Bloody Mary

by Carolly Erickson

  After the ambassadors and their escorts came the members of the queen’s personal suite, first the earl of Sussex, Chief Server, carrying her hat and cloak, then “two ancient knights with old-fashioned hats, powdered on their heads, disguised,” who following an old custom represented the dukes of the former English territories of Normandy and Guienne. Next came the chancellor, the Lord Mayor, in crimson velvet carrying a golden scepter, sergeants at arms, and finally the earl of Arundel, bearing Mary’s sword.

  Behind them was the queen herself, riding in an open litter upholstered in white cloth of gold. The six horses pulling the litter were all in white trappings reaching nearly to the ground, and Mary sat eagerly forward amid the damask cushions, sometimes holding her head in her hand because of the weight of the golden circlet she wore. She was dressed in white cloth of gold, her kirtle furred with miniver and her mantle with powdered ermine. Her hair was caught up in a net of cloth of tinsel sparkling with precious stones, and over it she wore “a round circlet of gold, much like a hooped garland,” set with jewels of inestimable value,

  Footmen in rich coats rode beside Mary’s litter, and a company of knights carried the canopy of estate that hung over her litter. Three women also rode at her side—the marchioness of Exeter, the marchioness of Winchester, Paulet’s wife, and the countess of Arundel. Behind them rode the fifty-two other women of the royal suite: Princess Elizabeth and Anne of Cleves, in gowns of cloth of silver, riding in a handsome litter; then the duchesses, marchionesses, countesses, and gentlewomen, in crimson velvet; then Mary’s maids in crimson satin and her chamberers in crimson damask. The saddles of the gentlewomen were covered with cloth of gold, and their harnesses bore powdered ermines.

  The ladies and gentlewomen were followed by nine henchmen, and then by three hundred mounted guardsmen and archers, who rode up and down beside the length of the procession as protection. The precautions were greater than usual, because it was thought some attempt might be made to disrupt the coronation festivities. A few days earlier Mary’s Master of the Horse, Sir Edward Hastings, had discovered a plot by “certain rascals or mariners” to steal all the queen’s horses. The thieves were to meet first at Blackheath, but Hastings and a number of guardsmen got there first and prevented the robbery.3

  The procession paused at Fenchurch Street to see a costly pageant presented by the Genoese merchants—a triumphal arch inscribed with verses celebrating Mary’s accession, flanked by four great giants. At Gracechurch corner the Hanseatic merchants had set up an artificial mount and a little fountain spouting wine; by some mechanism a man “flew down from the top of the pageant as she rode by.” The most elaborate and flattering of the representations was that of the Florentines, who saluted Mary as “liberator of her country,” and pointedly compared her to the Hebrew heroine Judith who by beheading the tyrant Holofernes delivered her people from the threat of slavery. By Holofernes they meant Dudley, whose beheading was still a recent memory. Mary was also compared to Pallas Athena, and an inscription told how her fame was so great it reached the stars. To the crowds that lined the streets the outstanding feature of the pageant was a mechanical angel, clothed in green and carrying a trumpet. When the angel put his trumpet to his mouth atrumpeter “who stood secretly in the pageant” blew a fanfare, so that the sound appeared to come from the angel, “to the marveling of many ignorant persons.”

  At the conduit in Cornhill was “a very pretty pageant made very gorgeously,” in which three little girls dressed as women took the parts of Grace, Virtue and Nature. Grace wore a crown and carried a scepter, and when Mary rode by all three children “kneeled down, and every one of them sang certain verses of gratifying the queen.” St. Paul’s churchyard was the site of a triple spectacle. A choir of men and boys sang at the schoolhouse, with Mary giving “diligent ear” to their song. There was more singing at the dean’s house, and a pageant where little children carried burning tapers “made of most sweet perfumes.”

