Amazing & Extraordinary Facts About Kings & Queens (13 page)

P
robably the most famous thing about Henry VIII is his six wives. We know that he had one after another principally to bear a son and heir to his Tudor throne, that he was even prepared to break with the Pope and form a whole new Church in order to see through this desire.

So the question arises, when his third wife Jane Seymour successfully delivered a healthy son, who would in time become Edward VI, why did Henry not make life easier for himself and abandon his policy of Royal Supremacy over the pope and return England to the Roman Catholic fold? The job was done, future of the Tudor dynasty secured.

Henry had engendered huge opposition within the Church, not least by dissolving the monasteries, a policy that provoked outrage everywhere and prompted the worst crisis of his reign, the Pilgrimage of Grace rebellion of 1536.

The answer to why Henry did not abandon his Act of Supremacy can be seen in a contemporary painting by Hans Holbein, depicting the Tudor dynasty. Henry VIII stands with his wife Jane Seymour either side of a monument telling of the greatnesses of the Tudor kings. Behind it stands his father Henry VII and mother Elizabeth of York. On the face of the stone is inscribed verses in Latin, which translated ask the question: ‘Which is greater, the father or son?’ The answer given is that Henry Tudor ‘was great for ending the Wars of the Roses, but Henry VIII was greater, indeed the greatest, for while he was King true religion was restored and the power of Popes trodden underfoot.’

Although Henry had broken with Rome in the first place simply to gain a divorce from Catherine of Aragon, the king had become proud of his achievement in establishing his own Church, one which would stand for all time in memorial to him. Henry had done what no monarch before him had ever managed, though countless times they might have wished to be independent of the power wielded at Rome.

Just to ram home the point, a new English translation of the Bible displayed on its title page a representation of an elevated throne surrounded by ecclesiastic and lay figures. Seated on the throne is not Christ, who is a tiny figure hovering above, but a rather corpulent Henry VIII regally dispensing scripture.

What Henry did not foresee was that his creation would take on a life of its own, guided by others, with whom he and his successors might not necessarily agree. In so doing he had given birth to Protestantism, and a form of it that would ultimately destroy the monarchy in the next century.

W
hen Jane Seymour bore a son and heir to the Tudor throne in 1537, after an emergency Caesarean section, Bishop Latimer said, ‘We all hungered after a prince so long that there was as much rejoicing as at the birth of John the Baptist.’ The treasured prince was naturally given every possible care and attention throughout his upbringing.

Edward turned out to be a precocious boy who enjoyed debates with his tutors and advisors. His education took a humanist tendency and this manifested itself later in his short reign as king after the death of Henry VIII in 1547. He was perhaps the first royal socialist reformer.

England lagged behind other countries of Europe in education. Some two-thirds of the populace remained illiterate. In an attempt to alleviate the plight of the poor, Edward created various institutions.

He turned over to the City the unwanted Bridewell Palace, built at great expense by his father, for it to be converted into a workhouse for the destitute. It would also house the homeless and serve as a place of correction for prostitutes and idlers.

Edward founded a school in London, called Christ’s Hospital, for the growing number of orphans found on the streets. He is perhaps better known for creating a string of grammar schools up and down the country. And he requisitioned various chantries (chapels for the singing of mass), which he considered would be put to better use if they served educational purposes.

In the Palace of Westminster, Edward set aside one chapel for a special purpose. St Stephen’s would be converted into a permanent office for the parliamentary Commons to sit in.

Until now, the Commons had no fixed abode and would have to make do with any space that might be vacant at the time, sometimes it was just a refectory.

The layout of the former chapel accounts for much of today’s structure and workings of the House of Commons. The Speaker’s chair was positioned where the altar used to be, and may account for why MPs bow to the Speaker when addressing him or her. Members sat in the choir stalls, conveniently facing each other in adversarial style. And at each end of the choir screen were doors to the vestry – these now form part of the voting system: through the one to the right pass the ‘aye’ voters, to the left the ‘no’ voters.

Most of the chapel was destroyed in the fire of 1834. Struck down by tuberculosis at the age of 15, Edward was one of the few kings of England to date who acted on a social conscience.

H
ad Edward VI not developed tuberculosis, Lady Jane Grey might have lived a lot longer than she did. She might well have married him, her second cousin, for the two were close companions at the royal court and almost the same age. Instead this great-granddaughter of Henry VII and daughter of Henry Grey, duke of Suffolk, was cruelly manipulated at the age of 15 by the duke of Northumberland, regent and power behind the throne. He persuaded the dying Edward to bequeath his crown to the devout Protestant Jane instead of his elder sister Mary, who, it was feared, would turn the country back to Rome.

