Bloody Mary (34 page)

Dudley’s principal associates were William Parr, marquis of Northampton and Henry Grey, marquis of Dorset. Northampton, an undistinguished courtier and mediocre military commander, was currently trying to live down a scandal; he had married a second time before the complications arising from his first marriage had been resolved. Dorset, whom Van der Delft called “a senseless creature,” was a relentless if unskilled intriguer who had been heavily implicated in Thomas Seymour’s escapades and was now trying to advance by attaching himself to Dudley. The earl in turn cultivated Dorset for his exalted family connections. Grey had married Frances Brandon, daughter of Charles Brandon and Mary Tudor. His three daughters were cousins to the king, and stood next to Mary and Elizabeth in the succession. Thomas Seymour had promised Dorset he would arrange a marriage between the eldest of them, Jane Grey, and the king, but failed in his plan. Now the royal heiresses were being brought within the circle of Dudley’s influence—an alteration that was to prove fateful for Mary.

To make Dudley’s supremacy in the Council complete Somerset was also added to his clique. The former Protector was now released from the Tower and allowed to live in his own house in London. He had signed the articles brought against him, admitting malfeasance and mismanagement of his office, and it was unlikely he would pose any political threat to Dudley, but just to make certain the earl set about to bind Somerset to him by a marriage alliance between the two families. In June, Dudley’s eldest son married Somerset’s daughter Anne; two months before the ceremony Somerset was restored to membership in the Council.

Dudley’s primacy in the government was unobtrusive, but unmistakable. He was rarely seen in public, preferring to stay in his house and avoid the streets and crowds of the capital. Sometimes he claimed to be ill—Van der Delft thought this was only a pretense—but it was noticed that even at these times the Council members went to his house every day
without fail to “learn his pleasure.” “[Dudley] is absolute master here,” the ambassador wrote categorically to the emperor. “Nothing is done except by his command.”
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Meanwhile the king and his courtiers were kept amused by a revival of the martial sports Dudley was known to favor. In January of 1550 a tournament was held with the grotesque theme “that love shall be hanged.” At one end of the tiltyard a scaffold was erected, and a gallows. On a ladder leading to the gallows stood a richly dressed woman representing Love, whose fate was to be decided by the outcome of the fighting between the contestants at the barriers. When one of the challengers was successful she advanced one step nearer the hangman; when a defender was victorious she stood down a step. The young gentlemen of the court defended Love valiantly against the challengers, three Italians led by one “Captain Julian”; presumably Love was saved.
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The early months of Dudley’s rule were notable for the increasing division of political influence along confessional lines. “The most dangerous crime a man can commit is to be a good Catholic and live a righteous life,” Van der Delft commented. “People do not make inquiry of a man’s name, but merely ask whether he belongs to the new or the old religion, and he gets treated according to his faith.”
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Mary’s household reflected this religious polarization. Service to Mary became a mark of piety among the Catholic nobility. “Her servants are all well-to-do people, and some of them men of means and noblemen too,” Van der Delft explained in one dispatch. They boasted of their connection with her, and competed for places even in the lower ranks of her staff. Membership in Mary’s household assured them of being able to practice their faith, and to hear her chaplains say mass. She had as many as six chaplains at any one time, among them doctors of theology and “men of irreproachable conduct.” Noblemen looking for situations for their daughters urged Mary to give them places among her maids of honor. Jane Dormer, who came into Mary’s household during Edward’s reign, told how “in those days the house of this princess was the only harbor for honorable young gentlewomen, given any way to piety and devotion. It was the true school of virtuous demeanor, befitting the education that ought to be in noble damsels.”
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Jane Dormer’s description implies a prim and sanctimonious atmosphere that was foreign to Mary, but there can be little doubt that, with no queen at court and only the unsettled rivalries of the Council members and their wives to set the tone in the royal residence, Mary’s establishment must have appeared to be an oasis of seemliness. She liked order and expected it of those who served her, and she was a diligent mistress who checked up on her officials and looked over their records herself. What impressed visitors most, though, were the religious services, performed regularly and often, and attended by the entire household. As
the physical destruction of the symbols and monuments of the old faith continued Mary’s vigorous displays of fidelity to the mass were keeping the hopes of English Catholics alive.

