I'M the King, Dammit!

There had been tentative negotiations w/ Spain for betrothing the late lamented Prince Henry to Philip's granddaughter, Maria Anna.

Maria Anna of Spain

did she invent hedge clippers,

b/c her hair sure looks like it LOL

Reckon the English woulda called her Mary Anne LOL Anyway, the English peeps were all um NO b/c of that whole we hate the Spanish thing & they were just as opposed when twas suggested Charles fill in as the bridegroom. Plus, after Jemmy let Raleigh out of the Tower (where he'd spent his imprisonment writing a grandiose tome called The Historie of the World), Raleigh said meh to England & trotted off to the New World w/ one of his sons (tediously) Walter & got into an altercation w/ the Spanish in which Walter Jr was kilt. Raleigh was meddling where he shouldn't have been & the Spanish were irked & poked Jemmy & said, hey, didn't you sentence this peep to the axe a good 15 yrs ago for that Main Plot? What's he still doing w/ a head?

So Raleigh got another Tower Fun Pass & became a head shorter. Jemmy was trying to avoid getting into war w/ Spain b/c he was already ensnared in that whole mess his SIL & DD got into in Bohemia, so he gave up Raleigh's head to appease em. Buckingham, who was a bad influence on Charles, decided it would be fun times if he & Charles took a little incognito trip to Spain & settled the whole Princess Mary Anne matter in person. Peeps were vastly unamused when this came out, but Mary Anne & Charles ended up not getting hitched b/c the Spanish wouldn't have it unless Charles turned Catholic, to which he said um NO.

Instead, Charles had decided he fancied a Frenchie princess he'd met on his travels, Henrietta Maria.

Henrietta Maria of France

She was the daughter of Henry of Navarre, now demised, so sis of the current Louis (there are 11dy6 of those & Scarlet gets their #s confoozled LOL so I disrecall which one). The Frenchies were OK w/ Charles staying Protestant as long as Henrietta Maria & her household could stay Catholic, so Parliament said OK & approved the match.

Then there was a scandal involving one of Jemmy's favs, Robert Carr. Cecil Jr had demised & peeps was irked b/c that meant Jemmy's lads had their fingers in all the pies & were trying to run the joint. Jemmy pushed thru a divorce for one of the rich Howard chicks, Frances, so that Carr could wed her & get her goodies. Carr's asst (b/c he was too stupid to run the joint alone), Sir Thomas Overbury, ended up poisoned b/c he frowned publicly at the match, Frannie being a notorious loose chick, & it developed Robbie & Frannie did the deed & peeps was all :O

Buckingham was pleased b/c this meant he was now the sole fav & running the joint all by himself, b/c Jemmy was getting old & sickly by now (he had arthritis, gout, kept swooning a lot, got a bad case of tertian fever, & started having strokes), the queen had demised (from what was said to be a bad case of gout but that don't kill ya, so twas prolly something else that caused the swells like bad arteries or kidneys), & Charles thunk Buckingham was the cat's pajamas.

James I in old age

Not long after that Jemmy was lollygagging at Theobalds (used to be Cecil Sr's fab country house but somehow Jemmy got his mitts on it) & ended up w/ a yucky case of dysentery atop all else & demised right quick w/ Buckingham hovering at his bedside, aged 59, just 3 days past Elizabeth's demise & his accession. He had a splendid funeral & even tho he was a little weird (there was a saying going round of "Elizabeth was King, & James is Queen" b/c of his male favs LOL), for the most part peeps genuinely mourned him.

Now little Charles, age 24, was planning for both his wedding & his coronation.

4 days after Jemmy's funeral, Charles was married by proxy (that's when some peep stands in for one of the parties & tis considered perfectly legal) to Henrietta Maria, who came over to England a month later & did it all over again at Canterbury Cathedral.

Charles I & Henrietta Maria

he's giving her bedroom eyes & she's all meh LOL

Peeps were still muttering b/c she was Catholic & got special religious privileges that the seecrud English Catholics couldn't have b/c of all the legislation Jemmy shoved thru Parliament. Charles wasn't crowned until Candlemas (we call that Groundhog Day LOL), nigh on a yr after Jemmy's demise, & Henrietta Maria didn't get to play b/c there was so much muttering, so she never got crowned at all. She wasn't breeding yet, either, & at 21 was plenty old enough to commence it, so peeps was doubly unamused w/ her.

These 2 peeps put Elizabeth to shame when it came to having their portraits done & there are about 11dy6,000 of em still extant to gawk at.

The Three Faces of Charles I

betcha he had 11dy6 mirrors in which to preen LOL

Charles was rather shrimpy but he was a snappy dresser & brought giant hats & high heels into fashion for guys. Ruffs was finally out & lace collars was in, along w/ puffy sleeves instead of puffy pants. No chicks had to cram themselves into stomachers, busks, or bumrolls any more, so they were at least pleased w/ the Frenchie fashions.

Charles I

lookin' stylin'

That whole 30 Yrs' War was still going on & Charles declared war on Spain b/c they'd come in & stolen his BILs goodies & occupied them. Parliament was not amused at the expense, nor at Charles putting Buckingham in charge of it; he didn't do such a hot job. This is where all the trouble w/ Parliament started. Jemmy had kicked out those pesky religious fanatic Pilgrims to the New World, but there were lots of peeps who began leaning drastically to the right on religious stuff & were even more unfussed than the average Englishman over that Catholic queen.

Queen Henrietta Maria

Charles refused to pull Buckingham from being in charge, but pretty soon he had to find a new peep anyway.

Buckingham returned to England to have a nice war break & was toddling down the docks when a peep jumped out at him w/ a knife & assassinated him real good. Peeps was all YAY b/c no one liked him, but the king & queen did & they were appalled at the general rejoicing. Ya'd think that woulda made em hmmm some but um NO. Charles just kept glaring at most peeps & at Parliament, who were putting to screws to his personal income & the war efffort. The latter petered out & they had to make peace w/ Spain. Charles was so irked he sent Parliament home & didn't bother calling em back for 11 yrs.

After 4 yrs of marriage the queen finally commenced w/ the breeding, but their 1st son, Charles James, was stillborn. A yr later there was the usual celebrations b/c this time it was another boy, Charles, & he lived & thrived. HM called him her "black boy" b/c he'd managed to get a hefty dose of Italian de Medici gene pool & was quite dark & swarthy.

