CHAPTER 36
This attempt should have been judged and considered one of Herculean rather than womanly daring, since to claim and secure her hereditary right, the princess was being so bold as to tackle a powerful and well-prepared enemy, thoroughly provisioned with everything necessary to end or to prolong a war, while she was entirely unprepared for warfare and had insignificant forces.1
—ROBERT WINGFIELD, VITA MARIAE
FOR FIVE DAYS MARY STAYED AT KENNINGHALL, RALLYING FRIENDS and supporters among the East Anglian gentry and commons. The core of her support was her household. Many, like Robert Rochester and Edward Waldegrave, had served her throughout Edward’s reign and had consistently defended her and her right to hear the Catholic Mass. Now they moved to defend her right to the throne. As Robert Wingfield, an East Anglian gentleman, wrote, they “did not hesitate to face an untimely death for their Queen.” Each played an important role in mobilizing members of the local gentry and their tenants. The first gentlemen to arrive at Kenninghall, Sir Henry Bedingfield, Sir John Shelton, and Sir Richard Southwell, were from the same group of conservative East Anglian magnates as the men in Mary’s household. The arrival of Southwell and Henry Radcliffe, earl of Sussex, with money, provisions, and armed men would greatly expand Mary’s meager forces. Southwell was a knight, the wealthiest of his rank in Norfolk, and his commitment did much to raise the morale of Mary and her supporters.
On July 12, with her forces growing, Mary moved southeast to another of her principal houses, Framlingham Castle in Suffolk, the ancient seat of the Howard family. It was far larger than Kenninghall and, as the strongest castle in the area, an ideal place from which to defend against, or indeed engage, a determined enemy. Built by the old duke of Norfolk, it had come into her possession only a few months before. Now it would witness Mary’s stand against the might of central government. As she journeyed to Framlingham, many of the local gentry and justices, together with a crowd of country folk, gathered in the deer park adjacent to the castle to await her arrival. “A great concourse of people were moved by their love for her to come and promise to support her to the end and maintain her right to the Crown, bringing money and cattle as their means enabled them.”2
Finally, at eight in the evening, she arrived. Her standard was unfurled and displayed over the gate tower. It was a defiant gesture on the eve of what looked to be imminent conflict. Northumberland was said to have had 3,000 men and the whole of the royal armory to draw on. Mary’s forces and supplies were thin in comparison. Again she sent a desperate appeal to the imperial ambassadors: “She saw destruction hanging over her” unless she received help. But the emperor believed Mary’s chances of coming to the throne to be “very slight,” and he sent nothing.3
For a number of days Mary’s fate hung in the balance. In many towns it was a confused picture of shifting and changing allegiances. In Ipswich, Sir Thomas Cornwallis, the sheriff of Norfolk and Suffolk, together with Thomas, Lord Wentworth, and other prominent Suffolk men, initially declared for Jane, on July 11. But then one of Mary’s servants, Thomas Poley, arrived in the town’s marketplace and proclaimed Mary “hereditary Queen of England.” It was only then that Cornwallis saw where the sympathies of the people lay and declared for Mary. As Wingfield described it, the public outcry against Jane was so great that Cornwallis actually stood “in grave peril of his life.” Although a lifelong religious conservative, Cornwallis, like many other East Anglian gentry, had bet against Mary, given Jane’s access to superior military resources. Yet they too had underestimated the popular support for Mary. At Framlingham, Cornwallis humbly prostrated himself before her and begged her pardon. For Cornwallis, as for many others, factors other than faith or principle led him to declare for Mary.
In Norwich, where the town authorities had on July 11 refused to open the gates to Mary’s messengers, saying that they did not yet know for certain that the king was dead, they not only proclaimed her the following day but also sent men and arms. Gradually events began to swing in Mary’s favor. A squadron of five ships of the late king, laden with soldiers and weaponry, had been forced into the safety of Orwell harbor by bad weather. The crews mutinied against their officers for disowning Mary and put themselves under the command of Mary’s ardent supporter Sir Henry Jerningham. Many others flocked to Mary’s side. Henry Radcliffe arrived at Framlingham with a cohort of horsemen and foot soldiers. He was followed by John Bourchier, earl of Bath, another noble figure, who also arrived with a large band of soldiers including Sir John Sulyard, knight of Wetherden, and Sir William Drury, knight of the shire for Suffolk. All leading figures in East Anglia, they, together with Sir Thomas Cornwallis, were important gains that would prove crucial to Mary’s success. Yet one figure eluded her. To secure her position in eastern Suffolk, Mary needed to win the support of Thomas, Lord Wentworth, a prominent and respected nobleman. She sent two of her servants, John Tyrell and Edward Glenham, to Nettlestead to negotiate with him. She warned that forsaking her cause would lead to the perpetual dishonor of his house. He paused and reflected. Finally he declared for Mary. It was a great coup. Wentworth arrived at Framlingham on the fifteenth, clad in splendid armor and with a large military force of gentlemen and tenants.
