The House of Tudor

by Alison Plowden

  On 6 October, Cardinal Wolsey’s handsome Thames-side mansion bustled with activity. Weapons and harness were brought out of the armoury, guards were mounted at the gates, messengers rode to and fro and, as the King himself put it, ‘people came abundantly to the house’. But although Archbishop Cranmer arrived with a force of sixty horsemen, it soon became clear that help was not going to be forthcoming in time. The local peasantry had come in obediently to defend their king, but they would be no match for Warwick and his professional force; nor, in spite of all those warlike preparations, was Hampton Court defensible against any sort of determined assault.

  At nine o’clock that night the Protector brought Edward down to the main gate of the palace where a large puzzled crowd was waiting and there, in the flickering torchlight, the child, prompted by his uncle, made a brief, rather sulky appeal to his assembled subjects. ‘Good people’, he said, ‘I pray you be good to us - and to our uncle.’ Then Somerset spoke, exclaiming rather hysterically that he would not fall alone. If he was destroyed, the King would be destroyed - kingdom and commonwealth would all be destroyed together. Pushing Edward in front of him, he went on: ‘It is not I that they shoot at - this is the mark that they shoot at.’ Horses were waiting saddled in the courtyard and uncle and nephew with a small escort mounted and rode hurriedly away into the night for the greater security of Windsor Castle.

  It looked uncomfortably like flight and was for Edward a thoroughly upsetting and frightening experience. When he and Somerset reached Windsor at about three o’clock in the morning, no one was expecting them and nothing had been prepared. To the helpless boy surrounded by grim-faced adults talking in lowered voices over his head the gloomy, medieval fortress must have seemed more like a prison than a refuge, the whole adventure something of a nightmare. Nobody, it seemed, thought of offering him any comfort or reassurance. On the contrary, the Protector, anxious for the King’s support, had worked to impress him with a sense of his danger from their common enemies. Edward had never felt any particular affection or even liking for his austere uncle, but he had hitherto respected and, on the whole, trusted him. Now he saw only a panicky middle-aged man trying to save his own skin by hiding behind the sacred person of his sovereign lord. Trust and respect died, but fear did not. Edward was not yet twelve years old and still very much in his uncle’s power.

  But not for long. Somerset had not succeeded in saving himself The London Lords, under Warwick’s skilful and determined leadership, pursued him to Windsor and on lo October he was taken away under guard to the Tower. The Lords then waited on the King and gave him a carefully edited account of their doings. Edward listened politely. He asked no awkward questions and thanked their lordships for the pains they had taken in safeguarding him and the realm. (He later entered in his Journal, an unrevealing document, a list of the Protector’s crimes, which included ambition, vainglory, entering into rash wars in the King’s youth, enriching himself with the King’s treasure, following his own opinion and doing all by his own authority.) The King kept his private thoughts on the October crisis to himself As he grew older, Edward kept his private thoughts more and more to himself

  A few days after Somerset’s arrest, Edward returned to Hampton Court with a reconstituted entourage. Warwick was now securely in the saddle and the palace revolution was over. Edward had accepted his change of guardianship with his usual inscrutability, but did he perhaps reflect on the fact that he was the first child king so effectively to have turned the tables on uncles? That he might, in a manner of speaking, be said to have avenged the little princes in the Tower?

  10: GONE IS OUR TREASURE

  Adieu pleasure!

  Gone is our treasure,

  Mourning may be our mirth:

  For Edward our King

  That rose and spring

  Is faded and lyeth in earth.

  Therefore, mourn we may

  Both night and day,

  And in heart we may be full sad;

  Since Brute came in,

  Or at any time since,

  The like treasure we never had.

  It was agreed that there were to be no more Lord Protectors. England’s new dictator had no intention of repeating his predecessor’s mistakes and, in any case, he was a great deal more interested in the realities of power than in its trappings. John Dudley had fought his way up the social and political ladder without the aid of noble birth or family connections. On the contrary, his father had been a slightly shady lawyer who had served Henry VII as one of that monarch’s most efficient and most hated tax collectors and who, together with his colleague Richard Empson, had been unhesitatingly sacrificed on the altar of popular demand by the young Henry VIII. Young John had therefore not only had to make his own way in the world but to overcome the serious initial handicap of a plebeian parent executed for treason. It is a measure of his ability that he had risen steadily in the royal service as a soldier and a diplomat and had been named as one of the trusted inner circle of executors of Henry’s will.

  Throughout his career, first as Lord Lisle and then as Earl of Warwick, John Dudley had made a careful study of Tudor psychology and his plan now was to use the still malleable Edward as a screen behind which to consolidate his position and secure the future of his numerous sons. First, though, he would have to be assured of the King’s implicit trust, his unqualified support, and, if possible, his love. Warwick was a man of commanding presence and magnetic personality. In private life he was an affectionate family man with plenty of experience of bringing up boys, but he never made the mistake of treating Edward as a child. He treated him as a King and as a King who should now be old enough to start taking an active part in the serious business of government. Edward, now twelve years old and developing fast, naturally responded eagerly to this form of flattery. He began to appear regularly at Council meetings and not merely to rubber-stamp decisions already taken. So at least it appeared, and so Edward himself believed. Those who were surprised at his grasp of affairs were possibly not aware that Warwick was in the habit of visiting the King privately late in the evening to brief him on the next day’s business. He would listen deferentially to the royal opinion but was careful to ensure that his own viewpoint should always be uppermost in Edward’s mind before he slept.

