Mary Tudor (10 page)
During August and September 1536, Mary remained at Hunsdon, exchanging friendly notes with Jane Seymour. Her father sent her £20, Cromwell the gift of a horse. She wrote to Henry commending her ‘sister Elizabeth’ – ‘such a child toward as I doubt not but your highness shall have cause to rejoice of in time coming’. This was little short of a revolution. She had never had a good word to say about the ‘little bastard’ before, and had never acknowledged her as a sister.
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There is no sign that this letter was either forced or constrained, and it seems that Chapuys’ fretting about her bruised conscience had more to do with his agenda than hers. In October she visited the court, and Cardinal Du Bellay reported that she was ‘first after the Queen’ in precedence. While revolts against Henry’s religious policies in Lincolnshire and the north (the latter known as the Pilgrimage of Grace) were taking her name in vain, demanding her reinstatement in the succession, she made not the slightest move that could be interpreted as encouragement. As Henry and Cromwell were struggling with the biggest protest movement of the reign, she was pottering about at Hunsdon or Richmond as though nothing was happening, and not even Chapuys pretended otherwise.
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Before Christmas she was sufficiently sure of herself to ask for an increase in her allowance, and she spent the festival itself at court, apparently quite at ease with Jane, her father and herself.
At the end of 1536 Chapuys was withdrawn. This had nothing to do with any deterioration in Anglo-Imperial relations, which were better than they had been for some time. He was simply deployed elsewhere; but the removal of his special brand of inquisitiveness and partisanship diminishes our ability to follow Mary over the following years. Early in 1537 Charles was pressing the Portuguese to make a further proposal for her hand on behalf of Dom Luis. This seems to have been primarily a negative move on his part, designed to block any attempt by the French to woo her, or any temptation on Henry’s part to diminish her status with a domestic marriage. The Emperor seems not to have been much interested in her legitimacy, but we do not know enough about the negotiation to be sure whether the Portuguese were equally indifferent. A bid was made, but collapsed during the summer.
Diego de Mendoza, who replaced Chapuys as Imperial ambassador in March 1537, came armed with ambiguous instructions, because on the one hand he was to maintain ‘amity’, while on the other hand pursue the possibility of a marriage between Mary and her strongly Catholic cousin, Reginald Pole. Had Henry known about this he would certainly have regarded it as hostile, because Pole had denounced the king as a schismatic and been condemned as a traitor.
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Pole had also been in northern Europe with the intention of persuading Charles to support the Pilgrimage of Grace. By March 1537 the Pilgrimage had long since collapsed, but Henry’s feelings towards Pole had not changed – and were not likely to change. From the Emperor’s point of view it would have been a suitable match. Pole was an Englishman of royal blood, being a younger son of the Countess of Salisbury and a great-nephew of King Edward IV. Moreover, although he was a cardinal, he was only in deacon’s orders, and therefore not beyond the reach of a dispensation to marry. He was sixteen years older than Mary, and if they had ever met neither remembered the fact. Mendoza soon appreciated that such a suggestion would be extremely undiplomatic, and the matter was never raised in public. It remained in the back of the Emperor’s mind for a number of years, but there is no sign at this stage that Mary was aware of it. Chapuys had once claimed that Pole was the only man that she was interested in, and his statement may have caused the idea to germinate, but in truth what Mary felt was irrelevant.
More interestingly, Henry was apparently becoming aware of the new ways in which the power of statute could be applied. The second succession Act, of 1536, had not added to the Act of 1534, rather it had repealed it. Whereas it had been possible (with a little creative imagination) to believe that all the Reformation statutes down to 1535 had been simply declaring the law of God, it was no longer possible to say that when one of them had been repealed. (Nor could it logically be argued that the repeal was ‘
ultra vires
’, that is, beyond the power of Parliament if the original statute had been accepted.) Consequently it might be possible to arrange the succession to the throne without reference to the technical legitimacy of the candidates – a totally new concept, which if it had been around in 1460 might have prevented the Wars of the Roses.
