Bloody Mary

by Carolly Erickson

  Mary was at the center of all these preparations, just as she was, after Gardiner, at the center of political affairs. The administrative routine that had kept her busy from dawn until midnight in the early months of her reign had expanded, leaving her less time than ever to devote to the exceptional issues that seemed to arise more and more frequently. Among these exceptional matters was a fresh legal dispute about the effect of the marriage on the succession. Two lawyers came forward—prompted, Renard thought, by partisans of Elizabeth—to say that under English law, once Philip married the queen the entirety of her regal authority passed to him. Even if Mary had a son, they claimed, her throne would not pass to him but would continue to belong to her husband.14 Fortunately for Mary, this legal position was not taken up by others in the judiciary, though her Council did debate the question of whether the queen’s name or her husband’s should take precedence in public documents, and this issue was decided in Philip’s favor.15

  What weighed most heavily on Mary in the spring of 1554 was theever-worsening rift in her Council. She had hoped to improve its efficiency and reduce the time wasted in personal disputes among the Council members by creating an “inner Council” of six advisers, but the chancellor and his adherents complained so bitterly over this that they generated new conflict. The most troublesome councilor was Paget, whose animosity to Gardiner now mushroomed into an obsession. He did everything possible to disrupt the chancellor’s policies, shouting him down at the Council table, organizing opposition to his proposals in Parliament and using his influence to dissuade the lords from supporting his bills. He angered Mary so thoroughly that when he came to her and asked to be excused from court for a few days she surprised him with a brusque and cutting recitation of his “acts of inconstancy,” adding that since he had fallen so far short of her expectations he “might come and go as he pleased” from then on. She stopped just short of dismissing him from the government—which would hardly have been wise—but she succeeded in distressing him to the point of tears. Paget managed to mumble his excuses and left her, though after a few days in the country he was back at court again and was fast resuming his former intrigues.

  Gardiner, who could not stress often enough to Mary that Paget and his supporters were “heretics” and not followers of the true faith, urged her to send him to the Tower, along with his colleague the earl of Arundel, who was said to be fortifying one of his castles near the coast and raising a force of mounted men without authorization. Paget in turn accused the chancellor of being a “man of blood,” a religious fanatic whose clumsy efforts to crush the Protestants were likely to overturn the government itself. “The split in the Council is so enormous and public, and the members so hostile to one another,” Renard wrote, “that they forget the queen’s service in their anxiety to wreak vengeance, and no business is transacted except on definite orders from the queen.” The tension was so pervasive that Renard expected fists to fly at any moment, and he dreaded what might happen once Philip came.18 Certainly the Council did little to help Mary with the work of government, and it was the queen and not her officials who brought her second session of Parliament to a successful close early in May. Her speech to the members was interrupted five or six times with shouts of “God save the queen!” and as in February, her eloquence moved the lords and commons to renewed expressions of fidelity.17

  Through it all Noailles, sulking over his ill treatment and extremely displeased as he watched preparations being made to receive Philip, wrote to his master in France that Mary was nothing but a “poor love-sick woman” preoccupied with her growing passion. She was becoming impatient to be married, he wrote, and while she waited for her wedding dayshe could do nothing but “curse and accuse people” and condemn everything, including the weather.

  Other accounts, though, showed Mary in quite a different light. She had a great deal on her mind, but there were moments when she could relax and allow herself to think only of her happiness to come. One night after dinner Admiral William Howard, a bluff and garrulous man whose heavy playfulness sometimes got him into trouble, came up to Mary and, “seeing her wrapt in thought,” said something to her in a low voice, then turned to Renard, who happened to be present, and asked him if he wanted to know what he had just said. Mary tried to stop Howard from repeating it, smiling and embarrassed, but he went ahead anyway, pointing to the empty chair next to the queen and saying that he wished Philip were there “to drive thought and care away.” At this Mary blushed and pretended to scold the admiral, but he said he knew well enough she wasn’t really angry, and liked his suggestion well enough. She burst out laughing then, and every courtier in the room joined her.18

  XXXVII

  O ladye deere,

  Be ye so neare

  To be knowne?

  My hart you cheere

  Your voyce to here;

  Wellcum, myne oivnel

  In June of 1554 Philip the Prudent assembled his ships, his men and his treasure for the rough sea voyage to England. Because his father had ordered him to arrive with a “minimum of display” he was taking with him only some nine thousand nobles and servants, a thousand horses and mules, and three million ducats in gold, transported in a fleet of 125 ships. Twenty of the greatest nobles of Spain would travel with him, along with their retinues and trains of servants, and—much to the discomfiture of Renard—their wives. The ambassador had warned Philip that the presence of Spanish duchesses and countesses in his company would lead to endless inconvenience and bad feeling; unlike their husbands, the Spanish noblewomen could not be counted on to keep their distaste for the English in check. But the prince would not be persuaded, although he did agree to take no unmarried women with him.