  It is usually said that Warwick took Edward out of the stuffy atmosphere of the schoolroom and brought him into the fresh air. In fact, Edward’s timetable had always included provision for plenty of outdoor exercise and training in the sports and pastimes proper for kings. At the same time it was certainly a very important item of Warwick’s strategy to bring Edward forward, to introduce him to the more glamorous aspects of kingship and generally to keep him happy and amused.

  A special embassy came over from France in the early summer of 1550 to conclude a new Anglo-French treaty and the King was fully involved in the entertainment provided for the envoys. There was a state dinner, bull and bear baitings, a hunt and supper at Hampton Court and fireworks on the Thames. Several cheerful young Frenchmen were added to the royal entourage and on 19 June Edward took them down to Deptford, where Lord Clinton, the new Lord Admiral, put on an exciting display of tilting in which the contestants stood on boats and ran at one another until the loser fell into the water. This was followed after supper by a mock sea battle staged on the river - all exactly calculated to entrance a twelve-year-old boy. Edward was still keeping regular lesson hours, but under his new guardian’s carefully unobtrusive guidance his horizons were widening every day and he was enjoying every moment of it.

  In the autumn of 1551 he had his first experience of acting as host to foreign royalty, when Mary of Guise, Queen Dowager and Regent of Scotland, asked leave to pass through his realm on her way back to the North after visiting her daughter in France. The Dowager was storm-bound at Portsmouth and the English government immediately sent a welcoming deputation with friendly letters from the King and orders to escort the distinguished castaway to London, Edward
adding a special message that he would be pleased to supply anything she needed for her comfort and that he looked forward to meeting her. The Court was at Westminster and the King received his guest with all due ceremony in the Great Hall of the Palace. Later they dined together, the Queen Regent sitting on Edward’s left under the cloth of estate and, so it was said, being much impressed by the maturity, wisdom and judgement of her youthful host.

  Among those members of the royal family summoned to do honour to the Queen were the King’s cousins Margaret, Countess of Lennox and Lady Jane Grey and her parents. Jane Grey’s parents had recently taken a step up in the world. Following the sudden and tragic deaths from the sweating sickness of Charles Brandon’s two sons by Katherine Willoughby, the dukedom of Suffolk had devolved on their half-sister Frances and her husband. In spite of the tact that Jane was no nearer to marrying the King - the present plan was for a betrothal between Edward and the French Princess Elisabeth - the Dorsets basked happily in the glory of their new honour. But Henry Grey was not the only new Duke at Court that autumn. John Dudley now felt sufficiently secure to petition the King on his own account and on 11 October he had been created Duke of Northumberland, the first Englishman with no blood tie with the royal house ever to bear a ducal title.

  The King’s sisters had not been invited to meet Mary of Guise. In fact the King’s sisters played very little part in the life of the Court. In Mary’s case this was due to a steadily widening rift over the religious question and by the early fifties the unfortunate princess was once again being hounded for her beliefs. Trouble had started in the spring of 1549 when Somerset’s programme of reform had culminated in the establishment of Cranmer’s English prayer book as the official order of service for the church in England. Faced with the threatened extinction of the very foundations of her faith, Mary appealed to the Emperor and Charles responded more energetically than usual, instructing his ambassador to obtain a written guarantee from the Duke of Somerset that his cousin would be allowed to continue to have mass unmolested in her own household. This guarantee was not forthcoming but, after a good deal of argument, François Van der Delft did succeed in extracting a verbal promise from the Protector that the princess might do as she thought best in the privacy of her own house until the King came of age. There the matter might have rested. Somerset was a man of his word and Mary was an old friend of his wife’s, who had once been one of her mother’s maids. Then came the October coup. The Somersets were in eclipse and early in 1550 Mary had warning that the Council were planning further moves against her, that before long both she and her household would be forbidden to hear mass.

  For the second time in her life Mary’s thoughts turned to escape. It seemed as though she could not endure any more battles. She was older now and more tired, worn out by constant colds, toothache and headache. She yearned only to live at peace among her mother’s kin in some quiet Catholic country and she begged the Emperor to give her sanctuary. The Emperor had his doubts. Whatever her private longings, Mary was still her brother’s heiress. To connive at her escape would be a risky business, to harbour her would be expensive and embarrassing. On the other hand, she was potentially a very valuable property and Charles may have been touched by her despair. He may also have feared, as his ambassador certainly did, that if he, Mary’s ‘only hope and refuge in this world’, failed her in this extremity, she would attempt to escape unaided and that ‘the good lady through her own incompetence might fall into a worse evil’. At any rate, Charles gave his reluctant consent to a rescue attempt.

