by David Loades
18. Third Succession Act (35 Henry VIII, c. 1), 1544. This was the act which designated Mary and Elizabeth to follow Edward if he should die without heirs, and broke new ground in that it authorised the succession of illegitimate children. © Jonathan Reeve JR1185b20p920 15001550.
19. A nineteenth-century representation of Mary entering London on 3 August 1553, having successfully overcome the challenge of Jane Grey. The kneeling figures are Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk and Stephen Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester. The third figure, concealed by Norfolk, is Edward Courtenay, the son of the Marquis of Exeter, who was released on the same day. © Jonathan Reeve JR2292b61p731 15501600.
20. A plan of Charing Cross from the ‘Ralph Agas’ map. After a brief skirmish at the Cross on 7 February 1554, Wyatt led his force down the Strand and Fleet Street, only to find the gate of the City held against him. © Jonathan Reeve JRCD3 893.
21. Mary’s instructions to John Russell, Earl of Bedford, sent to Spain in June 1555 to escort Prince Philip to England for his wedding. He is to brief Philip about the affairs of the kingdom. © Jonathan Reeve JRCD3 998.
22. Philip II as King of Spain, from a contemporary miniature. © Jonathan Reeve JR188b4p823 15501600.
23. The reverse of the Great Seal of Philip and Mary, used for the authentication of important documents in both their names. © Jonathan Reeve JR2300b4p721 15001600.
24. An equestrian portrait of Philip II. © Jonathan Reeve JR1051b66fp72 15001600.
25. Obverse side of the Great Seal.© Jonathan Reeve JR2301b20p996 15501600.
26. Passport for Richard Shelley to go into Spain, signed by both Philip and Mary. Shelley’s mission was to have been to announce the safe arrival of Queen Mary’s son, so the passport remained unused. © Jonathan Reeve JRCD3b20p999.
27. The charter of Philip and Mary confirming the foundation of Trinity College, Oxford, by Sir Thomas Pope, dated 28 March 1555. The ornate capital shows both sovereigns enthroned. © Jonathan Reeve JR2302b20p1001 15501600.
28. The title page of John Foxe’s Ecclesiastical History, better known as the Acts and Monuments of the English Martyrs. This was a revised and expanded version of the work originally published by John Day in 1563. © Jonathan Reeve JR985b20p1003 15001600.
29. The burning of Thomas Tompkyns, from the 1570 edition of the Acts and Monuments. The same woodcut was used for a number of victims. © Amberley Archive.
30. The burning of John Hooper at Gloucester on 9 February 1555. Hooper, who was former Bishop of Gloucester, was burned on a slow fire. He was one of the first victims to suffer. © Jonathan Reeve JRCD2b20p1004.
31. ‘The cruel burning of George Marsh’. Marsh was supposed to have been soaked in tar to make him burn more fiercely. From the 1570 A & M. © Amberley Archive.
32. The burning of Ridley and Latimer at Oxford on 16 October 1555. The sermon was preached by Richard Smith, who had been driven from his Regius Chair in Edward’s time for his Catholic beliefs. © Jonathan Reeve JRCD2b20p1005.
33. The burning of John Rogers on 4 February 1555. Rogers was the first Protestant to be burned, and the example of his courage inspired many to follow him. From the 1570 edition of the A & M. © Amberley Archive.
34. The burning of Margery Polley. A number of Foxe’s martyrs were women, and he emphasises how the Holy Spirit helped them to overcome their natural ‘imbecility’. © Amberley Archive.
35. The burning of Rowland Taylor. Taylor was taken down to Hadley to suffer where he had ministered, with the intention of making an example of him. The evidence suggests that this did not work. © Amberley Archive.
36. The burning of Margaret Thurston and Agnes Bongeor at Colchester. Esseex was a strong centre of Protestantism in Mary’s reign, and a number of men and women deliberately provoked the authorities to act against them. © Amberley Archive.
37. The racking of Cuthbert Simpson. The use of torture on the victims was unusual, but Simpson was the deacon of the London congregation, and he was racked (unsuccessfully) to make him reveal their names. © Amberley Archive.
38. ‘Strait handling’ was more common, as this reconstruction of the ordeal of prisoners in the Lollards’ Tower at Lambeth makes plain. © Amberley Archive.