After Dudley had been in power for a few months the emperor instructed his ambassador to reopen the matter of arranging a marriage for Mary. As a preliminary he wrote to the old ambassador Chapuys, now an invalid taking the waters at a spa far from the imperial court. Charles asked his former ambassador to recall all that he could about the marriage negotiations in which he had been involved during the previous reign, and to speculate on the probable attitude of the present Council toward new proposals. In his reply Chapuys was dubious about the possibility of convincing Dudley and his colleagues to agree to any proposed marriage. The same obstacles that had hampered negotiations in Henry’s reign—the need for the bridegroom to swear to the invalidity of Henry’s marriage to Katherine of Aragon, the question of Katherine’s dowry, the issue of whether or not Mary would be allowed to leave England—were still present, and the worrisome condition of England’s relations with the continental powers created further complications.

England and France were still at war, though there had been no actual hostilities since the Protector’s fall. For their part the French were sowing distrust between England and the empire by insisting that, before long, Charles would invade England and depose Edward, setting Mary on the throne and—a new element in the scenario—marrying her to his son Philip.
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For these reasons Dudley and the others were “prey to an infinitely greater amount of fear and suspicion” than Henry had been, and would be much more reluctant to make any match for the heir to the throne. At the end of his letter Chapuys added a personal note. Nothing would please Mary more, he felt sure, than a revival of the marriage negotiations. She “has no other desire or hope than to be bestowed at the hands of your majesty,” he assured the emperor, urging him to reopen the matter for her sake. That Chapuys believed Mary to be eager for marriage is of great significance. She claimed more than once during the 1540s that she preferred not to marry, but the ex-ambassador’s statement to the contrary supports the view that her expressions of disinterest were only a matter of form. Chapuys knew Mary as well as anyone ever had; if he thought marriage was among her fondest hopes, his opinion must be givena great deal of weight.
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The subject had come up in a Council meeting as early as October, but when in response to the emperor’s instructions Van der Delft formally reopened negotiations for the Portuguese match in the spring, he met with an odd response. The intended bridegroom was Dom Luiz, brother of the king of Portugal and a longtime suitor for Mary’s hand. To the ambassador’s amazement the Council members now professed not
to know whether Dom Luiz or his nephew, Dom Juan, was to be considered. They hemmed and hawed over the problem, excusing their ignorance by saying that all the pertinent information had been given to Somerset while he was Protector, and not to any others in the government. Then, laying aside the pretense of confusion, they announced that in any case only Dom Juan would be an acceptable husband for Mary. Dom Luiz, despite his high rank, lacked sufficient lands or territories to support “so great a lady” as Mary and to provide for their children.

“We should be quite ready to pursue the matter if it were a question of the son and not the brother,” they all said at once. But Dom Luiz was definitely not suitable.

Van der Delft looked pained, then affronted. “My lords,” he said to the Council, “see how misguided you are; for in the whole of Christendom there is no match so suitable and well balanced as this one, and my Lord the Infante of Portugal is by no means so ill-provided with lands as you suppose.”
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Dudley was probably not present during this exchange, though the feigned confusion over the identity of the suitor was his idea. Not long afterward Van der Delft came before the Council once again, to ask once more for letters of assurance promising Mary free exercise of her religion, and this time he encountered such vocal and undiplomatic opposition from Northampton that even his colleagues were alarmed. As usual the granting of written assurances was denied, and the issue of Mary’s highly public worship was raised. The Council took the position that she had only been given permission to hear mass in her chamber, with two or three of her serving women. When the ambassador protested that Somerset had explicitly extended the permission to cover her entire household the marquis broke in irritably. “I have never heard anything said except that she alone might be privileged to do so,” he snapped, “but with two or three of her women.” Furthermore it was stressed that even this permission was only a temporary act of leniency, granted because of Mary’s ignorance and incapacity, that might be withdrawn at any time, especially if she continued to cause scandal by allowing her entire household to be present whenever mass was said. The term the Council members used to define Mary’s condition was imbecility—the same word her father had used about her long ago. “To succour her imbecility,” they would continue to permit the mass until she learned more about the Protestant usages and could be persuaded to adopt them. When Van der Delft quietly observed that Mary could never be brought to “burden her conscience by forsaking the ancient religion,” Northampton interrupted him again.

