Queen Elizabeth I at Tilbury and in Kent
QUEEN ELIZABETH I AT TILBURY AND IN KENT MARION COLTHORPE Queen Elizabeth I's visit to Tilbury Camp in 1588 is not only one of the most celebrated events of her reign, but also one of the best documented. Nevertheless, at least one question remains to be answered: where did the Queen stay overnight on her way home from Tilbury after her review of her troops and her famous speech? This has been the subject of some conjecture. Essex historians have claimed the honour for their own county. It can, however, be proved beyond a doubt that at the end of one of the most momentous episodes of her reign the Queen stayed not in Essex but in Kent, and it seems desirable to set the record straight. The Queen left St. James's Palace on Thursday, 8 August, 1588, was rowed down river in the royal barge to Tilbury, and after a preliminary review of her troops spent the night, in the words of Elizabetha Triumphans, a contemporary ballad by James Aske, 'Full three miles distant' at 'Maister Ritche his house'. 1 This house is identified more precisely by John Stow, writing in 1590, as 'the house of Mr Edward Rich, a justice of that shire, in the parish of Horndon'.2 On Friday, 9 August, the Queen, having reviewed and addressed her troops, left Tilbury in her barge to return to St. James's Palace, no doubt intending to complete the journey that day. In 1797, however, extracts from the churchwardens' accounts of St. Margaret's, Westminster, were printed and these showed that the Queen did not arrive back at St. James's until the following day, for the churchwardens made payments to their bellringers for ringing the bells on 8 August when the Queen 'went from St. James's to the Camp', and on 10 August when she 'came from the Camp to St. 1 J. Nichols, The Progresses and Public Processions of Queen Elizabeth, 2nd Edn. (1823), ii. 567. 2 J. Stow, A Summarie of the Chronicles of England . . . unto 1590 (1590), 751. 83 MARION COLTHORPE James's'.3 What had happened to delay the Queen's return, and where did she spend the 'missing' night? The clue as to what had happened is in James Aske's ballad, which gives a graphic description of a storm, with torrential rain and thunder and lightning, which broke out soon after the Queen's departure from Tilbury, 'signes of the griefe for her departure thence. . . '. 4 It was evidently this sudden storm which forced the Queen to break her journey back to St. James's, although the ballad gives no hint that her return to St. James's was delayed, and no indication as to where she stayed. Nearly 300 years later (in 1871) a local historian suggested that the Queen landed at Purfleet in Essex and slept 'at Belhus, Aveley, as local tradition avers she did'.5 Whether the Queen stayed at Belhus was discussed at more length by Miller Christy in articles in the Essex Review of 1917 and in the English Historical Review of 1919; in the latter article he stated that 'there are some grounds for believing' that the Queen spent the night 'in the mansion of Edward Barrett, esquire, of Belhus Park, in Aveley'. 6 E.K. Chambers attempted to trace the Queen's itinerary in his 'Court Calendar' in The Elizabethan Stage, (1923), and he followed Christy in giving the location as Belhus ( though with a query).7 In 1933, J.W. Burrows (ignoring the St. Margaret's churchwardens' accounts) suggested that the Queen did not stop at Belhus, but went straight back to St. James's, as was surely her original intention at such a time of national crisis. 8 On the other hand, two Essex historians, writing in 1948 and 1973, stated definitely that the Queen visited Belhus in 1588,9 so that what was referred to as 'tradition' in 1871 had supposedly become fact a century later. A map giving the true route followed by the Queen both to and from Tilbury was acquired by the British Museum as long ago as 1936. It is a map of 1588 by Robert Adams, the Surveyor of the Works, which shows the Thames from Lambeth to Tilbury Hope, and which has a 'pricked line' indicating the Queen's route. 10 After the 3 J. Nichols, Illustrations of the Manners and Expences of ancient Times in Eng· land . .. (1797), 22. 4 Nichols, Progresses, ii. 573-4. 5 W. Palin, Stifford and its Neighbourhood (1871), 106. 6 M. Christy, 'The Progresses of Queen Elizabeth through Essex and the Houses in which she stayed', Essex Review, xxvi (1917), 186-8; 'Queen Elizabeth's Visit to Tilbury in 1588', Eng. Hist. Review, xxxiv (1919), 58-60. 7 E.K. Chambers, The Elizabethan Stage (1923), iv. 103. 8 J.W. Burrows, 'Tilbury Fort', J.B.A.A., n.s. xxxviii (1933), 100. 9 W.A. Mepham, 'Visits of professional touring Companies to Essex 1537-1642', Essex Review, lvii (1948), 214. W. Addison, Essex Worthies, (1973), 65. 10 British Library: Add MS 44839. 84 QUEEN ELIZABETH I AT TILBURY AND IN KENT map was donated to the Museum, it was discussed in an article by A.J. Collins, who included a reproduction of the map and pointed out that on 9 August 'the dotted line carries us back to Erith. Here or hereabout she [the Queen] must have spent the night ....' 