The Boleyn Women: The Tudor Femmes Fatales Who Changed English History (32 page)

Following the death of Edward VI in July 1553, Elizabeth played no role in the attempt to place Lady Jane Grey on the throne, instead riding to congratulate Mary I in London once she had safely attained the throne. Elizabeth had been removed from the succession by her half-brother in favour of Jane and her interests clearly lay with her childless half-sister who was, by then, in her late thirties. She was prominent at the festivities surrounding Mary’s Coronation, riding with her former stepmother, Anne of Cleves, in the chariot after the queen’s. While, politically, it was prudent for Elizabeth to ally herself with Mary, the relationship between the sisters was often fraught. Mary was determined to see her sister convert to Catholicism and Elizabeth, who favoured Protestantism, finally agreed to attend Mass. She attended Mass for the first time on 8 September 1553 but complained loudly throughout the service that her stomach hurt, disrupting the service and angering the queen. It was a relief to both women when Elizabeth finally left court in December 1553.

Mary I was unmarried when she came to the throne and soon accepted a proposal from her cousin, Philip of Spain. The news of the queen’s marriage caused consternation in many parts of England, with a group of gentlemen, led by Sir Thomas Wyatt, who was the son of Anne Boleyn’s former suitor, forming a conspiracy to place Elizabeth on the throne. On 25 January 1554, Wyatt rode into the marketplace in Maidstone and issued a proclamation, denouncing the queen’s marriage. It was a call to arms that was heeded by many of the men of Kent and Wyatt’s force swept towards London. Wyatt refused all of Mary’s attempts to negotiate and, by 31 January, the queen had decided to take decisive action herself, going in person to the Guildhall in London to rally the population. Mary, who was so often overshadowed by her younger half-sister, made the speech of her life, declaring that her marriage to Philip was only arranged with the consent and approval of her council, before adding that it would, in any event, only be her second marriage, since

I am already married to the Common Weal and the faithful members of the same; the spousal ring whereof I have on my finger: which never hitherto was, nor hereafter shall be, left off. Protesting unto you nothing to be more acceptable to my heart, nor more answerable to my will, than your advancement in wealth and welfare, with the furtherance of God’s glory.
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With Mary’s powerful words, spoken with her deep, mannish voice, the Londoners rallied and, when Wyatt reached Southwark on 3 February, he found the bridge defended against him. He spent the next two days trying to cross the Thames before marching his troops to Kingston and making his crossing at the bridge there. When Mary heard of Wyatt’s crossing, she panicked and was unable to sleep. By the morning she had composed herself and, when urged to flee, she stood firm, declaring that her army and God would not abandon her.
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She was right to be confident and Wyatt was quickly captured and his rebellion dispersed. Dangerously for Elizabeth, when Wyatt was tried for treason on 15 March 1554 he implicated her, turning the queen’s suspicion firmly towards her half-sister.

The extent of Elizabeth’s involvement is not clear but she almost certainly knew of plans for the uprising, perhaps intending to await the outcome of events. On 17 March, Elizabeth was informed that a barge was waiting to take her to the Tower. Terrified, she was determined to delay her departure, begging leave to write to the queen. Elizabeth wrote,

If any ever did try this old saying, that a king’s word was more than another man’s oath, I beseech your majesty to verify it in me, and to remember your last promise and my last demand that I be not condemned without answer and proof; which it seems now I am, for without cause proved I am by your council from you commanded to go to the Tower. I know I deserve it not, yet it appears proved. I protest before God I never practised, counselled or consented to anything prejudicial to you or dangerous to the state. Let me answer before you, before I go to the Tower (if possible) – if not, before I am further condemned. Pardon my boldness. I have heard of many cast away for want of coming to their prince. I heard Somerset say that if his brother [Thomas Seymour] had been allowed to speak with him, he would never have suffered, but he was persuaded he could not live safely if the admiral lived. I pray evil persuades not one sister against the other. Wyatt might write me a letter, but I never received any from him. As for the copy of my letter to the French king, God confound me if I ever sent him word, token or letter by any means. I crave but one word of answer.
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Elizabeth’s letter did not change the queen’s decision and she was taken by water to the Tower early the next morning. According to the
Chronicle of Queen Jane and Two Years of Queen Mary
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when she entered, Elizabeth declared, ‘Oh Lord! I never thought to have come in here as prisoner; and I pray you all good friends and fellows, bear me witness, that I come in no traitor, but as true a woman to the queens majesty as any is now living, and thereon will I take my death.’
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She went a little further into the Tower and, on seeing the guards, asked the Lord Chamberlain if they were for her. When he denied it, she said, ‘I know it is so; it needed not for me, being, alas! but a weak woman.’ Even in times of great stress, Elizabeth knew how to win the hearts of those around her. When she had entered the Tower, the Earl of Sussex, who was present, warned the gaolers not to treat her too harshly. For Elizabeth, the terror must have been very real and she cannot have failed to recall the fact that her mother had never left the ancient fortress once taken inside.

