Mary Tudor (48 page)
Authors: Linda Porter
The faithful, resourceful Robert Rochester was named comptroller of the queen’s household, a post he had filled in the much more confined sphere of her establishment during Edward VI’s reign. He was appointed Knight of the Bath just before her coronation. His rewards seem only just in view of what he had done for Mary, but his star was already beginning to wane and his relationship with the queen would become one of the most notable, and sad, casualties of the arguments already beginning about her marriage.
The two other members of the trio who had suffered confinement in the Tower for their mistress shared Rochester’s devotion to her and his yearning for an English marriage.Waldegrave joined his wife in the royal household, as Keeper of the Great Wardrobe. Sir Francis Englefield had to wait longer, until the spring of 1554, before he received the office of Master of the Court of Wards and Liveries. He served Mary in Parliament, as a privy councillor and on various commissions, but, like Rochester and Waldegrave, his standing with her was never the same as it had been before she came to the throne. Mary expected unquestioning support in her household staff and when their opinions did not align with hers, a coolness developed that could not be overcome.This did not necessarily mean that their influence was gone altogether and, as personal conduits to the queen, Rochester and others were the recipients of many letters from people seeking favours, such as better treatment for prisoners. They did not, however, retain a significant role in policy-making at national level. Mary was, with the notable exception of her dealings with Archbishop Cranmer, less vengeful than her father, but she was the daughter of Henry VIII.
The establishment of a household was a pressing consideration before the coronation, but Mary had many other concerns. Her interests in education and culture and their wider impact on English life were very evident. One of her concerns was declining standards at the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, where Edward VI’s visitations had imposed the new religious statutes but bitterly divided the academic community. Mary wanted an end to the subversion of the ancient statutes and ordinances of the university, which had, she wrote, led to ‘youth loosely and insolently brought up’. Order was to be restored as quickly as possible and Stephen Gardiner, as chancellor of Cambridge, was instructed to implement her wish that ‘the example may begin in our universities where young men and students joining godly conversation with their studies, may by their doings and preachings instruct the rest of our subjects in the knowledge and fear of God, in their obedience to our laws and all their other superiors and in their charitable demeanour’.
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The situation at Oxford was equally bad, and Mary provided financial support that had dried up during her brother’s time. By the summer of 1554, it had borne good fruit, as Sir John Mason, the chancellor of Oxford, acknowledged:
Many are supported by your help and gifts. We do not ask that you bestow anything on us, but that you accept the thanks we owe. Lately, when the study of letters was neglected, virtually extinct … some were compelled to forsake their studies, others were seized by the moment and no order was evident for a long time. With matters restored and prosperity, ancient learning and our forefathers’ virtue recovered.You alone deemed it worthy to look after your Oxonians, and in hopeless times strove to preserve and increase our fortunes.
He went on to make the direct correlation between Renaissance humanist Catholicism and good learning:‘You direct your gifts that the worship of God and the authority of letters be increased. This is not commonplace; men were accustomed to look to religion, and only those educated in the arts encouraged learning - your majesty does both.While letters exist and these seats remain, your praises will be celebrated.’
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While Mary encouraged a healthier climate for learning, she also looked, in these early days, to bring culture and entertainment into her court. At the end of September, orders were given to the master of the revels for new costumes and props for the Gentlemen of the Chapel Royal, who were to give a play at the coronation. This was not actually performed, perhaps because time ran out, thought it does seem to have been given later, at Christmas. Apart from this slight hitch, all the other elements of Mary’s coronation were in place by the time she left the Tower of London on 30 September, to make her state entry into London for the crowning, the high point of the first year of her rule, when she would pledge herself to God and to her people.
By mid-September 1553, preparations were well under way in London and at court for the greatest public spectacle of Mary’s reign.The queen and Elizabeth arrived together by river at the Tower of London on 27 September, in preparation for the official entry into London on the last day of the month. They were attended by ‘the Lord Mayor and Aldermen, and all the companies in their barges, with streamers and trumpets, and waits, shawmes and regals, together with great volley shots of guns, until her Grace came into the Tower, and some time after’.
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The coronation marked the high point of the sisters’ relationship during the reign, as Mary give Elizabeth a prominent role in the proceedings.Whatever doubts she felt were put aside over this period in a display of dynastic unity, as Mary chose to show the world that her sister, too, was the daughter of a king. On 30 September they left the Tower to go to the palace of Westminster, riding in procession through the City of London. These kinds of events were superbly handled in Tudor England and were considered the visible signs of the monarch’s magnificence and power, as well as providing the ordinary citizens with colour and excitement. There are several contemporary accounts, from English and foreign observers, describing the procession and the festivities that accompanied the occasion, which perfectly capture the richness and texture of the clothes and decorations worn: ‘First went at the head many gentlemen of the court and kingdom, all arrayed with suits of silk with beautiful linings … then barons and princes, some wearing gold, others silver and many with horses decked in the same metal … some with embroidery which caused great admiration, not more by the richness of the substance than by the novelty and elegance of the device.’
The foreign merchants had also made sure that they were dressed for the occasion. The Italians wore ‘suits of black velvet lined, beautifully trimmed with many points of gold and garnished all around with embroidery of more than a palm in width’. Not to be outdone, four Spanish cavaliers followed,‘attired in cloaks of mulberry coloured velvet lined with cloth of silver, with a very fine fringe of gold all about’.
