Mary Tudor (72 page)
Authors: Linda Porter
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.
£
10 in a purse as a New Year’s gift.
The presents Mary received for that year are among the most fully recorded of the period. Perhaps the most striking thing about the list is that there is no mention of any exchange of gifts between Mary and Philip. It was certainly the custom for an English monarch to recognise relatives and those who had served them; in 1557 the queen gave nearly three hundred separate items of plate, mostly in the form of cups, bowls and jugs. The recipients ranged from Cardinal Pole and Elizabeth, through all the bishops, the council and the nobility (including their wives), the household staff and well beyond. They encompassed her launderer, Beatrice ap Rice, who had been in her service since Mary was three years old, and Sybil Penne (the nurse of Edward VI), her fruiterer, hosier and fishmonger and the sergeant of the pastry. Appropriately, he presented the queen with a quince pie. Many others gave the queen cash, but there was evidently a fair amount of ingenuity exercised by people like Sir John Mason, who gave ‘a map of England, stained upon cloth of silver in a wooden frame, drawn with the King’s and Queen’s arms, and a Spanish book covered with black velvet’. Elizabeth, well aware of the queen’s love of clothes, gave ‘the fore part of a kirtell and a pair of sleeves of cloth of silver, richly embroidered’.
8
It was a well-considered choice, for Mary was in the process of updating her wardrobe, in eager anticipation of her husband’s return.
8
It was a well-considered choice, for Mary was in the process of updating her wardrobe, in eager anticipation of her husband’s return.
This time, she was not disappointed. He left Calais with a fair wind on 18 March 1557 and was reunited with his wife at Greenwich two days later. The favourable weather had speeded him along, but there was a more practical reason for his celerity; he needed English troops to help him in the renewed war with France. He had been engaged in hostilities with the pope since the autumn of the previous year, and the vengeful Paul IV, determined to requite him in kind, managed, over the winter, to draw in the French. In a two-pronged attack, the duke of Guise invaded Italy and Coligny, the admiral of France, moved against the Low Countries. Philip may have seen it coming, but it was still the most serious crisis that he had yet encountered. His resources were stretched wafer-thin and he was in urgent need of English support, on land and by sea.
From Philip’s perspective, the Dudley conspiracy had one very positive side effect. Before the king left for Flanders in 1555, he had been disturbed by the state of disrepair of Mary’s navy. Less than ten years after HenryVIII lavished attention on the English fleet, much of it was rotting in the dockyards. Only three of Henry’s great ships were left, the result of neglect during peacetime and the strapped condition of the English treasury. Philip discovered the extent of the problem only when he requested a fleet of 12 to 14 ships to accompany his father and his aunts on their voyage back to Spain.The council told him then that it would be impossible to fit out a fleet of this size in the short timescale he required. His response was searing: ‘England’s chief defence’, he reminded Mary’s squirming ministers, ‘depends upon the navy being always ready to defend the realm against invasion, so that it is right that the ships should not only be fit for sea, but instantly available.’
9
He refrained from adding that he also needed English ships to protect the galleons carrying Spanish silver from being attacked in the Channel.The last part of the long voyage from South America was often the most dangerous. His financial extremities made him the unlikely saviour of the English fleet.
9
He refrained from adding that he also needed English ships to protect the galleons carrying Spanish silver from being attacked in the Channel.The last part of the long voyage from South America was often the most dangerous. His financial extremities made him the unlikely saviour of the English fleet.
This lecture on their maritime weakness from a Spaniard embarrassed the council into action, though it is possible that they had exaggerated the condition of the ships in the first place, to avoid unwanted expense. By mid-October 1555, 15 ships were ready. At the end of the year, the royal fleet comprised 30 vessels. The prospect of invasion from France, raised by Dudley’s intrigues, provided a further spur to action. A squadron of eight royal ships was sent to patrol the English Channel and it captured most of a small fleet of French privateers off Plymouth.Two new warships, the
Mary Rose
and the
Philip and Mary
, were constructed during 1556, so that by the time Philip joined Mary at the palace where he had left her 17 months earlier, England once more had a respectable navy. In fact, on 7 June, the day war between England and France was declared, Mary had 24 royal ships at sea and 13 others ready to sail, a better record than either her father or brother. Habsburg priorities lay behind these improvements, but the credit for effecting such a comprehensive turnaround lay with the Lord High Admiral, William Howard, he of the bluff character and ribald jokes, and his subordinates, above all William Winter (whose experience outweighed concerns about his involvement in 1554 with Sir Thomas Wyatt), and the royal shipwright, Richard Bull.
Mary Rose
and the
Philip and Mary
, were constructed during 1556, so that by the time Philip joined Mary at the palace where he had left her 17 months earlier, England once more had a respectable navy. In fact, on 7 June, the day war between England and France was declared, Mary had 24 royal ships at sea and 13 others ready to sail, a better record than either her father or brother. Habsburg priorities lay behind these improvements, but the credit for effecting such a comprehensive turnaround lay with the Lord High Admiral, William Howard, he of the bluff character and ribald jokes, and his subordinates, above all William Winter (whose experience outweighed concerns about his involvement in 1554 with Sir Thomas Wyatt), and the royal shipwright, Richard Bull.
So Philip did not have to concern himself about naval preparedness in England. The major difficulty he faced, and the primary reason for his return, was the lack of political will. The council was reluctant to commit to war and so was Cardinal Pole, often used by Mary as a sounding board in her husband’s absence. Pole was concerned about the war with Paul IV; the council had more general fears: cost, the effect of famine, social unrest - all these considerations worried them.The marriage treaty, they claimed, disallowed their involvement, though it was actually ambiguous on the subject of new aggression by France. The king was banking on his hold over Mary, but her obvious pleasure in his reappearance did not mean that she would agree to browbeat her council. They all knew why he had come, though only Paget had been informally told in advance. In the face of so many obstacles, Philip resorted to the only tactic that might bring about their acquiescence. He saw them individually, rather than as a group. A direct appeal, a reminder of the personal gains, in profit and in glory, that could be expected in his service, these were more relevant incentives than national interest. The nobility knew where the source of their power lay. As the earl of Westmorland told a Scottish earl in 1557, during a discussion of identity and national loyalty: ‘As long as God shall preserve my master and mistress together, I am and shall be a Spaniard to the uttermost of my power.’
10
10
Philip’s persuasiveness may have helped, but the French eventually brought England into the war through their persistent support of traitors. The final straw was an ill-conceived expedition, led not by Henry Dudley or Christopher Ashton, who had wisely gone to ground in France, but by Sir Thomas Stafford, whose father had petitioned Mary for financial support when she came to the throne. Provided with a warship by the French, Stafford landed in the north of England at the end of April 1557, hoping to stir up rebellion there. In a dramatic but empty gesture, he managed to capture Scarborough Castle before tamely submitting to a force led by the earl of Westmorland, a man who clearly believed in backing up his words of loyalty to Philip and Mary with appropriate deeds.
Stafford’s foray marked the end of the threat to Mary from her own nobility. The war had, as Philip hoped, a unifying effect on the English aristocracy.They were delighted at the opportunity to perform stirring deeds (and to gain booty, if they could) against their long-standing enemy. When the Anglo-Imperial forces laid siege to St Quentin in northern France, three of the duke of Northumberland’s sons (Henry, Robert and Ambrose) fought for their queen. Sir James Croft and Sir Peter Carew were also there and the buccaneer Peter Killigrew was rehabilitated and given a naval command a few months later.
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