M ary had decided to remain at Greenwich until King Philip's return, but after his departure the court became a gloomy place, and its inhabitants took to wearing garments of dark hues, prompting one ambassador to complain that it seemed like a court in perpetual mourning.
The court reflected the Queen's mood. She was utterly desolate without her husband and spent many hours weeping inconsolably; her only comfort was found in writing him daily letters in French, telling him inconsequential items of news and begging to be reassured of his health and well-being. In these letters she addressed herself to him 'in as humble wise as possible', and signed them, 'Your very loyal and obedient wife, which to be I confess myself justly obliged to be, and in my opinion more than any other woman, having such a husband as Your Highness is.'
To escape from the pain of separation, she threw herself into her royal duties with such a vengeance that Pole feared for her health, and was moved to write to Philip,
Her Majesty passes the forenoon in prayer, after the manner of Mary, and in the afternoon admirably personates Martha by transacting business. She has so urged her councillors as to keep them incessantly occupied, thinking that she sees Your Majesty present in their persons. She has laboured so hard as to require energy in this matter to be checked rather than stimulated. Her Majesty spends the greater part of the night writing to Your Majesty. I fear that these labours and the strain of Your Majesty's absence might make her fall sick. Your return will cure all.
The Cardinal, despite not being a member of the Council, was constantly at hand to advise and console Mary, and she made few decisions without his sanction. He had been assigned apartments near her own, so that he might 'comfort and keep her company, Her Majesty delighting greatly in the sight and presence of him'.
The Lady Elizabeth had also stayed on at court, although Mary did not delight greatly in her presence, of course, but suffered it for Philip's sake. The King wrote frequently, 'commending the princess to her care' and reminding her of his advice to treat her with kindness and respect, to which the Queen responded by receiving her sister 'with every sort of graciousness and favour', although she could barely conceal her 'evil disposition' towards her. To Michieli, it was obvious that Mary hated her sister. Whenever they met they conversed about 'agreeable subjects' only. By now, it was well known that the princess enjoyed 'a good share in the favour of the King', which provided Mary with further cause for jealousy and gave rise to speculation in private circles as to what Philip's future intentions were towards his sister-in-law.
Elizabeth took care to behave with circumspection, attending mass daily with the Queen. On 4 September, the princess began a three-day fast, for which she would receive an indulgence — a remission for temporal punishment for her sins - from the Pope. Renard was not alone in thinking she was doing it for pragmatic reasons. Cardinal Pole was cold towards her, and most courtiers still deemed it best to shun her company. The princess escaped into her studies, and that autumn welcomed Roger Ascham - now in England again after diplomatic service abroad, and acting as Latin secretary to the Queen - back into her service. He found that her mind was 'so well-stocked' that he learned more from her than she did from him, and confided to his reformist friend, Johann Sturm, that her understanding of Greek and her grasp of the political conflicts found in the pages of Demosthenes would 'strike you with astonishment'. To John Aylmer, he wrote, 'I teach her words, and she me things.'
When Philip arrived in Brussels on 8 September, the Emperor began the process of transferring power to him preparatory to abdicating, and on the 25th made his son Regent of the Netherlands. Once Philip had left England, however, his influence there diminished, despite Mary's insistence on pursuing his chosen policies. On the 26th, Simon Renard retired, at his own request, and returned home with a generous parting gift of gold plate from Mary; he was not replaced, because Philip mistakenly felt that he could rely on his friends on the Council to keep him informed of English affairs and represent his interests.
A few days later, Charles V suggested his nephew Ferdinand as a possible husband for the Lady Elizabeth, 'so that he may succeed to that crown [of England], as his Imperial Majesty [King Philip] has no hope of an heir by his consort'. But the plan was quietly dropped, possibly because Philip vetoed it, having something quite different in mind for Elizabeth.
Late in September England suffered 'the greatest rain and floods that ever was seen in England'. Men and beasts drowned, houses were flooded, and - coming on top of a poor harvest - the damage to farming and trade was immense.
Other storm clouds were on the horizon. On the 30th, the Protestant bishops Latimer and Ridley were condemned to death for heresy and in Oxford Archbishop Cranmer was tried on the same charge. His case was referred to Rome for a decision. Rumours of a rift between King Philip and the Pope caused Cardinal Pole much anxiety, and the Queen was dismayed to receive a stream of requests from members of Philip's household to join him in the Netherlands. De Noailles reported that Spanish grandees were leaving England every day, 'suspecting that their master's absence will not be a short one'. Some took with them the King's personal effects, and the same month his intentions became clear when he settled all his debts to English creditors and dismissed the crew of a ship that had been waiting to bring him back to England.
Worst of all, Philip was replying less and less frequently to his wife's letters, and when he did he wrote no comforting words of love, saying only that he had 'fair hope of soon seeing her', which she found hard to believe. On 13 September, she complained to Michieli, 'very passionately and with tears in her eyes', that she had not received a letter from the King for a week. The ambassador heard, from sources close to Mary, that, when she thought herself unobserved she appeared as one stricken with grief, 'as may be imagined with regard to a person extraordinarily in love'.
