Governing by Virtue: Lord Burghley and the Management of Elizabethan England

257 Pages·2015·3.037 MB·English

by  Norman Jones

GOVERNING BY VIRTUE

Governing by Virtue
Lord Burghley and the Management
of Elizabethan England
NORMAN JONES
1
3
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Acknowledgments
This book has been long in gestation, and it has benefited from the kindness and
generosity of many people and institutions. I have been their friend and client,
and, as any good early modern person knew, those patronage categories are inter-
changeable, but both demand loyalty and thanks.
On the meta level several institutions and benefactors have given me the oppor-
tunity to research, think, and write over the past decade. My home institution,
Utah State University, has given me opportunities, and used its resources to make
them happen. I thank my colleagues who helped me find the balance between
teaching, research, and administration: Provost Raymond Coward, Dean Gary
Kiger, and Dean John Allen lead that group. Dan McInerney, Associate Depart-
ment Head in History and interim head during my sabbatical in 2008–9, along
with Monica Ingold and Diane Buist, helped make my administrative life flexible
enough to keep writing and research as a regular part of my weeks. The librarians
of the USU Merrill-Cazier Library deserve my deep thanks. Jennifer Duncan, in
particular, arranged the acquisition of the State Papers Online and Cecil Papers,
databases without which this book could not have been written. She was helped in
this by the generosity of the Tanner Charitable Trust, whose endowment of the
USU libraries paid the bill.
After forty years of research, my debts to other scholars are huge, and their numbers
are legion. The notes speak to the size of those debts, but there are some people
who have been active in shaping this manuscript. Dr Susan Cogan read an early
version and gave it a very useful critique. Sun Chao of Fudan University did the
same. Long conversations about early modern governmental practice with Len
Rosenband helped sharpen my arguments, and Bob Mueller has always been there
to explain the arcana of the royal household. Robert Tittler has helped me keep to
the historical straight and narrow, and taught me to see in new ways.
The list can go on and on, but none of these helpful colleagues is to blame for
a book that is forced to make large generalizations and which dwells on cases.
Those choices are all mine. And if I do not recognize all the work of my many
colleagues, I want to stress that this book is, as much as possible, built on my
experience in the manuscripts over many, many years. Sometimes I have reached
conclusions on my own, from the evidence that others have reached. If I knew of
their discoveries, I have cited them, but I have clung to my principle of checking
the primary sources.
This book is an extended meditation on the connections between values and
actions, administrative structures, and the needs and desires of those living within
them. It explores the intersections between theory, processes, and life. I call it my
department head’s book, since it was heading the USU History Department for
eighteen years that taught me to think about systems that depend on the virtues
and values of those who run them, rather than on hard reporting lines. I came to
see myself as the modern analog of a petty baron among other petty barons,
vi Acknowledgments
sometimes known as full professors. We are a hard group to lead, but a powerful one.
I thank my colleagues in History for suffering through my learning, and for teaching
me so much. In particular, I have appreciated the tutelage of Ed Glatfelter.
All modern scholars are the recipients of patronage from individuals and institu-
tions. Two have been especially important in the writing of this book. The Principal
and Fellows of Jesus College, Oxford, elected me a Visiting Senior Research Fellow
for 2008–9, housing me, feeding me, and teaching me while I used Oxford’s
splendid research facilities and tested my ideas on friends, especially Susan Doran
and Paulina Kewes. The Huntington Library has given me several fellowships across
my career, and the one in 2012 was especially important because it was there that
this book really jelled. I deeply appreciate the encouragement the Huntington’s dir-
ectors of research, Roy Ritichie, and Steve Hindle in his stead, have given me. A
grant from Utah State University’s Mountain West Center for Regional Studies gave
me the opportunity to spend time in the National Archives, completing essential
work on the records of the Court of Wards.
This book is a product of the twenty-first century, built upon digital databases
that did not exist when I began thinking about it in 2002. All of us working in this
field have seen these databases change our practice, letting us return ad fontes. The
Early English Books Online put the Short Title Catalog on our desks in full text
versions. I had the opportunity to work with Thompson Gale as an advisor on the
State Papers Online [SPO] project, which gave me early access to this marvelous
tool, now published by Cengage. The State Papers Online provided access to two
thirds of Lord Burghley’s papers. One part, deemed to be about affairs of state,
resides in the National Archive of the UK; the part of no interest to the state or the
family was sold off, to become the Lansdowne Manuscripts in the British Library.
The final third remained in the family, at Hatfield House. When those, known as
the Cecil Papers, were digitized by ProQuest, it became possible to reunite Lord
Burghley’s archives with a few keystrokes. Now, research that would have taken
weeks of running between Kew, Euston, and Hatfield can be done instantly.
These new tools are all based on the old manuscript calendars, however, so search-
ing them is not always productive. But what they do make possible is the examin-
ation of actual manuscripts. As far as possible, this book was built on the principle
that I should read the manuscript rather than depend on others’ uses of the manu-
script or on the calendars. A consequence has been a much richer understanding of
the period, since many important documents were hidden under vague calendar
entries. It is an axiom of Elizabethan historians that great scholars have drowned in
Burghley’s archive, but thanks to digitization we can much more easily find our way
through his records of the period. They are even more voluminous than the calendars
indicated, but we can work much faster, on a much broader front.
After I had begun work on this book my wife, Lynn Meeks, died in 2006. From
the ashes of that loss arose the Phoenix of a new life with Cecile Gilmer, who mar-
ried me in 2008. She is my most enthusiastic supporter in this work, and without
her I doubt it would have been done. I dedicate it to her with my deepest love and
thanks.
Logan, UT
October 15, 2014
Contents
List of Illustrations ix
List of Abbreviations xi
Introduction 1
1. Managing Elizabethan England 11
2. Managing Virtuously 27
3. William Cecil, Lord Burghley, Manager 44
4. Managing Locally 74
5. Managing Through Perception 100
6. Managing Up and Managing Down 116
7. Managing Money 137
8. Managing War 170
9. Managing the Protestant State 189
10. Managing within the Possible 214
Bibliography 221
Index 235

