Mary Tudor (25 page)

As Thomas Cranmer, the archbishop of Canterbury, explained in his sermon, the oaths Edward had sworn were not to “be taken in the bishop of Rome’s sense,” and the clergy had no right to hold kings to account (“to hit your Majesty in the teeth”).
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Although Edward was to be anointed, Cranmer made clear that this was “but ceremony.” He was king “not in respect of the oil which the bishop useth, but in consideration of their power which is preordained … the King is yet a perfect monarch notwithstanding, and God’s anointed, as well as if he was inoiled.” Edward had come to the throne “fully invested and established in the crown imperial of this realm.”
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Now the young king was called upon to do his princely duty:

Edward was to model himself on the young biblical King Josiah and purge the land of idols. The coronation was an opportunity to showcase the Protestant aspirations of the new regime.

With the oaths made and litanies sung, Edward was anointed and crowned with the crown of Edward the Confessor, the imperial crown—styled as such since the reign of Henry V—and a third crown made especially for his small head.
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Normally the imperial crown was not part of the crowning ritual; its inclusion here emphasized the imperial status of the king and echoed the triple crowning of the pope.
The spurs, orb, and scepter were then presented to the young king and Te Deums were sung as the lords spiritual and temporal paid him homage.

Recalling the coronation in his journal, Edward noted only that he had sat next to his uncle Edward Seymour and Archbishop Thomas Cranmer and that he had worn “the crown on his head.”
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T
HE EMPEROR AND PAPAL CURIA DID NOT IMMEDIATELY RECOGNIZE
the new king. In the eyes of Catholic Europe, Edward was illegitimate and Mary the lawful heir. Charles returned Edward’s greetings without explicitly acknowledging his title. “We went no further than this with regard to the young King,” he explained to Ambassador van der Delft, “in order to avoid saying anything which might prejudice the right that our cousin the Princess might advance to the throne.”
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Similarly, Charles’s sister, Mary of Hungary, regent of the Netherlands, wrote to van der Delft, “We make no mention at present of the young prince, as we are ignorant as yet whether or not he will be recognised as King…. We likewise refrain from sending you any letters for our cousin, the Princess Mary, as we do not yet know how she will be treated.”
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Meanwhile, the French, always keen to drive a wedge between English and imperial interests, claimed that the emperor planned to make war on the English in support of Mary’s claim.
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As it was, Mary accepted her brother as Henry’s rightful heir and made no challenge.

In his will, Henry had confirmed Mary in her right to the succession and granted her and Elizabeth a yearly income of £3,000 “in money, plate, jewels and household stuff” and, upon their marriage, a dowry of £10,000 each. But amid the general sharing of lands, titles, and estates among the regency councillors, aimed at securing their support for the new regime, Mary received a much more generous provision. She was granted lands and estates in East Anglia and the Home Counties valued at £3,819 18s. 6d.
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Most of her endowment consisted of properties in Norfolk, Suffolk, and Essex, including Hunsdon and
Beaulieu (New Hall), where she had spent much of her time, and Kenninghall in Norfolk, the home of the Catholic Thomas Howard, duke of Norfolk, before his attainder on the eve of Henry’s death. In all, Mary received thirty-two principal manors and a number of minor ones, which were later exchanged for Framlingham Castle in Suffolk.

Now thirty-one, Mary was one of the wealthiest peers in England and a significant regional magnate. She could choose her own household personnel and surrounded herself with Catholic men local to her estates, such as Sir Francis Englefield, Sir Robert Rochester, and Rochester’s nephew Edward Waldegrave, who shared her commitment to the faith. Many of the women she chose, such as Jane Dormer, Eleanor Kempe, and Susan Clarencius, had been in her service and would remain with her for many years. Mary’s household would become a bastion of Catholic loyalty. Ordinances were drawn up at Kenninghall providing for religious services. Particular importance was attached to the observance—by all her servants—of Matins, Mass, and Evensong. “Every gentleman, yeoman and groom not having reasonable impediment” was to be at the services every day.
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To be in Mary’s service was to live as a Catholic. Service and sanctity were inextricably bound together.

