Mary Tudor (40 page)

For the sharpness of her political perceptions, on the other hand, there is less supporting evidence, because her judgement was so often derailed by her conscience – a matter upon which Soranzo did not see fit to comment. The stubbornness which we know from earlier episodes and other evidence was one of her defining characteristics, and Soranzo glossed it as courage in 1557. She would never ‘display or commit any act of cowardice or pusillanimity’, showing thereby a ‘wonderful grandeur and dignity’ becoming a princess of such a noble house. He then went on to expatiate upon the magnificent determination with which she had defended the true faith against the machinations of her brother’s councillors.

A lot of this is fairly predictable, but the ambassador also writes of her more humdrum qualities, and in so doing gives some insight into her daily routine and habits at this time. She was expert, he noted, in ‘woman’s work’ – that is embroidery and needlework of every kind. She was an accomplished musician, playing expertly upon the clavichord and the lute to a level that astonished professional musicians, although, he notes, ‘now she plays rarely’. In some respects she was ‘much like other women’, being sudden and passionate. She was also mean over small things – a vice not altogether becoming in a bounteous queen – which may have reflected some dissatisfaction with his own parting gift, although he nowhere hints at that.

Above all, according to Soranzo, Mary was exceptionally pious. Few women in the world, royal or otherwise, were more assiduous in their prayers than she was, ‘never choosing to suspend them for any impediment whatsoever’. She regularly kept the canonical hours with her chaplains, either in a public church, or in her chapel or closet, and meticulously observed all the feasts and fasts of the Church, ‘precisely like a nun and a religious’ (
apunto come una monaca et una religiosa
).

Soranzo clearly intended to be thorough, so what he does not say is as significant as what he does. Nowhere does he commend her love of learning, or suggest that she patronised either artists or scholars – let alone scientists, as her father had done. Indeed her difficulties with reading may well have curtailed any tendencies that she had in that direction. Nor does he say anything about her application to business, which had been elaborated upon by earlier commentators. Soranzo had been in England for some time, so his observations did not only describe the Mary of early 1557, and it may well be that he was taking her industriousness for granted. On the other hand perhaps, as with her music, she was applying herself less rigorously. If that was the case, it was not because she was indulging in dancing or revelry. Neither aspect of court life merits a mention in the Venetian report, and that is probably because they were not considered noteworthy – even while Philip was present. Making due allowance for the conventions within which he was operating, Soranzo’s portrait of the mature queen is that of a very sober, very pious woman, of masculine intelligence but faded beauty, who no longer allowed herself the smallest indulgence, even in the music that she had once embraced so wholeheartedly.

In her younger days Mary had gambled enthusiastically, wagering money, horses and even meals on bowling, the turn of a card or the fall of a dice.
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This continued after her accession, and there are several references to ‘passdice’, but by 1557 such frivolities seem to have been put behind her. Not only does Soranzo not mention them, but there is no other evidence to suggest that the habit continued. There was, of course, plenty of gambling going on within the court, but either Mary was unaware of it, or turned a blind eye. Bored courtiers had to do something while they waited on her pleasure, and presumably it was better (and safer) than flirting. Mary had once been a keen hunter, and had flown her hawks with enthusiasm as a girl. Now the kennels and the toils were dutifully maintained, but no one pretended that the queen was very interested. She accompanied Philip on the first occasion when he went after the great buck in June 1557, but the second (and successful) expedition he made on his own.

Nowadays we would describe Mary during the last two years of her life as stressed and tense, unable (seemingly) to relax, or to enjoy those modest pleasures in which she had once been seen to indulge. Yet there was a softer side to her. She did not pray or ply her needle alone, and the women who were close to her and shared her waking hours (when she was not closeted with councillors or ambassadors) became deeply attached to her. Jane the Fool still haunted the presence chamber like an amiable ghost, still presumably plying her trade (whatever exactly that may have been) and still receiving medication for her periodic ailments.
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Mary may have been depressive, or perhaps her health was declining long before anyone thought fit to comment upon it, but there is a distinct lack of animation about her after Philip’s second departure. She seems to have suffered from periodic fits of bitterness, and it was commented that separation was doubly grievous to ‘a woman naturally tender’ – not a description that we can recognise from Soranzo, but probably just as close to the truth. This bitterness is particularly apparent in her hostile relations with Elizabeth, whom she claimed was not only a dissembler and a heretic (which she was), but also the ‘illegitimate child of a criminal’.
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Her own childlessness may well have been the affliction that preyed most on Mary’s mind, because this most pious of queens was singularly short on cheerful resignation, but her calculated antagonism to her sister did nothing to alleviate the situation.

Shortly after Mary’s death, the chief gentleman of her privy chamber, John Norris, drew up a memorandum for the guidance of his successor.
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Norris had been described by Edward Underhill as a ’great papist’, and he withdrew into private life on Elizabeth’s accession, but his guidelines offer a valuable insight into the workings of the privy chamber over which he had presided. Norris might be described as a ‘master of ceremonies’. He even claimed to have had full control over the celebrations at the time of Mary’s wedding, a claim that the lord chamberlain would surely have challenged – if he had ever found out about it. Most of Norris’s document records the protocol that had been observed in Henry VIII’s time at the various festal days of the Church. For example:

Also it is to be knowen that the king offrith one Christenmas daie xxs; that is to saie on noble to be hadd out of the comptinghouse and to be delyvred by the treasorer of householde and two nobles to be delyveryd from the treasorer of the kinges chamber for the tyme being …
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There is no certainty that Mary followed these elaborate routines, but given the general conservativism of the court it is very probable that she did. Also, if these practices had been superseded, Norris would surely have mentioned it, since his intention was to provide guidance for the future.

