Bloody Mary

by Carolly Erickson

  Demonstrations against the restoration of the old faith began on the day the councilors announced Mary’s accession. Shortly after she was proclaimed a man was set in the pillory “for speaking against the good Queen Mary,” and before long the slander took written form. Less than a month after Mary came to the throne she published an edict against “books, ballads, rhymes and treatises” injurious to the peace of the realm which printers and stationers, “of an evil zeal for lucre,” were selling.13Few preachers managed to get through their sermons without interruption from roving bands of troublemakers, and apprentices and servants went about from street to street insulting priests, singing anti-papal songs and disrupting religious services. Protestant preachers, including some Flemings and Frenchmen, who “interspersed seditious words” in their sermons were silenced, but not before some violence had broken out. In the week after Mary entered London in triumph an old priest said mass in St. Bartholomew’s church. The sight attracted an angry mob, who “would have pulled him in pieces.”14 A few days later a “defamatory leaflet” was found scattered in the streets which exhorted Protestants to take up arms against Mary’s government. In it all “nobles and gentlemen favoring the word of God” were urged to overthrow the “detestable papists” who supported “our virtuous Lady, Queen Mary,” especially “the great devil,” Gardiner, bishop of Winchester. Gardiner had to be “exorcised and exterminated” before he could “poison the people and wax strong in his religion,” the pamphleteer claimed; otherwise the cause of the gospel would be lost.

  The first really serious incident took place on Sunday, August 13, when Mary’s chaplain Gilbert Bourne preached at Paul’s Cross. In his sermon Bourne lashed out at the former bishop of London, Ridley, and praised the newly established Catholic bishop Bonner. The assembled crowd was so infuriated with his remarks that they broke into “great uproar and shouting, like mad people,” and were on the point of rioting. A dagger was thrown at Bourne, and narrowly missed him, sticking fast in one of the sideposts of the pulpit. The preacher was hurriedly led to safety in the cathedral school nearby, and a reforming preacher in the crowd, one Master Bradford, eventually managed to quiet the crowd. Mary and the Council were outraged, ordering the people to obey the Lord Mayor and keep the peace or she would “set other rulers over them.”

  It was thought that the presence of the Mayor and of Edward Cour-tenay in the crowd had helped to prevent more harm from being done, and the following Sunday the worshipers arrived at Paul’s Cross to find not only the Mayor but all the crafts in their liveries, the Council, Bishop Bonner, the captain of the guard and upwards of two hundred guardsmen flanking the preacher Mary sent to address them. The guardsmen “strode about the pulpit with their halberds,” as if daring another attack, while the preacher expanded on the less inflammatory subject of “rebuilding the old temple again.”15 The incident was not repeated, but it led Mary to increase her personal guard. Beyond her ordinary mounted escort, she ordered eight cannon brought to Richmond “for her greater safety, and to make a show of her strength and authority for the intimidation of the seditious and those who have evil intentions.” In addition, she was said to be arming seven or eight hundred more mounted guardsmen and two hundred footsoldiers.16

  In these first unsettled weeks of her reign Mary was forced to come to terms not only with unruly Protestants and would-be rebels, but with the volatile, divisive men of her Council as well. There were more than forty of them, drawn from among Mary’s faithful household officers, men imprisoned or out of favor during the preceding reign and, to the surprise of many, the members of Edward’s Council—the men who had assented to removing Mary from the succession and giving her crown to Jane Grey. From her household came Rochester, Walgrave, Englefield, and her chaplain Bourne, supplemented by men such as Sir Henry Jer-ningham, now captain of her guard, who with the old earl of Sussex had come to her defense at Framlingham, Sir John Gage, her aging Lord Chamberlain, and Sir Thomas Cheyne. These men were utterly trustworthy, reliable, staunch in their loyalty to Mary and the Catholic church, but lacking any experience of statecraft.

