Mary Tudor (59 page)
Authors: Linda Porter
With the execution of Sir Thomas Wyatt on 11 April, the danger to Elizabeth was effectively over. There was still hope that he would incriminate her and Courtenay, even on the scaffold, but he would not be drawn. In fact, he took pains to exonerate Elizabeth, beginning his final speech with an unequivocal denial: ‘And whereas it is said and whistled abroad that I should accuse my Lady Elizabeth’s grace and my lord Courtenay; it is not so good people.’
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His statement was certainly unhelpful to the government, but his refusal to implicate either of the principal figures imprisoned in the Tower was, in the end, a relief to Gardiner as well as Paget.The chancellor did not want anything more to come out about his connection with Courtenay.Wyatt died the death of a gentleman, though his corpse was not spared the traditional horrors of quartering reserved for traitors. But Mary took pity on his wife and children, ruined by his attainder. She granted Jane Wyatt an annuity of 200 marks and made a small restitution of the income from their confiscated lands at the end of 1555.
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His statement was certainly unhelpful to the government, but his refusal to implicate either of the principal figures imprisoned in the Tower was, in the end, a relief to Gardiner as well as Paget.The chancellor did not want anything more to come out about his connection with Courtenay.Wyatt died the death of a gentleman, though his corpse was not spared the traditional horrors of quartering reserved for traitors. But Mary took pity on his wife and children, ruined by his attainder. She granted Jane Wyatt an annuity of 200 marks and made a small restitution of the income from their confiscated lands at the end of 1555.
Wyatt had not obliged the regime, which was swiftly to suffer another reverse. Just a few days after his execution, the trial of Sir Nicholas Throckmorton, who was accused of supporting the rebels but had not himself taken up arms, came to a swift end when a jury of Londoners acquitted him. His transition from versifying supporter of the queen to palpable traitor was impossible to prove. If he had been found guilty, Throckmorton’s case could have been used as a template to bring charges of treason against Elizabeth. As it was, the attempt collapsed ignominiously for the government. It seemed time to draw a line under events, to move on to more positive ground. Nothing would be gained by drawing further attention to Elizabeth. She was allowed greater freedom to take exercise and move about in the Tower until, on 19 May, she was allowed to leave. ‘We have appointed our sister the Lady Elizabeth, for divers good considerations,’ wrote Mary on 21 May, ‘to be removed from the Tower of London unto our manor of Woodstock, there to remain until we shall otherwise determine’.
In her further instructions to Sir Henry Bedingfeld, the lieutenant of the Tower and now appointed Elizabeth’s custodian, Mary made clear that Elizabeth’s release did not mean that she was exonerated.‘Although she be not thoroughly cleared, yet have we, for her better quiet and to the end she may be more honourably used, thought meet to appoint her to remain at our said manor of Woodstock until such time as certain matters touching her case which be not yet cleared may be thoroughly tried and examined.’ If this was less than crystal clear, so were the rest of Bedingfeld’s instructions. Elizabeth was ‘to be safely looked after for the safeguard of her person, having nevertheless regarded to use her in such good and honourable sort as may be agreeable to our honour and her estate and degree’.The princess would have some liberty of movement, but could walk in the grounds only accompanied by Bedingfeld, and he was ‘to give good heed to our said sister’s behaviour, for seeing that neither she be suffered to have conference with any suspected person out of his hearing, nor that she by any means either receive or send any message, letter or token to or from any manner of person’.
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Elizabeth, in other words, was not to be trusted or indulged. She had no idea when, or indeed if, she would see Mary again. Her departure from the Tower was much less dramatic than her arrival, but she was not a free woman. Relieved to be alive, but aggrieved at the restrictive, insulting regime to which she was now subjected, Elizabeth set out to make the life of the unfortunate Sir Henry Bedingfeld every bit as unpleasant as her own.
