Mary Tudor (36 page)

On the 7th June 1557, when the King was in the town of Rheims in Champagne, lodged at the abbey of St Remy, there arrived at the abbey Mr. William [Flower], Norroy King of Arms, from England, wearing a cloak of black cloth, without declaring who or what he was until he reached the door of the King’s Council.

He then asked to speak to the Duke of Montmorency, Peer and Constable of France, who had him brought to the Council Chamber … The Constable … asked how he had been so bold as to come without revealing his identity, as he was on such important business; for by so doing he had exposed himself to the danger of being hanged, as he deserved to be. The herald replied that he had landed at Boulogne and continued on his journey, with his escutcheon attached to his breast, without having been asked anything by anybody … The Constable answered … that he deserved all the more to be punished … If he had not had to do with so merciful a king, he would be in danger of losing his life. However the king desired to show his great goodness and clemency, and would forgive him …

After the herald had made several reverences and had knelt down with his coat of arms on his arm, the King asked him in a loud voice by whom he had been sent, and why. The herald answered that he had been sent by the Queen his mistress, and presented his power, which the King caused to be read publicly. The King then said to him: ‘Herald, I see that you have come to declare war on me on behalf of the Queen of England. I accept the declaration, but I wish everyone to know that I have always observed towards her the good faith and amity which obtained between us, as I ever intended to do all my life towards everyone, as far as it lies in my power to do so, as befits a great, honourable and virtuous prince. Now that she picks so unjust a quarrel with me, I hope that God will be pleased to grant me this grace, that she shall gain no more by it than her predecessors did when they attacked mine, or when they recently attacked me. I trust that God will show his might and justice towards him who is the cause of all the evil that lies at the root of this war. I forbid you on your life to speak another word. I act thus because the Queen is woman, for if she were not, I would employ other terms. But you will depart and leave my kingdom as quickly as you can.’

The herald was then led out and accompanied to the English Ambassador’s lodging, whither the king, full of generosity as he is, sent him as a present a chain worth 200 crowns, in order that he should speak of what he had seen and heard from the King’s mouth, bearing witness in his own country to the King’s virtue and generosity which are known to the whole world.

[
Calendar of State Papers, Spanish
, XIII, pp. 294-6. The original ms, a French copy, is at Lille (L.M. 53).]

Perhaps because he had achieved his aims in that direction, Philip does not seem to have indulged in any war games during this second visit. On 3 July ‘the King and Queen took their journey towards Dover’, staying overnight at Sittingbourne. On the 5th he boarded a ship at Dover, and no one commented upon the emotions of their parting. This time, though, it was final. They were never to meet again. Some time later, Mary was again to declare that she believed herself to be pregnant, so presumably there was nothing too badly wrong with their relationship; but whatever the queen might have liked to think, this had been strictly a business trip for Philip. One part of that business had been the war, and in that matter Philip had got his way; the other had been to persuade or force Elizabeth into marriage, and that had failed.

The relationship between the half-sisters at this time might be likened to an armed truce. Unless or until Mary produced a child, or made some authoritative pronouncement to the contrary, Elizabeth was the heir presumptive, and after the failure of the queen’s first ‘pregnancy’ a group of canny councillors were quietly determined to protect that position – which is why Stephen Gardiner’s attempts to get her formally disinherited got nowhere. Philip had also changed his mind. When he had first arrived in England the princess had been under house arrest at Woodstock, and he had regarded her as a serious threat to his interests. Just when his attitude changed is not quite clear, but it was probably early in 1556, when he was becoming convinced that his campaign for a coronation in England was going nowhere, and he had to take stock of the situation in the light of his new responsibilities in Spain. There was no reason to suppose that Mary would die soon, but if she did, what was he to do? The English would not willingly accept any claim by him, and to have imposed himself by force would be unrealistically expensive. If Elizabeth were set aside for any reason, the next heir was Mary Stuart – brought up in France and betrothed to the dauphin, Francis. It would be much better to accept Elizabeth, especially if he could do so in such a way as to create some sense of obligation on her part, and assuage the inveterate hostility of the English. He may have met her fleetingly while she was held at court during Mary’s ‘confinement’, but the idea that he felt any affection for her is romantic fiction. His view of the situation was both cool and self-serving. When the Dudley conspiracy was exposed in March 1556, and fresh opportunities opened up for Elizabeth’s enemies to incriminate her with the arrest of her loyal intimate Kate Ashley, Philip instructed (apparently without consulting Mary) that she was not to be molested.
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Mary knew this, and it did nothing to warm her heart, but there was very little that she could do about it unless Elizabeth blundered – and she was becoming increasingly sure-footed.

