Authors: Anna Whitelock
Mary Tudor (51 page)
On the island of Guernsey, a woman named Katherine Cowchen lived with her two daughters, Perotine Massey and Guillemine Gilbert. Perotine had informed the authorities that a local woman, Vincent Gosset, had stolen a gold goblet. In revenge Gosset denounced Cowchen and her two daughters as heretics. All three were convicted of heresy and sentenced to death by burning. Perotine had not told the authorities she was pregnant. When the faggots were lit, the fire caused her to give birth to her baby son, who fell onto the burning faggots. One of the spectators rushed forward to save the baby and pulled him out of the fire, but the local sheriff ordered that the baby be thrown back. He was burned with his mother, grandmother, and aunt.
12
NEITHER MARY NOR
Pole had expected to burn so many; they wanted the heretics to be reconciled rather than die and for the burnings to be carried out judiciously and without vindictiveness. Mary ordered that a councillor be present to supervise each burning in London and that during each execution “some good and pious sermons be preached.” Writing in December 1554, she had declared:
Touching the punishment of heretics, I believe it would be well to inflict punishment at this beginning, without much cruelty and passion, but without however omitting to do such justice on those who choose by their false doctrines to deceive simple persons, that the people may clearly comprehend that they have not
been condemned without just cause, whereby others will be brought to know the truth, and will beware of letting themselves be induced to relapse into such new and false opinions.
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However, willful disobedience to the Catholic Church—heresy—was the worst of sins and needed to be extirpated, lest it “infect” more.
But rather than extinguishing Protestant sentiment, as Mary intended, the burnings served only to define more clearly the Protestants as a dissident group. Moreover, the courage of the martyrs stirred the admiration of many of those who saw them die. Such was the “murmuring about the cruel enforcement of the recent acts of Parliament on heresy which had now begun, as shown publicly when Rogers was burnt,” reported Renard to Philip after the first London burnings, “I do not think it well that your Majesty should allow further executions to take place unless the reasons are overwhelmingly strong and the offences committed have been so scandalous as to render the course justifiable in the eyes of the people.”
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Four months later, Michieli made similar observations:
Two days ago, to the displeasure as usual of the population here, two Londoners were burnt alive, one of them having been a public lecturer in Scripture, a person sixty years of age, who was held in great esteem. In a few days the like will be done to four or five more; and thus from time to time to many others who are in prison for this cause and will not recant, although such severity is odious to many people.
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Increasingly, Protestantism was associated with resistance to Spanish domination and the defense of English liberty, with Philip being held responsible by many for the burnings. However, just days after John Rogers’s execution, Alfonso de Castro, Philip’s confessor, preached a sermon at court with the king’s sanction, attacking the burnings and “saying plainly that they learned it not in scripture, to burn any for conscience sake; but the contrary, that they should live and be converted.”
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Renard advised Philip that haste in religious matters should be avoided:
Religion is not yet firmly established and … the heretics are on the watch for every possible opportunity to revive error and compromise the good beginning that has been made. They use as an argument the cruel punishments which they assert are being applied, with recourse to fire rather than doctrine and good examples, to lead the country back [to Catholicism].
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Although Philip did not play the direct role many attributed to him, he did nothing to forestall the persecution, and the burnings continued. But for Mary, to halt the process would have been to condone heresy, and this she could never do. It was an affront to her conscience that had been forged in the fires of persecution in the years before she had become queen. As the Venetian ambassador, Giovanni Soranzo, observed, during her brother’s reign Mary had not conformed to the new religious service, “her belief in that into which she was born being so strong that had the opportunity offered, she would have displayed it at the stake.”
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EXTRAORDINARILY IN LOVE
My lord and good father. I have learnt by what the King, my Lord and good husband, has told me and also by the letter which you were pleased to send me that for a long time past the state of your affairs has demanded that your Majesty and he should meet in order to be able to confer together and reach the appropriate decisions. However, you have been pleased to put off the moment of separating him from me until now, for which I humbly thank your Majesty. I assure you, Sire, that there is nothing in this world that I set so much store by as the King’s presence. But as I have more concern for your Majesties’ welfare than my own desires, I submit to what regard you as necessary. I firmly hope that the King’s absence will be brief, for I assure your Majesty, that quite apart from my own feelings, his presence in this kingdom has done much good and is of great importance for the good governance of this country. For the rest, I am content with whatever may be your Majesty’s pleasure.
1
—M
ARY TO
C
HARLES
V, J
ULY
-A
UGUST
1555
O
N AUGUST 27, MARY AND PHILIP RODE FROM HAMPTON COURT
through London to Greenwich, accompanied by the lord mayor and aldermen, the English and Spanish nobility, and Cardinal Pole. Mary had planned to travel by barge and Philip to ride through the city, but at the last moment she chose to give Londoners the “satisfaction of seeing her likewise in his company.”