Mary could now look forward to Philip’s arrival with her sister firmly in the background. During April, Parliament had considered several important pieces of legislation, not all of which passed easily or to the queen’s satisfaction.The main business was to ratify the marriage treaty, as Mary had promised in her Guildhall speech. This took place quickly, passing both houses of Parliament by 12 April. Mary, as she wrote to Charles V on the following day, viewed this as good progress. Her overall optimism was, however, misplaced. Other legislation on which she set much store fared far less well. She was angry when a bill to extend the treason laws to cover anyone plotting against her husband was passed only in a diluted version and absolutely furious when a bill against heresy, introduced with her full support by Gardiner, failed altogether.
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The loss of the heresy bill, whose precise details have not survived, was probably brought about by the intensifying of the feud between Gardiner and Paget. Paget feared that Gardiner would introduce a bill to disinherit Elizabeth and he struck back instinctively, determined to hurt the chancellor where he could. Because he was also a moderate man who favoured a cautious approach to the imposition of Catholicism and the return to Rome, he looked askance at the methods being employed by Mary and Gardiner. And his doubts were shared by many others. At first sight it seems strange that a piece of legislation ‘for the avoiding of erroneous opinions and books containing heresies’ should have attracted much opposition at all in an overwhelmingly Catholic House of Lords. No peer claimed to support heresy. But the bill was seen as the thin end of the wedge.The nobility feared that it was the first step in a wholesale return of Church lands. Catholics, much more than Protestants, had grown rich on the proceeds of the dismantling of the wealth of the English Church, a fact not lost on the imperial ambassador. Mobilising his considerable support in the House of Lords, Paget scuppered the heresy bill of 1554. Ten months would pass before new legislation was introduced and Mary could move against the Protestants she had despised for so long. Nor could she rid herself of the supreme headship of the Church, a title that she hated. Her lords were happy for the ritual of the Catholic religion to be restored but they would not part with their wealth, nor were they keen to rush back to the jurisdiction of the papacy.
Paget had won, but at great personal cost. Mary never forgave him. He wrote afterwards that ‘Queen Mary hated me’. He attended the privy council less frequently and, as his health deteriorated, spent less time at court. His partial restoration to royal favour he owed to the man Mary awaited as her husband. None of the queen’s other advisers seemed to Philip to have the faintest understanding of Europe.
Despite these significant losses, the parliament of April 1554 passed other notable pieces of legislation, including 14 statutes dealing with economic problems which benefited English commerce and industry. But the most interesting piece of legislation concerned Mary herself. This was the act concerning the regal power, defined in the case of this first queen regnant of England as being identical to her male predecessors:
… the regal power of this realm is in the queen’s majesty as fully and absolutely as ever it was in any of her most noble progenitors, kings of this realm … be it declared and enacted by the authority of this present parliament that the law of this realm is and ever hath been … that the kingly or regal office of the realm … being invested in either male or female, are and ought to be as fully, wholly absolutely and entirely deemed, judged, accepted, invested and taken in the one as the other.
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Wyatt’s rebellion had not been a direct challenge to Mary’s position as queen but its underlying uncertainties about her role and the effect of her marriage evidently did have an impact. Mary and her advisers wanted statute clarification of the queen’s position before her husband arrived.There is no evidence that Philip knew anything about this move.
The queen might be displeased with the truculence of her parliament and some of her ministers, but her wedding day was edging closer, and as monarch and future wife, she was well prepared for it. A substantial English household of 350 people was put in place to await Philip’s arrival, headed by the earl of Arundel, who would act as lord steward for both Mary and her husband. Several of the men who gave Mary early support in July 1553 were rewarded with posts in the household, including John Huddleston, who had sheltered her as she journeyed into East Anglia. The plum roles of gentlemen of the privy chamber were given to the sons of seven leading peers and interpreters were appointed in recognition of language problems that would inevitably arise.The entire household, perhaps inspired by the arrival of the marquis de las Navas, was in place by mid-June, awaiting Philip’s arrival at Southampton. Such optimism was understandable, but the move was a premature and costly one. Worse still, there had been a complete failure of communication between London and Valladolid about the royal household, and the English establishment was unaware that Philip was bringing a duplicate Spanish organisation with him. June turned into July and, to the despair of Renard, there was still no sign of the prince himself.
