Mary Tudor (58 page)
Authors: Linda Porter
King Philip
‘Philip is the spouse of Mary, but treats her so deferentially as to appear her son.’
A
t the moment that Elizabeth landed as a prisoner at Tower Wharf on a rainy spring morning, her future brother-in-law was a thousand miles away to the south in the sunnier climes of Valladolid. He had passed the winter here, in regular correspondence with his father and aunt in the Netherlands but with no word or gift to his intended wife.
t the moment that Elizabeth landed as a prisoner at Tower Wharf on a rainy spring morning, her future brother-in-law was a thousand miles away to the south in the sunnier climes of Valladolid. He had passed the winter here, in regular correspondence with his father and aunt in the Netherlands but with no word or gift to his intended wife.
The outbreak of rebellion in England inevitably delayed the final stages of the marriage negotiations, and though Simon Renard made sure the prince got a rather watered-down version of events, Philip was well informed about what had happened in his prospective kingdom. In Brussels there was, for a while, sufficient gloom for doubts to be raised about whether the marriage could actually go ahead, but these were soon dispelled by the firm action taken by Mary and her government against the rebels. Egmont and his deputation returned in mid-February and the finishing touches were soon put to the marriage treaty. Mary had already made it clear that she would not marry in Lent, an idea that offended her religious sensibilities, but she hoped that she would be a wife soon after.
On 6 March, she was formally betrothed. A positive development, certainly, but Mary had first been betrothed at the age of two and a half, and well knew that the condition was only an expression of intent. And the happiness of the occasion was somewhat marred by the realisation that the magnificent ring placed on her finger came from Charles V, not his son. Yet more than three months earlier Philip had written to his father with apparent enthusiasm: ‘As for what you say of the English match and the great progress that is being made, I kiss your majesty’s hands many times, for it is clear that you are conducting the matter with great love and care. I lay great value on the queen’s professions of goodwill … My own happiness and dearest hopes hang on the result … If the queen wishes me to go soon I will start without loss of time.’
1
In fact, eight months would elapse between the date of this letter and his setting foot on English soil. He was a very dilatory bridegroom.
1
In fact, eight months would elapse between the date of this letter and his setting foot on English soil. He was a very dilatory bridegroom.
And perhaps, it might be added, a dishonest one.Yet this would not be entirely fair. He was never an easy man to read, even to those who knew him well, and he was still young enough to wish that duty did not always have to be so irksome. Besides, things had changed in the three months since he wrote so positively to Charles V, and, from Philip’s perspective, the developments were all unwelcome. The main cause of his dissatisfaction was not the rebellion in England; it was the marriage treaty negotiated without his input which eviscerated his power. His optimism of late November gave way to fury by early January, when the detail of the treaty was finally revealed to him. He did not say so, but he clearly felt that he had been deceived by his own father. The emperor had gone too far in accommodating the wishes of the English. Although there were still obvious advantages in the arrangement from the perspective of governing the Low Countries, in England he would be nothing. His wife-to-be was 11 years his senior and already showing signs of a desire to be with him that he could not reciprocate. Nor did he know how many years he would have to play second fiddle to her, constantly striving to be nice to her treacherous nobility and her charm-less, uncivilised subjects. When he came, he wanted to be sure that he had the trappings of a king, even if the small print of his marriage arrangements said otherwise. He needed time to prepare a fleet, to arrange his household and to make preparations for the administration of Castile in his absence. Entreated from all sides to move with dispatch, he dug his heels in. He would go only when all was ready. Betrothed he might be. Eager he was not.
Philip did not tell the emperor of his reservations but he was sufficiently angry to commit them to paper, in front of witnesses. His secretary, Juan Vásquez de Molina, took down his statement. There were no tactful words here. In his name, the ambassadors to England were about to ratify the articles of the marriage treaty negotiated by ‘the emperor and king, his father’.This process could not be stopped but it was being done against his will.‘Until the articles had been drawn up,’ he protested,
he had not known of them, and he intended to grant the said power and swear to observe the articles in order that his marriage with the queen of England might take place, but by no means in order to bind himself or his heirs to observe the articles, especially any that might burden his conscience. And because by his own free will he had never agreed and never would agree to the articles … he protested before me, the secretary and other witnesses … against the articles and everything contained therein … desiring that it should forever be recorded, as a plain, clear and certain fact to stand as long as the world should last, that his highness had given the above-mentioned oath in order, as he had said, that his marriage should take place, and not of his own free will … This he swore by Our Lord, by Saint Mary and by the sign of the Cross … and by the words of the Holy Gospel … that he would not be bound by the said ratification to be made in his name, nor by his own promise to observe or keep anything contained in the said articles …
2
Two days later, having vented his spleen in private, he wrote a polite note to his father in which he confined himself to bland comments about the marriage negotiations being ‘a source of satisfaction to me and I trust that the result will contribute to the welfare of Christendom’.
