The Spaniard was "very dear" to Man, and she heard him out, yet she remained completely and adamantly opposed to everything he said. Her extreme distaste for Elizabeth's succession rights was hardening into an obsession. She repeated with vehemence the argument she had been making since the start of her reign: Elizabeth was not her sister, Henry V III
was not Elizabeth's father, Mary could not possibly allow Elizabeth to be shown any favor whatsoever, "as she was born of an infamous woman, who had so greatly outraged" Katherine of Aragon and Mary herself. 18
The confessor, undaunted, persevered so "assiduously and adroitly" that he broke Mary down. She consented, her conscience and honor losing ground to her desire to please Philip and to preserve a Catholic England. A document was drawn up, most likely during Philip's stay in England, which envisioned Elizabeth's future as princess of England and duchess of Savoy. When she produced her first child, the agreement set forth, the duke was to hand over to Philip his castles of Nice and Villefranche as security; if that child actually became king or queen—or if, with Elizabeth dying childless, the duke himself should succeed—then the entire county of Nice and the port and town of Villefranche would become permanently annexed to Philip's possessions. All contingencies were spelled out, with Philip the chief beneficiary in each instance. Mary's name was never mentioned, but the omission was eloquent. No one expected her to live much longer. 19
Then two days after giving her consent, Mary changed her mind. She would not permit any marriage after all. Elizabeth had no rightful claim, and was completely unworthy besides. Fresneda had to swallow his rage. Cardinal Pole was accused, perhaps rightly, of forcing Mary's reversal. In any case the matter was left in abeyance, and was lost for a time amid the urgencies of war and the brief "warmed-over honeymoon" of the queen and her consort—a honeymoon considerably dampened, so gossips said, by the presence at court of Philip's current mistress.
Early in the new year 1558 Mary's subjects were stunned by the news that Calais, England's last possession on the continent and a vital center of the English wool trade, had been attacked and taken by a French army, and was now the possession of Henry II. Mary was blamed. In her four and a half years as queen she had brought them under a foreign yoke by marrying a Spaniard, humiliated them by her false pregnancy, impoverished them with taxes, and scourged them with merciless burnings and persecution. Now she had lost Calais, and still she demanded that more English soldiers and English coins be sent abroad to aid her ungrateful husband.
"I never saw England weaker in strength, men, money and riches," wrote a scholarly observer early in that dark year. Englishmen "went to the wars hanging down their looks. They came from thence as men dismayed and forlorn. They went about their matters as men amazed, that wist not where to begin or end." And why not, he asked, for his country was in the sorriest of states. "Here was nothing but fining, beheading, hanging, quartering,
and burning; taxing, levying, pulling down of bulwarks at home, and beggaring and losing our strongholds abroad." 20 The queen appeared to be moribund, her successor powerless. All the country's vitality had been drained off. "A few priests, men in white rochets, ruled all."
Mary was secretly consoled amid the general gloom, for once again she had been deluded by her physical state and imagined herself pregnant. (She was in fact entering the terminal stage of ovarian cancer.) But her elation was short-lived, and by May, when ten months had passed since Philip's departure and any further hope for a child would be as shameful as it would be futile, she had lost her illusions. Now she concentrated on preserving her shattered authority, grumbling when visiting ambassadors went to call on Elizabeth at Hatfield without obtaining her royal permission first and taking offense at any apparent slight to her primacy.
The personnel of the court, caught between their desire not to alienate the queen and their hope of ingratiating themselves with the woman who would soon replace her, resorted to clandestine visits or elaborate ruses, or contacted Elizabeth through intermediaries.
Elizabeth avoided her sister's wrath by remaining out of sight as much of the time as possible, though when her presence was required at court Mary's enmity toward her burned through her outward politeness. "She dissembles her hatred and anger as much as she can," Michiel wrote of Mary's treatment of her sister, "and endeavors when they are together in public to receive her with every sort of graciousness and honor, nor does she ever converse with her about any but agreeable subjects." 21 Yet her "scorn and ill will" were unmistakable, and whenever she saw Elizabeth the old affronts and humiliations of Mary's childhood rose before her eyes and made her hate the princess all the more. To Mary, Elizabeth represented not only past injuries but present ones: disloyalty, heresy, unchastity, perhaps even adultery, if what Mary suspected of her flirtation with Philip was true. Worse still, Elizabeth represented youth, survival, the future.
A perceptive visitor to Mary's court writing in 1556 had remarked that almost no one he met who was under thirty-five was a genuine Catholic. With some significant exceptions the Protestants who died in the Marian burnings were of the younger generation as well, and Mary's attempt to reeducate her subjects in Catholic ways, now drawing to a close, had been too brief to leave a strong imprint even on the children. God and his true faith might be on Mary's side, as she saw it, but the times were with her sister. Like Katherine of Aragon before her, Mary was doomed to die bereft of a son, separated from her husband, watching her rival triumph.
