Providing for a Queen: The Stables under Elizabeth I

Abstract

Like most of the other departments of the Elizabethan court, only fragments of the archives of the Stables survive. Like the other departments too, its institutional structure was an inheritance from Henry VIII. Robert Dudley, earl of Leicester, was Elizabeth I’s Master of the Horse for nearly thirty years and as such shaped her Stables. This article demonstrates that, while he made limited institutional changes, he nevertheless expanded the personnel and made serious efforts to introduce and publicise the latest Italian methods of equitation.

Notes

1 This article was initially a contribution to the ‘Horses and Courts: The Reins of Power’ symposium at the Wallace Collection, London, in March 2018. I am very grateful to the participants, especially Julian Munby, for their helpful comments and advice. It is to some extent a sequel to ‘“The Queenes Majestie … is now become a great huntress”: Elizabeth I and the Chase’, The Court Historian 18 (2013), pp. 143-64. It also draws on my earlier work, Leicester and the Court: Essays on Elizabethan Politics (Manchester, 2002), and Household Accounts and Disbursement Books of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, 1558–1561, 1584–1586 (Camden Society, 5th ser., vi, Cambridge University Press, 1995) [hereafter Leic. and Court and Leic. Accounts]. Manuscripts in the Arundel Castle and Longleat House collections are cited with the generous permission of the duke of Norfolk and the marquess of Bath.

2 See Oxford Dictionary of National Biography [hereafter ODNB] ‘Somerset, Edward’. The first Somerset, earl of Worcester (created by Henry VIII) was an illegitimate son of Henry Beaufort, duke of Somerset and thus cousin to Henry VII’s mother, Lady Margaret Beaufort.

3 M.M. Reese, The Royal Office of Master of the Horse (1976).

4 S.J. Gunn, Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk c.1484–1545 (Oxford, 1988), esp. pp. 12-14.

5 C.M. Prior, The Royal Studs of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (1935); Julian Munby, ‘Queen Elizabeth’s Coaches: The Wardrobe on Wheels’, Antiquaries Journal lxxxiii (2003), pp. 311-67.

6 There are four obvious causes: the Palace of Whitehall fire of 1619, the Civil War, the Great Fire of 1666 and the second Whitehall fire of 1698.

7 The relevant ‘collections’ of Leicester’s papers are the Dudley Papers at Longleat House and those formerly among the Evelyn Papers deposited at Christ Church (Oxon.), now in the British Library [hereafter BL], see Adams, ‘The Papers of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester’: I. The Browne-Evelyn Collection and III. The Countess of Leicester’s Collection, Archives, vol. XX (1992), pp. 63-85 and vol. XXII (1996), pp. 1-26. A fragment of a Stables letter-book for the early 1570s can be found in Cambridge University Library [hereafter CUL], MS Gg.2.26, fos 23-40.

8 Reese, Master of the Horse, chapts. 4-5.

9 A.R. Myers (ed.), The Household of Edward IV: The Black Book and the Ordinance of 1478 (Manchester, 1959).

10 A Collection of Ordinances and Regulations for the Government of the Royal Household (Soc of Antiquaries, 1790), pp. 135-207.

11 A further issue is that this text identifies the Master of the Horse as Sir Anthony Browne. The Master in 1526 was Sir Nicholas Carew and Browne only succeeded him after his fall in 1539. It has been suggested the text employed is a later recension of c. 1544.

12 Munby established the role of the Wardrobe in ‘Queen Elizabeth’s Coaches’.

13 The accounts are found in The National Archives [hereafter TNA], LC 5, the warrant books in LC 9.

14 Janet Arnold (ed.), Queen Elizabeth’s Wardrobe Unlock’d (Leeds, 1988) is the main source, though she was primarily concerned with the Wardrobe of the Robes, see chapts. vii-viii.

15 The case is made in Munby, 314-5.

16 H.M. Colvin et al. The History of the King’s Works (1982), vol. IV, pp. 162-3.

17 For Hampton Court, see ibid., p. 142, for St. James’s, p. 244.

18 Ibid., pp. 221, 240.

19 TNA, E 351/3340; Colvin, King’s Works (1975), vol. III, p.80

20 TNA, SP12/127, art. 39 (n.d.) is the Stables request to Lord Burghley (Lord Treasurer) to accept the agreement. See also King’s Works, vol. III, pp. 79-80.