  Apart from the nobles, most of those who were to accompany Philip would not leave their ships. The majority of his retinue were soldiers who, in accordance with the terms of the marriage treaty, could come along to protect the prince at sea but could not come ashore. Once he set foot on English soil Philip would have to rely on the hundred gentlemen of his Spanish guard, conspicuous in their red and yellow liveries, and the hundred Germans whose similar liveries had silk facings “as their custom is to go bravely dressed,” plus his bodyguard of mounted archers. Renard had told him not to take any chances, advising him to disguise some of hissoldiers as servants and have them bring arquebuses ashore with them in their trunks, but he disdained to follow this precaution. For better or worse, he would place himself in the hands of the alien English, trusting his future wife to guarantee the preservation of his honor and his life.

  Charles V had put no limitation on the size of Philip’s wardrobe, and in the months before he left his capital to take ship for England the royal tailors, weavers and embroiderers of Valladolid were kept at work night and day sewing the gorgeous doublets and surcoats the prince would need when he arrived at the court of his bride to be. One of the gentlemen of his chamber wrote a flowery description of the clothes made for Philip at this time—suits of crimson velvet, gray satin, and white silk velvet, lined in satin and cloth of silver and adorned with inter-worked embroidery and precious stones and metals. One jacket was covered with twisted gold chains intertwined with silver braid, with leaves outlined in silver filigree. Gold and silver bugles adorned several of the prince’s surcoats, and his doublets were embroidered so thickly in gold thread that the colors of the cloth beneath were all but hidden. With these splendid garments Philip would wear jewels at his wrists and around his neck, and he liked to wear gold chains at his shoulders and to wind them around his hats. With the addition of his gem-studded ornamental weapons, his magnificence was complete.

  Philip’s wardrobe was more suited to a reigning king than a royal bridegroom, and in fact he had already begun to think of himself as a king, and to adopt the regal style. Writing to Mary’s councilors in England he signed himself “Philippus Rex”—a tactless presumption that would certainly have affronted them if Renard had not intervened. The ambassador quietly destroyed the prince’s le
tters before they reached their destinations and had his message to the councilors delivered orally.

  To an extent Philip’s error was pardonable. A Spaniard in Mary’s service, Antonio de Guarras, had brought him news that he had already been proclaimed king, and he was merely taking advantage of this informal promotion in status. But a more experienced statesman would never have committed such a dangerous breach of diplomatic etiquette, and the incident confirmed fears by many in the emperor’s government that Philip might disgrace himself in some way or display before the English the same hauteur that had so far made him detested in every land he had visited. The imperial ambassador in Rome wrote Philip a cautionary letter advising him to yield to the English in everything, and to be as ingratiating as possible. “For God’s sake,” he warned, “appear to be pleased.” Renard sent essentially the same advice, while the emperor, not content to trust Philip to be guided by his own better judgment, entrusted to the duke of Alva the delicate task of making certain the prince behaved himself. “For the love of God,” Charles wrote to Alva shortly before thewedding flotilla left for England, “see to it that my son behaves in the right manner; for otherwise I tell you I would rather never have taken the matter in hand.”1

  One of Philip’s worst lapses had been neglect of his future bride. He did not write to her until the middle of May, nor did he send her any jewel to commemorate the betrothal as his father told him to do. Charles himself sent Mary a handsome large diamond after the marriage articles were signed, with the warm message that he now “considered her as his own daughter,” but it was his son she wanted to hear from. Weeks passed, then months, and though Renard and the Council members received letters from the prince—some of which spoke of her in dutiful terms—the queen had none.

  Just as the issue was becoming almost scandalous an envoy arrived from Spain, bringing a letter for Mary and much else besides. The letter had been written May I I, but the envoy, the marquis de Las Navas, did not come to court until June 20, shortly before the prince was expected. The gifts Philip sent with his letter, however, more than made up for the long delay. Mary and her ladies were showered with presents of all kinds, and with pearls, diamonds, emeralds and rubies of great value. Mary received three matchless jewels of incomparable loveliness. The first was a necklace of eighteen brilliant diamonds, in a dainty setting which became her delicate proportions. The second was a huge diamond with a large pearl hanging from it, to be worn over her breast on a long gold chain. Some who saw this piece called it “the most lovely pair of gems ever seen in the world,” and it quickly became Mary’s favorite jewel. But the third gift moved her by its sentimental value. It was a precious heirloom, a great table diamond mounted in a rose in an ornate gold setting, and it had originally been given by the emperor to Philip’s mother, Isabella of Portugal. The diamond was said to be worth eighty thousand crowns, but to Mary it held a greater value; it symbolized her closer union with her mother’s family, and all they meant to her. Whether Philip knew what effect this jewel would produce or whether he was guided by Alva or some other adviser the gesture achieved its effect, and made Mary long to see the man who had so honored her and who must love her as well.2

  The English envoys who were sent to deliver the marriage contract to Philip in Spain found him very much to their liking. They met him at Santiago, where he stopped for a time on his journey from Valladolid to the coastal city of Coruña where he would embark. He was grave, dignified, and generous—he gave one of the two envoys, Lord Bedford, a piece of statuary four and a half feet high, exquisitely worked, made of solid gold. One of Philip’s gentlemen who understood English overheard one of the Englishmen say to the other “Oh! God be praised for sendingus so good a king as this!” after the marriage articles were signed, and he probably meant it.

