Tudors Versus Stewarts

by Linda Porter

  The ceremony took place at the cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris on 24 April 1558. It was a Sunday and the citizens of Paris flocked to see the spectacle, as was intended. Henry II would not have wasted the opportunity to display Valois power and prestige and his mastery of the public event was very much in evidence at the wedding of the Scottish queen destined to be the wife of his eldest son. A covered walkway had been erected to frame the bridal procession as it made its way from the palace of the archbishop of Paris to the main entrance of the cathedral itself, where a raised stage across the west front allowed onlookers a better view of the leading participants in this wedding that was intended to unite two kingdoms forever. No doubt the Scottish lords present would have taken great pride in their queen when she appeared, flanked by her future father-in-law and her cousin, the duke of Lorraine.

  Mary was tall for her age and already a fine-looking woman. She had deliberately broken with tradition and chosen a white wedding dress, presumably because she thought it showed off her colouring better and would also attract attention. White was normally the colour of mourning in France and the widows of French kings were supposed to wear it for months after their spouse’s demise, so Mary made an emphatic break with tradition when she chose it for her wedding day. Those who saw portents in such choices might have felt a frisson of concern for this confident beauty who flaunted the traditions of French royalty so alluringly but Mary does not seem to have been subject to such doubts. The dress itself was made of white satin and it glittered with diamonds and jewelled embroidery. Over it she wore a mantle of blue velvet embroidered with white silk and pearls, tapering into a long train that was carried by two maids of honour.

  The jewels worn by Mary were equally impressive. She had a splendid pendant around her neck, engraved with Henry II’s initials. She called it ‘Great Harry’ and eventually placed it among the Scottish Crown jewels. Her hair hung loose down her back, as was customary with brides in those days, and on her head was a magnificent gold crown studded with gems – rubies, diamonds, sapphires, emeralds and pearls – all gleaming in the bright light of a Parisian spring day.

  The marriage ceremony was performed by Charles Bourbon, the cardinal archbishop of Rouen, and the wedding ring was taken by the king of France off his own finger and handed to his son to be placed on Mary’s. This could be seen as a gesture of affection or a further indication of his complete ownership of the Scottish queen herself. A nuptial Mass followed as Francis and his wife sat on thrones beneath a canopy of cloth of gold.

  Mary had upstaged her husband by making herself the centre of attention, perhaps the first time in the sixteenth century that the bride, rather than the groom, took all the attention at a royal wedding. Back in 1503 Mary’s grandmother, Margaret Tudor, could only have wished for such admiration. The dauphin, however, seems to have taken his bride’s stealing of the limelight in good part. Perhaps he was getting used to it by then and he was certainly no heroic figure himself. Physically, he and Mary were a totally mismatched pair. Mary’s letter to her mother claiming that it was the happiest day of her life shows, if she genuinely meant what she said, that dynasticism was her driving motive in life. She had, no doubt, learnt this from those all around her. In truth, Mary was marrying a sickly runt. The prince looked younger than fourteen and was reported to be sexually immature; it was said that his testicles had not dropped. Despite this, there were reports that the union had been consummated but there would scarcely have been any publicity if the opposite were, in fact, the case. Francis appears to have been genuinely fond of the glittering girl who looked at least twenty sitting beside him in Notre Dame and he knew his duty. The marriage would give him the crown matrimonial of Scotland and the impressive if clumsy title of King-Dauphin while his wife became Queen-Dauphiness. Presumably he also knew, as the Scottish nobility watching did not, that his father had made sure that Scotland would remain subject to French rule even if Mary were to die childless. His wife could have her moment in the sun but the Valois family would be winners in the end.

