Mary Tudor (22 page)
Meanwhile Scheyfve’s gloomy view of the king’s health had also led him to believe that Northumberland was plotting against Mary’s right to the succession. He could adduce no firm evidence for this – it was what might now be called a ‘gut reaction’ – and he did not connect it with the marriages on 21 May, which suggests that he had no clear idea of what was intended. His views would have been just so much spilled ink if it had not been for the fact that in the first week of June Edward became dramatically worse. Pulmonary tuberculosis is one of those diseases that develops fitfully, with many remissions, and sixteenth-century diagnostics were extremely underdeveloped. Consequently no one had known what to expect. By 11 June a crisis had clearly developed, and Scheyfve’s informant in the privy chamber was able to give him an account of the king’s condition that left little to the imagination.
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This was a deeply unpleasant shock, not only for the wretched boy himself but also for the Duke of Northumberland, all of whose elaborate preparations were now in jeopardy. It was not only possible but likely that the king would die within a matter of weeks, and a decision had to be made. Was Mary to succeed in accordance with statute law and her father’s will – or not? And if not Mary – who?
It used to be believed that the Duke of Northumberland used his Svengali-like influence over the young king to persuade him to name his own daughter-inlaw, Jane Grey, but the actual decision was almost certainly Edward’s own. Not only was he deeply committed to the religious changes over which he had presided, he was also obsessed with the idea of male succession. In spite of the fact that he had no male kindred, his whole ‘Device’ had been designed for the heirs male of the various women by whom he was surrounded – starting with any son who might be born to Henry and Frances Grey. It was at this point that Edward produced his school exercise and instructed his law officers to draw up a will embodying its provisions. However, as it stood it was useless. Frances Grey was not pregnant, and had not conceived for several years. Jane was newly married, but her relations with her husband were so bad that there was no chance that she could be even in the very early stages of pregnancy. Something had to be done immediately, and the wording ‘the heirs male of the Lady Jane’ was altered to read ‘the Lady Jane and her heirs male’.
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This may well have been done by Northumberland, but with the king’s full support and consent. It was the only solution if his Godly Reformation was not to come to an untimely end. Jane was a Protestant with excellent credentials, and Edward liked her. If he had to be succeeded by a woman, better her than any other. Elizabeth was, of course, excluded from any consideration. She was illegitimate, and if the 1544 Act was to be ignored, she had no claim.
And so the great conspiracy that Scheyfve had shadowed for weeks became a reality in the second half of June. Although secrecy was impossible as Edward struggled to give some constitutional force to what was in effect a decision
mere moto suo
, by his will alone, without the consent of Parliament, Mary did not immediately find out what was afoot. She realised by this time that Edward was really committed to his religious settlement, and was half expecting a conditional offer of the throne in return for preserving it. She asked Scheyfve what she should do in those circumstances, and the ambassador dutifully referred back to headquarters for instructions on 19 June. The Emperor’s advice, which never reached Mary, was to accept such an offer if it was made, on the grounds that there were many ways to invalidate an ungodly oath.
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As the month of June drew to an end, both parties were in difficulties. Edward’s condition was now desperate, but his law officers were being obstructive. Not only was parliamentary consent required for the change that he was proposing, but as a minor he was not even capable of making a valid will. As the days ticked by Northumberland became increasingly desperate, even threatening violence against the obstructors. Eventually it was agreed that the only way to proceed was by letters patent, which would have to be retrospectively confirmed. Such letters were drawn up, but they never passed the seals, and thus were never properly validated, and so remained technically invalid. Mary’s problem was that she knew that a plan was in existence to deprive her of her right, but had no details, nor could she know how much force such a dispensation might have. The signals were mixed. Northumberland would back it to the hilt; and so (she supposed) would the Protestant bishops and other committed heretics like the Duke of Suffolk. On the other hand there was plenty of evidence of dissent. Could she do anything to turn that dissent into actual support for her cause?
Although Mary did not know it, she was on her own in this dilemma. On 23 June Charles sent a special mission, ostensibly to commiserate with Edward in his sickness, but really to watch events when he died. He probably did not intend to supersede Scheyfve, but that was the effect, and his instructions to his envoys are illuminating. They were not to intervene, even indirectly, on Mary’s behalf, but were to monitor the situation closely. If Northumberland prevailed (as most observers expected) they were to do business with him. Only if Mary was clearly about to triumph should they declare the Emperor’s support.
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The princess might appeal to them, but they were not to respond unless or until that situation was reached. By 1 July rumours were already circulating that the king was dead. Mary was at Hunsdon, and rightly apprehensive that as soon as the breath was really out of Edward’s body Northumberland would move rapidly to arrest her. She declined an invitation to come and visit her sick brother, and, warned that the end was now finally near, on 6 July moved rapidly from Hunsdon to Kenninghall in Norfolk – the heart of her estates and the stronghold of her body of support. The same day Edward died, but when Northumberland’s men tried to intercept the princess at Sawston in Cambridgeshire, they were already too late.
Edward died on 6 July 1553, and his death was concealed for two days in accordance with normal practice. The council now had to make a critical decision. The king’s last wishes were well known, but he had not succeeded in giving them any legal force. Mary was still the heir by law, but Mary was unmarried, well known to be a creature of the Emperor, and belligerently conservative in her religious views. This last consideration did not make her unpopular – quite the reverse – but it did threaten the overthrow of the Church settlement to which Edward had been so thoroughly committed, and of which many of the council also approved. If it came to a showdown, most of those in the best position to know believed that Jane Grey would prevail. The Duke of Northumberland, easily the most powerful man in the realm, was completely committed to her cause – although whether out of self-interest or loyalty to his late master, nobody knew. Antoine de Noailles, the French ambassador, had spoken to the duke just a few days before Edward died, and been told ‘that they had provided so well against the Lady Mary’s ever attaining the succession, and that all the lords of the council were so well united, that there is no need for you, Sire, to enter into any doubt on this score’.