21 BL, Lansdowne MS 51, art. 71.

22 Prior, Royal Studs, p. 7.

23 Reese, Master of the Horse, p. 163.

24 Prior, Royal Studs, p. 22.

25 Nor is the stud mentioned in the section on Tutbury in King’s Works, vol. III. When I visited Tutbury a decade ago none of the staff knew anything about it.

26 TNA, LC 2 [special events]/2 fos.34-6 [Stables, Henry VIII funeral]; 2/3 pt. 2, fos.9-1l [Stables, Edward VI coronation]; /4/1, fos 21-3 Stable, [Edward VI funeral], /4/2, fos. 23v-24v [Stables, Mary funeral]; 2/4/3, pp. 99-102 [Stables, Elizabeth coronation], /4/4, fos.56v-61v [Stables, Elizabeth funeral].

27 BL, Stowe MS 571, fos. 37v-8 for the Stables. TNA, E 101/107/33.

28 This was Allegra Woodworth’s discovery, Purveyance for the Royal Household in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth (Trans. American Philosophical Soc., xxxv, 1945), pp. 74-5.

29 TNA, SP 12/240. art. 79.

30 TNA, SP 12/127, art. 36 (20 Eliz), SP12/205. art.22 (29 Eliz), SP 12/233, art.69 (32 Eliz). The 30 Elix account is SP12/228, art. 57.

31 Unfortunately, Woodworth did not appreciate this which has garbled her account.

32 Woodworth, Purveyance, p. 10 describes him erroneously as ‘chief clerk’ of the Stables.

33 CPR, 1558-60, p. 61. Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington, DC [hereafter FSL]. Ms La 39, Anthony Bagot to Richard Bagot, 6 May 1587.

34 Woodworth, Purveyance, p.74.

35 J. E. Jackson, ‘Longleat Papers (continued)’, Wilts Arch Mag, xiv (1874), 238-9. The JPs noted that the issue had arisen four years ago, but Leicester had accepted their case.

36 The sources for their posts in 1567 and 1558–59 are the relevant coronation and funeral books. Their subsequent posts are taken from an unpublished draft (1993) of the Tudor section of Sir John Sainty’s projected series ‘Officers in the Royal Household, 1485–1837’.

37 His career under the Stuarts is summarised in G.E. Aylmer, The King’s Servants: The Civil Service of Charles I, 1625–1642 (1961) pp. 86-88, 285. His earlier career is reconstructed here.

38 John Morris (ed.), The Letter-Books of Sir Amias Paulet (1874), pp. 140-1. This would appear to support Woodworth’s claim (p. 10) that the Avenor was among those promoted to the Board, but I can find no examples.

39 For biographical details, see P.H. Hasler (ed.), The House of Commons 1558–1603 (3 vols, 1981);’Grice, William’, Leic Accounts, p. 473, Leic and Court, esp. 205-6, 211-13. He appears to have adopted the style Le Grice himself.

40 A warrant of 2 Feb. 9 Eliz (1567) for side-saddles for the queen’s women is addressed to both (LC 5/34, pp.6-7.), but a warrant of 4 May 10 Eliz (1568) for coaches is addressed to Le Grice only (LC5/34, pp.46-7).

41 An undated draft of the warrant of the clerkship to Le Grice is filed under 1578 (TNA, SP 12/127, art. 52).

42 ODNB, ‘Wright, Sir Robert’, notes that little is known about Wright after his appointment. Hasler, ‘Wright, Robert’, describes him erroneously as clerk of Essex’s stable.

43 Henry E Huntington Library, Pasadena, CA [hereafter HEHL], MS HM 41955. Since it refers to Robert Boys as Avenor, who held the office in 1587, but not in 1578, it probably dates from the early 1580s. For the letter-book, see above, n. 7.