An unmarried Elizabeth was, however, from Philip’s point of view, uncontrollable, and her actions as queen might be radically unpredictable. Hence his desire to marry her to the Duke of Savoy, which we have already noticed. Emmanuel Philibert had been dispossessed of his duchy by the French, and had consequently become a loyal Imperialist. He was a good soldier, but more a dependent than an ally, and the prospect of a royal English bride was attractive. He also had the merit of being a good Catholic, which Elizabeth was not. The princess, however, knew perfectly well what Philip was about, and would have none of it. She was twenty-three, and somewhat disingenuously declared herself unready for marriage. Rather surprisingly, Mary was also opposed to the proposed union. The reasons for this are unclear, because it might be thought that a plan to nail her maverick sister down in a safe Catholic marriage would have been very appealing. Privately, however, Mary seems to have convinced herself that Elizabeth’s whole claim to royalty was fraudulent. She was, of course, a bastard because Henry had never been married to Anne Boleyn. But it was worse than that. Anne was a convicted whore and adulteress, and Mary seems to have believed that Elizabeth’s true father was Mark Smeaton – the court musician who had been executed for alleged adultery with Anne. She is alleged to have remarked upon their close physical resemblance – which was untrue.
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None of this emerged in public, and our knowledge of it depends upon diplomatic chatter, but the fact remains that Mary opposed her sister’s marriage. It is alleged that briefly, soon after his return in March 1557, Philip actually persuaded his wife to accept the idea, but the moment passed and she changed her mind.
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The seriousness of Philip’s intentions in this respect may be measured by the fact that he recruited two formidable ladies to his team of persuaders, and was followed to England by Christina of Denmark, the widowed Duchess of Lorraine (who had once rejected an advance from Henry VIII), and his own half-sister, Margaret, Duchess of Parma.
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Whether it was Elizabeth whom they were supposed to persuade, or Mary, or both, is not clear. In any case the campaign failed. Philip could have simply ordered the princess to accompany him on his return to Flanders, and it was widely believed that he intended to do that. Once out of the country, and away from her political supporters, Elizabeth might have found it impossible to sustain her resistance. But a forced marriage of that kind would have been a poor solution. Not only might it be repudiated if the circumstances changed, but it would have deeply offended his English subjects and reluctant allies. Mary’s feelings towards her sister in 1557 can only be deduced, but everyone who commented upon the matter believed them to be very hostile – and heartily reciprocated. ‘Although it is dissembled,’ wrote Surian, ‘it cannot be denied that she displays in many ways the scorn and ill-will she bears her.’
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Mary was baffled and deeply distressed that so many of her subjects accepted this creature as her natural heir – and even more distressed that her husband was now doing the same. It may have been partly because Philip wanted to secure Elizabeth’s marriage as ‘the heir of England’ that Mary was so deeply opposed to the idea.