  Speed and secrecy were essential. Van der Delft was recalled at the beginning of June and his replacement, a stolid Dutch merchant, kept in careful ignorance of what was going on. Mary had already moved to her manor at Woodham Walter, east of Chelmsford and only a couple of miles from Maldon on the tidal river Blackwater where, on the last day of the month, a smooth-talking Flemish merchant berthed his vessel at the quayside. Master Jehan Duboys was from Ostend with com to sell in the Essex ports. Nothing unusual about that. Nothing unusual either in the Lady Mary’s Comptroller, with a large household to feed, coming down to do business with him. The unusual thing about Master Duboys was his mission - somehow to smuggle the Lady Mary aboard that innocent-looking coaster and carry her downriver to a rendezvous with certain ships of the Imperial navy, currently lying off Harwich on the pretext of hunting pirates.

  The plan was a bold and simple one and might very well have succeeded, but now the moment had arrived Mary’s nerve failed her. She dithered in miserable indecision while those members of her household who disapproved of the whole project worked on her fears. Jehan Duboys was not unsympathetic but he could not hang about while the princess made up her mind. For Mary’s sake as well as his own, he dared not delay. So the chance was lost and now Mary had to stay and face whatever her brother’s Council had in store for her.

  The secret of that aborted escape was soon out, of course, and the government took prompt steps to ensure that such a thing would not happen again, moving soldiers into all the likely east coast ports. No direct reprisals were taken against Mary, but the new line of attack being masterminded by John Dudley became apparent when a warrant was issued for the arrest of one of her chaplains who had unwisely celebrated mass in her absence. Previously the Council had aimed their warning shots at the princess herself and had been ignored. Now, and more effectively, they intended to penalize her servants.

  It was not until January 15 51 that the King himself took a hand in the affair, adding a personal postscript to one of the Council’s hectoring letters. ‘Truly, sister’, he wrote, ‘I will not say more and worse things, because my duty would compel me to use harsher and angrier words. But this I will say with certain intention, that I will see my laws strictly obeyed, and those who break them shall be watched and denounced, even as some are ready to trouble my subjects by their obstinate resistance.’

  This unequivocal statement of the King’s position came to Mary as a bitter revelation of the gulf which now yawned between them, causing her ‘more suffering than any illness even unto death’. Previously she had been able to comfort herself with the thought that her brother was still a helpless puppet in the hands of men like John Dudley and his confederates; that it was they, not he, who were her enemies. But in Edward’s letter the echo of their father’s voice was too unmistakeable to be disregarded. Brother and sister had seen little of each other during the past two years. Mary had avoided the Court deliberately, keeping her occasional visits private and as brief as possible, for fear that she would in some way be forced or tricked into attending one of the new services and so seem to be giving public countenance to the hated new ways. Now there was the additional fear that Edward’s mind was being poisoned against her and she realized that the dreaded confrontation could not be postponed any longer.

  So, on 17 March she came to London in state, ‘with fifty knights and gentlemen in velvet coats afore her, and after her four score gentlemen and ladies’. Her regular household had obviously been reinforced by other sympathizers and their wives. On the following day the princess made her way through Fleet Street and the Strand to Westminster, where Edward, supported by all twenty-five members of the Council, was waiting for her.

  The proceedings began with another inconclusive wrangle about the Duke of Somerset’s promise. Mary complained of the tone of the Council’s letters, saying that contrary to previous undertakings she was now being prevented from practising her religion. Edward interposed at this point. He knew nothing about that, he said, for he had only taken a share in affairs during the past year. Mary saw her opening. In that case, she remarked, he had not drawn up the new ordinances about religion. There was no answer to this, but the councillors came back fighting with a warning that grave troubles might arise if she, sister to the King and heiress to the crown, continued to disobey his laws. The new ordinances applied to everyone, and although a measure of indulgence had been granted to Mary to please the Emperor and out o
f respect to her position, it would not be continued indefinitely.

  Mary replied by turning to her brother. She was his humble subject and sister, she said, who would always pray for his prosperity and for the peace of the realm. Everyone praised the King’s great knowledge and understanding and she had no wish to denigrate it; rather she would pray that God would increase his many virtues. Nevertheless, and she looked the thirteen-year-old Edward straight in the eye, riper age and experience would teach him much more yet. This was too much for the young Josiah, who promptly retorted that Mary might also have something still to learn, no one was too old for that. It would be very hard for her to change the religion in which the King her father had bred her, answered Mary sadly, not pretending to misunderstand. Here someone observed irresistibly that the late King had changed several points of religion and had he lived, he would no doubt have gone further. But Mary refused to be drawn on this point, merely sighing that she wished everything had remained as it was at the time of the King her father’s death.

  The bulky ghost of the King their father, who had bequeathed them their insoluble problem, was almost palpably present at this encounter between his son and daughter. The frail, indomitable woman and the fair, slender boy might physically be shadows of their tremendous sire, but no one could have mistaken those jutting chins, the stubbornly folded mouths, the unshakeable conviction of righteousness. Many of those standing by in the gallery at Westminster on that March morning must surely have heard the rumble of distant thunder.