The reign of Mary Tudor

[Footnote 182: "Le dict Paget me respondict qu'il n'estoit ja besoing d'entrer en si grande jalousie, et que tout ainsi que nous les avions faicts amys avecques les Escossoys, ce marriage seroit aussy cause que nous serions amys avecques l'Empereur."--Noailles to the King of France, December 26. Compare also the letter of December 23, Ambassades, vol. ii. pp. 334-356.]

Paget, however, was detested as an upstart, and detested still more as a latitudinarian; he could form no party, and the queen made use of him only to support her in her choice of the Prince of Spain, as in turn she would use Gardiner to destroy the Protestants; and thus the two great factions in the state neutralised each other's action in a matter in which both were equally anxious; and Mary, although with no remarkable capacity, without friends and ruined, if at any moment she lost courage, was able to go her own way in spite of her subjects.

The uncertainty was, how long so anomalous a state of things would continue. The marriage, being once decided on, Mary could think of nothing else, and even religion sank into the second place. Reginald Pole, chafing the imperial bridle between his lips, vexed her, so Renard said, from day to day, with his untimely importunities;[183] the restoration of the mass gave him no pleasure so long as the papal legate was an exile; and in vain the queen laboured to draw from him some kind of approval. He saw her only preferring carnal pleasures to her duty to Heaven; and, indifferent himself to all interests save those of the See of Rome, he was irritated with the emperor, irritated with the worldly schemes to which he believed that his mission had been sacrificed. He talked angrily of the marriage. The queen heard, through Wotton the ambassador at Paris, that he had said openly, it should never take place;[184] while Peto, the Greenwich friar, who was in his train, wrote to her, reflecting impolitely on her age, and adding Scripture commendations of celibacy as the more perfect state.[185] It was even feared {p.081} that the impatient legate had advised the pope to withhold the dispensations.

[Footnote 183: Renard to Charles V.: November 14, November 28, December 3, December 8, December 11: _Rolls House MSS._]

[Footnote 184: Renard to Charles V.: Rolls House MSS. The queen wrote to Wotton to learn his authority. The Venetian ambassador, Wotton said, was the person who had told him; but the quarter from which the information originally came, he believed, might be relied on.--Wotton to the Queen and Council: MS. State Paper Office.]

[Footnote 185: "Un des principaulx qu'il a avec luy que se nomme William Peto, theologien, luy a escript luy donnant conseil de non se marrier, et vivre en celibat; meslant en ses lettres plusieurs allegations du Vieux et Nouveau Testament, repetant x ou xii fois qu'elle tombera en la puissance et servitude du mari, qu'elle n'aura enfans, sinon soubz danger de sa vie pour l'age dont elle est."--Renard to Charles V.: Tytler, vol. ii. p. 303.]

Mary, beyond measure afflicted, wrote to Pole at last, asking what in his opinion she ought to do. He sent his answer through a priest, by whom it could be conveyed with the greatest emphasis. First, he said, she must pray to God for a spirit of counsel and fortitude: next, she must, at all hazards, relinquish the name of Head of the Church; and, since she could trust neither peer nor prelate, she must recall parliament, go in person to the House of Commons, and demand permission with her own mouth for himself to return to England. The holy see was represented in his person, and was freshly insulted in the refusal to receive him; the pope's vast clemency had volunteered unasked to pardon the crimes of England; if the gracious offer was not accepted, the legacy would be cancelled, the national guilt would be infinitely enhanced. The emperor talked of prudence; in the service of God prudence was madness; and, so long as the schism continued, her attempts at reform were vanity, and her seat upon the throne was usurpation. Let her tell the truth to the House of Commons, and the House of Commons would hear.[186]

[Footnote 186: Instructions of Cardinal Pole to Thomas Goldwell: Cotton MSS. Titus, B. 11.]

"Your majesty will see," wrote Renard, enclosing to Charles a copy of these advices, "the extent of the cardinal's discretion, and how necessary it is that for the present he be kept at a distance." The pope was not likely to reject the submission of England at any moment, late or early, when England might be pleased to offer it, and could well afford to wait. Julius was wiser than his legate. Pole was not recalled, but exhorted to patience, and a letter or message from Rome cooled Mary's anxieties. Meanwhile the marriage was to be expedited with as much speed as possible; the longer the agitation continued, the greater the danger; while the winter was unfavourable to revolutionary movements, and armed resistance to the prince's landing would be unlikely so long as the season prevented large bodies of men from keeping the field.[187]

[Footnote 187: Renard dwelt much on this point as a reason for haste.]