In matters religious, there was good and bad news. Although Pope Paul had renewed Cardinal Pole’s legatine commission with words of commendation soon after his election, the only positive thing that he had done for the English Church was to issue the papal bull
Praeclara
in June 1555. This had canonically extinguished the religious houses dissolved by Henry VIII, and thus finally put an end to any prospects of their reclaiming property.
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It was in a sense just a tidying-up operation after the settlement of January, but at least it demonstrated that the new pope, for all his hostility to Philip, had no intention of repudiating the settlement.
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It also meant that any religious houses established under the existing dispensation in England would be new foundations. There would be no legal continuity. However, the war that had broken out in September 1556 had led to a virtual breakdown of relations with England, and on 9 April Pole was recalled to Rome. It was understood that he was to face investigation upon ‘certain charges’, by which heresy was generally understood. When Sir Edward Carne, Mary’s ambassador in Rome, protested against this decision, Paul was conciliatory. Of course he recognised that England was a special case and needed a legate, but he made no move to reinstate Pole. Perhaps, Carne suggested, a personal appeal from the queen would be in order. On 21 May Philip and Mary duly wrote, protesting the damage that would be done to the English Church by the cardinal’s departure, and professing themselves perfectly satisfied with his diligence – and his orthodoxy.
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Four days later Pole penned his own protest. At about the same time the English council also wrote to the same effect: the English Church was like a convalescent patient, and the pope’s action would remove its physician. Paul was unmoved. He had long suspected Pole of unorthodox sympathies, and had strongly resented the advice that the cardinal had recently given him on settling his differences with Philip. The pope had also had enough of humanist intellectuals who favoured reconciliation with the Protestants, and who equivocated over fundamental issues such as justification.
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On 31 May the cardinal protector of England (and Pole’s main contact in the curia), Giovanni Morone, was arrested and sent to the castle of San Angelo. On 14 June the pope repeated his demand for Pole to return to Rome.

At about the same time Paul announced that out of a fatherly concern for the wellbeing of the English Church, he would name a new legate – making an exception to his general rule. The man he named was William Peto. Carne was stunned, and declared openly that he dared not communicate such a decision to England. Peto was an Observant Franciscan who, twenty years earlier, had made a name for himself as a preacher and writer against Henry’s divorce and had earned a spell in exile as a result. He had been appointed by the pope to the see of Salisbury in 1543, but had never secured possession. He was personally known to Paul, having spent some time in Rome during his exile, but by 1557 was over eighty and in feeble health.
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When the Franciscan house at Greenwich was restored in 1556, he had retired there with every intention of spending his last years in prayer and meditation. It may be that the pope, who was an octogenarian himself, did not see age as any handicap, but he should have known that Peto was not up to the job, either physically or mentally. Mary was outraged, regarding such an appointment as little short of an insult, and when the nuncio bearing the news arrived at Calais on 3 or 4 July, he found himself anticipated. Mary refused him admission to the realm.
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At the same time Peto himself declined the proffered appointment on the grounds of his age and unsuitability. In Rome it was believed that the English schism was about to be renewed, but there was never any question of that, and Paul held back from imposing sanctions. What he did do was studiously ignore English business, whether public or private. Consequently, when Bishop Robert Parfew of Hereford died on 22 September 1557, although a successor was named, he was not installed before Mary herself died. The same happened with Robert King of Oxford and Henry Man of the see of Sodor. Two or three other bishops died in 1558, and none of them was replaced, so the bench was about six or seven short when it came to fight its corner in Elizabeth’s Parliament of 1559.

Pole was deeply distressed. Papal authority was one of the sheet anchors of his faith, and if he had been free to choose he would have returned to Rome, and no doubt to incarceration in a papal prison. In the middle of June the Inquisition was known to be examining his activities – a somewhat ironic situation, given that Pole himself was busy persecuting heretics.
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However, he was not free, and Mary absolutely forbade him to go. This ban was fully endorsed by Philip, who understood and appreciated the stabilising effect that the cardinal had on his wife. Because Pole had appealed against his recall, it has been suggested that there was some uncertainty as to whether the office of legate continued or not, but he himself was in no doubt.
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His legatine synod, which stood adjourned at the time of his recall, was not reconvened, and although it had made some useful decrees, particularly on the subject of clerical education, it never completed its work, and because Mary died less than two years later its decrees were effectively dead letters. Both Philip and Mary wished him to carry on as though nothing had happened, Mary particularly praising his zeal and application, but that was hardly possible for so conscientious a servant as Pole. What he was able to do, for the time being, was to use his metropolitan authority as Archbishop of Canterbury to maintain the momentum of his reform programme. The Count of Feria’s wellknown comments about his being ‘a dead man’, and about the lukewarm never going to heaven, were not only unfair to Pole, but also tell us a good deal more about the count’s aggressive evangelical agenda than they do about what was actually going on.
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He seems to have regarded the country as a mission territory in the same sense as the American colonies.