Tudor Women Queens & Commoners

by Alison Plowden

  Jane was beheaded on Tower Green on the morning of 12 February. The two ladies who attended her 'wonderfully wept', but she herself was dry-eyed and calm. In a brief speech from the scaffold, she admitted she had done wrong in ever accepting the crown but reiterated her innocence 'touching the procurement and desire thereof. She asked those present to bear witness that she died a good Christian woman who looked to be saved 'by none other mean, but only by the mercy of God in the merits of the blood of His only son Jesus Christ'. 'And now, good people,' she ended, 'while I am alive, I pray you to assist me with your prayers.' Even at the last dreadful moment, she had the strength to remain true to her Protestant faith which rejected the age-old comfort of prayers for the dead. Jane had known little happiness in her sixteen years of life, but all her learning had taught her that earthly happiness was a vain and transient thing. She was going now to a better place, and that conviction sustained her. It was only after the blindfold had been tied over her eyes and she was alone and groping in the dark that her composure broke momentarily. Then someone came forward to guide her, and 'she laid her down upon the block and stretched forth her body and said: "Lord, into thy hands I commend my spirit." ' Later that day the butchered remains of Henry VIII's eldest great-niece were thrust unceremoniously beneath the stones of St. Peter-ad-Vincula, to lie between his two headless queens, Anne Boleyn and Katherine Howard.

  No one denied that Jane Grey had been a sacrifice to political necessity, and for a time it looked as if another, still greater sacrifice would be exacted. Throughout the recent crisis the Princess Elizabeth had remained in the country, holed up at her house at Ashridge and suffering, so she assured the Queen, from such a cold and headache as she had never felt before. Elizabeth's name had never been publicly invoked by Wyatt, but it was an open secret that the rebels' ultimate aim had been to depose the Queen, marry Elizabeth to young Edward Courtenay, great-grandson of Edward IV and last male offshoot of the Plantagenet tree, and place them jointly on the throne. Certainly this was what the French ambassador, in his anxiety to prevent the Spanish marriage at all costs, had been hoping to see. There was no evidence as yet that Elizabeth had been in contact with Wyatt, or had known or approved of his plans, but there were one or two suspicious circumstances, and there could be no doubt that she, if anyone, had stood to gain by his success. She was therefore brought under guard to London to give an account of herself, despite her pleas that her weakness was so great that she feared she would not be able to endure the journey without peril of life.

  Her illness on this occasion was genuine enough, but the danger, as she well knew, lay not in the journey but its destination. How great that danger might be must surely have been brought home by the news of Jane Grey's execution. For if Mary had been able to bring herself to kill Jane, who'd always been rather a favourite with her, what chance was there that she would spare the sister she so openly distrusted? As it turned out, it was Mary's scrupulous insistence on a thorough and careful investigation of all the facts, that and her own impenetrable discretion, which saved Elizabeth. Her much publicized sojourn in the Tower was undoubtedly a frightening and upsetting experience, but by the time the hotly-debated decision to send her there had been taken, it was already becoming clear that no proof of treasonable intent was likely to be forthcoming. Elizabeth herself denied everything, and since she had written no letters, had apparently given no promises or encouragement to the conspirators - at any rate none of the other prisoners could be induced to accuse her - the enquiry seemed to have reached a dead end.

  A trifling detail such as lack of evidence might not have mattered in the days of Henry VIII, but Mary possessed none of her father's ruthless self-confidence. Even now, to Simon Renard's barely suppressed annoyance, she was beginning to pardon her rebels, and he thought it would not be long before she was persuaded to release her sister. Mary's opinion of Elizabeth had not changed; she still believed her to be without conscience, dishonest, deceitful and most probably disloyal. All the same, in spite of her personal dislike of the girl, and in spite of Renard's hints that he hardly dared advise Prince Philip to hazard his precious person in a country which continued to harbour so dangerous a character as Elizabeth Tudor, the Queen stuck grimly to her principles. As long as the case against her remained unproven, Elizabeth would continue to get the benefit of the doubt, and by the middle of May the Princess, demurely inscrutable as ever, had left her prison quarters to spend an indefinite period of house arrest at the old royal hunting-lodge at Woodstock, in the custody of Sir Henry Bedingfield, one of those sturdy Catholic gentlemen who had come to Mary's aid the previous summer.

