Elizabeth I's Brush with Death at Hampton Court, 1562

On 10 October 1562, the 29-year-old Elizabeth I was taken suddenly and dangerously ill at Hampton Court Palace. Her courtiers were thrown into panic. England had already lost three of its Tudor monarchs prematurely; Elizabeth was the last of Henry VIII’s children to survive, with no clear successor. If the young Queen died, it could spell the end of the dynasty.

The Queen was doing what she could to keep her sickness at bay. She took a bath to ease her aching limbs and drive out the fever, but carried on working; she sent several letters after she had been reported sick. On 15 October, she signed off a letter to Mary, Queen of Scots with an apology that a ‘hot fever’ prevented her from writing more.

The following day, the diagnosis that Elizabeth and her court had dreaded from the outset was announced: she was suffering from smallpox, one of the deadliest and most feared diseases of the age. Those who survived it were often left hideously disfigured. 

Behind the scenes, Elizabeth's health had declined rapidly. She was confined to her apartments, where her life soon hung in the balance. The Spanish ambassador, Bishop Álvaro de la Quadra, reported that Elizabeth was ‘in great danger… If the Queen die it will be very soon, within a few days at latest.’ 

A Throne Without an Heir

The Looming Elizabethan Succession Crisis

Elizabeth had made a glorious beginning as Queen in 1558, settling the vexed question of religion and securing England’s position in Europe with new alliances. But she had no direct heirs to succeed her. She had told her first parliament: ‘In the end this shall be for me sufficient: that a marble stone shall declare that a queen, having reigned such a time, lived and died a virgin.’ In other words, she would never marry. Few had believed her.

In a male-dominated world in which women were entirely subject to husbands, fathers and men in general, Elizabeth’s courtiers thought it preposterous that a woman should not wish to marry. Marriage was even more imperative for a queen, whose primary responsibility was to fill the royal nursery with heirs. A doubtful succession had always spelt disaster for crown and country; the Wars of the Roses, a decades-long ‘cousins’ war’ between the rival Lancastrian and Yorkist factions, had been brought to a bloody end on the battlefield by Elizabeth’s grandfather, Henry VII. No one wanted a repeat of the bloodshed.

But Elizabeth had seen how dangerously unpopular her half-sister Mary’s marriage to an overseas monarch had been and knew that if she chose an English husband it would spark factions and division. She also cleverly kept herself in play as a potential bride to broker international alliances.

This disagreement between an independent Queen and her worried councillors had left the country with an uncertain future. With the Queen now possibly mortally ill, this uncertainty had been brought into sharp relief.

The Queen Survives

As the crisis reached fever pitch, on 23 October news arrived from the Queen's privy chamber. Against all the odds, Elizabeth had survived. The pus-filled sores that were the hallmark of smallpox had ‘erupted’, signalling that the contagion was almost over.

There were conflicting reports as to whether she bore any scars. One member of the court reported that she had emerged virtually unscathed: 'The Queen is whole of the small-pox, not having had many signs on her face.' But de la Quadra claimed that she would ‘not be visible for some time owing to the disfigurement of her face’. It has been suggested that Elizabeth’s prodigious use of thick white lead makeup was to cover the scars.

By 25 October, the Queen was sufficiently recovered to have a letter sent out in her name to the French ambassador. Now back to her magisterial best, when she heard that her councillors had met to discuss her successor while she lay on her sickbed, any sense of relief at her narrow escape quickly dissolved and she 'wept with rage'. Two months later, De Quadra reported that she was still 'extremely angry with them'.

Elizabeth was not the only member of the court who had fallen prey to the epidemic. Her close attendant, Sybil Penn, who had nursed her through smallpox, contracted the disease herself and died at Hampton Court on 6 November. She was buried at nearby St Mary’s Church, Hampton. Sybil is believed to be the 'grey lady', a ghostly figure that several people claim to have seen wandering restlessly about the palace.

'I will have but one mistress here, and no master!'

The Succession Crisis Continues

The death of her old nursemaid prompted Elizabeth to leave Hampton Court shortly afterwards. But she could not escape the succession crisis that her brush with death had brought to the fore.

Three months after the queen’s recovery, parliament members petitioned their sovereign to marry as a matter of urgency so that the future of her realm was not left in doubt a moment longer. Refusing to be cowed by the intense pressure from the all-male Lords and Commons, she reacted with fury. 'I will have but one mistress here, and no master!' she ranted.

Elizabeth seldom visited Hampton Court Palace again, harbouring a superstitious dread of the place where her life – and the Tudor dynasty – had almost come to an end.