Henrietta Maria, baby Prince Charles, & Charles I

Then HM & Charles REALLY got busy. By the end of the next yr there was Princess Mary, 2 yrs later Prince James, 2 yrs later Princess Elizabeth, 2 yrs later Princess Anne (tho she died age 3), 2 yrs later another stillbirth, Princess Catherine, a yr after that Prince Henry, & 4 yrs after that Princess Henrietta Anne WHEW! 9 kids in 15 yrs!

The Children of Charles I

(& a REALLY big dog)

L to R: Mary, James, Charles, Elizabeth, Henry

So there was plenty of heirs & spares, at least. Charles was supposedly devoted to HM & never had any GFs awwww. Dunno where he'd have found the time what w/ all the marital breeding & portrait posing.

Charles I

W/ all these kids & their extravagant tastes, Charles had to raise money somehow, so he began researching & re-introducing all sorts of obscure medieval laws where he could fine & tax peeps sans Parliament's consent, in Scotland as well as in England. Peeps began looking at him sideways. They liked their groats better. They also didn't like Charles's religious stance.

Charles I &  a pregnant Henrietta Maria

Charles was widely suspected of being a seecrud Catholic b/c his DW was, but he really wasn't. He was just looking askance at all the Puritan fanatics cropping up & wanting to shove stuff back over toward the middle where it was nice & non-confrontational. Some peeps wanted to reform English Protestantism into a more severe Calvinist type of church & Charles was all um NO! His Archbishop of Canterbury, William Laud, agreed, & started banning Puritan stuff left & right & getting rid of fanatic clergy. More Puritan peeps said meh went to the colonies. So did lots of Catholics. The Catholic colony of Maryland was named for the queen.

But lots more Puritans stayed & muttered & grumbled. The Scots Presbyterians of the Kirk were ticked b/c they thunk Charles was trying to cram the Anglican Church down their throat when Laud revised Edward VIs Book of Common Prayer & decreed USE IT OR ELSE.

This caused a Scots rebellion called The Bishops' War. B/c he was unfussed w/ Parliament & didn't want to call em back, Charles had to raise the money to put down this rebellion himself & then he wound up rather broke. So finally he sighed & had to call em back to get some bucks for those growing kidlets. This was called the Short Parliament b/c he didn't get as much $$$ as he wanted & Parliament was irking him, so he dissolved it & sent em home again w/ a raspberry.

The Scots thumbed their noses at him & said pffft we don't need no steenking king up here to call us into session, we'll just govern ourselves, how do ya like them apples, Charlie? Well natch, not very well at all. Those pesky Scots Covenanters, as the Kirk was now called, had the audacity to march on York next. W/o the English Parliament to vote him funds, Charles had to make a humiliating treaty w/ the rebels.

All this rebelling was hard on the wallet so he sighed & re-opened Parliament again. This one was known as the Long Parliament & wasn't Charles & HM shocked when, instead of the $$$ issue, the 1st thing they did was call for the impeachment of Laud on the grounds of high treason.

William Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury

And they passed a bill what said Parliament just couldn't be sent home anytime the king pleases, it had to meet at least once every 3 yrs, & if they king didn't call em to assemble, why, then, they could jolly well do it themselves, just like the Scots. Charles was standing there w/ his mouth open at all this uppity-ness going but....but...I got me the Divine Right of Kingship, dammit! WTF? Who do these peeps think they ARE?

Charles I

After impeaching the archbishop. Parliament then turned its attn to Charles's council prez, Thomas Wentworth, Earl of Strafford. They said he was governing like carp & that was treason as well. A Bill of Attainder was introduced & Charles said pfffft I ain't signing none of this nonsense! I'M THE KING! YOU PEEPS GOTTA LISTEN TO ME, NOT THE OTHER WAY ROUND!

Those pocky Parliamentarians twirled their moustaches in a Snidely Whiplash-like fashion & said o yeah? That's rich HA HA How 'bout we go after your Catholic DW next, huh?

Henrietta Maria

I so want that dress!!!

Charles gulped & signed & Strafford lost his head posthaste. Then they patted Charles on the head & said there, that wasn't so hard, was it? You just been led astray by evil councillors & now they're gone, so we'll play nicely w/ ya from now on, won't we, guys?

Next they introduced the Grand Remonstrance, a laundry list of every little thing they thunk Charles had done wrong since he became king, sticking to the evil councillors thing & throwing in a dash of Catholic conspiracy to undermine the govt as well. Charles was so gobsmacked tis a wonder he could sit for those portraits & not have his mouth hanging open in shock.

Charles I

1st the Scots, now the English, & b4 ya knew it there was a rebellion in Ireland to boot! When he asked for funds for this, Parliament shook their heads & tried to take control of the military themselves in exchange for the money. Charles said NO NOT SIGNING! In fact, tis y'all who are committing high treason here & I want these 5 instigating peeps in the Tower posthaste! Um NO they said.

So Charles had a confab w/ HM, who was worried about rumors they might still go after her & send her banished & packing, & decided to storm Parliament by force & drag these treasonous peeps to the Tower.

Somebody tattled about the arrest warrants Charles had drawn up, so when he stormed into Parliament w/ his armed guard, flourishing them, the 5 peeps in ques had already done a bunk & no one would tell him where they went. Infuriated, he confabbed w/ HM some more & sent her to the continent to raise support & money to quash these pocky Parliamentarians, & he himself left London to go to the north of England & attempt to rally support there from the peeps who were all overrun by those irksome Scots & were outta steaks & burgers. The whole ride he muttered, HOW DARE THEY TELL ME WHAT I CAN & CAN'T DO? I'M THE KING! DADDY WROTE A BOOK ABOUT IT, EVEN!

Charles I

He raised the royal standard at Nottingham & set up his court at Oxford. His smokin' hot nevvy, Rupert of the Rhine, who was reknowned far & wide as the bestest cavalry peep there ever was, hurried to support Uncle Charlie's efforts, as did some other peeps.

Rupert of the Rhine

Tis rumored Rupert was involved in a hopeless romance with the married Mary Villiers, the Duchess of Richmond, & tis why he never wed & bred smokin' hot sons (tho he did acknowledge a bastard daughter w/ the ridic name of Ruperta). 