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Amid all these gleaming textures, which were themselves a testament to the skill of London’s tailors, who had been working overtime for weeks to meet the demands of those who needed to make a public statement of their wealth and style, the queen herself stood out as the one figure to whom all eyes turned. She sat in a chariot ‘open on all sides save for the canopy, entirely covered with gold and horses trapped with gold’. She was a small but unmistakably superb figure, wearing ‘a gown of purple velvet, furred with powdered ermines, having on her head a caul of cloth of tinsel, beset with pearl and stone, and above the same upon her head a round circlet of gold, beset so richly with precious stone that the value thereof was inestimable’.
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Mary had tried to look every inch a queen, but there was one drawback. The sheer weight of the jewel-encrusted diadem caused her head to droop. She was compelled, it was reported, to hold her head up with her hands. So the impact of her otherwise queenly demeanour was considerably lessened.
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Mary had tried to look every inch a queen, but there was one drawback. The sheer weight of the jewel-encrusted diadem caused her head to droop. She was compelled, it was reported, to hold her head up with her hands. So the impact of her otherwise queenly demeanour was considerably lessened.
Before her rode the old duke of Norfolk and the earl of Oxford, carrying the royal sword, while the Lord Mayor of London ‘bore the sceptre of gold’. One of the four ladies, all clad in crimson velvet, who rode around the chariot was Norfolk’s long-estranged duchess, Elizabeth Howard. She was 56 and he was over 80, but age had in no way taken the bitterness out of their relationship. It seems doubtful that they exchanged many words with each other on this occasion, and when the duke died the following year he left her nothing in his will.
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The other ladies who shared Elizabeth Howard’s honour in supporting the queen during the state entry were the marchioness of Exeter, the countess of Arundel and the marchioness of Winchester.
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The other ladies who shared Elizabeth Howard’s honour in supporting the queen during the state entry were the marchioness of Exeter, the countess of Arundel and the marchioness of Winchester.
Immediately following were Elizabeth and Anne of Cleves, both wearing cloth of silver to match the trappings of their chariot.The only survivor of Henry VIII’s queens had lived quietly for many years but Mary kept on good terms with her and the rejected fourth wife seems to have enjoyed her return to the limelight. Elizabeth, with her graceful bearing and natural rapport with the people, no doubt savoured the moment as much as anyone, as they passed under the many triumphal arches constructed for the occasion and gazed at the entertainments along the way.
In the space of only a few weeks, the organisers of the celebrations that surrounded the ancient ceremonial produced a marvellous series of displays and pageants, delighting the large crowds. There were dragons, giants and fountains that ran with wine, as well as choirs of children at several points along the route.The companies of foreign merchants resident in London vied to outdo each other with the ingenuity and richness of their floats. These were in the City of London and, from their descriptions, they would not have been out of place in a modern Lord Mayor’s show: ‘At Fenchurch was one pageant made by the Genovese, and there a child dressed in a girl’s apparel was borne up by two men sitting in a chair, and gave the queen a salutation.’ The Florentines, however, were determined to go one better.Their stand at Gracechurch Street was a magnificent edifice:‘… very high, on the top whereof there stood three pictures, and on the side of them, on the highest top, there stood an angel clothed in green, with trumpet in his hand, and he was made with such a device that when the trumpeter, who stood secretly in the pageant, did blow his trumpet, the angel did put his trumpet to his mouth, as though it should be he that blew the same, to the marvelling of many ignorant persons’.
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Most impressive of all were the acrobatics of one Peter, a Dutchman, who stood on the weathercock of St Paul’s ‘holding a streamer in his hand five yards long, and waving thereof stood for some time on one foot shaking the other and then kneeled on his knees, to the great marvel of the people. He had two scaffolds under him, one above the cross, having torches and streamers set on it, and another over the ball of the cross, likewise set with streamers and torches which could not burn, the wind was so great.’ Peter was well recompensed for these daredevil stunts atop St Paul’s, being paid
£
16 13
s
6
d
(nearly
£
4,000) by the City.
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£
16 13
s
6
d
(nearly
£
4,000) by the City.
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As Mary passed, the conduits in Cornhill and in Cheapside ran with wine, and in St Paul’s churchyard John Heywood, who had praised the beauty of the young princess Mary, sat under a vine and delivered an oration in Latin and English to mark the occasion.There was plenty to celebrate, despite the strong winds, and when the queen reached Whitehall she thanked the Lord Mayor for his pains and the City for the costs they had incurred.
The state entry had been impressively stage-managed and was undoubtedly joyous, but Mary did not do herself justice on formal occasions, appearing to be rather stiff and detached. She seems to have regarded appearing in public as a duty rather than a pleasure, and her natural shyness meant that she lacked her sister’s easier manner. There had also been fears for her safety, perhaps overly dramatic, but she did not enjoy the same popularity in her capital as she did in East Anglia and other parts of the country. And there were other preoccupations as she considered the testing day that lay before her on 1 October. She had been exercised by a number of factors, great and small, in respect of the coronation, but the most fundamental of these was what it meant to rule.
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