In Bed with the Tudors: The Sex Lives of a Dynasty from Elizabeth of York to Elizabeth I (32 page)

Mary’s choice was predictable but unpopular. Recalling her Spanish roots and having been betrothed as a child to Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, she was intent upon marriage with Charles’ son, Philip II of Spain. He already had a son from a previous marriage, fuelling Mary’s hopes of bearing a male heir to the throne. From her accession onwards, parliamentary delegations had been urging her to marry an Englishman, suggesting her kinsman Edward Courtney, Earl of Devon. Born in 1527, Philip was eleven years Mary’s junior yet his religion and nationality made the match unpopular in England, causing unrest and contributing to uprisings during 1554. The complete dominance of husband over wife in the Tudor mind led many to fear that England would become an enclave of Spain and sacrifice national interests in order to serve foreign Catholic policies: it was inconceivable to her subjects that Mary might retain any sort of independence or autonomy after her marriage. Some openly rebelled. Wyatt’s Uprising, in 1554, was partly fuelled by the desire to prevent the country being ‘overrun by strangers’, although coincidentally, the ringleaders all happened to be Protestants; their implied intention was to displace Mary and marry Elizabeth to Courtney, a situation which temporarily cost the apparently innocent Elizabeth her liberty. Later playwrights Dekker and Webster reflected the common mood: ‘Philip is a Spaniard, a proude Nation, whome naturalliye our countriemen abhor’
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; English xenophobia reached such a fever pitch that unprovoked attacks on Spaniards were common and a fleet was planned to prevent Philip from landing, aided by the French.

However, land was exactly what Philip did, in July 1554. Amid torrential rain he proceeded to Winchester, where he prayed at the Cathedral and changed into a rich coat embroidered with gold and a matching hat with a feather in order to first meet his future wife. Aged thirty-eight, her difficult adolescent and young adulthood had taken a toll on Mary’s health. If he was disappointed, he did not show it. Thin and slight, Mary was afflicted with dental abnormalities, irregular menstruation, anorexia, depression as well as various other complaints. Her repeated ill-health as a girl had developed into regular cyclical suffering: she dreaded the onset of winter for the aches and pains the bad weather could bring. At twenty-seven, Philip was described in a letter written by John Elder as ‘well favoured with a broad forehead and grey eyes, straight-nosed and manly countenance’; his pace was princely, gait straight and upright; ‘nature cannot work a more perfect pattern’.
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By 1563, the Venetian Ambassador saw a man ‘slight of stature and round-faced with pale blue eyes and somewhat prominent lip … [he] dresses very tastefully and everything he does is courteous and gracious’.
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The mismatch had been arranged by his father and Philip had been raised to follow his imperial destiny: the throne of England was a prize he greatly valued and modern historical assessments of his personal dissatisfaction impose an anachronistic sensibility. The first meeting was described by chronicler Wriothesley as taking place at the deanery, or Prior’s lodgings, where Prince Arthur had been born in 1486; Philip was conveyed there late on that rainy night, by a secret route, in order to spend a brief half-hour with his intended. He could speak no English so they communicated in a mixture of Latin, French and Spanish. Whatever the groom’s feelings, for Mary, it was love at first sight.

