The Tudors for Dummies (AvaxHome Download) (26 page)

Direct taxation was slow to boost the coffers, so by the end of June the

Council pushed through two defence bills that:

Streamlined the method of recruiting men to stop corruption

Told Households to provide armour and weapons to equip a militia

Increasingly, the gentry, as opposed to the nobility, took over control of local

troops.

Getting the jitters

The Council thought that, come the good weather in the spring, France would

invade.

When the French had last tried to invade, only 13 years earlier, fierce fighting

had followed on the Isle of Wight and the Mary Rose, the pride of Henry VIII's

fleet, had sunk (refer to Chapter 3).

Lords lieutenant of counties paraded their militias and got them busy with

battlefield drill and musket practice (although a lot of the soldiers were still

relying on bows and arrows).

The marquis of Winchester was empowered to use martial law against

`rebels, traitors and other offenders'. These powers already existed but

were only used occasionally against deserters from the navy. Suddenly, Big

Brother had come to England and panic reigned in Whitehall.

Catching a Cold: The Flu Epidemic

The harvests of 1555 and 1556 had been dreadful, with food shortages and star-

vation. Twice as many people died from disease in 1558 than the year before.

Nobody knew what the `strange diseases' were and so no cure existed.

In some places (but not everywhere) the poor were hit harder than the rich.

No age group was safe but the elderly suffered very badly. County militias

had to be disbanded, and some workshops were closed down. If the flu didn't

kill you, it left you weak and vulnerable, and the last thing you could handle

was dragging a plough across the furrow or cutting down timber on the lord's

estate. The economy was hit hard through lost work days.

The outbreak kept Philip away, even when he heard that Mary was seri-

ously ill � he probably thought she had the flu and couldn't take the chance

of catching it himself. Nobody was immune � Cardinal Pole died from it in

November 1558.

Defending the Faith

Throughout history when disasters or epidemics happened, simple (and

not so simple) people thought it was the work of the devil or the wrath of

God. The poor harvests, the economic depression (see Chapter 10), the lost

war and the flu epidemic of the last two years just reinforced these ideas in

people's minds.

The Church's leaders and university types didn't argue have much to say, but

others did:

Some, like the hosier (tights-maker) Miles Huggarde, thought the flu

was the result of plots against the queen and people moaning about her

godly work.

The Protestants, of course, believed that Mary's return to the old faith had

led to God's anger. Exiles Edmund Grindal and John Foxe, who were writing

their martyrology, kept up a steady barrage of criticism against the queen,

Philip and the Council, all of whom were tarred with the same (papist) brush.

Few people criticised the queen directly but Philip was fair game. Never popu-

lar, by the summer of 1558 he might as well have been the devil himself.

Trying to make Catholicism acceptable wasn't easy in the face of a foreign

king, a failed war and flu. Here's an outline of the Church at this time:

The Church stressed the importance of the mass and Thomas Watson,

bishop of Lincoln, wrote books to guide ordinary people through the

complicated rituals of the mass (which had fallen into disuse under

Edward VI � see Chapter 7).

The English Bible (see Chapter 6) wasn't recalled, even though it had been

written by heretics, because Mary � and even Cardinal Pole � quite liked it.

Rabid Catholics like Bishop James Turberville of Exeter grabbed copies and

burned them. Presumably, this was less traumatic than burning people!

The pastoral care that the Catholic Church offered was old-fashioned by

Protestant standards, fussing about sacraments and ceremonies; cer-

emonies were good for discipline.

The Church wasn't generally too keen on sermons, because in the wrong

hands they gave people wrong ideas.

The Church didn't restore the shrines.

Nobody made a pilgrimage in Mary's reign. Though you expect have

expected Mary to go, what with the old Virgin's shrine at Walsingham in

Norfolk and a lot to pray for, she didn't.

No real return to the monasteries occured. The only great abbey set up

was at Westminster and very few novices (trainee monks) were recruited.

