Mary Tudor (32 page)

Upon the northside of the town, in the ditch over against Bailly College,
*
the place of execution was appointed; and for fear of any tumult that might arise to let the burning of them, the L. Williams
†
was commanded by the Queen’s letters, and the householders of the City, to be there assistant, sufficiently appointed, & when everything was in a readiness, the prisoners were brought forth by the Mayor and Bailiffs …

M. Doctor Ridley as he passed towards Bocardo, looking up where M. Cranmer did lie, hoping belike to have seen him at the glass window, and to have spoken with him. But then M. Cranmer was busy with Friar Soto & his fellows disputing together,
‡
so that he could not see him through that occasion. Then M. Ridley looking back, espied M. Latimer coming after. Unto whom he said: O be ye there. Yea said M. Latimer, have after as fast as I can follow. So he following a pretty way off, at length they came both to the stake, one after the other, where first D. Ridley entering the place, marvellous earnestly holding up both his hands, looked towards heaven. Then shortly after espying M. Latimer, with a wonderous cheerful look, came to him, embraced and kissed him, and as they that stood near reported, comforted him saying; be of good heart brother, for GOD will either assuage the fury of the flames, or else strengthen us to abide it …

Then Doctor Smith,
§
of whose recantation in K. Edward’s time ye heard before, began his sermon to them on this text of St Paul, in the xiii chapter of the first Epistle to the Corinthians,
Si corpus meum tradam igni, charitatem autem non habeo, nihil inde utilitatis capio
. That is, if I yield my body to the fire to be burned, and have not charity, I shall gain nothing thereby. Wherein he alleged that the goodness of the cause and not the order of death, maketh the holiness of the person …

Master Ridley took his gown and his tippet, and gave it to his brother-in-law M. Shipside, who all his time of imprisonment, although he might not be suffered to come to him, lay there at his own charges to provide him necessaries, which from time to time he sent him by the Sergeant who kept him. Some other of his apparel that was little worth he gave away. Other the Bailiffs took …

M. Latimer gave nothing, but very quietly suffered his keeper to pull off his hose, and his other array, which to look unto was very simple; and being stripped into his shroud, he seemed as comely a person to them that were there present, as one should lightly see. And whereas in his clothes he appeared a withered and crooked little old man, he now stood bolt upright, as comely a father as one might lightly behold …

Then the smith took a chain of iron and brought the same about both D. Ridleys and M. Latimers middles, and as he was knocking in a staple, D. Ridley took the chain in his hand and shaked the same, for it did gird in his belly, and looking aside to the smith said Good fellow, knock it in hard, for the flesh will have his course. Then his brother did bring him gunpowder in a bag, and would have tied the same about his neck. M. Ridley asked what it was. His brother said gunpowder. Then said he, I take it to be sent of God, therefore I will receive it as sent of him. And have you any, said he, for my brother, meaning M. Latimer? Yea sir, that I have (quoth his brother). Then give it unto him, said he betime, lest ye come too late. So his brother went, and carried of the same gunpowder to M. Latimer ...

Then brought they a faggot kindled with fire, and laid the same down at D. Ridleys feet, to whom Master Latimer spoke in this manner; Be of good comfort Master Ridley, and play the man; we shall this day light such a candle by Gods grace in England, as (I trust) shall never be put out.

And so the fire being given unto them, when D. Ridley saw the fire flaming towards him, he cried with a wonderfully loud voice:
In manus tuas Domine, commendo spiritum meum. Domine recipe spiritum meum
, and after repeated this latter part often in English: Lord, Lord, receive my spirit. M. Latimer crying as vehemently on the other side: O Father of Heaven, receive my soul, who received the flame as it were embracing of it. After, as he had stroked his face with his hands, and (as it were) bathed them a little in the fire, he soon died (as it appeared) with very little pain or none …

But M. Ridley, by reason of the evil making of the fire unto him … burned clean all his nether parts before it touched the upper … Yet in all this torment he forgot not to call upon God still, having in his mouth Lord have mercy upon me, intermendling this cry, Let the fire come to me, I cannot burn. In which pains he laboured, till one of the standers by with his bill, pulled the faggots above, and when he saw the fire flame up, he wrested himself into that side. And when the flame touched the gunpowder, he was seen to stir no more …

[John Foxe,
Acts and Monuments
(1583), pp. 1769-70]

*
Balliol College.

†
Sir John Williams, Lord Williams ofThame.

‡
Pedro de Soto, a Dominican at this time holding a chair of theology in Oxford, who was trying to persuade Cranmer to recant.

§
Richard Smith, who had been restored to the Regius Chair of Theology by Mary. He had been deprived of his see and had fled abroad for resisting the Protestant changes under Edward VI.

Irascible and difficult as he had sometimes been, Gardiner was a great loss to Mary, because he was a statesman of outstanding ability and long experience. He may, or may not, have been the author of a treatise on the coming of the Romans and Normans to England, which was a thinly disguised piece of advice to the king on how to secure his authority in England. This had been presented while Philip was still in England, and the only surviving copy is in Italian, so there is much doubt over its authorship, but it does appear to represent the position that Gardiner had reached after nearly two years of working with Mary.
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We do not know whether Philip ever read the treatise, but he had developed a healthy respect for the chancellor’s abilities. He was not going to be easy to replace, and since no appointment had been made to the office of lord privy seal (vacant since March), there were now two places to be filled. No other offices of similar importance had been filled since Philip became king, so a significant issue arose over how this was to be done. The Duke of Alba advised Philip that he must take control of both, adding: ‘be careful whom you install, that they are not the Queen’s men’. This confrontational view of the joint monarchy may have been peculiar to Alba, but was probably not,
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and may help to explain why Mary, strong as her emotional attachment to her husband may have been, was determined not to be steamrollered. Eventually a compromise was negotiated, although we do not know exactly how. Paget was proposed for the chancellorship, but was opposed by many of those close to Philip, notably Carranza, who suspected his commitment to the faith. Eventually he was made lord privy seal, while the chancellor’s position went to Nicholas Heath, the Archbishop of York. Heath may have been a ‘queen’s man’, but Philip’s servants gave him the credit for both promotions: ‘The King’s Majesty hath appointed …’

