The instigating documents behind the following analysis come from a collection of notes and letters known as the Devereux Papers which include a letter from Anthony Bacon to the Earl of Essex and Essex’s reply after his censure in the Star Chamber on November 29, 1599, an account of his trial for his campaign to subdue the Earl of Tyrone in Ireland on June 6, 1600, and an account of his failed rebellion in London on February 8, 1601.  History is most often written by those who survive and remain in power; rarely do we get an honest account from the vanquished or executed.  The Earl of Essex, Robert Devereux, has come down the road of history as a traitor to his country for trying to bring down the reign of the cherished Queen Elizabeth I and on the surface this seems a plausible explanation for his actions.  But is this a true rendering of the events, given our understanding of history, or were the circumstances not quite as they seemed?

 When looking at the Rebellion of the Earl of Essex, one must ask the question of how, in a span of two years, did a favorite of Queen Elizabeth I manage to place himself in a position in which he is tried for treason against the queen, convicted, and executed.  Was it the man himself, Robert Devereux, the second Earl of Essex?  Was it because of his strange and unique relationship with the queen?  Was it because of the friends he kept and enemies he made along the way?  Or was it a combination of all these that led the earl to the chopping block?  What is known is that from the time of his departure to Ireland to crush the rebellion of the Earl of Tyrone in March of 1599 until his own rebellion and execution in February 1601, Essex had gone from queen’s favorite to queen’s traitor.

 To begin, a look at the historical context in which the events take place.  Queen Elizabeth I’s reign was drawing to a close, a reign that most historians view as important for religious consolidation, the beginnings of the empire and exploration, and cultural advancement.  There was strong anti-Catholic sentiment in England, Catholic Spain was seen as the main power against the island kingdom, and Ireland, while under the rule of England, was the main avenue through which a Popish invasion would occur since the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588.  The queen’s longtime advisor, Lord Burghley (William Cecil), had died in 1598 and her court was composed mostly of younger, unscrupulous courtiers vying for her favor and position.

 Among this highly competitive court surrounding Queen Elizabeth I was the Earl of Essex.  Fatherless by the age of ten, Devereux was under the guardianship of Lord Burghley and hence had access to court at a young age.  Historians have given many labels to describe the earl’s behavior ranging from paranoia and egomania to spirited and energetic.  One thing that can be said was that his actions displayed, at one time or another, the whole range of the above descriptions.  On the field of battle or at sea he recklessly took chances that endangered his own life and those of his men.  When he was set in a course of action, often impulsively, little could dissuade him from pursuing it.  At court, his jealousies at the promotions of others led him to hold some members of the court as lifelong enemies and to involve himself in machinations to obtain appointments of his own.

 Essex’s relationship with Queen Elizabeth I was unusual in that such a stern and pragmatic queen would put up with such an insolent subject not only once but seemingly on every occasion.  Upon his first visit at age ten to court in 1577 he refused to be kissed by the queen and refused to take off his hat.  Essex, however, did manage to make himself a favorite of the queen and by age twenty he was always in her presence at court.  A pattern developed in which Essex would take offense at Elizabeth’s words or appointments and he would publicly take issue with her and then storm off.  The queen would then send for him and end up appeasing Essex by giving him some sort of appointment, one he usually desired.  Also, Essex would disobey the queen’s orders, such as leading the attack on the field or challenging the enemy to single bouts of combat, and he would be recalled to answer but then sent back to finish his campaign.

 One could look at this strange relationship as a quasi mother-son relationship, given that Essex was thirty-three years the queen’s junior and Elizabeth never had any children of her own.  However, there were many among the courtiers who would have matched this same age category but did not receive the same preferential treatment.  Elizabeth must have seen something in the younger Devereux that perhaps reminded her of herself or her father (Henry VIII) that accounted for the strange attachment.  In any event, the pattern of behavior and mutual devotion to one another was firmly established by the time Essex left for Ireland in the spring of 1599.