11 There are other contemporary documents which confirm that the route shown by Adams, and the conclusion drawn from it by Collins, are correct and that the Queen came ashore not in Essex but in Kent and stayed not in Aveley but in Erith. The most important of. these documents is the Account of the Cofferer of the Royal Household for the year ending 30 September, 1588, which is a day-by-day summary in Latin of the Cofferer's expenditure on eleven different items on each day of the year (pantry, buttery, wardrobe, kitchen, poultry, scullery, saucery, halls and rooms, stables, fees, alms).12 Each daily summary also gives the exact place where the Queen stayed that night. The account shows that she was in residence at St. James's Palace throughout August 1588, except for the nights of 8 and 9 August. On 8 August the account has 'Regina apud Tilburye', with a total expenditure by the Cofferer of £130 12.s'. 5¼d.; on 9 August 'Regina apud.Erith', with a total expenditure of £105 8s. 8¼d. Here, therefore, is unimpeachable evidence to support the correctness of the route shown on Adams's map, though if confirmation is needed it can be found in a letter written on 11 August by Thomas Fowler, who was in the service of the Earl of Leicester, and who wrote that on the previous day he had left Tilbury Camp, 'my Lord being with the Queen at Erythe', and that a landing by the Spaniards was expected on 12 August. 13 The question as to exactly whereabouts in Erith the Queen stayed on this unpremeditated visit at the height of the invasion scare can be answered from two further royal accounts, the Accounts of the Treasurer of the Chamber and of the Office of the Works. A section of the Treasurer of the Chamber's Account in each year is devoted to payments to various gentlemen ushers for 'apparelling' or 'making ready' houses at which the Queen was proposing to stay, whether for several nights, overnight, or even merely for a single meal. Only once during her entire reign was a house 'made ready' for the Queen at Erith, and this was in April 1588. Richard Brackenbury, gentleman 11 A.J. Collins, 'The Progress of Queen Elizabeth to the Camp at Tilbury, 1588', British Museum Quarterly, x (1935-6), 164-7. 12 PRO: ElOl/432/2. Transcripts of Crown copyright records in the Public Record Office appear by permission of the Controller of H.M. Stationery Office. Abbreviations have been extended. 13 (Ed.) G.D. Owen, Calendar of the Manuscripts . .. at Long/eat . .., vol. v, Talbot, Dudley and Devereux Papers 1533-1659 (1980), 211. 85 - MARION COLTHORPE usher, and nine yeomen and grooms, were paid a total of 78s. 8d. 'for makinge readie for her majestie at Eareth Mr Comptons howse' in April 1588.14 Mr Compton was presumably a kinsman of Henry Compton, first Baron Compton (1538-89; of Compton Wynyates, Warwickshire); Lord Compton's mother, Anne Countess of Pembroke, had come into possession of Erith manor on the death of her own mother, to whom Henry VIII had granted the manor. 15 This April visit to Erith was apparently merely a visit for dinner ( a midday meal) from Greenwich Palace, where the Queen spent most of April; it is not mntioned in the Cofferer's Account, which only gives the locations of the Queen's overnight stays in 1588. By coincidence, however, in August 1588 it was again Richard Brackenbury and his men who made readl 'maister Riche his howse in Essex' for the Queen near Tilbury. 1 . What could be more natural than that when the violent storm on 9 August forced the Queen to take shelter and a hasty decision had to be made as to where she should land, she came ashore at Erith because one of her household - probably Brackenbury himself- recalled that Compton's house at Erith was suitable to accommodate the Queen? That this was where she stayed is confirmed by the Works Account for the year ending 31 March, 1589,17 which includes the following payments, listed consecutively after others under the general heading 'Sundry houses in the time of her highness progress': Westilburie, lvi5 xd ob, and Mr Riches house, lxii5 viid . Erithe, the Lord Comptons house, xxxvi5 viiid . The payment refers to Lord Compton, not to a 'Mr Compton', and Lord Compton was probably himself at Erith in that eventful week, for his mother the Countess of Pembroke, who was the granddaughter of Sir Richard Walden of Etithi died in London in July 1588 and was buried at Erith on 7 August. 8 From Erith (on Saturday, 10 August), according to Robert Adams's map, the Queen went by river as far as Greenwich Palace, then overland to Lambeth. Finally, she crossed the river to Westminster to complete her unexpectedly prolonged return journey, after her historic visit to Tilbury. 14 PRO: AOl 385/26; account for year ending 30 September, 1588. (There is no reference to Belhus in any of the Treasurer of the Chamber's Accounts). 15 E. Hasted, History . . . of Kent, ii (1797), 242--3. 16 PRO: A01 385/26. 17 PRO: E351/3223. 18 G.E.C., The Complete Peerage, revised Edn, x (1945), 409. 86