a counterweight within the regime. Nevertheless, he was willing and able to stand against her policy at times, most obviously over the Anjou match,

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when he opposed her preference stoutly for several years, and incurred political pain for doing so. In terms of his political style or modus operandi, it is possible to identify a clear distinction with Burghley and his allies. As well as Burghley’s mastery of the machinery of government and administration, as historians have increasingly noted in recent decades, Burghley periodically employed appeals to the public and other creative forms of political manoeuvre in order to steer policy: the use or manipulation of Parliament, men of business, print propaganda, national associations, interregnum schemes, foreign intelligence, domestic entrapment and concocted plots. Somewhat later, Essex was even more public in revealing his opposition to particular policies of the regime.13 Aside from his speaking in Parliament, Hatton resorted to virtually none of this (the abortive anti-​Puritan oath excepted). He was for example the patron of a prominent London printer, Henry Bynneman, but although Bynneman printed works by various Hatton associates (William Byrd, for example) there is no sign that he was used to advance Hatton’s political or religious programme –​Bynneman printed works by both Luther and Calvin, Whitgift, Antonio del Corro and Thomas Norton, for example.14 He was no John Day to Hatton’s William Cecil. Although the Marprelate tracts were answered by a cluster of anti-​Puritan tracts, this seems to have been the brainchild of Bancroft rather than Hatton.15 One could argue that Hatton was not strong or intelligent enough to utilise such methods, or one could argue that as a quasi-​authoritarian in the Whitgift mode, he disdained ‘popularity’. Perhaps more plausible is the simple fact that he was a royal favourite, and his political manoeuvres went through the Queen (and to some extent through alliances with other councillors). This highlights the creativity of Burghley, Walsingham and later Robert Cecil, through the tumults of the Ridolfi plot, the destruction of Norfolk, the interregnum scheme, the Babington affair, the Stafford plot, the execution of Mary, the fall of Essex and various lesser figures and scapegoats (William Davison, John Perrot); yet it is also a reminder of how often they found themselves out of step with the Queen, forced to try to change her mind by external pressure. Clearly, however, the unconventional methods developed and deployed by Burghley, Walsingham and Leicester were not paralleled by conservative equivalents within the regime. In some regards, this book accords with what many (though not all) historians have written about Hatton in the past –​that he was unusually inclined towards Catholics and Catholicism –​but it has considerably sharpened this picture. It has also argued that Hatton’s political influence was greater than is usually believed. In this sense a reassessment of Hatton is a mirror-​image of the reassessment of Burghley which has emerged in recent

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years. Historians have in recent decades concluded that Burghley was significantly less moderate than he seemed, much more inclined to forward Protestant, even Puritan, causes. Similarly, a closer look at Hatton increasingly suggests that he too was much less moderate than was thought. As I have argued elsewhere, Hatton serves as an example of the Catholic-​ leaning figures who were to be found in Elizabeth’s Court and Council throughout the reign, from the surviving mid-​Tudor nobles and administrators in the 1560s to figures such as the Earl of Worcester, Sir John Fortescue and Edward Wotton at the end of her life.16 While clearly not open Catholics (though Worcester was very close to this), there were many who were ambivalent about or sympathetic towards Catholics, and courtiers and court officials were particularly prominent here. As a correspondent of William Cecil’s wrote in 1571, ‘The papistes in this Realm find to muche favour in the Court. As long as that contineweth, practising wyll never have ende’; these were ‘doble faced gentlemen, who wylbe protestantes in the Court and in the Contre secret papistes’.17 In this context, Hatton’s own position comes to seem less exceptional or implausible. The question is of course how significant they were. Simon Adams has commented that they ‘hardly amounted to a coherent conservative party’ and it true that they were not a coherent party, and were by no means as powerful as the usually quite co-​operative group of Burghley, Leicester, Walsingham and their allies.18 Many of these conservatives were not in the Queen’s inner circle, but Hatton is a rare example of one who was. Thus it is argued here that there was significantly more political conflict and disagreement in Elizabethan politics, above all in the sphere of religious policy, than is often acknowledged, and not merely between Elizabeth and a group of ‘monarchical republican’ councillors. The fall of Grindal and the anti-​Puritan campaign suggest active and hard-​fought disagreements over profound issues. This was not a completely unified regime; in fact, Naunton’s famous and oft-​quoted line that Elizabeth ‘ruled much by faction and parties, which her self, both made, upheld, and weakned [sic], as her own great judgement advised’ starts to look more credible.19 When we consider Hatton’s role, and his ability, at times, to lead other councillors, we can more clearly see Burghley and his allies as representing one strand of policy within the regime, rather than constituting the regime as a whole. To be sure, they were usually the dominant group, but their dominance was not complete. Again, this is not necessarily to suggest that there was a coherent programme or strain of quasi-​Catholic policy formation throughout the reign. Hatton fairly consistently opposed exposing England to danger in the service of the ‘Protestant cause’, and he may have had an interest in peace or rapprochement with Catholic powers, but he did not appear to support policies

