Mary Tudor (37 page)
Authors: Linda Porter
The truth was, he gave her little chance of success. Everything he heard made him think she would be lucky to survive, let alone become queen. On 23 June he issued a long set of instructions to a special mission of three ambassadors, who were to depart immediately for England. Scheyfve was tiring of the inconsequential nature of his role in London. Mary of Hungary used him mainly in a consular, rather than an ambassadorial, capacity, and the satisfaction of sending out lurid bulletins about Edward VI’s decline, which he had done indefatigably in recent months, was beginning to fade. One of the three men sent by Charles was Scheyfve’s replacement, Simon Renard, an energetic native of the Franche Comté who had previously been the imperial representative in Paris. Accompanied by Counts de Courrières and de Toulouse, who were there to add gravitas, Renard set out for England, charged with finding out as much as possible about Edward’s condition.
The emperor’s chief concern was not to bolster Mary’s chances of becoming queen but to minimise or even neutralise French influence in England. Once arrived, they should seek an audience with the king as soon as possible. ‘We are’, he wrote, ‘unwilling to allow the French to appear quicker with their sympathy … and we stand in need of no example to teach us the offices of friendship.’ But supposing it turned out that Edward was already dead when they got there? ‘In that case you must deliberate among yourselves according to the turn events shall take, and decide on the wisest course to be adopted for the safety of our cousin, the Princess, and,
if it is possible
, to assist her to succeed to the crown.’ His main concern was for her personal safety, not her rights, and he feared that the charge that she would marry a foreigner if she became queen would be raised against her.The ambassadors must make it clear that the emperor favoured an English match for Mary.The English lords would need plenty of reassurance on this point,‘loathed as all foreigners are by all Englishmen’. Charles V considered it impossible for Mary to have the slightest chance of being a serious contender for the throne unless she agreed to make no changes in government or religion and undertook to pardon all offences committed by those currently in power.‘If she is asked to make a promise in this sense she must make no difficulty about it, for she has no choice in the matter.’ He summed up his requirements as follows: ‘your principal objects will be to preserve our cousin’s person from danger, assist her to obtain possession of the crown, calm the fears the English may entertain of us, defeat French machinations, and further a good understanding between our dominions and the realm of England’. All this was to be done without money or men, in times of great uncertainty. It was a very tall order.
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if it is possible
, to assist her to succeed to the crown.’ His main concern was for her personal safety, not her rights, and he feared that the charge that she would marry a foreigner if she became queen would be raised against her.The ambassadors must make it clear that the emperor favoured an English match for Mary.The English lords would need plenty of reassurance on this point,‘loathed as all foreigners are by all Englishmen’. Charles V considered it impossible for Mary to have the slightest chance of being a serious contender for the throne unless she agreed to make no changes in government or religion and undertook to pardon all offences committed by those currently in power.‘If she is asked to make a promise in this sense she must make no difficulty about it, for she has no choice in the matter.’ He summed up his requirements as follows: ‘your principal objects will be to preserve our cousin’s person from danger, assist her to obtain possession of the crown, calm the fears the English may entertain of us, defeat French machinations, and further a good understanding between our dominions and the realm of England’. All this was to be done without money or men, in times of great uncertainty. It was a very tall order.
9
The emperor’s natural caution tied the hands of his servants. It was not even clear how they could ensure his cousin’s welfare, and once they left Flanders they were very much on their own. As they made their way to London, an eerie calm settled over England.There was no option but to wait and see what was going to happen.Yet before they could even speak to Mary, nature intervened. On the evening of 6 July Edward expired in the arms of Sir Henry Sidney. ‘I am faint,’ he said. ‘Lord have mercy on me and take my spirit.’