In spite of its importance, Norris’s position had one major drawback from our point of view – he had no access to the inner sanctum, which was female territory. When the queen retreated to her bedchamber, no man could go beyond the door. To the privy chamber itself, a total of nine men had access: three gentlemen, three gentlemen ushers (who included Norris) and three grooms. No other man could even go so far unless specifically summoned, so that no councillor (not even Reginald Pole) could intrude upon the queen’s presence uninvited. Consequently, although we have some patchy evidence of the conduct of ordinary business, we have absolutely no idea of what happened ‘beyond the door’. It seems likely that Mary used these privy chamber gentlemen as a protection when she was in low spirits. There is some evidence for that in the aftermath of her first false pregnancy, and rather more in the spring of 1558, when she was recovering from the second (see below).

Henry VII had followed earlier custom in that he dined in the great hall on formal occasions, when the whole court would have been in attendance. At other times he ate in the great chamber, where his principal officers ‘kept their tables’ and only the chamber servants had access.
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His son virtually abandoned the great hall, keeping his ‘Board of State’ in the great chamber, and other meals in the privy chamber – a practice that Edward VI seems to have maintained. In the latter part of her reign Mary seems to have retreated entirely. According to Norris:

There (the Privy Chamber) her meal was set and one of the ordinary servants without did go for it when he was commanded by a gentleman usher and brought it to the door and there the ladies and gentlemen did fetch it …
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Presumably the privy chamber gentlemen waited at table, but there is no suggestion that anyone other than the occasional invited guest would have shared the queen’s meal. Not even the privy chamber servants dined ‘within’, unless they were on duty. The rest of the privy chamber dined ‘with mistress Clarencius in her Chamber’, or in another chamber set aside for the purpose. Susan Clarencius regularly received two ‘messes’, which would have fed about a dozen people, and the off-duty grooms another mess between them. There is no suggestion that ‘bouge of court’ (the right to be fed at the monarch’s expense) was much reduced by these measures, so presumably the head officers continued to keep their tables in the great chamber, and the ordinary servants ate either in the hall, or, more likely, took their rations to their own quarters.
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Meals as public spectacles, or as ‘bonding sessions’ between the monarch and the court, were not on the agenda by this time.

It is possible that this regime was intended as an economy measure, because the meals consumed in the privy chamber would have come from the queen’s kitchen and been of superior quality to those produced from the great kitchen. There was considerable competition to be fed from the queen’s kitchen, and if the monarch was dining in public in the great chamber, then the whole lot was upgraded. With Mary ‘in retreat’ only the privy chamber would have been so privileged. It is perhaps relevant that the household expenditure for 1557–8 was no more than £36,208, which was the lowest for over a decade, and lower than Elizabeth ever achieved.
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By this time, Mary seems to have had no expensive tastes; even her extravagant and rather indiscriminate dress sense is no longer commented upon. As became a sober matron, she had no flamboyant favourites, clamouring for expensive rewards. Those who did particularly well out of her regime, like Sir Thomas Cornwallis or the Earl of Northumberland, did so for clearly identified political or administrative reasons.
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Apart from the opening of Parliament, the only royal event recorded by Henry Machyn in the first half of 1558 was Mary’s removal from Whitehall to Greenwich on 10 March ‘for to keep Easter’.

Shortly afterwards, Mary made her will. There appears to have been no particular crisis in her health at this point, but the occasion was her second phantom pregnancy. She began her will thus: ‘Thinking myself to be with child in lawful marriage’, and proceeded to set her affairs in order.
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Since Philip had left early in July 1557, she should have been nearing her due date by the end of March, and her condition should have been obvious to all. Mysteriously, no commentator says anything about it. During her first phantom pregnancy early in 1555 everyone had remarked upon her changing body shape, her physicians’ opinions were regularly quoted, and there was a general air of expectancy throughout Europe. Elaborate preparations had been made, nursery staff appointed, and proclamations drafted announcing the happy event. This time there was nothing.

The conclusion must be that it was all happening in Mary’s own mind. She had confided her hope to Philip as early as January, explaining the long delay by saying that, after her earlier disappointment, this time she wanted to be quite sure.
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He had responded with suitable congratulations, but the fact is that he seems not to have believed her – which is hardly surprising. He may have last slept with her on the eve of his departure, but perhaps had his own reasons for knowing that the condition was a fiction. The news leaked out, but caused hardly a ripple of interest. The Cardinal of Lorraine could not keep a straight face, observing that this time they would not have so long to wait, as it had been more than six months since her husband had left her.
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She must, presumably, have confided in her own ladies, but they kept their counsel, and in fact her conviction probably worried them a good deal. Equally worrying to her councillors, if they were aware of her will, would have been the fact that, amid all the detailed provisions for interment, pious statements and a long list of specific bequests, there was no provision for the succession, save in the requirement that ‘the issue of my body that shall succeed me in the Imperial Crowne of this Realm’ should be no impediment to the execution of her will.
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Against such invincible optimism, or self-deception, there was for the time being no remedy.

By May it was clear – even to Mary – that nothing was going to happen. Unsurprisingly, she was noted to be weak and melancholy, but how far this affected her participation in the government is uncertain. The conduct of the war (in so far as there was any) was in the hands of her council, and although there is no shortage of formal documents issued in her name, there is no clear evidence that she did anything other than give her consent. Signet letters continued to be issued on a variety of subjects, but the surviving copies do not bear her signature.
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By the end of July the person most likely to comment, the Count of Feria, had returned to Philip, being replaced by the anonymous Alonso de Cordoba. This represented a downgrading of the mission, and presumably indicates that Philip saw no immediate crisis upon the horizon. It was to be another three months before it became clear that he had been too complacent.