PART THREE
CHAPTER 37
DAYS BEFORE SHE WAS TO BE CROWNED AT WESTMINSTER ABBEY, Mary called together her Council for an impromptu and improvised ceremony. Ensconced in the Tower of London, she had been preparing for the coronation to come, rehearsing the oaths and changes of clothes and regalia and pondering the responsibilities of office. Kneeling before her councillors, Mary spoke of how she had come to the throne and what she considered to be her duties as queen. It was her solemn intention to carry out the task God had given her “to His greater glory and service, to the public good and all her subjects’ benefit.” She had entrusted “her affairs and person” to her councillors and urged them to be faithful to the oaths they had sworn and to be loyal to her as their queen. Mary remained on her knees throughout. So “deeply moved” were her councillors that “not a single one refrained from tears. No one knew how to answer, amazed as they all were by this humble and lowly discourse unlike anything ever heard before in England, and by the Queen’s great goodness and integrity.”1 It was an astonishing sight, yet these were extraordinary times: a woman was now to wear England’s crown.
THE FIRST QUEEN to rule England was a small, slightly built woman of thirty-seven. With her large, bright eyes, round face, reddish hair, and love of fine clothes, she cut a striking figure, though one marked by age and ill health.2 She suffered bouts of illness, heart palpitations, and headaches, was exceedingly shortsighted, and was prone to melancholy. Although for most of her adult life she had known neither security nor happiness, she was regarded as “great-hearted, proud and magnanimous.” Highly educated and intelligent, well versed in languages, and quick of wit and understanding, her frequent acclamation was “In thee, O lord, is my trust, let me never be confounded. If God be for us, who can be against us?”3
Mary had secured the throne against the odds. It was a victory, Wingfield wrote, “one of Herculean rather than womanly daring.”4 A female accession had been a prospect her father had gone to great lengths to avoid, but on Edward’s death all the plausible candidates for the English throne were female. In default of male heirs, Edward had had to accept Lady Jane Grey as his Protestant successor. Yet Mary had managed to win support across the religious spectrum as the rightful Tudor heir. Notably it was a victory won without direct foreign aid; the English people had put Mary on the throne. The anonymous author of “The Legend of Sir Nicholas Throgmorton” put into the mouth of his hero the sentiments of many:
And though I lik’d not the Religion
Which all her life Queen Mary had professed,
Yet in my mind that wicked Motion
Right heirs for to displace I did detest.5
Her victory was widely celebrated. She was as popular as any English sovereign who had ascended the throne before her, and her triumph was one of the most surprising events of the sixteenth century.6 She had preserved the Tudor dynasty, and now both the French king and the emperor sought to ingratiate themselves with her.
“This news,” wrote Charles V to his ambassadors, “is the best we could have had from England and we render thanks to God for having guided all things so well … [you will] offer our congratulations on her happy accession to the throne, telling her how great was our joy on hearing it.” The emperor now sought to justify his lack of intervention: “You may explain to her that you were instructed to proceed very gradually in your negotiation, with the object of rendering her some assistance, and that we were hastily making preparations, under cover of protection of the fisheries, to come to her relief.”7
Meanwhile the French, who had conspired with Northumberland, were now forced to declare their belief in Mary’s legitimacy and deny their part in the coup.8 Many Englishmen believed that France had been set to invade in support of Northumberland. As Noailles reported, “You could not believe the foul and filthy words which this nation cries out every day against our own.”9 Henry II now feared that England might join the war on the emperor’s side and sought to emphasize Charles’s lack of support for Mary in the July crisis. “In all her own miseries, troubles and afflictions,” wrote the French ambassador, “as well as in those of the Queen her mother, the Emperor never came to their assistance, nor has he helped her now in her great need with a single man, ship or penny.”10
AS BELLS ACROSS the country rang out the news of her victory, Mary left Framlingham to begin her slow and triumphant progress toward London.11 Along the route and at her various stopping places, she received the homage of her subjects. At Ipswich she was met by the bailiffs of the town, who presented her with “eleven pounds sterling in gold,” and by some young boys, who gave her a golden heart inscribed with the words “The Heart of the People.”12 Having spent two days in Ipswich, Mary moved to Colchester, where she stayed at the home of Muriel Christmas, a former servant of her mother, Katherine, and then journeyed to her residence Beaulieu in Essex. There she was presented with a purse of crimson velvet from the City of London, filled with half sovereigns of gold, “which gift she highly and thankfully accepted, and caused the presenters to have great cheer in her house.”13 From Beaulieu she rode on to Wanstead, east of London, where she was joined by her sister, Elizabeth, who had ridden from the Strand to meet her, accompanied by countless gentlemen, knights, and ladies.14
Leaving Wanstead on the third, Mary began her journey into the city, stopping en route at Whitechapel at the house of one “Mr Bramston,” where she “changed her apparel.”15 As Wingfield described the occasion:
Now indeed her retinue reached its greatest size … nothing was left or neglected which might possibly be contrived to decorate the gates, roads and all places on the Queen’s route to wish her joy for her victory. Every crowd met her accompanied by children, and caused celebrations everywhere, so that the joy of that most wished for and happy triumphal procession might easily be observed, such were the magnificent preparations made by the wealthier sort and such was the anxiety among the ordinary folk to show their goodwill to their sovereign.16