Was Elizabeth I at
Middleton?

The last tenant of Middleton Hall, Egbert de Hamel, was a great enthusiast for everything about Middleton. He wrote a brief history, which was widely quoted, but short on verifiable facts. In it he claimed that Queen Elizabeth stayed at Middleton as the guest of Francis Willoughby for a week following the great events at Kenilworth in 1575. He stated that vast amounts of food had been consumed at the Hall on this occasion and various popular writers have carried this story on. The actual evidence is, however, equivocal.

Richard S. Smith, one time keeper of the Middleton Papers at Nottingham University wrote in a pamphlet about Francis Willoughby that

'John Nichols, in his standard work on Queen Elizabeth's Progresses noted that "Whilst the Queen was at Kenilworth, we are told that she had invitations to visit Lichfield, Worcester and Middleton. There are accounts of her being at the first two of these places, but I cannot find that she was at Middleton..", so it seems that the proposed visit did not take place after all, and it is possible that the old manor house at Middleton may not have been considered sufficiently imposing for a royal visit, against the background of all the splendours of Kenilworth.

The actual qotation from the Langham Letter, from page 14 is as follows.

For her gracious presence therefore with this great gift endued, Lichfield, Worcester and Middleton, with many places more, made humble suit unto her Highness to come; to such whereof as her Majesty could, it came, and they season acceptable.

Nichols judgement on this is as follows.

"Whilst the Queen was at Kenilworth, we are told by Laneham (Vol 1. p.468) that she had invitiations to visit Lichfield, Worcester and Middleton. There are accounts of her being at the two first of these places; but I cannot find that she was at Middleton, or even at which Town of the many so named she was expected. My excellent friend Mr. Archdeacon Churton, whom I consulted on that subject says, "I have taken some pains to find out what Middleton in this part of the kingdom would be honoured with a visit by the Virgin Queen in 1575, in the way from Worcester to Woodstock. Middleton Cheney is not in the line, and there is no 'Squire of high degree' here, either then or since, to receive a Royal Visitor, 'dressed in his Sunday clothes'. Middleton Stony, Lord Jersey's, about 12 or 14 miles from hence, is in Oxfordshire but not in the road from Worcester to Woodstock, but rather beyond Woodstock in the line from Worcester. A friend says he sees a Middleton in the map between Evesham and Stratford-on-Avon, but it seems, he says, out of the road between Worcester and Woodstock; and yet a Middleton between Evesham and Stratford-on-Avon cannot be much out of the way. My friend asks, 'whether it might not be Lord Middleton's seat in Warwickshire, which is in direct line between Kenilworth and Lichfield,' and so might be included in the Royal Tour, though it is not between Worcester and Woodstock. Mr Carlisle's 'Topographical Dictionary' has not less than 41 Middletons."

Smith was most interested in industrial and economic history so, although he was the keeper of a most important source, the Middleton Papers, which Nichols was unlikely to have seen, he probably accepted uncritically the writings of Cassandra Willoughby. These are discussed here.

The Middleton Papers were the subject of a review by Mr W. H. Stevenson for the Historical Manuscripts Commission. His report, published in 1911 when de Hamel was in residence at the Hall is the probable source of his story. In his introduction Stevenson says

"The sister of Francis was attached to Princess Elizabeth during her semi-imprisonment at Hatfield under Queen Mary, and was a member of Elizabeth's court under her accession to the throne. It is not to be wondered at that under these circumstances Elizabeth was acquainted with the great wealth of Sir Francis Willoughby, which she knew "to be nothing inferior to the best" (p538), and that she intended to knight him at the famous festivities at Kenilworth in 1566 (pp527-8) had he not slipped away. She expressed her intention of staying at his house (apparently meaning Middleton) for two nights in 1575, although he was still keeping out of her way (p.538)"

The pages referenced in this extract are from a family history, which is reproduced in full in the report for The Manuscript Commission. It was prepared by Cassandra Willoughby during the period when she was living at Wollaton before her marriage to James Brydges, which was in 1713. The relevant item on pp527-8 is as follows:

"There is a letter from Sir John Lyttleton (who I must now call Sir) to Mr Willughby, who from this time I will call Sir Francis, not finding when the Queen knighted him. This letter is dated August 24th, 1566. In it he writes his-son-in-law that if he had not suddenly departed from Killingworth (Kenilworth), he would have made his daughter a lady, for he was sought but could not be found within an hour after he was gone, when six knights were made..."

The reference to p538 quotes from a letter from Sir Francis Knollys to Francis Willoughby following a lengthy summary of correspondence with a George Willoughby (apparently a distant cousin), who had a significant influence with Francis, in which the subject was how best to prepare for the expected progress of Queen Elizabeth through that part of England. This was in 1575 and relates to the major event involving 19 days of festivities at Kenilworth. Sir Francis Knollys was the last of Francis Willoughby's guardians and was a senior member of Queen Elizabeth's court

"I shall here copy a letter from Sir Francis Knollys to Sir Francis Willoughby to give him notice of the Queen's coming to Wollaton.