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which were pro-​Catholic per se. His position was not to follow Catholic policies, but to favour individual Catholics (as we can see from what actually happened), a policy which was at heart not a little contradictory. Thus Elizabethan politics was not always all about Lord Burghley, the hot Protestants, and their relationship with the Queen. In some cases, Burghley lost control of major spheres of policy, about which he cared very much. In 1591, he only regained it due to a considerable stroke of luck with Hatton’s death. Furthermore, the rise of Hatton’s influence, which very much seems to have coincided with Leicester’s death, suggests that the latter may well have been more influential than is sometimes thought –​again reminding us that Burghley was not always as powerful as we might think. Royal favourites mattered. The question of how far Hatton might have shifted policy in the religious or other spheres if he had had the power to do so can only be speculative. Given the shift in policy that occurred on his death in 1591, it seems possible that if, for example, the positions had been reversed, and the much older Lord Burghley had died in 1591 instead of Hatton, the regime might have continued to move towards a position that was yet more firmly anti-​ Puritan. What his approach may have been towards, say, the succession, is more imponderable yet. Hatton might have got on rather well with James I in some ways, such as in Church policy. The extent of Hatton’s links with Catholics inevitably calls for some explanation of how this was possible in a regime which has often been regarded as reflexively anti-​Catholic. In many ways the most surprising thing is how little this appears to have affected Hatton’s career. If Hatton was indeed some kind of Catholic, or even simply an unusually strong enemy of the Puritans, what does this say about the regime and Hatton’s place in it? Ultimately, this can only be answered by looking at the Queen herself. In short, Hatton’s career suggests that Elizabeth was not especially concerned if her servants were, or were widely believed to be, either Catholic or something close to it. Hatton’s protection of Catholics was clearly against the spirit of the law, and in some senses a kind of a challenge to the authority of the regime, the law and the Queen. Elizabeth promoted him all the same, surely knowing what he was doing and what people said about him. We can surely not regard that as an accident. This might suggest that Elizabeth was simply pursuing a ‘secular, disengaged’ approach to politics, that she was unconcerned about Hatton’s religion and was promoting him because she liked him.20 This is quite interesting in itself; the notion that we might easily overstate the level of interest that nobles and royals of this period had in religious differences seems quite plausible. However, another possibility is that Elizabeth promoted Hatton (and perhaps others) because of his religious attitudes, using her choice of

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councillors to send signals to the wider population (Hatton’s prominence as a public face for the regime’s policies is again relevant here). Since this was not a police state, much political activity can be seen as signalling about what was acceptable and what was not at any given moment. Hatton’s prominence demonstrated that Elizabeth was not a bigot, but tolerated Catholics or their favourers. One virtue of using Hatton to demonstrate this was that he was her creation; if Elizabeth acceded to powerful conservative nobles like Norfolk, she looked weak; by using her own man, she could look strong and magnanimous. This also showed that she was not a puppet of the Protestants, of Leicester and Burghley, who were often claimed to be in effect holding her captive, but that she had her own agenda. Hatton was a living demonstration of the Queen’s moderation, and, perhaps, a model of loyal Catholicism. Catholics who behaved themselves, stayed loyal, and were prepared if necessary to roundly criticise the Pope were acceptable, and windows would not be made into their souls. This was of course a marked contrast with Burghley’s approach of drawing clear boundaries between Protestants and Catholics, trustworthy and not, loyal and traitor –​as we see in the Bond of Association, the lord lieutenancies and other plans.21 Hatton could therefore be seen as a valuable element of her balancing act. The question of timing is also significant, since Hatton’s promotions seem to coincide with moments when Catholics might well have been fearful about the regime’s direction. Hatton was appointed Captain of the Guard in 1572, in the wake of the fall of Norfolk and the crisis of 1568–​72, and Elizabeth may have wished to reassure Catholics that she had not become entirely hostile to them. Likewise, his appointment as Lord Chancellor, just two months after the execution of Mary, may have been another reassurance that her regime remained moderate and balanced. Elizabeth’s patronage of Hatton, then, can be seen as a way to conciliate Catholics and maintain both a line of communication and a channel of patronage. In this respect Hatton’s conformist stance was crucial; outward conformity to the established Church was the precondition for Elizabeth’s tolerance. The classic dilemma between the recusant and the conformist is summed up in an episode from the end of the life of Philip, Earl of Arundel, who, on asking the Queen for a final meeting with his family, received a message back from her ‘that if he would once go to their Church, his request should not only be granted, he should moreover by [sic] restored to his honour and estates with as much favour as she could shew’. He refused. Lord Buckhurst told this story to his son-​in-​law, Viscount Montague, ‘greatly condemning the good Earl of much want of wisdome and discretion for not accepting so great and gracious a favour, as he esteemed that offer to have been’.22 For Buckhurst and Hatton, Arundel’s position was folly –​stubborn, unnecessary, careless of the duty of the nobility to family and country –​and surely

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that view was shared by many Catholics. Conformity to the law was crucial, and once Catholics publicly stepped beyond those limits, they were not to be tolerated. Nor was this purely a pragmatic or cynical position for Hatton, who had no more desire than anyone else to see his mistress and patron endangered by Catholic plotters. However, he did not think all Catholics were potential or likely traitors, as indeed most were not (although several of his friends did cross this line). At the same time, the public awareness of the position at court and in government held by Hatton and other conservatives also deserves consideration, and may have contributed towards the growth of anti-​popery. The fear about Catholic influences over the Queen was growing strongly within certain elements of the English political classes during Hatton’s time in office, and very often this fear was located within the court, a fear that Catholicism was ‘a cancer in the very bowels of government’.23 The attacks by Birchet and Hacket on Hatton show how passionate such views often were. Clearly the rise of English anti-​popery can hardly be attributed entirely to Hatton, but the fact that a genuine Catholic sympathiser was influential in the Queen’s counsels helps to explain why such fears were aroused. Hatton never denied his Catholic leanings, but nor did he play to them. He was a patron of Catholics, but not a Catholic leader, and did not publicly espouse a Catholic position at all –​the very opposite of someone like Sir Thomas Tresham.24 Equally he was never so radical as to publicly advocate toleration of Catholics: he merely sought to practise it, by means of selective and lax enforcement of the law, and arguably this was a fairly sustainable model of toleration. Again, his lack of resort to the ‘public sphere’ is relevant here. In fact, Hatton’s career was marked by his obedience not only in religious terms. Almost all major Elizabethan politicians overstepped the mark significantly at some point: Norfolk and Essex in obvious ways, Leicester with the governor-​generalship in the Netherlands and his marriage to Lettice Knollys, Burghley over the execution of Mary. Hatton never, it seems, did so, which preserved his room for manoeuvre in other respects. The case of Hatton may suggest a need to alter our picture of the position of Catholics within Elizabeth’s England. If at least some Catholics benefitted from powerful protectors at court, this clearly helps to explain the persistence of Catholicism in one form or another, particularly within the elites. Clearly at least some Catholics survived not by retreating into seigneurial seclusion, but by relying on connections with London and the court, often based on links made at the universities or the Inns of Court. Arguably more research is needed on Catholics who were not persecuted, and why, and equally how that persecution modulated over time in different political climates. Hatton’s case also highlights the still relatively neglected category

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of church papists, those who appear to have had strong Catholic beliefs or sympathies, yet conformed for the sake of their worldly fortunes, often to such an extent that their Catholic sympathies are very hard to identify, and who certainly never broadcasted or wrote in detail about them. A further point which Hatton highlights is that the most prominent lay supporters of anti-​puritanism were also strongly linked to Catholicism. It appears that there was slightly more common ground at a certain position near the centre of the Elizabethan religious spectrum than is usually assumed, and more than the convinced partisans at either end of that spectrum might have liked. Hatton, in his occupation of this ground, presents a somewhat unfamiliar figure in the top level of Elizabethan politics, a position perhaps conditioned by his upbringing in the 1540s and 1550s. Yet he was far from the only one, and his position needs to be taken account of in a full understanding of Elizabeth’s reign.

