Mary Tudor (24 page)

This most notable example of mercy did much to win her subjects’ affections … [‘The Vita Mariae Angliae Reginae of Robert Wingfield of Brantham’, translated and edited by Diarmaid MacCulloch,
Camden Miscellany
, 28 (1984), pp. 271-2. Original Latin, pp. 222-3.]

*
Anne Seymour, widow of Edward, Duke of Somerset, beheaded in 1552.

†
Catherine, who had married Sir William Courtenay.

On 29 July, while Mary was still making her way slowly towards London, the Imperial ambassadors waited upon her, and Simon Renard was accorded a secret audience. Blandly ignoring the fact that they had offered her no support during the crisis itself, he set out to exploit a debt of gratitude that went back twenty years, and immediately began to advise her about all the issues that confronted her – Edward’s funeral, what to do about the offenders, her coronation, religious policy and her marriage.
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This was a portentous interview, because within a few weeks the ambassador had established himself in the role of confidential adviser, capitalising upon (and further exacerbating) her uneasy relations with her council.

At a very early stage, probably in the course of this initial audience, Mary expressed to Renard her intention to rectify the religious situation ‘even to the Pope’s authority’. Within a few days she had also confided in some, at least, of her council. This was not quite what they were expecting. Mary had not mentioned the pope or his jurisdiction in public for many years, and the issue with her brother’s council had always been the defence of her father’s religious settlement. Consequently, while everyone was expecting her to restore the mass and other traditional rites, they were not expecting her to revoke the royal supremacy over the Church. Her council appears to have taken the news stoically, some with joy, others, no doubt, with resignation; but Renard was disconcerted. He could not do anything but applaud such a pious intention, but he was worried. He believed the queen to be insecure, and her subjects deeply sunk in heresy, so that, if provoked, they would remove her as quickly as they had installed her.
^[190]
He begged her to be careful, and conveyed his anxiety to his master. When Mary issued a proclamation on the subject on 18 August it was bland, promising no more than a settlement in due course, a settlement that would be consistent with her known wishes.
^[191]

Apart from religion and the punishment of Jane and her followers, there were two other issues of urgency: her coronation and her marriage. There was debate as to whether the former should precede a Parliament or not. The problem was that her legal title to the crown could be challenged, because although the Act of Succession of 1544 had been unequivocal, it had not repealed the earlier statutes declaring Mary to be a bastard, and it could therefore be argued that in theory the 1544 succession act had been invalid. In fact no one was arguing that way, but it remained a possibility. Consequently some cautious members of the council were suggesting that it would be tidier to have Catherine’s marriage reinstated by Parliament before the queen was crowned. Such doubts were not allowed to prevail, and although Parliament was convened on 14 August, it did not meet until 5 October. Meanwhile, Mary had been crowned with great solemnity – and a traditional mass – on 1 October. It was an act of filial piety rather than a legal requirement when Parliament repealed the 1534 succession act, as one of its earliest priorities.
^[192]

Marriage was a different sort of issue altogether. For more than twenty years Mary had been kept in a state of enforced celibacy, first by her father and then by her brother’s council. Now she was entirely free to marry whom she pleased – and as she was already thirty-seven there was no time to waste. Not surprisingly, this unprecedented situation daunted her. As a virgin of impeccable credentials, she did not want to appear too keen, and began to make deprecating noises. She did not really want to marry at all, but she realised that it was her duty in the interests of her realm – and more in the same vein. Only her cousin Reginald Pole, with a worldly wisdom that few have given him credit for, urged her to remain single and trust in God.
^[193]
In this predicament, Mary remembered (and repeated) her old promise never to marry without the Emperor’s consent, and asked Renard what she should do. Charles knew what he wanted, but did not know whether it would be possible. His only son, Philip, the Prince of Spain, was a widower, deep in negotiations with the Portuguese for the hand of the infanta. He might no longer be available; moreover the Emperor was very aware of English xenophobia. Philip was notoriously hispanophile, and this had stirred up considerable trouble in the Low Countries not very long before. Briefly Charles toyed with the idea of entering the lists himself, believing that he might be acceptable to the fickle islanders, but he quickly decided that he was too old, and that his health was uncertain. His candidate would have to be Philip, but until the Portuguese negotiation could be put aside, he instructed Renard to hint at the desirability of a domestic marriage.
^[194]

