Mary Tudor: The First Queen

by Linda Porter

  So women played a major part in Mary’s daily life as queen and she presided over this female world with a mixture of dependence and majesty. She could be almost embarrassing with her generosity but she expected loyalty and she defined what that loyalty meant.Views that ran counter to her own were not welcome. This was equally true of the wider household and the ceremonial posts, where men still dominated. Mary rewarded those who had put her on the throne, but her relationship with them was now on a different footing. Sir Edward Hastings, whose part in raising the Thames Valley to support her was so vital to her success, was made master-of-horse and the post was effectively upgraded, being answerable now directly to the queen herself. The earl of Arundel became great master and lord steward of the household, posts previously held by his arch-enemy, Northumberland. But despite his work in pushing the remnants of the council of Lady Jane Grey towards Mary, he was never close to the queen and soon became suspected of angling to marry his son to Elizabeth, which did not endear him. The earl of Oxford was given the revived, purely ceremonial post of Lord Great Chamberlain in recognition of his crucial conversion to Mary’s claim. The posts of Lord Chamberlain and Vice Chamberlain, which carried more clout, went to Sir John Gage and Henry Jerningham respectively. Gage was nearly 80 years old and a long-standing servant of the crown. Jerningham, of course, was part of the East Anglian affinity. Sir Thomas Cheyney, the treasurer, was the only Edwardian household officer at this senior level to survive, and he was a Catholic.

  The faithful, resourceful Robert Rochester was named comptroller of the queen’s household, a post he had filled in the much more confined sphere of her establishment during Edward VI’s reign. He was appointed Knight of the Bath just before her coronation. His rewards seem only just in view of what he had done for Mary, but his star was already beginning to wane and his relationship with the queen would become one of the most notable, and sad, casualties of the arguments already beginning about her marriage.

  The two other members of the trio who had suffered confinement in the Tower for their mistress shared Rochester’s devotion to her and his yearning for an English marriage.Waldegrave joined his wife in the royal household, as Keeper of the Great Wardrobe. Sir Francis Englefield had to wait longer, until the spring of 1554, before he received the office of Master of the Court of Wards and Liveries. He served Mary in Parliament, as a privy councillor and on various commissions, but, like Rochester and Waldegrave, his standing with her was never the same as it had been before she came to the throne. Mary expected unquestioning support in her household staff and when their opinions did not align with hers, a coolness developed that could not be overcome.This did not necessarily mean that their influence was gone altogether and, as personal conduits to the queen, Rochester and others were the recipients of many letters from people seeking favours, such as better treatment for prisoners. They did not, however, retain a significant role in policy-making at national level. Mary was, with the notable exception of her dealings with Archbishop Cranmer, less vengeful than her father, but she was the daughter of Henry VIII.

  The establishment of a household was a pressing consideration before the coronation, but Mary had many other concerns. Her interests in education and culture and their wider impact on English life were very evident. One of her concerns was declining standards at the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, where Edward VI’s visitations had imposed the new religious statutes but bitterly divided the academic community. Mary wanted an end to the subversion of the ancient statutes and ordinances of the university, which had, she wrote, led to ‘youth loosely and insolently brought up’. Order was to be restored as quickly as possible and Stephen Gardiner, as chancellor of Cambridge, was instructed to implement her wish that ‘the example may begin in our universities where young men and students joining godly conversation with their studies, may by their doings and preachings instruct the rest of our subjects in the knowledge and fear of God, in their obedience to our laws and all their other superiors and in their charitable demeanour’.28

  The situation at Oxford was equally bad, and Mary provided financial support that had dried up during her brother’s time. By the summer of 1554, it had borne good fruit, as Sir John Mason, the chancellor of Oxford, acknowledged:Many are supported by your help and gifts. We do not ask that you bestow anything on us, but that you accept the thanks we owe. Lately, when the study of letters was neglected, virtually extinct … some were compelled to forsake their studies, others were seized by the moment and no order was evident for a long time. With matters restored and prosperity, ancient learning and our forefathers’ virtue recovered.You alone deemed it worthy to look after your Oxonians, and in hopeless times strove to preserve and increase our fortunes.

  He went on to make the direct correlation between Renaissance humanist Catholicism and good learning:‘You direct your gifts that the worship of God and the authority of letters be increased. This is not commonplace; men were accustomed to look to religion, and only those educated in the arts encouraged learning - your majesty does both.While letters exist and these seats remain, your praises will be celebrated.’29

  While Mary encouraged a healthier climate for learning, she also looked, in these early days, to bring culture and entertainment into her court. At the end of September, orders were given to the master of the revels for new costumes and props for the Gentlemen of the Chapel Royal, who were to give a play at the coronation. This was not actually performed, perhaps because time ran out, thought it does seem to have been given later, at Christmas. Apart from this slight hitch, all the other elements of Mary’s coronation were in place by the time she left the Tower of London on 30 September, to make her state entry into London for the crowning, the high point of the first year of her rule, when she would pledge herself to God and to her people.

