Good Queen Mary part V: Marriage Trouble

[Click here to see a listing of all the entries in this ongoing series by Ryan Grant.]

AS a young girl, Mary knew that she was was to be given in marriage. When it was clear that Katherine would have no more children, Mary’s knew her destiny is that one day she would rule in her own right as queen, and was educated in this way at Ludlow Castle in Wales. The King’s Great Matter, the casting aside of her mother, the long years of brow-beating by Ann Boleyn, and threats from her father, combined with her younger brother who seemed to be in good health, made that dream a distant possibility, terribly unlikely. Just a few years earlier, Mary was preparing for Martyrdom. Now, however, she was the first queen to reign in her own right, and she thanked God for it. It was obviously His plan, to restore her nation to the Church, and England in Europe.

Queen Regnant

The first task was establishing her authority. A reigning queen had never possessed the throne in her own right. This would require a radical adaption of governmental roles designed for male monarchs by privilege and tradition, to suit a female. In the first place, Mary had to receive her coronation. Ambassadorial accounts of the event display the confusion over what they were seeing. Mary wore implements of both a king and a queen consort. The coronation was a reworking of Edward’s to remove explicitly Protestant ceremony. The holy oils were corrupted when England was put under Papal censure, so Simon Renard, Charles V’s agent in England, had requested some from Bishop Antoine Graneville, in the Netherlands. After the anointing and crowning, all the lords temporal and spiritual swore fealty to her, and a Solemn Mass was sung.

Mary’s household would now bring women into roles which had been occupied by men to serve kings, and the privy chamber (which contrary to its name was a public place) now became the repose of powerful feminine influence, rather than peers of the realm.

Merciful Queen

The next order of business was to deal with John Dudley, the earl of Northumberland, who had been languishing in the tower for at least a month. The Duke was nervous about the fate of his large family. Moreover, the council had connived with him to deprive Mary of the throne and harm her person. Even when William Paget had brought the Council’s submission to Mary, she knew all too well that he and the others had been part of the scheme to replace her with Jane Grey. But she also needed them, as well as other councilors who had favored the religious reforms, because they were seasoned politicians. As the first reigning queen in England’s history, she needed men with experience in government to assist her in the tasks that lay ahead.

Paget’s words to Northumberland, that he was too late, would prove prophetic. The duke alone would be put on trial for treason. This trial, taking place in August, would have a truly solemn character. Northumberland put on a rather solid defense: he was merely obeying the late king, and if he was guilty, so were all the regency and privy councils. Just the same, the verdict was a foregone conclusion, since he alone of the privy council took the field against Mary. Interestingly, Northumberland underwent a conversion to Catholicism, abandoning the 16 years of promoting new religious ideas. Was it genuine? The timing seems opportunistic, in hope of a pardon, except for one curious fact. When Dudley was told that he would die, he asked to see Bishop Stephen Gardiner, with whom he spent a great deal of time. Whatever deals he had hoped to make, he died a Catholic.

Not only the Catholic sympathizers like Paget, but even the Protestant members of the council were pardoned. Jane Grey, however, was in a most precarious position. Even here, Mary offered mercy, though she would have to remain in the tower. Interestingly, her mother Frances Brandon had been a faithful friend of Mary, and would continue to receive favor during the reign.

Stephen Gardiner became the Lord High Chancellor, even though he was very much the champion of the divorce of Mary’s mother. He crowned Mary, and had shown his willingness to suffer for the Mass during her brother’s reign. Thomas Howard, formerly the 3^rd Duke of Norfolk, had been imprisoned in the tower at the end of Henry’s reign. The uncle of both Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard (Henry’s 2^nd and 5^th wives), he had done much to disinherit Mary. Mary now placed him on the council, though it could not have been lost on him that Mary could never trust him. The Earl of Arundel, and William Paget were appointed as Lord Steward and Privy Seal respectively. Robert Rochester, Mary’s long-time head of household would be elevated to managing her household as her comptroller. Other of her loyalists would be rewarded, but the tension between them and her former enemies would divide the council throughout the reign.

Finally, Mary’s first royal proclamation after her coronation was to declare religious toleration until such a time as Parliament should meet and make reforms. She did not come to the throne with the intention of burning protestants. The later actions to repress heresy were largely a result of rebellions yet to come.

