As spring came on I was shamed to think that I, an Instrument and a Miscreant, might end my days as a common cat with no Earl to speak of.
We heard that his mother and Puss Fur-None had writ to Sir Rabbit begging for his life. But had not Lady Essex begged for her husband’s?
“Thus does Fortune raise us up, and cast us down again,” sayt Luvvie the player cat, feigning sorrow.
“Fortune favours fools,” sayt Linkin. “As you would know.”
Luvvie had heard (I know not how) that his old companie were at White-Hall the day before Essex lost his head. They’d enacted a play for Queen Puss.
“I hope she kept her claws on her pancake,” sayt I. “Else they’d have snapped it like they snapped forty shillings from Essex’s poor friends. Two of whom have been hanged, so I hear tell.”
“No players came to harm,” sayt Luvvie. “So mayhap I’ll join with them again.”
“Pray do,” sayt I. “Then you can akwaynt me with that villain Snakes-Purr who stole my uncle’s verses and sayt they were his own.”
But I was so vexed I could find no pleasure in thoughts of revenge. Instead I went to Essex House, half hoping Lady Essex might be there and Puss Fur-None with her.
I saw none but another fool favoured by Fortune. Scabface.
He wisht to know when we would have a Revel, so he could tell of his heroick doings at White-Hall. Else all the fame for affrighting Queen Puss would go to Essex and not him.
“Queen Puss was not affrighted,” sayt I. “Sir Rabbit hisself sayt that she was no more troubled by newes of Essex’s doings than she would have been by word of a fray in Fleet Street.”
“The preachers gave out that she might have been affrighted,” sayt Scabface. “If Essex had gone to White-Hall and caused bloodshed. But I alone went there and clawed a few faces, so it follows that she was affrighted by me.”
I told him Picker and Stealer would wish to give newes at our Revel of the heads they’d seen cut off, and they were not like to return from the Tower before the end of Fasting Time [Lent].
That quieted him.
Then he sayt he believed Paws, their mother, was not long for this world. Picker and Stealer should be making readie to take her place.
“Paws,” sayt Scabface, “never has been right in her mind since she met with a horse on her roof.”
“A horse?” cried I. “On her roof?”
“You didn’t hear of it?” arrkst Scabface, right pleased with hisself. “Most like you was hid away plotting with your fine friends. And where are they now?”
“I was led into plottings,” sayt I, “because of my love to my Earl. I was more like a dog to him than a cat.”
“I do not doubt it,” sayt Scabface.
I was tempted to strike him a blow, but I forbore. Instead I sayt, “Do not many fine folks dwell in your manor? Know you where my Earl’s poor lady Puss Fur-None is?”
“I might,” sayt Scabface, settling hisself upon the wall.
I had no choice but to wait with him. I guessed that once I seemed sufficient humble he would lead me there.
It wasn’t only Tricks who had to seem sufficient humble. Her Earl’s wife, Bess Vernon, had written twice to Sir Robert Cecil. Bess’s first letter (undated, but before the trial) laments the fact that she’s so out of favour with the Queen she’s unable to perform the wifely duty of pleading for her husband.
The second, written after Bess knew the trial verdict, asks Sir Robert to use his influence with the Queen so that “I may … be permitted … to prostrate myself at her feet to beg for mercy to my lord.”
Humility didn’t come so naturally to Southampton’s distraught mother. She fired off one of her impassioned letters attributing her son’s “doleful discontented behavior” to his inability to recover the Queen’s favour, and suggested that despair led him to evil company.
However, Southampton (who also had to humble himself by writing submissive letters) was probably safe from execution by the time Tricks met Scabface.
Essex’s secretary Henry Cuffe and steward Sir Gelly Meyrick were executed at Tyburn on 13 March 1601.
Southampton’s friend Sir Charles Danvers and Essex’s stepfather Sir Christopher Blount were publicly beheaded on Tower Hill five days later. Sir Robert Cecil had professed sympathy for both Southampton and Danvers, but was only able or willing to intercede for Southampton.