Mary Villiers, Duchess of Richmond

The Royalists (or Cavaliers as they were oft called) were trounced at the battle of Naseby & then Oxford was put under siege. Charles gulped & ran away. He was caught by those pesky steak-stealers at Newark, who smiled & nodded at what he had to say & pretended they were going to play nicely, while all the time they were negotiating w/ the Parliamentarians to hand him over. Charles was put under house arrest at Holdenby House in Northamptonshire

Holdenby House

& then sent to Hampton Court & then to Carisbrooke Castle on the Isle of Wight. Islands are usually good places to make sure peeps don't escape, but hey, MQOS managed it. HM had taken the baby, Minette, w/ her, Mary was married to the Prince of Orange b4 the trouble began, & the 2 eldest lads, Charles & James, were also escaped to the continent, but their other kids Elizabeth & Henry were sent to Carisbrooke to share Daddy's prison.

Carisbrooke Castle

O man, this is some baaad shite, Charles whinged, & hmmm'd some & decided mayhap twas time to start playing one grp of assorted nuts off the other in the hopes they'd just all annihilate each other. So he started treating w/ those irksome Scots & promised to toss out that prayer book thing & let em have whatever sort of whacko religion they pleased up there. This was known as the Engagement & the Scots agreed to invade England, trounce the Parliamentarians, & restore Charles to his throne. Unfortunately for him, they got trounced themselves at the battle of Preston, grabbed a few steaks & burgers out of habit, & made a run for the border.

Charles was transferred to Windsor Castle after this debacle. Parliament decided that since the fighting was all done & they were gonna let him stay king w/ limited powers until he started sneaking round w/ the Scots & encouraging further bloodshed, this was a nice act of treason on his part & he was going to stand trial for it.

Oliver Cromwell

Oliver Cromwell was the head Parliamentarian peep now (& I do believe he's related to Henry VIIIs Cromwell) & in charge of setting this novel concept up. Charles sputtered in disbelief at the notion of a King of England being put on trial by pocky peeps who were sooooo not his peers, & all for trying to keep his backside on his throne & pay for it! When his trial began he refused to enter a plea, insisting they had no right to try him & he wasn't playing. Under English law then, a peep who wouldn't plead either guilty or not guilty was assumed to be guilty as charged on all counts. They spent a wk trying to get this salient fact to sink into the king's skull & Charles just kept going um NO! I'M THE KING! YOU GOT NO AUTHORITY OVER ME!

Sooo.....

W/o a plea there could be no trial, but there could be sentencing, & a death warrant was signed. A scaffold was erected outside the Banqueting Hall at Whitehall Palace, where the king was now confined. Tis unclear whether all those sad scenes in movies where he said good-bye to Elizabeth & Henry are true or not, b/c the following yr Elizabeth demised at age 14 at Carisbrooke & her grave is on the Isle of Wight, so the kidlets may have been kept there. Henry was released to his mother's custody in France 2 yrs after his sis died. Imagine the issues these kids had from all this mess.

The execution date was set for Jan 30th & b/c tis mighty cold in England in the winter, legend has it Charles wore 2 shirts b/c he didn't want peeps to think he was scared if he shivered from the cold. To avoid any last-min heroics, Cromwell placed a buffer of soldiers round the scaffold to keep the common peeps back. This meant nobody really got to hear his speech at the time he said it, tho peeps did write it down. Charles emerged all snappily dressed as usual, removing his cloak & hat after speechifying, & told the executioner he would stretch out his arms as a signal when he was ready.

Nobody knows who the executioner was b/c the official executioner of London refused the job. But it had to be some kind of official dude b/c there was none of that mess like what happened w/ Margaret Pole & MQOS. Charles said a prayer, put his head on the block, & his last words b4 giving the signal were, "I go from a corruptible to an incorruptible crown".

The Execution of Charles I

His head came off cleanly w/ a single stroke of the axe & was raised to the hushed crowd; peeps were like slowing down to look at the car accident on this execution, repellently fascinated but still appalled b/c, jeez, deposed kings were supposed to be tossed into the bowels of some castle & demise quietly, not have a public spectacle made of it. This was an unprecedented event. There was no king or queen! Who was gonna run the joint? What was gonna happen? YIKES......

contemporary depiction of Charles the Martyr

Enter the Stuarts

The new Cecil scrambled posthaste to let Jemmy know he now had a spare crown. Elizabeth meanwhile had a grand funeral thrown, & do you know she'd decided she wanted to spent eternity right next to her sis Mary?  Tis true, go find em cuddled up for eternity at Find a Grave.

Arabella Stuart

don't she know Mammy says tisn't ladylike to

show your bosom b4 3 o'clock?  ROFL

Arabella Stuart was not amused when her cuz's accession was universally acclaimed & didn't no one offer HER anything sparkly. By now Arabella was 28 & so unfussed at living in Granny's pockets that she immediately sat down & wrote Jemmy about the possibility of that Lennox title & coming to court, eager to shake the dust of Hardwick Hall from her skirts. Bess was hoping Jemmy would take the wench off her hands as she was getting too old to deal w/ Arabella's histrionics & having them interrupting her building.

James I, King of England

Jemmy, now 37, made a splendid progress from Edinburgh to London, waving at peeps & accepting lots of homage & goodies on his way to the king's coronation apts at the Tower.

Anne, who was 29, followed more slowly w/ 2 of the kiddies. Henry Frederick, the new Prince of Wales, was 9, & Princess Elizabeth (obvs suck-up there) was 6. Princess Margaret, who would've been 5, & Prince Robert, who would've been 1, had died in infancy. Nobody ever writes down of what in such cases.  2 1/2 yo Charles was left behind for a tad b/c he had a bad case of the rickets & couldn't walk very well yet, so he stayed in Scotland until he could LOL

At any rate, peeps was all agog to see the new royals, have the requisite heir & a spare, & relieved that there wasn't gonna be no trouble over the whole thing like w/ Jane Grey. There was a lovely coronation in July w/ lots of celebration & Arabella said YIPPEE b/c she was invited to attend & got a nice allowance & a stylin' wardrobe, too.

Arabella was chuffed b/c she was now seen as a desirable marriage mart commodity & got an offer from the King of Poland. That came to naught & she was quite disappointed & unwisely yelled at Jemmy for not letting her have a hubby. Jemmy said pffft & pointed to Hampton Court's door, banishing Arabella from court for 4 yrs.

Hampton Court gatehouse

In that time old Bess of Hardwick demised. A fortune-teller had once told her if she couldn't build anything that she would die & it was a very cold winter that yr, so cold that the construction peeps couldn't keep the mortar from freezing when they mixed it. Bess was therefore unable to keep building & demised. Fun tale.

Meantime, Jemmy got hit w/ some plots of his own. The Bye Plot was an attempt to kidnap him & force him to repeal anti-Catholic legislation. Jemmy was raised in the Kirk, even stricter Protestantism than Elizabeth's brand, & so there was not only executions but he kicked out all the priests from England. Hey, Longshanks once kicked out all the Jews; kings pretty much got to do what they wanted as long as it didn't upset too many peeps & encourage rebellion.