But what was going through Edward’s mind when he signed this will? By leaving the throne to Lady Jane he was clearly transgressing the Act of Succession which his father Henry VIII had laid down as inviolable law. In this settlement all three of his children – Edward, Mary and Elizabeth – were named as potential heirs. Edward and Northumberland’s ploy – based on the pretext that both Mary and Elizabeth had been bastardised and were therefore illegitimate – was at once illegal and placed the Crown above Parliament and the law. Even Lady Jane’s most ardent Protestant supporters might have baulked at that. But the sickly 15 year-old king believed that he possessed divine authority which allowed him to vary his father’s edict. So he drafted his ‘Device for the succession’.

Perhaps the plotters’ greatest mistake was not to arrest Mary, the legitimate heir, at once. Without a doubt, while still free she was not going to accept Lady Jane’s enthronement in her place, and might be able to rouse sufficient support for her cause in the country.

Northumberland’s conspirators at first kept secret the king’s death on July 6, 1553, while final preparations were made. Even Lady Jane was taken aback when eventually they proclaimed her to be the new Queen of England on July 10. At first she refused, saying Mary was rightful heir. When her counsellors informed her she was Edward’s chosen successor, she is said to have fainted on the spot. But persuaded that this was no less than God’s will, Jane eventually consented.

For her security the reluctant Queen was rowed from Syon House to the Tower of London. Alas, this would be her first – and last – state journey.

Meanwhile Mary, having fled London, entrenched herself at Framlingham Castle in Suffolk and proclaimed herself to be rightful queen. The next few days proved critical. It soon became apparent to Northumberland that Mary was gaining much more support than he anticipated. As he rode north with an army to force her submission, he wrote, ‘The people press to see us, but no one sayeth God speed us.’

Once the movement had begun to roll in favour of Mary, it quickly gathered momentum. Within days of Northumberland’s departure, the plot had fallen apart.

Back in London the Privy Council changed their allegiance and backed Mary. Even Lady Jane’s father had to turn against his own daughter and sadly arrested her on July 19.

After the collapse of Northumberland’s campaign, Mary as new queen found it in herself to reverse Lady Jane’s death sentence on compassionate grounds. She was allowed to live with her husband, Lord Dudley, son of the duke of Northumberland, under house arrest in the Tower.

By the following January, however, circumstances had changed and the Queen felt sufficiently threatened by rebellion to renew the verdict. Even then, Jane was offered a reprieve if she recanted on her Protestant faith, but her conscience would not permit it, and instead she opted graciously for the executioner’s block.

W
hen Londoners greeted Mary I’s victory over the usurper Lady Jane Grey, their unbounded joy left the new Queen dazed with wonder. An eyewitness wrote, ‘I never saw the like. The bonfires were without number, and what with the shouting and crying of the people, and ringing of bells, there could no one man hear what another said.’

The uproarous triumph that accompanied Mary’s accession was mostly to do with seeing the monarchy put back on the right track with orderly succession that would find God’s favour and therefore national well being. All depended on right dynastic succession. In turn, Mary’s limelight would remain bright only if she, now 37, could deliver an heir.

Mary’s marriage to the Catholic Philip II of Spain did cause some anxiety. Indeed spontaneous rebellions demonstrated there was a good deal of antipathy towards the return of the national faith to Roman Catholicism and the Pope.

But when the Queen announced she was pregnant in April 1555, many of the concerns melted away. With an heir to the throne in the offing, Mary and Philip were able to persuade Parliament to overturn Henry VIII’s Act of Royal Supremacy and obey the Pope. Then they set about eliminating Protestant opposition. The burnings began.

Over the course of three years, more than 300 men and women became martyrs for their faith. Many more scuttled into exile rather than face the stake.

Then the tide began to turn for Mary. Amid growing excitement at the imminent arrival of a royal son or daughter, it gradually became apparent that there was going to be no child, no heir to the throne. It was a phantom pregnancy.

In an instant Mary’s world was turned upside down. She became a laughing stock. People jeered her and spread stories that she had given birth to a monkey. Her husband threw up his hands and left for Spain.

Furthermore a Protestant account of the horrors of the burnings,
Foxe’s Book of Martyrs
, was published at the same time and became a best seller. In it the author coined the appellation, ‘Bloody Mary’, and so it stuck for all time.

Abandoned by her husband and with age against her, Mary’s prospects of delivering an heir were bleak. As the Protestant revival gathered pace after the heroic martyrdom of archbishop Cranmer, Mary quietly retreated into her shell and became ill. Even when writing out her will, she still entertained visions of progeny, and stated she wished to pass her crown to her unborn Catholic child. However, when finally on her deathbed, the Queen did amend the wording, to the one who ‘by the laws and statutes of this realm’ should be her successor. Even at this late stage, the rancour remained and she could not bring herself to mention Elizabeth by name.