Philip had decided to use Mary's desire for his return as a bargaining counter for more power for himself in England, and began responding to her frequent letters with demands that he be crowned. Mary could not authorise this without the sanction of the Council or Parliament, and the councillors were none too keen on the idea, so she was obliged to defer agreement until Parliament met. Philip accused her of not trying hard enough on his behalf, and made it clear that he would not be returning to England until his request was complied with and he was assigned an honourable role in the government of the kingdom. On 15 October, he wrote to the Council expressing his regret that he would not after all be able to return in time to open Parliament, and on the ipth he wrote to Mary, asking her to arrange for the remaining members of his household - apart from his confessor and a few clerks in holy orders - to be sent to join him. Ostensibly they were needed to replace those servants of the Emperor who would soon be returning with Charles to Spain, but Mary was not deceived. However, she did as he asked. Rumours were circulating in England that the Emperor had deferred his abdication because he felt his son was too fond of 'masquing and amusements'. All the evidence shows that Philip was certainly enjoying himself in the Netherlands, for he is described as attending hunts, banquets, and weddings, often disguised with a mask. At court balls he would dance until the early hours of the morning with notable beauties, and then sometimes move on to another glittering function. There were reports that he and his young male companions were often drunk and too tired to attend to business the next day, and that they cared little for the opinions of others. Soon Philip was being seen in the company of a Madame d'Aler, 'who is considered very handsome and of whom he seems much enamoured'. Federico Badoer, the Venetian ambassador to the Imperial court at Brussels, says that news of her husband's infidelity was being kept from Queen Mary because 'she is so easily agitated'. But Mary heard the rumours all the same, and bravely hid her distress.
On 16 October, Latimer and Ridley went to the stake in the ditch outside the town walls of Oxford. Cranmer was compelled to watch, so as to make him recant his Protestant beliefs, which would place a powerful propaganda weapon in the government's hands. 'If he can be brought to repent, the Church will derive no little profit from the salvation of a single soul,' wrote Pole.
As they were chained to the stake, Latimer comforted Ridley with prophetic words that would ring down the centuries: 'Be of good comfort, Master Ridley, and play the man! We shall this day light such a candle, by God's grace, in England, as I trust shall never be put out.' He died quite quickly, but Ridley's sufferings were immense, for he burned for three-quarters of an hour. He was not the only one to endure such agony, for the wet weather resulted in prolonged torture for several heretics sentenced to be burnt that autumn.
By now, the public outcry against the burnings had intensified, and there were often violent demonstrations at executions. In the minds of the English Catholicism was increasingly becoming identified with brutal persecution, and many longed for the Queen to die and be succeeded by her sister Elizabeth, who would surely call a halt to the burnings and send the hated Spaniards - who were blamed as much as Mary for them - back where they belonged. Yet Mary persevered, believing that the hearts of her people had been hardened by heresy and that more examples must be made to bring them to their senses. In the eyes of the government, Protestants were enemies of the state and must be ruthlessly eradicated. It was they who were responsible for the flood of anti-Catholic pamphlets, in which the Queen was referred to as 'the Jezebel of England' and the population incited to rebellion. Alarmed by the strength of public feeling, Renard, before his departure, had advised Mary to have heretics executed in private, but she refused on the grounds that the burnings acted as a deterrent. Gardiner, another advocate of moderation, met with similar stubbornness on her part.
When Mary was preparing to return to London to open Parliament in solitary splendour, Elizabeth was granted leave to go to her house at Hatfield. Mary bade her a cordial farewell and presented her with gifts. On 18 October, the princess rode through Shoreditch on her way to Hertfordshire, and received a rapturous welcome from the citizens, but, fearing to give her sister cause for complaint, she sent some of her gentlemen into the crowds to calm and restrain them. However, she was delighted to hear the bells pealing for joy at her coming, and 'would pause and listen attentively'. For her, this was 'some hope of comfort, appearing as if out of a dark cloud'.
Mary took the precaution of setting spies in Elizabeth's household. 'No one comes or goes, and nothing is spoken or done, without the Queen's knowledge,' wrote Michieli. Elizabeth soon became aware that she was being watched, and wisely made it her business to attend confession and mass regularly. Roger Ascham accompanied her to Hatfield, and he too had to conform, as did the princess's surveyor, William Cecil, who had never held office under Mary but was proving himself a loyal friend to Elizabeth, and corresponded with her regularly. Other friends who returned to the princess's service at this time were Katherine Ashley and Thomas Parry.
During this session of Parliament, Gardiner fell mortally ill and had to be lodged in Whitehall Palace as he could not travel back to Winchester House. The members of Parliament, having heard talk that the Queen would ask to have Philip crowned, and being wary of this being a preliminary to granting him 'the absolute rule of the realm', were in a rebellious, awkward mood, and she did not dare raise the matter, even though coronations did not come under Parliament's jurisdiction. Instead, she wrote and told her husband that she hoped to defer a decision until after Parliament had been dissolved, and then, with the aid of those peers who supported him, grant his request.
So dangerous was the mood of Parliament that when, in November, a proposal to extradite from their safe havens abroad all those Protestants who had left England without permission resulted in an uproar in the Commons, the Queen hurriedly dissolved Parliament and had those who had opposed the measure imprisoned in the Tower.
That autumn the Council uncovered a number of obscure plots both at home and abroad to have Mary - 'who is a Spaniard at heart and loves another realm better than this' - assassinated, and Elizabeth set up in her place. Rumours were rife, and Elizabeth was terrified that she would be suspected of complicity. Fearful of what Mary might do to her, she wrote to her sister on several occasions, protesting her loyalty and passionately emphasising that she had had nothing to do with these conspiracies. It seemed that, no matter how hard she tried, she could not avoid being involved, either directly or indirectly, in sensitive political issues. Renard wrote warning Mary that the princess gave 'the impression that she had changed her religion [and] was too clever to get herself caught'. Mary always believed what she heard from Imperial sources, and against influences like these Elizabeth did not stand a chance. Nor could she prevent zealous but careless plotters from using her name in their ill-conceived conspiracies. 'In trust, I have found treason,' she was to say much later.
Gardiner, Mary's most able statesman, died on 12 November; as a royal servant, claimed Michieli, he was unmatched. Pole expressed the hope that he would be replaced by someone 'less harsh and stern', but in fact Gardiner had often spoken out against the persecution of heretics, and after his death the number of burnings increased.
