Mary Tudor (27 page)
July dragged on, and everyone’s patience was wearing thin. The awaiting fleet was short of victuals and afflicted by squabbles between its English and Flemish components. Some of Philip’s household simply upped sticks and went away, complaining that they could not afford to hang about at their own expense.
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Renard had run out of excuses, and was thoroughly miserable. Finally, on 20 July in pouring rain the prince’s ship dropped anchor off Portsmouth, and a slightly seasick Philip landed at Southampton. Mary had been at Bishop’s Waltham, near Fareham, for nearly a month, but she had allowed herself no expression of impatience. Instead she had spent some of the time overseeing the goldsmith who was creating the magnificent Garter insignia ‘worth 7 or 8,000 crowns’ (£2,500) that she intended to bestow upon her royal husband, and with which the Earl of Arundel girded him on board his own ship, even before his landing.
It was almost exactly a year since Mary had been proclaimed queen in London, and as she stood on the threshold of the second most momentous development of her life, Mary might well have reflected that God had (at last) been good to her. Against all the apparent odds, she had secured her throne and successfully defended it against heretics and rebels. The French had threatened war if she married a Habsburg, but she had outfaced them. The mass, and all the traditional rites that she had fought so hard to defend, were now received again throughout the realm – and Philip had come, to share her life and burdens, and hopefully to beget an heir. There was much still to do. The tangled problem of ecclesiastical jurisdiction had yet to be resolved. Heresy was defeated, but not eliminated; the enigmatic Elizabeth still posed a threat; and her children were still to be begotten. Only she knew what an exciting and alarming prospect that presented.
Apart from the weather, Philip could hardly complain about his reception. Several councillors, including the earls of Arundel, Derby, Shrewsbury and Pembroke, had gone out in a richly gilded barge to bring him ashore, and a distinguished retinue of courtiers awaited his arrival. The ‘vii score ships’ that had accompanied him from Spain proceeded straight to the Netherlands. Contrary to what many had feared and anticipated, no Spanish troops landed in England. Among those awaiting Philip’s landing was a messenger from his father, bearing a patent conferring upon him the kingdoms of Naples, Sicily and Jerusalem, ‘whereat the English lords were greatly pleased’.
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Philip was soon complaining that the actual powers of government did not appear to have followed the grant, but at the time everyone was gratified by the gesture, because it meant that the marriage that was about to take place would now be between technical equals.
Having received the homage of his English officers through the agency of Sir Anthony Browne, master of the horse, the new king went straight to the Church of the Holy Rood in Southampton to give thanks for his safe arrival. The same evening he treated the council to what is described as ‘a long discourse of the occasion of his coming into this kingdom’, no doubt intended to reassure them of the honourable nature of his intentions. Presumably he spoke in Latin, since he had no English and the councillors (with one or two exceptions) no Spanish.
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Philip, ‘with such noblemen as had accompanied him’, remained in Southampton that night, and the Saturday and Sunday following, to recover from their journey. On Monday 23 July he proceeded to Winchester, where he was lodged in the deanery. Mary, meanwhile, had come down from Bishops Waltham to Winchester on the Saturday, and was lodged at the bishop’s palace.
It was on Tuesday the 24th – the day before their wedding – that the royal couple first met each other. At about three o’clock in the afternoon, accompanied at a discreet distance by numerous lords both English and Spanish, ‘he went to the queen from the Dean’s house afoot … in a cloak of black cloth embroidered with silver, and a pair of white hose’, and, according to one source, wearing his Garter.
