by David Loades
At almost exactly the same time Northumberland destroyed the Duke of Somerset. The ex-protector was accused of all sorts of plottings and treasonable intentions, most of which were fictitious, as Northumberland later admitted.[157] He had, however, threatened to divide the council at a time when any lack of unity could have been disastrous. Plotting with Mary’s supporters was probably just another fiction, but in any case he was not convicted of treason. He was convicted of felony for assembling an armed band at his house in contravention of statute law – and of that he was guilty as charged. It was of course a pretext, but he was the king’s uncle and a man of great political experience. Edward might have turned to him rather than to Northumberland as he approached his majority – if Somerset had still been around. If Edward’s reaction to his uncle’s death is anything to go by (a succinct, emotionless note in his journal), it was probably a misplaced fear, and in any case the circumstances did not arise.
What Somerset’s execution in January 1552 demonstrated to Mary was that she was dealing with a man who was capable of being completely ruthless, especially if he sensed that the king was alienated from his victim, even temporarily. Her officers returned to duty in mid-April 1552, and there seems to have been a noticeable relaxation of tension. Edward was genuinely fond of his sister, infuriating as he found her, and it was important to keep him in that frame of mind. Although nothing fundamentally changed, by the summer of 1552 Mary was refraining from provocative actions or abrasive words, and when she visited the court in June she was honourably received – and the subject of religion does not seem to have been mentioned.[158]
A new Act of Uniformity reached the statute book in April 1552, imposing a liturgy far more explicitly Protestant than that of 1549, but this made little difference as far as Mary was concerned. For those who had struggled to convince themselves (as Stephen Gardiner did for a while) that the first Prayer Book was capable of a Catholic interpretation, this was a blow; but Mary had never suffered from any such delusion.[159] The English Prayer Book was heretical in whatever guise it came; and cocooned in her closet with her sympathetic priests, she did not have to endure it. What the second Act of Uniformity did make abundantly clear, however, was that the royal supremacy as a bulwark of traditional belief was a dead concept. If the supremacy was to be accepted, then it must also be accepted that the king (and the king’s government) had the right to impose beliefs and practices that were traditionally regarded as heretical. We have no specific evidence, but it may well have been at this point that Mary – like Gardiner – came to the conclusion that the defence of the Henrician settlement was a pointless strategy. Only the Universal Church could protect true doctrine from sacrilegious hands. What we know is that as late as August 1551 she was arguing that her father’s Church had represented the true faith, while by August 1553 she was privately arguing for the restoration of the papal jurisdiction.
At what point Edward’s health began to give grounds for serious anxiety we do not know. He had a bad cold at Christmas 1552, but he had thrown off such infections before without great difficulty. Contrary to what is sometimes said, he had never been a sickly child, and although he had shown no great aptitude for them, his enthusiasm for war games and other physical recreations was immense. At some time early in 1553 he drew up the document called his ‘Device for the succession’, but this was a school exercise, not an attempt to address a pressing issue. It did indeed envisage the possibility of his dying without heirs (that was its whole point), but it did so with a long and indefinite time span. For example, the ‘heirs male’ of his cousin Jane Grey were included, although Jane, who was sixteen, was as yet not married.[160] What is significant about it is that it ignored Henry’s Act of Succession of 1544, which had laid down quite clearly that if Edward were to die without heirs, he should be succeeded by Mary. Now this may have been in response to a tutorial instruction – ‘suppose that act had never been passed, what then?’ In other words it was a hypothetical exercise. Or it may have been that there was already an understanding between the king and his tutors that the statute would be disregarded. We do not know. What is clear is that the matter was being thought about some time before there was any urgent need for an answer. Northumberland was certainly not spoiling for a fight, in fact he was going out of his way to make conciliatory gestures to Mary, although admittedly these related to payments of money and exchanges of lands, not religious matters.
