Mary Tudor (25 page)
However, everything went wrong. One of the plotters – it is not known who – approached the Earl of Devon, who was deeply and rather publicly chagrined that the queen was showing no interest in him. He expressed sympathy, and apparently offered support. How much Courtenay knew is unclear, but he knew that dissent was stirring and that rebellion was intended. Both the lord chancellor and Simon Renard had their ears to the ground, and picked up tremors. Knowing his man, Gardiner sent for Courtenay and extracted from that weak and foolish young man whatever it was that he knew. At the same time Renard, overreacting as usual to rumours of French machinations, advised the queen to take urgent steps to protect herself against a mixture of invasion and insurrection.
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In so doing he wrong-footed the lord chancellor, who was by no means convinced that the situation was either desperate or urgent, and who was trying to protect Edward Courtenay from himself. On 12 January 1554, when the council first began to exhibit signs of anxiety about rumours emerging from Devon, he tried to calm things down, and as a result was later accused (by Renard) of having been in league with the conspirators.
The rebels’ plan, which was still embryonic at this stage, was for a threefold demonstration of force, to be raised in Leicestershire, Devon and Kent, and converging on London. This was not supposed to happen until Easter, by which time it was hoped that French backing would also be in place. However, as Noailles reported on 12 January, ‘the Queen and the Lords of her Council are working to break up the plot … and thus those who are in [it] will have to take up arms sooner than they think’.
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One of the plotters, Sir Peter Carew, had been testing the water in the south-west by circulating alarming rumours about what the soldiers accompanying a Spanish prince would get up to on their arrival. He created some panic, but no will to resist. However, when he was summoned to the council to explain himself, his fellows naturally assumed that all was about to be revealed. Attempts were therefore made to create premature explosions in both Leicestershire and Kent, where mines had supposedly been laid. The protagonists in Leicestershire were the Duke of Suffolk and his two brothers, Thomas and John Grey. The duke’s involvement was an act of both folly and ingratitude, and was to prove fatal to himself, his daughter and his son-in-law, but it accomplished precisely nothing. No one responded to their trumpets, and within days all of them were lodged in the Tower.
Only in Kent did the cry ‘no foreign king’ awaken an actual physical response. The plotter in this instance was Sir Thomas Wyatt, and he had a network of friends and considerable influence in the county.
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On 19 January a group of disaffected gentlemen met at Wyatt’s home – Allington Castle – and the following day mobilisation began. By the 22nd the council had been alerted. ‘We do understand that they pretend to be … our loyal subjects and that they have assembled our people only for the impeachment of the marriage …’ Influenced by Gardiner, negotiation was offered, but that was the last thing Wyatt wanted. He was trying to raise a power, and sweet reasonableness did not suit him at all. He rejected the overture, and by the 28th had about 3,000 men under arms. On the same day that venerable warrior, the Duke of Norfolk, set out from London with a hastily assembled force to confront what was now clearly a rebellion. Unfortunately most of his troops consisted of the London militia, the so-called trained bands, who were strongly sympathetic to Wyatt. On the 29th at Rochester Bridge they deserted
en masse
to the rebels, leaving the duke and a handful of the royal guard to extricate themselves as best they could.
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This was not only a major setback in itself, it also cast considerable doubt upon the loyalty of the capital, and the loss of London would have been a major disaster. Loyal retinues had been summoned, but hardly any had yet arrived, and if Wyatt had followed Norfolk’s defeat with an immediate advance upon London, he might have won. However, he delayed for three days and in that time his opportunity (if it ever existed) disappeared.
After the desertion of the Londoners, Mary was bombarded with conflicting advice. Most of her council appear to have thought that she should abandon the city and retreat to a place of greater safety. Renard thought otherwise, and in this case he was right. Mary was never short of courage when her mind was made up, and on 1 February she went to the Guildhall and made a rousing speech, calling upon the citizens’ loyalty. Much of what she said was disingenuous, if not dishonest, but it did not matter.
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The Tudor magic worked, and when Wyatt reached Southwark on 3 February, he found London Bridge closed against him. For three days he hesitated, trying to make contact with his friends in the city, and then on the 6th he marched up river to Kingston Bridge in order to approach London directly from the west. By this time the retinues of such loyal peers as the Earl of Pembroke and the Marquis of Winchester were in place, and when Wyatt reached Temple Bar he found a sizeable force arrayed against him. The court was at St James’, and there was a brief panic, but almost no fighting.
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When it became clear that all the city gates were securely held, and there was not going to be a sympathetic rising in London, Sir Thomas and his colleagues surrendered, and as many of his men as could do so simply faded away, leaving about 500 in government hands. In spite of this anticlimax, the danger had been acute for a few days, and it remained to be seen what lessons the queen would draw.
MARY’S GUILDHALL SPEECH, 31 January 1554
But her Highness doubting that London, being her Chamber and a city holden of dear price in her princely heart, might, by WYAT and such ruffens as were with him, be in danger of spoil, to the utter ruin of the same: her Highness therefore, as a most tender and loving Governess, went the same day in her royal person to the Guild Hall to foresee those perils.
Where, among other matters proceeding from her incomparable wisdom, her Grace declared how she had sent that day two of her Privy Council to the traitor WYAT: desirous rather to quiet their tumult by mercy than by the justice of the sword to vanquish: whose most Godly heart fraight[ed] with all mercy and clemency. Abhorred from all effusion of blood, Her Highness also there showed the insolent and proud answer returned from WYAT: whereat the faithful citizens were much offended; and in plain terms defied him as a most rank traitor, with all his conjurates.