After that he had entered the court, where all kinds of instruments played very melodiously, and come within the hall where the Queen’s Majesty was standing on a scaffold, her highness descended, and amiably receiving him, did kiss him in presence of all the people. And then taking him by the right hand, they went together in[to] the Chamber of Presence, where after they had, in sight of all the Lords and Ladies, a quarter of an hour pleasantly talked and communed together under the cloth of estate, and each of them merrily smiling on [the] other, to the great comfort and rejoicing of the beholders, he took his leave of her grace …
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What either of them really thought or felt at this time, we do not know, but the public display of affection was a vast relief to the spectators – as it was intended to be – and conducted in accordance with the strictest protocol. Philip, indeed, behaved admirably throughout what must have been a rather trying experience. He was not accustomed to making himself agreeable for the benefit of people whom he neither knew nor liked, but during these days he made an excellent impression, not only on the courtiers (who were disposed to be impressed) but also on the crowds that hung around the fringes of these events, catching sight of him as they could. Although he was quite small and slightly built, they seem to have found him ‘manly’, and very splendidly turned out. He was courteous, very correct, particularly in his religious observances, and his display of affection for Mary, although brief, was very well received.
What Philip thought of Mary he seems not to have confided, even to his closest servants, which probably tells its own story. His servants were frankly unimpressed, and their letters home present an unflattering picture of a dowdy spinster, ‘not as young as we had been led to suppose’, who loved flashy clothes and jewellery, but who had no taste or dress sense.
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They were even more unflattering about the queen’s ladies, who they generally describe as plain and elderly, although there is some evidence to suggest that that was distinctly unfair. In fact a number of Philip’s courtiers had had their arms twisted to come on this trip at all, and were disposed to be querulous and critical of everything that they found. ‘We do not want to go courting in England,’ one of their laments ran, ‘there are far prettier girls at home’.
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The wedding duly took place in Winchester Cathedral on Wednesday 25 July. The date – St James’ Day – seems to have been chosen as a compliment to the Spanish visitors, as Santa Iago (de Compostella) was the patron saint of Castile. The ceremony was lavish, and replete with symbolism. The king arrived first, accompanied by a large retinue of Spanish lords, ‘the like of which has not been seen’, but (as the commentator carefully notes) no sword borne before him (because he was not yet king), and took his place on the dais.
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Half an hour later the queen arrived, accompanied by numerous lords, ladies and gentlewomen, and with a sword borne before her by the Earl of Derby. While the heralds and kings of arms took up their positions, she proceeded to the other side of the dais. Once they were in position, the Count of Feria stepped forward and formally confirmed the Emperor’s grant of the crown of Naples to his son, presenting the patent. The lord chamberlain, Sir John Gage, then made ‘a goodly oration to the people’, full of flattering references both to Philip and his father, but also drawing careful attention to the terms of the marriage treaty, ‘the articles whereof are not unknown to the whole realm’. If Philip felt any discomfort at this recitation of the limits imposed upon him, he gave no sign of it. The actual marriage was conducted by the Bishop of Winchester, assisted by his brethren of London, Durham, Chichester, Lincoln and Ely. The bans were called both in English and Latin, and Mary was given away in the name of the realm by the Marquis of Winchester and the earls of Derby, Bedford and Pembroke. There then followed a solemn high mass, but neither of the principals appear to have communicated, receiving instead ‘hallowed wine and sops’.
Mary was married with a plain gold ring ‘because so were maids wont to be married in old time’, as she is supposed to have said, and when the ring was blessed Philip put three handfuls of fine gold ‘upon the said book’, which Margaret Clifford, performing the function of what would now be known as bridesmaid, carefully stowed in the queen’s purse. And when they had enclosed their hands [that is, the marriage was complete] immediately the sword was advanced before the king by the Earl of Pembroke …’ Throughout the proceedings, we are told, the queen kept to the right hand, and the king to the left – a reversal of the normal positions – in case Philip should be left in any doubt that his status in England was primarily that of the queen’s husband.
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This was a role that, later, George of Denmark, Victoria’s Prince Albert and the present Duke of Edinburgh would all have recognised, but it was without precedent in the mid-sixteenth century. What the king himself thought we do not know, but several of his councillors were outraged by the implied slight upon his honour. In spite of the euphoria with which (we are assured) the ceremony was greeted by the English, of all classes, the political symbolism of the marriage was not altogether encouraging.