The Main Plot was to replace Jemmy w/ Arabella, w/ help from those irksome Spanish. Luckily Arabella was rusticated & knew naught, but Sir Walter Raleigh was involved & got a Tower Fun Pass & stayed locked up for 13 yrs b4 Jemmy let him out.

The most famous one is the Gunpowder Plot (remember remember the 5th of November). This was an elaborate Catholic scheme to blow up Parliament on opening day when the king, queen, Prince of Wales, & all the important peeps would be sitting in it, & then Princess Elizabeth was going to have a nice Catholic regency.

Houses of Parliament

Robert Cecil, now the Earl of Salisbury, was as sneaky as Walsingham & had a nice double agent in the plotting. Guy Fawkes & all his pals got to be hanged, drawn & quartered, & Jemmy passed even MORE anti-Catholic legislation as a result.

WHY this continues to be a big holiday in England I am sure I dunno, but Bonfire Night still goes on & peeps made "Guys" (in ref to Guy Fawkes) out of flammable stuff to burn in effigy on the bonfires (twas even done in the colonies for a while). This is now why we have the word "guy" referring to any male or a collections of peeps ("you guys") b/c language evolves like that. All from 36 barrels of gunpowder in Parliament's cellar. One wonders if Jemmy got a little shiver recollecting the events of Kirk O' Fields.

Jemmy was a weird dude. In addition to having guy favs LOL (at the time of his accession his fav was Robert Carr, a Scots dude),

Robert Carr, Earl of Somerset

he wrote several books. One was dedicated to Prince Henry & all about that divine right of kings stuff that Prince Charles was gonna end up taking way too seriously (foreshadowing), one was on the evils of tobacco (tho he happily collected its groats), & another was a denunciation of witchcraft. Jemmy really believed in that stuff & had a chick called Janet of Glamis burnt at the stake in Scotland for allegedly being a witch. This is where that whole witch-hunting craze started & the Office of Witchfinder General established & long after Jemmy was demised there would be the Salem Witch Trials in the colonies.

Like Unks the VIII, Jemmy was gaga over theology & participated in re-writing the Bible (hello, King James Version) in English. Rumor has it that whole part about "thou shalt not suffer a witch to live" he put in all by himself. He established the East India Company so that the Navy had something to do & even opened trade relations w/ peeps as far away as Japan, plus he sent peeps over to the New World (Jamestown) to establish English colonies. There was that whole Roanoke Colony in Elizabeth's day that Raleigh started, but peeps got spooked when it vanished & didn't want to go there until Jemmy insisted. Alas for his dreams of riches, the Spanish already got all the good parts w/ the gold & silver, but tobacco was invented & peeps started smoking pipes & cigs & there were groats to be made off importing that.  Even Pocahantus came to visit court w/ her DH John Rolfe; alas, she demised of that pesky smallpox whilst in London.

Queen Anne had 2 more daughters whilst in England, Princess Mary & Princess Sophia, but they also both demised in infancy, Sophia after just a day, & that was it for the breeding b/c then Jemmy got all come over unnecessary w/ his new English fav, George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, & hurled lots of goodies at him.

George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham

how come the cute ones are always gay? LOL

Prince Henry rolled his eyes b/c he was your typical sports & military crazed teenage lad, but Prince Charles liked Daddy's new pal Buckingham. Prince Henry was actually the driving force in getting Dad to set up the Virginia Company & commence colonizing b/c he thunk twas important to grab some of the New World b4 the Spanish snagged it all. Peeps was impressed w/ him & thunk my won't he make a nice king some day.

miniature of Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales

Little Charles was unfortunately quite short (must've been in the Danish gene pool w/ how tall MQOS, Darnley, James, & Henry were) & sickly & not athletically inclined like his big bro, so Henry didn't have much use for him & teased him incessantly. Tis said once he plucked one of those ginormous hats off a bishop's head & plonked it on Charles's & told him when he was king he would make him Archbishop of Canterbury so he could wear long robes & hide his spindly little legs LOL Kids.

Prince Charles

Then tragedy struck the royal family. Henry collapsed in the midst of a tennis match & was hauled off to bed, where to their horror twas learned he'd somehow managed to contract typhoid fever. There was demising & a nice funeral & peeps was sad b/c at 18 he was way more kingly than Dad & now they were stuck w/ rickety little 12 yo Charles as heir.

Queen Anne

Anne hadn't spawned in 7 yrs & she was mighty unfussed w/ Buckingham so twas doubtful there would be any more heirs, & peeps were thinking if the sickly brat demised then they'd get another Queen Elizabeth b/c she'd be the only one left standing.

Princess Elizabeth

Elizabeth had just gotten engaged to Frederick V, Elector Palatine of Germany, b/c he was a leading Protestant ruler. Ya just couldn't truck w/ them Catholic Frenchies & Spanish for spouses nowadays. After a suitable mourning period for Henry there was a nice wedding & Elizabeth was packed off to Germany & commenced breeding nicely.

Then there was a tiresome rebellion there.

This turned into the 30 Years' War. Elizabeth & Frederick were offered the crowns of Bohemia. Elizabeth is known as the Winter Queen b/c there was more fussing & fighting & pretty soon it was RUN AWAY RUN AWAY from those dratted Bohemians, so she didn't wear the crown for long.

Elizabeth, the Winter Queen

They hastened off to exile in The Hague & Frederick never did get any of their goodies back. They did, however, produce a smokin' hot son, Rupert of the Rhine (this guy does NOT have a bad portrait! DROOL), in addition to sundry other brats.

Rupert of the Rhine

Charles got invested as Prince of Wales & Duke of Cornwall & all the resultant goodies that came w/. Jemmy was throwing round lots of coin what w/ all these funerals, ceremonies, & the wedding, & Parliament said pffft economize. So he said pffft go home & got his peeps to make him some money w/ some good investments instead.

Arabella got to come back to court, but there was no more talk of finding her a DH & she was getting mighty miffed b/c she was well past 30 already & chicks' eggs are on a timer. So she glanced round the courtiers & started making eyes at one & got tipped a wink back. B4 ya knew it there was another seecrud wedding.

Like Katie Grey b4 her, Arabella couldn't have made a choice more calculated to tick off the monarch....b/c she married Katie's grandson, William Seymour, Lord Beauchamp! Just like Elizabeth, Jemmy was alarmed at another union of heirs w/ Tudor blood when he found out. Didn't these peeps ever learn from experience that seecrud weddings were no good?