  Equally loyal and far more experienced were the political outcasts, mostly churchmen, who had suffered for their views and allegiances in the regencies of Somerset and Dudley. The duke of Norfolk, Thomas Thirlby, bishop of Norwich, Cuthbert Tunstal, the octogenarian bishop of Durham and the able, outspoken and choleric bishop of Winchester Stephen Gardiner had all managed to serve, and survive, two rulers. Gardiner had been a principal adviser to Henry VIII in the matter of his divorce—something Mary chose to look past now—but had redeemed himself in her eyes by becoming more and more conservative in religion as the years passed, and by developing an inveterate hatred of Dudley. This antipathy flattered the bishop, who was honest where the duke was devious and deceitful, and who like Mary stood by his convictions to the end.

  More ominous for the future of Mary’s government was that Gardiner was at odds with the leader of the third group in her Council. This third group, consisting of the now-repentant councilors who had lent their authority to Dudley’s plot, were led by William Paget, a wary, circumspect man whose outstanding characteristic was his ability to adapt himself to every political climate. Paget had advised Henry VIII in his last years, befriended the Protector yet survived his fall, made himselfuseful to Dudley and was now becoming invaluable tc Mary. The men Paget spoke for—Pembroke, Petre, Arundel, Derby, Shrewsbury and the others—were in an extremely awkward position. They were all embarrassed by their association with the traitor Dudley, yet each of them tried to lay the blame for the Council’s acquiescence on the others. Some, like Derby, had deserted Dudley early in the contest to bring thousands of soldiers to Mary’s camp, while others had remained inconspicuous throughout the struggle for the throne. The former expected to be rewarded with offices and special favors, while the latter hoped their cowardice had not been noticed. All of them were continually on edge in the early part of Mary’s reign, sometimes explosively so. Yet she would have found it hard to rule without them, for despite their disadvantages they were the only men in the government with recent experience of affairs. Besides, given the deterioration of government over the last six years there were few men in public life whose integrity was above reproach. As the imperial ambassador wrote to Charles V in August, Mary “found matters in such a condition when she came to the throne that she cannot possibly put everything straight, or punish all who have been guilty of something; otherwise she would be left without any vassals at all.”17

  Mary had gotten a foretaste of the squabbling indecisiveness of her Council in the first weeks of her reign. Between the time her camp at Framlingham was broken up and the day she made her formal entry into London Mary met with her Council several times. She was naturally curious to hear from them what had really happened in the last days of Edward’s reign—whether the Device had been his own or Dudley’s idea, whether or not the duke had planned to imprison or kill her, how and why she had been allowed to get away. Instead of answers her questions unleashed a barrage of mutual accusations and recriminations among the councilors, and she soon realized that she would never learn the truth about the conspiracy from these men. To her astonishment, they could not even come to a decision about whether she should hasten or delay her journey to the capital, “some saying she had better tarry a while because of the heat, bad air and danger of the plague . . . others urging her to press on as fast as possible to set her affairs in order and establish herself in the government of the country.” In her first conversation with Renard Mary confessed to him that “she could not help being amazed by the divisions in the Council,” whose members spent all their time trying to get the better of one another, changing their views as often as necessary to protect their reputations.18

  What was worse, many of them were becoming enmeshed in a net of backbiting, influence peddling and petty intrigue. Some of the more obscure gentlemen who had “stood by the queen in the days of her advershy and trouble” now felt “
cast off and neglected” because they had not been appointed to office or given lands or titles. Instead of approaching Mary directly, though, they took their complaints to more powerful lords who in turn spread tales of dissatisfaction to anyone who cared to listen. These lesser men let it be known that they “might easily change sides if they perceived that they received no notice,” and devoted far less energy to the work of government than to the task of finding an influential patron or outmaneuvering rivals for bureaucratic posts.