The emperor, therefore, in the beginning of December, sent over the draft of a marriage treaty; and if the security that the articles would be observed had equalled the form in which they were conceived, the English might have afforded to lay aside their alarms. Charles seemed to have anticipated almost every {p.082} point on which the insular jealousy would be sensitive. The Prince of Spain should bear the title of King of England so long, but so long only as the queen should be alive; and the queen should retain the disposal of all affairs in the realm, and the administration of the revenues. The queen, in return, should share Philip's titles, present and prospective, with the large settlement of L60,000 a year upon her for her life. Don Carlos, the prince's child by his first wife, would, if he lived, inherit Spain, Sicily, the Italian provinces, and the Indies. But Burgundy and the Low Countries should be settled on the offspring of the English marriage, and be annexed to the English crown; and this prospect, splendid in itself, was made more magnificent by the possibility that Don Carlos might die. Under all contingencies, the laws and liberties of the several countries should be held inviolate and inviolable.

In such a treaty the emperor conferred everything, and in return received nothing; and yet, to gain the alliance, a negotiation already commenced for the hand of the Infanta of Portugal was relinquished. The liberality of the proposals was suspicious, but they were submitted to the council, who, unable to refuse to consider them, were obliged to admit that they were reasonable. Five additional clauses were added, however, to which it was insisted that Philip should swear before the contract should be completed--

1. That no foreigner, under any circumstances, should be admitted to any office in the royal household, in the army, the forts, or the fleet.

2. That the queen should not be taken abroad without her own consent; and that the children--should children be born--should not be carried out of England without consent of parliament, even though among them might be the heir of the Spanish empire.

3. Should the queen die childless, the prince's connection with the realm should be at an end.

4. The jewel-house and treasury should be wholly under English control, and the ships of war should not be removed into a foreign port.

5. The prince should maintain the existing treaties between England and France; and England should not be involved, directly or indirectly, in the war between France and the empire.[188]

[Footnote 188: Marriage Treaty between Mary, Queen of England, and Philip of Spain: Rymer, vol. vi.]

These demands were transmitted to Brussels, where they were {p.083} accepted without difficulty, and further objection could not be ventured unless constraint was laid upon the queen. The sketch of the treaty, with the conditions attached to it, was submitted to such of the Lords and Commons as remained in London after the dissolution of parliament, and the result was a sullen acquiescence.

An embassy was immediately announced as to be sent from Flanders. Count Egmont, M. de Courieres, the Count de Lalaing, and M. de Nigry, Chancellor of the Golden Fleece, were coming over as plenipotentiaries of the emperor. Secret messengers went off to Rome to hasten the dispensations--a dispensation for Mary to marry her cousin, and a dispensation which also was found necessary permitting the ceremony to be performed by a bishop in a state of schism. The marriage could be solemnised at once on their arrival, the ambassadors standing as Philip's representatives, while Sir Philip Hoby, Bonner, Bedford, and Lord Derby would go to Spain to receive the prince's oaths, and escort him to England. Again and again the queen pressed haste. Ash-Wednesday fell on the 6th of February, and in Lent she might not marry. Renard assured her that the prince should be in her arms before Septuagesima, and all her trials would be over. The worst danger which he now anticipated was from some unpleasant collision which might arise after the prince's landing; and he had advised the emperor to have the Spaniards who would form the retinue selected for their meekness. They would meet with insolence from the English, which they would not endure, if they had the spirit to resent it; their dispositions, therefore, must be mild and forgiving.[189]

[Footnote 189: Renard to Charles V., December 11: _Rolls House MSS._]

And yet Renard could not hide from himself, and the lords did not hide from Mary, that their consent was passive only; that their reluctance was vehement as ever. Bedford said, if he went to Spain, he must go without attendance, for no one would accompany him. Lord Derby refused to be one of the ambassadors, and with Sir Edward Waldegrave and Sir Edward Hastings told the queen that he would leave her service if she persisted. The seditious pamphlets which were scattered everywhere created a vague terror in the court, and the court ladies wept and lamented in the queen's presence. The council in a body again urged her to abandon her intention. The peers met again to consider the marriage articles. Gardiner read them aloud, and Lord Windsor, a dull Brutus, who till then had {p.084} never been known to utter a reasonable word, exclaimed, amidst general applause, "You have told us fine things of the queen, and the prince, and the emperor; what security have we that words are more than words?" Corsairs from Brest and Rochelle hovered in the mouth of the Channel to catch the couriers going to and fro between Spain and London and Brussels, and to terrify Philip with the danger of the passage. The Duke of Suffolk's brother and the Marquis of Winchester had been heard to swear that they would set upon him when he landed; and Renard began to doubt whether the alliance, after all, was worth the risk attending it.[190] Mary, however, brave in the midst of her perplexities, vowed that she would relinquish her hopes of Philip only with her life. An army of spies watched Elizabeth day and night, and the emperor, undeterred by Renard's hesitation, encouraged the queen's resolution. There could be no conspiracy as yet, Charles said, which could not be checked with judicious firmness; and dangerous persons could be arrested and made secure. A strong hand could do much in England, as was proved by the success for a time of the late Duke of Northumberland.[191]