Katherine has the last laugh

Mary’s advisors were most anxious about how the reunification with the Church would be carried out. Her supporters were Catholic, and the popular rising on her behalf revealed the Catholic sympathies of England. Just the same, there were thorny questions to deal with: what does it mean to be a Catholic? After 20 years of Henry’s new doctrines against the Papacy, state sanction of anti-clericalism, and the assault of Cranmer fully unleashed as a Protestant under Edward’s regime, it was unclear what even those professing themselves Catholic believed apart from the Mass and the Holy Eucharist. We will pick up on this discussion in the final instalment, part VI.

Mary’s first parliament met in October of 1553. The very first act presented for consideration was a proclamation that the marriage between Henry and Katherine was always valid. This undid the taint of bastardy and would make easier the path to marriage. More than that, it put to right the great evil of her childhood, her father’s casting off of her mother. In English law to this very day, Katherine was a true and proper queen of England; Anne Boleyn, however, is still an attainted traitor. Katherine indeed had the last laugh through her daughter’s triumph.

Spanish Marriage

We will return to the rest of Mary’s first parliament when we discuss the religious settlement in the next article. For the present, however, we will turn as Mary did in that jubilant Autumn of 1553, to her marriage.

Even during her brother’s reign, there was talk of marriage. Charles V had hoped to facilitate a marriage of Mary which might keep her safe from the protestant regime of Edward, and serve to maintain the Anglo-Hapsburg alliance. Edward’s council had entertained it also for thought of getting her out of the country, but then, later changed their minds over fears of foreign influence in the succession. Luis of Portugal had been a suitor, but another had been suggested, even before Mary had become queen, Philip of Spain, Charles V’s son.

Mary had come to regard Charles as a second father, in place of the cruel one fate had given her, though the lack of support during her struggle for the crown gave her pause. Charles V was the embodiment of worldly prudence, whose dreams of world dominion were shattered to the wars of the Reformation, and the fires stoked by French opposition to his hegemony. Now that Mary had come into her own (though Charles had rated her as having no chance and his ambassadors gave her muted support), he now used the influence he had through his ambassadors to put aside England’s return to the Catholic faith for the moment, and to instead focus on strengthening the Anglo-Hapsburg alliance. For Charles, this was of paramount importance. A great deal of wealth was made in the Low Countries by both the Empire and England though the wool trade. England also played a crucial role in keeping the French in check, and for Charles, limiting France’s power always came first.

On the English side, there was everything to gain and nothing to lose by such a match, since maintaining English access to the markets of Bruges and Antwerp were equally important, and an alliance with Spain would protect the realm from French incursion. There was only one small problem on the English side: it was a queen marrying a foreigner, and would not he become king? In the past this had not been an issue, either for Henry to marry a Spanish princess, or for Edward VI to arrange marriage to a French princess (which did not come to pass on account of his early death). Though the English xenophobia is often exaggerated, the prospect of a foreign king was not terribly popular.

Protestants of course agitated against the marriage proposal as soon as it was known, but even staunch Catholics began to worry. Mary was popular, but now that popularity would be put to the test in a populace who would not be ruled over by a foreign king. The man that many would have preferred her to marry was Edward Courtenay. Courtenay was descended from Edward IV, but his family suffered much because of their support for queen Katherine, and in 1539 he and his parents were incarcerated in the tower by Henry VIII. His father was executed, but Edward remained, since as an heir to the house of York he was too dangerous to set free. He would languish there until Mary’s accession, when he was released. He became quite a figure at court, and Bishop Gardiner’s candidate for Mary’s hand in marriage. It will not be long before he reappears in the story.

