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| Robert Cecil, Earl of Salisbury |
In addition to the inadequacies of a female ruler, the idea that men of lower rank were dominating over established nobility. The Cecilian faction are the epitome of this and as a result a constant thorn in the earl of Essex's side because they had the monopoly of the Queen's policy. They represented everything, Essex has been turned against in his emulation of great and noble figures in his personal and greater history. In protest of the Cecilan domination of court, Essex scoffs "Judge you...whether it can be grief to a man descended as I am, to be trodden underfoot by such base upstarts"[1] It was the cunning and corruption of the upstarts and their total disregard of tradition reminiscent of the disputes between Roman Patricians and the rising plebiscite power and the parallels with the downfall of the purity of the Roman state happening before his very eyes. This was the world that Essex existed in the late 1590s, a vain queen ruled over by base and manipulative men who sought to defame the "defender of the English" state.
When Essex accompanied his mentors, Leicester and Sidney to the Netherlands, he saw very little actual fight but he observed the planning, mismanagement and other worries of military leaders. He personally witnessed the way that the Queen and Burghley had levied war in the Netherlands by undermining the troops by denying them proper supply and pay. Now, he was again confronted, albeit this time directly, with the reality of a parsimonious Queen, a court of men concerned with their own luxuries and an underfunded army. This was apparent in internalized corruption of the Privy Council that was rampant in the 1590s. The unstable political climate created court factions in the later reign of Queen Elizabeth I: on the one hand the Essex faction, Essex, the Bacon brothers and the Earl of Southampton, the “men of action” who disliked the miserly conduct of the war and the wasteful use of domestic wealth versus the Cecilan faction of Lord Burghley, Sir Robert Cecil, and Edward Coke, those whose self-interest and extravagance laid upon the Queen the riches and sumptuous lifestyle she demanded. The Cecil faction was a consummate impediment to Essex's aspiration to fill the role of the Queen's primary statesman. Lord Burghley and his son Sir Robert Cecil, were well acquainted with the youthful aristocratic and his potential role as a dominant area of influence at court. They used this past relationship to draw his trust in them and use it to their greater goals and political advantages.
During the Rouen expedition, Essex kept correspondence with the younger Cecil in order to keep in the good graces of the Lord Treasurer on behalf of his sister's father-in-law and Privy Council member, Sir John Perrot. Essex had petitioned Burghley to defend the former Lord Deputy of Ireland Perrot who was being tried for treason on trumped up charges. Burghley ignored his requests because he had created the case against Perrot so he could replace him with a relative, William FitzWilliams who was more in line with the Cecil faction's activities in both Ireland and England. This was exemplar of the push for a "regnum Cecilianum"[2] the singular rule of the English state by Cecilian power and authority. While the ageing Lord Burghley control of Elizabethan policy was losing the battle of time, Burghley's supporters held keys spots in government posts. His influence on the Privy Council, Courtiers and the Queen. assisted the elder statesman in securing that his views and decisions were achieved. Burghley's influence upon Essex had created a sense of trust in the earl's former guardian that would soon be broken by the Cecilian intrgue.
Upon his return from France, Essex expecting some form of reward or reimbursement was shunned by the Queen. When he asked for some forgiveness, on the loans he had taken for the French expedition, the Queen told him to take his business to Sir Robert Cecil, a junior member of the Privy Council. Essex was furious because the war had cost him not only in money but also the loss of his younger brother, Walter Devereux. This was only the first of his misgivings at the hands of Cecil cunning.
When he ascended into the Privy Council, Essex's policies and choice of state offices were continually undermined by Burghley and his son. Essex was aiming to be a reputable and able statesmen creating his own domestic and continental intelligence networks. Essex's connections, spies and information sometimes worked in unison with Burghley's own elaborate one system but more often they where in competition. The competition between the powerful statesmen was not overtly apparent but it existed in the chase to deliver continental intelligence to the Queen first. As well, Essex's methodology in politics was often forceful and abrasive because he did not have the experience or finesse in the workings of deception factionalized politics. Essex as adept as he was at warfare he was not ready for the "daungerouslie poisoned with the secrett stinges of smilinge enemies"[3] found at court. When he sought to place Francis Bacon as attorney-general, Burghley first gave support but then shifted his support behind the more experienced and pro-Cecilian, Edward Coke. Burghley wanted to fill the English government with men that were aligned to his surreptitious form of government. This sort of cunning and activity was at odds with Essex ideological outlook.
Essex's political goals rested heavily in his Protestant upbringing and was seen in his push to ally with the Dutch and Henry IV of France. He sought the alliance as means to facilitate a crusade against the growing "tyranny" of the Spanish. Essex saw the Spanish as "an insollent, cruell and usurping Nation that disturbed the common peace , aspired to the conquest of my Countrie, and a general enemy to the liberty of Christendom"[4] The stability of the Netherlands since the 1590, Essex focused his attention to Henry IV and the French. Essex had strong ties to the Huguenots through his childhood friend, Count Montgomery and the relationship with Henry IV from the Rouen campaign. These ties pushed for Essex to dedicate himself to being Henry's "greatest & onlye freind...in England"[5] because he admired the French king's resolve and virile conduct which was so unlike Elizabeth's indecisiveness.
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