Henry VIII's will named three heirs to his kingdom. If Edward VI died child-

less, the throne should pass to Mary; if Mary died childless, it should go

to Elizabeth. It was a sort of Doomsday scenario and nobody at the time of

Henry's death thought Elizabeth would be queen, but by 1558 there seemed

no other alternative.

Mary was opposed to Elizabeth because:

She couldn't forget that Elizabeth was the hated Anne Boleyn's daughter

and she believed (wrongly) that Anne was a heretic (her sixth finger and

spooky witchcraft rumours didn't help � see Chapter 4).

She thought that Elizabeth was only pretending to have gone back to the

old faith � she was obviously a Protestant.

The law said Elizabeth was a bastard and Mary didn't even like to think

of them as half-sisters. In her more snide moments, she commented

loudly on how much Elizabeth looked like Mark Smeaton, the music

teacher who'd been executed for having an affair with Anne Boleyn (see

Chapter 5).

Mary had a love�hate relationship with Elizabeth, seeing her as a sort of

daughter on the one hand and a deadly rival on the other. The only film with

Mary in anything like an important role is Cathy Burke's portrayal in Elizabeth.

Check out the scene when she tries to persuade Elizabeth (Cate Blanchett) to

go over to Rome; her mood swings say it all.

Locking up a rival

In Chapter 9 we explain that following a rebellion in England led by Thomas

Wyatt, Mary had her sister sent to the Tower. As Charles V's man in England,

looking out for Philip's interests, the ambassador Simon Renard was

delighted when it looked for a while as though Elizabeth was involved in

Wyatt's Rebellion. Renard did his best to have the princess executed and was

livid when the `evidence' against her wouldn't stand up.

The story goes that Elizabeth refused to enter the Tower by water because

that meant passing under the archway called Traitor's Gate (check it out when

you're there next) and she was no traitor.

The cringing letter Elizabeth wrote to Mary from the Tower has survived.

She denied any involvement with Wyatt and said there'd never been a more

devoted sister. The frequent scribbling out, however, reveals a scared

woman desperately searching for the right phrase. 192 Part III: Remembering the Forgotten Tudors: Edward VI and Mary

Despite urgings from various members of the Council like Paget, Mary

refused to have her sister killed. Instead, she released her from the Tower in

1554 and put her under house arrest at Woodstock in Oxfordshire.

Mary and Elizabeth met face to face at some point in 1554 and Elizabeth

sobbed and swore loyalty to Mary, but the queen wouldn't let her go. Mary's

attitude to her half-sister bordered on the schizophrenic � she hated and

loved her at the same time.

Lord Chancellor Gardiner's idea was to have Elizabeth barred from ever

being queen by scrapping Henry VIII's last Succession Act. Because this

would mean bastardising Mary too, the whole thing was quietly dropped.

Searching for a suitable suitor

The laws of England � and most of Europe � were that when a woman mar-

ried, her property became her husband's. The generally held view � going all

the way back to Adam and Eve � was that women were inferior to men and

wives were expected to do as they were told.

So the solution, in the case of Elizabeth, was simple � find her a good man

and the Elizabeth problem would go away. Philip took on the job of match-

maker himself. He decided that the lucky groom would need to be:

Be a good Catholic

Be a crony of Philip's or at least loyal to his family

Have the time and energy to keep Elizabeth in check (for her famous

temper, see Chapter 12).

The obvious choice was Emmanuel Philibert, the duke of Savoy (see Map of

Europe in Chapter 9).

Philibert had actually lost his land to the French and he'd been brought up

at Charles V's Court. He was a competent soldier and was prepared to move

to England to live with Elizabeth (although Philip probably had ideas of ship-

ping her overseas at the earliest opportunity).

Philip's problem was that he had to convince two women:

Elizabeth was clever and shrewd. She knew exactly what was going on,

and in fact for the rest of her life she never lost her own power to a man

(despite huge pressure).

