Mary Tudor (39 page)
Authors: Linda Porter
The men who stood for Mary were, of course, risking a great deal. Revolts in the English provinces were nothing new but few succeeded. The great northern rebellion of 1536, the Pilgrimage of Grace, was the result of a similar groundswell of discontent at religious change and Mary’s exclusion from the succession. Its leaders were given fair words and then ruthlessly extinguished. In East Anglia itself, Northumberland had demonstrated only four years earlier the kind of mercy rebels could expect. Mary’s supporters had not forgotten, but still they were willing to rally to her call. Their determination to stand up to the centre, to combat the politicians in London who cared nothing for local interests, is demonstrated by the scale of their response. The Edwardian government’s attempt to legislate out of existence their long-held beliefs was a source of underlying resentment. It has been said that legitimacy was not a major issue in influencing support for Mary, but for her supporters it was inextricably linked with her Catholicism. To them, she was the unquestioned heir. So this woman, who was a rank outsider at the beginning of July, a disinherited princess whose opposition figured so low on the scale of considerations in London that those in power had overlooked the need to arrest her, held firm as her bid for the throne entered its crucial phase.
By 12 July, she had sufficient momentum and a large enough force to move her headquarters to Framlingham in Suffolk, a moated castle more easily fortified than Kenninghall.There, in the deer park below the castle, more local worthies awaited her. But her success was not yet assured, despite the defection to her cause of the earl of Sussex and Sir Thomas Cornwallis. No Protestant family had offered its support and the urban areas of East Anglia were either opposed, in the case of King’s Lynn, or divided, as in Ipswich, where both Mary and Jane were proclaimed on the same day. Nor was the countryside unanimous in its support for Mary.The marshland areas of East Anglia had suffered terribly the effects of spiralling prices and drought. They did not welcome quartermasters from Mary’s forces looking to relieve them of what few victuals they had.
And there were ominous signs of the violence that might lie ahead. Robert Dudley had a small but effective military force in the area which was keeping up resistance and threatening those known to support Mary. As he awaited reinforcements from London, he did not back down. A slightly larger force could have transformed his chances.
Throughout all this time, Mary showed remarkable courage and commitment. The miserable, indecisive princess who could not quite bring herself to cut her ties with England in 1550 was nowhere to be seen. Instead, she had rediscovered the implacable girl who resisted, for three years, a king’s determination to make her deny who she was.This was the supreme struggle of her turbulent life. But it had a clear goal, a prize worth fighting for, and it was evident that there were many who were willing to die for her. The knowledge galvanised her as never before. She already saw the hand of God at work and she responded. Mary was no passive observer of events, and the idea that she knew very little about the planning behind her fight for the throne underrates her intelligence and diligence. Mary was not the sort of woman who sat in the background where matters of such importance were concerned. Her direct, very personal involvement is stamped all over the summer of 1553. By 14 July, she had won over Lord Wentworth, who arrived ‘clad in splendid armour and accompanied by a not inconsiderable military force’ to join her troops. But, at the same time, two other developments immensely strengthened Mary’s prospects.The fleet at Great Yarmouth, which Northumberland was counting on to prevent her escape to the Continent, had mutinied, probably with the encouragement of Henry Jerningham, who was very influential in the town. And the duke himself had left London with two thousand men and a substantial amount of artillery, intending to engage her forces. He expected more to arrive when he reached Newmarket, but he was to be disappointed. Once he had gone, the council began to fall apart.
The ruling elite in London were not alone in their astonishment at Mary’s stand. The imperial ambassadors, marooned in uncertainty, were equally amazed. On 7 July, Renard and his colleagues were more concerned about Mary’s survival than anything else. They gave her no chance of success whatsoever, assuming that she had retired to Kenninghall as a defensive measure only. Mary, they said, felt safer there, local people were devoted to her and she ‘hopes she will be able to shelter herself … and not be as easily arrested as if she were near Court’. But there was no anticipation that she would fight for the throne and the ambassadors foresaw ‘small likelihood of being able to withstand the duke’s designs … her promotion to the crown [will] be so difficult as to be well nigh impossible in the absence of a force large enough to counterbalance that of her enemies’.
In fact, they became irritated by what they saw as sheer wrongheadedness in Mary’s approach to her predicament. Although they had not managed to see her, clearly information was exchanged and they did not like what they heard:‘She came to the conclusion that, as soon as the king’s death should be announced, she had better proclaim herself Queen by her letters; for thus she would encourage her supporters to declare for her … My Lady has firmly made up her mind that she must act in this manner and that otherwise she will fall into still greater danger and lose all hope of coming to the throne.’ Such a course seemed to the ambassadors hopelessly unrealistic: ‘We consider this resolution strange, full of difficulties and danger,’ they sniffed.
