Bloody Mary

by Carolly Erickson

  In the last days of 1555 Mary wrote to Philip that “she was encompassed with enemies and could not move without endangering her

  crown.” Her apprehension grew stronger as the alarming extent of Dudley’s plot became clear, and it made her reluctant to part with the few men at court whose loyalty she counted on. Chief among these was Cardinal Pole, whose continual presence in the palace helped Mary through the difficult winter months. In March she appointed Pole archbishop of Canterbury, with mixed feelings: much as it pleased her to place Pole at the head of the English church she knew he would have to leave her to go to Canterbury to take possession of his see. In preparation for his departure, she provided him with a greatly enlarged household, and episcopal robes and ornaments worth ten thousand ducats, but she dreaded his going, and in the end insisted that he delay until after Easter.16

  Noailles, who was active in Dudley’s conspiracy and took the greatest pleasure in filling his letters and dispatches with news of the queen’s discomfiture, painted a very dismal picture of Mary’s torment during these months. In a letter to a lady of the French court the ambassador wrote how Mary was “in that depth of melancholy, that nothing seems to remain for her but to imitate the example of Dido.” “But that she will not do,” he hastened to add, lest his correspondent at the French court spread the rumor that the English queen was considering suicide. To Henri II Noailles described how Mary “lets no one see her but four women of her chamber, and a fifth who sleeps with her.” She fretted the hours away in crying and writing long letters to Philip, and in bewailing the faithlessness of her subjects. Her tears were futile, the ambassador remarked, as it was now plain to everyone that Philip “never meant to reside for any length of time in England,” and had withdrawn all of his servants and possessions except for his confessor. Mary herself admitted that her separation from Philip was likely to be permanent. According to one of Noailles’ informants, the queen “told her ladies, that as she had done all possible to induce her husband to return, and as she found he would not, she meant to withdraw utterly from men, and live quietly, as she had done the chief part of her life before she married.”

  Noailles’ description was an exaggeration, indeed a caricature. But there is no doubt Mary found life wearying in Philip’s absence and that she was under great strain. When Noailles’ wife saw the queen at court in May she hardly recognized her, and told her husband that Mary looked ten years older than when she had seen her last.

  Mary turned forty in February, and she was feeling her age. Philip was not yet thirty, and to all accounts he was making the most of what was left of his youth in the banquet halls of Flanders. Mary was painfully aware how little attraction she had for her husband, especially after the embarrassment of her false pregnancy. There was no conclusive proof that she could not bear children, but Philip was understandably reluctantto wait out another questionable pregnancy when the risk of error was great.

  Perhaps in token of the approach of her fortieth birthday one of Mary’s subjects gave her on New Year’s Day a supply of Dr. Stevens’ Imperial or Sovereign Water, a tonic guaranteed to lengthen life far beyond the normal span. The medicinal water contained a dozen or more spices ground into Gascoigne wine, and both the inventor himself and a notable prelate were able to vouch for its death-defying properties. Dr. Stevens survived to “such extreme age, that he could neither go nor ride,” and he continued to live on, though bedridden, for a number of years after he had lost the strength to walk. The prelate clung to life until he was so old he could no longer drink from a cup, and had to suck his daily draught of Sovereign Water “through a hollow pipe of silver.”17 Such examples of longevity were not unheard of. Only a few weeks after Mary’s birthday news of a man of truly prodigious age came out of Rome. He claimed to be 116, and the Venetian ambassador, who saw him, confirmed that his age seemed indeed to be “very great.”18 If a man born during the Hundred Years’ War could survive into the reign of Queen Mary, then the queen herself had every reason to hope for a generous span of years.

  Philip too had a gift for Mary. He had just completed the last of the ceremonies through which he took possession of his father’s Spanish lands, and he sent one of his gentlemen to his wife “with congratulations on her being able for the future to style herself the queen of many and great crowns, and on her being no less their mistress than of her own crown of England.” He had to go to Antwerp for festivities celebrating the emperor’s renunciation, Philip’s envoy explained, but as soon as these were over the king would return to Mary’s side.19

  The rejoicings in Antwerp proved to be lengthy. There were pageants, bonfires, free-flowing wine barrels and booming cannon. The English merchants had erected a pageant of “a goodly castle, of the antique sort, fair painted and trimmed with banners, arms, and writings,” and Philip declared himself very pleased with their efforts. The celebrations were marred by a serious accident, however. The servants charged with looking after the torches in another pageant were careless, and the whole structure caught fire. A dozen people were killed instantly, and a horse and rider were felled when one of the structure’s iron supports broke and came crashing down on top of them.20

  Word now came to Mary that Philip would soon leave Antwerp for Louvain, where he would “spend as little time as he can” and then depart for a Channel port. But ten days later he was still in Antwerp, taking part in jousts and living extravagantly on borrowed money. The English ambassador Mason wrote to Petre that Philip was spending thirty-five pounds a week, and fending off the bankers from whom he borrowed itby saying he would pay them on his return to England. But the weeks went on and he showed no sign of returning, Mason added, and “in the meantime, time runneth and charges withal, and he remains tied to the stake.”21

