Mary Tudor (40 page)

Meanwhile, Charles wrote to his son, Philip, that he was “glad to see our cousin in the place that is hers by right, to strengthen her position and to aid the restoration of Catholicism.” He told him he was contemplating marrying the English queen himself, as he had some thirty years before: “I am sure that if the English made up their minds to accept a foreigner they would more readily accept me than any other, for they have always shown a liking for me.” But ill and aged, Charles had no real intention of marrying Mary. As his letter continued, he wondered whether Philip might be a better choice. He asked his son “to consider it privately and keep the matter a close secret.”
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A month later, Philip, who had been in negotiations for a possible match with the Infanta Maria of Portugal, finally responded to his father’s letter: “All I have to say about the English affair is that I am rejoiced to hear that my aunt has come to the throne … as well as out of natural feeling as because of the advantages mentioned by your Majesty where France and the Low Countries are concerned.” He continued, “As your Majesty feels as you say about the match for me, you know that I am so obedient a son that I have no will other than yours, especially in a matter of such high import.”
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Awaiting further instructions from Brussels as to the advancing of Philip’s suit, Renard questioned Mary about Edward Courtenay and the “common rumour” that she was to marry him. Mary was adamant that she “knew no one in England with whom she would wish to ally herself” and asked whether the emperor had yet selected “a suitable person.” Renard responded that it would be much easier for the
emperor to advise if “she could inform him of her inclinations.” Mary had expressed her desire for someone “middle aged”; Renard had mentioned several Catholic princes, but she had responded that she “was old enough to be their mother.”
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On October 10, Renard knelt before Mary and formally offered the hand of Prince Philip. He assured her that “if age and health had permitted,” the emperor would “have desired no other match, but as years and infirmity” rendered him “a poor thing to be offered to her,” he could think of no one dearer or better suited than Philip, “who was of middle age, of distinguished qualities, and of honourable and Catholic upbringing.”

Philip was twenty-six, eleven years Mary’s junior. She was the granddaughter of Ferdinand and Isabella; he was their greatgrandchild. He had already been married to his cousin Infanta Maria of Portugal, who had died in childbirth in July 1545. Their son, Don Carlos, was now nine years old. For Mary the prospect of marriage to Philip represented her imperial destiny, a chance to join the family that she had long since relied on for support and protection. Moreover, it would put England at the center of European politics.

Mary was thrilled, calling it a “greater match than she deserved.” But, she said, “she did not know how the people of England would take it.” She also expressed fears about what the marriage would entail; “if he were disposed to be amorous, such was not her desire, for she was of the age your Majesty knew of, and had never harboured thoughts of love.” She would, however, “wholly love and obey him to whom she had given herself, following the divine commandment and would do nothing against his will.” But, if he wished to “encroach in the government of the kingdom, she would be unable to permit it, nor if her attempted to fill posts and offices with strangers, for the country itself would never stand such interference.”
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Mary would attempt to separate her duties as Philip’s wife and her responsibilities as queen, as her grandmother Isabella had before her.
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For a month the court was an agitated ferment of secret meetings, hushed conversations, and exaggerated rumor. William Paget and Renard lobbied councillors in favor of Philip, and Gardiner pressed the claims of Courtenay. On October 20, Gardiner and a number of Mary’s trusted household servants approached her to speak of the
English candidate. As Mary told Renard, because their actions were “dictated by whole-hearted affection and devotion to her service,” she could not “take the advice of such trusty counsellors in bad part.”
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Gardiner had stressed that “the country would never abide a foreigner; Courtenay was the only possible match for her”; Francis Englefield added “that his highness had a kingdom of his own he would not wish to leave to come to England and that his own subjects spoke ill of him.” Edward Waldegrave argued that if the queen “wedded his Highness the country would have to go to war with the French.”

But Mary begged them all to “lay aside their private considerations” and to “think of the present condition of affairs, the French plottings, the marriage of the French Dauphin with the Queen of Scotland, what benefit the country could look for were she to marry Courtenay, and what profit might accrue to it if she chose a foreigner.”