44 The four are found in the Chamber account book for 28 Eliz (1585–6), BL, Harleian MS 1641, fo. 4v. In the Chamber Declared Account for 1578, TNA, E 353/541, memb. 203., there is a reference to a warrant dormant of 24 Oct. 1570 for three boys.

45 There is a summary account of the Jacobean Zinzans in Alan Young, Tudor and Jacobean Tournaments (1987), pp. 68-9.

46 At Henry VIII’s funeral he is described only as Marshal, but see below.

47 Alexander di Bologna and the two Zinzans (Alexander Gynger) are identified in the Eltham Ordinances, but probably in 1544.

48 Calendar of the Patent Rolls [hereafter CPR], 1575–78, art 1374; CPR, 1578–80, art. 169 (1579).

49 BL, Cotton MS Titus B VIII, fo. 2, to Leicester, 13 June [1585]. He signed himself Robert Zinzan, but Leicester’s secretary endorsed the letter Mr Robert Alexander.

50 Nicholas Morgan, The Perfection of Horse-manship, drawne from Nature; Arte and Practice, A.W. Pollard and G.R. Redgrave, eds. A Short-Title Catalogue of Books printed in England … 1475–1540 (1969, repr) [hereafter STC] 18105. See Sig. B3-v and p. 177. Morgan had been encouraged by Alexander ‘To him I was beholding for his love’.

51 CPR, 1578–80, art. 1591.

52 Morgan, Perfection, Sig. B3

53 Ibid., p. 177-8.

54 CPR, 1580–82, art. 2109.

55 All were salaried at £20 p.a.

56 The Queen’s musicians are discussed in my forthcoming Elizabeth I.

57 See for example, J.G. Nichols (ed.), The Diary of Henry Machyn, 1550–1563 (Camden Soc., xliii, 1848), pp. 135, 356-7.

58 For his career, see John S. Nolan, Sir John Norreys and the Elizabethan Military World (Exeter, 1997).

59 See Hasler, ‘Skipwith, Henry’.

60 Historical Manuscripts Commission [hereafter HMC], Calendar of the Manuscripts of the Marquess of Bath, V: Talbot, Dudley and Devereux Papers 1533–1659 (1980), p. 31, to Shrewsbury, 3 Dec. 1580.

61 Biographies of most of the equerries can be found in Hasler and some in the ODNB.

62 TNA, E 101/107/33.

63 HEHL, HM 41955, fo. 193.

64 TNA, SP 12/233, art. 69.

65 Woodworth’s claim (Purveyance, p.74) that Elizabeth possessed over 250 horses conflates the various categories.

66 See the table in Munby, p. 318. This total also excludes the officers’ horses.

67 In a memorandum on household costs in July 1576, Burghley noted the Stables charge to be £4,148, BL, Lansdowne MS 21, art. 62.

68 Leic. and Court, p. 26.

69 Gunn, Brandon, p. 12.

70 TNA, SP 12/125, art. 48.

71 See TNA, SP12/233, art. 69.

72 See BL Lansd. MSS 34, fo. 95 (a memorandum on household causes by Sir James Croft, 7 Dec. 1583) and 86, fo. 108 (a memorandum on the household 1598).

73 TNA, SP 12/238, art. 28.

74 E.g. LC 5/34, [Book of entering of warrants, 8-16 Eliz.], LC5/35 [warrants, 17-27 Eliz]

75 TNA, LC9/53 [accounts, 1559-60]/25. This reference clarifies the suggestions made in ‘Great Huntress’, 150-4.

76 Munby, ‘Queen Elizabeth’s Coaches’, pp. 354-6.

77 Ibid., pp. 314, 318.

78 TNA, LC 5/34, pp. 60-7, 112-120, 180-8, 250-8, LC 5/35, pp. 133-9, 213-20, 93-300. BL, Addit, MS 78172, fos. 11-17 is a copy of the 1570 warrant and CUL MS, Gg.2.26, fos, 28v-31v is a copy of the 1572 warrant.

