Mary Tudor (31 page)
Authors: Anna Whitelock
The following day, Mary was met unceremoniously at the court gate at Whitehall and led into the Presence Chamber, where the young king and his Council waited to receive her. She was charged with disobedience and ordered to obey. In his journal, Edward described the meeting:
The Lady Mary my sister came to me at Westminster, where after salutations she was called with my Council into a chamber, where was declared how long I had suffered her Mass [against my will;
crossed out]
, in hope of her reconciliation and how now, being no hope, which I perceived by her letters, except I saw some short amendment, I could not bear it. She answered that her soul was God[’s], and her faith she would not change, nor dissemble her opinion with contrary doings. It was said I constrained not her faith, but willed her [not as a King to rule;
inserted
] but as a subject to obey. And that her example might breed too much inconvenience.
3
When Edward warned her of the dangers of continuing to practice the old religion, Mary put it to him again that he was not yet old enough to be making decisions, assuring him “Riper age and experience will teach Your Majesty much more yet.” This time Edward snapped back, “You also may have somewhat to learn. None are too old for that.” Mary reasoned that even if there had been no assurance to hear Mass, she hoped that, as her brother, he “would have shown her enough respect to allow her to continue in the observance of the old religion, and to prevent her from being troubled in any way.” Did he want “to take away her life rather than the old religion, in which she desired to live and die?” Edward responded that “he wished for no such sacrifice.”
The meeting broke up unresolved. Mary left beseeching Edward not to listen to those who spoke ill of her, “whether about religion or anything else,” and assuring him that he would always find her his obedient sister, something, Edward replied, “he had never doubted.”
4
Soon after Mary’s visit to court, two prominent Catholics, Sir Richard Morgan and Sir Clement Smith, were summoned before the Council, accused of having heard Mass two or three days earlier in the princess’s house at St. John’s, Clerkenwell.
5
Days later, Sir Anthony Browne was questioned about the same offense and admitted that he had heard Mass “twice or thrice at the New Hall, and Romford, as my Lady Mary was coming hither about ten days past, he had heard mass.”
6
All three men were imprisoned in Fleet Prison on Farringdon Street.
7
Some weeks later Francis Mallet, Mary’s principal chaplain and almoner, was arrested. He was condemned for reoffending and for persuading others to embrace his “naughty opinion” and imprisoned in the Tower.
8
Mary immediately wrote to the Council, claiming that “he [Mallet] did it by my commandment … none of my chaplains should be in danger of the law for saying mass in my house” and asking them to “set him at liberty.”
9
The Council rejected her appeal: “To relieve him would take the fault upon yourself; we are sorry to perceive your grace so ready to be a defence to one that the King’s law doth condemn.”
10
ON MARCH
19, Charles V threatened war if Mary were not given freedom of worship. Edward noted the event in his journal: “The Emperor’s ambassador came with a short message from his master, of war if I would not suffer his cousin, the princess, to use her mass. To this no answer was given at this time.”
11
Meanwhile, a diplomatic row broke out at the imperial court in Brussels between Charles and the resident English ambassador, Sir Richard Morison, an outspoken evangelical, who argued on behalf of the English government that envoys to Brussels should have the right to exercise their evangelical beliefs. With Jehan Scheyfve continuing to assert that a promise had been made that Mary “might freely retain the ancient religion in such sort as her father left it in this realm … until the King should be of more years,”
12
diplomatic relations reached a crisis point. Edward insisted that he would not give way on a matter “that touched his honour as head of the family.” He would “spend his life, and all he had, rather than agree and grant to what he knew certainly to be against the truth.”
13
The bishops Thomas Cranmer, Nicholas Ridley, and John Ponet instead advised the king that “to give licence to sin was to sin; to suffer and wink at it for a time might be borne.” The Council now feared that the emperor might take action as he had threatened and that the whole realm might be in peril. They persuaded Edward to send Nicholas Wotton, dean of Canterbury, to the imperial court to try to reason with the emperor. He was instructed to make it clear that no assurance or promise had ever been made by the king regarding Mary’s right to hear Mass but that he was only “to spare the execution of the laws for a time, until he saw some proof of her amendment.”
As pressure came to bear on Mary once more, the emperor challenged Wotton:
Ought it not to suffice you that ye spill your own souls, but that ye have a mind to force others to lose theirs too? My cousin, the Princess, is evil handled among you; her servants plucked from her, and she still cried to leave Mass, to forsake her religion in which her mother, her grandmother, and all her family, have lived and died. I will not suffer it.
Wotton replied that Mary had been well treated when he left England and he had heard of no change, but the emperor insisted:
Yes by St. Mary … of late they handle her evil and therefore say you hardly to them, I will not suffer her to be evil handled by them. I will not suffer it. Is it not enough that mine aunt, her mother, was evil entreated by the King that dead is, but my cousin must be worse ordered by councillors now.