39. An account of the disputation held at Oxford in April 1554. This extract is from the exchanges between Hugh Latimer and Richard Smith, with Dr Weston as Prolocutor. It was from this manuscript that Foxe printed his version. © Jonathan Reeve JR2289b7p277 15501600.
40. A lively depiction of the burning of Thomas Haukes in June 1555. Haukes was one of the few gentlemen to suffer during the persecution. Most protestants of that status fled abroad. © Amberley Archive.
41. One of the most appalling atrocities of the persecution was the burning of a pregnant Margaret Cauches on Guernsey. The hapless woman gave birth in the flames, and her infant perished as well. An enquiry was launched under Elizabeth, from which most of our knowledge of the incident is derived. © Amberley Archive.
42. The burning of Thomas Tompkyns’ hand by Bishop Bonner. This example of Bonner’s alleged cruelty was a part of Foxe’s campaign against the Bishop. Whether the incident actually occurred is uncertain. © Jonathan Reeve JR239b7p321 15501600.
43. Richmond Palace. © Jonathan Reeve JR2297b2p233T 15001600.
44. Calais and its harbour, from a sixteenth-century drawing. It was the loss of Rysbank (the tower in the middle of the picture) which sealed the fate of Calais during its capture by the French in January 1558. © Jonathan Reeve JR1186b20p1009 15001550.
45. Hampton Court, acquired by Henry in 1525, and subsequently much rebuilt. Edward VI was born there in September 1537. © Jonathan Reeve JR2296b2p232 15001600.
46. Henry VII, Mary’s grandfather, from the cartoon by Holbein in the National Portrait Gallery. © Elizabeth Norton & The Amberley Archive.
47. Henry VIII. A statue in the great gate at Trinity College, Cambridge (a royal foundation), showing a mature Henry. About 1541. © Elizabeth Norton & The Amberley Archive.
48. Catherine of Aragon, Mary’s mother, showing her as a mature woman, about 1520. By an unknown artist. © Ripon Cathedral.
49. Anne Boleyn, Henry’s second wife and Mary’s bête noire. She was reckoned to be ‘no great beauty’. By an unknown artist. © Ripon Cathedral.
50. Jane Seymour, Henry’s third wife and the mother of his son, Edward. Painted in 1537 by an unknown artist. © Ripon Cathedral.
51. Funeral effigy of Elizabeth Blount, Lady Tailboys, Henry’s mistress and the mother of his son Henry Fitzroy. © Elizabeth Norton & The Amberley Archive.
52. A lady, supposed to be Mary at the age of about seventeen. By Hans Holbein, in the Royal Collection. © Elizabeth Norton & The Amberley Archive.
53. Henry VIII’s will, dated 30 December 1546. It was signed with stamp rather than the sign manual, which was to cause problems in the future. © Jonathan Reeve JRCD2b20p961 15501600.
54. Lady Anne Shelton, Anne Boleyn’s aunt, and the governess of the household for the two princesses in 1533-4. From a stained glass window in Shelton church. © Elizabeth Norton & The Amberley Archive.
55. Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots. Mary came to the throne of Scotland at just over a week old, in December 1542. Her claim to the English succession was ignored in Henry VIII’s final Succession Act of 1544. © Jonathan Reeve JR996b66fp68 15001600.
56. Edward VI as a child, playing with a pet monkey. A painting by Holbein in the Kunstmuseum at Basle. © Elizabeth Norton & The Amberley Archive.
57. Wolsey dismissed by Henry VIII. An imaginative Victorian reconstruction. © Jonathan Reeve JR1092b20fp896 15001550.
58. A view of Greenwich Palace, from a drawing by Anthony van Wyngaerde, (c.1550) in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford. © Jonathan Reeve JR944b46fp180 14501500.
59. A page from a book of hours (prayer book) once owned by Mary. © Jonathan Reeve JR2143b97plate6 13001350.
* * *
[1] Andrea C. Gasten, ‘The Kingship of Philip and Mary’, in Wim de Groot (ed.
) The Seventh Window (2005), pp. 215-25.
[2] They had married in 1468, when they were the heirs to their respective kingdoms. J. H. Hillgarth, The Spanish Kingdoms, 1250–1516 (2 Vols, 1978).
[3] For a full discussion of these celebrations and their significance, see Sydney Anglo, Spectacle, Pageantry and Early Tudor Policy (1969), pp. 98-103.