3
He knew that he could not say anything else. It was supremely ironic that on the same day the emperor’s ambassador to the papal court, Don Juan Manrique de Lara, wrote to the prince with the sort of unwanted advice that must have jarred painfully: ‘I remind your highness that, as they say in Castile, you must be so yielding towards them [the English] that it may seem that the husband is of the same country as his wife. So gladden that kingdom and he happy there in the company of its sons, employing them in all offices and posts.Thus your highness shall win the goodwill of the English as well as that of the Flemings. For the love of God, appear to be pleased …’
4
3
He knew that he could not say anything else. It was supremely ironic that on the same day the emperor’s ambassador to the papal court, Don Juan Manrique de Lara, wrote to the prince with the sort of unwanted advice that must have jarred painfully: ‘I remind your highness that, as they say in Castile, you must be so yielding towards them [the English] that it may seem that the husband is of the same country as his wife. So gladden that kingdom and he happy there in the company of its sons, employing them in all offices and posts.Thus your highness shall win the goodwill of the English as well as that of the Flemings. For the love of God, appear to be pleased …’
4
Mary knew nothing of Philip’s sense of betrayal, but it must have been obvious to her that he was not rushing to her side. The period between her decision to marry him and his actual arrival was a difficult one. All she had of him was a portrait painted by Titian three years earlier, which Mary of Hungary sent her in November 1553. It was, the dowager queen told Renard, ‘considered a good likeness by everybody at the time. It is true that the portrait has suffered a little from time and its journey from Augsburg hither; but it will serve to tell her what he is like, if she will put it in a proper light and look at it from a distance, as all Titian’s paintings have to be looked at.’ She went on to add, rather ruefully, ‘So you will present the portrait to her under one condition; that I shall have it again, as it is only a dead thing, when she has the living model in her presence.’
5
This request suggests that Mary of Hungary was fond of her nephew. Perhaps she was, but her affection had its limits. She was not willing to serve him in the Low Countries as she had served her brother. He was an absentee king of England by the time she made this clear, when Mary of England would have given much to have him stay with her and her Habsburg cousin wanted only to be allowed to retire.
5
This request suggests that Mary of Hungary was fond of her nephew. Perhaps she was, but her affection had its limits. She was not willing to serve him in the Low Countries as she had served her brother. He was an absentee king of England by the time she made this clear, when Mary of England would have given much to have him stay with her and her Habsburg cousin wanted only to be allowed to retire.
The prolonged engagement, if it can be called that, cannot have done much for Mary’s confidence.There had been rumours that this virtuous prince was not the paragon that Renard had claimed. Mary could dismiss as malicious the gossip that he was the father of a growing brood of illegitimate children, but a letter from him would have greatly raised her spirits. She pointed out his dereliction in this respect by instructing Renard in his next dispatch to the prince to ‘commend her most affectionately to you and inform you that she would have liked to have written to you in her own hand an account of the troubles caused in her realm … but as he had not yet received any letters from you it was not for a lady to begin’. Instead, she asked the ambassador to assure Philip of her constant goodwill and her anxiety to please him in his every wish. ‘She herself’, Renard wrote, ‘will leave nothing undone in order to welcome you in all gladness and obedience. She finds the time long and asks continually when you will come’.
6
Philip did not take the hint. He persisted in using others as intermediaries, assuring the increasingly exasperated Renard that ‘he would gladly affront any peril in order to free her from anxiety and show my sense of duty towards her’. But Mary wanted more than this, and by April she had grown tired of waiting, and of observing the ladylike proprieties. She was, after all, a queen and he was still a prince. She would write if she chose. Her letter was in French and rather formal:‘
Je vous advertis que le Parlement, qui represente les états de mon Royaume, a apprené les articles de notre Mariage sans contradiction
.’
7
(I inform you that Parliament, which represents the states of my kingdom, has approved the articles of our marriage without contradiction.) It might be ‘our’ marriage, but it was still ‘my’ kingdom. This time Philip responded, though not with any great alacrity. On 11 May he sent the marquis de las Navas to England with a letter written in his own hand and a jewel for Mary. It was a very belated gesture, but a welcome one. As the warmer weather beckoned, the queen believed that she would, finally, be a summer bride.
6
Philip did not take the hint. He persisted in using others as intermediaries, assuring the increasingly exasperated Renard that ‘he would gladly affront any peril in order to free her from anxiety and show my sense of duty towards her’. But Mary wanted more than this, and by April she had grown tired of waiting, and of observing the ladylike proprieties. She was, after all, a queen and he was still a prince. She would write if she chose. Her letter was in French and rather formal:‘
Je vous advertis que le Parlement, qui represente les états de mon Royaume, a apprené les articles de notre Mariage sans contradiction
.’
7
(I inform you that Parliament, which represents the states of my kingdom, has approved the articles of our marriage without contradiction.) It might be ‘our’ marriage, but it was still ‘my’ kingdom. This time Philip responded, though not with any great alacrity. On 11 May he sent the marquis de las Navas to England with a letter written in his own hand and a jewel for Mary. It was a very belated gesture, but a welcome one. As the warmer weather beckoned, the queen believed that she would, finally, be a summer bride.