  The Scottish commissioners sent to negotiate the marriage treaty between Francis and Mary were headed by her half-brother, Lord James Stewart. Recently converted to Protestantism and always mindful of the fact that he could have been king if his mother had been allowed to marry James V, Lord James did not know that he and his colleagues had been deceived. He believed there were sufficient safeguards in the official agreements. Mary had promised to uphold Scottish laws and liberties and stated that, if she died without issue, the throne would go to the Scottish heir presumptive.9 The eldest son of Francis and Mary would become king of France and Scotland but if there were only daughters, then the eldest would inherit just the Scottish throne, since women could not rule in France.

  This all seemed broadly satisfactory from a Scottish perspective, though there must have been some unease among the Scots whose Protestantism made them wary of Henry II’s attitude towards heresy in his own country. The Wars of Religion had not yet begun in France but opinions on both sides of the religious divide were polarizing. Nevertheless, agreements were signed and the marriage of Mary and Francis duly proceeded. But on 4 April, less than three weeks before she took Paris and foreign observers by storm on her wedding day, Mary Stewart had signed away her kingdom to France. She endorsed three secret documents: one stating that if she died without heirs Scotland would revert to Henry II and his descendants; the second guaranteeing the king of France one million crowns from Scottish revenues to pay for defence against England and her own continuing education; and the third nullifying all future demands of the Scottish parliament that might prejudice these concessions.

  The French had every reason to be pleased with the virtual acquisition of Scotland and the celebrations of the marriage of the dauphin Francis and Mary Queen of Scots continued with largesse to the Parisian citizenry and much feasting and ostentatious efforts to impress visiting diplomats. Giovanni Michieli, the Venetian ambassador, wrote:

  These nuptials were really considered the most regal and triumphant of any that have been witnessed in this kingdom for many years, whether from the concourse of the chief personages of the realm … and all the other ambassadors, or from the pomp and richness of the jewels and apparel both of the lords and ladies; or from the grandeur of the banquet and stately service of the table, or from the costly devices of the masquerades and similar revels. In short, nothing whatever that could possibly be desired was wanting for the embellishment of such a spectacle, except jousts and tournaments, which were reserved for a more convenient opportunity.10

  Mary’s capitulation to Henry II in respect of her kingdom has been excused in various ways: her naïve and trusting nature; her lack of experience in dealing with the complex wording of constitutional documents; her upbringing and education in France. It is tempting to ask what more could have been expected of a fifteen-year-old probably more preoccupied by her wedding dress than the fate of a country that she hardly knew, even though she was its monarch. But there are problems here. One of Mary’s recent biographers claims that she had been educated in France to think for herself.11 If that is really so, then her self-image, and the esteem in which she held her own country, were those of complete subservience. Women were inferior, even queens regnant; Scotland was no more than a satellite of France, convenient only for keeping England at bay; and Mary Stewart, covered in jewels and white satin, was just a pretty bauble. She, no doubt, saw her wedding day as an unqualified success. The woman who, seven months later, became queen of England, would have been horrified at such a loss of independence.

  * * *

  MARY TUDOR DIED on 17 November 1558 at St James’s Palace in London, surrounded by devoted household servants and by no means as hated by the populace as her detractors over the centuries have claimed. The husband she loved, Philip II, now king of Spain and the Netherlands, was across the North Sea in Brussels, too preoccupied by the demands of government to mourn greatly the wife he had married out of duty. Though she had
not been in good health since adolescence, Mary appears to have been a victim of a widespread and deadly virus that caused havoc in northern Europe in 1557–8. It had been so severe in England that members of parliament and even the Church hierarchy were badly hit by it, dying in such numbers that it was, for a while, difficult for the country’s major institutions to function properly. The contagion certainly spread across the English Channel, because Sir William Pickering, on a diplomatic mission to France, was stricken with it at Dunkirk shortly before the death of his queen and was so ill that he did not return home for many months. In Paris, however, the royal family escaped unscathed.