  By mid-September 1553, preparations were well under way in London and at court for the greatest public spectacle of Mary’s reign.The queen and Elizabeth arrived together by river at the Tower of London on 27 September, in preparation for the official entry into London on the last day of the month. They were attended by ‘the Lord Mayor and Aldermen, and all the companies in their barges, with streamers and trumpets, and waits, shawmes and regals, together with great volley shots of guns, until her Grace came into the Tower, and some time after’.30

  The coronation marked the high point of the sisters’ relationship during the reign, as Mary give Elizabeth a prominent role in the proceedings.Whatever doubts she felt were put aside over this period in a display of dynastic unity, as Mary chose to show the world that her sister, too, was the daughter of a king. On 30 September they left the Tower to go to the palace of Westminster, riding in procession through the City of London. These kinds of events were superbly handled in Tudor England and were considered the visible signs of the monarch’s magnificence and power, as well as providing the ordinary citizens with colour and excitement. There are several contemporary accounts, from English and foreign observers, describing the procession and the festivities that accompanied the occasion, which perfectly capture the richness and texture of the clothes and decorations worn: ‘First went at the head many gentlemen of the court and kingdom, all arrayed with suits of silk with beautiful linings … then barons and princes, some wearing gold, others silver and many with horses decked in the same metal … some with embroidery which caused great admiration, not more by the richness of the substance than by the novelty and elegance of the device.’

  The foreign merchants had also made sure that they were dressed for the occasion. The Italians wore ‘suits of black velvet lined, beautifully trimmed with many points of gold and garnished all around with embroidery of more than a palm in width’. Not to be outdone, four Spanish cavaliers followed,‘attired in cloaks of mulberry coloured velvet lined with cloth of silver, with a very fine fringe of gold all about’.31

  Amid all these gleaming textures, which were themselves a testament to the skill of London’s tailors, who had been working overtime for w
eeks to meet the demands of those who needed to make a public statement of their wealth and style, the queen herself stood out as the one figure to whom all eyes turned. She sat in a chariot ‘open on all sides save for the canopy, entirely covered with gold and horses trapped with gold’. She was a small but unmistakably superb figure, wearing ‘a gown of purple velvet, furred with powdered ermines, having on her head a caul of cloth of tinsel, beset with pearl and stone, and above the same upon her head a round circlet of gold, beset so richly with precious stone that the value thereof was inestimable’.32 Mary had tried to look every inch a queen, but there was one drawback. The sheer weight of the jewel-encrusted diadem caused her head to droop. She was compelled, it was reported, to hold her head up with her hands. So the impact of her otherwise queenly demeanour was considerably lessened.

  Before her rode the old duke of Norfolk and the earl of Oxford, carrying the royal sword, while the Lord Mayor of London ‘bore the sceptre of gold’. One of the four ladies, all clad in crimson velvet, who rode around the chariot was Norfolk’s long-estranged duchess, Elizabeth Howard. She was 56 and he was over 80, but age had in no way taken the bitterness out of their relationship. It seems doubtful that they exchanged many words with each other on this occasion, and when the duke died the following year he left her nothing in his will.33 The other ladies who shared Elizabeth Howard’s honour in supporting the queen during the state entry were the marchioness of Exeter, the countess of Arundel and the marchioness of Winchester.

  Immediately following were Elizabeth and Anne of Cleves, both wearing cloth of silver to match the trappings of their chariot.The only survivor of Henry VIII’s queens had lived quietly for many years but Mary kept on good terms with her and the rejected fourth wife seems to have enjoyed her return to the limelight. Elizabeth, with her graceful bearing and natural rapport with the people, no doubt savoured the moment as much as anyone, as they passed under the many triumphal arches constructed for the occasion and gazed at the entertainments along the way.

  In the space of only a few weeks, the organisers of the celebrations that surrounded the ancient ceremonial produced a marvellous series of displays and pageants, delighting the large crowds. There were dragons, giants and fountains that ran with wine, as well as choirs of children at several points along the route.The companies of foreign merchants resident in London vied to outdo each other with the ingenuity and richness of their floats. These were in the City of London and, from their descriptions, they would not have been out of place in a modern Lord Mayor’s show: ‘At Fenchurch was one pageant made by the Genovese, and there a child dressed in a girl’s apparel was borne up by two men sitting in a chair, and gave the queen a salutation.’ The Florentines, however, were determined to go one better.Their stand at Gracechurch Street was a magnificent edifice:‘… very high, on the top whereof there stood three pictures, and on the side of them, on the highest top, there stood an angel clothed in green, with trumpet in his hand, and he was made with such a device that when the trumpeter, who stood secretly in the pageant, did blow his trumpet, the angel did put his trumpet to his mouth, as though it should be he that blew the same, to the marvelling of many ignorant persons’.34

  Most impressive of all were the acrobatics of one Peter, a Dutchman, who stood on the weathercock of St Paul’s ‘holding a streamer in his hand five yards long, and waving thereof stood for some time on one foot shaking the other and then kneeled on his knees, to the great marvel of the people. He had two scaffolds under him, one above the cross, having torches and streamers set on it, and another over the ball of the cross, likewise set with streamers and torches which could not burn, the wind was so great.’ Peter was well recompensed for these daredevil stunts atop St Paul’s, being paid £16 13s 6d (nearly £4,000) by the City.35

  As Mary passed, the conduits in Cornhill and in Cheapside ran with wine, and in St Paul’s churchyard John Heywood, who had praised the beauty of the young princess Mary, sat under a vine and delivered an oration in Latin and English to mark the occasion.There was plenty to celebrate, despite the strong winds, and when the queen reached Whitehall she thanked the Lord Mayor for his pains and the City for the costs they had incurred.