It was just in time. Northumberland was en route to Bury St. Edmunds, just twenty-four miles from Framlingham. Five hundred men were appointed to guard Mary within the walls of Framlingham Castle. Mary was focused and resolute. She summoned her household council, ordered her field commanders to prepare her forces for battle, and issued a proclamation asserting her authority, making clear her defiance:
We do signify unto you that according to our said right and title we do take upon us and be in the just and lawful possession of the same; not doubting that all our true and faithful subjects will so accept us, take us and obey us as their natural and liege sovereign lady and Queen.4
Now, as her army mustered, Mary declared that she was “nobly and strongly furnished of an army royal under Lord Henry, Earl of Sussex, her Lieutenant General, accompanied by the Earl of Bath, the Lord Wentworth, and a multitude of other gentlemen.” She condemned Northumberland, that he “most traitorously by long-continued treason sought, and seeketh, the destruction of her royal person, the nobility and common weal of this realm,” and finished with a rallying cry:
Wherefore, good people, as ye mindeth the surety of her said person, the honour and surety of your country, being good Englishmen, prepare yourselves in all haste with all power to repair unto her said armies yet being in Suffolk, making your prayers to God for her success … upon the said causes she utterly defyeth the said duke for her most errant traitor to God and to the realm.5
Within days an unskilled and disorganized mob had been turned into a disciplined army, obedient to order and eager to meet the enemy. On the twentieth, Mary rode down from the castle to review her troops. Standards were unfurled and her forces drawn up in battle order; helmets were thrown high in the air as shouts of “Long live our good Queen Mary!” and “Death to the traitors!” rang out across the Suffolk countryside. Mary dismounted and for the next three hours inspected her troops on foot.
SINCE NORTHUMBERLAND’S departure from London, the privy councillors had begun to waver in their support for Jane as queen, “being deeply rooted in their minds, in spite of these seditions, a kind of remorse, knowing her [Mary] to be, after all the daughter of their King Henry VIII.”6 By the eighteenth, their resolve had crumbled. Ships’ crews off Yarmouth had deserted, and rumors had spread that Sir Edmund Peckham, treasurer of the Mint and keeper of the king’s privy purse, had fled with the monies to Framlingham. Now a proclamation was drawn up offering a reward for the arrest of Northumberland: £1,000 in land to any noble, £500 to any knight, and £100 to any yeoman bold enough to lay his hand on the duke’s shoulder and demand his surrender.7
The following day, a dozen or so privy councillors, including the earls of Bedford, Pembroke, Arundel, Shrewsbury, and Worcester, and Lords Paget, Darcy, and Cobham, broke out of the Tower, which had been locked, and rendezvoused at Pembroke’s house, Baynard’s Castle. There they took the final step. In a speech before the Council, Arundel declared:
This Crown belongs rightfully, by direct succession, to My Lady Mary lawful and natural daughter of our King Henry VIII. Therefore why should you let yourselves be corrupted and tolerate that anybody might unjustly possess what does not belong to him? … 8
If by chance you should feel somehow guilty proclaiming now our Queen My Lady Mary, having acclaimed Jane only a few days ago, showing such quick change of mind, I tell you this is no reason to hesitate, because having sinned it befits always to amend, especially when, as in the present circumstances, it means honour for your goodselves, welfare and freedom for our country, love and loyalty to his King, peace and contentment for all people.9
At five or six in the evening of the twentieth, as Arundel and Paget set out to pledge their fidelity to Mary at Framlingham and petition for pardon on behalf of the whole Council, two heralds and three trumpeters rode from Baynard’s Castle to the Cross at Cheapside. With the streets full of Londoners, the heralds announced that Mary was queen.10 “There was such shout of the people with casting up of caps and crying, ‘God save Queen Mary,’ that the style of the proclamation could not be heard, the people were so joyful, both man, woman and child.”11 For two days all the bells in London, “which it had been decided to convert into artillery,” rang; money was “cast a-way,” and there were banquets and bonfires in the streets.12 “It would be impossible to imagine greater rejoicing than this,” the imperial ambassadors reported.13
From a distance the earth must have looked like Mount Etna. The people are mad with joy, feasting and singing, and the streets crowded all night long. I am unable to describe to you, nor would you believe, the exultation of all men. I will only tell you that not a soul imagined the possibility of such a thing.14
Upon hearing the news, Northumberland, then at Cambridge, was forced to admit defeat. He threw his cap into the air and acknowledged Mary as queen. The coup attempt was over. That evening the earl of Arundel arrived to arrest Northumberland in the queen’s name.15