Charles of course was aware of this. Thus, he sent his instructions to Simon Renard, who was now made full ambassador. Renard was to sound out her notions of marriage, whether she would prefer a foreigner, and whether the council and the country would permit it. As the meetings continued throughout the summer into the fall, Philip, Charles’ son, appeared again and again. As Fr. Philip Hughes notes, “[by September] Charles had received his son’s consent, and in a letter of September 20 instructed Renard how he was to make the offer. ‘We desire that the proposal may be made to her if she thinks it [the marriage] can be accomplished, and we wish to hear from her first in confidence whether such is her opinion.’ … Mary, as he had foretold, was more than grateful for the proposal, overwhelmed indeed by the magnificence of the marriage the emperor proposed for her; it was a match far above what she had a right to expect, she declared.”¹ She paused to sound out the feelings of the privy council, which was predictably divided. William Paget joined with Renard in supporting the Spanish marriage, while Gardiner and many of Mary’s household opposed it, favoring Edward Courtenay. Older historians of the reign take the view that Mary was being blindly directed by the imperials toward the Spanish marriage, but this comes from an over-reliance on Renard’s correspondence with Charles, where he inflates his own position and influence in the hope of increasing his salary. In truth, reading the accounts of her questions about Philip, her concerns for English sovereignty and her struggle in the matter show enough that she kept her own counsel. Between the pull of the factions, she was conscious that she was old, her looks had left her during the stress of her life, and she would have to produce an heir, though she had never thought about sex or been in a position to consider romance.² At last, after much prayer and agonizing, on 29 October she called Renard into her chamber. After reciting the Veni Creator Spiritus, she vowed before the blessed Sacrament that she would marry Philip. This was kept secret for as long as it could, but eventually the news broke out. Now Mary had to sell it to the people. In November, a deputation from parliament, headed by Sir John Pollard, came to see the queen to address the matter. After giving a lengthy speech, Pollard exhausted Mary’s patience by suggesting Philip would become a tyrant. But she maintained her queenly bearing, and answered that though it was against her inclination, she would marry, just the same she found Pollard’s warnings about a foreign marriage strange: “Parliament was not accustomed to use such language to the kings of England, nor was it suitable or respectful that it should do so.” In the question of her marriage, “she would choose according as God inspired her.”³

English protestants, of course, who knew which way the wind was blowing in spite of various edicts of toleration, were outraged. Even many Catholics were dismayed. But as the negotiations on the marriage treaty were being carried out, in very strongly protestant areas, anger would turn to a call to arms.

Wyatt’s Rebellion

In the winter of 1553, rumors of plots were circulating throughout London. Mary’s advisors had heard that the French were assisting in a plot to overthrow the queen before she could Mary Philip, and replace her with Elizabeth who would be married to Edward Courtenay.

It is not certain where the plot originated, but the French ambassador Noailles claimed in his dispatches to the French king that it was Sir James Croft, former governor of Ireland. Croft was a Protestant and feared the restoration of Catholicism. He was joined by Sir Peter Carew who fought as a mercenary in Europe for the French, and Sir Edward Rogers; both sat in parliament and were familiar with members of Elizabeth’s household. Sir Thomas Wyatt, a soldier from Kent, was not the leader, but as the plot seemed to collapse he was the only one to keep his head and actually prove a threat, which is how the rebellion was named after him. Wyatt had fought for Henry VIII in France and the Netherlands, and there seems to have gained a distaste for the Spaniards beside whom he fought. The plotters also brought Edward Courtenay himself into the plot, which was perhaps the fatal blow to the whole thing. Even those championing Courtenay’s marriage to the queen knew that he was worthless, and a ditherer. The next mistake was the inclusion of Henry Grey, father of Jane Grey and just pardoned by Mary for his role in attempting to supplant her. Unfortunately, Grey was in short supply of political sense.

The plot was for the conspirators to prepare over the winter to mobilize their armies, and then set up their standard on Palm Sunday, 18 March of that year. Then they would bring a sizeable force and take possession of the queen. The sources reveal different accounts of what they planned to do after. Croft seems to have supported a plan to marry Edward Courtenay to Elizabeth⁴ and replace Mary on the throne with them. Nobody seems to have asked Elizabeth, who thoroughly despised Courtenay’s petulant behavior. The young man, deprived of freedom by life-long imprisonment, let wealth go to his head after release, and had made a bad impression on both sisters.

While older histories portray Mary as entirely unaware and without resolve, the fact is she was directing her council’s response throughout the winter of 1553 going into 1554. As soon as rumors of a plot had appeared, and key figures such as Peter Carew had departed to assess their strength, the cat was out of the bag. The problem was that it was difficult to quantify precisely what the threat was in January. Mary decided to strike preemptively, by publishing the finished negotiations of the marriage treaty. This made it clear that Philip was a consort, and would have no authority to intrude Spaniards into government, or take money or troops out of England. This did not make the impact that she hoped, and the sour reception by some members of parliament gave the plotters the sense that they could enjoy wide support. But the government was asking questions, and in the midst of this Stephen Gardiner seems to have followed his sixth sense that Courtenay was involved, since he was so close to the succession. Since he had championed Courtenay as a suitor to Mary, speed was required for the sake of his reputation; if Gardiner did not find out first, his rival Paget would, and he didn’t need reminding that Mary didn’t trust him.

