Heretic Queen

by Susan Ronald

  Understandably, England’s Catholic professors were more than happy to answer Englefield’s call. His star recruit, Thomas Harding, had written An Answer to Master Jewell’s Challenge in response to the bishop of London’s Easter sermon at St. Paul’s Cross that year. This was the first of dozens of religious tracts intended to stir the English masses and Europe’s leaders into action against the slanderous activities of the new Anglican Church. In fact, many of Harding’s words found their way into official correspondence between Philip II and his ambassadors throughout the 1560s. These stirring words had little impact inside England, however, for Cecil ensured that “no such book written in English by the Catholic party should be received and read in England under great threat of punishment.”5 Yet before his death in 1572, Harding would prove invaluable to the Catholic cause in helping a little-known priest, Father William Allen, establish the English College at Douai in the Low Countries.

  Well aware of the development of these university seminaries, Elizabeth and her Privy Council saw that their best weapon of defense against the Catholic backlash would be a broad policy of educating both England’s children and, more significantly, its adults. It would no longer suffice for average English people to rely on their local church as the primary source of knowledge about the world, as the vicars could not always be trusted to convey the dangers that faced them from Catholic Europe. Thus Bacon’s original plan to teach the basics of reading and writing to the masses, proposed during Elizabeth’s sister’s reign, was once again considered.

  * * *

  Naturally, Philip lamented the censorship of fine Catholic sentiments in England while applauding the ban on the dissemination of heretical Protestant texts in his territories. His bitter enemy, the recently deceased pope, had had still other views on how to spread “the Word.” The pope had shown his mistrust of Philip’s motives, recognizing the Spanish king’s desire to dominate in nearly every sphere, just like his father. In fact, while Philip’s father, Charles V, still ruled the Holy Roman Empire as well as Spain and her colonies, Cardinal Carafa—as the pope was then known—had been feared by even the most highly regarded of Catholic ministers. Ignatius Loyola, founder of the Jesuits, had fallen out with Carafa when the cardinal was the Inquisitor of Venice. “Every bone in my body trembles,” Loyola avowed, “at the news of Carafa’s election [as pope].” Carafa was so fierce an opponent of any who stood in his way that it was widely rumored “sparks flew from beneath his feet as he walked.”6

  It is little wonder that Philip vowed not to leave anything to chance on Carafa’s death in August 1559. While pope, Paul had blocked Philip’s reconvening the Council of Trent, abandoned since 1545, for fear that if such a council were geographically remote from Rome, papal authority would be usurped by secular voices—meaning Philip’s. The pope’s solution for the reunification of the church was to set up a reform commission of sixty bishops under direct papal authority. This would have the effect of isolating Philip from any decisions regarding the Catholic Church. Paul’s sudden death therefore proved a godsend to the Spanish king. Under cover of the violent outbursts that erupted in Rome with the pontiff’s demise, Philip began to weave his magic. Through bribery, blackmail, and coercion the Spanish ambassador let the conclave know that if it wanted cooperation with the breadbasket of Rome—meaning Philip’s kingdom of Naples—as well as Spain’s protection from the Ottoman Turk in the Mediterranean, there would be a significant price to pay. Only those cardinals whose names appeared on Philip’s approved list could be put forward for election as pontiff.7

  With little pretense of resistance, the conclave accepted the Spanish king’s terms. It was into this brave new world that Gian Angelo de’ Medici was elected and took the name Pius IV. In the absence of a papal nuncio to England and the exchange of an English ambassador to Rome, Elizabeth could only look on, hope for good intelligence, and pray for wisdom in keeping Philip as her friend, when in fact she suspected he was her most intransigent enemy.

  Though Pius was acceptable to Philip, he was nonetheless something of a throwback to a bygone era. He would be one of the last popes to acknowledge paternity of his children and felt that what he lacked in common sense and diplomacy he could make up for in bluster. His Italian power base was due, in large part, to the fabulously wealthy Farnese family, but he longed to show his worth in the international arena. If it meant that he must toe the line—for a little while—and accede to Philip’s wishes to become the favored candidate for the papacy, then so be it. After all, a pope who could be sympathetic to the Spanish king was a thing of considerable value, and Pius IV knew it.