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Their advice thus far was to do nothing until she was absolutely certain of Edward’s death. They remarked: ‘The actual possession of power was a matter of great importance, especially among barbarians like the English.’ They did not allude to the fact that family history could already have taught Mary such a lesson. The grandmother she and Charles V shared, Isabella of Castile, needed no such admonishments when she deprived her own niece, the rightful heir, of the Castilian throne. No one had ever dared to call her barbaric, except perhaps the Jews and Moors whom she persecuted with such single-mindedness. Needless to say, the ambassadors did not advocate lifting a finger to help Mary, mindful as they were that Charles V had instructed them ‘to avoid throwing England into confusion to the disadvantage of your majesty and your dominions’. But it was important to avoid giving Mary the impression that they had abandoned her entirely,‘for then she might take opportunity to put the blame for disaster upon us’. And with this honest assertion of the importance of watching their own backs, they sat on their hands and waited to see what would happen.
Councillors William Petre and William Cecil came to see them on 10 July to announce the king’s death, though the ambassadors knew of it three days earlier. A polite stand-off ensued, though they did feel moved to ask the council to ‘remember my Lady Mary, cousin german to your majesty, to receive her under their protection and shelter her’. The council could scarcely help remembering her and would have very much liked to shelter her, as a closely guarded prisoner, but she was out of their reach by then. Ever cautious, the trio merely noted to the emperor that, if they were summoned to the new royal presence - and they naturally assumed that Guildford Dudley would be king and it would be to him, not Jane, that they would address themselves - they would say nothing in support of Mary’s claim to the throne.
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The following day Charles wrote underlining his general support for their handling of the crisis in England. He wanted them to ‘recommend’ Mary and to dispel any notion that he wanted to marry her to a foreigner, or that she might introduce radical changes into religion or government. But beyond that he would not go, ‘because our hands are full with France’. And he dismissed the value of private persons professing loyalty to his cousin: ‘unless a number of the most powerful nobles took her side it would be impossible to undermine the carefully prepared course of action that Northumberland is working’.
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The duke thought so, too, until reports of Mary’s growing army convinced him otherwise. He then faced a difficult decision. Should he take the fight to Mary himself or entrust the task to others? If he left London he would no longer be able to direct the process of government and he had reason, good reason, as it turned out, to suspect that there might be defections from the council once he had gone. He mistrusted his colleagues. Paget and Arundel, whatever they might say to his face, held grudges against him for his treatment of them in recent years, and Arundel had refused to sign a personal undertaking to uphold the succession as laid down by Edward VI. Northumberland’s initial preference was to put the duke of Suffolk in command. Jane was his daughter and it was in his interests to fight for her.The Grey family, however, had other ideas.
Tradition has it that Jane, frightened by the danger and loss of her father’s protection, implored him not to go. This story fits in well with the view of a child-woman at the mercy of events beyond her control, but Robert Wingfield in the
Vita Mariae Reginae
states that it was the duchess, not her daughter, who became hysterical at the thought of Suffolk’s departure; Jane, he asserts, encouraged her father to go.
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Perhaps Henry Grey, a blusterer who achieved high rank and office through trading on his wife’s family connections, was privately less than keen to go himself. Northumberland reluctantly accepted that his hand had been forced. One of his sons was already in the field and a kinsman, Henry Dudley, was about to set off for France to seek help there if it should prove necessary.There seemed no alternative but to lead a force against Mary in person. It was a decision he took with notable reluctance.
Vita Mariae Reginae
states that it was the duchess, not her daughter, who became hysterical at the thought of Suffolk’s departure; Jane, he asserts, encouraged her father to go.
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Perhaps Henry Grey, a blusterer who achieved high rank and office through trading on his wife’s family connections, was privately less than keen to go himself. Northumberland reluctantly accepted that his hand had been forced. One of his sons was already in the field and a kinsman, Henry Dudley, was about to set off for France to seek help there if it should prove necessary.There seemed no alternative but to lead a force against Mary in person. It was a decision he took with notable reluctance.
In the late morning of 13 July, the duke gave a sombre speech to his fellow-councillors, betraying a lack of confidence in the situation which did little to steady their nerves. He commended his family and fortune to their safe-keeping and pointed out that Jane was entirely dependent on them.The queen, he said, was ‘by your and our enticement … rather of force placed therein [meaning on the throne] than by her own seeking and request’.Then he issued a stark reminder that they were all in this together-a theme to which he would return at his trial. ‘Consider’, he warned them, ‘also that God’s cause, which is the preferment of his words and the fear of papacy’s re-entrance, hath been as ye hath heretofore always alleged, the original ground whereupon ye even at the first motion granted your goodwills and consents thereunto, as by your handwritings evidently appeareth.’
An unnamed councillor hastened to convey their collective loyalty: ‘My lord, if ye mistrust any of us in this matter, your grace is far deceived; for which of us can wipe his hands clean thereof? And if we should shrink from you as one that were culpable, which of us can excuse himself as guiltless? Therefore herein your doubt is too far cast.’ Northumberland replied, with less than total conviction: ‘I pray God it may be so; let us go to dinner.’
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He left the next morning, noting as he rode by the silent citizens of London that no man wished him Godspeed.There were still little hard fact about Mary’s rebellion and he had left Suffolk in charge in the heavily fortified Tower, with instructions to keep the council there in a form of unspoken detention.There was every prospect that he would prevail. But his political sixth sense already told him that he had gambled and lost.
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