[4] It was the consummation that created the blood relationship, not the ceremony of marriage, which constituted only a bar of ‘public honesty’. Perhaps by oversight, this lesser impediment was not dispensed.
[5] Garrett Mattingly, Catherine of Aragon (1942), pp. 57-9. In spite of its age, this is still the best biography of Catherine.
[6] Edward Hall, The Union of the two noble and Illustre families Yorke and Lancaster, ed. Henry Ellis (1809), [Chronicle] p. 519.
[7] Cal. Span., ii, 164. J. J. Scarisbrick, Henry VIII (1968), p. 51.
[8] BL Harleian MS 3504, f. 232.
[9] This treaty was finally concluded in August 1521. BL Cotton MS Galba B VII, f 102. L&P, iii, 1508.
[10] L&P, ii, 3802. D. Loades, Mary Tudor: A Life (1989), pp. 346-7.
[11] L&P, iii, 970.
[12] Mattingly, Catherine of Aragon, pp. 140-1.
[13] De institutione foeminae christinae contained a preface clarifying Vives’s intentions. ‘Let her be given pleasure in stories which teach the art of life … stories which tend to some commendation of virtue and detestation of vice.’ Maria Dowling, Humanism in the Age of Henry VIII (1987), p. 225.
[14] Loades, Mary Tudor, pp. 20-1.
[15] G. R. Elton, The Tudor Constitution (1982), pp. 202-3. S. J. Gunn, Early Tudor Government, 1485–1558 (1995).
[16] Although Mary is referred to as princess, there was no official creation for Wales between 1504 (Henry) and 1610 (Henry Stuart). A creation was planned for Edward in 1547, but was overtaken by Henry VIII’s death.
[17] W. R. B. Robinson, ‘Princess Mary’s Itinerary in the Marches of Wales, 1525–1527: A Provisional Record’, Historical Research, 71 (1998), pp. 233-52.
[18] Ibid, pp. 248-9.
[19] A parliamentary subsidy had been granted in 1523, and resistance to this new imposition proved unbreakable. Henry’s confidence in Wolsey was severely shaken in consequence. G. W. Bernard, War, Taxation, and Rebellion in Early Tudor England (1986).
[20] Robert Wakefield is the scholar who is alleged to have convinced the king of this important interpretation. E. Surtz and V Murphy (eds), The Divorce Tracts of Henry VIII (1988), p. xiii.
[21] Andre Chastel (trans. Beth Archer), The Sack of Rome, 1527 (1983).
[22] Loades, Mary Tudor, p. 45.
[23] This was the so-called ‘Levirate’, which required a man to take the widow of his deceased brother in marriage in order to protect her. Henry claimed that this was ‘ambiguous’. Surtz and Murphy, The Divorce Tracts of Henry VIII, p. xiii.
[24] Scarisbrick, Henry VIII, pp. 198-240.
[25] Loades, Mary Tudor, p. 55.
[26] For a full discussion of the pros and (mostly) cons of Wolsey’s dismissal, see Peter Gwynn, The King’s Cardinal: The Rise and Fall of Thomas Wolsey (1990, pp. 587-98.
[27] An account of some of these sharp exchanges is given in Eric Ives, Anne Boleyn (1986), pp. 154-5, drawing mainly on Cal. Ven., 1527–33.
[28] Loades, Mary Tudor, p. 61. Augustino Scarpellino to the Duke of Milan, 16 December 1530. Cal. Ven., 1527–33, p. 642.
[29] Beverley Murphy, The Bastard Prince (2001), pp. 107-8.
[30] N. H. Nicolas, The Privy Purse Expenses of Henry VIII (1827), p.146.
[31] Loades, Mary Tudor, pp. 78-9. Mattingly, Catherine of Aragon, pp. 292-3.
[32] The implications of this claim, and its rejection, are discussed by Scarisbrick, Henry VIII, pp. 261-73.
[33] L&P, VII, 296. Ives, Anne Boleyn, pp. 246-8.
[34] These charges were based on the fiction that Wolsey had exercised his jurisdiction without royal licence. The convocations paid the king £118,000 for their discharge. TNA KB29/162, r.12. Scarisbrick, Henry VIII, pp. 274-5.