With Philip still pressing surreptitiously for a more effective role in England, it is not surprising that the issue of his coronation became increasingly controversial. As long as there was a prospect of an heir, it was more a matter of honour than substance, but when that prospect disappeared the king’s advisers began to look more seriously at a crowning. In November 1555 he is alleged to have written to Mary saying that he could not possibly return to England on the former terms, and suggesting a coronation as a way of giving him more equality.
^[292]
Opinions varied as to what the significance of such a gesture would be. Renard had long ago written that the crowning was taken very seriously in England – more so than in any other realm – but legally it seems that it would have made no difference. Philip already had the name and style of a king, and the protection of the treason laws, so all that would be added was the oath that he would be required to swear to uphold the laws of England, which of course included the limitations imposed by his marriage treaty. Nevertheless, Philip seems to have set his heart on a coronation, and even wrote to Mary saying that he could not see his way to returning without it, thus causing her further distress. She was perfectly well aware that in some quarters it was being said that one of the main reasons for calling the Parliament was to arrange the king’s coronation ‘by force or fraud’. The issue had become symbolic on both sides. When Mary responded to his demand by pointing out that there was no way in which Parliament would approve such a move, he replied that it was none of Parliament’s business, but rather a matter of prerogative. Technically he was correct, but Mary’s sense of the mood in London and Westminster was also correct, and after the beginning of 1556 the matter was allowed to drop in official exchanges. Philip did not return, but ‘the giving away of the crown’ continued to be prominent in public discourse.
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PHILIP’S CORONATION, 1556

Is it not to be lamented that our Englishmen, for fear of change of religion, which cometh by God’s ordinance, shall seek to plant such a nation in our country, as do seek the utter destruction of the same? But this is most detestable and abominable that so noble and provident governors as your lordships, should either for fair words, fair bribes, or any kind of covetousness, seek the subversion of our country, the ruin of our realm, the utter decay of our commonwealth, and the destruction of our own blood for ever. For if there might be any of the noble blood remain alive and bear rule, we should have some hope of restoring the realm and weal public. But if they deliver the Crown over out of your hands (I do not mean the Crown of gold only but also the power that goeth with it) ye shall in short time have such a fall as there shall not be left one of your lineage living, that shall be able to defend his [own] or bear rule as his predecessors have done. For this you must needs grant, that it is necessary for the King to work the surest way for his own profit and preservation that can be devised by his own council. And then I am sure there is none of you, I think, that can bear rule in the commonwealth or near the King’s Majesty. For the world speaketh against the detestable treason of our nobility, and therefore the Spaniards might be counted men of small wisdoms if they could not foresee such dangers. But they have provided for that well enough.

I would to God that your lordships knew as much as I have heard with mine own ears and seen with mine own eyes, or else would credit my words. For then your most prescient wisdoms could provide to withstand their pretensed treasons ...

Ye say the Queen hath power in her hands, we must obey her. That is true in all such laws as be already made and passed by parliament. But whether ye may lawfully consent [contrary] to the discretion of the whole realm and nation of Englishmen [to the giving away] of the Crown, and disannul the authority that was given by parliament, I leave it to your consciences. If the Crown were the Queen’s, in such sort that she might do with it what she would, both now and after her death, there might appear some rightful pretence in giving it over to a Stranger Prince. But seeing it belongeth to the heirs of England after her death, ye commit deadly sin and damnation in unjustly giving and taking away the right of others. Remember what a miserable estate and end Achab had for unjustly desiring Naboth’s vineyard. I think that you can never forget the unjust enterprise of the Duke of Northumberland and what miserable success it had. Be ye therefore wise and beware by other men’s harms, for ye may perceive evidently that God will take vengeance upon wrongful doers. Otherwise the Queen’s Majesty that now is had not been Queen of England at this present.

But peradventure her grace thinketh that the King will keep her more company, and love her the better if she give him the Crown. Ye will crown him to make him live chaste, contrary to his nature. For peradventure after he were crowned, he would be content with one woman, but in the mean space he must have three or four in one night to prove which of them he liketh best; not of ladies and gentlewomen, but of baker’s daughters and such poor whores. Whereupon they have a certain saying The baker’s daughter is better in her gown than Queen Mary without the Crown’ …

[John Bradford, The copy of a letter … sent to the Earls of Arundel, Derby, Shrewsbury and Pembroke (1556). Taken from John Strype, Ecclesiastical Memorials (1822 edition), iii, p. 129.]

The Emperor was not pleased by this evidence of estrangement between Philip and his wife. Mary wrote to him, pleading for his good offices in bringing about her husband’s return, and Charles wrote to Philip, urging him to go. There would be, Charles pointed out, no prospect of redeeming the failure of the summer, if Philip did not sleep with his wife. However, Charles had very little leverage, and Philip was not short of other women if he felt that way inclined. That he sometimes did feel so is reflected in the discreet comments made in diplomatic correspondence, usually with the warning that these things should be kept from his wife, ‘who is easily distressed’ (which would have been an understatement of the case should she have found out).