Mary Tudor (54 page)

Lengthy inquiries followed throughout March and April as the web of conspiracy became ever wider, revealing links to Exchequer officials, fugitives in France, and gentry and officials across the country, including Sir Anthony Kingston, Sir William Courtenay, Sir John Pollard, and Richard Uvedale, captain of the Isle of Wight. On April 4, Dudley and most of his fellow conspirators were declared traitors, although by remaining in France Dudley escaped arrest. Two weeks later, the rebel John Throgmorton and Uvedale were hanged and quartered at Tyburn. Kingston died on his way to London. Eventually ten men were executed.

The plot had thrown the popular discontent and the willingness of France to intervene against Mary into sharp relief. All the plotters were heretics; many of them were associates of Sir Thomas Wyatt, who had been released from the Tower six months before. Their common cause, as with Wyatt’s rebellion two years before, was the unpopularity of the Spanish marriage, added to which was the new fear that Philip might be crowned king of England.

The conspiracy left Mary in a state of profound distress. The queen “rages against her subjects,” wrote Noailles. “She is utterly confounded by the faithlessness of those whom she most trusted, seeing that the greater part of these miserable creatures [Dudley’s conspirators] are kith and kin or favoured servants of the greatest men in the kingdom, even Lords of the Council.”
¹⁷
Such was Mary’s fright that she would not allow Cardinal Pole to leave her for the ceremony of his consecration to the archbishopric of Canterbury, due to take place in his cathedral on March 25. He was instead consecrated in the Friars’ Church at Greenwich.
¹⁸
By the summer there was reported to be something of a “siege mentality” at court. Mary no longer appeared in public, living instead in a state of seclusion, the palace full of armed men and the queen so afraid that she dared not sleep more than three hours a night.
¹⁹
“All the nobility and gentry of the country have been desired to keep on the watch and ready to present themselves on the first summons.”
²⁰

In the midst of such uncertainty, Mary grew ever more anxious for Philip’s return, as Michieli related:

Two months later, he wrote:

In the middle of March, on the queen’s instructions, the English ambassador, Sir John Mason, asked Philip “to say frankly in how many days he purposed returning” to the kingdom. Mason gently suggested that the king would “comfort the Queen, as also the peers of the realm, by his presence, saying that there was no reason yet to despair of his having heirs.”
²³
In April, Mary changed tack, sending Lord Paget as her envoy. As Badoer wrote, “I understand that the chief object of his discourse was to inspire the King with that hope, on his return to England, of being crowned, which has never yet been given him by the Queen his consort.”
²⁴
In a letter to the emperor on July 15, Mary made clear her despair and disillusionment:

Mary now spent her time in “tears, regrets and writing letters to bring back her husband,” oscillating between a sense of anger and
abandonment.
²⁶
Increasingly she became frustrated with Philip and was reported to be “scratching portraits of her husband which she keeps in her room.”
²⁷
Finally, she wrote to the emperor once more, pleading that he hasten his son’s return and arguing that it was for the safety of the realm:

O
N MAY 26, MORE THAN TWO MONTHS AFTER THE COLLAPSE OF
Dudley’s conspiracy, two of Mary’s most trusted servants, Sir Henry Jerningham and John Norris, were sent to Elizabeth at Hatfield with a posse of troops. An armed guard was put around her house, and her lady mistress, Katherine Ashley, her Italian teacher, Giovanni Battista Castiglione, and three other women of her household were arrested and taken to London. A search of Ashley’s chambers at Somerset House found incriminating anti-Catholic and anti-Spanish literature. According to the Venetian ambassador, all confessed to knowing of Dudley’s plot. Mary’s courier Francesco Piamontese was sent to Philip in Brussels to seek his counsel with regard to Elizabeth.
¹

The advice Mary received was heavily influenced by Habsburg interests. Although there was evidence that Elizabeth had been involved in treasonous activity, any action against her would threaten her succession. In default of Elizabeth as heir, the English throne would go to Mary, queen of Scots, who was betrothed to the dauphin of France. If Philip were to triumph in the Habsburg-Valois struggle, this was something he had to prevent. Once again, English dynastic interests were to be subsumed to Habsburg strategic ones. Piamontese returned to London with an unequivocal message from the king: no further inquiries should be made into Elizabeth’s guilt, nor any suggestion made that her servants had been implicated in the plot with her authority.

Hastings and Englefield were sent to Elizabeth to inform her of her servants’ confessions but also to “console and comfort her on behalf of
her Majesty” and to assure her that Mary trusted in her innocence.
²
The armed guard was stood down, and Elizabeth was presented with a diamond ring, a symbol of purity, as a gesture of the queen’s goodwill.
³
But, unable to feign total trust in her sister’s fidelity, Mary ordered that she be placed in the guardianship of Sir Thomas Pope, a loyal privy councillor and steadfast Catholic, who was put in charge of her household. As the Venetian ambassador related, Elizabeth was “in ward and custody,” but in “decorous and honourable form,” as Philip had decreed.
⁴

IN JULY, ANOTHER
conspiracy came to light, this time involving a young schoolmaster. Impersonating Edward Courtenay, the man issued a bogus proclamation at Yaxley in Suffolk, declaring that Mary was dead and that he, Courtenay, was king and “ye Lady Elizabeth” was queen.
⁵
In the event, the rebellion never got off the ground and the pretender was executed. Once again Elizabeth had been invoked at the heart of a conspiracy seeking to depose Mary, yet this time, in line with Philip’s instructions, the assumption was made that Elizabeth was innocent. At the end of the month, the Council wrote to Sir Thomas Pope, informing him of the wicked behavior of the conspirators “and how for that intent they had abused her grace’s name” by proclaiming Elizabeth the queen.
⁶

Elizabeth responded with extravagant declarations of loyalty. Writing to Mary on August 2, she contrasted “the old love of pagans to their prince” to “the rebellious hearts and devilish intents of Christians in name, but Jews in deed, towards their anointed King.” She invoked Saint Paul to confirm that rebels were indeed devilish, and continued:

During the autumn of 1556, relations between the two sisters seemed to continue to improve. Elizabeth was freed from Sir Thomas Pope’s supervision and invited to spend Christmas at court. She left Hatfield escorted by two hundred liveried gentlemen on horseback and on November 28, amid cheering crowds, entered the City of London, proceeding to her residence at Somerset House. Three days later, she was received by the queen with honor and amicability. But then suddenly, without any warning, all changed: the invitation for Christmas was withdrawn, and on December 3, Elizabeth retraced her steps back through the city to Hatfield. She was no longer welcome at court.
⁸

PHILIP’S SUPPORT OF
Elizabeth had come at a price. With slight prospect of an heir to the English throne born of Mary, he had looked to secure a marriage for Elizabeth that would preserve his interest in England and the Catholic restoration. The intended bridegroom was Emmanuel Philibert, prince of Piedmont and titular duke of Savoy.

The twenty-eight-year-old duke was Philip’s cousin, a loyalist imperialist and committed Catholic who was determined to rid his duchy of the French force that had occupied it since 1536. He had come to England in December 1554 as the recognized candidate for Elizabeth’s hand. But Elizabeth had proved unamenable: she did not want to commit to Habsburg interests and the Catholic cause. By the winter of 1556, the idea had been revived and Philip pressured Mary to force Elizabeth to submit to his will. Mary threatened Elizabeth with a parliamentary declaration of her bastardy and an acknowledgment of Mary, queen of Scots, as her heir if she would not comply.
⁹
Elizabeth remained resistant, and Mary sent her sister from court.