Mary Tudor

by David Loades

  Meanwhile, they were a long way from London, and everyone understood that Philip’s reception there would be the first test of his kingship. On 31 July they set out from Winchester on a leisurely journey towards the capital, spending two nights at the Marquis of Winchester’s seat at Basing, and one at Reading, before reaching Windsor on 3 August. Mary discharged a certain amount of regular business during the journey, because most of her council had been present at the wedding and were accompanying her on the journey. Philip met daily with his Spanish and other Imperial councillors, not about English business but about the war and other aspects of his far-flung Continental interests. Most pressing was planning the takeover of his inheritance from his father, who was now in visibly declining health and beginning to talk of abdication.

  London was not yet ready for the royal couple. This was partly because the planned entry was very elaborate and expensive, and partly because the scaffolds bearing the victims who had suffered after the Wyatt rising had only recently been taken down. The more time that could be taken to erase that unpleasant memory, the better. At Windsor an extraordinary chapter of the Order of the Garter was held, and the king was duly installed. On 11 August the royal couple moved on to Richmond, and it was while they were there that the news arrived that the French were besieging Renty. This gave Philip the pretext to get rid of most of his disgruntled followers, and it was at this point that over eighty of them departed.[240] Then, London having declared itself prepared, on the 17th the royal couple moved to Suffolk Place in Southwark, ready to make a ceremonial entry on the following day.

  8

  A WOMAN’S PROBLEMS

  Warmly as they had welcomed her, the English were not acclimatised to the notion of a woman on the throne. As Judith Richards pointed out a few years ago, their imagination did not extend much beyond virgins and amazons.[241] As long as Mary was unmarried, they could in a sense ‘identify’ her, because virginity conferred power as well as legal status. However, once she was wedded and bedded all that changed. This had nothing to do with the law, constitutional or otherwise, but was a question of image or perception. On the one hand, there was a feeling that England was now in a sense subject to Spain, and that was deeply unpopular. But on the other hand, their beloved queen had now found a mate who would please her and give her children (the true destiny of all women). Philip was well received by the crowds who lined the roads outside Winchester Cathedral for precisely that reason.[242] At the same time there was a feeling, particularly among the aristocracy, that government was man’s work, and some were prepared to welcome Philip for no other reason than that he was male and would restore a semblance of the divine order. Many nobles still saw their service to the crown principally in military terms, and were much happier with a monarch who could lead them into battle – to say nothing of providing gainful employment in his international armies. There were therefore from the start those who were temperamentally disposed to be ‘the king’s men’, both within the council and among the aristocracy at large.[243] It remained to be seen what Philip would do about this.

  At first, in spite of the problems over his household and the recalcitrant mutterings of some of his followers, the public image was positive. On 18 August 1554, at two o’clock in the afternoon, the royal couple crossed London Bridge and processed through the City to Whitehall. Official London did its best to erase the memory of Wyatt with six or seven splendid set-piece pageants, starting with the figures of Corineus Brittanus and Gogmagog Albionus on the bridge itself. These pageants had been long in preparation (hence the delay) and must have been vastly expensive, but unlike those that had greeted the last Spanish royal visitor, Catherine of Aragon, in 1501, they were not particularly original or imaginative.[244] They were aimed rather obviously at the king: one of them concerned his descent from John of Gaunt, while others depicted the virtues of various historical and mythological Philips. Their captions were displayed only in Latin, which was probably a sensible compromise, but raises the suspicion that the City fathers did not want ordinary people to understand the extent of their flattery:

  Unica Caesareae stirpis spes inclite princeps

  Cui Deus imperium totius destinat orbis

  Gratus et optatus nostras accedes ad oras ...

  Te tamen in primis urbs Londoniensis honorat,

  Incolumenque suum gaudet venisse Pbilippum …

  [O noble Prince, sole hope of Caesar’s side,

  By God appointed all the world to guide,

  Most heartily welcome art thou to our land …

  But chiefly London doth her love vouchsafe,

  Rejoicing that her Philip is come safe …][245]

  Philip later declared that he had been received with universal joy, which would no doubt have been a great relief to the aldermen, but in fact within two days of the entry the pageants were being vandalised and had to be taken down.

  Hostility and mutual suspicion between the two nations were endemic, and neither was solely responsible. Even poor Simon Renard, the Imperial ambassador, was blamed by Ruy Gomez for the confusion over the households, for no better reason (apparently) than that he was not a Spaniard.[246] The real responsibility probably lay with Gomez himself. Just before the court entered London, it was reported that two noble Spanish ladies had not been received by the queen, ‘and are not going to see her, for they have not joined the court because they would have no one to talk to, as the English ladies are of evil conversation’. Nor, of course, did they speak Spanish.[247] If the court was a simmering cauldron of hatred, controlled with difficulty by the joint commission, its environs were much worse. Innkeepers refused to accommodate Spaniards, or hurled abuse at them. Clergy, and especially the friars, were felt to be particularly vulnerable to anti-Spanish sentiment, ‘for the English are so bad, and fear God so little, that they handle the friars shamefully, and the poor men do not dare to leave their quarters’. Most of the evidence for this animosity comes from the Spanish side, and may have been partly a nervous overreaction to the boisterousness and curiosity of a people whose tongue they did not understand. Some Englishmen were punished for robbery, assault and murder committed upon the visitors, but equally some Spaniards were punished for similar crimes against their hosts.[248] What seems clear is that the two nations were predisposed to fear and dislike each other before they ever came together, and that actual contact only made the situation worse.