Philip wanted Paget to succeed Gardiner as Lord Chancellor, but Mary chose Nicholas Heath, who possessed few of his predecessor's qualities; consequently it was Cardinal Pole who became Mary's chief adviser in Gardiner's stead. However, he lacked the late Chancellor's political acumen and drive, as well as his understanding of the English people. Before long, the old divisions within the Council resurfaced, for there was no one strong enough to hold the members in check.
Faced with more troubles, Mary tried other ploys to bring Philip home. She had her cooks prepare his favourite meat pies and shipped them across to Flanders; with them, however, went a letter informing him that, given the mood of the government and people, there was little likelihood of him being crowned in the near future. Philip replied that, while his chief desire was to please her, his honour would only permit him to return to England if he were allowed 'to share the government with her'. He was the absolute ruler of the Low Countries, and to accept a lesser status in England would be 'unbecoming to his dignity'. Mary swallowed her misery and struggled on alone with her mounting problems.
In November, another conspiracy - the Dudley conspiracy - was hatched in response to rumours that Mary meant to have Philip crowned. It was named after one of the prime movers, Sir Henry Dudley, a cousin of the late Duke of Northumberland. The aim of the plotters was 'to send the Queen's Highness over to the King, and to make the Lady Elizabeth queen, and to marry the Earl of Devonshire to the said lady'. Money for the uprising, to the tune of £50,000, was to be appropriated from the Exchequer, wherein Dudley had contacts. The money would be smuggled abroad to France, where the conspirators had a party of staunch supporters among the Protestant exiles, and used to hire ships and mercenaries.
Dudley and his fellow conspirators never succeeded in obtaining the support of the substantial gentry who would have lent their enterprise credibility. Many people, including the Lady Elizabeth herself, felt as strongly as the conspirators did about the state of affairs in England, but most now believed that the Queen would not live long and that the day of deliverance would soon arrive, and they were not prepared to risk their all for an ill-conceived rebellion. However, many minor gentry supported the plotters, as did some royal servants and a few minor scions of the peerage.
Dudley, having once been Captain of the Guard at Boulogne, had many friends in France, and in December visited Paris, where he was well-received by Henry II, who would normally have connived at anything that would discountenance the English government. However, after signing a truce with Philip, Henry's enthusiasm had cooled, and he sent Dudley home with only the vaguest assurances of support. De Noailles, however, enjoyed the confidence of the conspirators from the first, and aided and abetted them by constantly spreading seditious rumours and alarmist gossip.
The Queen was aware of what people were saying and in an atmosphere charged with her fear of threatened conspiracies and whispers of secret intrigues, hardly knew whom she could trust. Her ambassador in Brussels told Philip, 'When she looks round and carefully considers the persons about her, she hardly knows one who has not injured her or who would fail to do so again, were the opportunity to present itself
Her tribulations seemed endless. In December the Pope, having excommunicated Cranmer and formally deprived him of the archbishopric of Canterbury, declared him guilty of heresy, and commanded that he be delivered to the secular arm for punishment. Paul then nominated Cardinal Pole as the new Primate of England 'with many kind words'. He was nevertheless ill-disposed towards Mary because she had married a Habsburg, and that very month he signed a secret treaty with Henry II against Spain and the Empire. Mary's envoys abroad guessed what was going on and alerted her, causing her and Pole the deepest concern. The last thing she wanted now was an open rift with the papacy.
Then, on 20 December, the last of Philip's household left England, most being as relieved to escape as the English were to see the back of them. Even Alfonso de Castro, the King's confessor, had gone, to Mary's profound distress. In Brussels, Badoer wrote, 'The King's confessor has reported a variety of foul language uttered by the English, indicating that ill-will towards His Majesty and the Spanish nation, and has stated that, on seeing him and the rest of the royal attendants depart, they made great rejoicing; and he has said that the Queen's wish to see the King again is very great, nay, boundless.'
Mary wrote to Philip to say that she was sorry 'for her non-adoption of any of the resolutions desired by him in the matter of the coronation', but she was 'encompassed with enemies' and knew it would be impossible to accede to his wish. She had also received a request from him for English support against the French, but protested that to grant it would endanger her throne, for she could not contravene the terms of their marriage treaty. A deadlock had been reached, and Mary now faced the fact that her husband would only return to her if she could deliver everything he was asking for, which she dared not do. She might be his wife, but she was the queen first and foremost.
The court stayed at Greenwich for Christmas, but the Queen's gloom pervaded the festivities. The New Year brought only food shortages and the fear of famine, and Mary took this to be a sign from God that she was not stamping out heresy with sufficient rigour. Until now, heretics arriving at the stake had been given the opportunity of recanting, and if they did so had been reprieved, but Mary now decreed that, as few were benefiting by example, sheriffs should not in future offer condemned heretics this choice. Furthermore, those who showed sympathy towards heretics suffering execution were themselves to be arrested. Eighty people would be burned in 1556.
By January, Dudley and his conspirators had concealed stores of arms at strategic points, suborned the Captain of Yarmouth Castle so as to ensure that a safe harbour was prepared for the coming invasion of exiles and mercenaries, and hidden the money purloined from the Exchequer 'in the water by [London] Bridge'. They had also contacted Courtenay, who was still sulking in Brussels and imagining - perhaps with good reason - that Ruy Gomez had hired an assassin to kill him, and obtained his agreement to marrying the Lady Elizabeth.
Whether Elizabeth knew anything of the plot is open to question. Her past experiences should have taught her that it would have been foolish, not to mention fatal, to involve herself in a treasonable conspiracy, yet in February 1556 the Constable of France wrote to de Noailles, warning him to take care and 'above all restrain Madame Elizabeth from stirring at all in the affair of which you have written to me; for that would be to ruin everything'. This reads as if the princess was eagerly supporting the plotters, but the Constable may have been misled by de Noailles or could have been making assumptions. Foreign intelligence could be notoriously inaccurate, but there is no doubt that people close to Elizabeth knew what was going on.
