Mary Tudor (24 page)
Authors: Linda Porter
The prospect of abandonment by Cromwell and the likely fate of her supporters, if she continued to hold out, finally broke Mary’s resolve. Chapuys also encouraged her, for the sake of her own health and future, to comply with her father’s commands. He advised her to sign the articles without reading them. Papal understanding could be obtained through imperial influence at a later date. The priority now was her security, not her soul.
On 22 June 1536, the princess signed her submission. In it, she said:‘I do now plainly and with all mine heart confess and declare mine inward sentence, belief and judgement, with a due conformity of obedience to the laws of the realm’. She humbly beseeched the king to forgive her offences and sought his mercy.Then she acknowledged him as sovereign and as supreme head of the Church of England. But it was the third article that was the most bitter. She acknowledged, but only under extreme duress, her mother’s marriage ‘to have been by God’s law and man’s incestuous and unlawful’.
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Mary’s health had suffered badly during years of strain and sorrow. Now the elation of Anne Boleyn’s disgrace had been swiftly supplanted by five weeks of ruthless psychological abuse. Her courage was remarkable, but she was only human. She longed for peace of mind, a calm existence and her father’s acceptance. So she signed away everything she had stood for during the dismal years of her banishment - her beloved mother’s marriage, her own legitimacy, papal authority over English religious law. This supreme act of denial remained on her conscience for the rest of her days.
Four days after her capitulation, Mary wrote to her father: ‘I cannot express my joy or make my return for your goodness but my poor heart, which I send unto your highness to remain in your hand, to be for ever used, directed and framed, which God shall suffer life to remain in it, at your only pleasure. I beg you to receive it as all I have to offer.’
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It was the first of a series of letters so abject they are almost embarrassing.They seem to have been written of her own free will, or perhaps she thought she could not sink any lower and was anxious to convince Henry that her love was unconditional. Having made the sacrifice, she wanted the benefits she had always been assured awaited her. Certainly, she now understood that this was the tone her father expected. Mary was also careful to establish a close relationship with the new queen as soon as possible, thanking her for her ‘most prudent counsel for my further proceeding’. More than anything else, she wanted to see her father.
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It was the first of a series of letters so abject they are almost embarrassing.They seem to have been written of her own free will, or perhaps she thought she could not sink any lower and was anxious to convince Henry that her love was unconditional. Having made the sacrifice, she wanted the benefits she had always been assured awaited her. Certainly, she now understood that this was the tone her father expected. Mary was also careful to establish a close relationship with the new queen as soon as possible, thanking her for her ‘most prudent counsel for my further proceeding’. More than anything else, she wanted to see her father.
On 6 July, Mary left Hunsdon at night for a private meeting with her father and Queen Jane. She had not spoken to Henry in five years but now there was an outpouring of fatherly affection. He said he felt deep regret for having kept her so long away from him and made ‘brilliant promises for the future’. No father, reported Chapuys, could have behaved better towards his daughter. Henry proffered 1,000 crowns for her immediate expenses and Jane gave her a fine diamond ring.The king assured her that Cromwell and others would soon come to talk to her about her ‘state and household’; when he himself returned from a visit to Dover, she could reside again at court.
It all sounded wonderful, but it was not the whole truth.‘Mixed with the sweet food of paternal kindness, there were a few drachmas of gall and bitterness. But after all, we must set that down to paternal authority,’ commented Chapuys. A good deal of Henry’s bitterness had been aimed at Charles V: ‘he said to the princess … that her obstinate resistance to his will had been encouraged and strengthened by the trust she had in you; but that she ought to know that your majesty could not help or favour her in the least as long as he [the king] lived’.
