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into the hands of the ever more powerful Sir William Cecil, Elizabeth’s Principal Secretary and later her Chief Treasurer. While there was a male monarch on the throne, the Privy Chamber had competed with the Council in an endless power struggle, which saw fortunes fluctuate according to the strength of the individuals involved in either Council or Chamber. However, in Mary and Elizabeth’s reigns a predominantly female Chamber ensured that the Council found themselves now in total control. While a degree of ‘petticoat power’ lingered on in Court, this did not impinge on affairs of state in the way it had done throughout the time of the male Tudor monarchs. Instead, the Privy Chamber became an exclusive inner sanctum, populated solely by the Queen and her lady attendants, with admittance only to be granted to the privileged few at the behest of the Gentleman Usher, thereby providing an oasis of calm for Elizabeth away from the frenetic atmosphere of the Court. On one particularly notable occasion, even the Queen’s long-time favourite Robert Dudley was refused admission; Dudley was greatly upset but the Queen upheld the decision.
    One of the important benefits of these new arrangements was that the Royal Court became less prone to the disruptive factions and internal intrigue that had existed in earlier reigns, and while Court rivalries still existed, particularly between such powerful personalities as William Cecil and Robert Dudley and later the Earl of Essex and Robert Cecil, there was to be far greater harmony in Court during the Elizabethan era, particularly in the late 1570s and 1580s, when England was most at peril as the nation moved remorselessly towards war with Spain.
    After Elizabeth had ascended the throne in 1558, it was not surprising that she unceremoniously removed most of the members of Mary’s Court in order to replace them with those of her own family, together with those who had stood by her during her long and dangerous journey to the throne. ‘The old flock of Hatfield’, as they were sometimes derisorily referred to, included people like Kat Ashley, her husband John Ashley and Blanche Parry, who had known the Queen as a child.
    This family stemmed from that of her mother Anne Boleyn, so Elizabeth created her cousin, Henry Carey, to be Baron Hunsdon, at the same time appointing him Captain of the Gentlemen Pensioners, a gorgeously attired body of young nobles eager to make their mark. Part military, part ceremonial in function, the group strutted around the Court looking mean and magnificent. Thomas Parry, who had also been with Elizabeth since she was a child, was made Treasurer of the Household, while the strikingly good-looking Robert Dudley, whom she had also known since childhood, was created Master of the Queen’s Horse.
    The Queen’s lady attendants were similarly drawn from the great Tudor families – the Howards, Careys and Knollys. These were related to Elizabeth on her mother’s side and only death terminated their position at Court, whereupon invariably they would be replaced by their daughters. In this way membership of both the Privy Chamber and the Court was virtually a closed shop of long-serving, loyal and hard-working servants dedicated to Elizabeth’s well-being with fanatical enthusiasm. In return, the Queen was endlessly demanding in her requirements. Constant attendance at the Court was mandatory unless the Queen gave specific leave of absence, something that could prove particularly irksome to those whose husbands had duties away from the Court. This was something that the Queen appeared blissfully ignorant of, being particularly self-centred, selfishly unaware and uncaring of her courtiers’ welfare. The confined nature of the Court meant that it soon became a web of intermarriage and family connection, wherein most of the Court’s key members eventually were all relatives, one big Elizabethan family with a matriarchal