3The accounts of such prominent women have not gone completely unnoticed so far but by interweaving their narratives of the three major events of 1603, viz. the death of the Queen, the succession of James VI of Scotland to the throne of England and the plague epidemics, I intend to draw a picture of 1603 through the female eyes that might contradict in some respects the testimonies of male witnesses.
10Both Neale and Loomis’s comments raise the question of the reliability of Southwell’s historical account but whilst the first takes the age and gender of the writer as elements of proof of her delusions, the second attributes some form of literary knowledge and subtlety to Southwell. This discrepancy requires further investigation to assess whether Southwell can be considered as a « historian » in early-modern terms.
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11To begin with, it seems unfair to dismiss Southwell’s historical account simply on the basis of its poetic license ; and this for two reasons. First, Southwell is not the only early-modern historian to introduce magic, night-time visions and dreams in her story of events happening at the time of a King’s death. George Buchanan, among others, does exactly the same when he narrates the last day of Henry Darnley in his History of Scotland ; yet this text has been used as a standard source for history books of the period until very recently :
18Southwell might also have been more informed than the derogatory label of « romantic young lady » with which she has been stuck suggests. On the basis of what she dictated to Parsons, we can speculate that she might have been familiar with the conventional arguments used by Elizabeth’s opponents in their diatribes. The explosions of the coffin and of the royal corpse recall, in fact, the prophecy of the Puritan Peter Wentworth who warned the Queen against the mistreatment that would be inflicted to her scorned body at her death if she did not settle the succession. In A Pithie Exhortation to her Majestie for establishing her successor to the crowne (1598), he implored her :
19Southwell’s account, which emphasizes the disrespectful handling of the remains of the Queen, seems to suggest therefore that she suffered the fate Wentworth predicted for refusing to the very end to name her successor, a point Southwell also stresses heavily. It would not be the first time opponents on opposite sides of the religious spectrum had borrowed from one another.
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42Anne Clifford’s morbid calculation is less dramatic both in scope and pathos as it centers mostly on her immediate circumstances. She mentions the plague at Hampton court « round about which were tents, where they died two or three in a day of the plague », an incident she seems to have chronicled because her own life was felt to be at risk at the time. She writes, « There I fell extremely sick of a fever so as my mother was in doubt it might turn to the plague but within two or three days I grew reasonable well, and was sent to my Cousin Stidall’s at Norbury, Mrs Carniston going with me, for Mrs Taylor was newly put away from me, her husband dying of the plague shortly after ». Yet, just like Margaret Hoby’s diary, Anne Clifford’s self-interested narrative encapsulates « the great fear and amazement » her family experienced when the plague struck their household ; but also her own relief at having been spared, when she tells the anecdote of her riding with Mr Menerell without her mother’s permission and his dying probably of the plague the following day.
49Besides, their main incentive to record the past was clearly to preserve a truth that they felt endangered and sometimes, as in the case of the death of Queen Elizabeth, to set the record straight. Whatever the romanticized elements in Southwell’s narrative of Elizabeth’s sickness and « manner of death », it is valuable as it questions whether Elizabeth officially named James as her heir even as she lay on her deathbed. Men’s accounts, on the contrary, claimed to disclose what the Queen had « so long concealed » or perhaps what they wished her to disclose.
50Women’s voices in 1603 are not however systematically contradictory with men’s voices. The picture they draw of the fear that trouble might flare up in England after the death of the Queen is confirmed by men’s diaries and letters. Some of these sources also support women’s testimonies on the general rush to meet the new King and Queen to secure one’s position at court, and the feelings of disappointment and disapproval expressed by Anne Clifford are perfectly consonant with Robert Carey’s diary.
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