by Linda Porter
The queen was aware of all this, but still found it impossible to contain her emotions. In her eyes, the emperor was not a monarch besieged by a multitude of problems but a parent withholding the support that she, his daughter-in-law, desperately needed. She was filled with anxiety and dread. In September 1556 she wrote to Charles again, overwhelmed by depression and trying to justify her argument for Philip’s presence in terms of God’s will. She asked the emperorto consider the miserable plight into which this country has now fallen. I have written to the king my husband in detail on the subject and I assure your majesty that I am not moved by my personal desire for his presence, although I confess I do unspeakably long to have him here, but by my care for this kingdom. Unless he comes to remedy matters, not I only but also wiser persons than I fear that great danger will ensue for lack of a firm hand, and indeed we see it before our eyes … My desire is that his highness should be in the place where he may best serve God, and his conscience and mine be at rest.2
But the queen was projecting her own feelings on others. The council continued to govern England effectively in Philip’s absence and did not themselves petition the king for his immediate return. As it happened, Charles V almost certainly never saw Mary’s letter. He had finally set sail, for the last time, to Spain, with his sisters Mary and Eleanor.
It was understandable that Mary felt concern about the state of her country, even if she had dramatised her personal feelings.The winter of 1555/6 saw the genesis of another conspiracy against her throne. It dissolved with the coming of spring and never got close to being the armed uprising of Wyatt’s rebellion, but the nervousness of the government was palpable. Again, dissident gentlemen were found to be in cahoots with the French ambassador. Again, there was talk of invasion from France. And, most grievously of all for Mary, again there was the involvement of Elizabeth and her household. Only this time their complicity was wider and deeper. It seemed almost brazen. But virtually nothing was done about it, because Philip counselled restraint. Some of the effort this cost Mary comes across in her letter to his father.
The Dudley conspiracy, as it is generally known, had its origins among the disaffected members of the 1555 parliament.The name of Sir Henry Dudley stuck to the intrigue, but he was only one of several gentlemen who were plotting against Mary. A cousin of the duke of Northumberland, he had been vice-admiral of the English Channel and captain of the English enclave at Guisnes during his relative’s rule. All that came to an end with Mary’s accession. Dudley was briefly in the Tower of London but, though his incarceration lasted no more than three months, he was never going to be a favourite of the queen’s. Like his fellow-conspirators, Dudley was concerned about the exiles bill and its implication that lands gained from the dissolution of the monasteries might still be at risk from Mary’s desire to return Church lands to Rome. The conspirators hoped for security and further, though unspecified, rewards if they could get Elizabeth on the throne. Dudley’s father-in-law, Christopher Ashton, had gained much of his wealth in Berkshire from former monastic lands, as well as what had come to him as the last husband of Mary’s former lady-in-waiting, Lady Katherine Gordon. Ashton was a bully, much hated by his neighbours. But he thought Elizabeth a ‘jolly liberal dame’. Just what moved him to this belief in the generosity of a young woman not long out of disgrace and whose position was still perilous is unknown. Ashton himself does not seem to have been over-liberal with Dudley, who was constantly in debt. In fact, this financial embarrassment was probably a compelling motive for the younger man to seek to recoup his fortune through a treasonable venture funded by the king of France.
Like the other major figures in this far-reaching but disorganised affair, Dudley was a gentleman-soldier who had fallen on hard times. Peace was not profitable for men who lived by the sword. A considerable number of the English self-exiled in France had gone there to find work in Henry II’s army.They were not the earnest, committed refugees who attacked Mary through the medium of the printing press in Switzerland and Germany. Dudley’s motives, and those of his colleagues, were far from high-minded, even if he tried to dress them up that way: ‘I am going to France and mind to serve the French king for a while, to get a band of men, most of them English, 2,000—3,000 at least. When I see my time, I will come with them and land at Portsmouth and either banish this vile nation of Spaniards, or die for it.’3 This was hardly the most ringing of confident declarations. It had about it something more of hope than expectation. But Dudley and Ashton had spread their net wide, including in their schemes the Cornish Killigrew brothers, who commanded a small fleet of privateers in the Channel and were basically no more than pirates. They had also planned for a substantial rising in the West Country, amounting to perhaps 6,000 men, to be organised by Sir Anthony Kingston; it would be supported by Richard Uvedale, who commanded the key coastal garrison for the Solent, at Yarmouth on the Isle of Wight. Uvedale was to betray his charge and let an invading French force into England. Both he and Kingston were middle-aged men of political and military experience, who succumbed to Dudley’s assurances of French support.