[35] In order to secure a settlement in England, Henry had to be sure of his control over his own clergy. Scarisbrick, ‘The Pardon of the Clergy, 1531’, Cambridge Historical Journal, XII (1956) pp. 25 ff.
[36] The Manner of the Triumph at Calais and Boulogne (1532), printed in A. F. Pollard, Tudor Tracts (1903), pp. 1-8. This describes ‘My Lady Mary’ as following ‘My Lady Marquess of Pembroke’ in one of the dances. Pollard identifies this lady as Mary Boleyn – but the intention was obviously to give the impression that the king’s daughter had been present.
[37] Diarmaid MacCulloch, Thomas Cranmer (1996), pp. 69-76.
[38] The Noble Triumphant Coronation of Queen Anne (1533). Pollard, Tudor Tracts, pp. 11-35.
[39] Letters and Papers, VII, 1208.
[40] Giustinian to the Signory,13 March 1533, Cal. Ven., 1527–33, p. 863.
[41] Loades, Mary Tudor, p. 72.
[42] BL Harleian MS 6807, f. 7.
[43] L&P, VI, 1186. Loades, Mary Tudor, pp. 74-5.
[44] BL Arundel MS 151, f 194. L&P, VI, 1126.
[45] Loades, Mary Tudor, p. 78.
[46] L&P, VII, 296. Ives, Anne Boleyn, pp. 247-8.
[47] For a more detailed account of some of these abrasive encounters see Eric Ives, The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn (2004), pp. 197-9.
[48] Expenses of the Princess Elizabeth’s Household, 25 March 1535. L&P, VIII, 440.
[49] Loades, Mary Tudor, pp. 82-3.
[50] L&P, VII, 1206 and 1336. Despatches of 30 September and 31 October 1534.
[51] Ibid., IX, 596.
[52] Loades, Mary Tudor, pp. 86-7.
[53] Statute 25 Henry VIII, cap. 22. Statutes of the Realm, III, pp. 471-4.
[54] She claimed that Mary’s ‘ennuy’ had cleared up completely after a visit from her father as early as 1529 – which is directly contradicted by the evidence of the accounts. Marillac to Francis I, 12 October 1541. L&P, XVI, 1253.
[55] Ives, Life and Death of Anne Boleyn, pp. 194-5.
[56] Mattingly, Catherine of Aragon, p. 309.
[57] David Loades, Henry VIII and His Queens (1997) pp. 90-1.
[58] Ives, Life and Death of Anne Boleyn, pp. 296-8.
[59] For a full account of this thesis, see Retha M. Warnicke, The Rise and Fall of Anne Boleyn (1989), and for a refutation, Ives, Life and Death of Anne Boleyn, pp. 296-7.
[60] Cal. Span.,1536–38, p.137.
[61] Ives, Life and Death of Anne Boleyn, pp. 326-7.
[62] For a full list of the sources describing Anne’s execution, see ibid., pp. 419-20.
[63] Loades, Mary Tudor, p. 98. Even Chapuys admitted that there were murmurings in London about the manner (and speed) of Anne’s despatch.
[64] MacCulloch, Thomas Cranmer, pp.158-9.
[65] There is a portrait of Jane by Hans Holbein in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, which has been frequently reproduced.
[66] Loades, Mary Tudor, pp. 98-9.
[67] Ibid., p. 99.
[68] L&P, X, 968.
[69] BL Cotton MS Otho C.X, f. 278. L&P, X, 1022.
[70] Loades, Mary Tudor, p. 101.
[71] Ibid. None of the documents surviving from this crisis are precisely dated, so the timetable is reconstructed.
[72] Chapuys to the Emperor, 1 July 1536. L&P, XI, 7.
[73] Mary to Cromwell, probably 30 June 1536. L&P, X, 1186. For Susan Clarencius see ODNB.
[74] BL Cotton MS Vespasian C. XIV, f. 246. Loades, Mary Tudor, p. 106.
[75] Ibid., p.104.
[76] L&P, XI, 132. Ives, Life and Death of Anne Boleyn, p. 198.
[77] There are many discussions of the Pilgrimage of Grace, and of the Pilgrims’ attitude towards Mary. The most recent is R. W. Hoyle, The Pilgrimage of Grace and the Politics of the 1530s (2001), especially p. 347.
[78] Thomas F. Mayer, Reginald Pole: Prince and Prophet (2000), pp. 62-78.