79 Longleat, Dudley Papers II, fo 181, Sir Christopher Hatton to Leicester, 28 Jun.

80 Ibid., Dudley Papers III, fo. 19 is an undated note of the Master’s allowance ‘on the Great Warrant for two years’.

81 Leic Accounts, pp. 414-5 (Wages Book 1559). See p. 469 for biographical details on Eyton.

82 G.R Elton, The Parliament of England 1559–1581 (Cambridge, 1986), pp. 141, 233-4.

83 Edward VI’s Act is clearer than Elizabeth’s.

84 BL, Stowe MS 856, fo. 34v-5, 28 May 1559. Longleat, Dudley MS I, fo. 129, Thomas Keys to Dudley, 5 April 1560.

85 Harvard University, Haughton Library, MS Eng. 757.

86 Longleat, Dudley Papers III, fo. 43.

87 BL, Addit, MS 78172 [ex-Evelyn].

88 Longleat, Dudley Box II, art. 6, sign manual warrant, undated.

89 J.M.B.C Kervyn de Lettenhove (ed.), Relations Politiques des Pays-Bas et de l’Angleterre sous le règne de Philippe II (11 vols, Brussels, 1882–1900), vol. II, 38, 45.

90 Ibid., 48, Chaloner to Cecil, 29 Sept.

91 Dudley Papers I, fos. 50, 72, Grenado to Dudley, 29 July, 24 Aug. 1559.

92 See M.J. Rodríguez-Salgado, The Changing Face of Empire: Charles V, Philip II and Habsburg authority, 1551–1559 (Cambridge, 1988), p. 349

93 Calendar of State Papers, Foreign Series, Elizabeth I [hereafter CSPF], 1559–60, arts. 314, 319. His petition for the passport is Archives Générales du Royaume, Brussels,Papiers d’Etat et de l’Audience, liasse 1744, n.f.

94 HMC, Report on the Pepys Manuscripts preserved at Magdalene College, Cambridge (1911), pp. 48-9, Smith to Leicester, 6 Feb. 1565.

95 Ibid., p. 44. CSPF, 1564-65, art. 954.

96 Longleat, Dudley Box v, fos. 146-50v, account of Benedict Spinola, 25 Jan. 8 Eliz, The Genoese merchant Benedict Spinola handled Leicester’s wider financial dealings in the mid-1560s, see, fo. 147.

97 HMC, Pepys, p. 54, Robert Huggins to Leicester, 4 Apr. 1565, see also p.14, Chaloner to Leicester, 24 Jan. 1564.

98 For the carts, see Woodworth, pp. 71-2. For the horses, see, for example, CUL MS Gg.2.26, fo. 36, Leicester to sheriffs etc., 3 July 1574.

99 See Munby, ‘Queen Elizabeth’s Coaches’, p. 357, for examples.

100 CUL, MS Gg.2.26, fo. 36v.

101 Longleat, Dudley Papers II, fo 181, Sir Christopher Hatton to Leicester, 28 June 1578.

102 Bibliothèque Nationale de France [hereafter BNF], ms français 4736, fo. 303v, Mauvissière to Henry III, 5/15 May 1585.

103 There is a sketch of the literature in Prior, Royal Studs, pp. 4-6.

104 STC 3158. The book is undated and assigned 1560?, but since Blundeville refers to Lord Robert Dudley as a privy councillor it must have been published between October 1562 and September 1564.

105 J&J Leighton, Catalogue of Early Printed Books (1905), vol. I, no. 1377. Present location unknown.

106 Magdalene College, Pepys MS 2502, pp. 289 (Chaloner to Dudley, 17 Dec. 1563 — mis-endorsed and calendared 1564), 205 (Chaloner to Dudley, 26 Sept. 1564). See also HMC, Pepys, p. 54, Robert Huggins to Leicester, 4 April 1565. What transpired in England is, however, unknown.

107 CSPF, 1564–5, arts. 327, 388. HMC, Pepys, pp. 17-8.

108 Longleat, Dudley Box V, Spinola account, fo 148v.

109 Ibid., fo. 149, though it is not clear whether from Rome or Rouen. Corte may have been recommended to Leicester by Trinchetta.