Throughout the latter half of 1558 the royal court was eclipsed by the shadow-court at Hatfield. Messengers came and went frequently, carrying
secret communications about the succession. Noblemen came to pay their respects to Elizabeth now just as they did to Mary, and no longer cared very much whether in paying court to the princess they risked offending the queen. A large and bright comet was observed in the skies over northern Europe that summer, and the English, in the time-honored belief that comets foretold the death of great personages, nodded their heads and took it as confirmation that the change of reigns was near.
Philip too was calculating that before long he would be a widower, and that, in order to secure his hold on England, he would need to woo Elizabeth. He sent his grave, courtly Spanish envoy Count Feria to her and Feria, though too discreet to commit their conversation to writing, reported cryptically that the princess was 'Very much pleased," and implied that his mission had been a success. 22
Clearly the English were in process of transferring their loyalty to Mary's successor, and to all outward appearances the actual transfer of power would proceed smoothly and predictably as well. Parliament met in the first week of November, to assure continuity and provide stability while the new queen found her footing, and Mary, in severe pain and weary of life, at last officially declared Elizabeth to be her successor. Two royal messengers arrived at Hatfield with word that Elizabeth was now heir to the throne "by right and law," and the crowd of well-wishers who gathered at the manor house in anticipation of the joyous news of Mary's death rejoiced noisily at this preliminary announcement and waited for better news to come.
While they waited they speculated on Elizabeth's choice of a husband, for no one doubted that she would want a man at her side once she assumed her royal duties. To be sure, no foreign consort would be welcomed— though Swedish and Danish matches were being discussed, and earlier in the year the Swedish king Gustavus Vasa had sent an envoy to Elizabeth to seek her hand for his son Eric. 23 Among English suitors, the talk centered on the earls of Arundel or Westmorland, or the young duke of Norfolk, highest ranking of Elizabeth's Howard relations.
Feria heard that Elizabeth preferred one of her Scottish kin, which spurred him to urge his master's suit the more strongly. That Elizabeth might be persuaded to marry her brother-in-law Philip, whom she had treated with extravagant flattery and flirtation in view of the whole court, seemed to the courtiers a real danger. As Mary's life ebbed they worried over Philip's "intention to have her for himself," and hoped
she would show the good sense to refuse him.
But if the waiting courtiers were anxious about Elizabeth's future consort, the country's military commanders had more pressing concerns. Dur-
ing October and November of 1558 the princess, in person and through her agents, was summoning them—or accepting their offers of aid—to stand behind her as she prepared to assume Mary's crown. In one surviving letter from late October she thanked a nobleman for putting his forces at her disposal, and promised that she would remember his service "whensoever time and power may serve." At the same time she was sending word to others, such as Thomas Markham, commander of the extensive Berwick garrison, to bring their troops southward "to serve for the maintenance of her royal state, title and dignity." Markham not only came and swore his allegiance, but brought signed undertakings from other trusted northern captains who swore to back her claim with their lives and the lives of their soldiers—ten thousand men in all. 24
For if Elizabeth had no apparent rival for the throne, still there were those in the realm who had a stake in prolonging Marian government— and in particular, the Marian church. Cardinal Pole, long-suffering symbol of the Catholic aristocracy and in these latter days almost a co-ruler with Mary, had given no indication that he would make way for Elizabeth without a struggle. Though ill and somewhat wayward in mind, he still held tenaciously to his power. He had only recently burned "one of her chief and well beloved servants," and she was said to be extremely angry with him. 25 To counterbalance Pole's opposition Elizabeth sought the favor of Nicholas Heath, archbishop of York. Though he knew, as everyone did, that as queen Elizabeth would restore Protestantism in some form, the archbishop readily promised his allegiance to her; unlike Pole, for whom religion was primary, Heath felt most keenly his loyalty to the descendants of Henry VIII.
Beyond Pole, and many other stalwart Catholics, there was danger from the Scots and from the French, from Pope Paul IV, and from Philip, who if Elizabeth refused his offer of marriage might in desperation send an invading army to England. To forestall this grim possibility Elizabeth received Feria with marked courtesy when he came to her in the country on November 10, and handled him with the skill of a practiced diplomat.
First she gave him supper, with her confidante Lady Clinton joining them, then afterward she talked with him informally, attended only by three women whose discretion, she assured him, would be absolute as they could speak no Spanish.
Elizabeth began by referring graciously to how grateful she was to Philip for his past friendship, friendship which he had promised her would continue and which was based on "the ancient ties between the houses of Burgundy and England." Feria ignored this grandiloquent reference and brought the conversation closer to home.
Elizabeth, he said, should thank Philip for her imminent accession. Mary had certainly not been responsible for it, nor her councilors; it was Philip, acting behind the scenes, who had brought it about.
She corrected him. She owed what she was to the people, not to Philip or the nobility or anyone else. Feria noted down her particular affection for her people—they would soon be hers—and had to admit that by and large the English did take her part. He forbore, though, to debate the question of who should take credit for her preservation, privately convinced that were it not for his master Elizabeth might well not have survived to outlive her sister.
They spoke of a variety of things: of the peace negotiations then taking place on the continent, and the English commissioners' instructions; of the duke of Savoy, whom Elizabeth had declined to marry, she said, because she feared to lose the people's affection, as Mary had, by marrying a foreigner; of money, of which Elizabeth had been deprived during Mary's reign though Mary had been quick enough to squander coins, and jewels too, on Philip's warmaking.