Notes 1 On the time of death see BL Lansdowne 163, f. 174v. 2 Gout: LPL MS 3199, f. 127v; Hammer, ‘Cecil-​ Hatton Letters’, 207, 216, 220, 222. 3 Brooks, Hatton, 351; SP 12/​240/​53; APC 1591–​92, 61. 4 FSL L.a.265. On Broughton, see Hasler, Commons, I, 498–​9. 5 Brooks, Hatton, 353; APC 1591–​92, 64. 6 Brooks, Hatton, 351. Some Catholic commentators suggest that he was poisoned, but this was clearly just malicious gossip: [Robert Persons], An advertisement written to a Secretary of my L. Treasurer’s of England, trans. R. Verstegan ([Antwerp], 1592; STC 19885), 14; Joseph Creswell, Exemplar literarvm, missarvm, e Germania, ad D. Guilielmum Cecilium, consiliarium regium (1592), 5–​6; Weinreich, Ribadeneyra’s ‘Ecclesiastical History’, 599. 7 Camden, History, 458; John Clapham, Elizabeth of England. Certain Observations Concerning the Life and Reign of Queen Elizabeth by John Clapham, ed. Evelyn Plummer Read and Conyers Read (Philadelphia, 1951), 92. Modern historians have also been sceptical: Hammer, ‘Cecil-​Hatton letters’, 220–​1; Susan Doran, Elizabeth I and Her Circle (Oxford, 2015), 163. 8 Brooks, Hatton, 388–​90; Memoirs, 502. For the settlement of his estate, see NRO, FH/​C/​A/​K/​2430, FH/​C/​A/​L/​3075, FH/​C/​A/​H/​0688. For plans for debt settlement, see NRO, FH/​A/​A/​0600, FH/​A/​A/​3713a-​b; HEHL EL6233. His inquisition post mortem is TNA C142/​232/​82 (9 August 1592); NRO, E(B)59 is a copy. 9 Brooks, Hatton, 353–​4; John Stow, Annales, or, A Generall Chronicle of England (London, 1631), 764. See also College of Arms MSS, Dethick’s Funerals, vol. I, pt. 2, ff. 277–​81; Longleat, Whitelock MSS, vol I, no. 15, f. 25 (consulted on

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microfilm at the IHR, London). For contemporary drawings of the funeral, see FSL, Z.e.3; BL, Add. 35324, ff. 11–​13. 10 Brooks, Hatton, 354–​8; Richard Johnson, Musarum plangores vpon the death of the right honourable, Sir Christopher Hatton, Knight, &c. (1591; STC 14685.5); Jerry H. Bryant, ‘Richard Johnson’s “Musarum Plangores”’, Renaissance News 16:2 (1963), 94–​8; John Phillips, A commemoration on the life and death of the right Honourable, Sir Christopher Hatton (1591; STC 19876); and a commemorative anthology from Oxford, Oxoniensium stenagmòs, sivé, Carmina ab Oxoniensibus conscripta in obitum illustrissimi herois, D. Christophori Hattoni militia (1592; STC 19017.5). 11 Brooks, Hatton, 354. TNA PROB 11/​89/​432/​1. Cambridge University Library, GBR/​0012/​MS Add.4138, f. 47v. 12 Neil Younger, ‘How Protestant was the Elizabethan regime?’, EHR 133:564 (2018), 1060–​92. 13 Paul Hammer, ‘The smiling crocodile: the earl of Essex and late Elizabethan “popularity” ’, in Peter Lake and Steven Pincus (eds), The Politics of the Public Sphere in Early Modern England (Manchester, 2007), 95–​115. 14 See Henry Plomer, ‘Henry Bynneman, printer, 1566–​83’, The Library n.s. 35:9 (1908), 225–​44. 15 Collinson, Bancroft, 78–​80. 16 Younger, ‘How Protestant was the Elizabethan regime?’. 17 SP 12/​81/​52, f. 129. 18 Adams, Leicester and the Court, 36. 19 Robert Naunton, Fragmenta regalia, or observations on the late Queen Elizabeth, her times and favorits (1641; Wing N250), 6. 20 Collinson, Elizabethan Puritan Movement, 166. 21 Neil Younger, ‘Securing the monarchical republic: the remaking of the lord lieutenancies in 1585’, Historical Research, 84:224 (2011), 249–​65. 22 Pollen & MacMahon, Arundel, 331. 23 John Morrill, The Nature of the English Revolution (reprint edn., Abingdon, 2013), 405–​6. 24 MacCaffrey, Making of Policy, 453.