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Mary was also affected by family developments closer to home in the summer of 1536. Her half-brother, the duke of Richmond, died unexpectedly after a short illness on 23 July. For the king, the loss of his 17-year-old son, whom he seems to have genuinely loved, was unnerving. Two illegitimate daughters were all he had to show for his desperate search for an heir, and Jane Seymour had yet to conceive. Chapuys, on the other hand, thought it ‘not a bad thing for the interests of the princess’, and Cromwell, rather sickeningly, actually congratulated Mary on Richmond’s death. Her reaction is not recorded. She was, though, keen to remind her father that he had another child: ‘My sister Elizabeth is well and such a child toward as I doubt not but your highness shall have cause to rejoice of in time coming.’
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It was a sweet tribute to a little girl whose precedence she had resented but who was now as abandoned as she herself had once been. Mary felt sorry for her and may have hoped to jolt Henry’s conscience about Elizabeth’s treatment. If so, she did not immediately succeed. In mid-August, Cromwell was specific in his instructions that ‘my lady Elizabeth shall keep her chamber and not come abroad’.
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It was a sweet tribute to a little girl whose precedence she had resented but who was now as abandoned as she herself had once been. Mary felt sorry for her and may have hoped to jolt Henry’s conscience about Elizabeth’s treatment. If so, she did not immediately succeed. In mid-August, Cromwell was specific in his instructions that ‘my lady Elizabeth shall keep her chamber and not come abroad’.
Once a greater degree of respect and status was restored to Mary, Chapuys began to acknowledge the full extent of the agony she had suffered. He told the bishop of Arras: ‘this affair of the princess has tormented her more than you think’. A few weeks later, he wrote to Empress Isabella that Mary was in good health and kindly treated. But he did not conceal that she had ‘escaped from the greatest danger that ever a princess was in, and such as no words can describe’.
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He exaggerated, of course, but only somewhat.
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He exaggerated, of course, but only somewhat.
The danger might be gone, but considerable pressure remained. Charles V’s influence over Mary continued to rankle with Henry. In early October, she was being pressured by her father to write to the emperor, his regent in the Netherlands (Mary of Hungary) and the pope, saying that she had signed the articles of her own free will. Presumably this was just a public relations exercise, since Henry must have realised that they were all well informed about the circumstances of Mary’s submission. It reinforced his authority over her, however, and reminded her that she had no power, however much her cousin might appear to take up her cause. Mary heard, but apparently did not accept, what her father had to say about her Habsburg connections. For the rest of her life, she consistently overestimated imperial support because she had no other source of external comfort.
But now her father had much else to occupy his mind at home.The most serious uprising of his reign was upon him, and for a while it looked as if he might lose control of the north of England and possibly his throne. The great rebellion known as the Pilgrimage of Grace was fuelled by widespread discontent at Henry’s religious reforms, and against the dissolution of the monasteries in particular. Ominously, the rebels had not forgotten Mary, either. One of their demands was ‘that the Lady Mary may be made legitimate’. It proved that she retained a place in popular affection and that she was still a political presence.
The Pilgrimage of Grace was suppressed with ruthlessness and duplicity, two qualities that Henry (and many of his court) had in spades. Its failure marked the end of a momentous period. On 22 December, the king, his wife and daughter rode through the City of London in a splendid procession, on their way to spend Christmas at Greenwich. The streets were superbly hung ‘with rich gold and arras’, and the priests of all the London parishes, carrying their best crosses, candlesticks and censers, stood on the steps of St Paul’s.
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Mary enjoyed the pomp of such occasions, so she would not have minded the bitter cold. ‘The cause of the king’s riding through London was because the Thames was so frozen there might be no boats go on there for ice.’ It was a fitting end to a chilling year.
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Mary enjoyed the pomp of such occasions, so she would not have minded the bitter cold. ‘The cause of the king’s riding through London was because the Thames was so frozen there might be no boats go on there for ice.’ It was a fitting end to a chilling year.
Chapter Five
The Quiet Years
‘She would be, while her father lived, only Lady Mary, the most unhappy lady in Christendom.’