  The state entry had been impressively stage-managed and was undoubtedly joyous, but Mary did not do herself justice on formal occasions, appearing to be rather stiff and detached. She seems to have regarded appearing in public as a duty rather than a pleasure, and her natural shyness meant that she lacked her sister’s easier manner. There had also been fears for her safety, perhaps overly dramatic, but she did not enjoy the same popularity in her capital as she did in East Anglia and other parts of the country. And there were other preoccupations as she considered the testing day that lay before her on 1 October. She had been exercised by a number of factors, great and small, in respect of the coronation, but the most fundamental of these was what it meant to rule.

  While still at the Tower, she had summoned her council and involved them in an unprecedented outpouring of emotion, which shows how deeply she felt about her role and also throws light on her relationship with the councillors and what she expected of them.

  Sinking on her knees before them, [she] spoke at length of her coming to the throne, of the duties of kings and queens, her intention to acquit herself of the task God had been pleased to lay on her to His greater glory and service, to the public good and all her subjects’ benefit. She had entrusted her affairs and person, she said, to them, and wished to adjure them to do their duty as they were bound by their oaths; and she appealed especially to her Lord High Chancellor [Gardiner], reminding him that he had the right of administration of justice on his conscience. Her councillors were so deeply moved that not a single one refrained from tears. No one knew how to answer, amazed as they were by this humble and lowly discourse, so unlike anything ever heard before in England, and by the queen’s great goodness and integrity.

  The cynical Renard, reporting this episode, wondered how some of these hardened political survivors, who were more accustomed to being physically assaulted by Henry VIII and tongue-lashed by Somerset and Northumberland during their conciliar service, would take Mary’s behaviour. Would they interpret it as a sign of weakness and feminine insecurity? But he did not doubt that ‘it had softened several hearts’.36

  The queen’s speech, though highly revealing of her deep and impassioned commitment, was also intended to dispel doubts and heal rifts at a sacred moment. She realised the need to bind her council to her and to each other just before the symbolic marriage with her country that she was about to make at Westminster Abbey. She may have hoped, rather than expected, that it would have a lasting effect, but her sincerity was obvious.The still-repeated view that Mary did not want to work with her councillors is not upheld by this heartfelt and very personal appeal.

  But there were other things, both great and small, that troubled her. Of these, perhaps the most awkward was her illegitimacy, which could be overturned only by Parliament. Mary was distressed at the thought that by statute law she would still be a bastard when she became an anointed queen. There had been discussions about calling Parliament before the coronation, to remove this embarrassment, but the consensus was that Parliament should not be seen to be endorsing the queen’s right to the throne, which was no proper part of its role. She was also very concerned about the morality of being crowned at a time when England was in schism, an anxiety that found its expression in a request for absolution to be given by Cardinal Pole for herself and all supporters of the old religion. Even the oil to be used for her anointing presented problems; that which had been used for her brother’s coronation was tainted by its association with the Anglican rites and the queen wanted it replaced with holy oil that was pure and uncontaminated. So she sent to the bishop of Arras in Brussels for oil from the Low Countries, but it arrived only just in time.

  Mary’s quiet introspection as the colourful procession of her state entry progressed through London reflects the behaviour of a woman w
ho did not see the need for elaborate gestures designed to please the crowd. In small groups, or at times of crisis, she could be supremely effective, but on show she was remote. She was at once the focus of attention and yet removed from it; this separate status was how she believed monarchy should be. God had chosen her to rule and do his will. This was the gift she would offer her subjects, and she was convinced that she would earn their gratitude and love by fulfilling God’s command. Calm and certain, Mary arrived by barge next morning at the old palace of Westminster, where the robing for the coronation would take place. It was a Sunday, the holiest day of the week.

  The crowning of a queen who would rule in her own right was a completely new event in England, but the religious ceremonial of the coronation itself was five hundred years old and Mary was determined to be crowned ‘according to the olde custome’, though some of the order of the service reflected changes introduced in 1547, for Edward VI’s coronation, and the same ornaments were carried.There was a blurring of distinction between the traditions for the coronations of kings regnant and queen consorts, with some reports claiming that Mary went into Westminster Abbey with her hair down, as was normal for the wives of kings.37 But she went on foot and did not ride in a litter, as her grandmother, Elizabeth of York, had done. The queen, it was reported, ‘in parliament robes of crimson velvet under a rich canopy borne by the five barons of the cinque ports’, walked in procession from Westminster Hall to the abbey.