Elizabeth I: Factional Rivalries & the Essex Rebellion (AQA A Level History: Component 1: Breadth study): Revision Note

Summary

• For most of her reign, Elizabeth kept factions under control by balancing her rivals against each other; this broke down in the 1590s

• The deaths of Leicester (1588), Walsingham (1590) and Burghley (1598) removed the experience ministers who had kept court politics stable

• Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex emerged as Elizabeth’s most prominent favourite

  • He was brave and popular, but politically reckless

• Essex and Robert Cecil became bitter rivals, competing for patronage and power throughout the 1590s

• Essex's disastrous command in Ireland (1599) and his defiance of Elizabeth destroyed his position at court

• In February 1601, Essex marched into London, expecting the citizens to rise with him

  • No significant support materialised; he was arrested, tried and executed

• Historians debate how far factional rivalry represented a crisis of government

  • Some argue it revealed serious weaknesses; others stress that government continued to function

Factional Rivalries at Court: Essex vs. the Cecils in the 1590s

Illustration - Essex v. Cecil (new)

The collapse of the old guard

• Court politics were broadly stable for the first 30 years of Elizabeth's reign

  • Leicester and Cecil (Burghley) were rivals, but they co-operated as much as they competed

    • Elizabeth deliberately balanced the two, preventing either from dominating

  • Faction-fighting only became a serious problem in the 1590s

• The deaths of key ministers created a vacuum at court

  • Robert Dudley (Earl of Leicester) died in 1588

  • Sir Francis Walsingham died in 1590

  • Sir Christopher Hatton (Lord Chancellor) died in 1591

  • William Cecil (Lord Burghley) was increasingly incapacitated from 1592 and died in 1598

  • A new younger generation of courtiers moved into the space they left behind

The two factions

• The two dominant figures of the 1590s were:

  • Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex

  • Robert Cecil, son of Lord Burghley

• The rivalry was about patronage as much as policy

  • High-ranking courtiers attracted networks of clients who depended on them for offices and rewards

    • Essex tried to monopolise military commands and patronage, squeezing out Cecil's allies

    • Cecil worked methodically in the background, building administrative control while Essex burned through royal favour

• Before the 1590s, the factions co-operated as much as they competed

  • The serious breakdown only came from the 1590s, when a younger and more aggressive generation took to the political stage

• Essex's relationship with Elizabeth was stormy from the start

  • Quarrels, reconciliations and accusations were a constant feature

The Rise & Fall of the Earl of Essex

• Essex rose to prominence in the mid-1580s as Elizabeth's new favourite

  • He was young, charming and courageous, and Elizabeth was captivated by him

  • He served in the Netherlands in 1585–1586, earning a reputation for bravery

  • Leicester's death in 1588 left a vacancy as Elizabeth's military favourite

    • Essex filled it immediately

• High point: The Cadiz raid, 1596

  • Essex and Lord Howard of Effingham led a joint expedition to Spain

    • They captured the city of Cadiz and destroyed a large number of Spanish ships

  • Essex became a public hero; his popularity in London was enormous

  • However, he quarrelled with Howard and Raleigh over strategy

    • He wanted to hold Cadiz permanently but was overruled

• Low point: The Islands Voyage of 1597 damaged his reputation

  • Essex and Raleigh attempted to repeat the success of Cadiz by attacking the Azores

  • The expedition was a failure, marked by quarrels and bad weather

  • Essex was made Earl Marshal in 1597, but his relationship with Elizabeth was under increasing strain

The beginning of the fall

• A Privy Council confrontation in 1598 marked a turning point

  • Essex turned his back on Elizabeth during a Council meeting

    • She struck him (reportedly “boxed his ears”), and he reached for his sword, leading to him being dismissed from court

  • The incident revealed how far the relationship had deteriorated

  • Additionally, Cecil (Burghley) died the same year, removing the main stabilising figure at court

Ireland, 1599

• Essex was appointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland in 1599

  • The task was to defeat the Earl of Tyrone's rebellion in Ulster as part of the wider Nine Years' War (1594–1603)

  • Elizabeth gave him around 16,000 men, the largest army sent to Ireland

• The Ireland campaign was a serious failure

  • Essex ignored his orders and misused this force on minor campaigns in the south

  • He made a private truce with Tyrone, directly against Elizabeth's orders

  • He then abandoned his post and returned to England without permission

    • He forced entry into Elizabeth’s private chambers at Nonsuch Palace in September 1599, catching her before she had dressed

    • Elizabeth was furious; she placed him under house arrest and stripped him of his offices

    • His income from the sweet wines monopoly was not renewed, cutting off his main source of revenue

The Essex Rebellion, 1601: Causes, Events & Consequences

Causes of the rebellion

• Essex faced financial ruin after the non-renewal of the sweet wines monopoly

  • Without this income, he could not pay his debts or maintain his network of followers

  • He convinced himself that Cecil and Raleigh had poisoned Elizabeth's mind against him

• Essex had a circle of discontented followers ready to act

  • The Earl of Southampton and other young courtiers were also excluded from power and patronage

  • In February 1601, Essex's supporters paid Shakespeare's theatre company to perform Richard II, a play depicting the deposition of a king, the day before the rebellion

    • This was intended as political propaganda, but failed to stir any wider feeling

Events of the rebellion

Why did the rebellion fail?

• Essex had no realistic plan

  • He expected the City of London to rise spontaneously; it did not

• The political nation remained loyal to Elizabeth

  • The rebellion had no serious support beyond Essex’s own circle

• The government had prior warning and was prepared

Consequences of the rebellion

• The rebellion confirmed Robert Cecil's dominance

  • With Essex gone, Cecil had no comparable rival

  • Cecil continued his secret correspondence with James VI of Scotland, preparing the ground for a smooth succession

    • When Elizabeth died in March 1603, the transition to James VI (now James I of England) was peaceful

• Elizabeth was visibly shaken by Essex's execution

  • By all accounts, she had genuinely cared for him

    • Reports suggested that she spent days in a state of deep depression afterwards

How Effectively Did Elizabeth Manage Government & Faction?

• Use the specific evidence below to build and support your own argument

The case that Elizabeth managed faction effectively

• Elizabeth balanced Leicester and Cecil against each other for over 20 years without either dominating

• She chose ministers on merit

  • Cecil, Walsingham, Hatton and Leicester all served loyally for long periods

• Parliament was managed, the Settlement held, the Cadiz raid succeeded, the Armada was defeated

• Faction only became dangerous after the deaths of her experienced ministers in the late 1580s and 1590s

  • This suggests the system itself was sound

The case that factional management broke down

• Elizabeth allowed Essex's personal relationship with her to override sound political judgement throughout the 1590s

• The rebellion of 1601 showed the patronage system had produced a man who could neither be managed nor safely dismissed

• Essex was given the Irish command in 1599 for factional reasons

  • He wasted 16,000 men, defied his orders and achieved nothing

  • This is clear evidence that faction had distorted royal decision-making at the highest level

• Robert Cecil was secretly corresponding with James VI of Scotland regarding the succession by the late 1590s

  • This is evidence that the centre of power had already shifted away from her