“You talk a great deal about the Lady Mary’s conscience,” he burst out. “You should consider that the king’s conscience would receive a stain if he allowed her to live in error.” He went on in the same vein,
growing more heated and turning the discussion into a monologue on the worthlessness of Catholicism. He finally became so angry that the others had to calm him, bringing the meeting back to its starting point and reiterating their flat refusal of the letters of assurance.
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There could be no mistaking the import of this exchange. Parr’s outbursts had been meant to convey Dudley’s impatience with Mary, and Van der Delft understood very clearly the menace behind them. The tightening of restrictions around Mary’s religious privilege was ominous; most likely it meant that before long she would be deprived of even her private mass. When the ambassador went to see Mary at the end of April he found her almost in despair. She had heard “through some good friends” that her household staff was in future to be excluded from all Catholic services held under her roof. Soon she would be ordered to conform to the Act of Uniformity. She would refuse, of course, and then a dread and quite probably fatal stalemate would ensue.

“When they send me orders forbidding me the mass,” she told Van der Delft, “I shall expect to suffer as I suffered once during my father’s lifetime. They will order me to withdraw thirty miles from any navigable river or seaport, and will deprive me of my confidential servants, and having reduced me to the utmost destitution, they will deal with me as they please.”
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Whether she realized it or not Mary was describing not only the torments of her own bitter adolescence but the isolation, semi-imprisonment and hopeless suffering her mother had endured when she too opposed the law in the matter of her divorce. Like Katherine, Mary now swore to remain faithful to the path she had chosen. Nothing could induce her to give up the mass. “I will rather suffer death than stain my conscience,” she said with the simple, unwavering firmness she had heard in her mother’s voice long ago. “I beg you to help me with your advice, so that I may not be taken unawares.”

And in grene waves when the salt flood

Doth rife, by rage of winde:

A thousand fansies in that mood

Assayle my restlesse mind.

In the last days of June 1550 a small fleet of Flemish ships crossed the Channel in foul weather. There were four large warships and four smaller vessels, under the command of Cornille Scepperus, admiral of the imperial fleet, and his vice admiral Van Meeckeren, and as they made their way through the heavy seas the lookouts kept a close watch for English and French ships. On Sunday the twenty-ninth they came within sight of the Kentish headlands, and turned northward past the Thames mouth and up along the Essex coast. As evening fell the fog closed in, so dense the sailors could not see from bow to stern, and the captains spent an anxious night worrying that they might run aground on a sandbank or that when the fog lifted they might find themselves to be miles away from the main body of the fleet. But in the morning all eight ships were still together, and that day they sailed farther up the coast to the vicinity of the Blackwater, where they were to wait to convey Mary back across the Channel to safety in Flanders.

It was a bad season for the venture. With the approach of summer fears of rebellion rose. Landowners in every county fortified their country houses and pledged to keep ready a contingent of armed men in case of trouble, and the local constabularies were in a near-constant state of alert. The grievances that had compelled revolt eleven months earlier had grown sharper. Prices and rents were higher, and landlords in many places were exacting rents on fields that had not been plowed the previous year because of the disturbances. None but the gentry were allowed to keep weapons, and the cottages and barns of the villagers were
searched frequently for hidden arms. These measures only increased the undercurrent of resentment, and in the north and west the peasants were boasting they would rise again. Only three weeks before the arrival of the Flemish ships an incident over the capture of several highwaymen led to rioting in Kent. Ten thousand peasants assembled at Sittingbourne, setting off a wave of reaction that swept through the southeast. Officials were sent off to “scour the country” for rebels, and arrested and punished anyone making the slightest sign of opposition. One man who “began to murmur and make certain speeches” was taken and sentenced to have his ears cut off. A force of a thousand mounted men was sent into Kent to keep the peace, and another four thousand were kept in readiness on the island of Sheppey opposite the coast.

All through the spring and summer foot soldiers were being levied by the thousands. Some said they were being sent to guard Calais, others that they were to be used against the rebels at home. The new imperial ambassador Scheyfve wrote to the emperor that a force of eight thousand men was being equipped and trained to serve on twelve warships to guard the coastal waters against invasion. “All gentlemen, noblemen and merchants are said to entertain a great fear that your Majesty may declare war because of religion,” he explained, “and for other causes too.”
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The roads and lanes of Essex were full of marching men that June, and a diffuse threat of war hung over the little port of Maldon, near Mary’s manor of Woodham Walter, where she was to go on board the cornboat that would take her out to the Flemish fleet.