The streets thronged with people, joyful not only to see the king and queen together but to be reassured, after months of rumors during her supposed pregnancy, that their queen was not dead. As Michieli wrote, “when they knew of her appearance, they all ran from one place to another, as to an unexpected sight.” It was “as if they were crazy, to ascertain thoroughly that it was her, and on recognising and seeing her in better plight than ever, they by shouts and salutations, and every other demonstration, then gave greater signs of joy.”
2
Two days later, Philip departed by river to commence his journey to Dover and then to Flanders. Mary watched at a window from the palace at Greenwich as the barge prepared to leave, and Philip waved his hat in her direction, “demonstrating great affection.”
3
It was, for Mary, a sorrowful parting:
The Queen … chose to come with him through all the chambers and galleries to the head of the stairs, constraining herself the whole way to avoid, in sight of such a crowd, any demonstration unbecoming her gravity, though she could not but be moved when the Spanish noblemen kissed her hand, and yet more, when she saw the ladies in tears take leave of the King, who, according to the custom of the country, kissed them one by one. On returning, however, to her apartments, placing herself at a window which looks on the river, not supposing herself any longer seen or observed by anyone, it was perceived that she gave free vent to her grief by a flood of tears, nor did she once quit the window until she had not only seen the King embark and depart, but remained looking after him as long as he was in sight.
4
Philip and his retinue stayed at Canterbury for several days, awaiting good weather and the arrival of Flemish ships at Dover. Men were out on the road nearly every hour, carrying letters between the king and queen, and messengers waited about the courtyard of Greenwich Palace night and day, “booted and spurred ready for a start.” As Michieli reported, “the Queen not content with having sent two of her chief chamberlains in the King’s company for the purpose of being acquainted with all that takes place, writes to him daily in her own
hand, and despatches courtiers, demonstrating in every way her great desire.”
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But Philip wrote less and less. When Michieli had an audience with the queen on September 13, she told him “very passionately with tears in her eyes, that for a week she had had no letters from him [Philip].”
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Meanwhile, Michieli’s informant described how Mary mourned as if grief-stricken, “as may be imagined with regard to a person extraordinarily in love.”
The Queen remains disconsolate, though she conceals it as much as she can, and from what I hear mourns the more when alone and supposing herself invisible to any of her attendants. During this absence Cardinal Pole will reside with her, lodgings having been assigned to him in the palace, that he may comfort and keep her company, Her Majesty delighting greatly in the sight and presence of him.
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In letters to Philip, Pole recounted how Mary spent her day, passing “the forenoon in prayer after the manner of Mary [Magdalene], and in the afternoon admirably personates Martha, by transacting business.”
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Two weeks after the king’s departure, Simon Renard left England. With Philip’s arrival, his confidential relationship with the queen had ended. He had asked to be recalled, but Charles had refused, replying that he must stay in England to give Philip the benefit of his considerable knowledge of “the condition of affairs” derived from his long residence there.
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By March 1555, Renard was given leave to depart. Mary said of him in a letter to Charles V, “He was here with me through very dangerous times and that he showed himself during the marriage negotiations to be a most indispensable minister, inspired by the greatest desire to serve us and the greatest zeal for my affairs.”
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She presented him with more than 1,200 ounces of plate as a token of gratitude.
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Having arrived at court for the queen’s confinement in late spring, Elizabeth remained with Mary until the autumn. By September, Noailles observed, she was “more in favour than she used to be, going every day to mass with the Queen and often in her company.”
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In mid-October, she obtained leave to withdraw and left the court for Hatfield. At the same time many of Philip’s household servants, soldiers, and
pages also began to withdraw, “with a mind,” Michieli noted, “not to revisit this country for a very long while.”
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By December, all those who remained were instructed to join the king in the Low Countries. Federico Badoer, the Venetian ambassador to the emperor, reported:
The King’s confessor [Alfonso de Castro] has arrived here, and repeated a variety of foul language uttered by the English, indicating their ill-will towards his Majesty and the Spanish nation [and says] that on seeing him and the rest of the attendants depart, they made great rejoicing well-nigh universally; and he goes saying that the Queen’s wish again to see the King is very great, nay boundless.
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Philip sought to stay in touch with English affairs through a body of advisers—a Council of State—that he established on his departure. The councillors were to reside at court, consider “all causes of state and financial causes and other causes of great moment,” and write to Philip three times a week.
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The reports, in Latin, were written by First Secretary Sir William Petre and then returned by Philip’s secretary, annotated with comments in the margin or at the foot of the page. “It seems well done”; “the King is most grateful to be told”; “the King explains his wishes in letters to the councillors”: such were typical of Philip’s comments on matters ranging from prospective legislation and the nomination or recall of ambassadors to the condition of the shires and the defense of the realm.
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Important statutes and proclamations continued to be sent to the king for his signature, but as he turned his attention to the Netherlands, his correspondence became less frequent.