 Perhaps because of his personality and his favorable treatment by the queen, the Earl of Essex was a man who made many enemies at court.  In most cases, the root of the animosity was Sir Robert Cecil, the son of Devereux’s guardian and Queen Elizabeth I’s chief councilor, Lord Burghley.  Cecil and Devereux were continually vying for position of number one favorite and until July of 1598, the infamous boxing of Essex’s ears by the queen, the two were on relatively equal par.  From that point on, and the death of his father, Lord Burghley, one month later, Cecil held the confidence of the queen and Essex’s influence at court dwindled as the Cecilian faction became entrenched.  Among those aligned with Cecil who were sworn enemies of Essex were Sir Walter Raleigh, the queen’s solicitor-general Sir Edward Coke, the Lord of Cobham Henry Brooke, and the Lord Grey Thomas de Wilton, all of whom were influential with Elizabeth I and would play a role during Essex’s downfall.

 Essex did have some powerful friends at court.  His uncle Sir William Knollys, Lord Keeper Edgerton, and the Archbishop Whitgift were still members of the Privy Council.  The Bacons, Francis and Anthony, were aligned more with Essex because of the mutual hatred of the Cecils but even they cooled after the ear boxing incident although Anthony remained steadfastly on Essex’s side.  Henry Wriothesley, the Earl of Southampton and patron of Shakespeare, was one of Essex’s most devoted friends but, like Essex, frequently found himself at odds with the queen and stifled by the Cecil faction from any promotions.  Most importantly, while Essex was away in Ireland, there were few friends to support him at court while the Cecil faction grew stronger about the queen.
 

 Now that the background has been established and the political climate at court, a look at the chain of events that led to the eventual execution of Essex is in order.  Essex received the commission to lead the forces against the Irish on November 8, 1598.  He arrived in Dublin on April 15, 1599.  During the summer he made some questionable military decisions but gained and consolidated the English position there and wrote to Elizabeth I of the difficulty in securing the rebellion.  On July 30, 1599, Elizabeth wrote Essex and forbid him to leave his post and get on with subduing Tyrone.  Essex clearly understood that the series of letters the queen had sent over the course of the campaign were at the instigation of the Cecil faction.

 On September 6, 1599, Essex met with Tyrone and fashioned a truce to end the rebellion.  The queen got wind of Essex’s truce and admonished him on September 17, 1599.  Essex, knowing full well any deal he brokered would be cast aside by the Cecil faction and the situation in Ireland would require much more troops and financing, appointed another in command of the army on September 24, 1599 and was in London by the 28th to plead his case personally before the queen.  Elizabeth I spoke with him privately and, until Robert Cecil intervened, he made his case.  Essex was held in seclusion, censored by the Star Chamber for his behavior on November 29, 1599 (although no charge of treason), and removed to his own London home on March 19, 1600.  During this time Essex took ill and his wife had a child but he was not allowed any visitors.

 On June 6, 1600, Essex was tried on five counts, basically his poor military decisions, his truce with Tyrone, abandoning his post, Southampton’s promotion, and extensive knighting of those under his command.  He was found guilty, dismissed from all offices of state, and held prisoner at Essex House at the queen’s pleasure.  Essex was granted his freedom on August 26, 1600 and continued to seek the queen’s forgiveness and thus his return to court.  His petition to renew his patent on sweet wines, a main source of income for the Essex family, went unanswered in September 1600 and this event seemed to leave Essex with no option but to plan for the removal of the Cecil faction.  Queen Elizabeth I, for the better part of a year, had been unresponsive to his appeals and, left with no avenue to her, Essex planned his own course of action.

 Through the months of December and January, Essex house was a gathering place of men friendly towards Essex and he formulated a plan to rouse the populace of London to obtain three goals, namely, remove the Cecil faction from the queen’s court, have a private audience with the queen, and have the queen call parliament (which she had only called three times during her forty-five year reign).  On February 7th, 1601, through the efforts of Southampton, Shakespeare’s play, ‘Richard II’, was performed at the Globe Theater (Elizabeth I admitted later she knew she was the Richard of the play).  On the 8th, even after the appeal of his uncle, Sir Knollys, the unsuccessful rebellion took place.  Essex and Southampton were on trial on the 19th and by February 25, 1601, Essex was executed and Southampton sentenced to life in prison.
 

 Returning to the original question, how could Queen Elizabeth I’s favorite end up being executed for treason against the queen in the span of only two years, one could say that a variety of factors contributed to Essex’s downfall.  Essex was a man of action but also a man of impulsive decisions.  His decision to go to Ireland, a muddled mess best described as a lose-lose situation, delivered himself to the machinations of the Cecilian faction without himself able to intervene on his own behalf.  His own rebellion, while in hindsight well meaning and with probable just cause, also left him open to the charge of treason against the queen and again he delivered himself to the Cecil faction, hilt, blade, and scabbard.

