Queen Elizabeth I, letter signed, 21 January 1559

Property of the Marquess of Anglesey

QUEEN ELIZABETH I

letter signed, at the head (“Elizabeth R”), to Lord Paget,

stating that “we have thought convenient to summon our high court of parliament to be holden at our cite of westminster the xxiiith day of January”, but licencing Paget’s absence as “your present sicknes, will not suffer you to travail without sum further daunger of you helth”, but ordering him to send an appropriate proxy, 1 page, oblong folio, integral address leaf, 21 January 1559, papered seal.

By the late 1550s Lord Paget was chronically unwell. Protestations of ill health could provide a convenient excuse to avoid unwelcome duties, but Lord Paget was a loyal servant of the crown and a religious pragmatist and so it was almost certainly genuine sickness that kept him away from Parliament. The key business of Elizabeth’s first Parliament was the religious settlement: it passed an Act of Supremacy abolishing, once again, the authority of the Pope, and an Act of Uniformity reintroducing an English order of prayer.

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