Mary had passed the spring and early summer quietly at Hunsdon.Yet though there was no sign of any unusual activity there must have been much going on behind the walls of the manor. The appearance of normality, of passivity, was a feint. The princess knew from her own sources that her brother’s illness was fatal. She was also well aware of the steps that had been taken to deprive her of the crown. Closeted with her advisers, Mary decided that there was, in reality, only one course open to her: she must proclaim herself as queen and she must prepare to fight. Much of her adult life had been passed in opposition, but now there was a need for clear thinking and boldness, not protests and tears. The supreme moment had crept up on her, like the lengthening days of summer. In the last weeks of June, she could trust only Robert Rochester and his network of Catholic gentlemen - and her own conviction that God was with her. Religious faith, as well as the Tudor heritage, kept her strong. She was the daughter of Henry VIII and Katherine of Aragon and she would prevail.The throne of England was hers by right of law and of descent. Her courage occasionally faltered when her father was alive and she had good reason to fear the duke of Northumberland, but she did not waver now. If she stayed, he would come for her and she would almost certainly be imprisoned, perhaps worse. She commanded no army, no backers of any importance among the nobility, and Charles V had all but abandoned her. The only people who believed in Mary were her household, and even they, no matter how much affection they bore her, must have been apprehensive. But if her affinity in East Anglia would rise for her then others might follow. There could be just a glimmer of hope. Around that speck of light, careful plans were made to evade and outwit the authorities, to wrestle the initiative from the preoccupied council in London. At the very least, this would buy her time.
The decision to move was taken before Edward’s death because it was felt to be too dangerous for Mary to stay at Hunsdon.The idea that she and her advisers were naive enough to respond to the council’s summons to London, and actually got as far as Hoddesdon before being warned that it was a trap, is not borne out by contemporary sources. Instead, Mary and her small party turned north and then east on the night of 4 July. A plausible excuse for this sudden departure was invented, to the effect that her physician, Roland Scurlock, had been taken ill with a suspected attack of the plague, making it imperative for her to leave swiftly. Safe houses, owned by trusted sympathisers, had already been prepared along the route that would take her to Kenninghall in Norfolk, the former Howard house chosen as her headquarters. Riding through the hours of darkness, Mary covered almost 40 miles before she arrived at her first resting place, Sawston Manor in Cambridgeshire, the home of Sir John Huddleston and his family.When she left the next day she may have felt it safer to adopt a disguise, as some reports have her riding dressed as a servant behind one of Huddleston’s own people.
When she got to her next destination, Euston Hall, near Thetford, she was greeted by its chatelaine, Lady Burgh. It was here, on 7 July, that news of her brother’s death was first conveyed to Mary, apparently by Robert Reyns, her London goldsmith. But it could not be verified and she knew that she must wait until there was no shadow of a doubt. A premature proclamation that she was queen would be treasonable and those around her, having laid the groundwork so well, could not let her play into the hands of her enemies. The privy council, who must have hoped that she would be in their power by now, deliberately concealed the king’s death for two days. Northumberland had learned well from the experience of keeping Henry VIII’s death secret but, despite his precautions, the news was difficult to suppress.The imperial ambassadors reported it themselves on 7 July. Probably Reyns was tipped off by a friendly source within the king’s household or the privy council. Later, Sir Nicholas Throckmorton claimed that he had been Reyns’s informant. His loyalty to Mary was, however, equivocal, and by 1554 he was implicated in plots to overthrow her. She would have been entirely justified in treating his news with the greatest of caution.
By 9 July there was no longer any doubt. Mary was established at Kenninghall and the news of Edward’s death was confirmed. She had escaped Northumberland’s clutches and was ready to put the next part of the plan into action. But first, she wanted to address her household. They were gathered together, no doubt awaiting with rising excitement their lady’s entry. Many of them had been with her since the grim days of her disgrace, often fearful for her health and her safety, never quite knowing what the future held. Now she was to impart wonderful tidings. Her brother, she told them, had departed this life. ‘The right to the crown of England had therefore descended to her by divine and by human law.’ Some of those present once feared they would never hear such words from the lips of Mary Tudor. Great cheering followed as they all ‘proclaimed their dearest princess Mary as queen of England’.