  At Santiago Philip was joined by his eight-year-old son Don Carlos, whom the prince could not expect to see again for several years at least. They hunted together and attended a tournament, and in the evening watched “a procession of beautiful and strange inventions” by torchlight in the plaza. There were horses disguised as elephants, and pasteboard castles full of savages from the Indies. More savages carried a green temple-like structure with a maiden inside, and following these was a miniature ship, complete in every detail, flying English and Spanish flags. A grim pageant featured a girl lying in a coffin, complaining loudly that cupid had brought her to her death, followed by an artificial cupid on horseback. As the display reached the center of the plaza the cupid was pulled upward by ropes while fireworks burst from him to the crowd’s delight. The prince and his son also watched a great bullfight in the plaza which, because of one “devilish” bull which resisted death for hours, lasted all night long.3

  After several weeks at Santiago Philip said goodbye to his son and went on to Coruña, where the fleet rode at anchor and the beach was littered with stacks of provisions, tuns of wine and casks of water, animals and their fodder, and the weapons, armor and sea chests of thousands of soldiers. When the prince arrived six hundred Guipuzcoan sea warriors lined up along the edge of the sand to receive him, lances in hand, and the guns of the fleet and the nearby castle boomed out a salute. Their firing produced such smoke that “for an hour and a half neither heaven nor earth was visible.”

  The English envoys wanted the prince to travel in an English ship, but he declined; he did let them choose which of his Spanish galleys would be his flagship, however, and their choice rested on a ship so elaborately decorated it resembled “a lovely flower garden” more than a seagoing vessel. It was the Espiritu Santo, a twenty-four-oared galley upholstered from stem to stern in fine scarlet cloth. The forecastle was hung with crimson brocade painted with golden flames, and a royal standard was suspended from the mainmast, a banner thirty yards long, painted with Philip’s coat of arms. Another standard hung from the mizzenmast, while flags with the royal anus flew from the foremast and from the stays and shrouds. Alongside these stately banners were thousands of little silk pennons, attached to every inch of wood and rigging and flying gaily in the wind.

  It was this vessel that Philip and his gentlemen boarded on the afternoon of July 12, as the sailors in red and yellow liveries hung from the masts and yards and performed gymnastic tricks on the ropes. The crowd of townspeople who came to watch the departure of the prince knewthat he was sailing to England to be married, but there was no mistaking the larger diplomatic object of his marriage—to strengthen Hapsburg power at the expense of the king of France. As the prince boarded the Espiritu Santo they not only shouted out wishes for a safe voyage but “hurled defiance to the French.”4

  The fleet put out to sea in a high wind, and throughout the first night and all the next day heavy weather kept the prince and his retinue below decks. Philip was unusually susceptible to seasickness, and to make his misery as brief as possible the English envoys arranged for him to land at Plymouth instead of the officially designated port of Southampton should he need to.5 He set sail on Friday, and by Wednesday morning the English coast came into view. The sea was calmer now, and the strong current brought the Spanish ships past the Needles and into the coastal waters between Southampton and the Isle of Wight the following day, Fortunately the prince had not been ill, and was ready to receive the first of several deputations from the shore on the very day the Espiritu Santo dropped anchor three miles out in Southampton Water.

  The English admiral, Lord William Howard, was his first guest. Philip managed to contend with Howard’s bluff playfulness, but the admiral’s mocking reference to the Flemish ships as “mussel-shells” infuriated the Flemings, and he started a quarrel with the Spanish admiral as well. When Howard saw that the foreign ships had not lowered their topsails on entering English waters he shot off a gun in their direction, reminding them to do so, and his English sailors looked across the bows of their ships at the Spaniards with undisguised contempt.6

  The next day, after receiving a boatload of young lords who begged him to accept them as gentlemen
of his chamber—the eldest sons of the earls of Arundel, Derby, Shrewsbury and Pembroke, and the duke of Norfolk’s grandson—Philip went on board a royal barge to be escorted the short distance to shore. While still aboard his own ship he had been invested with the Garter, and he stepped on English soil a Garter Knight. Mary was not there to meet him—she was waiting at a country house two miles away—but she had sent him a white horse, beautifully trapped in crimson velvet ornamented with gold, to carry him to church to give thanks for his safe voyage. Sir Anthony Browne met the prince as he stepped on shore, greeting him in Latin and telling him that he had been sent to serve as his master of the horse, indicating the rich mount that stood waiting. Philip replied graciously that he could just as well walk, but Browne was insistent, lifting the prince into the saddle and kissing his stirrups in the traditional gesture of deference. Browne led Philip’s horse all the way to the church of the Holy Rood, stopping only at the gate of the town to allow the prince to solemnly receive the keys to the town from the Lord Mayor.