O
n 15 October 1537, Mary stood at the font in the Chapel Royal at Hampton Court while Archbishop Cranmer performed the rites of baptism over her brother Edward. As befitted a lady of royal birth - and the child’s godmother - she was wearing a kirtle of cloth of silver, richly embroidered. Yet though her appearance was carefully considered, her behaviour showed that this was a family ceremony as well as a state occasion. Mary was the much older sister of two small children who would never know their own mothers. If she was not exactly maternal, she still represented a warmth and approachability that the more remote figure of the king, their father, lacked. She was attentive both to the baby prince and to the four-year-old Elizabeth, who carried the chrisom-cloth.When the ceremony was over, Mary left holding her little sister by the hand.
n 15 October 1537, Mary stood at the font in the Chapel Royal at Hampton Court while Archbishop Cranmer performed the rites of baptism over her brother Edward. As befitted a lady of royal birth - and the child’s godmother - she was wearing a kirtle of cloth of silver, richly embroidered. Yet though her appearance was carefully considered, her behaviour showed that this was a family ceremony as well as a state occasion. Mary was the much older sister of two small children who would never know their own mothers. If she was not exactly maternal, she still represented a warmth and approachability that the more remote figure of the king, their father, lacked. She was attentive both to the baby prince and to the four-year-old Elizabeth, who carried the chrisom-cloth.When the ceremony was over, Mary left holding her little sister by the hand.
She may have reflected that life was now more straightforward for both Elizabeth and herself. The birth of a son to Jane Seymour finally gave her father the heir for whom he had ruined many lives, including her own, and changed the religious and social spectrum of his realm.The prince seemed healthy and, provided he survived the inevitable perils of childhood illness, he would, in due course, ascend the throne. It was perfectly possible he would have other brothers, making the prospect of Mary ever becoming queen of England remote indeed. Now she could look forward to a period of stability, perhaps even to marriage, if her father could be induced to let her wed. Queen Jane’s softening influence had definitely worked in Mary’s favour, and the two women liked each other. During Jane’s pregnancy, Mary was pleased to be able to send the queen cucumbers from her own gardens and gifts of quail. Jane was also a conservative in religious matters and no friend to the reformers, which increased her appeal to Mary and those who had supported the princess in the summer of 1536. Their relationship looked as though it would continue to be cordial and a source of comfort to a young woman who had been through a prolonged and harrowing ordeal.
But it was not to be. On 24 October, Jane Seymour died after suffering severe internal bleeding, probably caused by a placenta that failed to detach properly after her son’s birth. Mary was too distressed to participate in the first part of the ceremonies following the queen’s demise, and her place was taken by the marchioness of Exeter. By the date of the actual burial, on 12 November at Windsor, Mary had composed herself sufficiently to fulfil her duties as the chief mourner. She rode alone at the head of the cortège, her train held up by Lady Jane Rochford, Anne Boleyn’s sister-in-law. Thereafter, her public appearances were few and far between. Henry VIII remained a widower for more than two years. He does not seem to have looked for solace in the company of his elder daughter, even though she might once more have been viewed as the first lady in the land. Mary was still not summoned back to court on a permanent basis and she continued to pass her time either by herself, at Richmond, or with Edward and Elizabeth, moving between the stately homes of the south-east. Whether, if Jane Seymour had lived, she could have brought about a closer rapprochement between Mary and her father we shall never know. Mary was officially forgiven, but neither she nor Henry could entirely forget the past.The king never fully trusted her, wondering often whether her capitulation had been genuine and whether she was concealing her true feelings every time she met him. He suspected that she no longer loved him.Whether she did or not is impossible to say. Perhaps there was some residual affection, but Henry’s behaviour as time went by diminished even that. Mary adopted towards her father an attitude of respectful but remote quietness, a kind of stillness that would not attract attention. The king’s bouts of sentimentality were unpredictable and his basic requirement of Mary was unquestioning obedience. In fact, he made sure, in his treatment of her friends over the next five years, that she understood fully her utter dependence on him, not just for bed and board, but for life itself.
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