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Primary sources Manuscripts Library of Birmingham MS 3878    Elford Hall MSS

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Early printed books [Allen, William], A briefe historie of the glorious martyrdom of XII reverend priests (1582; STC 369.5). Anon, The triall of Maist. Dorrell (1599; STC 6287). 9; STC 1346 Bancroft, Richard, A sermon preached at Paules Crosse (1588/​ and 1347). Beatniffe, John, A sermon preached at Torceter (1590; STC 1662). Bedingfield, Thomas, The Florentine historie (1595; STC 17162). Creswell, Joseph, Exemplar literarvm, missarvm, e Germania, ad D. Guilielmum Cecilium, consiliarium regium (1592). Day, Angel, The English secretorie (1593; STC 6402). Digby, Everard, Euerard Digbie his dissuasiue from taking away the lyuings and goods of the Church (1590; STC 6842). Digges, Thomas, Humble motives for association to maintaine religion established published as an antidote against the pestilent treatises of secular priests (1601; STC 3518.3). Fuller, Thomas, The church-​history of Britain from the birth of Jesus Christ until the year M.DC.XLVIII (1655, Wing F2416). Golding, Arthur, A briefe discourse of the late murther of master George Saunders, a worshipfull citizen of London and of the apprehension, arreignement, and execution of the principall and accessaries of the same (1573; STC 11985). Greene, Robert, A maidens dreame vpon the death of the Right Honorable Sir Christopher Hatton (1591; STC 12271). Harington, John, Nugæ antiquæ, ed. Henry Harington (2 vols, London, 1804). Holinshed, Raphael, The first and second volumes of chronicles (1587; STC 13569). James, W., A sermon preached at Paules Crosse ... (1590; STC 14464).

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Index

Adams, Theophilus 97 Alabaster, William 198 Aldred, Solomon 158–​60, 170 Alford, Francis 82, 152 Allen, Cardinal William 14, 128, 147, 159, 160, 169, 225, 226 Andrewes, Lancelot 195, 233 Anjou match debate 4, 38, 61, 66, 148, 153, 155–​8, 171, 227, 244 Anjou, Francis, Duke of 155, 156, 157, 158 Anketill, Christopher 91 Anne (of Denmark), Queen of Scotland and England 31 Arden, Edward 71, 73, 75, 84, 124, 149 Arthington, Henry 132 Arundell, Charles 124, 157, 158, 186 Arundell, Matthew 135 Arundell, Sir John 123, 126 Ashley, Anthony 33, 152 Aylmer, John, Bishop of London 6, 24, 88, 90, 102, 152, 156, 188, 189, 191–​3, 195, 196, 198, 199, 201, 210, 215, 232, 234 Babington Plot 1, 4, 57–​8, 84, 91, 92, 93, 97, 99, 100, 130, 133, 134, 136, 149, 162, 163, 165, 166, 182, 183, 184, 186, 209, 210, 225, 230, 245 Babington, Anthony 57, 81, 90, 184 Bacon, Edward 81, 130, 188 Bacon, Lady Anne 201 Bacon, Nathaniel 81, 130, 132, 188 Bacon, Sir Francis 35, 101

Bacon, Sir Nicholas 13, 33, 41, 121, 124, 125, 126, 196 Bailiff, Thomas 187 Ballard, John 91, 92, 93, 149, 184 Bancroft, Richard, Bishop of London and Archbishop of Canterbury 81, 84, 95, 100, 132, 135, 152, 194, 195, 196, 197–​8, 212, 231, 232, 233 and anti-​Puritan campaign of 1588–​91 199, 200, 201, 202, 204, 209, 210, 245 client of Hatton 79, 135, 188, 194 Paul’s Cross sermon of 1589 201, 205, 207 Barantine, Drew 77 Barnes, Thomas 60 Barnwell, Robert 133, 184 Barrow, Henry 201 Batson (friar) 159 Beale, Robert 58, 80, 132, 152, 161, 205 Beatniffe, John 195 Beaumont, Francis 71, 235 Bedingfield, Thomas 32, 88 Beeston, Hugh 77 Belson, Thomas 77 Bertano, Gurone 82 Bertie, Peregrine, 13th Lord Willoughby d’Eresby 169 Best, George 39 Betham, Ralph 90 Birchet, Peter 23, 130, 132, 133, 188, 229, 249 attempted attack on Hatton 130–​2 Blount, Sir Christopher 235

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Index Bond of Association 163, 164, 196, 205, 248 Bond, Nicholas 204 Booth, Remigius 82 Borgarucci, Dr Julio 25, 191 Boucher (friar) 159 Bourchier, Sir George 78 Bowes, Margaret (née Keble) 65 Bracegirdle, Justinian 194 Brandon, Charles, 1st Duke of Suffolk 13, 29 Brewer, John 34 Bristol, treaty of 26, 27 Brokesby, Edward 65, 85, 90 Brokesby, Robert 63, 65, 82 Bromfield, William 25 Bromley, Sir Thomas 182, 184 Brooke, William, 10th Lord Cobham 161, 197, 203 Broughton, Richard 243 Browne, Anthony, 1st Viscount Montague 77, 86, 99, 102, 104, 109, 126, 185, 203, 230, 231 Browne, Anthony Maria, 2nd Viscount Montague 248 Browne, John 33 Browne, Robert 80 Brudenell, John 67 Brudenell, Robert 67 Bryskett, Antonio 82 Bryskett, Sebastian 79, 82, 97, 135, 170 Bullingham, John, Bishop of Gloucester 193, 194 Butler, Thomas, 10th Earl of Ormond 29 Bye Plot 87 Bynneman, Henry 60, 95, 245 Byrd, William 86, 94, 98, 245 Callis, John 149 Camden, William 6, 13, 17, 91, 129, 133, 156, 167, 187, 208, 243 Campion, Edmund 62, 63, 66, 67, 80, 85, 86, 89, 90, 94, 98, 100, 183, 226, 230, 231 Carew, George 152 Carey, Henry, 1st Lord Hunsdon 160, 164, 203, 206