Philip remained tactful throughout the wedding service two days later, in spite of the English insistence that he appeared dressed in the French-style fashions that were popular at that time. It was 25 July, St James’ day, the patron saint of Spain. Each proceeded to Winchester cathedral on foot, richly apparelled ‘in gownes of cloth of all gold sett with rich stones’
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designed to match and complement each other, as if this act of couture-sympathy would set the pattern for married life. Mary’s outfit was made of rich tissue embroidered on purple satin lined with taffeta and set with pearls; she wore a white kirtle enriched with silver and a long train. The cathedral was hung with arras and cloth-of-gold and a scaffold had been erected, covered in red carpet, where, in an inversion of the usual order, Mary was to stand on her husband’s right. This was a less than subtle reminder of the honour she bestowed on him through marriage and an early indicator that her status meant the balance of power between the couple would not follow the traditional pattern. As she approached the altar and saw Philip waiting, Mary must have been happier than she could have anticipated. It had been a long hard struggle to reach the throne and this marriage reaffirmed her Spanish roots and would have pleased her long-dead mother; did Catherine of Aragon cross her mind as she made her vows? Officiating was Stephen Gardiner, who had been instrumental in the divorce of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon, who Mary had instructed to undo his earlier work and re-establish the legitimacy of the marriage and her succession. The past was very much in her mind, as Wriothesley claimed, even extending to her choice of ring: ‘her marriage ringe was a rownd hoope of golde without anye stone, which was her desire, for she sayde she would be married as maydens were in the olde tyme.’
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The couple appeared afterwards, hand in hand, under a rich canopy to hear the Mass, before going on foot to the court and dining openly at one table. The wedding breakfast was held at Wolvesley castle, former palace of the Bishop of Winchester, an important and impressive residence since the twelfth century. It must have been an intimate occasion, as the two of them ate alone on one table whilst their 140 guests were seated separately. Dancing followed before the king and queen departed and supped separately, then Gardiner blessed the marital bed and they were left alone. The wedding night must have been less than satisfactory for Philip, given the comments of his waiting gentlemen. Ruy Gomez commented that ‘she is no good from the point of view of fleshly sensuality’
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, although Philip knew the match was made not ‘for the flesh but for the restoration of this realm’.
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Mary, however, was happy.

Within months, the queen believed herself pregnant. Her menstruation ceased, she felt queasy in the mornings and rapidly put on weight: there seemed little cause to doubt the evidence. Given the history of her step-mothers, Mary was aware of the potential dangers of childbirth; in addition, her triumphal entry into London in July 1553 had coincided with the death of her favourite, Jane Browne, whilst giving birth to twins. An added danger existed in the scope for Philip’s control over her heirs, in the event of her premature death. In January 1555, an ordinance was passed to provide for the education of the children of the king and queen, if the worst were to occur. In the spring of 1555, Mary anticipated her arrival, suggesting a conception date around the wedding night. Froude suggests she retired to Hampton Court at the end of April, with rockers, nurses and cradle at the ready: circulars were printed and signed by Philip and Mary, ready for the insertion of day and month, spreading news of the arrival of a prince. Retiring to her sumptuously provided chambers looking down to the palace gardens and Thames, all Mary had to do was wait. At the end of the month a false report that she had given birth was recorded by London diarist Henry Machyn: tidings ‘came to London that the Quen’s grace was delevered of a prynce and so ther was great ryngyng through London … and the morrow after yt was turned odur-ways to the plesur of God’.
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The Venetian Ambassador reported that bonfires were lit and bells were rung, whilst the whole of London feasted in celebration. Embarrassingly, though, no child had been born. Other reports claimed that Mary was not in fact pregnant, but that a plot existed to smuggle a child into the palace and pass it off as her heir. This was a long-established fable, found back in the twelfth-century life of Hugh of Lincoln, where a desperate woman faked a pregnancy by putting a pillow up her dress, then adopting the child of a peasant. Mary continued to wait; in late May she was seen walking about the garden, ‘stepping’ so well it seemed unlikely the birth was imminent. Her doctors revised her due date but Philip was already having doubts. She remained at Hampton Court through the summer until it became clear there was no child; the decisive failure was sealed when in August she left for Whitehall. Did Mary think of her mother during those months? If so, it must have felt like history was repeating itself. It is unclear how much she knew of Catherine’s gynaecological history. Was this an inherited problem, a psychosomatic phantom pregnancy or perhaps an illness? With hindsight, Mary’s death, following soon after second occurrence of these symptoms, might suggest some form of ovarian cancer or similar condition. The early onset of ovarian cancer can produce bloating, back pain, tiredness, loss of appetite and constipation as well as the build-up of fluid in the abdomen, all of which can be confused with signs of pregnancy. At such a remove, it is impossible to claim whether this was directly related to her death or whether she was suffering from such a condition by the summer of 1558, but it remains a possibility.