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Simon Renard, the brains of the Imperial mission, had come to the same conclusion: ‘The actual possession of power,’ he wrote, ‘is a matter of great importance especially among barbarians like the English.’
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Northumberland, he believed, had that power. On 8 July the council proclaimed Jane queen in London, to a less than enthusiastic reception from the largely Protestant citizens. Even a sermon from their bishop pointing out the dangers of an unmarried queen with such strong foreign proclivities failed to stir them to any show of zeal for the married, and undoubtedly Protestant, Jane.
Meanwhile Mary was in Norfolk, on the way to Kenninghall. There at some point, probably on 7 July, ‘she was told of the king’s death by her goldsmith, a citizen of London newly returned from the City’. But Mary, we are told, did not believe the tidings, and would not allow the news to be spread abroad. She clearly did not trust the messenger, and her caution was wise, because if she had proclaimed herself while the breath was still in Edward’s body that would have been high treason.
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The following day, when she had reached her destination, the tidings were confirmed by one John Hughes, a physician. It seems unlikely that he could already have known of the proclamation in London, so she must have had some good reason to trust him better. That same night she consulted her council and household officers, and the next day, the 9th, declared the news to her assembled household, and proclaimed herself queen.
Roused by their mistress’s words, everyone, both the gently born and the humbler servants, cheered her to the rafters and hailed and proclaimed their dearest Princess Mary as Queen of England …
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That was, of course, the easy bit. The same day she wrote to the council in London, demanding their allegiance. The following day the council received her letter and responded, declaring their allegiance to Queen Jane and demanding her submission.
According to Robert Wingfield’s highly partisan account, the country folk of Norfolk and Suffolk ‘every day flocked to their rightful Queen, ready to lay out for her in this worthy cause their wealth, their effort and life itself’.
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In fact what seems to have happened was that her East Anglian ‘affinity’ was extremely well prepared. Men like Sir Henry Bedingfield and Sir John Shelton did not command large followings, but when the call came their men were armed and ready to ride. Within a few days Mary had a force at her disposal, not large or led by experienced soldiers, but fully equipped and well supplied. At the same time proclamations were sent out far and wide, announcing her accession and demanding recognition. These documents could not have been prepared overnight; they had clearly been many days, or even weeks, in the penning. Wingfield’s tale of spontaneous enthusiasm is persuasive but untrue. Mary had been planning for this eventuality for some time, probably since she had first learned of the plot against her, and her supporters had been preparing.
By contrast, in spite of his bold words to the French ambassador, Northumberland was markedly ill equipped. It seems that he seriously underestimated his opponent, because when it was first known that Mary had left Hunsdon and was heading east, he gave it out that she was in flight to the coast to do what she had sought to do before – take refuge with the Emperor.
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Moreover, Northumberland was much less powerful than he appeared. His own men were comparatively few. The bulk of the forces over which he appeared to have command owed their primary allegiance either to the crown or to one or other of his colleagues of the privy council. In the circumstances the household troops were not to be relied upon, and the trustworthiness of most of the others depended upon the council remaining united.
The council’s reaction at first conveyed no great sense of urgency. The lord mayor and the aldermen of London were sworn to Queen Jane, and letters were sent out to sheriffs and justices of the peace, announcing her accession and ordering them to suppress any ‘stirs or disorders’, very much the sort of letter that would have been sent out at the beginning of any new reign.
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The first reaction of most local authorities, even within East Anglia, was to do as they were told, and several borough records have entries of Jane’s accession, hastily erased a few days later. The council knew by the 10th that Mary was posing a challenge, but were inclined to dismiss it as insignificant. Lord Robert Dudley, Northumberland’s son, was based in Norfolk and could, it was felt, contain the situation there. Meanwhile, on the same day, Jane was brought through London and installed in the royal apartments at the Tower. Her passage, like her proclamation two days earlier, was received with a mixture of indifference and hostile demonstrations.
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In retrospect this looks ominous, but it need not have mattered. There was no resistance, and no powerful nobleman had as yet rejected her.
However, the council’s complacency was misplaced. Henry Radcliffe, one of the sons of the Earl of Sussex, was persuaded (or forced) into Mary’s camp, and his father was quickly making overtures in the same direction. ‘Now that fortune was beginning to smile on sacred Mary’s righteous undertaking’, wrote Robert Wingfield, other gentlemen flocked to join her – John Huddleston, Sir Richard Southwell, Sir John Mordaunt, ‘amply provided with money, provisions and armed men’.
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Lord Robert Dudley was simply swept aside, even some of his own men declining to follow him. By 13 July it was clear that a military expedition of some power would be needed to deal with Mary’s growing band – and the sooner the better, because as yet she had no captain of skill or experience to lead her forces if it should come to action, certainly no one who could match Northumberland as a soldier. Unfortunately the duke was now required in two places at once. He needed to remain in London to make sure that his colleagues stayed in line, and he needed to be in Norfolk to confront Mary. Having failed to persuade the Duke of Suffolk to undertake the East Anglian mission, he decided that there was no option but to go himself, and set off from London on 14 July with about 1,500 men and a small artillery train.