  Also unaffected was the young woman of twenty-five who now became queen of England. Elizabeth Tudor was nine years older than her ‘sister queen’ of Scots and her upbringing and experiences could hardly have been more different. For, unlike her distant cousin, Elizabeth’s path to the throne was full of danger and uncertainty and it was only when Edward VI died so young that there was any real prospect that she might, one day, become queen. Although Mary Tudor had nominated her sister as her successor ten days before she died, Elizabeth was still officially the bastard daughter of a king, despite having been given a place in the succession in 1544. Anne Boleyn’s child was briefly a princess, from the time she was born in September 1533 to her mother’s execution for adultery in May 1536. During those scant three years she was Henry VIII’s heir but for all the childhood she could remember she was merely the Lady Elizabeth.

  Considerable amounts of that childhood were spent sharing accommodation with her much older sister, Mary (who, despite her fearsome historical reputation, was very fond of her little sister and indulged her with presents and clothes), and sometimes with Prince Edward. The belated arrival of a male heir in 1537 relieved Henry VIII of the embarrassment of having divorced one wife and beheaded another only to find himself the parent of two illegitimate females. Though Henry’s tally of illegitimate offspring could not come close to the totals amassed by James IV and James V in Scotland, at least the Stewart kings had made a greater success of royal matrimony itself. The security in Elizabeth Tudor’s young life came from her household staff and her education. In that respect, her experience was at least as good, and probably better, than that of Mary Queen of Scots. Elizabeth benefitted from the flowering of English classical scholarship in the first half of the sixteenth century, first encouraged by humanism and later by the growth of new religious ideas. Her education, sometimes shared with her brother, certainly fitted her for queenship, even if she lacked the formal training for such a role. She was intelligent, diligent and rather serious as a little girl. But she was seldom at court and saw little of her father while he made his way through four more wives after her mother’s disgrace and death. There was no maternal figure in her life before Henry married Katherine Parr in 1543 and the young Elizabeth became very fond of her stepmother, as were Henry’s other two children. In observing Katherine Parr as regent and queen consort, Elizabeth learned a good deal about how women could think for themselves and govern. She greatly admired her stepmother’s literary output and clearly discussed religious ideas with her when they met, which was not nearly often enough for Elizabeth’s liking.

  She was not at court, however, when Katherine’s marriage ran into difficulties in the summer of 1546, partly because of the queen’s enthusiasm for religious change and her success as a published author, both of which riled the ailing Henry VIII. What Elizabeth knew about this episode is hard to say, though she may well have heard about it afterwards. When her own ordeal came, just a few years later, she, too, found it necessary to live on her wits. The difference was that Katherine Parr, for all the immediate danger she might have been in, still had a strong hold on the old king’s affections and was not without supporters. Elizabeth was fifteen and friendless when the first great crisis of her life occurred.

  Mary Stewart, as a fifteen-year-old, had known nothing but privilege and respect. She had lived a gilded life. Secure in France, she was a crowned and anointed queen in one country and would one day become the French queen consort. Although she had long been viewed as something of an exotic curiosity from a barbarous land, at least by some elements of the French aristocracy, once married to the dauphin no one could cast aspersions on her anymore. She had all the status, the riches and the attention that she could want. What she lacked was any experience of adversity. Her English cousin, however, learned at the same age just how dangerous proximity to the throne could be, even for someone whose prospects of ever ruling seemed remote.

  In 1549, Elizabeth was embroiled in the disaster that overtook Queen Katherine Parr’s fourth and last husband, Lord Thomas Seymour of Sudeley, brother of Edward VI’s Lord Protector, the duke of Somerset, and uncle to the king. Katherine Parr died shortly after giving birth to her only child, a daughter, in September 1548, and her volatile and unwise widower, whose flirtation with Elizabeth when she lived with Katherine had eventually forced the queen dowager to send the girl away, considered trying for Elizabeth’s hand in marriage. As he was also involved in a number of shady business deals and was attempting to build a power base to challenge his brother, Elizabeth’s association with him brought her into great danger when Seymour was arrested and accused of high treason for an apparent attempt to kidnap the king.