Mary had been thinking of escape for months. She knew she would come under increasing persecution from Dudley and the Council, and that when their patience ran out she would be imprisoned and possibly executed. They would not hesitate to shed her blood out of respect for her rank, fear of her cousin the emperor, or from any ethical scruple. “It is evident to all,” Mary told Van der Delft, that the Council members “fear no God and respect no persons, but follow their own fancy.” It was also evident that they would act soon. By late April Mary had resolved not to “delay till she was past all help,” but to save herself as best she could. She made her plans to get out of her house, past the guards and the local watch, out to a small boat that would carry her to deep water where she hoped a ship of the emperor’s navy would be waiting for her.

She told the ambassador her plan, and convinced him she was in earnest. Acting on the emperor’s orders he tried one last time to dissuade her, reminding her that, if Edward should happen to die while she was out of the kingdom, she would have a slim chance of defending her right to the throne. But she had already thought through that possibility many times, and had come to the conclusion that she would never be allowed to succeed. “There is nobody about the king’s person or in the government
who is not inimical to me. They would be so afraid of me that before the people heard how it had pleased God to deal with the king, they would kill me by some means or other.” Van der Delft came away believing Mary meant to do as she said. “She is quite determined not to wait here till the blow falls, for any consideration whatever,” he wrote to the emperor, adding that she had already taken the first step by moving to Woodham Walter, a house only two miles from the port of Maldon and best situated of all her residences for reaching the coast without detection.
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It was at first arranged that Mary’s escape would be coordinated with a change of ambassadors. Van der Delft had been in England nearly six years, and had long since begun to suffer from the time-honored complaints of the ambassadorial service: gout and bankruptcy. His recall would not cause suspicion, and once he had formally taken his leave he could divert his ship to the waters off Maldon for long enough to meet the boat bringing Mary out of the harbor. His replacement, the Dutch merchant Jehan Scheyfve, was to be kept in ignorance of the plan, both for his own protection and to ensure that no hint of it would leak out.

By mid-May the change of ambassadors had been arranged. Scheyfve arrived; on May 30 Van der Delft officially took his leave. But from here on problems arose. The man Mary had counted on to take her in his boat from Maldon harbor out to sea—a “trusted friend” of her controller Robert Rochester—changed his mind at the last minute, and when Van der Delft came to see Mary to finalize the arrangements no one had been found to take his place. At the same time, all the towns and villages near the coast were put in an increased state of alert. Householders were told to watch the back roads and lanes by night, and not to allow anyone to pass without an urgent errand. “There were no roads or crossroads, no harbors or creeks, nor any passage or outlet that was not most carefully watched during the whole night,” Van der Delft wrote.
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It was obvious Mary could not get away unless she traveled on foot, heavily disguised, and with only one or at most two others with her. She was willing to do this, and begged him at their last interview to send any boat he could find, even a fishing boat, to rescue her. He left, promising to return for her himself as soon as he could. He meant to keep his promise, but once in Flanders he succumbed to gout and age, and lapsed into fatal illness. He died raving about the plans he was making to save the princess of England.

With the death of the ambassador it was left to his secretary, Jehan Dubois, and the regent of Flanders to engineer Mary’s escape. The emperor had set off earlier in the month on a journey through his German lands, and could not take charge of the arrangements, but he wrote to his sister indicating approval of the scheme she and Dubois worked out. It
called for Scepperus and Van Meeckeren to sail to England and to cruise the coastline as if looking for pirates, while Dubois would take a ship with a light draught up the Blackwater to Maldon. He would pose as a merchant selling grain to Mary’s household; while his boat was being unloaded Mary would be smuggled aboard. By the time her absence was discovered she would be on one of Scepperus’ ships and on her way to Brussels.