In February Mary visited the court in some state, and if she made any provocative religious gestures no one commented upon them. Edward was sufficiently unwell by then to postpone seeing her for a few days, but if her visit demonstrates anything it is that most of the court still thought of her at that stage as the heir to the throne.[161] In March, according to Scheyfve, she asked him to press the Emperor to secure a relaxation of the tight restrictions upon her worship, but that was in the context of making sure that her lines of communication were still intact and (probably) that Charles was still sufficiently compos mentis to be appealed to if necessary.
Parliament met from 1 to 31 March, and the king was not well enough to perform the usual opening ceremony, but the succession was not discussed, and the ‘Device’ was never mentioned. It seems unlikely that anyone except the king, and possibly the Duke of Northumberland, knew of its existence. During March Edward’s health improved. He closed Parliament in the usual way, and on 11 April was able to ‘take the air’. At this stage only Scheyfve seems to have thought that his life was in any danger, and that may tell us more about the ambassador than it does about the king. His sources of information were good, but not special, let alone unique. More significantly, he coupled these pessimistic messages with the news that Northumberland was keeping Mary carefully informed of every change in the king’s condition. He was poorly again at the end of April, but by the middle of May all the talk was of a complete recovery.[162]
On the list of that month a marriage took place that was to loom large in the conspiracy theories of the forthcoming crisis, but no one seems to have seen it in that light at the time. Guildford Dudley, Northumberland’s fourth (and only unmarried) son wedded Jane, the eldest daughter of Henry Grey, Duke of Suffolk. This was later represented as a crafty plot to hijack the crown, but at the time even Scheyfve merely commented that Jane was ‘the king’s kinswoman’.[163] She was not even Northumberland’s first choice for his son, but the Earl of Cumberland had rejected his approaches in respect of his daughter Margaret. At the same time Guildford’s sister, Catherine, married Henry Hastings, heir to the Earl of Huntingdon, and Jane’s sister (also Catherine) married Henry Herbert, heir to the Earl of Pembroke. In other words this was a routine dynastic ‘wedding circus’ of the kind that was common between aristocratic families, and had no significance beyond that. The king was not present, but gave his full approval to the ceremonies. Unfortunately, Jane had had no desire to marry Guildford, who was her inferior in both character and intellect, and this was not to be without its relevance in due course.
Meanwhile Scheyfve’s gloomy view of the king’s health had also led him to believe that Northumberland was plotting against Mary’s right to the succession. He could adduce no firm evidence for this – it was what might now be called a ‘gut reaction’ – and he did not connect it with the marriages on 21 May, which suggests that he had no clear idea of what was intended. His views would have been just so much spilled ink if it had not been for the fact that in the first week of June Edward became dramatically worse. Pulmonary tuberculosis is one of those diseases that develops fitfully, with many remissions, and sixteenth-century diagnostics were extremely underdeveloped. Consequently no one had known what to expect. By 11 June a crisis had clearly developed, and Scheyfve’s informant in the privy chamber was able to give him an account of the king’s condition that left little to the imagination.[164] This was a deeply unpleasant shock, not only for the wretched boy himself but also for the Duke of Northumberland, all of whose elaborate preparations were now in jeopardy. It w
as not only possible but likely that the king would die within a matter of weeks, and a decision had to be made. Was Mary to succeed in accordance with statute law and her father’s will – or not? And if not Mary – who?
It used to be believed that the Duke of Northumberland used his Svengali-like influence over the young king to persuade him to name his own daughter-inlaw, Jane Grey, but the actual decision was almost certainly Edward’s own. Not only was he deeply committed to the religious changes over which he had presided, he was also obsessed with the idea of male succession. In spite of the fact that he had no male kindred, his whole ‘Device’ had been designed for the heirs male of the various women by whom he was surrounded – starting with any son who might be born to Henry and Frances Grey. It was at this point that Edward produced his school exercise and instructed his law officers to draw up a will embodying its provisions. However, as it stood it was useless. Frances Grey was not pregnant, and had not conceived for several years. Jane was newly married, but her relations with her husband were so bad that there was no chance that she could be even in the very early stages of pregnancy. Something had to be done immediately, and the wording ‘the heirs male of the Lady Jane’ was altered to read ‘the Lady Jane and her heirs male’.[165] This may well have been done by Northumberland, but with the king’s full support and consent. It was the only solution if his Godly Reformation was not to come to an untimely end. Jane was a Protestant with excellent credentials, and Edward liked her. If he had to be succeeded by a woman, better her than any other. Elizabeth was, of course, excluded from any consideration. She was illegitimate, and if the 1544 Act was to be ignored, she had no claim.