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Cartwright, Thomas 133, 134, 150, 188, 199, 204, 205, 208, 228 Casimir, Duke Palatine 18 Castelvetro, Giacomo 95 Catesby, Robert 67, 235 Catesby, Sir William 66, 67, 100, 183 Cavendish, Sir Charles 124 Cecil, Sir Robert 1, 5, 36, 37, 39, 63, 77, 97, 134, 145, 146, 161, 167, 168, 206, 207, 236, 245 Cecil, Thomas, 2nd Lord Burghley and 1st Earl of Exeter 63 Cecil, William, 1st Lord Burghley 1, 2, 7, 13, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 26, 29, 30, 33, 34, 39, 42, 59, 63, 64, 65, 78, 80, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 93, 94, 95, 101, 116, 118, 122, 124, 126, 127, 129, 132, 133, 137, 144, 145, 146, 147, 151, 152, 156, 158, 160, 161, 163, 165, 167, 169, 172, 182, 184, 200, 207, 208, 209, 210, 223, 233, 245, 246, 247 archives 5, 6, 7, 25 building works 68, 69 and foreign policy 153, 155, 156, 157, 160, 161, 162 as leader of Protestant ministers 2, 3, 5, 22, 23, 26, 41, 96, 132, 145, 147, 149, 152, 162, 163, 164, 165, 166, 167, 171, 205, 206, 210, 245, 246, 247 offices 28, 70, 145, 165, 203 patronage 59, 80, 87, 96, 97, 101, 195 periods of disfavour 39, 148, 166, 249 relationship with Elizabeth 44, 206, 244, 248 relationship with Hatton 21, 22, 41, 83, 133, 136, 144, 148, 149, 151, 168, 184, 200, 206, 207, 210, 244 and religious policy 125, 126, 170, 181, 191, 192, 193, 195, 196, 197, 200, 201, 202, 203, 204, 205, 206, 207, 208, 209, 211, 212, 234, 248 reputation 121, 122, 124, 125, 126

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Index

Chaderton, William, Bishop of Chester 77 Chapman, Allen 182 Charles I, King of England 13, 137 Cheke, Henry 152 Cheke, John 88, 152 Churchyard, Thomas 88 Citolini, Alessandro 95 Clapham, John 17, 32, 60, 96, 243 Clavell, John 76 Coke, Sir Edward 6, 31, 32, 203 Colleton, John 85 Colly, Anthony 65 Colly, Elizabeth (née Keble) 65 Colshill, Robert 29, 87 Colwell, Thomas 67 Condé, Louis, Prince de 157 Constable, Henry 235 Cooper, Thomas, Bishop of Lincoln 190 Coppinger, Edmund 132 Cordell, William 235 Corfe Castle, Dorset 27, 63, 64, 76, 79, 84, 91, 152, 209 Cornwallis, Sir Thomas 72, 84, 126 Corro, Antonio del 195 Cosin, Richard 132, 199, 200, 202, 204 Cox, Richard, Bishop of Ely 29 Cox, Samuel 12, 61, 84, 98, 151, 160 Creswell, Joseph 125 Crichton, William 123, 124 Croft, Sir James 126, 153, 161, 165, 171, 206 Crompton, Thomas 95, 98 Cromwell, Thomas 16, 234 Dale, Valentine 151, 162, 202 Danett, Thomas 95 Danvers, Charles 229 Davidson, John 201 Davison, William 127, 149, 150, 154, 161, 165, 166, 245 Day, John 245 de Vere, Edward, 17th Earl of Oxford 18, 21, 39, 41, 77, 157, 158, 186 Dee, John 33, 34, 154 Devereux, Robert, 2nd Earl of Essex 1, 7, 10, 19, 29, 63, 134, 151, 160, 171, 179, 203, 235, 236, 245

patronage 60, 97, 151, 201, 202, 235 patronage of Catholics 100, 128, 235 relationship with Elizabeth 35, 38, 39, 152 relationship with Hatton 39, 61, 168, 169, 179 rising of 1601 229, 245, 249 rivalry with the Cecils 39, 150 Digby, Everard 95, 98 Digges, Thomas 199, 211 Dodge, Edward 28, 79, 80–​1, 91, 96, 97, 99, 100, 101, 130, 135 Dodge, John 80 Donne Lee, Edward 202 Donne, John 84, 91 Doughty, Thomas 34 Douglas, James, 4th Earl of Morton, Regent of Scotland 41 Drake, Sir Francis 33, 34, 127, 154, 230 Dudley, Ambrose, Earl of Warwick 64, 75, 149, 199 Dudley, Lettice (née Knollys), Countess of Leicester 149, 249 Dudley, Lord Guildford 64, 149 Dudley, Robert, Earl of Leicester 7, 16, 21–​2, 28, 30, 34, 35, 37, 39–​ 40, 59, 63, 66, 73, 74, 75, 76, 82, 87, 94, 95, 96, 97, 121, 124, 129, 150, 151, 158, 182, 195, 206, 224, 227, 232 archive 7 campaigns in the Netherlands 39, 70, 146, 148, 152, 160–​2, 163, 169, 249 death 163, 168, 199, 200, 203, 206, 210, 211, 247 opposition to the Anjou match 130, 148, 155–​7, 227 as patron of Puritans 59, 60, 101, 102, 136, 197, 204, 211, 223, 235 political role 1, 2–​3, 5, 20, 22, 24, 32, 38, 40, 41, 42, 59, 72, 77, 124, 126, 127, 128, 137, 144, 145, 147, 152, 153, 155, 166, 193, 196, 197, 198, 210, 233, 244, 245, 246, 248

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562

Index relationship with Hatton 16, 17, 61, 148–​9, 159, 167 Dudley, Robert, Lord Denbigh 148 Dungarvan Castle 78 Dunne, Henry 91, 92, 149, 184 Dutton, Peter 63 Dyer, Sir Edward 21, 22, 38 Dyve, Lewis 15 Edward VI, King of England 4, 15, 144, 188, 193 Egerton, Thomas 195 Elizabeth I, Queen of England 7, 16, 17, 23, 27, 28, 40, 66, 121, 131, 145, 146, 149, 165, 203, 206, 236, 243, 246, 248, 249 and foreign policy 26, 145, 153, 154, 155, 160, 161, 162, 169 political role 1, 3, 31, 41, 58, 76, 101, 143, 144, 147, 148, 157, 165, 167, 168, 170, 171, 183, 185, 201, 231, 234, 244, 245, 246, 247, 248 relationship with Hatton 6, 7, 16, 17–​18, 19, 20, 21, 24, 35–​44, 68, 96, 133, 136, 144, 145, 148, 149, 156, 162, 167, 171, 184, 190, 210, 238, 244, 247 religious attitudes 101, 102, 125, 137, 192, 223, 228, 232, 248 and religious policy 159, 181, 182, 186, 188, 189, 190, 192, 193, 196, 197, 200, 203, 204, 208, 211, 230 and the succession 3, 19, 164, 165, 166, 171, 202 visits Hatton 27, 30, 243 see also Anjou match debate Ely Place, London 29, 30, 33, 51, 79, 90, 91, 98, 197, 200, 209, 230, 243 Englefield, Francis 26 English, John 77 Farnese, Alessandro, Duke of Parma 93, 161, 169 Farnese, Rainutio, Duke of Parma 169 Farnham, John 88