There’s no record of what play the Lord Chamberlain’s Men performed on Shrove Tuesday at Whitehall Palace, but their earlier performance of Richard II at the Globe had obviously done them no harm.
And the horse on the roof of St Paul’s? That had happened on 3 February, five days before the Essex rebellion. According to the letter writer John Chamberlain, someone managed to get his horse up the steps inside St Paul’s steeple and rode around its (flat) roof. Just another city stunt.
The Earl of Southampton's Cat 
Is Fortune’s depiction poking fun at the pope, do you think? Her headgear is very papal.
Were Blount and Danvers closer to Essex than Southampton, or were they executed to prove a point?
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I really don’t know about Fortune’s headgear. It certainly looks episcopal, but perhaps it’s intended as a comment on those paying court to her?
I suspect all the subsequent executions were to prove one point or another. Blount was very loyal to Essex. He didn’t like Southampton (as Southampton admitted) but they’d united to discourage Essex from returning to England from Ireland with an army to confront his enemies.
Instead, they prevailed upon Essex to return with a small bodyguard and go directly to the Queen. (The famous bedchamber event.) I think Blount would rather have helped Essex leave the country, but he entered the city with him and was involved (and injured) in the skirmish at the Ludgate.
Danvers’ death strikes me as unjust, considering the number of reprieves for others. He said he acted solely out of loyalty to Southampton, to whom he owed his life.
As I understand it (and I could well be wrong!) the most treasonable action – “premeditated”, said Sir Robert – was the Drury House discussions about a coup against Sir Walter Ralegh, Sir Robert and friends. These discussions came to nothing, but after Essex’s execution Sir Robert instructed the Sunday preachers to make much of the lady Queen’s terror if a horde of Papists had invaded her Court. Blount was a known Catholic, and Danvers was that way inclined.
Danvers was also “obstinate in denial” (Sir Robert again) until he saw others’ confessions. That counted against him. Tricks mightn’t like me saying this, but Southampton seems much the guiltier party.
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I wonder why Southampton was spared, then. I can understand why Sir Robert might take the opportunity to get rid of the odd Catholic, so the deaths of Blount and Danvers make a bit more sense..
By the by, I looked him up on Wikipedia. In the same article it says he was 5′ 4″ tall and not quite 5′ tall. No wonder I trust so little that I read on the internet.
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Wikipedia articles are uneven. Some are good, some patchy. A lot depends on the writer(s) and the sources they use.
Sir Robert could have had a soft spot for Southampton because he’d have known him from childhood in the Burghley household. Sir R also seems to have got on well with Southampton’s mother, and might have agreed with her about the Queen’s negative attitude to him.
There may also have been a political risk in executing a second Earl. Essex’s death upset Londoners and startled the international community. Sir R was probably in damage control mode.
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I hadn’t thought about the two earls thing. That could have caused problems.
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I started to worry seriously about Tricks, but then I remembered that cats fall on their feet and have nine lives. What would you advise her? She seems strangely passive.
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She’s feeling flat, poor dear, after all the excitement of the rebellion and the trial. And she’s come down in the world – something Luvvie and Scabface are rubbing in. That’s enough to upset any cat. Definitely time for her to find a new direction, I’d say.
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I live in hope.
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Excellent post. I love the story at the end of the horse and rider on the roof of St Paul’s!
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I love those little snippets of everyday life, too. John Chamberlain also says that the previous week someone had hopped from Charing Cross to St Paul’s “bound up in a sack”, and a lot of these stunts was about winning wagers.
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“Sufficient humble.” Sadly, I too have been challenged in conveying this quality, or rather the artifice of it, on numerous occasions. Though thankfully I still have my head–for now.
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Always wise to keep your head, Mitch, particularly when all about are losing theirs.
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