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The king had apparently terminated his negotiation with the Emperor by declaring that the argument that Mary might be legitimate because she had been born
in bona fide parentum
– that is while her parents were ignorant of the bar between them – did not apply because the bar was part of the law of God. He had also suggested that this issue could be resolved by having any treaty ratified by Parliament which was altogether too bizarre a concept for the very conventional Charles. The whole idea of a ‘constitutional’ solution to the succession issue was so strange to contemporaries that a similar negotiation which was being pursued with the French at the same time collapsed when Francis realised that the way things had gone in England left Mary’s rights at the mercy of the estates of the realm, so that any son of his who might marry her could have no certain prospect of the crown matrimonial.
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In late 1536 and early 1537 Mary seems to have spent more time in her father’s company than she had since her childhood. After Christmas she was in and out of the court, visiting Hatfield and New Hall as well as Greenwich and Westminster. Most of the early summer she was at Greenwich, before moving round the royal residences in the Home Counties during July and August. A modest ‘service establishment’ must have travelled with her, although it seems clear from the way in which the money was deployed that this remained a part of Sir John Shelton’s responsibility. Her wanderlust must have added significantly to the cost. This money all came from the treasury of the chamber, much to the occasional discomfort of the treasurer (Sir Brian Tuke); but Mary was also receiving about £450 a year in ‘spending money’ from the privy purse. This she deployed mainly on rewards to her own servants, and on gifts to the numerous servants of other noblemen, ladies and courtiers, who sent her presents.
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She kept a band of minstrels, and her long serving jester ‘Jane the Fool’ first appears at this point. Her privy-purse expenses give the impression of a full and varied life, but there are also some surprises. Pious offerings appear only at Easter and Candlemas; there are hardly any references to hunting, or to her own musical instruments, and no mention at all of books or scholarship. It is possible that such expenses were passing through other accounts, but the impression given is that of a friendly, outgoing young woman, well liked by all who came in contact with her, but lacking any desire for either selfimprovement or political influence. In spite of her acknowledged status, Mary had no clientage, no body of dependents, and seems instead to have come to a
modus vivendi
with Thomas Cromwell, whereby he catered for her whims and controlled appointments to her staff. Apart from one episode in June 1537, there are no further references to her sickness, and although she employed her mother’s former physician and apothecary (both Spaniards), neither appears to have lived in her household, and they were summoned only occasionally, usually (it would appear) to one or other of the servants rather than to Mary herself.
Shortly after Mendoza’s arrival, Mary informed him that she had written again to the Emperor, re-emphasising the point that she had made the previous autumn, that she would not allow herself to be used in any way against her father. The ambassador, at whom this warning was clearly aimed, discreetly praised her wisdom, and tactfully let the matter drop.
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In the summer of 1537 Queen Jane was visibly pregnant, and the coronation that had been proposed for her was postponed. For the same reason there was no royal progress that summer, and as the autumn came on the king became increasingly edgy. Unlike Anne, Jane’s behaviour had given him no cause for either irritation or anxiety. In assuring the Duke of Norfolk that it was his own decision not to travel to the north that summer, and that Jane had not pressed him, he claimed that she:
… was in every condition of that loving inclination and reverend conformity that she can in all things well content satisfy and quiet herself with that thing which we shall think expedient and determine.
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Even such a paragon, however, was subject to the vagaries of nature, and Jane seems to have been uncertain when her own time was due. It was late September when she withdrew into the customary seclusion at Hampton Court, which suggests that she expected to give birth towards the end of October. However, she went into labour on the 9th.