Through it all Feria watched Elizabeth closely, calculating her strengths and weaknesses as a ruler, aware that, though she had not yet been crowned, she was already a queen.
"She is keen-witted and extremely vain," he wrote. "She has been greatly stamped by her father's way of doing things." (If the peace commissioners agreed to a settlement that did not include the restoration of Calais to the English, she swore to Feria, "it would cost them their heads.") As for religion, there was no hope for her, as she had surrounded herself with councilors and female attendants who were all heretics. Now that she had nothing to fear from the dying queen, she was giving full vent to her pent-up anger. "She shows herself highly indignant at all that was done to her during the queen's lifetime," the count wrote, and though he added no particulars it seems likely that her hostility to Mary colored their entire interview. 26
At Hatfield by mid-November a holiday atmosphere prevailed. The crowds, "constantly increasing with great frequency," that pressed in through the gardens, shivering in the raw air, were cheerfully expectant. The volume of mail and visitors grew inordinately. No business was being done at court, for Pole was as ill as Mary was, and there was no one in charge of affairs. Instead all business came to Hatfield, and burdened as she was with choosing her council and other household officials, and beginning to formulate her policy toward foreign courts, Elizabeth dealt with it as best she could. Around her all the talk was of the festivities that would accompany her accession, and of the robes and other finery each of the lords and
ladies would need "to appear with very great pomp at the coronation of the new queen." There were no suitable fabrics to be found in England; all sent to Antwerp for fine cloths in a rainbow of colors, until it was said that the English had bought up every length of silk in the town. 27
Then came Hope Wednesday, November 16, the day news came that Mary could not last more than a few hours. The hours passed, the onlookers kept their excited vigil. Finally the next morning the long-awaited message came. The queen had died before dawn, falling into sleeplike peace after hearing mass one last time. And Pole, too, was said to be dying.
With what inner relief Elizabeth uttered the Latin words ascribed to her at that moment—'This is the Lord's doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes" —we can only imagine. Nearly thirty years afterward she spoke of how she had wept at Mary's death. No doubt she wept for her piteous, hated sister, but also for herself, for the sheer weight of the burden of rule that loomed before her. And for release from the long, tense nightmare of her past.
"O Lord, almighty and everlasting God," she was to pray in words of her own, on her coronation day, "I give Thee most hearty thanks that Thou hast been so merciful unto me as to spare me to behold this joyful day. And I acknowledge that Thou hast dealt as wonderfully and as mercifully with me as Thou didst with Thy true and faithful servant, Daniel, Thy prophet, whom Thou deliveredst out of the den of the greedy and raging lions."
//
PART THREE
La Plus Fine
Femme du Monde"
But whereto shall we bend our lays? Even up to Heaven, again to raise The Maid which, thence descended, Hath brought again the golden days And all the world amended.
M
ary died in the early hours of the morning and by noon Elizabeth had been proclaimed queen in Parliament at Westminster and in the City, where Londoners had long since broken into wild rejoicing. This was their long awaited day of deliverance, their moment of release from the endless, bloody night of Mary's persecution. Throughout the old queen's last illness they had been hoarding their secret delight that her end was near; now they let themselves go in an explosion of celebration.
All the bells in London's hundred churches rang in joyous cacophony as people crowded into the narrow streets to cheer and salute Queen Elizabeth. Shops and markets were closed, work abandoned. By sunset London had become a huge open-air banquet hall, lit by crackling bonfires at every street corner and furnished with meat and drink in lavish abundance. Merchants and gentlefolk mingled with common laborers and the ragged poor in toasting the new queen's health far into the night, dancing and singing until their heads swam from exhaustion and wine.
Sev
eral days later, hearing that Elizabeth was on her way toward London from Hatfield, they 'Vent many miles out of the city" to greet her, thronging the roadways and shouting and gesturing "with so lively representations of love, joy and hope that it far exceeded her expectation." 1 And the pageantry was only beginning; still to come was the new sovereign's formal
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entrance into the City, with cannon booming and trumpets blowing, and, some seven weeks hence, the splendor of the coronation.
From their exile in Strasbourg and Geneva the Protestants who had fled Mary's persecution rejoiced that God in his infinite mercy had taken the old queen to himself and spared her sister to reign in her stead. "We that have long and sorrowfully lacked our country," Cecil's father-in-law Anthony Cooke wrote from abroad, "now have good hope to enjoy the sight of her grace and it." "If the Israelites might joy in their Deborah, how much more we English in our Elizabeth!" wrote the duchess of Suffolk, the Puritan Catherine Bertie, who had wandered fretfully through Germany and Poland while her coreligionists were being burned in England. All through Mary's reign Elizabeth had been the Protestants' hope and treasure, and though they had only the most general idea of her personal faith they knew her to be, by lineage and upbringing, within the Protestant camp. Now that she had come to the throne at last she was certain to fulfill their expectations. 2
The first Elizabeth Page 20