  Philip’s own brand of messianic imperialism was just beginning to flower. Soon he would be known as “holier than the pope.” In a few years he would preach to the Holy Roman Emperor that “to believe that a passion as great as the one which surrounds the choice of religion … can be settled by gentleness and concessions, or by other means that avoid firmness and punishment, is to be greatly deceived.”8 The Catholic faith, and its sustained influence in the world, was at the heart of all that Philip held dear. Catholicism and conquest, or perhaps conquest for Roman Catholicism, became the main driver for his own forty-three-year rule.

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  Notwithstanding this, the Protestant Elizabeth represented a very useful counterfoil to French influence on the Continent and, of course, in Scotland. If Philip had to bend his short-term view of the English and Scottish Protestant threat to contain the imperialistic inclinations of France’s king and queen, not to mention Mary’s Guise uncles, then he would.9 While Philip’s Spain only experienced six months without war in his long rule, he had resolved on a diplomatic solution to masterminding the changing, and at times unknown, forces in Europe at the end of 1559. After all, he was marrying the young and pliable Elisabeth of France, the fourteen-year-old daughter of Catherine de’ Medici and sister of Francis II. By keeping on good terms with France and Elizabeth of England, he could at a stroke neutralize Mary Queen of Scots and France and placate his increasingly hostile Protestant subjects in the Low Countries.

  That was a longer-term strategy, though. In the autumn of 1559, Philip needed to turn his attention to the papacy and the Italian peninsula. A “General Visitation” of his three Italian possessions was ordered, cataloging, mapping, and capturing on canvas all that he owned, while the cardinals continued to bicker over who would be the next pope able to satisfy the Spanish king’s commands.

  Feeling the force of Philip’s power in neighboring Naples could only serve to remind the conclave that Spain had long held a unique position within the Roman Catholic world. When Charles V (Philip’s father) had been king of Spain, his boyhood tutor had become Pope Adrian VI. In thanks for his advancement, purchased dearly by Charles, of course, Adrian had granted Spanish kings from 1523 the right to appoint all bishoprics within his realms.10 The arrangement had been reached on the understanding that it would avoid corruption within the church and eliminate half the bribery for offices. In a final grab for power from the church, Charles V had also agreed with the pope that the king of Spain could scrutinize any papal bull in advance of its publication in perpetuity, ostensibly to avoid the embarrassment to both parties should these documents contradict the laws and customs of Spain. This would become a crucial concession within the first twelve years of Elizabeth’s rule.

  Still, for all his unbridled inherited power, Philip respected the office of the papacy, after his own personal fashion. This was best manifested through his use of religious monies collected. The subsido, or subsidy, came from rents of church lands and buildings or any other form of income enjoyed by the Spanish clergy—all of whom had been appointed by the Spanish king, and not the pope.11 The cruzada was an agreed form of taxation on the church and its revenues conceded to Ferdinand and Isabella in the late fifteenth century in their crusade that drove the Moors—and the Jews—from Spain.12

  Though seen as a “national” levy, it was the cruzada that effectively held the greatest
sway Philip wielded with the papacy—as well as with his uncle Ferdinand, Holy Roman Emperor. While many Moors had been driven from Spain, and the Inquisition continued to ensure la limpia de sangre, or “the purity of blood,” of the Spanish people, the threat of the Ottoman Turk remained a clear and present danger in the Mediterranean and held the awesome menace of knocking on the gates of Vienna itself. It was the Ottoman threat that gave Philip his real leverage with Rome. A crusade against “infidels” slowly became an all-inclusive blunt instrument used by both the papacy and Spain for the next forty years against all breakaway sects of Christianity in addition to Jews, Moors, and Ottoman Turks. This naturally included the English church. Of all the Catholic heads of state, only Philip held the power to engage in this “crusade” militarily on a massive scale. So whatever opposition Rome, or for that matter any other country, voiced against Philip, the might of Spain remained in high demand by the Vatican.13