IN APRIL
1547, Mary left Katherine Parr, with whom she had remained since her father’s death, and journeyed north to her new estates. Within weeks, Katherine had rekindled her relationship with her old love Thomas, Lord Seymour of Sudeley, and in May they were secretly married. Seymour sought to win Mary’s approval, but she responded with thinly veiled disapproval, declaring that “being a maid,” she was “nothing cunning” about “wooing matters.” Henry was “as yet very ripe in her own remembrance,” and she found it “strange news”: “it standeth lest with my poor honour to be a meddler in this matter, considering whose wife her grace was of late.”
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Initially relations between Mary and the Edwardian regime were distinctly amicable. The lord protector, Somerset, had previously been in the service of the emperor at the imperial court, and Anne, duchess of Somerset, formerly in the household of Katherine of Aragon.
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Mary addressed her as “my good gossip” and “my good nann” and signed off
a letter to her “your assured friend to my power, Mary.”
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As Christmas approached, Edward wrote to Mary, inviting her to spend the festive period with him and Elizabeth at court:

However, Edward concluded with the suggestion that if Mary’s health was not good, she might postpone her visit to another occasion “when both the Time and your Health shall better suffer.”
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ALTHOUGH THE NEW
evangelical establishment was determined to overturn Henry’s Act of Six Articles, at first it proceeded cautiously. Negotiations for peace with France had ended with the French king’s death at the end of March, and in April Charles had defeated the German Protestants at Mühlberg. England was diplomatically isolated; it was not a good time to champion religious reform. But such prudence was short-lived, and the government was keen to press ahead with the process of reformation.

On July 31, 1547, new Church “Injunctions” were issued in the king’s name and a general visitation ordered for the whole Church. Though the wording on the Mass was cautious and conservative—“of the very body and blood of Christ”—it was ordered that “abused” images be destroyed, processions abolished, the ringing of bells and use of rosary beds condemned, and the lighting of candles on the altar forbidden.
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The same year
The Book of Homilies
, which set out the Lutheran doctrine of justification by faith alone, was written by Cranmer and issued to be read in all churches. A translation of Erasmus’s
Paraphrases
on the Gospels—which Mary had had a role in translating under the sponsorship of Katherine Parr—was also to be placed in every church. Within three months, each parish was to
possess the Bible in English. Sermons were to be preached regularly and priests instructed to recite the Lord’s Prayer, creed, and Ten Commandments in English. When Bishops Edmund Bonner and Gardiner protested against the Injunctions, they were imprisoned. It was the prelude to further change. In Edward’s first Parliament, which opened on November 4, 1547, the Act of Six Articles and Treasons Act were repealed. Marriage was made legal for the clergy, and the laity were to receive Communion in both kinds.

As the practices of the “old religion” came under attack, Mary made her Catholic devotion stridently clear, hearing up to four Masses every day in her chapel at Kenninghall.
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In a dispatch of October 4, 1548, Jehan Dubois, the imperial secretary, described how Mary had just returned from Norfolk, where she had inspected her estates “and was much welcomed in the north country and wherever she had the power to do it she had Mass celebrated.”
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Mary wrote to Somerset, protesting at the “fantasy and new fangleness” and declaring that the Henrican religion had been established by parliamentary statute and it was illegal to defy it. Her father, she claimed, had left the realm in “Godly order and Quietness,” which the Council was now disrupting with innovations.
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No change should be made to the religious settlement imposed by the Act of Six Articles until the king came of age and was old enough to make his own decisions about religion. Somerset professed astonishment at Mary’s attitude, believing that her words could not have “proceeded from the sincere mind of so virtuous and wise a lady, but rather by the setting on and procurement of some uncharitable and malicious persons.” Henry had, Somerset continued, died before he had achieved all that “he purposed to have done” in religion.
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