Mary Tudor (29 page)
Authors: Anna Whitelock
Dudley and his allies had asked Mary to support the coup against Somerset, but on the advice of the emperor she had declined to get involved. “As for certain councillors’ machinations against the Protector,
it does not for the present seem opportune that such an important change take place in England,” wrote Charles; “it would be exceedingly hazardous for the Lady Mary to take any share in such proceedings.”
4
There now developed a struggle for power on the Council, raising hopes among Mary’s Catholic supporters. Van der Delft cautiously rejoiced, for “religion could not be in a worse state, and that therefore a change must be for the better, and that it was not made by the enemies of the old religion.”
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Wriothesley reassured the ambassador that Mary would be allowed to hear Mass, saying “those who have molested her will do so no more, and even though they were to begin afresh she has many good servants of whom I hold myself to be one.”
6
How they were deceived. Dudley emerged as leader of the government and lord president of the Council and, despite earlier indications of conservative sympathies, soon became a supporter of more evangelical reform. Mary was to come under renewed pressure to conform to the new religious practices. By the end of October, a proclamation announced that the government would “further do in all things, as time and opportunity may serve, whatsoever may lend to the glory of God and the advancement of his holy word.”
7
When van der Delft visited Mary early the following year, she told him she considered Dudley to be “the most unstable man in England” and that the conspiracy against the protector had “envy and ambition as its motives.” She was anxious and fearful of what lay ahead: “You will see that no good will come of this move, but that it is punishment from Heaven, and may be only the beginning of our misfortunes.” It was for this reason, she declared, that she wished herself “out of the kingdom.”
8
IN DECEMBER, EDWARD
once more invited Mary and Elizabeth to spend Christmas at court. He wanted all three siblings to be together for the festivities, but Mary suspected a trap.
They wished me to be at court so that I could not get the mass celebrated for me and that the King might take me with him to hear their sermons. I would not find myself in such a place for anything in the world. I will choose a more convenient time to go and pay my duty to the King, when I need not lodge at court,
for I have my own establishment in London. I shall stay for four or five days only, and avoid entering into argument with the King my brother who, as I hear, is beginning to debate the question of religion … as he is being taught to do.
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Mary made her excuses on the ground of ill health. It was a wise decision. On Christmas Day, the king and Council, heavily influenced by Dudley, publicly pledged to further the reformation. In a letter written in the king’s name to the bishops, Dudley challenged those “evil disposed persons” who, since the “apprehension” of the duke of Somerset, “have bruited abroad that they should have again their old Latin services, their conjured bread and water, with such like vain and superstitious ceremonies, as if the setting forth of the said book had been the act of the Duke only.” The bishops were commanded to order the clergy to gather up all service books besides the Book of Common Prayer and to “deface or destroy them,” and send to prison anyone who refused to obey. Further, “excommunication or other censures of the Church” were to be imposed on any layman who refused the new Communion service.
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By late January, pressure was mounting on Mary once more. England had signed a peace treaty with France, at the cost of Boulogne, and the necessity to appease Charles V receded.
Yet Mary continued to say Mass and keep a strict Catholic household, its daily routine based around the Mass. As van der Delft described the situation following a visit to Kenninghall:
It is a pleasure to see how well kept and well ordered is her household in the observance of our ancient religion. Her servants are well to do people and some of them men of means and noblemen too whose boast is to be reputed her servants, and by these means they continue to practise the said religion and hear God’s service … six chaplains … say mass in her presence every day.
Mary was now “more than ever afraid that the Council would attempt to disturb her.”
11
She wrote to Charles, declaring that she trusted in his goodness and regarded him as her father in “spiritual and temporal matters.” She then asked him what she must do: “Our kingdom
is daily approaching nearer to spiritual and material ruin, and matters grow worse day by day.”
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She had heard that her household servants would in future be excluded from all Catholic services held under her roof, and soon she would be ordered to conform to the Act of Uniformity. The emperor again demanded an assurance from England that his cousin “should be permitted to continue in her observance of the ancient religion, and in the enjoyment of the same liberty that had been hers at the time of the death of the late king her father.”
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Mary now waited for the ax to fall, “being neither summoned nor visited by the Council.” Meanwhile, Elizabeth, who had conformed to the statutes, remained in high favor. As van der Delft observed, “It seems that they have a higher opinion of her for conforming with the others and observing the new decrees, than of the Lady Mary who remains constant in the Catholic faith.”
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WHAT SAY YOU, MR AMBASSADOR?
They are wicked and wily in their actions, and particularly malevolent towards me, I must not wait till the blow falls.
