Bloody Mary
Page 48
Any plot likely to involve Elizabeth would more than likely include Antoine de Noailles, ambassador of the “king of France and Scotland” whom Renard had identified as Mary’s third enemy. Noailles was a French nobleman of high birth whose large and varied staff of informers compensated for his modest diplomatic abilities. He had spies everywhere—in the royal court, in the households of Mary’s councilors, among the merchants, gentlemen and ne’er-do-wells who frequented the capital. They included a French bookseller welcome in Renard’s house, a Flemish servant of Paget’s, one of Courtenay’s servants, and a Scottish physician said to dabble in poisons as a sideline. Among the professional informers in Noailles’ pay were fitienne Quiclet, a native of Besancon who had been Renard’s maître d’hôtel and who made his living selling imperial secrets to the French, and Jean de Fontenay, sieur de Berteville, a sometime wine merchant and soldier of fortune who marketed military secrets and had on occasion been imprisoned as a double agent.
Like all ambassadors Noailles made informers of his own servants too, and what Quiclet and Berteville could not tell him he could often find out from his cook, his well-traveled couriers or his Scots groom. For a time the Venetian ambassador Soranzo made his knowledge and his staff available to Noailles as well, in the belief that helping the French might offset the growth of Hapsburg power, but among the Frenchman’s most valuable spies was a man whose only political objective was to keep England free of foreign domination: the Surrey gentleman Sir John Leigh. Leigh was on the closest terms with Rochester, Walgrave, Englefield and a fourth member of Gardiner’s faction, Sir Richard Southwell. Through Leigh Noailles could trace the progress of the marriage negotiations during December and January, and was able to plan with greater accuracy how he would undermine the entire project as the new year began.8
The treachery of these volatile opponents of Mary’s rule had not retarded the course of the marriage negotiations, which by the end of the year had resulted in a definitive treaty. The articles called for each sovereign to enjoy title to the other’s lands, but no authority there. Philip was, however, to “assist his consort in the task of government”—a vague phrase meant to describe the indefinable but extensive influence he might be expected to exert on Mary’s policies as queen. Philip was not to attempt to appoint Spaniards to positions at court or in the government, or to depart to any extent from the “laws, privileges and customs” of the realm. If Mary died childless Philip would have no further connection with England; in the unlikely event that he predeceased her she was to enjoy a generous dower.
Apart from the guarantee that Philip would not bring England into any present or future imperial war against the French, the most important clauses in the marriage articles discussed the rights of the children that might be born to the couple. Philip already had a son, Don Carlos, who would inherit Spain and certain other continental possessions. The oldest son of Philip and Mary would inherit both England and the Low Countries, the latter being Philip’s own future inheritance from his father. If there were no son, the oldest daughter was to rule England but not the Low Countries, except on condition that she marry with Don Carlos’ consent. And if the Spanish prince should die without heirs, his lands—including the Spanish empire in the New World—would pass to Mary’s heir. In theory at least, the next sovereign to rule England could come into possession of nearly half the known world.
Given this possibility it was essential that the negotiators consider how the country would be governed in case Mary died leaving a minor heir. The emperor foresaw the possibility very clearly, but told his clerks to omit all mention of it in the treaty. He explained his reasoning in a letter to Renard. He wanted to avoid making the English suspicious, he said, and also to take advantage of the unwritten premise of the law that in the event of a wife’s death her husband became legal administrator of their children’s persons and goods.9
Philip could hardly have asked for more advantageous terms himself—if he had been consulted. But he was not consulted, and as soon as he signed the final draft of the treaty he signed another document invalidating it completely. In this appended clause he swore “by our Lord, by Saint Mary and by the Sign of the Cross” that the marriage articles were “invalid and without force to bind him.”10 In declaring himself free of his oath Philip was following a time-honored diplomatic precedent, but he was also letting his father know how much a matter of form he considered the English match to be. He would be obedient, but he did notintend to be foolhardy; he would keep the terms of the treaty only as long as they complemented his other commitments, and no longer.
Philip was being ordered about like a child. He was told to choose his retinue with care, bringing to England only gentlemen of “sufficient age” and judgment to behave themselves and not spend all their money right away. As for their servants, they should be honest and responsible, and not the kind of men to worsen the already bad reputation of Spaniards among Englishmen. Philip was given instructions about provisioning his ships and limiting the number of his soldiers, and even about being “friendly and cordial” to the English. The emperor thought it necessary to advise his son “to demonstrate much love and joy to the queen, and to do so both in public and in private” once he arrived, and to send her a ring or some other token once the betrothal was formalized.11 Sending obvious recommendations of this kind had to be either superfluous or futile. At twenty-six Philip either knew already how to provision a ship and please a bride or else he would never learn.