  Mary was said to be particularly distressed by this situation, and Philip was clearly irritated by it, but of any more specific reaction there is no sign. The fact that Simon Renard is one of the prime sources for these stories of hatred should make us cautious about taking them all at face value. Philip neither liked nor trusted him, and his confidential relationship with Mary had come to an abrupt end. He was soon complaining bitterly of his lot, and begging for recall, so his view of the political situation in September 1554 is nothing if not jaundiced:

  They loudly proclaim that they are going to be enslaved, for the Queen is a Spanish woman at heart, and thinks nothing of Englishmen, but only of Spaniards and bishops.

  No doubt such words were being spoken on the streets, but they were not necessarily of much significance. Philip was unfazed by the hostile clamour – if he ever heard it – and got on with the business of building himself a position in England. On 23 August he issued patents conferring pensions upon twentyone noblemen and councillors. These were drawn on his own revenues, and varied in amount from £75 a year to £500. Paget received £375, one of the highest awards, and the lord chancellor nothing – in marked contrast with their relative positions in the queen’s favour at that point.[249]

  Philip’s personal relations with his wife appear to have been excellent, and it was not long before she was speaking rather coyly about being pregnant, but whether he could exploit that relationship so that he would acquire real political authority remained to be seen. Although the situation in the Netherlands had improved from the Spanish point of view, and there was no prospect of Phil
ip being peremptorily summoned to join his father, he continued to be deeply interested in Imperial business, and daily concerned with it. For this purpose he had his own councillors, who were entirely distinct from the English council. He met regularly with the latter (or with some members of it), conferring in Latin, but since it was not the custom in England for the monarch to attend normal council meetings, it is unlikely that he attempted to do so. His ‘Spanish council’ was quite different, because he always attended and the business was conducted in that language. It must have been these meetings to which the Duke of Alba was referring when he declared that ‘all public business is transacted in Castilian’. Alba’s report makes it appear that he was referring to the privy council proper, but that would have been impossible since no English councillor spoke much Spanish.[250]

  Philip’s councillors and remaining courtiers were distressed by this situation, and by the king’s general detachment from English affairs. He had not even been crowned, and the terms of the marriage treaty prevented him from conferring English offices upon any of them. Some of them were even trying to persuade him to withdraw until he could either force or persuade the English to show him more respect. What galled them most was the fact that he had been given no English resources, and this remains something of a puzzle. The consort of a king would have received a substantial estate – equivalent at least to that of a major peer – and all Henry’s queens had been so endowed. But Philip received nothing. Perhaps Mary was persuaded to withhold this favour on the grounds that Philip had plenty of resources already, but the suspicion must remain that it was done deliberately to make sure that he had no independent English patronage. If the king himself felt slighted by this omission, he gave no sign of it. What bothered him, it later transpired, was the absence of an English coronation.

  Meanwhile, Philip had two main preoccupations in his new kingdom – to keep Mary happy and to put the Church to rights. At this stage the former appeared to be the more straightforward: for the first, and probably the only, time in her life, during these months Mary was at peace with the world. ‘The king and queen’s majesties be in health and merry’ ran a report from the court on 12 October, ‘they danced together on Sunday night at the court. There was a brave maskery …’ The revels office had been stirred out of the torpor induced by Mary’s indifference by Philip’s arrival.[251] Philip knew that a brave show was required, and this is an early example of his impact. The queen was full of gratitude, both to her husband and to his father. ‘This marriage and alliance,’ she wrote to the latter, ‘renders me happier than I can say, as I daily discover in the king my husband and your son, so many virtues and perfections that I constantly pray God to give me grace to please him.’[252]

  Some of this happiness even rubbed off on the queen’s subjects, jaundiced as they were by the sight of Spaniards on the streets of London, with their strange garb and incomprehensible speech. The rumours of Mary’s pregnancy, which were widespread by November, awakened a warm response in many – somewhat paradoxically, as any child born to them would be three-quarters Spanish by blood. Whether this reaction was motivated by human empathy or the prospect of a secure succession, we do not know, but the observant Ruy Gomez noticed it, and took it for a good sign: ‘If it is true,’ he wrote, ‘everything will calm down.’ The loyal ballad mongers were also busy:

  Now sing, now spring, our care is exiled,

  Our gracious Queen is quickened with child …[253]

  It was a time of hope for everyone, except the beleaguered Protestants, who, with their services outlawed and most of their leaders in prison, now seemed to be deprived of the prospect of any long-term future.