And so the great conspiracy that Scheyfve had shadowed for weeks became a reality in the second half of June. Although secrecy was impossible as Edward struggled to give some constitutional force to what was in effect a decision mere moto suo, by his will alone, without the consent of Parliament, Mary did not immediately find out what was afoot. She realised by this time that Edward was really committed to his religious settlement, and was half expecting a conditional offer of the throne in return for preserving it. She asked Scheyfve what she should do in those circumstances, and the ambassador dutifully referred back to headquarters for instructions on 19 June. The Emperor’s advice, which never reached Mary, was to accept such an offer if it was made, on the grounds that there were many ways to invalidate an ungodly oath.[166]
As the month of June drew to an end, both parties were in difficulties. Edward’s condition was now desperate, but his law officers were being obstructive. Not only was parliamentary consent required for the change that he was proposing, but as a minor he was not even capable of making a valid will. As the days ticked by Northumberland became increasingly desperate, even threatening violence against the obstructors. Eventually it was agreed that the only way to proceed was by letters patent, which would have to be retrospectively confirmed. Such letters were drawn up, but they never passed the seals, and thus were never properly validated, and so remained technically invalid. Mary’s problem was that she knew that a plan was in existence to deprive her of her right, but had no details, nor could she know how much force such a dispensation might have. The signals were mixed. Northumberland would back it to the hilt; and so (she supposed) would the Protestant bishops and other committed heretics like the Duke of Suffolk. On the other hand there was plenty of evidence of dissent. Could she do anything to turn that dissent into actual support for her cause?
Although Mary did not know it, she was on her own in this dilemma. On 23 June Charles sent a special mission, ostensibly to commiserate with Edward in his sickness, but really to watch events when he died. He probably did not intend to supersede Scheyfve, but that was the effect, and his instructions to his envoys are illuminating. They were not to intervene, even indirectly, on Mary’s behalf, but were to monitor the situation closely. If Northumberland prevailed (as most observers expected) they were to do business with him. Only if Mary was clearly about to triumph should they declare the Emperor’s support.[167] The princess might appeal to them, but they were not to respond unless or until that situation was reached. By 1 July rumours were already circulating that the king was dead. Mary was at Hunsdon, and rightly apprehensive that as soon as the breath was really out of Edward’s body Northumberland would move rapidly to arrest her. She declined an invitation to come and visit her sick brother, and, warned that the end was now finally near, on 6 July moved rapidly from Hunsdon to Kenninghall in Norfolk – the heart of her estates and the stronghold of her body of support. The same day Edward died, but when Northumberland’s men tried to intercept the princess at Sawston in Cambridgeshire, they were already too late.
6
MARY THE QUEEN
Edward died on 6 July 1553, and his death was concealed for two days in accordance with normal practice. The council now had to make a critical decision. The king’s last wishes were well known, but he had not succeeded in giving them any legal force. Mary was still the heir by law, but Mary was unmarried, well known to be a creature of the Emperor, and belligerently conservative in her religious views. This last consideration did not make her unpopular – quite the reverse – but it did threaten the overthrow of the Church settlement to which Edward had been so thoroughly committed, and of which many of the council also approved. If it came to a showdown, most of those in the best position to know believed that Jane Grey would prevail. The Duke of Northumberland, easily the most powerful man in the realm, was completely committed to her cause – although whether out of self-interest or loyalty to his late master, nobody knew. Antoine de Noailles, the French ambassador, had spoken to the duke just a few days before Edward died, and been told ‘that they had provided so well against the Lady Mary’s ever attaining the succession, and that all the lords of the council were so well united, that there is no need for you, Sire, to enter into any doubt on this score’.[168] Simon Renard, the brains of the Imperial mission, had come to the same conclusion: ‘The actual possession of power,’ he wrote, ‘is a matter of great importance especially among barbarians like the English.’[169] Northumberland, he believed, had that power. On 8 July the council proclaimed Jane queen in London, to a less than enthusiastic reception from the largely Protestant citizens. Even a sermon from their bishop pointing out the dangers of an unmarried queen with such strong foreign proclivities failed to stir them to any show of zeal for the married, and undoubtedly Protestant, Jane.