110 In his famous letter to his brother Robert of 18 Oct. 1580, Philip Sidney advised him to read both Grisone and Corte, see Roger Kuin (ed.), The Correspondence of Sir Philip Sidney (2 vols, Oxford, 2012), pp. 1005-10. The editor notes (n. 35) the connection between Corte and Grisone, though there is no evidence of it in the various dedications of Il Cavallarizzo.

111 Leighton, Catalogue, i, art. 1388. Present location unknown.

112 Longleat, Dudley Papers I, fo. 214, Corte to Leicester, 4 Feb. 1571.

113 Proemio, [p. 5]. Prior’s statement (Royal Studs, p. 4) that the edition was dedicated to Leicester is in error.

114 STC 3152, published cum privilegio.

115 STC 3153-7.

116 See Eleanor Rosenberg, Leicester Patron of Letters (New York, 1955), esp. pp. 46-53. The brief ODNB ‘Blundeville, Thomas’ adds little.

117 On the vexed question of the variant spellings of Elizabethan surnames, I have followed the spellings employed in Hasler, House of Commons. Thus Astley rather than Ashley.

118 Newe Book, Dedication, sig. Aiiiv. Alexander could refer to Alexander di Bologna rather than Alexander Zinzan, but Alexander di Bologna disappears after 1547.

119 Fower Offices, sig. Aii-verso.

120 See ibid, p. 12 for a reference to an ointment devised by Martin.

121 TNA, SP 12/24/59 is a bill of his for dressing (treating) the Queen’s coursers between Christmas 1559 and Easter 1562. Martin was still in post in 1576, when he is noted as an alien, TNA, E 179/69/93, the Household subsidy roll for 1576.

122 Perfection, p. 155. Morgan also mentions ‘worthy Hannibal’, presumably Zinzan.

123 Sir Edward Denny (1547–1600), who had some connection to Leicester, is the most obvious candidate. See Hasler and ODNB, ‘Denny, Edward’.

124 Sir Dudley Digges (ed.), The Compleat Ambassador (1655), pp. 264-5, to Walsingham, 22 Sept.

125 Ibid, p. 270, 8 Oct.

126 Ibid., p. 284, 27 Oct.

127 Ibid., p. 298, ? Nov.

128 Ibid., p. 308, 11 Jan.

129 Ibid., p. 323, to Walsingham, 29 Jan. 1573. The letter from Walsingham is missing. See also p. 321, Leicester to Walsingham, 8 Jan. The 3rd earl of Worcester was representing Elizabeth at the baptism of Charles IX’s daughter Marie-Isabelle.

130 Ibid., p. 345, c. 1 April.

131 TNA, E 101/107/32, originally attached to E 107/31, account for allowances to Slyfield, 8-10 Eliz., which in turn was an attachment to the declared account. The 1570 receipt is BL, Addit MS 78172, fo. 19. Further undated receipts for colts from Tutbury can be found in CUL, MS Gg.2.26, fo. 26.

132 National Archives of Scotland, GD 406 [Duke of Hamilton’s MSS]/1/26, John Wood to the earl of Moray, 12 June 1568. Alexandre Teulet (ed.), Relations Politiques de la France et de l’Espagne avec l’Écosse au XVIe Siècle (5 vols, Paris, 1862), ii, 376, Robert, sieur de La Fôret to Charles IX, 19 June 1568.

133 Arundel Castle, Autograph Letters, 1513–1585, art. 30.

134 BL, Lansd MS 45,fo. 73-v, Leicester to Paulet, 5 June 1585. Morris, Paulet Letter-Book, p. 45, to Leicester, 22 June 1585.

135 See Hasler, ‘Macwilliam, Henry’. Macwilliam had married the Equerry John Cheke’s widowed mother in 1558.

136 STC 884.

137 For Fitzwilliam, see Hasler, ‘Fitzwilliam, William’.

138 Sig [A.iv-verso]

139 STC 5797. There is a reference to Astley’s book on p. 66.

140 Sig. [A vi].

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Simon Adams

Simon Adams

Simon Adams is the author of Leicester and the Court: Essays on Elizabethan Politics (Manchester, 2002). He retired from Strathclyde University in 2011 as Reader in History and is happily completing his biographies of Elizabeth I and Robert Dudley.