265

Fermor, George 70, 96, 161, 168 Fermor, Hatton 70 Fitton, Sir Edward 78, 96 Fitzalan, Henry, 12th Earl of Arundel 22, 39, 87, 95, 153, 190, 231, 238 Fitzwilliam, Sir William 93 Flower, Francis 65, 66, 73, 79–​80, 81, 84, 85, 92, 97, 100, 101, 135 Flower, John 80 Fortescue, Sir John 30, 168, 202, 204, 234, 246 Francisci, Jacomo 78, 92, 93, 99, 118 Freake, Edmund, Bishop of Norwich 193, 234 Frere, Israell 85 Frobisher, Martin 33 Fuller, Nicholas 133 Furness, James 69 Gage, Edward 84 Gardiner, Stephen, Bishop of Winchester 231 Gascoigne, George 71, 97 Gawdy, Francis 63, 75 Gawdy, Philip 98 Gennings, Edmund 209 Gerrard, Sir Thomas 78 Gerrard, Sir William 78 Gilbert, George 89, 90 Goodman, Gabriel 189 Gordon, George, 4th Earl of Huntly 235 Gorges, Thomas 131 Grey, Lady Catherine 19, 47 Grey, Lady Jane 37, 64, 149 Griffin, Edward 70 Griffiths, Hugh 159 Grindal, Edmund, Archbishop of Canterbury 2, 25, 97, 145, 147, 148, 189–​91, 192, 197, 206, 211, 228, 244, 246 Gueras, Antonio de 126, 153 Gunpowder Plot 67, 95, 210, 235, 236 Hacket, William 132–​3, 168, 200, 204, 249

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Index

Hall, Hugh 71–​4, 98, 100, 124, 182, 194, 225, 226, 230 Harington, Sir John 40, 41, 87, 135, 197, 235 Harsnett, Samuel 135, 195 Harvey, Gabriel 32 Hastings, Henry, 3rd Earl of Huntingdon 121 Hatton, Alice (née Saunders) 15 Hatton, Christopher II 31, 62, 198 Hatton, Christopher, 1st Baron Hatton 31 Hatton, Dorothy 63 Hatton, Elizabeth (née Cecil) 6, 31, 63 Hatton, Elizabeth (née Holdenby) 13 Hatton, Francis 13, 16 Hatton, Henry 13 Hatton, John 13, 62 Hatton, Mary (née Holdenby) 13 Hatton, Sir Christopher and Anjou match debate 153, 155–​8 archive 5–​7, 8, 58, 144, 146, 199 birth 13 as a courtier 15–​20, 87, 145 death 1, 30, 243 and domestic policy 162–​8 education and intellect 14–​15, 32–​4, 94 family 13, 14, 15, 62–​5 finances 20, 27–​31, 68, 80, 243 and foreign policy 24, 153–​62, 169 historical reputation 1–​2, 5 houses see Ely Place; Holdenby House; Kirby Hall influence in Northamptonshire 70 and Ireland 78–​9, 168 literary patronage 95–​6 and Mary, Queen of Scots 163, 165–​6 and negotiations with Rome 158–​60, 169–​70, 244 nicknames 20, 74 Offices Captain of the Guard 20, 24, 58, 167, 248 Chancellor of the University of Oxford 168, 203 Chief Steward of Andover 84, 168 gentleman of the privy chamber 20 gentleman pensioner 18

High Steward of the University of Cambridge 168 Keeper of Eltham 19, 27, 88 Lord Chancellor 29, 85, 145, 167–​8, 182, 199, 206, 248 Lord Lieutenant of Northamptonshire 6, 70, 165 Receiver of First Fruits and Tenths 28, 80 Recorder of Huntingdon 84 Steward of Salisbury 84, 168 Vice-​Chamberlain of the Household 24, 58, 144 and Parliament 1, 8, 20, 24, 33, 61, 63, 80, 84, 125, 137, 146, 154, 160, 161, 163, 164, 165, 168, 181, 198, 201, 202, 207, 224, 226, 227, 245 patronage 6, 57–​103, 151–​2, 168 personal religion 5, 9, 15, 223–​38 as privy councillor 24, 143–​7, 154, 170, 182 reputation 1, 20, 23, 32, 40, 121–​37 as royal messenger/​spokesman 20, 42, 146, 147, 164, 187 relationships with others see Cecil, William, 1st Lord Burghley: relationship with Hatton; Dudley, Robert, Earl of Leicester: relationship with Hatton; Elizabeth I, Queen of England: relationship with Hatton; Walsingham, Sir Francis: relationship with Hatton; Whitgift, John, Archbishop of Canterbury: relationship with Hatton and religious policy 24, 181–​212 trip to Spa 1573 24–​7, 122, 158, 170, 191 Hatton, Sir William 6, 31, 63, 64, 81, 88, 151, 152, 161, 183, 243 Hatton, Thomas 13, 63 Hatton, William 13, 15 Hawkins, John 131 Hawley, Francis 76, 84 Heneage, Sir Thomas 27, 36, 38, 41, 42, 133, 150 Henri IV, King of France 151