  Others thought they could advance their careers in the queen’s service by ingratiating themselves with her women. Renard noticed in August that “the ladies about the queen’s person are able to obtain from her more than she ought to grant them,” and Mary was frequently approached by female friends and relatives asking favors on behalf of courtiers. In one complex negotiation the earl of Pembroke approached Courtenay to ask if he would persuade his mother to speak to the queen on the earl’s behalf. Courtenay’s mother was Gertrude Blount, marchioness of Exeter, one of Mary’s oldest friends, and Pembroke knew that Mary would be favorably inclined to anything the marchioness proposed. To ensure Courtenay’s cooperation Pembroke gave him valuable gifts—a sword and poniard, a basin and ewer, and several horses—worth in all more than three thousand pounds. The marchioness “made his peace with the queen,” and Pembroke found himself named to the Council as he had hoped. At another time the duchess of Suffolk, mother of Jane Grey and wife of the conspirator Henry Grey, now a prisoner in the Tower, came to Mary’s bedchamber at two o’clock in the morning to tell her that her husband had been poisoned and to beg for his release.

  Even the leading figures in the Council, Gardiner and Paget, were caught up in the web of intrigue. Each resented the other’s power and influence, and their enmity was becoming public knowledge and interfering with the business of government. After observing the operations for a time Renard was inclined to agree with Mary that “the Council does not seem to us ... to be composed of experienced men endowed with the necessary qualities to conduct the administration and government of the kingdom.”19

  The shortcomings of the men around Mary were all the more crucial in that, as her reign opened, England stood lower in the estimation of the European states than at any time since the Wars of the Roses. Henry VIII had been able to create an illusion of power and majesty so convincing it made his kingdom seem powerful—or at least substantial—as well. With Edward on the throne the illusion vanished, and when Dudley became the actual ruler in 1549 England’s influence in European diplomacy melted away. Paradoxically, England’s very weakness gave it a new importance in the 1550s. Astute observers on the continent were convinced that, sooner or later, the country would become a client state of France or the empire, and the competition between them came to center on England as it once had on Italy earlier in the century. With Mary on the throne, Hapsburg domination seemed likely, probably in the form of a marriage between Mary and Dom Luiz or the emperor’s widowed son Philip. But the French would be certain to keep their influence alive in England as well, and there was always the chance that the bold young French king might mount an invasion, as he clearly thought of doing when Dudley appealed to him for help in July.

  Even if the French did not invade England proper there was no doubt that Henri II was eager to regain the English-held territories of Calais and Guines, and Mary’s first concern as queen was to ensure the defense of these two possessions. The issue was urgent, for in his desperate need for military aid Northumberland had authorized his envoy to Henri II’s court to discuss transferring the English strongholds to the French, and had recalled the English commander of Guines, Lord Grey. Mary quickly sent Grey back, with orders to hold the town at all costs and to inform the French that Dudley had been seized as a traitor. To emphasize her determination to hold the towns Mary ordered a muster to be held in London, specifically to enroll men to defend Calais and Guines; the muster, along with the presence of an imperial garrison in the vicinity, dissuaded the French from attacking.

  The defense of the English-held territories was more than a military problem; it was also a fiscal one. At the end of July Renard wrote that Mary could “find no money for current expenses,” and was struggling with the problem of paying the dissatisfied English soldiers defending Guines and Calais. The government had not been solvent for years, and beyond the huge deficits Dudley had left there were hundreds of smaller obligations of a more personal kind that had been gathering dust in the royal exchequer for decades. The government was in debt to “many an old servitor, minister, officer, merchant, banker, captain, pensioner and soldier,” Mary found. She considered it a point of honor that they be paid, and announced in September that she would pay every obligation left from the two preceding reigns, no matter how long it took.20 Even more important, she made a significant beginning in solving the longstanding crisis of the currency. New coins were issued, with higher proportions of gold and silver, set according to a fixed standard. There would be no further debasements, she announced, and although it was evident her government would have to go heavily into debt to remain solvent, the worst of the economic plagues, unprofitable foreign exchange and inflation, were already coming under control. English money beganto hold its value against foreign coins once again in the money markets of Antwerp and Brussels, and in England, prices of food and other goods fell by as much as one third in 1553.