When Charles V, crippled with arteriosclerosis, finally abdicated on 16 January, Philip and Mary became King and Queen of Spain, the Netherlands, Spain's possessions in Italy and the Spanish colonies in the Americas. The German electors, however, chose Charles's brother, the Archduke Ferdinand, as the new Holy Roman Emperor in preference to Philip. The Emperor therefore ceded Austria, Burgundy, some of his territory in Italy and his German possessions to his brother.
Philip had by now lost all interest in England, save for protecting the interests of the Lady Elizabeth and treating the kingdom as a potential source of manpower for his wars. Mary was still writing to him, begging him to return to her so that their marriage might bear fruit, but he fobbed her off with meaningless promises whilst trying to persuade her that it was her duty to provide him with men for his army. The Council responded to her tentative requests by pointing out that her marriage treaty expressly forbade it, and even if it did not, England was in no financial state to contemplate a war, especially in support of the interests of a foreign power.
On 16 February, Mary reached the age of forty, but she looked older. De Noailles asserted that she had aged ten years during the past months. Her face, although still pink and white, was heavily wrinkled, and she appeared thinner than ever. Michieli was of the opinion that her ugliness was compensated for by her becoming dignity. Worsening eyesight made her peer at people with alarming intensity; her sight had suffered through her regular habit of writing to Philip by candlelight in the small hours of the morning. It was said now that she usually slept for at most four hours at night. De Noailles was told by a lady who slept in the Queen's chamber that Mary's dreams of love and passion were so vivid that she often lost complete control of herself in bed, apparently reliving the delights of Philip's lovemaking. In her waking hours, he reported, she spent her time weeping, sighing and raging against her people, and was in such 'depths of melancholy that nothing seemed to remain for her but to imitate the example of Dido', who had committed suicide. 'But that she will not do,' for suicide was a mortal sin. Instead, she told her ladies, that 'As she had done all possible to induce her husband to return, and as she found he would not, she meant to withdraw utterly from men and live quietly, as she had done the chief part of her life before she married.' In future, religion would be her chief consolation.
No one could have doubted the depths of her faith. She was punctilious in her religious observances and was attending mass nine times a day. Her obvious emotion at public church ceremonies was enough to inspire observers with awe, as when she kissed the sores of forty scrofula victims with ecstatic devotion.
Unpopular with her subjects she might have been, but those who knew her and worked for her would hear no ill spoken of her. To them, she was kindness personified, unselfish and sensible of their feelings. This consideration extended itself to her refusal to go on an annual progress in case it placed too great a financial burden on her subjects. Naturally, there may also have been an underlying fear that her reception from those subjects would not be a warm one. Religious persecution on so great a scale had now turned most of them against her.
Cranmer was formally degraded by Bishops Bonner and Thirlby on 14 February. The former archbishop wept at the loss of his primacy and when, ten days later, the Queen signed his death warrant, he capitulated and issued a series of abject recantations, having been led by the authorities to believe that his life would be spared. But the Queen 'would nothing relent', remembering not only his heretical policies and prayer books, but also the fact that this was the man who had declared her parents' marriage null and void and herself a bastard. The Council might deliberate over whether political capital might be made of making Cranmer's recantations public - in the end they were suppressed — but the former archbishop's fate was certain.
*
Sir Henry Dudley was back in France that March, raising an invasion force that would land on the Isle of Wight and march on London. Courtenay was keeping a low profile, but a suspicious King Philip had arranged for a careful watch to be kept on him in Brussels. The conspiracy was now far-flung and unwieldy, depending on too many people, and early in March one of them, Thomas White, an Exchequer official, panicked, and told Cardinal Pole all he knew. The subsequent arrests of twenty suspects were followed by a series of interrogations, some under torture, in which most of the accused confessed all the details of the plot. What did set alarm bells ringing was the number of conspirators who had connections with the Lady Elizabeth. John Bray was her neighbour at Hatfield, Sir Peter Killigrew was her friend, a number of others were her servants, and one, Sir John Perrot, claimed to be one of Henry VIII's bastards and her half-brother. 'Never is a conspiracy discovered in which either justly or unjustly she or some of her servants are not mentioned,' commented Michieli.
Several of the accused referred to de Noailles's involvement, and the Council considered deporting him 'as a plotter and contriver against the State and the person of the sovereign', but they were pre-empted by Henry II, who swiftly recalled him. Henry Dudley escaped arrest also by virtue of being in France. The ramifications of the plot seemed endless, and extended even to some of the councillors themselves. Mary was 'deeply troubled'; it seemed to the Queen as if the whole fabric of her government was crumbling, and that her authority carried little weight, and she complained in her letters to Philip that she needed his presence more than ever. She saw treason everywhere, distrusting not only her councillors but also her personal attendants, and as March turned into April she took steps to ensure that the continuing interrogations were handled only by men such as Rochester, Jerning-ham and Englefield, who had served her for many years and proved themselves trustworthy.
In the middle of March Mary instructed Sir John Mason to 'pray the King her consort to be pleased to say frankly in how many days he purposed returning', and to ask whether she should continue to maintain the fleet that she had kept waiting in readiness to bring him home. Mason was also instructed to urge the King 'to comfort the Queen by his presence' and remind him 'that there was no reason yet to despair of his having heirs'. Mason in fact urged haste, seeing that the Queen was now forty and would soon be past the age for bearing children.
Ruy Gomez told Mason that the King could not leave just now as he was about to tour the Flemish provinces, and made it clear that few Spaniards had any desire to return to England after the bad treatment they had received there. The King shared their reluctance, and felt that his wife had shown him 'little conjugal affection' of late. Philip, who was preoccupied with arranging a splendid tournament on the theme 'that the women of Brussels are handsomer than those of Mechelin', told Mason to inform his mistress that it was necessary for him to remain in Brussels for the present because the King and Queen of Bohemia were expected for a state visit. When Mary heard this, she was 'beyond measure exasperated', but nevertheless replied that the royal guests would be most welcome in England. Philip ignored this, and was heard to say that England was now nothing more to him than an expensive nuisance. Nor were his courtiers any more encouraging, for they would say to Mason, 'Why should His Majesty gratify a wife who had done nothing to gratify him?'