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762

Index Henry VIII, King of England 10, 13, 15, 40, 231, 234 Herle, William 72, 73, 80, 127, 130 Hesilrigge, Thomas 23 Hilliard, Nicholas 17 Holdenby 13, 15, 18, 20, 30, 63, 68, 69, 193, 194, 224 Holdenby House 1, 7, 29, 30, 31, 36, 39, 64, 66, 68, 69, 72, 73, 84, 87, 98, 184, 224, 230 Holyoake, Francis 134, 209 Hooker, Richard 199 Horne, Robert, Bishop of Winchester 24, 132 Houghton, Mary (née Dodge) 81 Houghton, Peter 28, 79, 80, 81–​2, 96, 97 Howard, Charles, 2nd Lord Howard of Effingham 18, 94, 160, 182, 203 Howard, Lord Henry 59, 94, 128, 137, 157, 158, 190, 233, 235, 236–​7, 238 Howard, Lord Thomas 146 Howard, Philip, Earl of Surrey and Arundel 18, 86, 87, 91, 94, 128, 185, 186, 187, 228, 248 Howard, Thomas, 4th Duke of Norfolk 20, 22, 23, 26, 39, 64, 72, 87, 88, 122, 151, 172, 185, 236, 238, 245, 248, 249 Hubbock, William 202 Huddlestone, Richard 146 Humphrey, Laurence 62 Inner Temple 15 1561–​62 revels 16 Ireland 158, 160 see Hatton, Sir Christopher: and Ireland James VI and I, King of Scotland and England 13, 19, 41, 61, 151, 164, 166, 200, 201, 207, 236, 247 James, William 194, 195 Jaques, Captain see Francisci, Jacomo Jonson, Ben 31 Keble, Henry 65 Keble, Jane 65

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Killigrew, Sir Henry 24, 192 Kirby Hall 7, 30, 64, 67, 68, 69 Kitson, Thomas 72 Knightley, Sir Richard 61, 63, 70, 101, 201 Knocknamona, County Waterford 78 Knollys or Knowles, Richard 84 Knollys, Sir Francis 20, 78, 121, 150, 160, 183, 197, 204 Kyte, Laurence 193, 194 Lancaster, John 85, 98 Langford, Nicholas 183 Lanman, Henry 85, 86, 97 Lanman, Henry (junior) 86, 102 L’Aubespine, Guillaume de, Baron de Chateauneuf 127 Laud, William 233 Laughter, Thomas 79, 84, 97 Lee, John 27 Lee, Sir Henry 18 Legge, Thomas 82, 202 Lesley, John, Bishop of Ross 22 Lewis, Owen 159 Lewknor, Richard 235 Longford, Nicholas 77 Lovell, Thomas 98 Lumley, John, Lord Lumley 94, 126, 185 Macwilliam, Henry 29, 64, 87, 88, 151 Manners, Edward, 3rd Earl of Rutland 20, 167 Manners, Roger 197 Manwood, Sir Peter 129 Marbury, James 135 Markham, Isabella 40 Markham, Mary (née Griffin) 87 Markham, Robert 87 Markham, Sir Griffin 87 Markham, Thomas 42, 87, 135 Marprelate, Martin, affair of 61, 78, 101, 193, 195, 197, 200, 201, 203, 206, 245 Mary I, Queen of England 14, 15, 16, 37, 64, 80, 87, 193, 224 Mary, Queen of Scots 1, 3, 4, 6, 19, 22, 23, 39, 40, 43, 57, 90, 148, 162, 163, 164, 165–​6, 168, 170, 171, 185, 224, 225, 229, 234, 236, 245, 248, 249

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268

Index

Massey, Richard 77 Mather, Edmund 20, 40 Matthew, Tobie 62, 162 Maynard, Henry 167 Melville, Sir James 19 Mendoza, Bernardino de 38, 92, 126, 157 Mildmay, Sir Walter 41, 42, 61, 65, 84, 150, 161, 164, 181, 199, 202, 206 Montague, Sir Edward 70 Montmorency, Francis, Duc de 18 Morris, Peter 33 Munday, Anthony 17 Naunton, Robert 17, 21, 32, 219, 246 Needham, Humphrey 132 Neville, Charles, 6th Earl of Westmorland 26 Newport, John 63 Newport, Richard 15, 61, 63, 149, 194 Newport, Ursula 13, 63 Norris, Richard 90, 98 Norris, Sir John 169 North, George 95 Norton, Thomas 33, 61, 97, 152, 245 Oxford, University of 14, 15, 63, 202, 203 Paget, Charles 169 Paget, Thomas, 3rd Lord Paget 27, 75 Parker, Matthew, Archbishop of Canterbury 40, 122, 132, 189, 191, 192 Parr, Catherine, Queen of England 16 Parr, William, 1st Marquess of Northampton 16 Parry, William 123, 164, 224 Paulet, William, 1st Marquess of Winchester 22 Payne, John 86 Peckham, Sir George 78 Percy, Anne (née Somerset), Countess of Northumberland 26 Percy, Henry, 8th Earl of Northumberland 130, 185, 186 Perne, Andrew 182, 195

Perrenot, Frédéric, sieur de Champagney 25, 26, 27, 48, 126, 130, 153–​4 Perrot, Sir John 17, 35, 54, 150, 245 Persons, Robert 65, 74, 85, 89, 90, 98, 124, 125, 126, 129, 159, 169, 208, 226, 230, 231 Petre, Sir John 33, 86, 94, 96, 135, 168 Pettyt, John 182 Phelippes, Thomas 60, 92, 96, 208 Philip II, King of Spain 26, 125, 169, 224, 237 Phillips, John 95 Pickering, Lewis 134 Pierrepoint, Gervase 90 Piers, John, Bishop of Rochester 189, 193 Plasden, Polydore 209 Pound, Thomas 65, 89, 90, 93 Puckering, Sir John 110, 150, 168, 201, 205, 210 Pyne, Henry 85, 115, 152, 158, 161 Radcliffe, Thomas, 3rd Earl of Sussex 3, 6, 30, 72, 87, 89, 102, 120, 126, 127, 145, 147, 150, 153, 155, 157, 171, 185, 186, 230 Rainolds, John 204 Ralegh, Sir Walter 11, 19, 35, 38, 39, 59, 77, 80, 92, 187 Ribadeneira, Pedro de 125 Rich, Barnaby 69, 95 Ridolfi plot 122, 185, 245 Rogers, Thomas 194 Roper family 65 Roper, Christopher 88 Roper, John 88 Russell, Francis, 2nd Earl of Bedford 87, 132, 199, 206 Sackville, Thomas, 1st Lord Buckhurst 88, 102, 132, 134, 150, 161, 167, 197, 201, 202, 203, 204, 210, 248 Sampson, Thomas 131 Sander, Nicholas 125, 226, 230 Sandys, Edwin, Archbishop of York 82, 156 Sanford, James 95

