Folger Finds: A letter from the Queen's lifelong favorite

Most of the men who hoped to marry Elizabeth were foreign royals seeking an alliance of state. But an Englishman, Robert Dudley, earl of Leicester (1532–88), was the suitor who was probably closest to her heart. The two had first met when they were children, and the attraction seems to have been mutual. When Elizabeth came to the throne in 1558, she made Leicester Master of the Horse and a member of her Privy Council, and over the years granted him various licenses and manors that brought him great wealth. In the early years of her reign, rumors circulated of an affair between the two, and if she had married anyone, it probably would have been him. One initial obstacle was his marriage to Amy Robsart, but she died rather mysteriously from a fall at home in 1560.

In 1578, realizing that the queen would never take him as a husband, Leicester married Lettice Knollys, countess of Essex. His friendship with the queen continued, however, as is evidenced by this letter written on August 3, 1588, one of the last he ever sent to her. It is addressed from the royal camp at Tilbury, where Leicester was organizing the defense of Britain against the Spanish Armada. The letter is on exhibit in How to Be a Power Player: Tudor Edition.

IN THE SUMMER OF 1588, Spain prepared to punish the heretic nation that once had been its ally. In the not so distant past, the marriages of King Henry VIII to Catherine of Aragon, and of Queen Mary to King Philip II, ensured some measure of political and religious congruity between England and Spain. Elizabeth’s coronation, however, brought not only a Protestant ruler to the throne, but also a self-possessed woman who refused Philip’s offer to marry. Her government defied Spain’s imperial claim to the distant lands of the Americas and to the nearby states of the Low Countries. Her captains prowled Atlantic sea-lanes to rob Philip’s treasure fleet and to raid his harbors. As a result, a vast armada of Spanish ships was making for England’s coasts when Robert Dudley, earl of Leicester, Lieutenant and Captain-General of the Queen’s Armies and Companies, wrote to Queen Elizabeth from the English military camp at Tilbury on Saturday August 3.

Across the Channel, the duke of Parma, commanding thousands of seasoned soldiers, awaited only wind and tide to begin the invasion. When or where the combined Spanish forces would land was the subject of frenzied speculation.

As Leicester penned this letter, troops were marshalling close by his tent for the defense of London. But to Elizabeth, his “mõõste dere Lady,” he displayed no hint of alarm. Rather, with words of reassurance and endearment, he reported that her camp was quiet and well ordered, her soldiers as “forwardly bent” as any in the world, and the news he heard was that God “fighteth for you & your enymyes fall before you.” Though he scribbled in haste, his tone was leisurely and playful: it bespoke the amity of time-tested lovers whose regard for one another, rooted in youthful friendship, evolving from dalliance to reckless ardor, surviving political pressure and personal betrayal, had come round at last to bedrock devotion. “I may not forget,” he wrote, “vppon my knees to yeld to your mõõste swete maiestie, all humble & dutyful thankes for the great comfort I receive euer from your owen swete self.” Leicester closed the letter using the mark signaling her nickname for her “most faythfull & most obedient ^~^~.” Twice within the text Leicester draws eyebrows over the letters o in the word “moost,” in reference to the queen’s nickname for him, which was “Eyes.” This coded and private reference within a letter of conventional courtly love certainly suggests a degree of intimacy between Leicester and Elizabeth.

On August 9, Elizabeth joined Leicester at Tilbury, the site of one of her most famous speeches, the courageous and defiant words that ring down the centuries of English memory: “I am come … resolved in the midst and heat of battle to live and die amongst you … I know I have the body but of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart and stomach of a king and of a king of England too—and take foul scorn that Parma or any prince of Europe should dare to invade the borders of my realm.” She promised that her lieutenant general “shall be in my stead” in battle, adding, “than whom never prince commanded a more noble or worthy subject.” By the valor of her troops and their “obedience to myself and my general,” they would “shortly have a famous victory over these enemies of my God and of my kingdom.”

Within days, superior English naval strategy combined with violent storms had thrown the Invincible Armada into disarray. While his troops disbanded, the visibly ailing lieutenant-general departed Tilbury. On September 4, traveling toward a rest-cure at Buxton, Leicester died unexpectedly in Cornbury. Elizabeth, when told of his death, is said to have fled into her private chamber, and “for some days,” “mourned alone and inconsolable.” After her death in 1603 a bejeweled box was found by her bedside. Within it lay a letter addressed in Leicester’s distinctive hand. Across the envelope she had written, “His last letter.”

How this letter came to be in the Folger collection

Folger MS Add 1006, the letter shown above, was not that last letter. It is nonetheless a powerful reminder that Elizabeth and Leicester were not only larger-than-life political figures, but also a man and woman who lived real lives.

That this fragment of their story now resides among Folger’s treasures owes everything to the real person being honored by the present occasion—Laetitia Yeandle, the Folger first curator of manuscripts. Because of Laetitia Yeandle’s good offices, a paleography student, pursuing research on Leicester’s wife, was permitted to view an extraordinary collection of letters known as the Hulton Papers. Consisting largely of correspondence of Leicester’s stepson Robert Devereux, earl of Essex, they had been sent by their owner, Sir Geoffrey Hulton, for auction at Sotheby’s. When they failed to achieve their 1992 reserve prices, they were withdrawn from market and disappeared from sight. It was at Mrs. Yeandle’s suggestion that the aforesaid researcher, traveling to London in 1996, rang Sotheby’s to inquire their where­ abouts. Dr. Peter Beal of Sotheby’s Manuscripts Department answered guardedly that he might know where to find them. Only when the caller uttered three magic words—”Laetitia Yeandle” and “Folger”—did Dr. Beal add, “They are right here on my desk.” An hour later he handed her the Hulton Papers, and allowed her not only to inspect but also to bid on particular items instead of entire groups. Through Mrs. Yeandle’s agency and Folger Director Dr. Werner Gundersheimer’s enthusiastic partnership the Leicester letter was acquired for the Folger, along with a letter by Essex and twenty letters sent to the third earl of Essex by his cousin Henry Rich, earl of Holland.

It is likely that none of these prizes would have come to the Folger but for a gifted teacher’s lifelong habit of encouraging her students’ work. Because Dudley’s letter was similarly supportive, its inclusion in this exhibit seems an apt tribute to Laetitia Yeandle.

Folger MS Add 1006 | A gift of Dorothy Rouse-Bottom, 1996