"Her Majesty is determined to tarry two days at your house, that is tomorrow night and Thursday all day, whereof I think it good to advertise you betimes. Wherefore I think it best for you to defray her Majesty, but that you should give her some good present of beefs and muttons, and keep a good table yourself in some place, if you have any convenient room for it, two messe of meat. But do herein as you shall think best, but you need to consider how your provision of drink etc., may hold out.
This Tuesday, the 20th day of July, 1575.
Your loving Friend,
F. Knolls"

There is no account book or papers that I could find which shewed in what manner the Queen was received and entertained at Wollaton"

This shows that Mr Stevenson's synopsis does not accurately reflect the statements made by Cassandra. She says Wollaton, he says Middleton. Wollaton was, of course the principal home of the Willoughby family, but in 1575 it was not the showplace that it became after 1588. It was the Willoughby home with which Cassandra was most familiar and where she wrote her family history but there is another mistake that shows that Mr Stevenson probably knew better.

The best account of the festivities at Kenilworth is given in a contemporary document known as the Langham Letter The following quotations from that document fix the relevant dates

"On Saturday the ninth of July at Long Itchington, a town and lordship of my Lord's within a seven mile of Killingworth, his Honour made her Majesty great cheer at dinner and pleasant pastime in hunting by the way after, that it was eight o'clock in the evening ere her Highness came to Killingworth"

"Her Highness tarried at Killingworth till the Wednesday after, being the 27th of this July, and the nineteenth (inclusive) of her Majesty's coming thither."

The key thing to note here is that the 20th of July was not a Tuesday. It is quite unlikely that the day references by name were wrong, but the simple mistake of copying 26 as 20 would reconcile all of the known facts.

A further clue is given on a web page, relating to Lichfieldwhere it is said that

Elizabeth I was at Lichfield in 1575, arriving from Kenilworth on 27 July. She appears to have stayed elsewhere and to have returned to Lichfield on 30 July; she left for Chartley, in Stowe, on 3 August. She was evidently received in the market place and entertained in the guildhall. In preparation for her visit the bailiffs had the market cross painted and the area round it paved, and the guildhall was painted and repaired. In addition work was carried out on the road leading into the city from the south. The bailiffs also paid 5s. to a William Holcroft 'for keeping Mad Richard when her Majesty was here'. (fn. 22)

This is as reliable as most of the history found on the web, where most authors do not quote their sources. What is known from reliable sources is that Elizabeth left Kenilworth for Lichfield on the 27th. There is a gap of three days in the record and she is known to have been in Lichfield on the 30th (this is recorded on English Heritage's display at Kenilworth Castle). In light of the Knollys letter it is most believable that a large part of that time was spent at Middleton Hall. Wollaton is certainly a red herring because Elizabeth never visited Nottingham nor anywhere north of Stafford, where she went after leaving Lichfield.

If we conclude, as the writer does, that Cassandra was in error, the reputation of this lady is called into question. She is given credit for most of what we know of the family. Her book is mainly excerpts from documents that were among the papers and few, if any, of the documents she quotes still exist. What remains is mostly accounts and legal documents, which she probably understood too little to risk disposing of them, but letters anyone could understand. Having filleted them and censored them she, as the tidy housekeeper she was, threw them away; an act of historical vandalism comparable to the destruction by John Averill of the building in which Queen Elizabeth almost certainly slept.

After Francis Willughby, the naturalist died in 1673 and his widow married Josiah Child in 1676, an inventory was drawn up. In this there is a list of the furnishings to be found in "The Queen's Chamber". It is unlikely that there would have been a tradition of calling a room this had it not actually been used by her. It certainly was not, as Wollaton had been, one of those Elizabethan mansions that had been built or enhanced in case the Queen chose to visit.

This entire tale is an object lesson in the quality of history. Nichols' research reads like a script for a Whitehall farce, a comedy of errors starting from the assumption that the Langham letter listed the places in the sequence in which they would be visited. The comedy continues with Smith's readiness to take its weak conclusions at face value, the obvious errors in Casandra's work and the assumption on the British-History web site that Elizabeth went straight from Kenilworth to Lichfield, when there is no evidence for this and the only solid evidence leads to a different conclusion. Only Mr Stevenson, the Historical Mauscripts Commission's reviewer emerges with any credit.

Smith proposed the view that Middleton was not a smart enough place for a Queen. An equally likely view is that she had had enough pomp and ceremony after 19 days at Kenilworth and sought the advice of her attendants, who included Francis' sister Margaret and Francis' guardian, Sir Francis Knollys, about somewhere that she could have a bit of peace and quiet for a couple of days, before heading to a round of catholic houses to remind them who was in charge.