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962

Index Saravia, Hadrian 195 Saunders, Ambrose 64 Saunders, Francis 23, 65 Saunders, Lawrence 15, 64, 228 Saunders, Sir Edward 15, 16, 64, 76, 149 Saunders, William 14, 18, 23, 64, 87, 88 Savage, John 184 Savelli, Cardinal Giacomo 158, 159, 160 Scudamore, Mary (née Houghton) 81 Scudamore, Mary (née Shelton) 82 Scudamore, Sir James 82 Seymour, Thomas, Lord Seymour of Sudeley 16 Sharpe, Henry 200 Sheldon, Ralph 71, 72, 74, 75, 80, 99, 101, 129, 228 Shelley, Richard 183 Shelley, William 183, 187 Shute, Christopher 80 Shute, Robert 62 Sidney, Sir Philip 18, 35, 37, 41, 61, 80, 94, 183, 186, 244 Simier, Jean de 155 Sledd, Charles 123 Smith, Sir Thomas 131 Somerset, Edward, 4th Earl of Worcester 94, 234, 246 Somerset, William, 3rd Earl of Worcester 185 Somerville, John 71, 72, 73, 74, 149 attempted assassination of Elizabeth 71, 73, 76, 80, 81, 99, 100, 130, 133, 162, 182, 183 Southwell, Robert 73 Spanish Armada 4, 30, 38, 75, 162, 168 Spencer, Sir John 70, 135 St John, Oliver 39 St Mary Hall, Oxford 14 Stafford, Sir Edward 63, 66, 159, 161 Stanhope, Edward 151 Stanhope, Sir John 88, 151 Stanley, Henry, 4th Earl of Derby 77, 185 Stanley, Margaret, Countess of Derby 166

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Stanley, Sir Rowland 78 Stanley, Sir William 78, 92, 93 Stoughton, William 135 Stow, John 85 Stuart, Arbella 166, 169 Stubbs, John 61, 97, 156 Swale, Richard 79, 82–​4, 95, 98, 99, 101, 135, 149, 202 Talbot, Elizabeth (née Hardwick), Countess of Shrewsbury 31, 40, 42, 163 Talbot, Francis 25 Talbot, George, 6th Earl of Shrewsbury 21, 42, 43, 72, 185 Talbot, Gilbert, 7th Earl of Shrewsbury 21, 25, 42, 235 Talbot, Henry 42 Talbot, Sir John 71, 182 Tate, Bartholomew 18, 33, 64, 87, 110 Tate, William 64 Tempest, William 86, 99 Thomas, John 34 Throckmorton Plot 4, 183, 185, 187 Throckmorton, Job 61 Throckmorton, Sir Arthur 69 Throckmorton, Sir John 71, 75 Thynne, John 132 Tichborne, Chidiock 57–​8, 88, 90, 91, 93, 133, 184 Tipper, William 28 Todd, John 194 Toledo, Fernando Alvarez de, 3rd Duke of Alva 26 Topcliffe, Richard 77, 102, 209 Tregian, Francis 186 Tremayne, Edmund 155 Tresham, Francis 235 Tresham, Sir Thomas 63, 65–​7, 69, 71, 93, 98, 99, 100, 129, 132, 183, 194, 249 Tresham, William 66, 90, 99, 149 Treswell, Ralph 33 Tyrell, John 97 Ubaldini, Petruccio 95 Udall, John 134, 200, 201, 207, 234 Underhill, Fulke 64 Underhill, Hercules 64

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Index

Underhill, William (junior) 63, 65 Underhill, William (senior) 63 Unton, Edward 158–​60, 170 Unton, Sir Henry 135, 151, 158, 159, 161, 168 Vaux, William, 3rd Lord Vaux 65, 66, 67, 70 Verstegan, Richard 129, 132, 208, 209 Villiers, George 64 Villiers, George, 1st Duke of Buckingham 13, 64 Wadham, Andrew 65 Waferer, Arden 71, 82, 84–​5, 97 Waferer, Francis 85 Walsingham, Sir Francis 1, 7, 11, 21, 24, 34, 41, 44, 77, 78, 91, 92, 94, 124, 126, 137, 146, 147, 148, 150, 151, 154, 155, 156, 159, 160, 163, 166, 170, 182, 184, 186, 192, 196, 202, 224, 227, 244, 245 and the Babington Plot 57 archive 6, 7 as ally of Burghley 2, 5, 41, 145, 162, 164, 246 as patron of Puritans 102, 197 death 168, 199, 206, 210 opposition to the Anjou match 156, 157 relationship with Elizabeth 43, 155, 184, 244 relationship with Hatton 41, 87, 91, 127, 136, 148, 149, 151, 155, 157, 158, 160, 186 strong Protestantism 24, 77, 101, 121, 127, 144, 149, 154, 206

Waynman, Edward 93 Wells, Gilbert 209 Wells, Henry 209 Wells, Swithin 209 Wentworth, Peter 202, 208 Whitaker, William 95 White, Eustace 209 Whitgift, John, Archbishop of Canterbury 61, 74, 78, 83, 95, 100, 102, 132, 167, 188, 189, 193, 194, 196, 199, 200, 204, 206, 212, 232, 233, 234, 244, 245 and anti-​Puritan campaign of 1588–​91 199, 200, 201, 203, 204, 205, 210, 211 relationship with Hatton 195, 196, 197, 198 Subscription Campaign (1583–​84) 196, 203, 211, 234, 244 Wilkes, Thomas 152, 162 Williams, Edward 75 Wilson, Sir Thomas 143, 150 Windsor, Edward, 3rd Lord Windsor 122 Windsor, Frederick, 4th Lord Windsor 93 Wiseman, Robert 88 Wolley, Sir John 202 Wotton, Edward, 1st Lord Wotton 246 Wright, Thomas 235 Wriothesley, Henry, 2nd Earl of Southampton 126 Wyndham, Francis 203 Young, John, Bishop of Rochester 193

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