At the end of December four marriage commissioners delegated by the emperor from Brussels landed in England. At their head was Count Egmont, who brought with him plenty of money and jewels to distribute among the English councilors, plus ten thousand ducats for gambling expenses. “With the English, more than with any other people in the world, money has power,” Egmont wrote to Philip in Spain, and in fact Philip was already giving thought to how he would store the million gold ducats he planned to bring with him on his own journey some months hence. More money was sent to Renard to give out to people he hoped would “speak and act favorably” about the coming marriage, and to others who, without bribes, might “do harm and cause difficulties.”12 The imperial commissioners were prepared to face a few days of hard bargaining. The emperor had warned Renard that “the English usually consider prudence in negotiation to consist in raising as many objections as they can think of.” Each of the queen’s councilors would feel impelled to find at least one issue to debate—otherwise he would not be a good servant to his mistress. But before long this display of zealous disputation would give way to agreement, and the treaty would be signed with good will on both sides.
Events followed Charles V’s scenario closely. After resting for a few days near the coast the four commissioners made their way to London, arriving at Tower Wharf on January 2. They sat patiently throughout the expected flurry of objections from the English, then put their names to the marriage articles, and on January 14 and 15 Gardiner presented them to assemblies of the nobility and the citizens of London. At the bargaining table all went smoothly, but in the streets of the capital theemperor’s representatives were received with hostility. When their servants arrived on New Year’s Day boys threw snowballs at them as they rode to their lodgings, and there were no cheering crowds to welcome Egmont and his colleagues when they disembarked.
Londoners were in no mood to tolerate meddling foreigners just then. The January weather was bitterly cold, and both wood and coals were scarce and costly. To relieve the situation the mayor ordered sea coals to be sold at Billingsgate and Queen’s Hithe for fourpence the bushel, “which greatly helped till better provision might be found,” but the public temper remained sour.13 Verbal attacks on the Spaniards mounted. A gentleman was thrown into prison on January 5 for saying “that the upshot of the match would not be as the Council expected,” and in the same week signs were posted at streetcorners announcing that the man the queen hoped to marry was already the husband of the Portuguese infanta.14
But the danger that arose in the last weeks of January, 1554, came not from the people at large but from a small group of disgruntled gentlemen united—though loosely—by their opposition to the Spanish marriage and by a somewhat cloudy determination to remove Mary from the throne. The conspirators included Sir Peter Carew and Courtenay in the west, Sir James Crofts in Herefordshire, Sir Thomas Wyatt in Kent and in Leicestershire, the duke of Suffolk. Courtenay seems to have provided motivation to the group during their first meetings in November, and many believed that, from first to last, the aim of the plotters was to place Elizabeth and Courtenay jointly on the throne. But the earl was hardly one to mastermind a political coup, and in fact he did little to promote the uprising that was eventually touched off two months later. Elizabeth knew of the plot but did nothing to promote it; Noailles was brought in at the end of December, and did all he could to make it look as though the French were about to come in on the side of the conspirators in force. One bloodthirsty plotter, William Thomas, had concocted a plan to assassinate the queen, but could not persuade his colleagues to back him in this and the proposal “that the queen should have been slain as she did walk” was abandoned almost as soon as it was raised. By the time the imperial ambassadors arrived all that was definite was that there would be four simultaneous rebellions in Herefordshire, Kent, Devon and Leicestershire, set for Palm Sunday, March 18.
Mary and the Council first learned of the serious disaffection when news came in mid-January that Carew was attempting to frighten the townspeople of Exeter with stories of Spanish rapine and slaughter. Mary immediately issued a warrant for Carew’s arrest, and was sending captains and lieutenants to every county in the south to raise men at arms to prevent trouble. Carew disappeared, and his fellow conspirators, unprepared as they were, nevertheless attempted to set off the risings that had been planned for later in the year. Courtenay, interviewed by Gardiner on January 21, told all he knew, and for better or worse, the rebellion was under way.