 Essex’s faith in his relationship with the queen also kept him along the road to destruction.  Essex could have retired to the countryside, as he had wished to do after returning from Ireland, but he was so convinced of the evil doings of the Cecilian faction that he pressed on, trying to, in his own mind, save his queen.  Elizabeth I in fact recalled her first death warrant for Essex and only reluctantly signed another.  His own friends, for their own reasons or sharing his, did not help him during the two months prior to the rebellion.  They convinced him to action and did little to talk him out of it.  His enemies, Sir Robert Cecil and his faction, played along with Essex’s impulsive actions but also contrived to curb his power and influence.  What transpired between Cecil and the queen on the day of Essex’s return from Ireland is not known, but from the time of that meeting and Essex’s execution, she and Essex never spoke face to face again.  In the end, it was a combination of factors that sent the star of the Earl of Essex plummeting down.
 

 An interesting part of history is what happened to some of the characters and events after the main event studied has passed.  Queen Elizabeth I died on March 24, 1603, bringing an end to the “Age of Gloriana” and the Tudors.  Henry Wriothesley, the Earl of Southampton, was eventually released by James I, reinstated as the Earl of Southampton, and continued to support Shakespeare.  He died while fighting the Spanish in the Netherlands of a fever.  Sir Francis Bacon flourished under James I and eventually became Attorney General.  He died in 1626 after catching a cold while experimenting with snow and freezing a chicken.  His brother Anthony Bacon, never one of good health, died later in 1601 three months after Essex’s execution.

 Sir Walter Raleigh was in and out of trouble and eventual tried and convicted of treason against James I and executed in 1618.  His prosecutor was Sir Edward Coke.  Henry Brooke, Lord Cobham, and Thomas de Wilton, Lord Grey, were both tried and convicted of treason against James I, Lord Grey dying in prison in 1614 and Lord Cobham dying in 1619 after suffering paralysis.  Their prosecutor was Sir Edward Coke.  Sir Edward Coke saw his fortunes fall under James I and was imprisoned in 1622.  He later led the fight against imprisonment by the crown and died in 1634.  Sir Robert Cecil, a “true” politician if there ever was one, secretly was involved with negotiations with James VI of Scotland (later James I of England) before Queen Elizabeth I died, thus securing a position in the new court and ironically bringing about the downfall of his old faction under Queen Elizabeth I.  However, he lost out to the Scottish imports and died in 1612.

 Interestingly enough, the Earl of Tyrone and the Irish rebellion were brought to heel in 1603 and signed a treaty just after Queen Elizabeth I’s death.  The terms of the treaty were nearly identical to those that Essex had brokered with Tyrone in the fall of 1599.
 
 

Kenneth O. Morgan, The Oxford History of Britain, revised edition (Oxford University Press, 1999), pp. 301-326.

George Smith, The Dictionary of National Biography, (Oxford University Press, 1917), volume I, pp. 796-800.

George Smith, The Dictionary of National Biography, (Oxford University Press, 1917), volume II, pp. 707-708, 1331-1332.

George Smith, The Dictionary of National Biography, (Oxford University Press, 1917), volume III, pp. 1309-1312.

George Smith, The Dictionary of National Biography, (Oxford University Press, 1917), volume IV, pp. 685-700.

George Smith, The Dictionary of National Biography, (Oxford University Press, 1917), volume V, pp. 875-890.

George Smith, The Dictionary of National Biography, (Oxford University Press, 1917), volume VIII, pp. 647-648.

George Smith, The Dictionary of National Biography, (Oxford University Press, 1917), volume XXI, pp. 1055-1061.

www.bcpl.net/~cbladey/guy/html/essex.html

www.renaissance.dm.net/trial/index.html

www.engl.uvic.ca/Faculty/MBHomePage/ISShakespeare/Resources/Essex/

http://castle.uvic.ca/Shakespeare/Library/SLTnoframes/political/
 elizabethsubj.html

www.irelandstory.com/past/history/15981629.html

www.yesnet.yk.ca/schools/projects/renaissance/renaissanceman.html

www.aug.edu/delta_chi/coke.htm
 

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