  Mary herself was sick of London, where violent demonstrations against her religion, her policies and her marriage were once more appearing on the streets, and where she seemed to spend her days struggling with a refractory and quarrelsome Council, few of whose members she trusted further than she could see them. So, at the end of the month, she thankfully shook the dust of the insolent, heretical city and moved out to Richmond on the first stage of her journey to Winchester, where Philip was to join her. Philip himself, having delayed as long, or rather longer than he decently could, finally landed at Southampton at the end of July, and the blood-stained monster of the Protestant propaganda machine was discovered to be a slim, dapper young man, slightly below average height, whose blue eyes and yellow hair gave him a reassuringly unforeign appearance.

  The betrothed couple met for the first time informally in the long gallery of the bishop's palace and sat together talking in a mixture of Spanish and French, for Philip had not considered it necessary to learn any English. The following day he came to see the Queen again, and they had another brief private talk, 'each of them merrily smiling on the other, to the great comfort and joy of the beholders'. No one was in any doubt what the Queen thought of Philip, and she was already beginning to shower him with expensive presents. Philip, though unfailingly polite and attentive to his bride, kept his thoughts to himself, but the other Spaniards, in their letters home, were less discreet.

  The Queen was a dear, good creature and a perfect saint, but older than they'd been led to suppose and had no idea how to dress. She was certainly not beautiful and had no eyebrows, but she might perhaps look better and less flabby if she could be persuaded to adopt Spanish fashions. Philip's friend Ruy Gomez thought it was just as well the Prince understood his marriage had been arranged for political and not fleshly considerations, for this elderly, faded virgin would obviously be no good in bed.

  The wedding took place in Winchester Cathedral on Wednesday, 25 July. The Queen was given away on behalf of the nation by a posse of noblemen headed by the old Marquess of Winchester, and the ceremony was conducted with all the solemn ritual, all the pomp and splendour, proper to the marriage of a reigning queen; but Mary's wedding ring was, at her own insistence, a plain gold band, 'because maidens were so married in old times'. Throughout the hour-long nuptial Mass she remained motionless, her eyes fixed on the sacrament, wrapt in a trance of happiness and luxuriating in the knowledge that she was no longer alone, no longer a despised old maid. With Philip at her side, the heretics and traitors who surrounded her would become powerless, and she would know the unutterable joy of seeing the holy Mother Church restored, free at last of that burden of guilt she had carried for nearly twenty years. To Mary in that moment God seemed very good.

  After the service, the Queen and her husband walked hand-in-hand back to the bishop's palace for a sumptuous wedding breakfast, eaten off gold plate, with the musicians playing and heralds crying largesse. Later there was dancing, and finally, after a quiet supper in their private apartments, the Bishop of Winchester blessed the marriage bed, and the bridal couple were left alone. 'What happened that night', wrote one of Philip's Spaniards, 'only they know, but if they give us a son our joy will be complete.' And well it might be, at least from the Emperor's point of view. It was on the hope of a son that the alliance had been founded, for with a half-Hapsburg king on the En
glish throne, the Imperial family would have absorbed the wealthy and strategic island as easily and cheaply as in the previous generation they had absorbed Spain, and the rich Burgundian inheritance of the Netherlands in the generation before that.