THE QUEEN’S WEDDING, 25 July 1554
Then Wednesday, being Saint James’s day, the xxvth of July, his Highness (at x of the clock) and his nobles before him, went to the cathedral church, and remained there (the doors being very straightly kept) until the Queen’s Highness came: whose Majesty, with all her council and nobility before her, came thither at half hour to eleven. And entering at the West door of the said cathedral church (where her Grace was received the Saturday before, in like manner as his Highness was the Monday following), her Majesty ascended the foresaid steps, and came towards the choir door, where a little without the same door was made a round mount of boards, ascending also five steps above the scaffold. On which mount, immediately after her Majesty and the king were shriven, they were married by my lord the Bishop of Winchester, Lord Chancellor of England, her Majesty standing on the right side of the said mount, and the king on the left side. And this marriage being ended and solemnised, which with the biddings and the bans thereof was declared and done by the said Lord Chancellor, both in Latin and English, his Lordship declared also there: How that the Emperor’s Majesty resigned, under his Imperial seal, the kingdoms of Naples and Jerusalem to his son Philip Prince of Spain, whereby it might well appear to all men that the Queen’s Highness was then married, not only to a Prince, but also unto a King. The Queen’s marriage ring was a plain hoop of gold without any stone in it: because that was as it is said her pleasure because maidens were so married in old times. This (as I have said) being ended and done, the Earl of Derby before the Queen’s Majesty, and the Earl of Pembroke before the King’s Highness, did bear each of them a sword of honour. And so both their Majesties entered the choir hand in hand under a canopy borne by iiii knights towards the high altar, where after they had kneeled awhile with each of them a taper, they arose, and [the] Queen went to a seat or traverse of the right hand of the altar, and the King to another seat of the left hand, where they continued thus several in their meditations and prayers until the gospel was said, and then they came out, and kneeled all the high mass time openly before the high altar, the care cloth being holden as the manner is.
*
Where during the mass time the Queen’s chapel matched with the choir and the organs, used such sweet proportion of music and harmony as the like (I suppose) was never before invented or heard. The high mass being done, which was celebrated and said by my lord the Bishop of Winchester, having to his co-adjutors the five bishops aforesaid, that is to say the Bishops of Durham, Ely, London, Lincoln and Chichester, (wherein both the princes offering rich jewels, and delivering their tapers, yea and the King’s Highness at the Agnus Dei kissing the celebrator, according to the ceremonies of marriages used in the holy catholic churches), the King of Heralds openly, in presence of both their Majesties and the whole audience, solemnly proclaimed this their new style and title in Latin, French and English.
[ John Elder, The copie of a letter sent into Scotlande, of the arrivall and landynge, and most noble marryage of the moste illustre prynce, Philippe, prynce of Spaine... (London, 1554). Printed by J. G. Nichols in The Chronicle of Queen Jane (Camden Society, 1850), Appendix x.]
*
A canopy held over their heads.
The spirit of Anglo-Spanish rivalry, foreshadowed in these ceremonies, seems to have surfaced as early as the banquet that followed the marriage. Edward Underhill, one of the gentleman servants who waited at that banquet, wrote afterwards:
I will not take upon me to write of the manner of the marriage, of the feast, nor of the dancing of the Spaniards that day, who were greatly out of countenance, especially King Philip dancing, when they did see my Lord Bray, Mr Carew and others so far exceed them; but will leave it unto the learned …
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We have only his word for it, but competition certainly seems to have been in the air. This was doubly unfortunate, because the two nations really did not like, or understand, each other at all. The Spaniards had a reputation throughout their dependent dominions for being arrogant and intolerant, while in their eyes the English were still (except the queen) the barbarous heretics who had rejected that good daughter of Spain, Catherine of Aragon. As far as we know none of Philip’s retinue spoke a word of English, and there were only a handful of Spanish speakers in the English court. Except at the very highest level, where Latin provided a common medium, mutual incomprehension was absolute. Even at the wedding banquet this situation was exacerbated by the fact that Philip had two households – one Spanish, the other English – and two sets of officers. How this had arisen is a mystery, because it had always been clear that the king would have an English establishment – for which he would pay. Perhaps his Spanish servants had made it apparent that they would feel insulted if they were not allowed to accompany him, and he took the line of least resistance. However, the tensions were immediate and unavoidable.