  Despite the fears about her incapacity and inexperience, Mary was clearly beginning to take command. With all evidence of rebellion crushed and religious and economic problems more or less in hand, she was ready to play her role in the great political drama of her coronation.

  XXXII

  Blesed be, therfore, our Lorde God above,

  And Marie, our Maistresse, our merciful Quene;

  For unto this lande our Lorde, for her love,

  Hath of his mercy most mercifull bene.

  Planning for the queen’s coronation began in the first weeks of the new reign. By the middle of September the major pageants for the pre-coronation procession had been written and designed, and carpenters, painters and gilders were at work building and ornamenting the arches and painted backdrops against which they would be performed. There were verses to be composed and inscribed, speeches to be memorized, music to be rehearsed. All along the procession route citizens were “hanging the streets” with tapestries and rich cloths, and the great cross in Cheap was newly washed and gilded. At St. Paul’s, the weathercock that crowned the steeple was carefully taken down by the Dutch acrobat who would mount and balance on it on the day of the procession. It was made of copper, and weighed forty pounds; its underside—all that the crowd could see—was gilded, and then it was set in place again. Finally when all was ready, on the twenty-eighth of September, Mary went by barge from Whitehall to the Tower, escorted by the mayor and aldermen and guild members in their barges, to the sound of trumpets and shawms and an immense cannonade from the Tower guns.

  The following day she created a number of new Knights of the Bath, giving the honor to several men who had stood by her during her conflict with Dudley. Her controller Sir Robert Rochester—now controller of the royal household—was among them, as were Sir Henry Jerningham, the earl of Surrey and Sir William Dormer, Jane Dormer’s father, who with his friends and supporters had helped to uphold Mary’s cause in Buckingham during the crucial days in July.1 Mary could not performthe ceremony itself, as it called for the newly created knights to jump naked into a bath with the sovereign and kiss his shoulder; the earl of Arundel, now Great Master of the Household, carried out this part of the ritual for her,2

  On the morning of the thirtieth the streets were strewn with rushes and flowers to cover their stench, and at three in the afternoon the first of the five hundred nobles, gentlemen and officials who rode in procession before the queen came out of the Tower courtyard and made their way at a solemn pace toward Westminster. The queen’s messengers came first, followed by trumpeters, esquires of the body, pursui
vants at arms and the new Knights of the Bath. Behind these were heralds, bannerets, and the members of the royal Council. Then came the Garter Knights and the rest of the nobility in order of rank. The nobles outdid themselves in splendor, wearing gold and silver on their persons and their mounts, “which caused great admiration, not more by the richness of the substance than by the novelty and elegance of the device.”

  Equally magnificent were the ambassadors, each of whom rode paired with a lord of the Council, Great care had been given to the choice of escort for the major ambassadors. It was decided that Paget, after the chancellor the leading member of the Council, should ride with the French ambassador while the emperor’s current “resident” (no official ambassador had been appointed since Scheyfve’s departure) was accompanied by Lord Clinton. Renard, whose diplomatic status was still only that of temporary envoy, rode with another councilor of lower status, Lord Cobham. The merchants, soldiers and knights who rode in the ambassadorial suites were nearly as resplendent as the great English nobles. Four Italian merchants stood out in suits of lined black velvet, “beautifully trimmed with many points of gold,” and with a band of costly gold embroidery “more than a palm in width.” Their mantles, horse cloths and even the liveries of the grooms who walked beside them were of the same black velvet, bordered in worked gold. Four Spanish cavaliers in mulberry-colored velvet also attracted great admiration. Their cloaks were lined in cloth of silver, “with a very fine fringe of gold all about,” and their doublets and stiff Spanish ruffs “appeared to great advantage both for their richness and their elegant design.”