Mary had much to occupy her during the long months of waiting.The business of government was a constant pressure and her council remained quarrelsome and on edge, though by no means ineffective. A parliament was summoned for early April and initial thoughts that it might go more smoothly if it met in Oxford were soon replaced by the acknowledgement that this would cause too much resentment in London. Parliament needed to ratify the marriage treaty and embark on the next step of religious legislation; moving the session outside the capital was to invite unwanted friction at an important time. And there was still the dilemma of what to do with Elizabeth.
Many legends have grown up about Elizabeth’s time in the Tower of London. They are based on a colourful retelling of her story that was appended to John Foxe’s
Acts and Monuments
. These tales are affecting and dramatic, but largely untrue.The princess entered the Tower not by the Traitors Gate - an impossibility, given the low tide at the time she arrived - but over the drawbridge. She passed along a route lined with armed men, disconcerting in itself, and below the Bloody Tower. In the distance, Lady Jane Grey’s scaffold was still there, a grim reminder of the fate of another young woman who had entered the Tower as the queen’s prisoner and never left it. And somewhere in her consciousness, though she never alluded to it, must have been the knowledge that her own mother, desperate and bewildered, had made this journey 18 years before. ‘Oh Lord!’ she said to Winchester and Sussex and the others accompanying her.‘I never thought to come here as prisoner; and I pray you all, good friends and fellows, bear me witness, that I come in no traitor but as true a woman to the queen’s majesty as any is now living; and thereon will I take my death.’ Brave as the declaration was, much as she hoped to live, death must have seemed a hideous possibility.
Acts and Monuments
. These tales are affecting and dramatic, but largely untrue.The princess entered the Tower not by the Traitors Gate - an impossibility, given the low tide at the time she arrived - but over the drawbridge. She passed along a route lined with armed men, disconcerting in itself, and below the Bloody Tower. In the distance, Lady Jane Grey’s scaffold was still there, a grim reminder of the fate of another young woman who had entered the Tower as the queen’s prisoner and never left it. And somewhere in her consciousness, though she never alluded to it, must have been the knowledge that her own mother, desperate and bewildered, had made this journey 18 years before. ‘Oh Lord!’ she said to Winchester and Sussex and the others accompanying her.‘I never thought to come here as prisoner; and I pray you all, good friends and fellows, bear me witness, that I come in no traitor but as true a woman to the queen’s majesty as any is now living; and thereon will I take my death.’ Brave as the declaration was, much as she hoped to live, death must have seemed a hideous possibility.
Though confined, she was treated honourably, lodged in a suite of four rooms in part of the royal palace in the Tower and not in some iron-grilled dungeon. A retinue of servants attended her.
8
It was more than her sister had been granted when Henry VIII confined Mary in Elizabeth’s household in 1533. But the threat was more immediate than the loss of status her sister faced when Elizabeth was a baby. On Good Friday, the council came to interrogate her, armed with some very awkward questions about her foreknowledge of Wyatt’s uprising. To add to her discomfort, they sprang a surprise. They demanded to know ‘what conference she had with Sir James Acroffts, being then a prisoner in the Tower, and brought into her presence on set purpose to confront her, alleging that the speech, which they had privately, was about her removal … to Donnington Castle.’
8
It was more than her sister had been granted when Henry VIII confined Mary in Elizabeth’s household in 1533. But the threat was more immediate than the loss of status her sister faced when Elizabeth was a baby. On Good Friday, the council came to interrogate her, armed with some very awkward questions about her foreknowledge of Wyatt’s uprising. To add to her discomfort, they sprang a surprise. They demanded to know ‘what conference she had with Sir James Acroffts, being then a prisoner in the Tower, and brought into her presence on set purpose to confront her, alleging that the speech, which they had privately, was about her removal … to Donnington Castle.’
Caught off guard, Elizabeth struggled to find the right answer. She said she could not remember that she owned such a house. But then, sensing that this prevarication was unhelpful to her situation, she ‘recollected herself ’. Gathering her wits, the princess fell back on her standard defence against such accusations, which was to deny them while actually evading the specifics.‘My officers and you, Sir James Crofts,’ she said, addressing her fellow-prisoner directly,‘can well testify, whether any rash or unbeseeming word did at that time pass my lips, which might not have well become a faithful and loyal subject.’ Croft obligingly played his part, kneeling before her and ‘taking God to witness that he never knew anything by her worthy of the least suspicion’.
9
If the council had hoped that they would incriminate each other, or provide further avenues of enquiry, they would have been disappointed. But not all of them wished for such an outcome. Gardiner, who led the examination, probably did, but Paget and others who took the longer view were relieved that nothing more substantial could be raised against Elizabeth.
9
If the council had hoped that they would incriminate each other, or provide further avenues of enquiry, they would have been disappointed. But not all of them wished for such an outcome. Gardiner, who led the examination, probably did, but Paget and others who took the longer view were relieved that nothing more substantial could be raised against Elizabeth.
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