This option was also the preference of a number of members of Mary’s council, including her lord chancellor; they were keenly aware of the points that her opponents had scored in the summer by harping upon the danger of a foreign king. Unfortunately, the only available candidate was the feckless Edward Courtenay. Courtenay was the son of the Marquis of Exeter, who had been executed in 1538, and he had grown up from boyhood in the Tower of London. Aged twenty-seven in 1553, he was well educated, personable enough and reputed to be a Catholic; but he had no self-control, and not the faintest idea of how to behave in the world. Mary created him Earl of Devon on 3 September, but refused to show the slightest interest in marrying him.
^[195]
As Charles succeeded in blocking off the only other plausible candidate – the perennial Dom Luis of Portugal – by October it was clearly a case of Philip or nobody. The prince had by this time declared his availability, and Renard was instructed to open a formal negotiation.

The ambassador feared a stiff battle with Courtenay’s supporters, being particularly suspicious of the ‘chatter’ of the queen’s ladies, but it turned out to be no contest. Renard presented a portrait of the prince, and, as he put it, caused the queen to fall ‘half in love’ with him. After years of repression, Mary was both excited and terrified at the prospect of having a man of her own. On 28 October she accepted the Emperor’s proposal, saying that she trusted him with her life – and promptly burst into tears. The following day she swore on the sacrament that she would marry Philip.
^[196]
Unfortunately this highly emotional commitment was entered into without consulting – or at first informing – her council. When they found out, they accepted her decision with a good grace, but it had not been a wise way to proceed.

There were good arguments in favour of the Prince of Spain. He was impeccably royal, and Catholic, and experienced in the ways of the world. Although only twenty-six, he was already a widower with one son, and he represented the traditional Habsburg alliance. However, there were also good arguments against, and these were given no countenance – by Mary at least. He was purely Spanish, had no knowledge of England or its customs, and spoke no word of the language. He was also his father’s heir in respect of Spain and the Netherlands, which meant that he would shortly have enormous resources and (probably) no time to devote to England. There were also other considerations. While he liked the idea of being a king, he did not particularly fancy a spinster eleven years older than himself, whom he persistently described as his
muy cara y muy amanda tia
(‘dear and beloved aunt’). He had also played no part in the negotiations, which had been conducted entirely by Charles, and (like Renard) regarded England as a country of barbarians and a land riddled with heresy.
^[197]

THE DRAFT ARTICLES OF MARRIAGE, 7 December 1553

As soon as may be a true marriage shall by words of the present tense be contracted and consummated between the prince and the queen in person in England. Prince Philip shall so long as the matrimony endures enjoy jointly with the queen her style and kingly name and shall aid her in her administration. The prince shall leave to the queen the disposition of all officers, lands and revenues of their dominions; they shall be disposed to those born there. All matters shall be treated in English. The queen shall be admitted to the society of the dominions the prince has or as during the matrimony may come to him. For her dowry, if she outlives the prince, she shall receive £60,000 at 40 Flemish groats the £ from the realms of the emperor, £40,000 from Spain, Castile and Aragon and their appurtenances – Brabant, Flanders, Hainault, Holland, as Margaret, widow of Charles, Duke of Burgundy, received – provided the lands are still in the prince’s patrimony; otherwise adjoining lands of the same value to be substituted within three weeks.

