Christopher Hatton

[9] In 1561 Hatton played the part of Master of the Game at a masque at the Inner Temple,[10] and on a similar occasion attracted the attention of Queen Elizabeth.

"[13] In 1564, he became one of the Queen's gentlemen pensioners and a gentleman of the privy chamber, and in July 1572 captain of the yeomen of the guard.

On one occasion, in December 1584, he led 400 kneeling members of the House of Commons in a prayer for the Queen's safety.

[23] Hatton was a member of the law court that tried Anthony Babington in 1586 and one of the commissioners who found Mary, Queen of Scots, guilty of treason the following year.

He vigorously denounced her in Parliament and advised William Davison to forward the warrant for her execution to Fotheringhay.

[23] Hatton sent a ring with a letter to Sir Thomas Smith, to be presented to Queen Elizabeth.

"[24] Sir Robert Cecil reported in August 1591 that the queen, who was at Portsmouth, wore a jewel in the form of bagpipes on her ruff that Hatton had sent her.

[23] Hatton became wealthy through his progressing career and the Queen's fondness for him, and in 1583 he embarked on building at Holdenby, Northamptonshire, what was to be the largest privately owned Elizabethan house in England.

However, the cost of the house drained his purse, so that Hatton was short of money for the rest of his life.

No stranger to the financial strain of building, Burghley wrote to Hatton: "God send us both long to enjoy her, for whom we both meant to exceed our purses in these."

Despite his successes Hatton died with large debts, a few years after his Holdenby mansion was completed in 1583.

[26] The remains of the original Holdenby House are a room incorporated into a replacement building in the 1870s; part of the pillared doorway with two arches inscribed with the date 1583 in the gardens; and drawings and plans.

Nine days later he died at Ely Place and was given a state funeral at St Paul's Cathedral on 16 December.

[2] A grand monument to him stood at the high altar of Old St Paul's, "towering above it – an outrage to the susceptibilities of the devout but an object of marvel to London sightseers – until the Great Fire of 1666 dethroned and destroyed it.

In the 2007 film Elizabeth: The Golden Age, Sir Christopher Hatton is portrayed by Laurence Fox.