Robert Rochester and other of the household servants were given letters from the emperor in which he feigned to care for their opinions “as to what alliance would be best for her [Mary] and the country,” suggesting that he would be guided by their advice. Meanwhile, by intrigues, bribes, and promises, and drawing on a web of agents and informants, Noailles sought to make the idea of a Spanish alliance hateful to the people of England. When Henry II heard rumors of the impending betrothal, his “countenance was sad, his words few, and his dislike of the match marvellously great.” Speaking to the English ambassador, Nicholas Wotton, the French king remarked that “a husband may do much with his wife” and that it would be hard for Mary, as for any woman, “to refuse her husband anything that he shall earnestly require of her.”
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FINALLY, ON THE EVENING
of Sunday, October 29, Mary sent again for Renard. He found her in her chamber alone, save for Susan Clarencius, her trusted lady-in-waiting. The room was barely lit. A lamp shone in one corner, its glow illuminating the Holy Sacrament, which stood on the altar before them. It was a momentous decision for Mary, both as a woman and as a queen. Her Council and even most of her trusted household servants opposed the match; it could be expected that the country would too. Ever since the emperor’s letter had arrived,
she had not slept. Instead she woke, weeping and praying for guidance. Now all three knelt before the sacrament, singing “Veni Creator Spiritus”—“Come, Holy Spirit, eternal God.” Rising to her feet, Mary announced her decision. She had, she declared, been inspired by God to be Prince Philip’s wife. “She believed what I have told her of his Highness’s qualities,” Renard explained, “and that your Majesty would ever show her kindness, observe the conditions that would safeguard the welfare of the country, be a good father to her as you had been in the past and more, now that you would be doubly her father and cause his highness to be a good husband to her.” Now that her mind had been made up, “she would never change but love him perfectly and never give him cause to be jealous.”
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Two days later Mary hastily wrote to Renard, revealing her anxious excitement:

O
N NOVEMBER 16, 1553, MARY FACED A DEPUTATION OF SOME
twenty members of the Commons seeking to dissuade her from marrying Philip. She had postponed the meeting for three weeks, claiming ill health; now she could delay no more. As Sir John Pollard, the speaker of the Commons, put it, it would displease the people to have a foreigner as the queen’s consort. If Mary died childless, her husband would deplete the country of money and arms. He might decide to remove Mary from the kingdom “out of husbandly tyranny,” and if he were left a widower with young children, he might try to usurp the crown for himself.
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Instead, the speaker argued, it would be better for the queen to marry an Englishman. Mary listened to Pollard’s long speech with exasperation. As she later told Renard, his discourse had been “so confused, so long-winded and prolific of irrelevant arguments,” that she had found it irritating and offensive.

Finally, when Pollard had finished and without waiting for the chancellor to answer on her behalf, Mary rose to address the assembly. She thanked it for encouraging her to marry but, as she went on, she said that she did not appreciate the idea that it should attempt to choose “a companion” for her “conjugal bed.” As she declared, “I now rule
over you by the best right possible, and being a free woman, if any man or woman of the people of our realm is free, I have full right and sufficient years to discern a suitable partner in love”—both someone she could love and someone who would be to the benefit and advantage of the realm. It was, she told them,

She warned that “if she were married against her will she would not live three months and she would have no children.” Her affairs had been conducted by divine disposition, and she would pray to God to counsel and inspire her in her choice of husband, “who would be beneficial to the kingdom and agreeable to herself … for she always thought of the welfare of her kingdom, as a good princess and mistress should.”
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Her riposte was so extraordinary that Pollard was rendered speechless and the deputation retired.

Mary suspected that Gardiner had inspired the speaker’s words and afterward challenged him directly. “She would never marry Courtenay,” she told him; “she never practiced hypocrisy or deceit, and had preferred to speak her mind, and she had come near to being angry on hearing such disrespectful words.”
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Mary asked him crossly, “Is it suitable, that I should be forced to marry a man because a bishop made friends with him in prison?” Courtenay was, she said, of “small power and authority,” and, given the intrigues of the French and the poverty of the kingdom, would not be the most desirable match.

Gardiner tearfully admitted that he had spoken with Pollard but now accepted that “it would not be right to try to force her in one direction or another.” He now swore to “obey the man she had chosen.”
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The Commons’ petition proved futile; Mary had already made her decision. On the day after Parliament was dissolved, her betrothal was made public.