  In March Philip was still as earnestly engaged in his familiar pastimes as ever. He was currently preoccupied with planning an elaborate joust with Ruy Gomez and others, to be held after Easter. A rival of his in the lists, Count Schwartzburg, was preparing a tournament “in honor of his sweethearts,” and Philip, not to be outdone, was taking as the theme of his tournament “that the women of Brussels are handsomer than those of Mechlin.”22 To Mary he sent the soberer explanation that he was detained in Flanders because of the expected visit of the king and queen of Bohemia. She countered with the suggestion that he bring his royal visitors with him to England, but Philip did nothing about it.23 By now he was saying openly that England was nothing to him but an expensive nuisance, and it looked as though his marriage was no more than a matter of form. At the French court the king was predicting a worse event to come.24 “I am of opinion,” he told the Venetian ambassador in private, “that ere long the king of England will endeavor to dissolve his marriage with the queen.”

  XLV

  But why am 1 so abusyd?

  Syth worde and dede is take in vayne,

  And my service all-way refusyd,

  Yet moreovyr a gretter payne,

  I wote nott where I may complayn;

  For where I shulde, they be meryt

  When that they knowe I am sory.

  On Holy Thursday of Easter week, a large hall was prepared in the palace at Greenwich for the queen to wash the feet of the poor. At one end of the hall were the bishop of Ely, dean of the chapel, and the chaplains and royal choristers. At the other end were Mary’s chief ladies and gentlewomen, wearing long linen aprons reaching to the ground and with long towels around their necks. In their hands they carried silver ewers full of water, and bunches of April flowers. Ranged down both sides of the hall were forty-one poor women, one for every year of the queen’s life. (Mary had now entered her forty-first year.) They sat on benches, their right feet bare and elevated on stools. In preparation for Mary’s act of piety the poor women’s right feet had already been washed three times—first by a servant, then by the Under Almoner, and then again by the Grand Almoner, the bishop of Chichester. When the bishop had finished Mary came into the hall, flanked by Cardinal Pole and the members
of her Council. She wore a linen apron like those of her ladies, and as she knelt down before the first of the poor women she beckoned to one of these ladies to assist her. One by one the queen washed the feet of each of the paupers in turn, drying them thoroughly with the towel which hung from her neck. As she finished drying each foot she made the sign of the cross over it and kissed it, “so fervently that it seemed as if she were embracing something very precious,” and then moved on down the row of benches, remaining on her knees the whole time.

  When she had finished Mary went around the room six more times in all, serving the poor women with platters of salted fish and bread and bowls of hippocras, and then giving them shoes and stockings and cloth for new clothes, leather purses full of forty-one pennies, and finally the aprons and towels which she and her ladies had worn. Then, looking carefully for the poorest and oldest of the paupers, she gave her the dress she had been wearing under her apron—a gown of the finest purple cloth trimmed with martens’ fur, with sleeves so long they trailed to the ground. The Venetian ambassador Michiel was present at the ceremony, and was moved by Mary’s devout seriousness throughout. “In all her movements and gestures,” he wrote, “she seemed to act thus not merely out of ceremony, but from great feeling and devotion.”

  Mary was in fact becoming as well known for her piety toward humble people and the poor as she was for her reputed cruelty to the Protestants. She liked to appear at the door of needy households, dressed as a gentlewoman and not as queen, and offer whatever help or advice was needed. When the keeper of Enfield Chase and Marylebone Forest died, Mary went to see his widow, and finding her in tears, “took her by the hand, and lifted her up—for she kneeled—and bade her be of good cheer, for her children should be well provided for.” Mary sent the woman’s two oldest sons to school, and paid their tuition until they were nearly grown.1 She liked nothing more than to go with a few of her women to visit families living near her palaces, or on Pole’s estate at Croydon. The carters and farmers and carpenters and their wives rarely realized who she was; she spoke with such “plainness and affability” that they took her to be one of “the queen’s maids, for there seemed no difference.” Jane Dormer recorded how, if Mary found children in the house, she always gave the parents money for the children’s sake, “advising them to live thriftily and in the fear of God,” and if the families were very large she would turn to Jane and tell her to write down their names so that afterward she could make arrangements for some to be apprenticed in London.2

  Jane Dormer had now become Mary’s most intimate companion, “particularly favored by her and affected.” Jane was with Mary during most of her waking hours, and often slept with her at night. They read the offices of the church together, and the queen gave into Jane’s care “her usual wearing jewels” and other valuable ornaments. When she ate it was Jane who cut her meat, and even though there were many suitors for Jane’s hand Mary insisted that none of them was good enough for her, and would not let her marry.3

  On Mary’s charitable outings it was Jane who kept a record of what complaints were made about the bailiffs on the royal estates or about local officials. Mary made a particular point of asking the villagers how they lived and whether they were getting by on what they earned.And always she pressed them to tell her “if the officers of the court did deal with them,” and whether their carts had been requisitioned for the queen’s use or their grain or chickens purloined for her table. If she found any evidence of mistreatment or dishonesty she dealt with it as soon as she returned to the court. Once at a collier’s house she sat and spoke with the collier and his wife as they were eating supper, and the man told her that, though his cart had been taken by men from the court in London, they had never paid him. Mary asked whether he had come to ask for his money, and he assured her he had, “but they gave him neither his money nor good answer.” The queen looked the collier in the eye. “Friend,” she asked one last time, “is this true, that you tell me?” He swore it was, and asked Mary to intercede with the royal controller for himself and other poor men who were abused in the same way. Mary told the collier to come again and ask for what was due him the next morning, and left.