Lest controversy for the succession arises, it is ordered: in England males and females of the marriage shall succeed according to law and custom. There shall be reserved to Don Carlos of Austria, Infante of Spain,
*
and his heirs general, all rights which belong or shall belong to the prince by the death of the queen his grandmother or Charles V in Spain, Two Sicilies, the Dukedom of Milan, and other dominions of Lombardy and Italy, with the burden of the said dowry. If Carlos dies and his issue fails, the eldest son of this marriage shall succeed there and in all the emperor’s dominions in Burgundy and Lower Germany – the dukedoms of Brabant, Luxembourg, Gelderland, Zutphen, Burgundy, Friesland, the counties of Flanders, Artois, Holland, Zeeland, Namurs-Friesland – the land beyond the isles and all others. If Carlos or his heirs live and there is any male child by this marriage, Carlos and his descendants shall be excluded from the Lower Germanies and Burgundy, which shall descend to the eldest son of this marriage. Other children of the marriage shall he allotted portions in England and Lower Germany. No sons of the marriage shall pretend any rights in Spain or other dominions reserved to Carlos other than given by the father or grandfather. If only females are born of the marriage, the eldest shall succeed in Lower Germany. Should she marry outside England or Lower Germany, without Carlos’s consent, the succession shall revert to him and his heirs general, but she and other daughters shall be endowed of lands in Spain and Lower Germany. If Carlos’s issue fails, and women only remain by this marriage, the eldest daughter shall succeed in Spain, England and the rest. Whoever succeeds shall leave to every dominion their privileges and customs to be administered by their natives. The dominions of the emperor, the prince and his successors, and the queen shall aid one another according to the treaty at Westminster [February] 1543 and declared at Utrecht 26,January 1546.
†

[Paraphrase.
Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series
, Mary I, 1553–1558, edited by C. S. Knighton (1998), no. 24. Original MS TNA SP11/1, no. 20.]

*
Philip’s son by his first marriage.

†
The treaty of alliance by which Henry had entered his last war with France.

Meanwhile, Parliament had (mostly) done what was expected of it. It had reinstated Catherine’s marriage to Henry, thus removing the anomaly of having a sovereign lady who was technically illegitimate. It had also repealed both the first and second Acts of Uniformity, and the other statutes that had made up Edward’s religious settlement. As from 20 December the Church of Henry VIII was resurrected. Parliament had not, however, touched the royal supremacy, and it had declined to reinstate the see of Durham, in spite of the fact that the queen had restored Cuthbert Tunstall as its bishop. It had also petitioned the queen to marry within the realm, having no means of knowing that she had already decided otherwise. Mary’s reaction was an emotional tirade, telling them to mind their own business.
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Technically, as her council realised, she was perfectly within her rights. Although a royal marriage was a matter of state, it was also intensely personal, and the decision was the monarch’s own. Nevertheless she was not the only person to feel strongly about this issue. As Renard had realised from the beginning, one of the principal difficulties with the Spanish match would be to sell it to ‘the people’, by which he meant not the man and woman in the street, but the nobility and gentry without whose cooperation the country could soon become ungovernable. Mary had dealt with this problem by ignoring it, and it remained to be seen whether her gamble would pay off. Before the end of the parliamentary session, surreptitious meetings were being held in London, and a conspiracy was forming. Some of those involved were MPs, most had some association with one or other of the Edwardian governments, and all were resolute opponents of the Spanish marriage.
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Because of the sporadic way in which this conspiracy developed, there are a number of uncertainties about its precise aims. According to later testimony, one of the conspirators (William Thomas, a former clerk of the privy council) had spoken of assassinating the queen, but he was immediately ruled out of order. The government later claimed that it was a Protestant plot, intending to rescue and reinstate Jane Grey, but Jane was already a thoroughly discredited cause, and although some Protestants were undoubtedly involved, no one attempted to make an issue of religion at the time.
^[200]
During the planning of the rebellion, and through the rebellion itself and the trials that followed its collapse, the protagonists claimed that their sole aim had been to force the queen to abandon her intended marriage by a display of political and military force. They may have been honest, but some of them at least must have known Mary’s famous obstinacy and realised that it would be easier to break her than to make her bend. They were alleged to have been in touch with Elizabeth, and had certainly consulted the French ambassador.
^[201]
Had the plot developed the momentum that its originators had hoped to find, it would probably have resulted in Mary’s overthrow, with French support, and her replacement by her younger sister – in which case Mary might well have been ‘sent to the Emperor’ as she had once desired.