The conspiracy might have melted away entirely at this point, but Sir Thomas Wyatt, the Kentish gentleman who later called himself “the third or fourth man” in the plot, went ahead with his sworn agreement to raise the men of Kent against the queen. He gathered his forces first at Rochester, appealing to the broadest possible segment of the population by leaving the precise aims of the revolt unclear. His supporters rode through the villages near Wyatt’s camp shouting that the Spaniards were coming “with arquebusses, morions and matchlight,” and when the invaders failed to appear Wyatt told his men that his true purpose was to improve the advice given to the queen and change her councilors. The rebel force numbered no more than four thousand men at its strongest—some estimates place Wyatt’s total following at only two thousand—but Londoners imagined it to be much larger, and Mary’s advisers, who knew of the prearranged revolts to be staged in the West Country and the Welsh Marches, feared the worst. A French spy had informed Renard that Henri II was hoping to open another front along the Scots border, and had already sent agents into England carrying white badges to be given to the English captains he expected to recruit. The rebels had been told, Renard’s informant said, that there were twenty-four French ships and eighteen infantry companies massed on the Normandy coast, ready to sail for England on a few hours’ notice.16
In the first days of the revolt the rebels had the initiative, though there were already signs that Wyatt would never succeed in stirring any but a small minority of the country population to join him. For if the rebel lieutenants were spreading fears of invasion, councilors and local officials loyal to Mary were riding through the same villages behind them, offering the queen’s pardon to all who would reconsider their adherence to Wyatt and return quietly to their homes. On January 27, market day, Sir Robert Southwell addressed the crowd at Mailing in Kent in ringing terms. “They go about to blear you with matters of Strangers,” he said,referring to the rebel persuasions, yet “he seemeth very blind, and willingly blinded, that will have his sight dimmed with such a fond mist! For if they meant to resist Strangers,” Southwell pointed out, “they would then prepare to go to the seacoasts, and not to the queen’s most royal person, with such a company of arms and weapon.” His logic was impeccable, and his appeal to the patriotism of the citizens of Mailing even more effective. When he concluded his speech with “God save Queen Mary and all her well willers!” the crowd answered with a hearty “God save Queen Mary!” and “with one voice defied Wyatt and his accomplices as arrant traitors.”17
But if the people of Malling were willing to swear they would die in defense of the queen, few of them actually joined the bands recruited to oppose Wyatt, and when the elderly duke of Norfolk led a force of men against him five hundred of the Londoners among them actually broke ranks and joined the rebels rather than fight them.
The defection of these “Whitecoats” and the failure of the stalwart old duke marked the low point in the contest with Wyatt and his men. The sight of the remnant of Norfolk’s fighting men straggling into the capital, “their coats torn, all ruined, without arrows or string in their bows,” was “heart-sore and very displeasing” to the queen, and when she turned to her councilors for advice and help she found them quarrelsome and treacherous.18 Paget and his associates blamed the chancellor for creating unrest by his intemperate religious policies; Gardiner’s faction in turn blamed Paget, Arundel and the others for backing the marriage with Philip. Renard felt certain that some of the Council members were implicated in the revolt, and the curious inactivity of the body as a whole throughout the crisis lent support to his suspicions. Mary had ordered the Council to provide her with a large bodyguard shortly after the rising began; by January 31 they still had not done so even though she received word that same day that Wyatt meant to march on London. There was virtually no one in her government whom she could trust, Mary confided to Renard; she had no army, and for the first time since the middle ages, rebels would soon be at the gates of the capital.
Watch had been kept at all the gates in London since the twenty-sixth, and when the news came that Wyatt was indeed about to march on the city every possible measure was taken for its defense. Every craft provided double its normal muster of men, all wearing the white coats that identified the forces of the queen. Men in armor stood at every entrance to the city, and great guns were set in place at the drawbridge. Wyatt was proclaimed “a traitor and rebellious,” and whoever took him was promised a landed estate, to be held by himself and his heirs in perpetuity.
With the city in such danger the Council finally began to consider thesafety of the queen, and debated whether she should retire behind the thick walls of the Tower or retreat to Windsor. Some said she ought to disguise herself and go to live among the faithful country people until the coming battle had been decided, while a few—at least one spy among them—argued that she would be safest of all across the Channel at Calais. The four imperial commissioners set her an example by leaving London on February i, fearing that “the fury of the populace” was about to fall on their heads.19 They went to take leave of Mary, and found her amazingly composed and resolute in the face of such danger. She “showed a firm spirit,” they wrote, asking as usual to be remembered to the emperor and regent and saying she would write them when she had time. Egmont and the others took the first ship they could find, and the ignominy of their departure was increased by the rudeness of the guardsmen who escorted them to the wharf. As soon as they embarked the guardsmen “behaved disrespectfully towards them, both by word and by fi
ring certain arquebus shots” in their direction. They were seasick all the way home.20
Those who thought Mary would leave London to its fate gravely misunderstood her. On the day of the commissioners’ departure she went with an escort to the Guildhall, where the citizens were assembled to try to work out a plan to resist Wyatt’s invasion. She entered the great hall and went up into the place of the hustings, where a rich cloth of estate was hung. Standing beneath it, she spoke to the people in a strong, low voice that carried to the back of the hall.
“I am come unto you in mine own person,” she said, “to tell you that which you already see and know; that is, how traitorously and rebel-liously a number of Kentishmen have assembled themselves against us and you.” She explained, in clear and direct language, that Wyatt and his followers were only pretending to oppose her forthcoming marriage, and in fact meant to attack her religion and take the government into their own hands.