  And at the top of St. Paul’s the Dutch acrobat performed the amazing feat of climbing up to the weathercock by means of scaffolds he had built out from the base of the steeple, holding a little flag in one hand. When he reached the weathercock he pulled himself up until he was standing on it, and then, waving his flag, he stood on one foot and shook his other leg in the air. The difficulty of the exploit was increased by the high wind, which blew out the torches the Dutchman had fastened to his wooden structure and threatened to blow him away as well. But he went on through his series of tricks smoothly, finally kneeling on the weathercock with both knees, “to the great marvel and wondering of all the people who beheld him, because it was thought a matter impossible.”4 The Dutch acrobat was at least as popular as the Aragonese who had flung himself down from the roof on a rope at Edward’s royal entry, and much more practical. His performance was unmistakably linked to the civic celebration of Mary’s accession; attached to his scaffolding were huge streamers five yards long painted with the red cross and sword of the city’s arms, and he was paid £16 13s by the aldermen for his pains.5

  The pageantry of the royal entry was a festive diversion in Mary’s solemn days in the Tower. As she learned the coronation ritual, rehearsed her oaths, movements and changes of clothing and regalia, she thought a great deal of the task she was to undertake. To solemnize her dedication to that task, two days before she left the Tower she called together all the members of her Council for an impromptu ceremony of her own devising. Kneeling before them, she spoke for some time about how she had come to the throne, and what she believed to be the duties of kings and queens. It was her earnest intention, she said, to carry out the task God had given her to his greater glory, and to the benefit of all her subjects. Her affairs and her person were in their keeping, she told her councilors, and she urged them to be faithful to the oaths they had sworn, to be loyal to their queen unto death. To her chancellor Mary made a special appeal. The administration of justice was in his hands, she told Gardiner, and on his conscience. Mary remained on her knees throughout, speaking reverently of the obligations that lay before them all. For a sovereign to humble herself before her office was an extraordinary thing, and the councilors were overwhelmed “by the queen’s great goodness and integrity.” They had never heard anything like it before, and they were “so deeply moved that not a single one refrained from tears.”6

  Sunday, October I, was Mary’s coronation day. In the morning she left the Tower to go by water to Westminster, where in a private chamber she put on the first of her sets of robes and waited with her ladies until she was summoned to the church. The cathedral had been cleansed and hung with tapestries, and the floor covered with fresh rushes. At its upper end was a wide platform, with stairs on two sides, one pair leading up from the floor of the sanctuary and the other leading down to the altar. In the center of this platform was another set of stairs, leading to a smaller platform bearing a “great royal chair”—Edward’s throne-covered with damask gold and with the royal lions, turret and fleur-de-lis surmounting its back. The way from Westminster Hall to the high altar in the cathedral was carpeted with blue cloth, and the “stage royal,” from the choir to the altar, was covered with cloth of gold.

  At eleven o’clock Gardiner, bishop of Winchester and ten other bishops, along with the clergy of Mary’s private chapel, met her in the Hall. The bishops were wearing their miters and the chaplains their copes of cloth of gold; these signs of the old ritual were augmented by the standing crosses, silver candlesticks, basins of holy water and censers their assistants carried. After they censed the queen and sprinkled her with holy water, they took her into the church, along with the same attendants who had accompanied her on her progress the day before. Mary walked behind Norfolk, Winchester and Arundel, who carried her crown, orb and scepter; she wore her Parliament robes of red velvet, and the Barons of the Cinque Ports held over her head the canopy of estate on four silver staves hung with silver bells. When she had been escorted to the throne, completing the first stage of t
he proceedings, she was conducted to each of the four corners of the large platform in turn, to be viewed by the people. Then the bishop of Winchester, who was standing at her side, called out in a loud voice:

  “Sirs, here present is Mary, rightful and undoubted inheritrix by the laws of God and man to the crown and royal dignity of this realm of England, France, and Ireland, whereupon you shall understand that this day is appointed by all the Peers of this land for the consecration, inunction [sic]fand coronation of the said most excellent Princess Mary; will you serve at this time, and give your wills and assent to the same consecration, inunction, and coronation?” In response to this elaborate formula “all the people shouted joyfully, Yea, yea,” and “God save Queen Mary!”At this point Mary made an offering at the altar, and then lay face down on a velvet cushion while prayers were said over her. After a sermon by the bishop of Chichester, “esteemed the floridest preacher” in the realm, Mary took her oaths upon the sacrament, and then lay prostrate again while the Veni Creator Spiritus was sung and more prayers recited. Then, accompanied by some of her ladies, she went behind a screen at the left of the altar to make her first change of clothing and to prepare for the holiest of the coronation procedures: the anointing with holy oil and chrism.