And touching the marriage, her Highness affirmed that nothing was done herein by herself alone, but with consent and advisement of the whole Council, upon deliberate consultation, that this conjunction and Second Marriage should greatly advance this realm (whereunto she was first married), to much honour, quiet and gain.
‘For,’ quod her Grace, ‘I am already married to this Common Weal and the faithful members of the same, the spousal ring where of I have on my finger: which never hitherto was, nor hereafter shall be, left off. Protesting unto you nothing to be more acceptable to my heart, nor more answerable to my will, than your advancement in wealth and welfare, with the furtherance of GOD’S glory.’ And to declare her tender and princely heart towards them she promised constantly not to depart from them, although by her Council she had been much moved to the contrary: but would remain near and prest to adventure the spense
*
of her royal blood in defence of them.
[ John Proctor,
†
The History of Wyat’s Rebellion: With the Order and Manner of Resisting the Same (London, 1554). Reprinted in A. F Pollard, Tudor Tracts (1903), pp. 239-40.]
*
Shedding.
†
The schoolmaster of Tonbridge School.
In spite of its ephemeral nature and limited impact, the Wyatt rebellion had some lasting effects. The Spanish marriage remained unpopular, even though the actual terms of the treaty in which the agreement was embodied were generous. Philip was to enjoy no authority in England apart from the queen, was not to employ his own servants in government, and was not to embroil England in his current war with France. In fact it seems clear that Charles was seeking a short-term advantage, to secure his son’s position in the Netherlands, rather than any long-term aim to obtain Habsburg control over England.
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Although the envoys who came to sign this treaty were pelted with snowballs by the London schoolboys, and beat a hasty retreat when the rebels threatened the city, knowledge of this treaty certainly took some of the edge off the indignation that news of the intended match had caused, and deflated the rebels’ pretensions. It was proclaimed in London on 16 January. Philip was told merely that there had been a little local difficulty over religion, and Mary herself was understandably reluctant to believe that her subjects could feel so badly about her choice of partner. Religion was a convenient pretext. It expressed the queen’s own conviction, and relieved the lord chancellor of any suspicion of complicity. Gardiner, as Bishop of Winchester, seized the opportunity, and preached fiercely against the ‘rotten and hurtful members of the commonwealth’, meaning the Protestants.
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In the long term, this backfired. Most of those who disliked the marriage were not Protestants or fellow travellers, but supporters of ‘the Queen’s proceedings’. They did not regard Wyatt and his fellows as heretics, but as patriots, and the government’s attitude presented the Protestants with xenophobic credentials that they did not really deserve.
The rebellion also left a fog of suspicion behind it. Courtenay’s complicity was more or less proved, but it had not extended far, and hard evidence was elusive. Elizabeth was equally suspected. Arrested some time about 18 February, she was interrogated and intimidated, but the princess would admit nothing, and all that could be proved was that the conspirators had written to her.
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Mary heartily disliked her sister, had bullied her into a show of conformity in attending mass, and had made it clear that she did not wish her to be included in any plans for the succession. On the other hand Mary’s sense of justice would not allow her to dispose of this troublesome sibling without incontrovertible evidence – and of that there was none. After several very frightening weeks for her, Elizabeth was released into house arrest at Woodstock. Renard suspected everybody, and became deeply frustrated as both Elizabeth and Courtenay escaped. He even threatened to advise a delay of the wedding if security were not improved.
Nevertheless, in relation to the scale of the rising, the toll of executions was heavy. About 150 died, out of some 3,000 who had been at one time or another under arms – a far higher percentage than had suffered for the Pilgrimage of Grace under Mary’s father.
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Among those who lost their heads were Wyatt himself, the Duke of Suffolk, and the unfortunate seventeen-year-old Jane (Grey) and Guildford Dudley. About a hundred Londoners were hanged, and a smaller number at various places in Kent. For a time Mary and her council had been seriously alarmed, and ‘inclined to severe justice’, but the mood passed and turned instead into a longer-term resolution to exterminate heresy – of which more anon.
Philip and Mary were formally espoused by proxy on 6 March 1554. But when he had learned the terms that his father had negotiated for him, the prince had been horrified and nearly called the whole thing off. This was not his idea of what being a king meant, and the reservation about war with France was inexplicable. Why else marry the Queen of England, if not to belabour the French? However, he had great respect for his father’s judgement, and on calmer reflection could see that it was one thing to sign a treaty, and quite another to abide by its terms. He satisfied himself with a secret disclaimer, declaring that he had no intention of being bound by the terms that he had just signed up to.
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This was exactly what his opponents in England had suspected he would do – but fortunately they never found out. By the end of March Mary was impatient for his arrival, but he was now rather less than ardent. As late as 16 February he was writing as though he intended to come quickly with just a small entourage, and to use the English household that he knew would be prepared for him. However, over the following month he changed his mind. He may have got wind of the fact that Mary had no plans to present him with any English estates, but more likely his political priorities changed under pressure from his servants and from the development of the war. Charles now wanted him to bring money and reinforcements from Spain, and both required time to assemble. There was also the need to make arrangements for the government of Spain in his absence. He was his father’s regent there, and there was considerable uncertainty as to who should be installed in his place, given the fact that his absence was going to be of indefinite duration. Eventually his sister Juana was agreed upon, but all this took more time and it was high summer before he was ready to move north.
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