  Although the accusations were basically far-fetched, Seymour was the archetypal loose cannon. He had long charmed the ladies but he now found himself friendless and attainted without trial. In the scramble to convict him, those who had been close to him were themselves in peril, and none more so than Elizabeth and the dithering and gutless members of her household whom she loved unreservedly but who were more concerned with saving their own skins than hers. Deprived of her lady governess and subjected to days of pointed and remorseless interrogation about her relationship with Seymour and whether she had agreed to marry him (a treasonable offence where one so close to the throne was concerned), Elizabeth at times broke down, but never gave in. Eventually, through sheer strength of character and an uncanny ability to defend herself, she turned the tables on her accusers and wrote furious letters about the attacks on her reputation – the ‘shameful slanders’, as she called them, which suggested that she was pregnant by Seymour. He was executed in March 1549, but Elizabeth survived. It was an experience she never forgot.

  In her sister’s reign, when their once affectionate relationship was shattered by Mary’s suspicions of her sister’s loyalty (some of which were not entirely unfounded) and the inescapable reality that, as ‘second person’ in the realm, Elizabeth, younger, more attractive, clever and resourceful, had become the focus for opposition and discontent. Always protesting her innocence, never using one word of justification when twenty would do, Elizabeth’s prolix and evasive answers to Mary’s accusations infuriated England’s first queen so much that the gulf between the sisters could not be bridged. Elizabeth spent a couple of months in the Tower of London as a prisoner, a stay that has been hugely romanticized by historians over the years but was, in fact, an honourable and comfortable confinement. Much of the rest of Mary’s brief five-year reign Elizabeth spent under some form of house arrest, though restrictions were progressively eased, and for the last months of Mary’s life her sister kept what was essentially an alternative court at Hatfield Palace in Hertfordshire as she calmly waited for Mary to die. In November 1558, that moment came.

  But though the transition was smooth, the situation in which the new queen found herself was daunting. England was bankrupt, the huge cost of the war with France having undone all the improvements that Mary had tried to put in place through better accounting and financial management. Elizabeth Tudor had to be much more frugal with her coronation robes than Mary Stewart was with her wedding dress. When she was crowned in January 1559, the new queen wore her late sister’s coronation outfit, altered to fit her and with some embellishments. Her country was afflicted by a serious epidemic that had affected many of its more powerful and experienced churc
hmen and policy makers. Poor harvests and bad weather in the later 1550s merely added to the hardship. National pride had been severely dented by the loss of Calais, even though its upkeep was expensive and it acted as a magnate for dissidents.

  Elizabeth’s England in the winter of 1559 was not a joyful place, whatever hopes might have been aroused by the succession of its lively and personable new monarch. This was a country that had seen religious changes follow one another convulsively as the Reformation unleashed by Henry VIII was hurried forward by his son, only to be halted in its tracks by Mary’s return to the old faith and to Rome. What the average Englishman thought of all this is a question that has never been satisfactorily answered, but it is a fair bet that many were simply bemused. Elizabeth’s religious views were unclear. It was believed that, because she had been educated by reformers, she was likely to favour Protestantism, though she had been a practising, if not enthusiastic, Catholic during her sister’s reign. Protestant exiles who had fled England for Europe were eager to return but Elizabeth needed to tread carefully. One thing, however, seemed evident. She would not completely dismantle her sister’s Catholic rites until she was sure that she had a majority of support among the bishops and in parliament. But there was no question of remaining under the rule of Rome. Elizabeth fully believed, as her father had done, that she was Head of the Church in England. Eventually, the Act of Uniformity of 1559, which laid out the Elizabethan religious settlement, was passed by the slimmest of margins. It established Protestantism as the state religion and effectively, though perhaps not intentionally, consigned England’s Catholic population to centuries of discrimination. For her day, however, when the principled arguments for toleration were seldom heard, Elizabeth was a surprisingly moderate ruler in religious matters in these early years of her reign.