Undeterred, Mary dispatched Paget to Brussels with letters and rings for Philip and his father. Paget, now Lord Privy Seal, was 'dear to the King' and 'very subtle', and his words might carry some weight. Philip expressed himself pleased to see Paget, and politely enquired after the Queen's health. Reporting back to Mary, Paget managed to imply that this was more than a formal courtesy. Yet soon he did have good news for her. Charles V had been present at the interview and had asked Paget how the Queen was.
'Her Majesty does indifferently well, as one might do that wanted of that you loved above all earthly things,' replied Paget pointedly. Knowing that his father would not be pleased if 'the Queen's angry remonstrances were converted into hatred', Philip hastened to assure Paget that he hoped to return to England in a few weeks' time.
'If I have not returned by the end of June,' he said, 'Her Majesty may no longer consider me a trustworthy king.'
On 20 March, Cranmer was told to prepare for death at the stake, and spent his last night writing another recantation. In the morning he was taken under guard to St Mary's Church in Oxford to read it out in public. But overnight, or on the way, realising that he must die anyway, he underwent a complete change of heart, and instead of a humiliating renunciation of all his former beliefs, the listening throng heard only a firm reafErmation of his Protestant faith. As he finished, he promised that the hand that had signed his recantation should be the first part of him to burn, as it had so offended God. He was hustled away to his death, but already the Protestants were proclaiming him as a martyr and making political capital out of his declaration of faith, whilst his courage in the face of a terrible ordeal became a useful propaganda tool in the hands of those who were sickened by the burnings.
On the day after Cranmer's death Pole was consecrated Archbishop of Canterbury at Greenwich, and thereafter he was the chief ecclesiastical advocate of the persecution of heretics.
Early in April, having heard of Charles V's intervention with Philip on her behalf, Mary wrote to him,
I thank you humbly for remembering me where the return of the King my husband is concerned. I implore Your Majesty most humbly, for the love of God, to do all that is possible to permit it. I cannot but deeply feel the solitude in which the King's absence leaves me. As Your Majesty well knows, he is the chief joy and comfort I have in the world. I beg Your Majesty to forgive my boldness and to remember the unspeakable sadness which I experience because of the absence of the King, which emboldens me thus to write to you, which have always shown me a more than paternal affection.
In France it was being said that the royal marriage was on the verge of breaking down, and Henry II prophesied, 'I am of opinion that ere long the King of England will endeavour to dissolve his marriage with the Queen.' It was reported in Venice that Mary had lost her temper and run amuck in her apartments, slashing at Philip's portraits, and although this may have been mere scandal-mongering, in England Susan Clarencieux was heard to say that she wished the marriage had never taken place.
That April, Michieli learned that the Queen had 'earnestly canvassed' the idea of sending Elizabeth to Spain, for she had 'conceived that by removing her bodily from hence, there will be riddance of all the causes for scandal and disturbances'. One suggestion was that the princess might make a suitable bride for Philip's son, the ten-year-old Don Carlos, but Elizabeth had heard that he was mad and declared that she would not marry him. As before, the plan to send her out of the kingdom was abandoned for fear of provoking insurrections on her behalf.
So far, none of those accused of involvement in the Dudley conspiracy had mentioned Elizabeth, yet the Council saw fit to have Somerset House searched in her absence for incriminating evidence. The searchers discovered 'seditious' books and pamphlets and a small cabinet containing 'several papers, portraits, paintings and other defamatory libels, to the great dishonour and vituperation of the Queen and her husband, together with all the bishops and ecclesiastics of her kingdom'. These items appeared to be the property of Mrs Ashley, who was arrested at Hatfield in May and taken to the Tower for questioning. At the same time, Battista Castiglione, Elizabeth's Italian master, who had been imprisoned in 1554 on suspicion of having distributed subversive literature, was also arrested, along with Francis Verney, another of the princess's servants.
Under questioning, Mrs Ashley denied all knowledge of Sir Henry Dudley's conspiracy, and stoutly proclaimed her loyalty to the Queen, adding that the Lady Elizabeth's love and truth is such to Her Highness that if she might prove me corrupt but in thought to Her Highness, I am sure she would never see me again'. For all her protestations, she was not believed, and was consigned to the Fleet Prison for the next three months. Castiglione likewise denied any involvement in treasonable activities. He had visited London on the princess's behalf, he said, but only to buy lute strings. He was released, but Verney could not extricate himself from the suspicion of treason, and in June was tried and sentenced to death although he was later pardoned.
At the beginning of June, the Queen sent Lord Hastings and Sir Francis Englefield to Hatfield on the pretext of apologising to Elizabeth for any disruption caused by the removal of her servants, and explaining that their arrests had been necessary because their behaviour had exposed her 'to the manifest risk of infamy and ruin'. The Queen's emissaries presented the princess with a diamond ring from her sister, and informed her that Mary knew her to be 'so wise and prudent that she would not wish to undertake anything to the prejudice of Her Majesty'. Nevertheless, Mary would have liked to have Elizabeth questioned, and even consigned to the Tower, but dared not move against her without Philip's approval, which she had sent for by special courier at the beginning of the month. 'Nothing is done without her having the King's opinion about it and hearing his will,' observed Michieli.