Meanwhile Mary was in Norfolk, on the way to Kenninghall. There at some point, probably on 7 July, ‘she was told of the king’s death by her goldsmith, a citizen of London newly returned from the City’. But Mary, we are told, did not believe the tidings, and would not allow the news to be spread abroad. She clearly did not trust the messenger, and her caution was wise, because if she had proclaimed herself while the breath was still in Edward’s body that would have been high treason.[170] The following day, when she had reached her destination, the tidings were confirmed by one John Hughes, a physician. It seems unlikely that he could already have known of the proclamation in London, so she must have had some good reason to trust him better. That same night she consulted her council and household officers, and the next day, the 9th, declared the news to her assembled household, and proclaimed herself queen.
Roused by their mistress’s words, everyone, both the gently born and the humbler servants, cheered her to the rafters and hailed and proclaimed their dearest Princess Mary as Queen of England …[171]
That was, of course, the easy bit. The same day she wrote to the council in London, demanding their allegiance. The following day the council received her letter and responded, declaring their allegiance to Queen Jane and demanding her submission.
According to Robert Wingfield’s highly partisan account, the country folk of Norfolk and Suffolk ‘every day flocked to their rightful Queen, ready to lay out for her in this worthy cause their wealth, their effort and life itself’.[172] In fact what seems to have happened was that
her East Anglian ‘affinity’ was extremely well prepared. Men like Sir Henry Bedingfield and Sir John Shelton did not command large followings, but when the call came their men were armed and ready to ride. Within a few days Mary had a force at her disposal, not large or led by experienced soldiers, but fully equipped and well supplied. At the same time proclamations were sent out far and wide, announcing her accession and demanding recognition. These documents could not have been prepared overnight; they had clearly been many days, or even weeks, in the penning. Wingfield’s tale of spontaneous enthusiasm is persuasive but untrue. Mary had been planning for this eventuality for some time, probably since she had first learned of the plot against her, and her supporters had been preparing.
By contrast, in spite of his bold words to the French ambassador, Northumberland was markedly ill equipped. It seems that he seriously underestimated his opponent, because when it was first known that Mary had left Hunsdon and was heading east, he gave it out that she was in flight to the coast to do what she had sought to do before – take refuge with the Emperor.[173] Moreover, Northumberland was much less powerful than he appeared. His own men were comparatively few. The bulk of the forces over which he appeared to have command owed their primary allegiance either to the crown or to one or other of his colleagues of the privy council. In the circumstances the household troops were not to be relied upon, and the trustworthiness of most of the others depended upon the council remaining united.
The council’s reaction at first conveyed no great sense of urgency. The lord mayor and the aldermen of London were sworn to Queen Jane, and letters were sent out to sheriffs and justices of the peace, announcing her accession and ordering them to suppress any ‘stirs or disorders’, very much the sort of letter that would have been sent out at the beginning of any new reign.[174] The first reaction of most local authorities, even within East Anglia, was to do as they were told, and several borough records have entries of Jane’s accession, hastily erased a few days later. The council knew by the 10th that Mary was posing a challenge, but were inclined to dismiss it as insignificant. Lord Robert Dudley, Northumberland’s son, was based in Norfolk and could, it was felt, contain the situation there. Meanwhile, on the same day, Jane was brought through London and installed in the royal apartments at the Tower. Her passage, like her proclamation two days earlier, was received with a mixture of indifference and hostile demonstrations.[175] In retrospect this looks ominous, but it need not have mattered. There was no resistance, and no powerful nobleman had as yet rejected her.