  8. BUT ONE MISTRESS AND NO MASTER

  The autumn and winter 1554 was probably the happiest time of Mary's adult life. Now that her marriage had become an accomplished fact, most people seemed ready to accept it, and, although relations between the Londoners and Philip's Spaniards were never less than strained, organized hostility was confined to isolated incidents. The Court was very gay, the Queen was reported to be looking fatter and a better colour, and soon she announced herself to be pregnant. That autumn, too, Parliament, its members carefully chosen from 'the wise, grave and Catholic sort,' completed the work of undoing the Reformation, abrogating Royal Supremacy and restoring all the ancient laws and penalties against heresy. By November the reconciliation with Rome had been achieved, and Cardinal Pole, the first papal legate to set foot in England since the far-off days of the King's 'great matter', came to Westminster bringing the Pope's absolution for the schismatic islanders. It was an especially poignant moment for Mary, for Reginald Pole was a kinsman of hers, son of Margaret Countess of Salisbury, once her governess and close friend - 'a lady of virtue and honour if ever there was one in England' - executed by Henry VIII in the purge of the late thirties. The Cardinal brought memories of happy childhood days as well as tangible evidence of the fulfilment of hope, and as she greeted him the Queen felt joyfully convinced that 'the babe had quickened and leapt in her womb'.

  The New Year came in and by March preparations for the royal confinement were under way. Early in April Mary moved to Hampton Court, ready to 'take her chamber', and by the middle of the month the midwives, nurses and rockers were in attendance and the palace was crowded with noble ladies come to support the Queen through her ordeal. By the end of the month there was another noble lady at Hampton Court whose presence gave the Queen little comfort, for, at Philip's insistence, Elizabeth had been brought up from Woodstock and reluctantly 'forgiven' by her sister.

  The King had been taking out some personal insurance by arranging that the heir presumptive should be at hand during his wife's lying-in. If Mary were to die in childbed, he would, after all, be very much alone in hostile territory and might find it useful to have a hostage, or perhaps an ally. But he was also thinking further ahead. If, as was quite possible, the Queen failed to produce a living child, Elizabeth's right to succeed would have to be supported by Spain. Heretic, hypocrite and bastard though she might be, she would still be an infinitely preferable alternative to the French-controlled Queen of Scotland. Philip and his advisers had therefore come round to the idea that it would be sensible to establish friendly relations with the Princess at a time when she would be grateful for her brother-in-law's good offices, and while she was still young enough to be influenced. A suitable imperialist husband could then be found for her, and the future of the alliance would be assured. The Princess herself was more than willing to be friends, and it was noticed that 'at the time of the Queen's pregnancy, the Lady Elizabeth ... contrived so to ingratiate herself with all the Spaniards, and especially with the King, that ever since no one has favoured her more than he does'.

  The Lady Elizabeth, of course, was taking out some insurance on her own account, for this was an anxious time for the heir to the throne. Few people, remembering her mother's misfortunes and considering the poor state of Mary's health, which had never recovered from the strain and misery she had endured at the time of her parents' divorce, seriously thought she could now bear a healthy child. But if she did - and Mary had already once triumphed against seemingly impossible odds - then Elizabeth's prospects would vanish overnight and the English political scene would be transformed, perhaps for generations to come. As Simon Renard observed, 'everything in this kingdom depends on the Queen's safe deliverance'.

  Meanwhile, everything possible was being done to encourage the Queen. The Venetian ambassador reported on 24 April that to comfort her and give her heart and courage, 'three most beautiful infants were brought for her Majesty to see; they having been born a few days previously at one birth, of a woman of low stature and great age like the Queen, who after delivery found herself strong and out of danger'. Those who believed the pregnancy to be a myth, or a Spanish trick, or that 'it was only a tumour, as often happens to women', were keeping their mouths shut - at least for the time being.

  At daybreak on 30 April a rumour reached London that Mary had given birth to a son just after midnight, 'with little pain and no danger'. So circumstantial was this report that it was generally believed, and since, whatever its implications, the birth of a prince was automatically an occasion for rejoicing, the church bells were rung and the citizens shut up shop and surged into the streets to light bonfires and drink the baby's health. It was late afternoon before the messengers returning from Hampton Court brought the news that there was no prince and no sign even that the birth was imminent. As the days of waiting lengthened into weeks, the doctors announced that their calculations had been wrong and that the Queen would not now be delivered until the end of May, possibly not until the beginning of June, although her Majesty's belly had greatly declined, an indication, it was said, of the nearer approach of the term. On 24 June, Renard reported that the Queen's doctors were two months out in their calculations, and she would not be delivered for another eight or ten days.