Willie got a Tower Fun Pass, whilst Arabella was placed under house arrest. When Jemmy found out they were corresponding against his express order not to, he arranged for them to be moved to different & more secure accommodations. Arabella pleaded illness & then dressed up as a man & snuck off & ran away to flee to the continent. Willie became the 1st peep since Roger Mortimer to successfully escape from the Tower so good on him. They managed to get on separate ships outta there, but while Willie's got away undetected to Flanders, Arabella's boat was stopped & boarded only minutes b4 it would've made landing in Calais, & she was hauled kicking & screaming to the Tower her good self.

And in Arabella's case, you KNOW she was kicking & screaming. She was like that. Betcha the Tower made Hardwick Hall & Granny look mighty good to her LOL She was kept imprisoned for 4 yrs & then demised. Twas said she was anorexic & starved herself to death lollygagging in bed refusing to eat & having episodes of cardiac arrythmia.

Willie didn't mourn overlong; within a yr of Arabella's demise he remarried to Essex & Frances Walsingham's daughter, Frances Devereux, got pardoned by Jemmy, & became the Earl of Hertford & later Duke of Somerset & guardian to Charles's heir. So he made out OK & his descendents are still Dukes of Somerset to this day. England is crawling w/ throne claim peeps LOL

In the meantime, Jemmy was looking round for a potential bride for Charles....

No Apparent Heir

Essex fancied himself quite the swashbuckler. Previously he'd begged Elizabeth for letters of marque to go a-privateering & he made a daring raid on Cadiz, tagging along like a puppy after Drake when Elizabeth told him not to, & stole lots n lots of treasure from Philip. Elizabeth was irked at this (tho natch she took the huge share to which she was entitled & tipped Drake a wink) b/c Philip was mad enough at her for the Armada thing & she was afraid there'd be retaliation, but the Armada was still too broken & there wasn't. 

Defense Against the English at Cadiz

Old Phil was getting busy w/ DW#4, Anna of Austria, trying to breed up a sane son on a NIECE TWICE OVER (her maternal grandparents were Charles V & his wife Isabella of Portugal, who were Philip's parents, while her paternal grandparents were Charles's baby bro, Philip's Uncle Ferdinand, & his wife Anna of Bohemia)....o the inbreeding!.....& the papal dispensation fees!  Can you imagine being told ya gotta marry old Uncle Phil?  Jeez!  She did spawn him 3 male heirs, Philip Jr, Ferdinand, & Diego, which was good as Don Carlos was such a frothing at the mouth kinda froot loop by now that rumor had it Philip himself kilt the kid.  But o that Catholic incest!  Arentcha supposed to go to Hell for stuff like that?  No wonder yrs later there was that King of Spain who was a drooling idiot.  Tis a wonder none of em had 2 heads!

Anna of Austria, Queen of Spain

But regardless of his hot young wifeniece, Philip was still meddling in Ireland & now her Anglo-Irish earls were in open rebellion, not just the regular pesky common Irish who were always in rebellion. Elizabeth was annoyed b/c she'd had the O'Neill, the Earl of Tyrone, to court even, & he promised her he'd make everyone there play nicely.

Hugh O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone

Now he was like the ringleader! So she glared at Essex & said yknow, if you hadn't aggravated Philip so much, I wouldn't have this problem! Here's your Daddy's old Lord Lieutenant title back....go fix it!


Pffft no prob, I'll be done & dusted b4 ya know it! Essex said w/ confidence, & hied across the Irish Sea to kick Irish behind.

Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex

Only Elizabeth was funneling coin into the Navy, not the troops, & it was soon clear the pittance she was allowing him to go on the offensive wasn't near enough. Those Irish were clever & tenancious & prolific Catholic breeders & there was always a whole 'nother troop of em over the next hill to harass the English.

Elizabeth I

the Ermine portrait

no, that ain't a rat LOL tis an ermine

So Essex came back to court & said listen up missy I ain't got enough groats to accomplish this! Elizabeth was outraged that he'd left his post & tho she did give him a tad more money, she told him he best not dare cross the Irish Sea again unless she specifically ordered him to do so, & that wasn't gonna happen until he was done & dusted, so get busy!

an actual Elizabethan shilling

Essex stormed off & gave it a shot, a whole lot less cocky now that he'd seen what he had to deal w/. Elizabeth was not amused at word of his reverses & grudgingly increased his pittance a little more. Still didn't work. He was hemmed in on all sides & not in a mood to fight to the death for that old biddy queen who couldn't even be bothered to maintain a decent supply line for the effort, so he made lots of truces & parleyed w/ the revolting earls & signed off on a peace treaty w/o even consulting Elizabeth. Then he further disobeyed her by returning to England, disgusted w/ the whole mess & not planning on going back.

There's a fine story connected w/ Essex's unexpected homecoming....

Tis said Essex arrived early in the morn & swaggered his way to the queen's apts. Elizabeth's peeps were alarmed at this male intrusion b/c the queen had just finished brekkie & was still in her jammies. He was told he couldn't go in until the queen said she was ready to receive visitors, which natch she wasn't. Essex said pffft she'll see ME anytime, I'm just that darn special, & pushed his way in. Tis said his jaw dropped when he saw Elizabeth w/o her camoflauge on. Like MQOS, she had short grey hair w/o one of her fab red wigs, but she was also a good 20+ yrs older than MQOS had ever gotten & mighty wrinkly w/o that inch-thick lead paint to spackle it all in. And sans a snug corset & stomacher, there was gravity to contend w/ as well. Nope, old Elizabeth in her jammies was NOT an appealing sight to a man LOL

Elizabeth in old age

She was infuriated that he should intrude upon her extensive toilette b4 she was done w/ it & immediately had him hauled off kicking & screaming to be placed under house arrest. Of course, if the tale of her revealed age ravages is just that, it could've just been b/c he showed up, period, when he was supposed to not leave Ireland.

Essex's timing was really bad either way, b/c his monopoly on sweet wines was all set to expire. That was when the queen granted a peep the right to collect the taxes on imported stuff for his own pockets & sweet wines was a lucrative monopoly to have b/c peeps drank lots of those, didn't nobody drink the water & stuff like tea & coffee weren't invented in England yet, so your choice was wine or ale. It was also his main source of income & she let it expire & refused to renew it. She also refused to reply to his steady stream of begging, pleading letters, which ticked him off & turned said letters into wild rants instead, displeasing her further. So he summoned some of his peeps (b/c he was under guard & couldn't go out), incl the demised Wriothesley's grandson Henry, Earl of Southampton, & began whinging incessantly about what an ungrateful old hag she was & who needed her ugly bony behind on the throne anyway? Let's get rid of her! I'LL be the king! We don't need no steenking Tudors or Scots to govern Englishmen YEAH! Let's take her down!