On 21 January, Gardiner had Courtenay brought to him for a private discussion, and Courtenay revealed all that he knew. He doesn’t seem to have known about the plan to place him and Elizabeth on the throne, because the government seemed to think that due to Henry Grey’s involvement the plotters meant to advance Jane. For Croft, the last of the plotters in London, it was clear that the jig was up, and he left for his lands on the Welsh borders the day after Courtenay was detained. In spite of the vagaries of a military campaign in the winter, the plotters had to strike.

This is where it breaks down: Croft is resisted by local militias loyal to Mary, and is himself arrested. Henry Grey was even less successful, and arrested while attempting to rally men. Carew, who had been summoned to court, failed to find more than 100 men in Devon, and being himself pursued by militias loyal to the Queen, fled to France. This exposed the other plotters to accusations of being foreign stooges, of which the government took full advantage. Of all the plotters, Wyatt alone kept his head. On 25 January, assuming the other strands of the rebellion were in place, he planted his standard at Maidstone in Kent, and his careful planning brought two thousand or more men to his cause. Kent is southeast of London, and from Maidstone, Wyatt made his march through Rochester to make his way to London. St. John Fisher’s diocese now witnessed a disciplined army under a skilled commander holding them together over frozen and difficult roads. Mary had sent an expeditionary force against Wyatt, headed by the aged Thomas Howard. Though near 80, he was the senior peer of the realm, and it was thought that he could reduce the rebels. But the difficulties of winter, frozen roads, mud, and the size of Wyatt’s army had demoralized the London bands, who were already not thrilled about the Spanish marriage or the return of Catholicism. Many lost their nerve and defected to Wyatt; Norfolk had to retire from the field.

Panic ensued in London, Mary’s advisors made preparations for her to flee; counselors did not believe she would survive, and both Renard and Noailles wrote to their respective monarchs that she didn’t have a chance. But there was someone they forgot to ask.

Mary was still queen, and she wasn’t going anywhere. On 1 February, while the terror of Wyatt’s approach seized London, Mary rode to the Guildhall to address the government. The Guildhall was the ancient seat of the city government, where the mayor and aldermen managed civic affairs, and all the great men of the city could be found. In the great hall, the primary medieval structure, she addressed the crowd:

She began by telling her auditors what they already knew, that Wyatt’s traitorous forces were approaching London. She identified the rebels assault aimed at “both us and you.” The inclusion of the people of London, where she knew well Protestantism was the strongest, laid the foundation for the next part of the speech.

“Now loving subjects, what I am, you right well know. I am your queen, to whom at my coronation when I was wedded to the realm and to the laws of the same (the spousall ring wereof I have on my finger, which never hither to was, nor hereafter shall be left off) ye promised your allegiance and obedience unto me. And that I am the right and true inheritor to the crown of this realm of England; I not only take all Christendom to witness, but also your acts of parliament confirming the same. My father (as ye all know) possessed the regal estate by right of inheritance, which now by the same right descended unto me. And to him always ye shewed your selves most faithful and loving subjects, and him obeyed and served as your liege lord and king: and therefore I doubt not but you will shew your selves likewise to me his daughter. Which if you do, then may you not suffer any rebel to usurp the governance of our person, or to occupy our estate, especially being so presumptuous a traitor as this Wyatt hath shewed himself to be…” In other words, she appeals to the one thing that all Englishmen, whatever about religion, can get behind: legitimacy. She is the true monarch, every bit as her father whom they also accepted. Next she will develop the theme of her legitimacy and her subjects obligation to her, moving to her obligations towards them.

“And this further I say unto you in the word of a prince, I cannot tell how naturally a mother loveth her children, for I was never the mother of any, but certainly a prince and governor may as naturally and as earnestly love subjects, as the mother doth her child.  Then assure yourselves, that I being sovereign lady and queen, do as earnestly and as tenderly love and favour you. And I thus loving you, cannot but think that ye as heartily and faithfully love me again: and so loving together in this know of love and concord, I doubt not, but we together shall be able to give these rebels a short and speedy overthrow.”