On the morning of July I the eight ships disposed themselves according to plan.
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The four warships under Van Meeckeren rode at anchor off Harwich, while the four smaller ships went in toward the coastline, between the sandbanks and the shore, ostensibly to seek out the coves and inlets that sheltered pirate ships. Scepperus was in one of these smaller ships, and Dubois preceded him in a lighter oared boat of the kind used by grain merchants. At midafternoon they were in the tidal estuary opposite Stansgate. There Scepperus remained, while Dubois went the rest of the way to Maldon, sending his brother-in-law Peter Merchant on ahead in a smaller boat to pass the word that the rescue ship was on its way.

Dubois arrived in Maldon harbor before dawn on the morning of the second, and sat down to write to Mary’s controller to say that everything was ready for her flight. Before he finished the letter, Merchant and a servant of Mary’s called Henry came on board, and it was apparent at once that they had met with a delay. Dubois was expecting Mary herself; now he found that she was not prepared to leave after all. He made his note to the controller as urgent as possible. “I am obliged to write now to point out to you that there is danger in delay,” the note read. He explained that there were four ships in the coastal waters and four others just off shore waiting to escort Mary across the Channel. To reach them undetected would be risky unless they sailed with the next tide. As he wrote the tide was at its highest; it would be lower each successive night, making navigation of the Blackwater increasingly difficult. “I must add that I see no better opportunity than the present one,” he added, “and this undertaking is passing through so many hands that it is daily becoming more difficult, and I fear it may not remain secret.”

Henry took this message to Rochester, and returned just at dawn to say that the controller wanted to meet with Dubois. At first the secretary was reluctant; the longer he stayed the greater the danger of discovery, and any meeting with Rochester would be certain to arouse suspicion. He ran a grave risk of being taken and executed as a spy, and the slightest indiscretion by the controller or one of his sailors could give him away. He finally agreed to meet Rochester in the graveyard of St. Mary’s church, an out of the way location not far from Woodham Walter, and once there he and the controller went on to the house of a villager Dubois
called Schurts. There in the privacy of Schurts’ garden they talked, the Fleming nervously and somewhat irritably, the controller in a tone full of dark insinuations.

Rochester was evidently opposed to the escape. In the first place, he said, Mary could not possibly get past the watchmen posted every night at every passage leading to the waterside. Secondly he hinted strongly that there were spies in her household who would get word to their contacts the instant they saw her leave the house. Her household, he said, was “not so free of enemies to her religion as she imagined,” and besides these specific dangers the countryside was up in arms, and the watchmen were doubly suspicious of anyone they found on the roads late at night. Besides, he said, Mary was not in imminent danger; the Council was not likely to deprive her of her mass until later in the year, and if necessary another escape plan could be devised and carried out then.

By now Dubois was confused. He had come to England in response to Mary’s insistent pleas for help. He recalled how she had spoken to Van der Delft at their last meeting, where both Dubois and Rochester had been present. She had been fully aware of the dangers then—of the persecution, harassment of her servants, and probable imprisonment she faced if she stayed, and the risk of capture and possible forfeiture of her right to the throne if she left. After these points had been discussed several times over, she laid the logic of the situation aside and spoke from her heart.

“I am like a little ignorant girl, and I care neither for my goods nor for the world, but only for God’s service and my conscience.” Mary knew herself well; she saw that beyond her capacity for shrewdness and discernment she was impelled by simple fidelity to the religious ideal that had now become central to her personality. She regretted leaving those who served her, realizing that in her absence they might “become lost sheep, and even follow these new opinions.” For their sake she would willingly stay, as long as she was left in peace by the Council. But Dudley and the others were unpredictable, arbitrary—even cruel. “If there is peril in going and peril in staying,” she concluded, “I must choose the lesser of two evils.” The morning after this conversation Van der Delft had sent Dubois to Mary one last time, to see whether she was still anxious to go. She assured him she was. And to put the issue beyond all doubt Mary had sent Dubois a letter a few days afterward, saying she was eagerly waiting to hear that the rescue boat was on its way.
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Recalling these events of only four weeks before Dubois could hardly believe that Mary would hesitate to leave now, and suspected that the controller was attempting to prevent her from going for reasons of his own. Rochester sensed his distrust.

“Sir, I beg you do not judge me thus,” he said, “for I would give my
hand to see my Lady out of the country and in safety, and I was the first man to suggest it. And if you understand me, what I say is not that my Lady does not wish to go, but that she wishes to go if she can.”