This is known as Essex's Rebellion (obvs).....

Essex busted out of his house arrest & he & his peeps took to the streets to rouse the Londoners against the queen & make him king. They all looked at him sideways & said um NO. It wasn't long b4 he was slapped w/ a Tower Fun Pass. Lettice tried to get in & plead w/ Elizabeth for 2 lives b/c her stupid boy-toy DH was her stupid son's roomie there, having been sucked into the rebellion idea, but Elizabeth was still all um NO when it came to Lettice. Her very presence outside her doors prolly irked her even more. This time there was no dillydallying at all when it came to signing the death warrants. Groats were made on Tower Hill's latest entertainment, w/ Essex all arrogant & unrepentant to the bitter end.

Twas said Elizabeth was never the same after that. All her old peeps were long gone (even Cat Ashley demised, I forgot her b/c there were so many demisings LOL) & she was a doddering old hag compared to the rest of em. Her elaborate costumes & flash wigs & inches of makeup weren't fooling anybody; they all knew she'd been perched on that throne 40+ yrs by now. Even Christopher Hatton, who was younger than she, came down w/ a fatal case of the demises. The position of queen's favorite fell permanently vacant.

Robert Cecil, Earl of Salisbury

Robert Cecil began secretly messaging James VI up in Scotland, hoping to make himself indispensible to the most obvs & sensible solution to the succession.

James VI, King of Scots

Elizabeth still wouldn't name an heir & the choices were either Jemmy or Arabella at this pt, & Arabella was nuts LOL so twas an EZ choice for Cecil Jr to make. Besides, Arabella was getting to be a dried-up old spinster & even more nuts; Bess begged Elizabeth to take the wench off her hands & Elizabeth said pffft to that. Jemmy had married Anne of Denmark & already had an heir & a spare to put an end to all this succession uncertainty.

Anne of Denmark, Queen of Scots

Elizabeth had a very weird demise. One day in March 1603 she got up & dressed & went to stand by the window chewing on her finger. She said NO when peeps wanted to come in & see her, NO to signing paperwork, NO to breakfast, lunch, & dinner, just stood there staring out the window & gnawing. Twas a tad unnerving for peeps to watch.

When it got to be dark her ladies attempted to get her undressed & put her to bed. Elizabeth said um NO. They said, huh? Elizabeth said, I'm not going to bed b/c if I lie down now, I'll never get up again, so I'm just gonna stand here TYVM & quit pestering me jeez! Who's the queen here?

Ohhhhh-K they said, looking at each other sideways & getting progressively irked b/c couldn't no one retire until the queen did. So her ladies all plopped themselves in chairs & snoozed on & off in their clothes & waited for her to change her mind. She didn't.

Next morn she was still standing there leaning on the windowsill telling peeps to buzz off. Since this was getting a tad ridic, sundry peeps tried approaching her all day long to see what her prob was & if she was sure she didn't want a nice lie-down or mayhap at least a chair. NO! she bellowed, irritated, & kept standing there until she couldn't stand no more & had a case of the swoons.  Even them she was all meh just toss me down some cushions willya?  I wanna meditate LOL 

The Death of Queen Elizabeth

So she lollygagged down there a bit & just gave peeps the glares when they attempted to disturb her.  Finally she passed out cold.

Peeps swept in & scooped her up & got her into her jammies & settled her in bed. She was mighty aggravated when she came round but she couldn't get up out of bed by herself & nobody would help her do it b/c twas clear she had some kind of sicks going on. Cecil Jr came & hovered & asked her if she was ready to name her heir yet. Elizabeth glared at him & wouldn't say a word except, "Little man, one does not say MUST to princes".  Cecil took it upon himself to announce to peeps that Elizabeth had moved her hand when he specifically asked if she wanted Jemmy (she prolly was just trying to give him the finger LOL) & toddled off to start the transition of power. 

Somewhere in all this, Elizabeth supposedly had a case of the sighs & said, "All my possessions for a moment of time". Finally she just closed her eyes & demised.

OK tell me that ain't weird....

Elizabeth's funeral procession

The Invincible Armada & Stuff

Philip was mighty annoyed w/ Elizabeth, & not just for the MQOS execution, either. Once Moray got shot, peeps picked up on this whole political assassination thing as a good way to eliminate rulers they were sick of looking at. The Hapsburg empire incl the Low Countries & part of them had successfully rebelled under the command of William of Orange. Philip was not amused & sent a peep over to take a few shots at him & take him out, thinking this would demoralize the Dutch peeps.

William I of Orange

He miscalculated, as not only did it make the resistance stronger, they appealed to Elizabeth for assistance against Philip. After William's assassination, Elizabeth was the only strong Protestant ruler left standing in Europe. The 3rd had been Henry of Navarre, but since all of Catherine de Medici's boys had died sans heirs & he was married to their sister Marguerite, he was offered the throne of France if he converted to Catholicism.

Henry of Navarre

His famous line on this was, "Paris is worth a Mass". MQOSs BFF Elisabeth, who was married to Philip, had also demised, so Philip didn't factor in HA HA That irked him, too, esp as he hadn't gotten any sons out of Elisabeth to be a Frenchie player & he had to find a new wife as by now even he had to admit what a nutjob Don Carlos had turned out to be.

Don Carlos, Prince of Asturias

Philip IIs son

Elizabeth's decision to send aid to the Netherlands rebels really irritated Philip & so the demise of MQOS was the icing on the cake for him. He began planning an invasion of England w/ his hitherto-invincible navy, the Spanish Armada.

O SHITE was the English perspective on this threat, & they started to get ready to fight the Spanish. Luckily boats are slow & it took a while to provision such, so they had a few yrs to strengthen defenses. Robin ticked off Elizabeth again b/c he was over in the Netherlands in charge & peeps liked him & asked him to be their Governor-General.

Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester

It wasn't a shiny crown, but he took it & told her after the fact. She didn't stay mad at him long b/c Philip Sidney, his nevvy & a great fav of the queen b/c he was her BFF Mary's kid & wrote fabby poetry praising her, was kilt at the battle of Zutphen. Elizabeth gave him a fab funeral & made peeps go into mourning.

