- To Where Did Queen Elizabeth I Disappear in August 1564?
- Elizabeth the Queen goes hunting.
The same of the infamous Hinchinbrook incident that put an
exclamation point to the ending. These and a good many other threads of Court
and University life upon which we have touched here over the years more
properly come together elsewhere.
What is of present interest, it turns out, is that history’s
general agreement that the Progress of 1564 ended at Cambridge and the Court
returned from whence it came is not correct. All that Nichols can say in his
highly dependable Progresses is that
On the 18th, she was in some part of Leicestershire; but the
particular place I have not been able to discover.[1]
There were no Cambridge University scholars to write
extensive accounts of what occurred outside of the town, before or after. Leicestershire
was in the opposite direction from London. Nichols could discover no more.
On September 4, nearly a month after the Queen departed
Cambridge, the Spanish Ambassador Guzman de Silva is writing to inform his King
Philip:
The Queen returns on the 12th and there will then
be greater facility for negotiating, as at present they think of nothing but
hunting and the members of the Councils are at their homes.[2]
The Queen will return to Greenwich over a month after
leaving Cambridge. In the meantime, part of her retinue have taken a bit of
time at the homes they so rarely got to visit. Part trickled back to Greenwich Palace
where De Silva overheard their talk. The word was that the Queen along with the
rest had gone hunting.
The little known comment by Nichols is supported by the fact that Principal Secretary William Cecil left behind an official letter signed from ‘“Siwell,” 3 Sept. 1564.’[3] Sywell is a small town outside of Northampton. But why would he be there?
In
the same letter, De Silva informs the readers that
I understand that the dispute between Lord Robert and Cecil
still goes on although they recently went together to a castle called Arruich
(Harwich?) and stayed there four days. I have not been able to find out what
they did there.[4]
The editor of the Spanish Papers guesses that the castle to which
De Silva referred is Harwich. But Harwich is so far north, through such
treacherous roads, that the two Lords would have to have gone alone for some
reason — some compelling reason.
If “Arruich,” instead, is his best phonetic spelling of Warwick
matters begin to make sense. Warwick Castle is the seat of Robert Dudley’s
brother Ambrose Dudley, the earl of Warwick. But the pieces still do not quite
fit together.
Where is the Queen? She has not gone along to the castle and
for good reason. There was no serviceable route for a Royal procession of carts
to get to Warwick. The three choices were: 1) to take the old Roman road called
“The Great East Road” back south to London, to cross east to west over Akeman street
(another Roman road), then to travel north on the Old Fosse Way (yet another
Roman road) beside which the castle is situated; or 2) to follow the Via Devana to nearby Godmanchester and to continue north on Watling Street until it arrived at High
Cross, where Watling and Fosse meet, and the group to turn south along the Fosse
Way, or 3) to continue onward to be received at Royal town of Sutton-Coldfield.
Although they were ancient Roman roads they were the only serviceable long
distance routes into the northern midlands of England.
As it happens, Sutton-Coldfield hosts the Sutton Chase, one
of the few midlands deer hunting grounds not played out in the 16th
century. The Chase was once gifted to the Earls of Warwick until it was
reclaimed by Henry VIII. This because the Chase ran from Coldfield, in the
north, to the vicinity of Warwick Castle, in the south. The entourage clearly went
north to hunt. They can only have traveled to the immediate vicinity of
Sutton-Coldfield.
But where would the Queen and her considerable servants, administrators
and friends set up the necessary home base
for her visit? There might well have been a small number of nearby estates that
would meet the requirements. But some 20 miles south of Sutton-Coldfield, just
off Watling Street, near present day Rugby, she would necessarily have to pass
the hunting lodge of the Earls of Oxford, Bilton Hall. The young Earl, minor
Ward of the Queen, had been in her company at Cambridge. He was rarely away if
he could help it.
Being a minor, Oxford was a Royal Ward awarded to William
Cecil. Robert Dudley had been given the management of most of his lands. For
all the young Earl must have been proud to host the Queen, it had not been his
choice to make. Either or both of his overseers would actually have been in
charge of the hunting lodge through servants there charged with upkeep and receiving
guests. It is they who would have offered to host the Queen. Being smallish for
such hosting, some number of the servants traveling with the party, and maybe
even some of the hunters, would have taken lodging in nearby Tamworth and
Wilnecot — satellite villages that serviced the sportsmen who hunted in the Chase.
[1]
Nichols, John. The Progresses and Public Processions of Queen Elizabeth.
I.189n. Citing Burghley Papers, vol. II. p. 736.
[2] De
Silva to King. Spanish Papers, Elizabeth I.376.
[3] Calendar of the Cecil Papers in Hatfield House: Volume 1, 1306-1571. 1014. John Mershe to Sir W. Cecil.
[4]
Spanish I.377.
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