  June turned into July, and still the empty cradle waited. But Mary refused to give up hope, and Sir John Mason in Brussels was ordered to contradict the now widespread gossip that the Queen was not pregnant at all and to assure the Emperor that she was near her time. The doctors and midwives continued to talk about miscalculation and to assure the wretched Queen that she was carrying a child, but hinting that she might not be delivered until August or even September. By this time, though, everyone knew there was no baby. The amenorrhoea and digestive troubles to which Mary had always been subject, and very likely incipient cancer of the womb, had combined with her desperate yearning (which, according to the omniscient Venetians, had even produced 'swelling of the paps and their emission of milk') to create that pathetic self-delusion.

  Gossip was growing more and more unkind, and something had to be done to put an end to an acutely embarrassing situation - apart from anything else, the Queen's long seclusion and her refusal to attend to business was bringing the work of government to a virtual halt. So, on 3 August, a reduced household moved away to Oatlands on the pretext that Hampton Court needed cleansing, as indeed it must after four months' crowded occupation. The daily prayers and processions for the Queen's delivery were stopped, and Mary returned painfully to her normal routine, having suffered perhaps the most appalling disappointment and humiliation that any woman could experience. As if that were not enough, she now had to face the bitter fact that her adored husband was planning to leave her. Philip had spent more than a year in a country he disliked, being polite to people he despised and putting up with a good deal of dumb insolence in return. He felt he had done all that could reasonably be expected of him and, since his wife was obviously barren, there was nothing to be gained by staying. He sailed for the Netherlands at the end of the month, but before he went he took the precaution of recommending the Princess Elizabeth to the Queen's goodwill, following this up with written instructions that she was to be treated with every consideration.

  Elizabeth was still at Court, and Mary, like an obedient wife, tried hard to conceal her 'evil disposition' towards Anne Boleyn's daughter under a mask of synthetic amiability, only conversing with her about 'agreeable subjects'. Elizabeth, too, was on her best behaviour, but the atmosphere remained thick with strain and mutual animosity, and as soon as she decently could, the Princess asked leave to go home. Back at Hatfield, the house always most closely associated with her early days, she settled down to wait, reasonably confident now about the future.

  The last
three years of Mary's life were for the Queen years of increasing ill-health, unhappiness and disillusion. For the country at large it was a time of economic depression and political unrest, darkened by the religious persecution which still shadows Mary's memory. The first heretics had gone to the stake in February 1555, and in all some three hundred people, including sixty women, were burned alive. It was not, by contemporary standards, an especially harsh campaign, but it lingers in the mind as a sad and nasty episode - one of its least attractive features being the fact that the great majority of the victims were humble people. The 'better sort' of Protestants either conformed just sufficiently to satisfy the authorities' not very exacting standards or else took themselves and their tender consciences abroad with very little hindrance. Among those who sought sanctuary in Protestant Switzerland or Germany was that outspoken radical Katherine, Duchess of Suffolk, and her second husband, young Mr. Richard Bertie.

  As head of state, Mary must, of course, bear final responsibility for the acts committed in her name, but to what extent she personally initiated the persecution which earned her her unenviable nickname remains in some doubt. In many ways she was the most merciful of the Tudors - certainly her leniency towards her political enemies bordered on recklessness - but while the Queen found it only too easy to forgive treason against herself, heresy was treason against God, and that was a different matter. Besides, the heretics were not only imperilling their immortal souls, they were infecting and endangering others by their example. To Mary it would have been an unthinkable dereliction of that duty which had been so clearly laid upon her, if she had not tried by every means at her disposal to save her miserable subjects from themselves.