Sir Philip Sidney

3 yrs after MQOS got her pair of whacks, word came that the Armada had left Cadiz & was en route to England to annihilate them.

Another English burr under Philip's saddle was Elizabeth's privateers. The difference btwn a pirate & a privateer is that a pirate is out for his own personal fun & profit, while a privateer obtains letters of marque from a ruler to go harass the ships of peeps they didn't like & share the wealth w/ said marque-granting ruler, & Philip was at the top of England's list. The Spanish explorations in the New World meant treasure ships regularly came back & forth full of gold, silver, spices, & other nice things. Sir Francis Drake was the bestest of Elizabeth's privateering peeps & plagued Philip incessantly.

Sir Francis Drake

So along w/ her cuz Lord High Admiral William Howard of Effingham, Drake was apptd 2nd in command for the English Navy now that the Armada was on the move. There's a legend & a painting to go w/ it that shows peeps jumping up & down & pointing hollering THE ARMADA'S HERE & Drake glancing over & going meh I got time to finish this game of bowls 1st LOL

The Armada in Sight

Philip had also been irking Elizabeth some by sneakily financing the Irish rebellions & one of their bestest pirates was a wench called Grace O'Malley. Elizabeth kinda respected her even if Grace was plundering the odd English ship here & there, b/c, yknow, tough chicks hafta stick together in a man's world, so when Grace was arrested Elizabeth let her off. Troops were pulled from the ongoing conflicts in Ireland & the Netherlands, w/ Robin put in charge of those, just in case the Navy couldn't fight the Spanish off & there was a landing. A series of signal fires were set up along the coastline to warn of the Armada's imminent approach, which they had to do b/c they had no cell phones yet.

The English hunkered down & waited.

The Pope approved of Philip's plans to proceed against the heretic Elizabeth & said meh take her down w/ my nice papal blessing, but then them English peeps gotta be Catholic again, & go ahead & pick em a new ruler from amongst the Catholic peeps.

Philip II of Spain

In the twists & turns of Plantagenet begats, Philip himself could claim descent from that prolific begatter Edward III. John of Gaunt's marriage to Constance of Castile made their daughter Catherine of Lancaster Philip's 11dy6x grandma. So he thunk he would install his daughter Isabella by Elisabeth of Valois as the new English queen & be her puppetmaster. Even tho they weren't playing, the Frenchies were cool w/ this, as Isabella was the new French queen's niece. The Armada was a huge, amazing fleet that had never once gone down in defeat, so twas all looking mighty rosy for the Spanish event planners.

Elizabeth donned a stylin' suit of armor (or was that just Cate Blanchett LOL) & went to review her troops at Tilbury.

Elizabeth at Tilbury

This is where she got to make her fabby speech where she said "I may have the body of a weak & feeble woman, but I have the heart & stomach of a king". I toldja she had lots of good lines & I ain't said the half of em. The English soldiers went wild & cheered their gallant queen & promised to kick Spanish behind all the way back to the Alhambra for her.

The Armada was sighted lurking round Flanders, so Howard of Effingham did a daring nighttime departure from Plymouth to surprise em come the morn. This was the battle of Gravelines. The Spanish woke up to see 11dy6 fireships coming at their fleet at anchor & said O MADRE DE DIOS, AMIGOS!

The English sending the fireships at the Spanish Armada

Fireships is where they take little boats & set em on fire & send em at bigger ships b/c hey, it only takes one good spark to set one ablaze. The Duke of Medina-Sidonia, the Armada's commander, was confident that he had the English Navy outnumbered. Didn't matter. The English practically annihilated em. The Spanish lost a few to the fireships & only had one ship captured, but the rest of em shrieked RUN AWAY RUN AWAY, only they did it in the wrong direction.

route of the Spanish Armada

The English had the English Channel clogged up, so the only available route of escape was up into the North Sea. This meant the Spanish had to sail around Scotland & Ireland to get back to the Atlantic Ocean & go home. I'm sure Medina-Sidonia was OK w/ the delay b/c would YOU wanna tell Philip the Invincible Armada got sucker-punched by a passel of heretics? But their bad luck continued & they ran into lots of late summer storms & by the time they got back to Spain, roughly only 1/2 the Armada was left. Philip was not amused.

The English, however, were partying like it was 1999; pffft to you, Phil was likely a popular phrase LOL Elizabeth's prestige had just taken a dramatic upswing so she was pretty chuffed her good self.

Elizabeth I

the Armada portrait

(see the ships?)

She made another speech where she said peace & prosperity were the greatest gifts a monarch could bring to her ppl. And she stopped being so penny-pinching like Grandpa after she'd seen what the Navy could do w/ a quick infusion of coin, which led to England's pre-eminence as the power of the high seas soon enough.

Trust Robert Dudley to put a damper on the party, huh? Robin hadn't been feeling well for several mos & in fact had argued w/ Elizabeth that he wasn't the bestest peep for the job of being in charge of the land troops, so you knew he must've been really sick b/c Robin thunk he could do anything. He managed to stay upright in the saddle until the peril was past, but then he got off his mount & never got on one again.

Robert Dudley in his 50s

Elizabeth flew to her sweet bonny Robin's bedside in the midst of the celebrations. He'd recently turned 55 & was going grey & tubby & hardly anyone's idea of Prince Charming anymore as he'd been in his younger days when he was supposedly all smokin' hot. It had been about 4 yrs since his legit son had demised & he & Lettice were fairly well estranged after their decade of marriage, as ya would be if your DH kicked you out when the queen came calling, tho his illegit by Douglass Sheffield was thriving (guess he married the wrong one, huh?) & would eventually grow up to be a famous privateer his good self & perpetuate the Dudleys by having 11dy6 kidlets, but that would be much later on & Robin wasn't going to get to dandle his 12 grandchildren on his knee.

Robert Dudley, Earl of Warwick

Douglass Sheffield's son

Robin could barely heave his bulk out of bed. Elizabeth was worried b/c he looked awful & felt worse, so she arranged for a nice sedan chair (contrary to That Travesty on Showtime, fancy carriages hadn't been invented yet) to haul him off to take the healing waters at Buxton in hopes twould cure him. Robin kissed her good-bye, was trundled off, settled in, wrote her a letter, & then promptly demised. Eeriely it was almost to the day of Amy's death & a double bummer for the queen as twas 3 days b4 her own 55th BD. After Elizabeth died, they found Robin's letter in her jewel box, written on it in her own hand, "his last letter". Awwwww. I guess she really did love him after all....just not quite enough to share her throne w/.