  That had, of course, been Mary’s intention from the beginning, but it was only with Philip’s arrival that the Emperor’s opposition was withdrawn and the process of ecclesiastical restoration could begin in earnest. Discussions held during August and September had convinced Philip that it would be a mistake to allow Reginald Pole into the country with the brief that he then possessed. The king knew enough about Cardinal Pole’s view of the English situation to realise that unless he were specifically instructed to do so, he would not make the concessions necessary to satisfy those whom he significantly termed ‘the possessioners’ (i.e. those now in possession of former monastic land). In Pole’s opinion, such people were simply occupying stolen property, to the peril of their immortal souls.[254] Philip, however, appreciated that they had paid a fair market price for land to which they believed the king had a perfectly good title. He had himself some experience of extracting land from a reluctant Church, and also wanted the political support of the English aristocracy – so the last thing he needed was Pole’s conscientious inflexibility. If the cardinal was given any discretion in the matter he would not negotiate, and as Philip suspected (with good cause) that Mary was of the same mind, he decided to take the matter in hand himself. He was in an excellent position to do so, because Charles was now willing to allow him to deploy the full weight of Habsburg influence in the curia. On 12 October he wrote to Francisco Eraso, the Emperor’s secretary, saying that he had decided to make direct representations to the pope, and at the same time he sent Simon Renard to the Low Countries to exercise his persuasive skills upon the cardinal.[255] This had the double advantage of giving Renard a task well suited to his aptitudes, and getting him out from under the king’s feet. For some time the ambassador’s querulous flow was stemmed while he addressed himself to his new task.

  By the end of October Renard had so far succeeded that Pole had agreed to surrender into the king’s hands the discretion allowed him in his existing brief – provided that the pope agreed. Philip was confident enough of his own influence in Rome to accept this as sufficient for the time being. A Parliament had been called for 12 November, and could not be put off without great inconvenience. In this Parliament the issue of ecclesiastical jurisdiction would have to be addressed. Early in November word was received from Rome that a new and more specific brief would be issued to Pole, but there was no chance of it arriving before the Parliament opened. So Philip had to proceed on the basis of what he had already achieved, ‘feeling sure that the Holy Father would ratify and approve my course, and indeed be very glad that I had adopted it’.[256] For the first (and only) time Philip accompanied Mary to the state opening, and a prayer for the pope was inserted among the religious formalities.

  The cardinal’s presence was now required, but there remained the small matter of an outstanding attainder for high treason against him. Philip, having consulted his advisers and theologians, decided to gamble. On 3 November the privy council invited Pole to return to England, in his formal capacity as papal legate, and as he made his way home with studied and ceremonial deliberation, the repeal of his attainder was rushed through all its stages. The process was completed by 22 November, when the king and queen took the most unusual step of going to the Parliament in person and in mid-session to give the royal assent.[257] Two days later the cardinal arrived by river at Westminster (thus ducking the issue of passing through London) and greeted the queen with the words of the ‘Hail Mary’. It was an emotional moment, and she claimed, quite mistakenly, that the child in her womb had quickened in response. Pole took up residence at Lambeth Palace, untenanted since the imprisonment of Cranmer over a year before, and prepared to address himself to the arduous task of reconciliation. On the 28th he addressed both Houses of Parliament, his eloquence giving no hint of the reservations that he must have felt: ‘My commission,’ he declared, ‘is not of prejudice to any person. I come not to destroy but to build. I come to reconcile, not to condemn. I come not to compel but to call again.’[258] The past, he went on, would be ‘cast into the sea of forgetfulness’. He praised Mary, Philip and the Emperor in fulsome terms, likening the latter to David, who had been unable to build the Temple at Jerusalem but had been constrained to leave the task to his son Solomon. Two days later, on 30 November, Parliament presented a petition, in the name of both Houses, to the king
and queen ‘as persons unspotted by heresy or schism’ to intercede with the papal legate for absolution and reconciliation. Pole pronounced his blessing, and the assembled company ‘cried with one voice, Amen’.[259]

  Tears of joy, we are told, flowed copiously. But of course in legal terms the process had only just begun, and on 4 December a committee was established to draft a bill that would have the effect of repealing all those acts by which the royal supremacy had been established. The committee was also briefed to safeguard the rights of the property holders. All this had been very much Philip’s doing. Apart from taking her place in all the proper formalities, Mary hardly appears in these negotiations at all, and when she wrote to the Emperor on 7 December, informing him of the joy and enthusiasm with which her subjects had embraced the True Church, she rightly attributed this success ‘largely … to the wise guidance of my said Lord’.[260]