He was, though, on the move. It had taken several months to mobilise the very large fleet and military force he wanted to accompany him: 6,000 sailors and soldiers as a military escort, some intended to reinforce the garrisons in the Low Countries but most required as a safeguard against the threat of interception by the French, as well as a personal retinue of between 3,000 and 5,000. Philip apparently did not think that support of this order was excessive, or that it might send the wrong signals to a country where there had recently been an uprising based on the fear that the Spanish were more interested in invasion rather than alliance.
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Naturally, the sheer amount of time it took to assemble all the people, including many of the leading nobility of Castile who accompanied him, slowed down his departure. A fleet also had to be gathered and readied. Seventy ships were prepared to carry the prince, his nobles, his religious advisers, his horses and his men. It was a grand gesture but not a speedy operation.
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Naturally, the sheer amount of time it took to assemble all the people, including many of the leading nobility of Castile who accompanied him, slowed down his departure. A fleet also had to be gathered and readied. Seventy ships were prepared to carry the prince, his nobles, his religious advisers, his horses and his men. It was a grand gesture but not a speedy operation.
Before he could think about a precise date for his embarkation, Philip needed to settle the government of Spain, the country he was leaving behind. It was entrusted to his 19—year—old sister, Juana, for whom 1554 was an eventful year. Married to a Portuguese prince, she had been widowed on the second day of January, just three weeks after giving birth to a son. Like all of CharlesV’s family, this good-looking but very serious young woman did not flinch from her duty.The regency of Spain was to be her responsibility and her brother, who was fond of her, never doubted her ability and commitment to the role. Having spent a few weeks with Juana and the regency council appointed to assist her inValladolid, Philip left the capital on 16 May. He travelled north to Santiago de Compostela, where he met the English ambassadors specially appointed by Mary to escort him to England, who were led by the earl of Bedford. Here the prince finally signed the marriage treaty, attending high mass with the English nobles in the cathedral of St James in this ancient town of pilgrimage, on 24 June. Then he moved on to Coruña, where, nearly three weeks later, confident that everything was in place and aware that he must follow his sister’s example of Habsburg duty, he at last went on board the
Espiritu Santo
and set sail for England. Closely shadowed by 30 heavily armed vessels, ready to see off any threat from French men-of-war, the prince’s flagship slipped out of port on the afternoon tide. It was 13 July, the height of summer, and the Spanish lords and ladies who accompanied Philip had persuaded themselves that they were going to a land of chivalry and Arthurian romance, where the meadows would be filled with flowers and birdsong. There, they expected to be well rewarded for their service to Philip. It would be a benign conquest, but they never doubted their superiority over the English.
Espiritu Santo
and set sail for England. Closely shadowed by 30 heavily armed vessels, ready to see off any threat from French men-of-war, the prince’s flagship slipped out of port on the afternoon tide. It was 13 July, the height of summer, and the Spanish lords and ladies who accompanied Philip had persuaded themselves that they were going to a land of chivalry and Arthurian romance, where the meadows would be filled with flowers and birdsong. There, they expected to be well rewarded for their service to Philip. It would be a benign conquest, but they never doubted their superiority over the English.
Alas, they were cruelly deceived. The voyage itself was dreadful. The Bay of Biscay fully lived up to its reputation for stormy seas and Philip, like everyone else, was ill for most of the crossing. Ruy Gomez, Philip’s confidant and chamberlain, suffered from such terrible sea-sickness that he thought he would die. When the ships finally dropped anchor in Southampton Water on 20 July, the rain was falling in torrents. It hardly stopped in three days. But Mary, already in Winchester, cared nothing for the weather, or the pretensions of Philip’s entourage. At last, her husband was here.
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