Blair Worden - A Book of Friendship

SUSAN BRIGDEN

Pickering’s perceived intimacy with the queen stirred enmity at court; not only because some had hopes for marriage to Elizabeth themselves, but also because he was not noble. In September De Quadra wrote to the duke of Alva that Pickering was sending a challenge to the earl of Bedford – in fact, to the earl of Arundel – ‘for having spoken ill of him at a banquet’. Pickering’s second was to be Dudley, who had promised to deliver the challenge. 12 If the duel did take place, it remained secret, and did not end the animosity. Late in October, as ‘Pickering was about to enter the chapel, which is inside the queen’s apartments, the earl of Arundel came to the door and told him that he knew very well that that was a place for lords, and he must go to the presence chamber’. Pickering answered ‘that he knew that, and he also knew that Arundel was an impudent, discourteous knave’. Hearing this, ‘without answering a word’, Arundel stormed off, leaving Pickering to enter. Pickering talked openly of the encounter but refrained from challenging Arundel ‘as he holds him of small account’. 13 Arundel was said to have sold his lands and was ready to flee the realm with the money ‘because he could not abide in England if Mr Pickering should marry the queen for they were enemies’. 14 In Venice, where the news of the world was ventilated among the ‘ galantuomini ’ gathering of a morning under the loggia of St Mark’s, they speculated upon the marriage of ‘ la regina d’Inghilterra ’. Among them was the papal protonotary Pietro Carnesecchi, who was intrigued by the romance of ‘ la divina principessa ’. We know of his speculation because, ominously, the Holy Office became interested in it as part of their long investigation of Carnesecchi’s heresy and heretical associations. One such association was with Edward’s resident ambassador at the court of Henry II of France. Under interrogation in 1567, Carnesecchi claimed at first that he could not remember the ambassador’s name, but then admitted that he had been more than usually ‘ adomesticato ’ with ‘ il cavalliero Picherino ’. 15 Carnesecchi learnt – from Guido Giannetti da Fano, who heard from friends in England 16 – that Elizabeth had promised Parliament not to marry a foreigner. Rather, she had chosen ‘a private gentleman, who was, however, noble and well-endowed in body and mind, who had followed her in every fortune’. He had gone into exile in Mary’s reign as Elizabeth’s 12 CLSP , 62, p. 96. That the challenge was to the earl of Arundel is shown, from Spanish sources, by ed. Simon Adams, Household Accounts and Disbursement Books of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, 1558-1561, 1584-1586 , Camden Fifth Series, 6 (Royal Historical Society, 1995), p. 46, n. 44. 13 CLSP , 70, p. 109. 14 Calendar of State Papers, Foreign Series, of the Reign of Elizabeth, 2 , 1559-1560, ed. J. Stevenson (1865) ( CSPFor ), 3(5). 15 I Processi Inquisitoriali di Pietro Carnesecchi (1557-1567): Edizione Critica , II, I Processi sotto Paolo IV e Pio IV (1557-1567) , eds. Massimo Firpo and Dario Marcatto (3 vols., Collectanea Archivi Vaticani, 48, Città del Vaticano, Archivio Segreto Vaticano, 2000) ( PC ), II.2, p. 509. 16 PC, II.2 , p. 512.

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