William Cecil’s Succession Plan
Elizabeth I’s brief illness made the question of the succession top priority for William Cecil and the Privy Council.
In October 1562 Queen Elizabeth I lay unconscious in her chambers, and many feared that she would not survive. She had smallpox, a disease which could either disfigure or kill depending upon its severity. As the queen’s life hung in the balance, William Cecil (1520-98), her principal secretary, gathered the Privy Council to Hampton Court to discuss the suddenly vital question of who should succeed their childless queen.
The Privy Councillors debated the topic but could not reach any firm conclusion as to what should be done. Álvaro de la Quadra, the Spanish ambassador who was in London at the time, reported that ‘out of the 15 or 16 of them that there are there were nearly as many different opinions about the succession to the Crown’. On 23 October word emerged from the queen’s privy chamber that she would survive. However, in more ways than one, her brush with death would leave its scars.
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