But, as with Wyatt’s rebellion, most of that support was in the ever-scheming mind of ambassador Noailles. Henry II and Montmorency were still very, very cautious, and particularly so after the Truce of Vaucelles was signed with the Habsburgs in February 1556.Temporarily, at least, Philip and his English wife were less of a concern to the king of France. Montmorency, though, was anxious for other reasons.The main beneficiary of the planned uprising and invasion needed to be forewarned to keep her head down while matters were in abeyance. ‘And above all,’ Noailles was told,‘make sure that Madame Elizabeth does not begin, for anything in the world, to undertake what you have written to me. For that would spoil everything and lose the benefit which they [the conspirators] can hope from their schemes, which must be played out in the long game, waiting meanwhile until time gives them the opportunity. ’4 He omitted to mention the other name, always so closely associated with Elizabeth’s, but Christopher Ashton was more frank when he described the plotters’ main aims: ‘A great many of the western gentlemen [are] in a confederacy to send the queen’s highness over to the king and to make the lady Elizabeth queen and to marry the earl of Devonshire to the said lady’.5 This was not direct proof that either the princess or Edward Courtenay supported what was happening, but the circumstantial evidence for their both being aware of Dudley’s intentions is very strong.
Yet by the beginning of March, well before Dudley himself crossed to France, the government was already starting to unravel his intentions. There were far too many people involved, and not all were trustworthy. Even so, it was a complex undertaking and the various elements were not uncovered at once.The first firm evidence was provided in connection with a separate but connected exercise to rob the exchequer of £50,000 in Spanish silver. This sounds, on the face of it, impossibly romantic and far-fetched, but several of the treasury officials were apparently quite willing to be bribed, helpfully providing impressions of keys. Unfortunately for Dudley and the circle of his supporters left in England, one of them was equally willing to tell all he knew to Cardinal Pole. On 18 March 1556, two years to the day since Elizabeth had entered the Tower of London as her sister’s prisoner, around twenty men were arrested for involvement in this new treason. Among them were John Throckmorton, the leader of the conspirators left behind in England, and Richard Uvedale. In time-honoured fashion, those arrested blamed each other. Uvedale, who was unwell, could not get things off his chest fast enough. Kingston was ordered back to London but died on the way, perhaps as the result of suicide. And, as the interrogations continued, under the supervision of a special commission led by Robert Rochester and Mary’s trusted personal staff, they began to delve deeper and to point the finger of suspicion strongly at the household of Elizabeth herself.
Richard Uvedale’s head had been adorning London Bridge for a month when, at the end of May, Sir Henry Jerningham, Mary’s vice-chamberlain and a member of t
he privy council, arrived at Hatfield and put an armed guard on Elizabeth’s house. He arrested the accident-prone Katherine Ashley, three of the princess’s ladies and her Italian teacher. Sang-froid was one of Elizabeth’s great strengths in times of crisis and she retained her composure throughout this episode. Back in London, a search was made of Katherine Ashley’s apartments at Somerset Place and incriminating literature was found, some of it anti-Catholic, some of it rude about Mary and Philip. Elizabeth’s servants, under questioning, confessed that they had known about Dudley’s intentions. Their acknowledgement of Elizabeth’s complicity was no comfort to Mary, even if it did confirm her deep-seated suspicions about her sister’s good faith. But Elizabeth had not confessed herself, or even been directly accused of anything. She was left at Hatfield when her servants were removed.
It is hard to know who was most uncomfortable over the next two weeks - Elizabeth, waiting on events in the capital, or Mary, wondering what to do with this troublesome sibling. Anxious about the repercussions of making the wrong decision, Mary, according to the Venetian ambassador, consulted her husband. Philip’s reply arrived quickly. Its precise contents are unknown, but its drift can be discerned from what happened. Philip believed that Habsburg interest could best be served by dealing gently with Elizabeth. Neither imprisonment nor exile in dishonour was the answer. The priority, now the conspiracy was unmasked, was to avoid any situation in which the French could push the claims to the English succession of their dauphiness, Mary Queen of Scots. Personal animosity between the Tudor sisters was inevitable but also irrelevant, as far as Philip was concerned. His wife did not demur from his advice. Elizabeth was even sent a diamond as proof of the queen’s belief in the princess’s innocence.The diamond was a symbol of purity.Yet it could not remove the taint of disloyalty that hung over Elizabeth in 1556.
Eventually, she wrote to the queen, having audaciously refused an invitation to come to court because that might have been construed as an act of contrition. Instead she waited until her newly appointed guardian, Sir Thomas Pope, a Catholic loyalist more congenial than Sir Henry Bedingfeld, received a letter from the council clearing her of all involvement in the Dudley conspiracy. Elizabeth’s response is a heady melange of cynicism and flowery writing:When I revolve in mind (most noble queen) the old love of pagans to their prince and the reverent fear of Romans to their Senate, I can but muse for my part and blush for theirs, to see the rebellious hearts and devilish intents of Christian in names, but Jew in deed, toward their anointed king. Which, methinks, if they had feared God though they could have loved the state, they should for dread of their plague have refrained that wickedness which their bounded duty to your majesty hath not restrained. But when I call to remembrance that the devil tanquam leo rugiens circumit querens quem devorare potest 6 I do the less marvel though he hath gotten such novices into his professed house, as vessels (without God’s grace) more apt to serve his palace than meet to inhabit English land … Of this I assure your majesty, though it be my part above the rest to bewail such things though my name had not been in them, yet it vexeth me too much that the devil owes me such a hate as to put me in any part of his mischievous instigations.