1
—M
ARY TO VAN DER
D
ELFT
, M
AY
2, 1550
A
T THE END OF APRIL 1550, MARY SUMMONED VAN DER DELFT TO
her residence at Woodham Walter Manor, near Maldon in Essex. She was in despair and had resolved to leave the country. “If my brother were to die,” she told the ambassador, “I would be far better out of the kingdom, because as soon as he were dead, before the people knew it, they would despatch me too.” She feared what was to come:
When they send me orders forbidding me the mass, I shall expect to suffer as I suffered once during my father’s lifetime; they will order me to withdraw thirty miles from any navigable river or sea-port, and will deprive me of my confidential servants, and having reduced me to the utmost destitution, they will deal with me as they please. But I will rather suffer death than stain my conscience…. I am like a little ignorant girl, and I care neither for my goods nor for the world, but only for God’s service and my conscience. I know not what to say; but if there is peril in going and peril in staying, I must choose the lesser of two evils…. I would willingly stay were I able to live
and serve God as I have done in the past; which is what I have always said. But these men are so changeable that I know not what to say. What say you, Mr Ambassador?
2
Mary, then thirty-four, had been contemplating escape for some time. In September the previous year, before Somerset’s fall, she had sent the emperor a ring and a message that she wished to flee England and seek refuge with him.
3
Charles had responded cautiously, declaring it a matter in which Mary “should not be encouraged” because of the difficulties of getting her out of the realm and the cost of supporting her at the imperial court.
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Now, faced with her continued persecution and her ever-shriller protests, Charles cautiously agreed to support her in her wish, “for we have the best of reasons and have done all we could do to protect our cousin’s person and conscience.” He had held back as long as possible from “this extreme measure” but agreed it had “now become imperative to resort to because of the attitude adopted in England.”
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It was arranged that Mary’s escape should coincide with a change of imperial ambassador in mid-May. Van der Delft had been in England for six years, and his recall would not cause suspicion. Once he had formally taken leave, his ship would be diverted to waters off the Essex coast for long enough to meet a boat bringing Mary from Maldon. But with the plan set, fear of renewed popular unrest led to extra watches being placed on the roads near Woodham Walter. There was no chance of her passing unrecognized; another scheme had to be devised.
6
On the evening of Monday, June 30, 1550, three imperial warships arrived off the coast near Maldon under the command of a Dutchman, Cornelius Scepperus, admiral of the imperial fleet. The next day, Jehan Dubois, secretary to the imperial embassy in London, rowed ashore disguised as a grain merchant. The plan, devised over the previous months, would see Mary escape under cover of darkness from Woodham Walter to the sea two miles away. She would then be rowed out to the waiting ships and taken to the Low Countries and the court of Charles’s sister, the regent Mary of Hungary.
In the early hours of July 2, Dubois arrived in Maldon, but there
was no one to meet him. He sent an urgent, detailed dispatch to Robert Rochester, one of Mary’s senior household officers:
Sir … I arrived here this morning in a six-oared boat. Yesterday I sent my brother, Peter Marchant, to announce in this town that we had brought the corn, and were coming with the next tide; and this I did in order that you might the sooner be advised of my arrival. However, as far as I know, there was nobody there to take the corn or receive the said Peter. Therefore I am obliged to write now to point out to you that there is danger in delay, especially as M. Scepperus is now coming to Stansgate with a warship, and near Harwich there are three other ships waiting and moreover four larger ships are out to sea. Consider therefore whether we must not hurry. There is yet another reason as well: the water will not be as high tomorrow night as tonight, and will be lower every night until next moon, and we now have the advantage that the tide serves our purpose late at night and towards morning, that is, about two o’clock. By that hour or immediately afterwards all ought to be here, so that we may be on our way while the tide is still rising … I will sell my corn at once, and be ready tonight. Please let me know your intentions…. I must add that I see no better opportunity than the present one; and this undertaking is passing through so many hands that it is daily becoming more difficult, and I fear it may not remain secret. However I will yield to a better opinion, and I pray God to inspire you now; for the Emperor has done all he could.
Hours later, Dubois and Rochester met on the pretext of trading grain. Though Dubois expected them to confirm the final details of the plan, Rochester called the whole scheme into question. He said he thought Mary’s imminent flight was unnecessary, as she would be “in no way molested before the end of the Parliament that was to meet the following Michaelmas at the earliest,” at which point she would have the advantage of being at her house at St. Osyth, also in Essex, which had a garden from which it was easy to reach the open sea. It was, he
argued, simply too dangerous for Mary to attempt her escape with a watch posted on every road near Maldon. “If you understand me,” Rochester explained, “what I say is not that my Lady does not wish to go, but that she wishes to go if she can.” Dubois demanded clarification. “The thing was now a question of Yes or No.” A decision had to be made. The men of Harwich had seen their ships, and it would not be long before the Council was informed of their presence.
That evening Dubois rode in secret to visit Mary. Rochester voiced his concerns again, and the imperial secretary grew frustrated. “The whole business was so near being discovered that it was most improbable that it could be kept secret.” Rochester replied, “For the love of God, do not say that to my Lady! She is a good woman and really wants to go; but neither she nor you see what I see and know. Great danger threatens us!” As Mary stowed her possessions into hop sacks, she expressed fear as to “how the Emperor would take it if it turned out to be impossible to go now.” She would not be ready until the day after next. On Friday morning, just after the watch retired, she would leave her house on the pretext of going “to amuse herself and purge her stomach by the sea.”