  This most solemn of rituals marked the sovereign with the indelible stigma of majesty. Only priests and rulers were anointed with the holy oils, setting them apart from all others as designated bearers of divine authority among men. Because so much depended on her anointing Mary had taken special care to ensure the validity of the ritual. She feared that the oils to be found in England were tainted as a result of the ecclesiastical censures brought against the nation by the pope many years earlier, so she wrote to the bishop of Arras asking him to send her vials of the sacred oil and chrism from Flanders.7 It was these Flemish unctions that Gardiner now poured over Mary’s breast, shoulders, forehead and temples, after she reappeared in a purple velvet gown that left her shoulders bare.

  Dressed again in her velvet robes after her anointing Mary received her spurs and sword, and was crowned successively with the crown of King Edward the Confessor, the imperial crown of the realm, and a crown made especially for her, a massive yet simply designed crown with two arches, a large fleur-de-lis and prominent crosses where the arches joined the border.8 Of the jewels set in the crown nothing is known, but Edward’s crown made only six years earlier was adorned with a very large diamond and thirteen smaller ones, ten rubies, one emerald, one sapphire and seventy pearls, and Mary’s was in all likelihood more ornate. As each successive crown was set on her head, the trumpets blew a triumphant fanfare, and after the third crown was set in place the choir burst into the Te Deum. As they sang the other royal accouterments were brought for Mary to put on—the “wedding ring of England,” said to have been given by the Confessor to the evangelist John disguised as an old man asking alms, the bracelets of gold and precious stones, the scepter, orb and regal of gold, and the royal sabatons, or slippers, fastened with ribbons of Venice gold,

  Thus arrayed in her regalia, wearing her royal mantle and surcoat trimmed with “wombs of miniver,” and a lace mantel of silk and gold, Mary was ready to receive the homage of her subjects. Gardiner swore the oath for all the bishops, kneeling and swearing fidelity, and then Norfolk made his oath. “I become your liege man of life and limb,” he promised, “and of all earthly worship and faith, and all truly shall bear untoyou to live and die with you against all manner of folk; so God help me, and all hallows.” One by one they knelt before her, the earl of Arundel swearing for all the earls, Viscount Hereford for all those of his rank, and Lord Abergavenny for all lords, and as each man knelt he put his hands together in the old feudal gesture of homage, “in manner of lamenting,” as the chronicler wrote, and then kissed the queen’s cheek. As the oaths were being sworn Gardiner made the circuit of the large platform one last time, and announced the queen’s “goodly large and ample pardon for all manner of offenses,” clearing all prisons but the Tower of the majority of their habitual residents. Then mass was sung, and afterward Mary took off her regalia and put on a robe of purple velvet and, wearing her crown, walked back across the carpet of blue cloth into Westminster Hall to wait for the ceremonial dinner to begin.

  It was nearly five o’clock when the coronation ended, and the long banqueting tables were set out in the Hall for the hundreds of celebrants who were to dine with the queen. She ate with the bishop of Durham on her left and the earl of Shrewsbury on her right, with Bishop Gardiner and Elizabeth and Anne of Cleves farther down the table. Four swords were held before her as she ate, and according to custom she “rested her feet on two of her ladies.”9 Throughout the dinner the earl of Derby, High Steward of England, and the duke of Norfolk, Earl Marshal, rode continually up and down the hall on horses trapped in cloth of gold, overseeing the banqueting and maintaining order. After the second course Mary’s champion, Sir Edward Dymoke, rode into the hall flanked by pages carrying his spear and target. A herald who preceded him cried out his challenge:

  “If there be any manner of man, of what estate, degree or condition soever he be, that will say and maintain that our Sovereign Lady, Queen Mary the First, this day here present, is not the rightful and undoubted inheritrix to the imperial crown of this realm of England, and that of right she ought not to be crowned Queen, I say he Iieth like a false traitor, and that I am ready the same to maintain with him whilst I have breath in my body!”