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  Nowhere is this uneasy relationship as obvious as in the early days in the proposed reconvening of the Council of Trent for the reformation of the Roman Catholic Church. The newly elected Pius IV believed that any such council, if held outside of Rome, must reopen all issues on reformation in order to attract the breakaway Christian “sects” back to the Roman Catholic fold. Philip disagreed. For him, any new council must only be a continuation of the one adjourned in 1545, during which it had been decided to take a hard line with any country that did not recognize the supremacy of Rome and the Catholic faith. Pius IV, for all his good intentions to remain independent, would soon realize that despite being head of the Church of Rome, he would need to placate the Spanish king.

  Their first crossing of swords occurred on May 4, 1560, over the choice and timing to send a papal representative to Queen Elizabeth. Pius, who had only been in the job for five months, decided in clear defiance of Philip’s wishes to appoint a nuncio to invite the queen of England to a completely new Council of Trent. Outraged, the cardinal archbishop of Milan (who had hoped to be elected pope himself) wrote to the papal nuncio in Spain that

  you must know that the Pope has resolved to send a nuncio to the Queen of England, to try to bring her back to the bosom of the Church and the obedience of the Holy See; for the garboils [tumult or confusion] in which the Queen at present finds herself afford him hope that the enterprise may be honored by success. For this purpose, his Holiness has selected Abbot Parpaglia, whom he has already furnished with money for the journey … His instructions are to travel through France, and do all … to procure from their Majesties all such assistance as he may deem most serviceable in the affair.14

  Abbot Parpaglia did in fact travel through France to the Low Countries to advise Margaret of Parma, Philip’s half sister and governess of the Spanish Netherlands, of his mission. When the pope called in Spain’s ambassador, Francisco de Vargas, to make him aware as well, the obvious but undesirable result occurred. While Pius continued his diplomatic conciliatory efforts with Elizabeth, Vargas brewed his own brand of poison by letter to Philip. Within two weeks of the pope’s initial decision to send Parpaglia to England, two papal newsletters declared “it is not yet decided who is to go to England in place of the Abbot … who some think, may after all be sent, as the Pope does not consider the objections of Vargas sufficient for his unfitness for the mission.”15 By June 29, such was the power of the Spanish king that all had been resolved to Philip’s satisfaction. “As to Abbot Parpaglia, the Pope has taken his Majesty’s observations in good part,” the missive begins, “and has forthwith sent word to the Abbot that, if he have [sic] not already crossed to England, he must await further orders; and if he have [sic] … he is to enter upon no negotiation without the participation, consent and approval of his Catholic Majesty’s ambassador in that kingdom.”16

  It is little wonder that Elizabeth and her councillors remained ever vigilant of Philip’s actions and seemed, at the very least, to give the appearance of cooperating with him whenever they could without compromising England’s position at home or abroad.

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  Yet France remained England’s main preoccupation. With thirty-five thousand French troops on the borders of Scotland and the Protestant Lords of the Congregation in open revolt against Mary of Guise, Elizabeth was urged to act rather than seek a diplomatic solution. Time had finally run out. The Scots had sent the young William Maitland of Lethington, secretary of Scotland, to meet with Cecil as they acknowledged “how far everyone of them is bound to him [Cecil] for the great favours shown in the furtherance of this their common cause which they have in hands, as also some of them in particular for the benefits received at his hands.”17

  The same day, Cecil received a missive from his envoys that the Scots Lords were at Linlithgow, vowing to “retain their soldiers in wages, and to levy more men to be revenged on the French. It is like they will send for money from the writers [Sadler and Croftes] which they think not good to deny them, and yet would thereupon know the Queen’s pleasure.”18