Though Mary had “a King to her father, and hath a King to her brother, she is only a subject and must obey the law,” Wotton countered. “A gentle law I tell you!” snorted the emperor. Wotton then asked if Sir Thomas Chamberlain, English ambassador to Mary of Hungary, might be permitted to have the service of the Book of Common Prayer in his house, at which Charles exploded, “English service in Flanders! Speak not of it. I will suffer none to use any doctrine or service in Flanders that is not allowed of the Church.” He ended the audience by saying that if Mary were not allowed her Mass, he would provide her with a remedy. And as Charles made clear: “We would rather she had died ten years ago than see her waver now; but we believe her to be so constant that she would prefer a thousand deaths rather than renounce her faith. If death were to undertake her for this cause, she would be the first martyr of royal blood to die for our holy faith, and for this earn glory in the better life.”
14
The emperor had raised the prospect that Mary might be sacrificed as a Catholic martyr.
MATTERS TOUCHING MY SOUL
O
N SUNDAY, AUGUST 9, 1551, TWENTY-FOUR LORDS OF THE PRIVY
Council met at Richmond, as Edward noted in his journal, to “commune of my sister Mary’s matter.” It was agreed that “it was not mete to be suffered any longer.” In July a new Anglo-French alliance had been concluded, with Edward betrothed to Henry II’s daughter Elizabeth. Dudley now felt confident to confront the issue of Mary’s disobedience.
1
Mary’s senior household officers, Robert Rochester, Francis Englefield, and Edward Waldegrave, were all summoned before the Council at Hampton Court to receive instructions ordering the princess to conform.
2
Upon their return to Mary’s residence, Copped Hall, near Epping in Essex, on Saturday the fifteenth, Mary forbade them to speak with her chaplains or her household and required them to return to London with a personal letter to the king:
I have by my servants received your most honourable letter, the contents whereof do not a little trouble me, and so much the more for that any of my said servants should move or attempt me in matters touching my soul…. Having for my part utterly refused heretofore to talk with them in such matters, trusted that your Majesty would have suffered me, your poor humble sister … to have used the accustomed Mass, which the King your father and mine, with all his predecessors did evermore use; wherein also I have been brought up from my youth, and thereunto my conscience doth not only bind me, which by no means will suffer me to think one thing and do another, but also the promise made to the Emperor, by your Majesty’s Council,
was an assurance to me that in so doing I should not offend the laws, although they seem now to qualify and deny the thing.
Mary maintained that although the letter was signed by Edward’s hand, it was “nevertheless in my opinion not your Majesty’s in effect,” and she restated her belief that “it is not possible that your Highness can at these years be a judge in matters of religion.” She petitioned him “to bear with me as you have done, and not to think that by my doings or example any inconvenience might grow to your Majesty or your realm … rather than to offend God and my conscience, I offer my body at your will, and death shall be more welcome than life with a troubled conscience.”
3
When the household officers arrived back in London, they were each commanded separately to return to Mary and do what had been asked of them. They all refused, Rochester and Waldegrave saying that they would rather endure any punishment and Sir Francis Englefield declaring that he could find it “neither in his heart nor his conscience to do it.”
4
ON AUGUST
28, the lord chancellor, Lord Rich; Sir Anthony Wingfield, comptroller of the king’s household; and Sir William Petre were sent to Mary at Copped Hall with instructions from the king:
His Majesty did resolutely determine it just, necessary and expedient that her Grace should not any ways use or maintain the private mass or any other manner of service than such as by the law of the realm is authorised or allowed.
5
Mary treated their authority with contempt. She would hear no service than that left by her father, though when the king came of age and maturity of judgment he would find her conforming to his laws. Her chaplains might do as they wish, but if they read the new service she would leave her own house. Again Mary stated that she was prepared to die for her faith:
First she protested that to the King’s Majesty she was, is and ever will be his Majesty’s most humble and most obedient
subject and poor sister, and would most willingly obey all his commandments in any thing (her conscience saved); yea, and would willingly and gladly suffer death to do his Majesty good, but rather than she will agree to use any other service than was used at the death of the late King her father, she would lay her head on a block and suffer death.
6
Mary lamented, “You give me fair words, but your deeds will always be ill towards me.”
The commissioners then called the chaplains and the rest of the household and gave them “straight commandment upon pain of their allegiance, that neither the priests should from henceforth say any Mass or other Divine Service than that which is set forth by the laws of the realm.” As their subsequent report to the Council stated, “Her chaplains, after some talk, promised to obey all the King’s Majesty’s commandment signified by us.” As the men were leaving, Mary called out that she needed her comptroller, Robert Rochester, to be returned to her, adding that since his departure “I take the account myself of my expenses, and how many loaves of bread be made a bushel of wheat … my father and mother never brought me [up] with baking and brewing, and to be plain with you I am weary of mine office, and therefore, if my Lords will send my officer home they shall do me pleasure.”
7
But the Council ignored Mary’s plea and sent Englefield, Waldegrave, and Rochester first to the Fleet and then to the Tower.