Mary was surprisingly snobby. She had no qualms about marrying

Elizabeth off, but the girl was the bastard (as far as Mary was con-

cerned) of Anne Boleyn and Mark Smeaton, so a duke was far too high

ranked for her. Chapter 11: Ending the Dream: The Last of Mary 193 When Philip came back to England in the spring of 1557 he brought with him the duchesses of Parma and Lorraine, two pretty feisty ladies from his Spanish Court. They worked on Elizabeth � and probably Mary too � but got nowhere.

We know that Philip issued instructions after the Dudley conspiracy (see Chapter 10 for details) that Elizabeth was to be left alone, so maybe Mary's paranoia was particularly bad then and Elizabeth needed protection. Philip could have whisked Elizabeth back to the Low Countries or Spain, but the Council had said no and Philip needed the Council's backing for the French war.

So Elizabeth stayed put, biding her time and keeping everybody guessing. Philip tried to push the Savoy marriage again in 1558, but it was still no go.

By now, Mary had suffered her second phantom pregnancy (see Chapter 10 for details of the babies that never were), and so in October 1558 she added a new clause to her will. If she produced no `heirs of her body' the crown would pass `by the laws of England'. She still couldn't bring herself to name Elizabeth.

Naming Elizabeth as successor Mary was paranoid in the last months of her life. Two phantom pregnan- cies, a half-hearted comeback of Catholicism, the smell of burning flesh over Smithfield (Chapter 10 gives the grisly details of the burnings) � it wasn't much of a legacy to leave.

Elizabeth was a born plotter. Much later in her life (see Chapter 16) she gave her increasingly frustrated Parliaments `answers answerless'. She was highly intelligent, secretive and enigmatic; nobody quite knew how to play her. Even with Wyatt's Rebellion (see Chapter 9) it wasn't clear what her involvement was and no jury was prepared to convict her.

By the summer of 1558 it was clear that Mary was seriously ill and Philip sent a close adviser, the count of Feria, to talk to Elizabeth at Hatfield House, north of London (check the place out next time you're in Hertfordshire). No records of what went on exist, but it's likely the pair talked of what would happen when Mary died.

Now Philip faced a dilemma. He knew by October that Mary was probably dying and many in England thought he should do the decent thing and be with her. He had two problems though:

If Mary had flu, he might catch it.

If he was in England when Mary died, he'd have to claim succession,

which he wasn't ready for and which would turn pretty nasty. 194 Part III: Remembering the Forgotten Tudors: Edward VI and Mary

So Philip sent the long-suffering Feria instead. The count saw Mary early in

November. She recognised him, but couldn't read the letters he'd brought

from Philip.

Everybody seemed to be holding their breath, wondering what would

happen. Heretics due to be burned were held in prison. But by the time of

Elizabeth's next meeting with Feria, everything had changed. Elizabeth was

more confident, less reliant on Philip. When Mary was gone, she knew the

Council and the people would back her. As for the Church . . . well, that

remained to be seen.

It was probably now that Mary named Elizabeth as her successor. She asked

that her debts be paid and the Church she loved so dearly should be kept

intact. Her request received no reply.

Preparing for power

Count Feria is very useful for the history of these weeks because he wrote a

thumbnail sketch of Elizabeth:

She was vain and clever, taught by her father to get her own way.

Her ladies-in-waiting were all Protestant, so Feria assumed (rightly) that

she'd choose male advisers of the same persuasion when she became

queen.

She had a huge backing in the country at large. To quote the count:

`There is not a heretic or a traitor in the kingdom who would not rise up

from the grave to support her.'

She was seriously annoyed about the way Mary had treated her, whisk-

ing her from one prison to another.

Feria let Elizabeth know that Philip had told his pension-holders to back her.

This was supposed to make Elizabeth grateful, but it didn't work � Elizabeth

wasn't sure anybody should be receiving cash hand-outs from a foreign king

(thanks, sister-in-law).

So the smooth count and the soon-to-be-queen talked money, marriage and

foreign affairs:

Elizabeth wanted to know whether Mary had been funding Philip. Feria

told her no; it was the other way round.

Elizabeth reminded Feria that Parliament had a right to know what

Philip's money was being spent on.