  What could Elizabeth do? The only thing standing between England and a French invasion from Scotland was the Protestant Lords of the Congregation. Elizabeth had written to the Scots to remain in “quietness” a week earlier, but news on November 10 also told of more skirmishes and even greater preparations for war. Mary of Guise had taken up residence at Edinburgh Castle and wrote to Elizabeth reminding her “of a former letter requesting that no aid should be afforded to the subjects of Scotland” as they were rebellious, which hinted that she knew Elizabeth had provided them with money.19

  Not only had Mary Stuart and her husband, Francis II, quartered the arms of England, but their Guise family advisers in France had sent a dangerous number of French mercenaries to Elizabeth’s northern borders ostensibly to quell the Scottish Protestant Lords of the Congregation. To boot, it was costing her a fortune to defend England’s borders with her army at Berwick. She had been queen for just over a year and was again facing the same enemy with whom she had made peace only nine months earlier. The relationship with France could, at best, be described as an uneasy truce.

  By the end of November, Elizabeth had maneuvered enough behind the scenes to write boldly to Mary of Guise that “respecting the conservation of amity between the two realms … she thinks … her doings shall be always constant and agreeable … For her mind to peace, she affirms that she is as well inclined to keep it as she ever was, and will be most sorry to see any occasion given her by the Dowager to the contrary.”20

  On receipt of Elizabeth’s provocative letter, Mary of Guise, awaiting overdue succor from her brothers in France, made for Edinburgh’s port of Leith. Meanwhile, the court of Francis and Mary traveled to Blois for their first resplendent Christmas as king and queen of France. The queen mother, Catherine de’ Medici, was on her way to the Spanish border, accompanying her young dark-eyed daughter Elisabeth to meet her groom, Philip of Spain. Elizabeth’s general, the Duke of Norfolk, readied the Army of the North for battle against the French at Berwick. Unsurprisingly, all the while, Elizabeth fumed in London about the senselessness and expense of war.

  No one, not even the Duke of Norfolk as commander, had been prepared for the first English stealth naval attack. His instructions to William Winter, a colorful rapscallion adventurer who would later be knighted for his derring-do, were clear: “He [Winter] shall aid the Queen’s said friends and annoy their enemies, specially the French, without giving any desperate adventure; and this he must seem to do of his own head as if he had no commission of the Queen or of the Duke of Norfolk.”21

  Winter’s tactics on the icy December seas were a masterstroke of seamanship. He drove back the French ships filled to the gunnels with victuals and soldiers all the way to the Spanish Netherlands for shelter. As the French crew and soldiers clambered ashore, they were robbed by waiting pirates. By New Year’s Day 1560, Winter had sailed into the Firth of Forth at Leith, cutting off the French army at Fife. The French abandoned their weapons, many fleeing for their liv
es.

  This left Mary of Guise bereft of reinforcements and victuals. She was fighting two enemies—her own people and the English—and had been denied relief from her brothers and daughter in France. Posturing against international criticism, Elizabeth set about justifying herself to both Spain and France for her preemptive strike against the Scots regent. To Philip, she sent an ambassador to Margaret of Parma in the Low Countries. Margaret feigned not to understand what all the fuss was about. After all, hadn’t Elizabeth continued to bear the title of queen of France, defunct for over a century? What did it matter if Mary called herself queen of England? Where Margaret was perspicacious was in her assessment of the queen regent’s plight: She had “no garrisons, no money, no troops.” Furthermore, though Elizabeth had now written to Philip asking him to remain neutral, it was England’s queen who had begun hostilities without having previously written to let him know her intentions. Nonetheless, Margaret reasoned, it might be best to tell the French that they would make Philip “jealous” if they occupied England.22

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  Incredibly, by the time Philip had received Margaret’s letter, the dour Spanish king was utterly besotted by his new bride, declaring his complete happiness at long last. Yet unbeknown to Philip, Elizabeth, or Margaret of Parma, the teenaged femme fatale was receiving weekly instructions from her mother. Catherine de’ Medici hoped to transform Spanish foreign policy in France’s favor and one day oust her daughter-in-law’s Guise uncles from their preeminent position behind the throne. Philip did promise to protect France, yet events would soon outpace any action Philip might have wished to take.