In the second half of her letter she spared her sister this mix of classical and religious references and indulged in a more personal ramble through the psychology of loyalty, highly revealing of the tensions that had existed between the sisters almost from the moment of Mary’s accession:And among earthly things, I chiefly wish this one: that there were as good surgeons for making anatomies of hearts that might show my thoughts to your majesty as there are expert physicians of the bodies, able to express the inward griefs of their maladies to their patient. For then I doubt not but know well that whatsoever other should suggest by malice, yet your majesty should be sure by knowledge, so that the more such misty clouds obfuscate the clear light of my truth, the more my tried thoughts should glister to the dimming of the hidden malice. But since wishes are vain and desires oft fail, I must crave that my deeds may supply that my thoughts cannot declare, and they be not misdeemed there as the facts have been so well tried. And like as I have been your faithful subject from the beginning of your reign, so shall no wicked persons cause me to change to the end of my life. And thus I commit your majesty to God’s tuition, whom I beseech long time to preserve …7
This belaboured declaration was Elizabeth’s way of saying that she had been true to Mary in her fashion, and if the queen could not accept that others had taken her name in vain, then there was little to be done about it. Mary had agreed with Philip that it would be better for England if a policy of public reconciliation was followed, and she stuck to her resolution to play this distasteful game for reasons of state. Elizabeth did agree to come to court for Christmas 1556, making an impressive entry into London on 28 November 1556: ‘The Lady Elizabeth came riding through Smithfield, the Old Bailey and Fleet Street unto Somerset Place, with a great company of velvet coats and chains, being her grace’s gentlemen’. It was a scene reminiscent of Mary’s visits to Edward VI, with an identical, unspoken message - ‘I am your heir, even if not publicly acknowledged, and I have my own wealth and power.There is, in truth, nothing you can do to touch me that will not cause more damage than it would be worth’. Mary received her sister with every outward sign of pleasure. But five days later Elizabeth was on her way back again to Hatfield, her plans evidently gone awry, her discomfiture remarked by observers. She had learned that Philip’s support came with a high price.
He was not a man to give something for nothing, and that price was marriage.There was a suitable candidate in Duke Emanuel Philibert of Savoy, a man with a grandiose name to match Elizabeth’s high-flown written style. He was 28, Catholic, Philip’s first cousin and a keen Habsburg ally, determined to rid his duchy of the French force that occupied it.The 19th-century Spanish historian Luis Cabrera described him as ‘all sinew, little flesh … born to command’. Emanuel Philibert was a good catch for the illegitimate daughter of a king, and he and Elizabeth would have been a powerful couple on the European scene. But Elizabeth evidently refused to have him. She did not share her sister’s view of England’s place in Europe. It could be argued that her sights were, at this time, actually set rather low. They were dictated by an overwhelming desire for independence and to gain the throne of England, in due course, on her own terms, beholden to nobody. She saw the duke of Savoy as an infringement of the power she anticipated, not as a means of extending it. Philip had implicitly recognised her as Mary’s successor, but he needed her contained.
His solution was a form of exile as far as Elizabeth was concerned. Her refusal meant that she was sent back to Hatfield to contemplate her ungratefulness and to ponder what would happen next. She was still holding out when Philip came back to England three months later, bringing with him his illegitimate sister, Margaret of Parma, and the merry widow who had refused Henry VIII, Christina of Denmark. Nothing these two ladies could say would persuade Elizabeth to agree to become duchess of Savoy. Mary, though, was probably relieved. She did not want to see Elizabeth married. Sometimes she even questioned that they shared the same father, so great was her long-standing hatred of Anne Boleyn. Any marriage, but particularly one that produced children, would put pressure on Mary to recognise Elizabeth as her successor. For the time being, she was spared that most difficult of decisions. Elizabeth’s intractability bought the queen some breathing space. She had done what Philip wanted but the blame for failure could not be laid at her door.The year 1556 ended quietly. Christmas was spent at Greenwich, the palace of her childhood, surrounded by her courtiers. After more than a year of melancholy, Mary’s spirits were beginning to improve.
There were other reasons to hope that the constant fear of uprisings and treachery might now diminish. One of the chief fomenters of disaffection had gone. Antoine de Noailles left England when the Dudley conspiracy collapsed, afraid that if he stayed he would be arrested. He had pushed his luck as far as it could go. And Edward
Courtenay died in Italy in September at the age of 30. There were rumours that he had been poisoned. But, though his death removed someone who had attracted trouble throughout Mary’s reign, it seems to have been the result of illness rather than assassination. He had been out hawking, got soaked in a thunderstorm and contracted a fever that killed him in a fortnight. His loss was a terrible blow to his mother, who entertained such hopes for him as Mary’s consort. But Gertrude Courtenay remembered her queen, as duty required her to do, at the beginning of 1557, when she gave her £10 in a purse as a New Year’s gift.