There was no such enthusiasm when Mary’s letter to the privy council arrived in London the following day. She came straight to the point. Upon their allegiance, they were to ‘cause our right and title to the crown and government of this realm to be proclaimed in our city of London, and other places as your wisdom shall seem good’. Further letters and proclamations announcing her accession were already drafted and were also sent on 9 July. They called on loyal subjects to proclaim her and requested forces to come to her aid. The council were taken aback by this brisk confidence but incredulity soon gave way to unease. Following the stipulations of Edward VI’s Letters Patent on the succession, Jane Grey had been proclaimed queen in London the day before Mary’s own announcement. No woman had ever ruled England in her own right before. Now, in the space of 24 hours, the country had two rival queens regnant. And it was not at all clear which of them would eventually be crowned.
Jane Grey was recuperating from an unpleasant stomach ailment at the royal manor in Chelsea when, according to tradition, one of Northumberland’s daughters came to take her to Syon House. There, where another queen, Katherine Howard, learned that her past had caught up with her in 1541, Jane was told that her future in the year of our Lord 1553 was to be the first female English monarch. It was not exactly a shock, since she had known about the proposals to change the succession for several weeks, but the enormity of it disturbed her a great deal. She neither relished nor sought the throne. But she did not refuse it, either. If God had willed her this burden, then she must bear it humbly and to the best of her ability. And that ability, at least intellectually, was considerable. Protestant writers, seeking to make mileage from the picture they painted of an innocent girl sacrificed to the forces of political opportunism and religious reaction, regarded Jane with a reverence that nearly turned her into a saint.That image has lost nothing with the passing of the centuries, but it is far from accurate. A more measured view, based on what we know of her from her own words and behaviour, reveals a devout but surprisingly hard-headed young woman. Her priggishness is unattractive but should not be viewed too harshly. Like most girls of her age in 16th-century England, she was required to grow up fast and to accept that who she was posed a danger to others, as well as to herself. Proximity to the throne was a dubious privilege. Mary had learned a comparable lesson at the same age.
So Jane could not avoid what she most certainly did not desire. On 10 July, at three o’clock in the afternoon, she was brought downriver by barge from Syon House to take up residence as queen in the Tower of London. Her mother carried her train and her husband walked beside her, apparently paying her a great deal of attention. A small crowd had gathered, but it was quietly curious, not full of vociferous joy. Most of them probably had no idea who she was, and even those who knew had never seen her before.
The onlookers saw a slim 16-year-old, short, like the cousin whose claim to the throne she denied, and with the same red hair. She was dressed, as if to reinforce her credentials as the rightful queen, in the Tudor colour of green, richly set off with gold. It was a fine symbolic gesture, rendered all the more touching by the need to raise the diminutive Jane on platform shoes, so that she could be better seen.
Her childhood had been short, strict and loveless. Jane’s mother, who, as Frances Brandon, passed pleasant summer days with Princess Mary, was an overweight heiress with none of the beauty or wit of her own mother, the other Mary Tudor. In portraits she looks harsh and sullen. Yet her marriage seems to have been happy enough. Her husband, Henry Grey, was a crony of Northumberland’s, and his loyalty was rewarded by the granting of the duchy of Suffolk, the title that had belonged to Frances’s father. There seemed little likelihood, alas, of his passing it on.The sons born to the couple had not survived; Jane was the eldest of three sisters. As small children they were all subjected to physical chastisement and a family atmosphere notably lacking in affection. Frances was not a sentimental mother and she consistently put her husband’s interests before those of her children. The girls’ manners, however, were carefully watched and they were under strict instruction to refrain from such unladylike failings as breaking wind at mealtimes. Not surprisingly, Jane grew up to be a rather humourless girl, though she was very well educated. Contemporaries described her intellect and scholarship in glowing terms, though many of these accounts were written after her death. She was also committed to the new religion.
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