This is all a clever speech and very rousing, as excited shouts began to go up. Next, she moved to the subject at hand, her coming marriage to Philip of Spain, and cleverly brings to fruition the themes of female vulnerability, her virtue as a virgin, the relationship as a mother to the people, and ties it being an actual mother as necessity of the realm, in a way that will marvelously balance the needs of both sets of children. The result was resounding applause and support. The London mood was set on fire. In spite of Thomas Howard’s London troops defecting to Wyatt, the Londoners themselves turned their faces away from rebellion, shut the gates, and made ready to support their queen.

Two days later, Wyatt felt the moment of destiny. He would deliver his nation form the tyranny of the hated Spaniards, and the raising again of papist altars and the Mass. The senior peer of the realm’s army melted before him, and he had conquered all of the wayward roads from Maidstone to London. Now was the moment. But at London bridge, the gates were shut. London would not open for the rebels.

Wyatt was not easily deterred. He rallied his troops and evaded Mary’s soldiers, making a rapid crossing across the Thames on 6 February, to attack London from the west. But neither Wyatt, nor panicking counselors had reckoned on Mary.

The Queen also felt the moment of destiny. God had put her on the throne, and He would not desert her. As a chronicle relates, when she was told that Wyatt was near the palace, she proclaimed: “Well then fall to prayer, and I warrant you we shall hear better news anon; for my lord will not deceive me, I know well; if he would, God will not, in whom my chief trust is, who will not deceive me.”⁵

And He did not. After Wyatt’s troops fought with government troops on Fleet Street, the rebellion began fizzling out. With his supporters deserting, Wyatt retired to a tavern to consider his life choices. Ludgate was too well fortified, and the city had not turned out for him. The day was lost, and whether despondent or hopeful for clemency, Wyatt gave himself up to government troops. The woman whom the French ambassador thought would be easy to overthrow, badly advised and inexperienced, triumphed by her powers of oratory and her simple trust in God.

In coming to the throne, Mary had done what no monarch before or after had done in pardoning conspirators who usurped her throne. This time, clemency would not be so far reaching. Over a hundred men were executed for their involvement. Henry Grey would not get a pardon this time, and he also caused his daughter and son in law to be executed as well. Jane could not be spared now, as she would be the focus of further plots. The unfortunate woman accepted her fate, but persisted in her Protestant convictions. Courtenay was back in his old haunt at the tower. Wyatt would follow them to the scaffold after being interrogated for all he knew. Finally, Elizabeth would be brought to the tower, where she would pass by the block where Jane Grey’s blood was fresh on the scaffold.

Elizabeth’s involvement

We have waited until now to discuss what may or may not have been Elizabeth’s complicity in the plot. Elizabeth joined Mary in her triumph, but their relationship became uneasy. They had been quite friendly while she was growing up, but now as a grown woman, Elizabeth was a younger version of Mary except in one detail — the former was Anne Boleyn’s daughter. It was clear to Mary that Elizabeth was not enthusiastic about the Catholic faith, whatever her larping devotion. The bigger problem was that Renard continually railed against Elizabeth, as she represented a protestant, rather than Catholic future for England, and was always ready to put Mary in opposition to Elizabeth. In Christmas of 1553, Elizabeth asked to go to her estates in Ashford. It is there that Croft allegedly informed her of the plot against Mary, and Wyatt claimed in interrogation that she received letters from him. More damning was a translation of a letter which Elizabeth had written to Mary contained in correspondence seized from an agent of the French ambassador destined to go back to France. Was Elizabeth in league with the French? Moreover, it seems clear Elizabeth knew something, but had not attempted to warn Mary about any of the risings over the winter. Elizabeth had done as she always had and would, make no statement that was not vague and evasive, which could show support but be plausibly denied. Nevertheless, after intense questioning it was deemed that there was not sufficient evidence to demonstrate Elizabeth’s complicity.

On the one hand, it seems impossible that Elizabeth was completely unaware of the plot, while on the other, we can no more demonstrate now than then what she knew. The news that her correspondence was being carried by the French ambassador was a shock to her. It is distinctly possible that she was involved more directly, but it is also possible, as Dr. Porter suggests,⁶ that Simon Renard had copied a letter and allowed it to be found by Noalles, since they ran in similar circles and used similar go-betweens. Implicating Elizabeth and having her executed would have served Hapsburg interests. If Mary had wanted to, she could have destroyed Elizabeth, just as Henry destroyed her mother on far flimsier evidence. But her heart, in spite of her undeserved reputation, was too soft for that. Besides, she had more pressing matters to attend to, as envoys were coming from Spain for the betrothal to Philip.

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— Footnotes —