But instead of arresting her sister, Mary was instructed to send a kind message, with 'loving and gracious expressions to show her that she is neither neglected nor hated, but loved and esteemed by Her Majesty'. This, reported Michieli, 'has been very well taken by the whole kingdom'. Mary also invited Elizabeth to stay at court, but Elizabeth politely declined. The Queen then sent 'a widow gentlewoman' to Hatfield to replace Ashley, along with Sir Thomas Pope, 'a rich and grave gentleman, of good name, both for conduct and religion'. Pope was to act as Elizabeth's 'governor' and keep an eye on her; his presence in her household would not only set the Queen's mind at rest but prevent the princess's enemies from accusing her of subversive activities. Elizabeth realised this, and accepted his appointment without protest, even thanking Mary for her kindness.
Pope was a learned man with many interests, a lawyer who had once been a friend of Sir Thomas More; three months earlier he had founded Trinity College, Oxford. Happily married with children, and of a generous disposition, he was far more cultivated and worldly than Bedingfield had been, and Elizabeth soon warmed to him, sensing a kindred spirit. During Pope's four months at Hatfield, they would spend many happy hours discussing Sir Thomas's plans for his new college, or conversing on learned topics with Roger Ascham, and towards the end of his stay, Pope arranged - and paid for - lavish productions of masques and plays which were performed for the princess's pleasure.
Meanwhile, in London ten men were executed - against a background of public protests - for their parts in the Dudley conspiracy.
Late in June, Mary received word that Philip was ill, and sent to ask almost daily how he was progressing. Because of his illness he could not join her as planned, yet even when he had recovered he did not come, and on 15 July his wife wrote to Charles V, in an unusually caustic tone and with a shaking hand, 'My Lord, now that June is over and July drawing to an end, it would be pleasanter for me to be able to thank Your Majesty for sending me back the King my lord and good husband. However, as Your Majesty has been pleased to break your promise in this connection, I must perforce be satisfied, although to my unspeakable regret.'
During that summer Mary's state of mind gave those who knew her grave cause for concern. The anxieties and frustrations of the past months had taken their toll and there were fears that her health might break under the strain. She was deeply depressed and rarely appeared in public; the new French ambassador, Francois de Noailles, Bishop of Acqs and brother to the disgraced Antoine de Noailles, reported that she could not sleep, had dark circles under her eyes, and spent her waking hours in 'tears, regrets, and writing letters to bring back her husband'. Terrified of new conspiracies or assassination attempts, she had filled the palace with hosts of armed guards, consulted only a handful of councillors whose integrity she had no cause to doubt, and would only permit five trusted ladies to enter her chamber and attend to her personal needs. The ambassador reported that 'She rages against her subjects, for she is utterly confounded by the faithlessness of those whom she most trusted, seeing that the greater part are kith and kin or favoured servants of the greatest men in the kingdom.' Francois de Noailles was no less malicious than his brother, and took care to make Mary aware of foreign reports that Philip had applied to the Pope for an annulment of their marriage. This was not true, but fear that it might be only added to the Queen's miseries.
The support of Cardinal Pole was her only comfort, and in July she stayed with him at Canterbury, 'intent on enduring her troubles as patiently as she can'. But she felt little better for it, and on returning to London shocked her councillors by ordering the removal of a portrait of Philip from the council chamber. There were reports that she had actually kicked it out of the room. And to Lady Bray, she observed with feeling, 'God sent oft times to good women evil husbands!'
Michieli had been away from the court for some weeks, and when he returned he was concerned to see how ill the Queen looked. 'For many months now the Queen has passed from one sorrow to another,' he wrote. 'Her face has lost flesh greatly since I was last with her.'
That July, yet another conspiracy was revealed when a young Suffolk schoolmaster named Cleobury appeared in Essex impersonating Courtenay and, after journeying through East Anglia inciting rebellion, had the priest at Yaxley in Huntingdonshire proclaim from his churchyard that Queen Mary was dead and that 'the Lady Elizabeth [was] queen and her beloved bedfellow, Lord Edmund Courtenay, king.' This was hardly a serious affair - Cleobury could not even get Courtenay's name right - and it had attracted few supporters. These were quickly rounded up and arrested by local people 'without any commandment'; what the government feared was that Courtenay himself had incited them to rebel, although it soon became clear that they were acting independently. The Council instructed Sir Thomas Pope to acquaint Elizabeth with 'the whole circumstance' so that 'it might appear how far these men had abused Her Grace's name'. Even Mary did not suspect her of colluding with them this time, but Elizabeth was horrified, and on 2 August wrote to her sister:
When I revolve in mind, most noble Queen, the reverent fear of Romans to their Senate, I can but muse for my part, and blush for theirs, to see the rebellious hearts and devilish intents of Christians toward their anointed king. It had been my part, above the rest, to bewail such things, though my name had not been in them, yet much it vexed me that the devil oweth me such a hate as to put mein any part of his mischievous instigations. I would that there were as good surgeons for making anatomies of hearts, that might show my thoughts to Your Majesty, as there are expert physicians of the bodies. For then, I doubt not but know well, that whatsoever other should suggest by malice, yet Your Majesty should be sure by knowledge; so that the more such misty clouds obfuscate the clear light of my truth, the more my tried thoughts should glister to the dimming of their hidden malice.
Cleobury proved to be a Protestant with a criminal record for burglary and confessed that, encouraged by Henry II, a group of English exiles in France had hatched the plot and used him as a figurehead. He was hanged, whilst twelve of his accomplices were imprisoned in the Tower.
Neither Mary nor Elizabeth were well that August. Elizabeth suffered an attack of jaundice accompanied by the intermittent breathlessness that, according to de Noailles, had plagued her 'ever since the time when her sister began to maltreat her'. Mary could not tolerate the heat, and remained secluded in her apartments for most of the time, not even attending Council meetings.
Philip had sent a message to tell Mary to expect him in August, but he did not arrive; it was now a year since she had seen him. Instead of hastening to console his distraught wife, he had left Brussels for fear of the plague and was busy frequenting 'houses of pleasure' in the surrounding countryside.