Almost as soon as Mary had accepted there would be no child, Philip left the country. A crisis in the Netherlands required his attention but Mary was heartbroken at his absence and felt it as a personal criticism of her gynaecological failure. It is this combination of circumstances that historians
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have sometimes used to explain the sharp increase in the persecution of Protestants that then began in earnest: to Mary’s mind, God had punished her for failing to restore the ‘true’ religion and she needed to redress this. The years 1555 to 1558 were witness to a savage campaign using the Spanish inquisition method of burning heretics, rather than the usual English hanging, drawing and quartering. Recorded in Foxe’s
Book of Martyrs
of 1563, this earned Mary the popular epithet of ‘bloody’ and has understandably coloured interpretations of her reign. Women numbered among the martyrs included those who not only held fast to their faith but administered or sheltered others; many of those burned were from the artisan and lower classes such as Alice Driver, who had driven her father’s plough, Agnes Potten, the wife of a shoemaker, Joan Trunchfield, wife of a brewer, and Joan Waste, a blind rope-maker. However, in terms of Mary’s religious conviction, the remedy was beyond her control whilst Philip was out of the country. God could hardly bless her with a child whilst she was unable to conceive; additionally, gossip about her husband’s liaisons with women at the Flemish court may have reached her. She wrote to his father, Charles, begging for the return of her ‘chief joy and comfort’, without whom the kingdom was in a ‘miserable plight’.
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Yet foreign commitments kept Philip abroad until March 1557, when he returned to England to organise a campaign against the French. They were reunited at Greenwich where Mary might have worn the embroidered sleeves of cloth of silver given to her by Elizabeth or the dress of white tissue or the Spanish gown of black velvet furred with sable Mary herself had ordered for his return: no doubt she was keen to impress him after such a lengthy absence. By the time Philip departed to lead the forces against the French in early July, Mary was again convinced she had conceived. This time, few people believed her. It was also the last time she would see her husband.

In January the following year, Mary was convinced that she was drawing towards the end of her pregnancy and anticipated the birth of a child sometime within the next few weeks. Philip learned the news from Reginald Pole, Mary’s Archbishop of Canterbury; Philip wrote to Pole that the news had given him ‘greater joy’ than he could express, ‘as it is the one thing in the world I have most desired and which is of the greatest importance for the cause of religion and the welfare of our realm’.
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Privately, he was sceptical, as were the majority of her court, although they dared not contradict the queen. Her own doubts are indicated by her claim that she delayed announcing the news until she was herself certain. By the time March arrived in 1558, eight months had elapsed since Philip’s departure, yet no lying-in plans had been made nor prayers said for the queen’s delivery. That month she made her will; ‘thinking myself to be with child … foreseeing the great danger which by God’s ordinance remain to all women in their travail of children’.
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As the weeks passed and no child arrived, the matter was dropped; courtiers and doctors went about their business with no mention of the queen’s latest humiliation, which must have been ignominious enough for the ageing Mary. She begged Philip to return to her but they disagreed over the question of Elizabeth’s marriage to the Duke of Savoy and their letters became acrimonious. The country was on high alert in case of invasion by the French, who had regained Calais; seditious anti-Spanish pamphlets flooded the capital and disease struck. Wriothesley recorded that ‘divers strange and new sickenesses’ were claiming many lives: it has been variously estimated that the death rate that summer was 40 per cent, or 124 per cent above the national average in afflicted places. The illness may have been a form of influenza, which did not act so swiftly as the dreaded plague or sweat, which had last broken out in 1551.
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It spread rapidly and did not discriminate. Before the disease had run its course, it was to claim a royal victim.

Mary showed the first signs of being ill that August. Travelling from Hampton Court to St James’ Palace, she felt unwell on arrival and retired to her rooms. Seized by a fever, she remained secluded as the following weeks saw her briefly rally only to become weakened even further. By October it became apparent that her condition was not going to improve: she and her councillors had to face the likelihood of her death and the succession of the Protestant Elizabeth. At the end of the month she added a codicil to her will recognising that she would not bear ‘fruit nor heir’ and asking her sister to honour her religious changes: Elizabeth learned of her formal nomination and impending accession at the start of November. Early in the morning of 17 November 1558, Mary heard Mass and then quietly died, surrounded by her ladies. Henry VIII’s youngest daughter was now queen. While Mary was notorious for her desperation to have a child, Elizabeth would become known for her efforts to evade it.