Elizabeth was not severely treated in the Tower, although she must have been terrified. She was interrogated, but did not incriminate herself. Wyatt, who was executed on 11 April, denied on the scaffold that Elizabeth was involved in the plot. Eventually, Mary and her council were forced to admit that there was little evidence against the princess and, in May 1554, she was moved from the Tower to Woodstock. Elizabeth spent a dull and uncomfortable year imprisoned there but, with her release from the Tower, she knew the danger had passed.

The queen believed that she had conceived a child following her marriage to Philip and, on 17 April 1555, Elizabeth received a summons to London to attend Mary in her confinement. She arrived at court on 30 April but her half-sister would not see her for several weeks. The queen was still furious with her half-sister who she, by this stage, entirely disliked. She was also preoccupied in awaiting the birth of her child, with midwives, rockers and nurses engaged to care for the expected prince. Sadly for Mary, her labour pains never began and, as the days turned into weeks, her physicians hastily began to recalculate the estimated due date for the baby. By late May Mary’s stomach, which had swelled to give every appearance of pregnancy, had begun to decline. The queen was the last person to continue to believe in the existence of her child, but even she was finally forced to admit defeat. In early August the court abruptly left Hampton Court, something which was a tacit announcement of the failure of Mary’s ‘pregnancy’; it was probably a phantom pregnancy brought about by her desperate desire for a child. On 29 August Mary’s grief was increased with the departure of her husband to Flanders. Her failure to produce a child that summer made Elizabeth’s accession a virtual certainty and she returned to her estates, spending her time consolidating support.

Catherine Carey and her husband had troubles of their own following the accession of the Catholic Mary I to the throne. Sir Francis Knollys had staunchly reformist religious beliefs, which he expected his wife to share. This led to him having a particular prominence under the Protestant Edward VI, with Catherine’s husband taking part in theological discussions with other dignitaries of the reign.
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Both Catherine and Francis were dismayed at the accession of Edward’s Catholic half-sister, Princess Mary. In the nineteenth century one historian, dating the letter from Princess Elizabeth to Catherine to 1553, considered that the couple were ‘compelled to fly from the Marian persecution’.
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However this would seem unlikely given that, at that stage, Mary was very far from deciding to persecute anyone, even going so far as to send Lady Jane Grey word that she had decided to save her life. There is evidence that Francis Knollys and his eldest son, Henry, visited John Calvin at Geneva late in 1553, when Calvin wrote that two English gentlemen had recently visited him.
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Calvin was sufficiently pleased with his visitors to heap praise upon them, declaring that both were of good birth, with the son, in particular, meriting ‘praise for piety and holy zeal’. It has been suggested, from this, that Francis, due to his wife’s relationship with the heir to the throne, may have been chosen by Protestants at court to serve as an emissary to Calvin, particularly since he was certainly back in England in June 1555, something that does not suggest that he was persecuted by the English queen.
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In late 1556 he was once again abroad, at the University of Basle. He spent time in the English colony at Strasbourg during 1557, which was a centre of the religious reform movement.
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The following year he was at Frankfurt, where it was recorded that he was staying in the house of John Welles in June with his wife, five of their children and a maid. His brother Henry was also present in the city, remaining there until early in 1559. The suggestion that Catherine travelled to the Continent with her husband in 1553 rests solely on a dating of Elizabeth’s ‘farewell’ letter to that year, something which is highly debatable. An alternative is that Catherine joined Francis on the Continent later, remaining in England during his visit of 1553–54.
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While she bore children regularly throughout her marriage, there was no recorded child born between Anne on 19 July 1555 and Thomas at Candlemas 1558. Given that the first reference to Catherine outside England was in June 1557, it does seem plausible that she had remained in England until shortly before that date, perhaps travelling directly to Frankfurt with her maid and some of her children. Since the majority of the children were left behind in England, including, apparently, their eldest son Henry after his first visit, it would appear that the family were under no great threat in England, instead simply choosing to live among their co-religionists. The John Welles with whom they stayed was a merchant from London and a burgher of Frankfurt who had first arrived in 1555 with his wife, sons and servants. As a substantial citizen he would have been able to give Catherine and her family a warm welcome.