Courtenay had also left Brussels and travelled to Venice, where he associated with only a select circle of friends. He knew he was watched and did his best to maintain a low profile. Late in August he took a gondola ride to the Isle of Lio in the lagoon, but was stranded there by a storm and had to wait, soaked to the skin and suffering from exposure, until a ship rescued him. Three days later he was reported to be suffering from malaria, although he insisted on travelling to Padua, twenty-five miles away, where there were excellent doctors in the medical faculty of the university. As he left, he fell down the stairs of his lodgings, and consequently found the journey he was forced to make by wagon very uncomfortable indeed.
Mary's ambassador to Venice, Peter Vannes, was in Padua when Courtenay arrived and went at once to greet him, but found him very ill with a high temperature. Vannes summoned two notable doctors, but the patient's condition worsened over the next fortnight. The last offshoot of the Plantagenet family tree died on 18 September 1556.
Vannes immediately suspected poison. Courtenay's death stood to benefit both England and Spain, and there had been several rumours that Spanish assassins had been hired to kill him. The ambassador made every one of the Earl's servants and physicians sign sworn statements that, to the best of their knowledge and belief, he had died from natural causes. It fell also to Vannes to arrange the funeral on his limited resources, and the body was placed in a plain wooden coffin, which was stored in the cloister of St Anthony's Church in Padua. Four years later it was still there, 'having neither epitaph nor any other thing to preserve it from oblivion', but by 1560 a marble monument had been built to house it in the Church of the Eremitani. This church was bombed in 1945 by the Allies, destroying the tomb.
Courtenay's death finally removed the Plantagenet threat to the Tudor throne that had hung over the dynasty since 1485, and when Queen Mary learned of it, she said, 'God has once again shown His justice.' Elizabeth was also relieved, and Philip did not trouble to hide his satisfaction. 'There was more in it of human help than divine,' concluded the French ambassador. Whether he had good cause to say so remains a matter of debate to this day.
Relations between Philip II and the papacy had steadily deteriorated during the past months. The Pope had made strenuous efforts to break the truce between France and Spain, and had adopted a provocative attitude towards Habsburg interests in Italy. Being a dutiful son of the Church, Philip had done his best to avoid an open confrontation, but when Paul made it clear he was going to join Henry II in his war against the Habsburgs - hoping that the French would help him drive them out of Italy - Philip ordered the Duke of Alba to invade the papal states, sack their towns, and hang their garrisons.
England had no part in this quarrel, but Mary was naturally very distressed by it because she felt torn by a conflict of loyalties, not wishing to be on bad terms with either her husband or the Holy See. The Pope took no action against her, but gradually England's relations with Rome became more and more strained, and finally broke down. Cardinal Pole was also much grieved by the rift between Philip and the Pope, and wrote begging the King not to make war on the Vicar of Christ. Since Philip ignored this, on 14 September the Cardinal wrote to the Pope, begging for guidance as to how he should conduct himself during the present crisis. Ominously, there was no reply.
Pole felt it would help if he could discuss the matter with Philip in person, and told Michieli that he was 'beginning to be incredulous' at the King's prolonged absence. He was also very concerned about the Queen's state of mind. That month, whilst staying in the apartments that Pole kept in readiness for her at his palace at Croydon, Mary had one day found them strewn with broadsheets on which was printed the worst kind of subversive propaganda: she was depicted as an ugly old crone suckling Spaniards at her sagging breasts, with the legend 'Maria Ruina Angliae' encircling the picture. She was shocked to see herself portrayed so cruelly, and was driven to write once again to Charles V.
I wish to beg Your Majesty's pardon for my boldness in writing to you at this time, but I implore you to consider the miserable plight into which this country has now fallen. Unless the King comes to remedy matters, not I only but also wiser persons than I fear that great danger will ensue. I am not moved by my personal desire for his presence - although I do unspeakably long to have him here -but by the good of my kingdom.
It is unlikely that Charles ever received her letter. He departed from the Netherlands on 17 September, and travelled to Spain where he would spend his remaining days in comfortable retirement at the monastery of Yuste. His withdrawal from the political scene meant that Mary was deprived of his friendship, protection and advice, which had been freely extended to her for as long as she could remember.
On 19 October, however, Mary was overjoyed to learn that Philip had ordered some members of his household to return to England. To her, this meant only one thing, that he himself would soon be with her. However, that was not his immediate intention. He had decided to divert Henry II's attention away from Italy by invading northern France, and badly needed English support, but he had come to the belated realisation that he had neglected his interests in England for too long. A public relations exercise was called for, and the first objective was to recover the goodwill of the Queen. When the first Spanish grandees began arriving in London, Mary appeared much 'pacified' and was reported to be 'enduring this delay much better than she did'. Yet her health was still poor, and when Cardinal Pole led the court in a great celebration of the Feast of the Reconciliation on 30 November, she was unable to attend.
In October, Mary decided that there was no longer any reason to keep Elizabeth under close surveillance, and informed Sir Thomas Pope that his services were no longer required at Hatfield. At the same time, Katherine Ashley, who had been released from the Fleet Prison, was allowed to rejoin Elizabeth's household.
On 10 October, Badoer reported that, with Courtenay out of the way, Philip was again considering marrying Elizabeth to the Duke of Savoy. Reports of the Queen's ill health had led many people to assume that the princess's accession was a near-certainty, and — since it was unthinkable that she might remain unmarried - Philip was determined to marry her offbeforehand to a Catholic prince who would be loyal to Habsburg interests. As the wife of Savoy, whose inheritance had been seized by the French, she would be unlikely to enter into friendly alliances with Henry II or attempt to restore the Protestant religion in England.
No one consulted Elizabeth on what she felt about the marriage, but she was naturally averse to it. She had little inclination to marry at all, and every intention of dismantling Mary's religious settlement as soon as she became queen.
