“The barge she sat in, like a burnish’d throne
Burnt on the water. The poop was beaten gold,
Purple the sails, and so perfumed that
The winds were love-sick.
With them the oars were silver,
Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke, and made
The water which they beat to follow faster,
As amorous of their strokes.”
-- Antony and Cleopatra, II. ii
The description in Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra of Cleopatra’s royal barge wasn’t a mere poetic fantasy about ancient Egypt any more than the River Thames in Elizabethan London was a mere scenic waterway.
The Thames was the beating heart of an active port city, bustling with wharves, quays and an endless parade of ships bringing goods, passengers and news from abroad. It was London’s superhighway, a swift, safe route for journeys between the Tower of London, Westminster Palace, Greenwich Palace, Lambeth and beyond. Wherrymen plied their boats like taxis, shouting “Westward Ho!” or “Eastward Ho!”, to attract passengers waiting at the numerous stairs leading from the streets to the Thames’ edge along both banks.
But what no vessel on the Thames could match and what Shakespeare’s vivid imagery actually reflected was the grandeur and the sensuality of Queen Elizabeth’s barge.
A Floating Sanctuary: What Queen Elizabeth’s Royal Barge Was Like
Designed by her father, Henry VIII, the Queen’s barge defined the words “opulent” and “masterpiece”. With its glass windows and two large ornate gilded cabins, decorations of flowers and a green silk canopy embroidered with eglantine in the summer, it resembled a floating palace. Powered by 12 oarsmen in a separate boat which towed it, her barge offered Elizabeth unmatched privacy - a sanctuary draped in silk, far from the prying eyes of court and commoners alike.
Shakespeare never missed an opportunity to metamorphose London and his queen into another time and place, so he could cloak his observations using allegory to praise - or critique - her. Though his famous description in Antony and Cleopatra, the Bard transformed her into an ageless, seductive icon gliding along, not only the Thames, but the timeless Nile. But, even in her gilded sanctuary, jealousy and ambition simmered.
“For her own person
It beggared all description. She did lie
In her pavilion, cloth of gold, of tissue,
O’re picturing that Venus, where we see
The fancy out-work Nature. . .
Her Gentlewomen, like the Nereide
So many mermaids tended her i’ th’eyes,
And made their bends adornings. At the Helm
A seeming mermaid steers; the silken tackle
Swell with the touches of those flower-soft hands
That yarely frame the office. From the Barge,
A strange invisible perfume hits the sense
Of the adjacent wharfs. The city cast
Her people out upon her.”
Through the lens of the Bard as credible eyewitness to history, Elizabeth’s barge becomes theatrical tableau. Her ladies-in-waiting transform into mermaids; her perfume casts an enchanting spell over Londoners who gathered along the riverbanks hoping to glimpse their queen – unless she had secluded herself in one of the private cabins. The golden vessel shimmers on the water.
Talk about performance art!
The historical record is crammed with confirmations that Elizabeth used her barge throughout her reign just as the Bard describes. We know, for example, that she donned her state robes and a diadem of gold with rich jewels and boarded her barge to attend the 1572 Parliament. She made the long trip from London to Canterbury by barge in 1573. She arrived at Blackfriars by barge for the June 1600 wedding of Anne Russell to Henry Somerset, Earl of Worcester’s son, amid a sumptuous floating procession of livery companies, wherries and boats for hire, with spectators crowding the shores. Her barge bore her body on her final journey to Whitehall in March 1603.
Secrets on the Thames: The Queen’s Private Space
The royal barge wasn’t just a symbol of power and spectacle; it was a private space for whispered conversations, diplomacy and secret liaisons. Protected by the sweet sounds of music and the rhythmic splash of oars, the Queen could conduct discreet tete-a-tetes in total privacy.
But being alone with the Queen on her barge could also be dangerous.
Let’s quietly part the silken curtains and see who was alone with her on her barge on the Thames on July 17, 1579, shortly before 9:00 pm.
In addition to being a crafty diplomat, Jean de Simier, Baron de Sant-Marc was a handsome flirt. Described in contemporaneous correspondence as “a most choice courtier, exquisitely skilled in love toys, pleasant conceits and court dalliances”. Many concluded that he and the Queen were lovers. Technically, Simier worked for the youngest brother of the King of France, Francois, the Duke of Alencon. Simier was both Master of the Duke’s Wardrobe and his envoy to broker a betrothal to the Queen. But rumors ran that Simier had been sampling what the Duke intended for the Duke’s pleasure alone.
A gunshot shattered the tranquil summer air.
Thomas Appletree, in the employ of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, had discharged an arquebus from a nearby boat, hitting one of the Queen’s oarsmen. Appletree claimed that the firearm had discharged “at random”, but Elizabeth was unconvinced. Was the bullet meant for her – or for Simier?
This wasn’t the first attempt on Simier’s life. Earlier that month, another bullet had narrowly missed him while he was passing through Greenwich Palace’s garden gate. It had been fired by Robin Tider, of the Queen's own guards. Simier believed Leicester was behind both attacks and court gossip agreed.
What would prompt someone to arrange two attempted assassinations of the French envoy from the King of France’s brother, especially during sensitive negotiations for an alliance against the Spanish?
Leicester had plenty of motive. He had been strongly and openly opposed to the Queen’s marrying the French Duke and had urged the Queen to send Simier back to France. With a Gallic taste for revenge, Simier had imparted to her Majesty in June what the entire court had known for months, but had hidden from her: that Leicester, her long-time lover, had secretly married her doppelganger 2nd cousin (and her niece), Lettice Knowles Devereaux, the prior September. That was bad enough, but when Simier let drop that Lettice had been pregnant at the secret wedding at Wanstead, Leicester’s country manor, Elizabeth’s famous jealous fury was unleashed. Leicester’s paw prints were all over both attempts on Simier’s life, but no one could prove it.
Gun Control in Elizabethan England
Simier was assigned lodging cozier to the Queen’s at Greenwich Palace. Nine days after the attack, Elizabeth’s government issued a proclamation banning anyone carrying pistols or discharging any “small guns” (meaning small caliber, such as an arquebus) within two miles of the Queen. While setting precedent for gun control near royal spaces and calming the muddied waters of diplomacy with the French, it also underscored the delicate fulcrum upon which peace was balanced during her reign.
Through the Bard’s perceptive eye, we see history and theater intersect, turning Elizabeth’s gilded royal barge into a floating stage for power, secrets and intrigue.
Step Aboard for More Secrets
If you are enjoying peeking into the hidden cargo holds of Elizabethan court intrigue, there’s more to discover! Follow my Instagram, “Seeking Shakespeare”, where I decode the Bard’s words to tease out unexpected facts and meanings, one little enigma at a time. Click here.
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