C & W slapped high 5s at being rid of Robin at last, but his demise created a vacuum in the court b/c now the queen had no favorite, so peeps starting cleaning up & dressing up & jockeying for the position. Sir Christopher Hatton was a front-runner (for some stupid reason Elizabeth took to calling him her Lids LOL),

Sir Christopher Hatton

as was Sir Walter Raleigh (her Water).

Sir Walter Raleigh

they were much younger than her, but hey, ya gotta do whatcha gotta do to get the queen to ply ya w/ goodies, right? Hatton finally won b/c Raleigh didn't learn from his predecessor.

Amongst Elizabeth's maids of honor was the granddaughter of Daddy's old BFF Nick Carew, Bess Throckmorton (yes a cuz to the plot peep on her Daddy's side; Mum was Nick's eldest daughter Anne, who was 17 when her Daddy lost his head). Bess began to swell up sumfin awful & Elizabeth demanded to know who was the father of her brat. Turned out there had been another seecrud wedding btwn Bess & Raleigh, who natch got banished to rusticate in the country whilst awaiting the birth of their son Carew. Hatton wisely didn't make any seecrud marriages & stayed in the queen's good graces for quite a while. There were some other courtier peeps to whom Elizabeth showed her favor, too, as apparently Robin required several to fill his shoes, like Sir Francis Bacon

Sir Francis Bacon

& of all peeps, Lettice & Walter Devereux's boy, Robert!

Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex

This caused much snickering b/c Elizabeth was pretty much old enough to be Robert Devereux's grandma at thus pt, even tho she still dressed young & slathered on about an inch or so of white lead paste makeup daily to conceal the ravages of age (hey, it happens to us all, except maybe Sean Connery LOL). And she pitched a fit when he married Philip Sidney's widow, Frances Walsingham, to much amusement.

His mum also caused an amusing scandal, as Lettice married a pal of Sonny's, Sir Christopher Blount, who was more than 1/2 her age. Cougar Alert! DH was allowed at court, but no siree, not Lettice, not even when Sonny made up w/ Elizabeth & begged her to let Mum come back. Elizabeth was adamant on that subject. NO MAN-STEALERS ALLOWED!

Then she got all bummed out again, b/c within a cpl yrs of finally getting rid of that pesky Dudley, Cecil had the demises.

Cecil (who should've properly been called Lord Burghley all these yrs b/c he got a nice title) had groomed his son (tiresomely) Robert, who allegedly was a hunchback, to take over for him, but it just wasn't the same for poor old Elizabeth. Cecil & Dudley had been her 2 major BFFs. To make matters worse, Walsingham then decided to have the demises as well. Elizabeth looked round & realized she was the elderliest peep standing at court all of a sudden. So she invited Bess of Hardwick to come for a visit.

Shrewsbury had also demised, but Bess decided 4 DHs was her limit. There was no need for her to get hitched b/c she prolly had more money than the queen at this pt & she was busy building Hardwick Hall & raising her granddaughter Arabella, b/c her daughter Beth had demised when the tyke was 7.

Arabella Stuart

Arabella heartily despised her grandmother. Bess was ever-mindful that the girl was a potential Queen of England in waiting w/ her infusion of Tudor-Stuart blood & she watched her like a hawk, determined that there would be no indiscretions to irk Elizabeth, who still hadn't named her heir. Arabella's BR was smack in the middle of Bess's apts & the only way to get to it was thru Bess's own BR. Even tho she was 20 she still had to have school lessons every day & report to Bess on her every move. Plus Hardwick Hall was out in the country & borrrrring.

Arabella was all come over unnecessary at being invited to go to court at long last & Bess cautioned her to behave herself b/c there could be a nice crown in it for her someday if Elizabeth liked her. This was a necessary caution b/c Arabella was what they called "high-strung" & what we'd prolly call "nuts" LOL She was always dramatickal & complaining to all her rellies that Granny kept her prisoner & making wild schemes to escape so she could have a life. She didn't get that if you were related to Elizabeth, you didn't GET a life unless the queen said so, so all her hatred (some of her journals still exist) was directed at Bess's over-protective 'tude. She foolishly thunk maybe she could catch a nice hubby at court & flip Granny the bird & get away from stupid old Hardwick Hall w/ its constant racket of construction.

Bess had drilled her status into Arabella all her life, so when they got to London, everyone decided they disliked Arabella in record time b/c she was so arrogant & demanded she take precedence over higher-ranking peeps merely b/c of her bloodline. In fact, she had the gall to ask Elizabeth how come she couldn't get her mitts on her Daddy's Lennox title so she could have a title. The fact that it was a Scots title & not an English one escaped her. Elizabeth found her a tiresome spoilt brat & wished she'd never incl her in the invite, b/c all she did was cause strife amongst the other maids of honor & attempt to elbow duchesses out of the way. If Arabella didn't get her own way, she threw spectacular tantrums & got all hysterical about it. This just wasn't done at court. Only Elizabeth could do that LOL

Elizabeth I

the Ditchley portrait

Finally she had enough of this nonsense & told Bess to take the brat home & never ever come back. Bess was furious w/ Arabella for incurring the queen's fervent dislike & was determined to reform her on the off chance Elizabeth changed her mind & invited them back again. Arabella was irked at Granny for dragging her back to Hardwick Hall & insisted that Bess had said something to Elizabeth to rile her up, b/c Arabella thunk she was a perfect little angel at court. Bess had to keep her even more closely surpervised than ever b/c Arabella kept plotting these hare-brained escape attempts. Arabella had the same pain in her side that Auntie MQOS'd had, so she might've had a touch of porphyria, too.

After dusting her gloves of Arabella, Elizabeth decided to make her boy-toy Robert Devereux the Earl of Essex. And NO Lettice could NOT come for the ceremony!

miniature of Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex

Essex was now the clear bestest favorite & my didn't he put on airs about it. Elizabeth indulgently showered him & his sisters w/ goodies (but not Mum). Penny caused a scandal by leaving her DH & getting pregnant by her BF, but b/c she was Essex's sis she got to come back to court after she had the baby. Peeps started sucking up to Essex like crazy, hoping he could sweet-talk the queen into favors they wanted. Elizabeth even started letting him pop into her privy apts just like his stepdad had been privileged to do. Just like Robin, Essex could do no wrong & she'd not hear a word bad about him, even tho he was a rather arrogant jerk.

Then those pesky Irish decided to have the Revolt of the Earls.....