Late in November, Mary, who was initially in favour of the match, summoned Elizabeth to London to discuss it. The princess arrived in some state, 'riding through Smithfield and Old Bailey, and through Fleet Street unto Somerset Place, with a great company of velvet coats and chains, Her Grace's gentlemen, and after a great company of [200] men', all wearing her livery of red coats slashed with black velvet. Michieli noted 'the infinite pleasure of the entire populace' at the sight of her. There was no official welcome, although Mary received her 'very graciously and familiarly', but when she spoke of her sister marrying Savoy, Elizabeth flady refused to even consider it, and burst into tears. 'The afflictions suffered by me are such that they have ridded me of any desire for a husband,' she declared. 'I would rather die!'
Mary was moved to see her sister so distressed, but she was determined that Elizabeth should accept Savoy, and the interview ended in deadlock. The princess returned to Somerset House, where 'many lords and gentlemen of the court' came during the next few days to pay their respects.
Francois de Noailles had hoped to be among their number, but heard that Elizabeth was so closely surrounded by courtiers and attendants that there would be no chance of a private conversation. What he wanted to ask her was whether she would give her support to a rebellion he hoped to incite on her behalf the following summer with Henry II's blessing. The matter would have to wait, he told his master, 'until God should give me a better opportunity'.
He was surprised, therefore, when the Countess of Sussex, one of Elizabeth's close friends, visited him secretly in disguise on two successive nights, and told him that the princess's household were begging her to escape from an impossible situation by fleeing abroad.
Would it be possible for him to arrange for Elizabeth to cross to France, to seek asylum with King Henry?
De Noailles was dismayed, and advised that the princess should not consider taking such a desperate step, but should remember what was at stake. If she hoped to be queen, she must on no account leave England. The Countess, nevertheless, went to France herself, presumably to make arrangements for Elizabeth's flight, but her absence was noticed and she was questioned by the Council when she returned. Fortunately, she gave the impression that her trip had been entirely for private purposes. Elizabeth, meanwhile, took the ambassador's advice and abandoned her plans for escape.
On 3 December, after seeing Elizabeth again and finding her as adamant as ever that she would not marry Savoy, Mary sent her home, having threatened once more to have her disinherited by Parliament, or even sent to the Tower or put to death. Both, however, knew that neither Parliament nor King Philip would sanction any of these punishments. Mary herself would have preferred disinheriting her sister to contemplating her as her successor, and would spend a great deal of time that autumn searching for precedents for it, but Philip insisted that she persuade Elizabeth to marry Savoy. Mary's own enthusiasm for the match had, however, evaporated, for she knew that, once Elizabeth was married to the Duke, there would be no question of disinheriting her; she would have formally to acknowledge her as her heir, which she had until now avoided doing, having always hoped to find a more suitable alternative.
Back at Hatfield, Elizabeth settled down to as pleasant a life as she could in a house that was subject to unseen surveillance.
That December, Pole learned from his contacts in Rome that the Pope was refusing to deal with any matters concerning England because he believed the Queen was as guilty of offences against the Holy See as her husband, and that both deserved to be excommunicated. Mary was incensed at this and privately made up her mind that England should, after all, join Philip in what she was coming to perceive as a just war. Before long, secret agents were moving between the King and Queen on a daily basis, and by Christmas most of Philip's household had returned to England to await their master's coming. On 22 December the court moved from StJames's Palace to Greenwich for the festivities; at Philip's request, Elizabeth was among the guests, and would remain at court until his return, but Mary now had no room in her heart for jealousy. Instead, she distributed generous gifts of plate to her sister, Pole, Anne of Cleves, and nearly 300 courtiers and servants, and was reported to be joyfully anticipating the reunion with her husband that was now imminent.
There was, however, little other cause for rejoicing. Michieli observed that the kingdom was seething with discontent and that, much to her distress, The Queen witnesseth the daily decline of the affection evinced towards her personally at the commencement of her reign.' The unemployment generated by the enclosure of common land, and three bad harvests in succession, had done little to improve matters, and many of Mary's subjects were now dying of malnutrition and starvation.
The country's finances were in a precarious state, and the fires of persecution were still burning. In London alone in 1557, sixty-four people would be sent to the stake. It was now obvious even to the Queen that her methods of suppressing heresy were not working, though she refused to admit it, and insisted that her officers act more rigorously in punishing offenders. Not only the common people but also the gentry were now blaming the Queen for all the ills that had befallen the kingdom, seeing God's judgement on her sins in famine and economic decline, and many were looking to Elizabeth as their deliverer. When a register of martyrs was printed in London in 1557, each list ended with the rhyme:
When these with violence were burned to death,
We wished for our Elizabeth.
On 11 January, Henry II broke the truce and mounted an offensive on Douai. Mary, hearing of this, summoned her Council and demanded that England go to war with Philip against the French. The councillors were horrified, and gave several reasons why it was not possible. Firstly, the country could not afford a war; secondly, the quarrel did not involve England, therefore why should the kingdom impoverish itself to support the interests of a foreign power? Lastly, and most important of all, England was not bound by treaty to support Philip in his wars. Pole supported the Council, but against Philip's influence both he and they were helpless. Declaring war was Mary's prerogative, and she had already made up her mind to it. De Noailles commented, 'She is on the eve of bankrupting either her own mind or her kingdom.'
On 2 February 1557, Philip sent Ruy Gomez to London to tell Mary that his arrival in England would be dependent on her promising to declare war on the French. Aware that she was being offered an ultimatum, Mary promised to do all she could to persuade the Council that they must agree to this. As for herself, she gave Philip her solemn promise that she would do as he asked, and sent him .£100,000 in token of her good faith. On 21 February, she wrote a final letter to her husband, begging him 'not to be afraid to come'.
At last there came the news she had waited eighteen long months for. Philip had left Brussels on 8 March. He was on his way.