  With this dramatic announcement the challenger cast down his gauntlet. When no one took it up, the herald retrieved it and returned it to Dymoke, and the entire party moved on to repeat the ritual in another corner of the hall. When he had ridden to every table the champion returned to stand before the queen, who drank to him, and sent him the cup as his wage, and then he rode out again. Following another custom the officers of arms proclaimed Mary’s style in Latin, French and English, calling for largesse, and after the dinner the Lord Mayor brought Mary “a goodly standing cup,” from which she drank before returning it to him as a gift.

  By this time the torches had been lit and the long day was ending, butMary found energy enough to talk with the ambassadors for a time before taking off her ceremonial robes for the trip back to the palace. And once there, the “feasting and royal cheer” continued, with music and dancing and the sound of royal laughter far into the night.

  To the crowds that cheered Mary as she went to be crowned, tore up the blue cloth she walked on and scrambled for the “waste-meat” set out for them after the coronation banquet, there was only one thing lacking to make Mary’s triumph complete. She had won out over her enemies, she had been gorgeously crowned, and she had received the homage of every great and small lord in the kingdom, but she needed a husband. During Jane’s brief rule one of the few arguments raised in her favor was that she was married, and a married queen was preferable to an unmarried one; on the continent it was reported that Guilford Dudley was the new king of England. When news of Mary’s accession arrived to correct this misapprehension foreign rulers and ambassadors assumed that Mary would soon take a husband, and retreat into relative insignificance. When the marquis of Brandenburg wrote congratulating Mary on her coming to the throne he added as a matter of course sincere hopes “that she would soon take to herself a worthy husband.”10

  Among her gentlewomen marriage was the primary and only subject of conversation. It was as if Mary were a little girl again, surrounded by women eager for her to marry and preoccupied with talk of gallantry and romance. Then she had been a pretty child of seven, betrothed to her cousin the emperor; now she was a handsome woman of thirty-seven, and a queen, but the talk was very much the same. No one, it seemed, including Mary herself, seriously considered the possibility that she might choose to remain unmarried, and reign alone.

  And if there was no question that she ought to marry, in the minds of most of her subjects there was no question who her husband ought to be. Edward Courtenay, son of the executed marquis of Ex
eter and of Mary’s intimate friend Gertrude Blount, could claim the most exalted descent of any Englishman living. (Courtenay’s relatives Reginald and Geoffrey Pole were of equally distinguished ancestry, but both were still in exile, and Reginald was a churchman besides.) He was the great-grandson of Edward IV, grandson of Edward’s daughter Catherine. As such he had a legitimate, if weak, claim to the throne as the only remaining Plantagenet heir left in England—he was, in Renard’s phrase, “the last sprig of the white rose.” Like Mary, Courtenay had been a victim of Henry VIII’s tyranny. At twelve he was imprisoned in the Tower with his father, and when Exeter was killed he was not released but kept there to grow to manhood within its confines. He had for company the grim rebels, disgruntled aristocrats and doomed politicians who made up the curioussociety of the Tower, and all that he knew of the world until his twenty-seventh year he learned from them. He was far from ignorant, however; he continued his education during his confinement and by the time Mary released him he had acquired the formal learning and gracious accomplishments of a courtier. He was well read in “letters and science,” he knew the classics, and he could play several instruments well. More important, he had the refined features and elegant body of an aristocrat of the blood royal, and a “natural civility” Renard ascribed to his lineage.11