List of Illustrations
2.1 “Elizabeth Supported by Virtues,” The Holi Bible (London: 1569),
frontispiece [STC (2nd edn)/2105]. Early English books tract
supplement interim guide/Harl.5936. British Library. 32
3.1 Illuminated letters patent creating William Cecil as Lord Burghley,
1571, Burghley House, MUN 18518. My thanks to Jon Culverhouse,
Curator at Burghley House, for the use of this illustration. 48
3.2 A leaf of the collectanea of the rulers of Jerusalem, in Lord
Burghley’s hand, TNA SP 12/255 fols 116v–117. 56
3.3 Printed map of Devon, dated 1575, with marginal notes by
Lord Burghley relating to the defense of the county, BL
Royal 18 D.III fols 11v–12. 69
3.4 “Anno 1584 The names of the Havens in France and their Governours,”
Abraham Ortelius, Theatrum orbis terrarum (1570). Burghley House,
BKS 16611, leaf 9. My thanks to Jon Culverhouse, Curator at Burghley
House, for the use of this illustration. 70
6.1 Procession of the Knights of the Garter (Henry Hastings, 3rd earl of
Huntingdon; Walter Devereux, 1st earl of Essex; William Cecil,
1st Baron Burghley; Arthur Grey, 14th Baron Grey of Wilton; Edward
Stanley, 3rd earl of Derby; Henry Herbert, 2nd earl of Pembroke;
Charles Howard, 1st earl of Nottingham; generic Knight of the Garter),
after Marcus Gheeraerts the Elder. Photograph of engraving (1576),
16 1/8 in × 21 3/4 in (410 mm × 553 mm). Reference Collection.
NPG D31857. National Portrait Gallery, London. 117
7.1 Lord Burghley to Richard Bagot, concerning the ironworks of Thomas
Lord Paget, with his corrections and postscript. Folger Shakespeare Library,
Bagot Family Papers, L.a.309. http://luna.folger.edu/luna/servlet/detail/
FOLGERCM1~6~6~375549~132158:To-Richard-Bagot--London-?sort=
Call_Number%2CAuthor%2CCD_Title%2CImprint&qvq=
q:Call_Number%3D%22L.a.309%22;sort:Call_Number%2CAuthor
%2CCD_Title%2CImprint;lc:FOLGERCM1~6~6,BINDINGS~1~1
&mi=0&trs=4#. 157
7.2 A View of the Court of Wards and Liveries, with the Officers, Servants,
and Other Persons there Assembled by George Vertue, line engraving,
1747, from an original c.1585. NPG D10999. © National Portrait
Gallery, London. 159
8.1 Survey of the landing places on the coast of Hampshire from Portsmouth
to Bournemouth; with the numbers of men appointed to guard at particular
spots, and names of gentlemen commanding them, document ref.
SP 12/199 fol. 47. National Archives of the UK. 174
8.2 A map of the English and Scottish borders, 1579, Lord Burghley’s Atlas,
British Library, Royal 18 D. III, fol. 76. © The British Library Board. 182