[Quick set-up: Cecil, of the British Privy Council, is concerned that Elizabeth I won’t pick an heir to the throne, and she’s getting old. One of the prime candidates for the succession is James VI of Scotland, but the Queen won’t hear of it. Cecil, however, is determined to get the business of the inheritance sorted out, and begins to send coded letters to James, planning to help him ascend the throne after the death of Elizabeth.]
Instead they organized a code to enable Cecil to correspond in secret with the Scottish King [James VI]. Names were to be represented by numbers: James, for example, was 30 and Cecil 10.
Cecil insisted that absolute secrecy be maintained over their correspondence for, as he later put it, “if Her Majesty had known all I did… her age and orbity, joined to the jealousy of her sex, might have moved her to think ill of that which helped to preserve her.”
He had a narrow escape from being discovered only that summer. Elizabeth’s Treasurer, Lord Buckhurst, later described how the Queen was walking in Greenwich Park when she “heard the post blow his horn.” She asked that the bag of letters be brought to her, and Cecil, knowing that it would contain letters from Scotland, fell on his knees and begged her not to look at them. He told her that if she did people would think “it to be out of a jealousy and suspicion of him” which would leave him disgraced and unable to continue working for her effectively.
Elizabeth chose not to look in the bag, but Cecil remained so nervous of discovery that he risked insulting his future Queen by asking James not to tell Anna [James’ wife] of their correspondence.
Author’s Note:
In another version of the story he told her the bag stank and needed to be aired before she looked through it.
Source:
Lisle, Leanda De. "A Babe Crowned in His Cradle" After Elizabeth: The Rise of James of Scotland and the Struggle for the Throne of England. New York: Ballantine, 2005. 66. Print.
Original Source(s) Listed:
James VI of Scotland, Correspondence with Sir Robert Cecil and Others in England, pp. 35-6.
Goodman, Court of James, vol. I, pp. 31-2.
Wilson, Arthur, The History of Great Britain, Being the Life and Reign of King James the First, p. 2.
Further Reading:
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