Who wrote Elizabeth I's most scathing letters?

In February 1586, Elizabeth I penned one of her most notorious letters—a vehement rebuke to her favorite, Robert Dudley, First Earl of Leicester. The queen sternly reprimanded Leicester for his disobedience, declaring, “How contemptuously we conceive ourself to have been used by you.” She demanded obedience and issued dire consequences for noncompliance.

This letter, however, was not written by Elizabeth herself but by her secretary, Francis Mylles. The surviving copy of the letter in Mylles’ hand raises questions about his role in its composition. Through analysis of over 500 of Elizabeth’s letters, it has been discovered that the emotional expressions in her correspondence were often skillfully crafted by her secretaries.

While historians have prioritized Elizabeth’s own letters, these “scribal letters” written by scribes have been largely overlooked. My research, part of the Feathers project, aimed to distinguish between the authorial and scribal voices in early modern manuscripts. By carefully examining the reassembly of different manuscript versions and conducting handwriting analysis, it was revealed that the emotional expressions in Elizabeth’s letters were skillfully crafted by her secretaries, such as Francis Walsingham.

For example, a letter to George Talbot, Sixth Earl of Shrewsbury, written in May 1584, was substantially edited by Walsingham, intensifying Elizabeth’s criticisms of Mary, Queen of Scots, and her son, James VI. Additionally, a letter to Ralph Sadler in October 1584, initially perceived as expressing goodwill, was found to have Walsingham’s scribbled emendations, indicating his involvement in crafting the letter’s tone.

It is clear that Walsingham, not Elizabeth, spoke through these letters, using them to manipulate Mary’s perceptions and influence her actions in English interests. This discovery sheds light on Elizabeth’s reputation for emotional outbursts and reveals the extent of male secretaries’ influence in shaping the queen’s correspondence.