Making Progress: Elizabeth I visits Farnham Castle 1591
- gilldavid560
- Sep 10
- 6 min read
Updated: Sep 12
A Royal Tradition
The Tudors inherited a tradition of royal progresses going back to the Norman period, when William the Conqueror journeyed regularly around the south of England, spending Easter at Winchester, Whitsuntide at Westminster and Christmas at Gloucester.
One of the greatest practitioners of the royal progress was Elizabeth I. For the first half of her reign, she travelled around the country on progress every summer. This provided a great opportunity for her to be seen by her people. She took the opportunity of the summer season, and the need to leave London for hygienic reasons, to travel around the southern part of the kingdom, visiting nobility and gentry, and sometimes being entertained magnificently. The heyday of her visiting was in the 1570s, and again in the early 1590s. She made at least 25 progresses during her 45 year reign including a number of trips into Hampshire and Surrey, visiting many of the great houses which still exist today such as The Vyne, Elvetham Hall
(although the building we see today is completely rebuilt since Elizabeth's day) and, of course, Farnham Castle, the latter seen as a most convenient stopping off place, as it was for her predecessors and successors.
Surrey & Hampshire - well trodden paths
The three Winchester Bishop's palaces - Farnham Castle, Wolvesey and Bishops Waltham were used to entertaining royalty very frequently.
Both Henry VIII and Elizabeth had common cause in visiting Hampshire by way of Surrey, en route to the south coast, to inspect the naval yards and defences at Portsmouth and Southampton. In 1591 the Spanish Armada was still fresh in the minds of many people, particularly in the south of England, and there had been further attempted raids by the Spanish in the intervening period.
Progresses were a mixture of business and pleasure. Like her father Elizabeth made time for hunting, but she also took her court and Privy Council with her. Farnham was a preferred centre of government by her councillors when they accompanied her on her progresses, evidenced by letters of state written by her ministers and Elizabeth from the Castle. Affairs of state did not stop because the court was on the move.
Preparation is Key
As can be imagined moving a royal personage and her court was an enormous undertaking, especially given the state of the roads, bridges etc. and earlier progresses could be vast.
Zillah Dovey describes the travelling arrangements in her book An Elizabethan Progress concerning the queen's progress into East Anglia in 1578:
Mostly the Queen and her retinue rode, but they would have been preceded by or accompanied by an immense baggage train, between 200 and 300 two- or four-wheeled carts drawn by teams of six horses carried everything necessary for the Queen, the Court and the Council - bedding, furniture, hangings, clothing, plate and kitchen equipment, documents and office requirements. The main body moved 10 to 12 miles a day.
However, by 1591, Elizabeth travelled with a much smaller retinue.
The royal party was always preceded by the harbingers. These men were members of the gentry and court officials. In September 1591 Richard Coningsby spent an initial 4 days preparing the Bishops Palace for Elizabeth’s visit along with one yeoman usher, three yeomen and two grooms of the Chamber, two grooms of the wardrobe & one groom porter. Later in the month he returned for a total of 13 further days as the Queen progressed around Hampshire and Surrey including stays at Farleigh Wallop, Elvetham Hall and Odiham. At this time William More, of Loseley House, was the steward of Farnham Castle; archival records at Loseley prove Sir William was heavily involved in the 1591 Progress. Elizabeth often stayed at Loseley House as well as Farnham Castle.
The effect on the locals?
Unfortunately, the local population didn't necessarily benefit from Elizabeth’s peregrinations.
To provision this huge caravan, supplies, such as wheat, meat, fodder for the horses and money were sent direct from London or provided through a purveyance system - a way of provisioning the royal household on the move. Purveyors were given a royal licence to purchase local food from markets, farmers or other suppliers at a fixed price, usually below the market one!
They also borrowed local horses and carts, in order to move the monarch's baggage and provisions from venue to venue. The purveyance system could hit the general population hard.
Carts were taken at the height of the harvest season (i.e. August and September), and fodder and grain not reimbursed until much later. The progress interrupted or cancelled the seasonal routine, and inconvenienced the normal patterns of farming and land ownership. The favourite months for royal progresses, July to September, were the same months for harvesting, which must have inconvenienced local farmers. Not only did carts and fodder disappear through purveyance, but land in the vicinity could be requisitioned and fields used for pasture or dug up for latrines.
Lodgings fit for a Queen
During her stays in Farnham, Elizabeth almost certainly stayed in Fox’s Tower. Following an initial two night stay in August 1591 at Farnham Castle, she then spent a week at Cowdray before continuing to Portsmouth. She then returned to Farnham in September on her way back to London.
In her advancing years, the queen became more particular about where she stayed. She was less keen on old houses and selected her hosts carefully. She chose to ignore the 9th Earl of Northumberland at Petworth in 1591, nor did she stay at Arundel. At the age of 57, she valued comfort, which may not have been so easily available in medieval castles, therefore we can assume that Fox's Tower at the Bishop's Palace offered her enough creature comforts to guarantee repeat visits.
Although local farmers may have resented the queen's arrival in town, other local people, especially innkeepers, might find they were doing exceptionally well, as the visitors would need accommodation for themselves, their servants and their horses, and food for meals other than the main ones which were eaten with the progress. Even travelling salesmen and players, who might not have been invited into the royal presence, could still make money in nearby inns and on village greens, from people on the progress who had to find accommodation in the neighbourhood.
“There is only one Christ, Jesus, one faith. All else is a dispute over trifles.” Queen Elizabeth on religion.
Elizabeth’s host in 1591 was Bishop Thomas Cooper (1517-1594), an ardent supporter of Protestantism and a fiery preacher. He is famed for having written one of England’s first thesauruses in 1565 used by Shakespeare in a number of his plays and poetry and with which Elizabeth l herself was very impressed. Perhaps, in the privacy of the Bishop's camera, beneath the magnificent scissor frame roof, they might have discussed religious issues. Elizabeth, having been happy to reside with both Catholics and Protestants during her progress, must have piqued the interest of Bishop Cooper who spent a lot of time worrying about exiled English Catholic priests from Douai and Rome being smuggled into Hampshire via the English Channel. He had doubted the loyalty of Catholics during the Spanish Armada only three years earlier and so would have been most interested in the Queen's reports of her stays at various Catholic households such as Cowdray and Beaulieu.
A Lesson in Religious Tolerance?
The 1591 progress demonstrated Elizabeth's power and security - she felt comfortable as a guest of both Catholics and Protestants. Hampshire, in particular, was viewed at the time as having catholic sympathies and certainly Thomas Cooper's outward antagonism to recusants had made him an unpopular Bishop of Winchester. Yet Queen Elizabeth sought to stay at Farnham Castle on numerous occasions throughout her reign. She had shown through this progress she was capable of living peaceably with both religions and she expected nothing less from her subjects.
My thanks to Dr Caroline Adams for her valuable research which helped in the writing of this blog
Comments