  As soon as she got back to the palace the queen summoned the controller “and gave him such a reproof for not satisfying poor men, as the ladies who were with her, when they heard it, much grieved.” Mary told Rochester in her loud, low voice that the men who served him were surly thieves who took advantage of the country people, and that she wanted their wrongdoing stopped. “Hereafter he should see it amended,” Mary told her controller, “for if she understood it again, he should hear it to his displeasure.” And every penny owed must be paid the very next morning. Rochester had had long experience of the queen’s uncompromising authority, of course, but what puzzled him was how she came to hear of his officers’ behavior. Then Jane and the other women explained to him about the interview with the collier, and in future he took care to see that his men paid their debts and kept their word.4

  By 1556 word of Mary’s charity had reached even the destitute Benedictine nuns of Siena. The city had been devastated by war—“Siena is wasted like a candle,” one diplomatic dispatch began—and in the destruction the nuns’ convent had been leveled. Since then the hundred members of the religious community had been living in a small and unhealthy house and subsisting on charity. They had no money to rebuild their convent, and in their desperation they wrote to Mary. Her generosity was well known, the letter said; would she help them build another dormitory and church?5

  On Good Friday Mary carried out the other ceremonies traditionally performed by English sovereigns at Easter—creeping to the cross, blessing the cramp-rings and touching for the “king’s evil,” scrofula. She approached the cross on her knees, stopped to pray, and then kissed it, “performing this act with such devotion as greatly to edify all those who were present.” Then, kneeling within a low enclosure to the right of thehigh altar, she began the blessing of the rings. There were two large basins of gold and silver rings, one filled with rings Mary had ordered made for this purpose, the other with rings given by their owners to be blessed by the queen, and marked with their owners’ names. Reciting prayers and psalms in a low tone, Mary now began to pass her hands over the basins and to reach in and touch each of the rings in turn, shifting them from one hand to the other and intoning “Bless, O Lord, these rings.” Cramp-rings were valued as healing talismans possessing the power inherent in the touch of an anointed monarch. Mary’s rings were much sought after, not only in England but in foreign courts as well.

  When the rings had been distributed the queen went into a private gallery to bless the scrofulous. There were four of them, one man and three women, all afflicted with the skin disorder- monarchs of England and France had been healing for centuries by the touch of their hands. An altar had been raised in the room, and Mary knelt before it, reciting the confession, after which Pole blessed her and gave her absolution. Then, having cleansed herself spiritually in preparation for the act of healing she was about to perform, Mary had the first of the sufferers brought before her. As a priest repeated again and again the verse from Mark’s gospel, “he laid his hands upon a few sick folk, and healed them,” the queen knelt down and put her hands on the woman’s sores. With her hands in the form of a cross, she pressed the raw places several times, “with such compassion and devotion as to be a marvel,” and then called forward the next victim. When all four had received the healing touch they approached Mary a second time. She now touched their sores with four gold coins, and gave them the coins to wear on ribbons around their necks, making each of them promise never to part with the hallowed object except in extreme need.8

  Throughout all these fatiguing ceremonies it was evident to observers that Mary acted out of deep piety and profound devotion. They sensed in her a quality difficult to name except by the bland and vague term “goodness.” The Spaniards who came to England with Philip had seen in her that same quality, and had admire
d her for it. Michiel, no facile flatterer, was impressed enough to write in a dispatch to the Signory that “I dare assert that there never was a queen in Christendom of greater goodness than this one.”

  Beyond this, though, in the Easter ceremonies of 1556 and on similar occasions Mary displayed the same indefinable quality of majesty that had marked her father and his predecessors as beings set apart from ordinary mortals. Through her coronation Mary had become an anointed queen—the first anointed queen of England—a sacred personage with semi-divine status. Nothing in her public manner betrayed that status. Even her detractors remarked on her regal demeanor, grave yet magnanimous, and on the great dignity of her speech and bearing. As thoroughly as any king she fulfilled the image of majesty.

  Yet since her marriage Mary had been working to fulfill a contrary image. When she became a wife she took on a traditional burden of subjection that conflicted with her regal status at every point. In her letters she addressed Philip “in as humble wise as it is possible,” declaring herself to be “your very loyal and very obedient wife, which to be I confess myself justly obliged to be, and in my opinion more than any other woman, having such a husband as your highness is.” Mary believed she owed Philip the deference any woman owed her husband, and more besides; his exalted position as king of several kingdoms and heir to much of the Hapsburg empire meant that he deserved a greater measure of subservience from his wife, even though she was herself a queen.