After an easy pregnancy, the birth was hard and bitter. Special prayers and intercessions were made in London, and Henry was deeply worried. Finally, after two days and three nights, on 12 October, a son was born, who was named Edward and christened with great splendour on the 15th, with Mary standing as godmother. The whole realm rejoiced, in a way that it had not done since the early days of 1511, and on the 18th the new prince was proclaimed Prince of Wales, Duke of Cornwall and Earl of Caernarvon. The whole court held its breath, but the child seemed healthy. Unfortunately the same could not be said of his mother. The long struggle had exhausted her, and by the 18th she had developed puerperal fever, also known as childbed fever, a contagious disease often spread by the poor hygiene of attendants and physicians. After the christening she had been well enough to sit in her chamber and receive congratulations, but by the 23rd septicaemia had developed, and she died late on the 25th. Henry had greeted the deaths of both Catherine and Anne with relief, but this time he was genuinely distressed. Jane had not only given him his longed-for son, she had been such a gentle and loveable creature. The chronicler Edward Hall recorded of her death: ‘of none in the realm was it more heavily taken than of the King’s Majesty himself’. The king immediately moved to Westminster, ‘where he mourned and kept himself close and secret a great while’.
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Henry had described Jane as his only true wife, and it was to be over two years before he married again.
These events affected Mary in a number of ways. Jane had been a good friend to her, and she was too distressed to attend the first stage of her funeral rites, which took place on 30 October. Mary was also no longer the heir to the throne by any English reckoning. Strictly by canon law, Edward’s birth made no difference, because Henry and Jane had been married while the realm was in schism, and no marriage conducted in those circumstances was valid. However, the total invalidity of all weddings since 1535, and the consequent bastardisation of all children under two years old, was not something that could be contemplated, let alone insisted upon. For all practical purposes Edward was his father’s heir, and was recognised as such. A splendid household was established for him, even more magnificent than that which Mary had enjoyed in the marches of Wales. Unless or until her father married again, Mary was the first lady of the kingdom, but she was a long step further from the centre of events. By 12 November she was sufficiently recovered to take her place at Jane’s actual interment, but the Christmas was spent in mourning, so there were no splendid festivities to preside over – which was probably a relief.
By March 1538 the Sheltons had ceased to preside over the joint household of Mary and Elizabeth, but it is not known exactly when they were replaced. Anne Shelton was succeeded by Lady Mary Kingston, the wife of Sir William, who probably acted as controller before moving on to the king’s household in 1539.
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In April 1539, when Sir William was promoted, the Kingstons were replaced by Sir Edward and Lady Baynton. None of this seems to have made much difference to the domestic arrangements, and Mary’s chamber staff showed a remarkable stability throughout this period. The same servants, Susan Clarencius, Richard Baldwin, Randall Dodd, Beatrice ap Rice and others are constantly referred to.
As long as Henry remained unmarried – that is from October 1537 to January 1540 – there was a great deal of flexibility between the households. In March 1538, for example, Henry was at Hampton Court, Edward and Elizabeth about three miles off and Mary at Richmond, but this did not mean that Edward and Elizabeth were sharing a household, or that Mary was now independent. It would no doubt have been more convenient to have the two children (six months and four and half years) together, but protocol dictated otherwise. Mary attended her father’s fourth wedding, but does not seem to have spent much time at court during Anne of Cleves’ brief and problematic reign.
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Anne was a mistake. The wedding came about because Cromwell wanted some leverage against the Emperor, and Cleves Julich was a significant cluster of territories with reformist Catholic tendencies to Henry’s taste. Anne, who was the young Duke William’s sister, was reputedly beautiful and virtuous. Holbein was sent across to paint her portrait, Henry was convinced, an agreement was signed, and the new bride arrived in January 1540. Unfortunately her descriptions (and Holbein) had flattered to deceive. Anne may well have been virtuous – indeed she was a total innocent – but she was not beautiful and had neither education nor any courtly accomplishments. Henry was profoundly disappointed, and went through with the ceremony only because he could find no immediate way out. He professed himself quite unable to consummate the union, and the couple shared the same bed for only a few nights, with polite frustration on his side and ignorant bewilderment on hers. The marriage was dissolved on grounds of non-consummation in July 1540, but Anne remained in England with a generous settlement. Later Mary seems to have developed a soft spot for this cast-off queen, who was otherwise neglected by all, but there is little evidence of that from the early part of 1540.