Mary I fell ill in August 1558. In early November 1558, she was visited by her husband’s ambassador, the Count of Feria, who found her dying.
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Feria summoned the council and told them that King Philip favoured Elizabeth’s succession to the throne. He found the councillors terrified of what Elizabeth would do to them and he resolved to visit her himself to assure her of Philip’s support. Elizabeth received Feria but he did not find her as malleable as he had hoped. According to Feria,

She is a very vain and clever woman. She must have been thoroughly schooled in the manner in which her father conducted his affairs, and I am very much afraid that she will not be well-disposed in matters of religion, for I see her inclined to govern through men who are believed to be heretics and I am told that all the women around her definitely are.

Elizabeth was indignant at her treatment by Mary and in no mood to give any credit to Philip for helping her win the throne, declaring ‘that it was the people who put her in her present position and she will not acknowledge that your majesty or the nobility of this realm had any part in it’. Feria noted that Elizabeth was determined to be ruled by no-one, least of all Philip. The despatch is the first indication of how Elizabeth intended to rule and it is a model which she followed throughout her reign.

On 13 November 1558 the forty-two-year-old queen was given the last rites. She rallied the next day, but it was obvious that her end was near. On 17 November, as her councillors flocked towards Elizabeth at Hatfield, Mary passed quietly away, with bonfires lit and bells rung in some parts of London to celebrate her passing. Catherine Carey and her husband also celebrated Mary’s death, glad of the opportunity to return home. For Elizabeth, the effect of the news was even more profound, with a Boleyn woman, only six generations from a prosperous peasant at Salle, succeeding to the throne in her own right. As Elizabeth herself quoted, on hearing of her accession, ‘It is the Lord’s doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes.’

Elizabeth was sitting under an oak tree in the grounds of Hatfield House on 17 November 1558 when the earls of Arundel and Pembroke arrived to inform her of her half-sister’s death and that she was queen. This news can hardly have been unexpected for Elizabeth, who appeared unable to speak for a moment before giving praise to God. Shortly afterwards a breathless Sir Nicholas Throckmorton arrived bearing Mary’s betrothal ring, which she would never willingly remove from her finger, as proof of her death. For Elizabeth and England it was the start of a long and largely prosperous reign. Volumes can be written on the life and reign of Anne Boleyn’s daughter.

Elizabeth appointed her household while at Hatfield and set about business requiring her immediate attention. A few days later she set off for London and was met by crowds.
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Since Catholics considered her to be illegitimate – and, following her accession, her Catholic cousin Mary, Queen of Scots, had been proclaimed Queen of England in France – it was necessary to arrange her Coronation as soon as practicable.
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According to the historian William Camden, Elizabeth encountered some difficulties with this. Mary’s Archbishop of Canterbury, Cardinal Pole, had recently died, and in any event would have been unlikely to have crowned Anne Boleyn’s daughter given that he had spent much of his life in exile for opposing Elizabeth’s parents’ marriage and the changes to religion it had brought. Elizabeth was finally crowned on 15 January 1559 by the Bishop of Carlisle, the only bishop who could be found to crown her: