Mary Tudor (55 page)

A letter written in French in Mary’s own hand at the beginning of 1557 reveals the tension between Mary and Philip over Elizabeth. He
had sought to persuade Mary by arguing that she was bound by her faith and conscience to bring about Elizabeth’s marriage to Philibert. But, as Mary explained in the first draft of her letter, her conscientious scruple against Elizabeth’s marrying went back to her sister’s birth in 1533. She then crossed out the passage and replaced it with the more benign statement that she did not understand his argument. In response to Mary’s assertion that the marriage could not be carried out before parliamentary consent, Philip argued that if Parliament refused, he “would impute the blame to me.” Mary begged him not to do that, saying that otherwise “I shall become jealous and uneasy about you, which will be worse to me than death,” adding, “for I have already begun to taste [of such jealousy and uneasiness] too much to my great regret.”

Mary was a submissive wife yet also a shrewd politician: it would not be possible, she declared, for the marriage to be carried out in his absence. He would need to come to England; then they could pray together to God, “who has the direction of the hearts of kings in his hand.”
¹⁰

A
T FIVE IN THE AFTERNOON OF MARCH 20, 1557, PHILIP FINALLY
returned to England. A thirty-two-gun salute greeted him at Greenwich Palace amid shouts of “God save the King and Queen.”
¹
The following day, the bells of London rang out in celebration. A series of entertainments—banquets, dances, and masques of welcome—culminated on the twenty-third in a grand civic festival as Philip, Mary, and the nobles and ladies of the realm rode through London. It was, as one diplomat described it, “a warmed over honeymoon.”
²

Yet despite the festivities, there was little disguising the true purpose of Philip’s visit. The king had returned for money and an English declaration of war against France, a prospect very few Englishmen were happy with.

MONTHS EARLIER
, the Habsburg-Valois conflict had reignited. In September 1556, the duke of Alva, Philip’s viceroy in Naples, had launched an invasion of the papal states some thirty years after the armies of Charles V had destroyed Rome. Denouncing Charles V as a “heretic, schismatic and tyrant” whose aim had been to oppress the Holy See and Philip as the “son of iniquity,” the eighty-year-old Italian Pope Paul IV persuaded the French to join him in an attempt to drive Habsburg forces out of Italy.

Philip’s attention immediately turned to England. He sought to relieve the pressure in Italy by striking at the Franco-Flemish frontier. He was effectively bankrupt and desperately needed money and men and an English declaration to defend the Low Countries.
³
Philip’s
envoy, Figueroa, presented his demands at a series of meetings with the Privy Council held in the queen’s chambers at St. James’s in mid-November.
⁴
Though the Council approved sending money and naval support, it was not prepared to commit troops or renew the Anglo-Flemish treaties for fear of provoking war with France.

On the night of January 5-6, the French launched a surprise attack on the town of Douai on the Flemish frontier. The Treaty of Vaucelles was broken, and on the thirty-first war was formally declared between France and Spain.
⁵
Although there was no direct threat to England, Mary had already begun to prepare the country for war. In January, sheriffs of several eastern and midland counties were summoned to report on how many troops could be mustered; royal pensioners were equipped with new standards bearing the arms of Philip and Mary “with a great eagle above”; ships were ordered to be refitted, and further reinforcements were sent to Calais.
⁶
The English navy had been greatly expanded during the previous eighteen months, and two large new ships, the
Philip and Mary
and a new
Mary Rose
, were ready by the beginning of 1557.
⁷
The Council grudgingly approved the raising of 6,000 foot and 600 horse, which they were bound by treaty to send to Philip if the Netherlands were attacked.

On January 20, a muster of royal pensioners at Greenwich Park took place in front of the queen. With trumpets blowing and standards unfurled, the men at arms rode past her three abreast. Their standards, combining Philip and Mary’s arms, symbolized the union of the two powers against the common enemy. On one side, the Castilian colors of red and yellow surrounded the white hart of England; on the other was the black eagle of the Habsburgs with gilded legs.
⁸
After the muster a tumbler performed many feats “that her grace did like.” She “did thank them all for their pains” and went back into the palace much heartened.
⁹

Henry II of France had sent clear instructions to Noailles: the principal thing he desired was to be kept on “friendly terms with the Queen of England … so that in that direction, if possible, nothing should happen to thwart me, and so that during these wars I may not have them [the English] for open and declared enemies.”
¹⁰
Within days, Mary was informed of Philip’s imminent departure for England and that the French, by breaking the truce, had left him no choice but to
raise land and sea forces to prevent the pope and the French from waging war in the Kingdom of Naples.
¹¹
Mary begged Philip “not to be afraid to come [back],” assuring him that his presence would “enable him to obtain what he wants.”
¹²

WHEN PHILIP RETURNED
to England in late March 1557, both he and the queen petitioned the Council for a declaration of war. On April 1, Mary summoned the councillors to her and, in Philip’s presence, made a speech outlining the reasons for war, with Mary now choosing to play up her wifely obligations:

The councillors asked for time to deliberate and returned two days later to deliver their verdict: it “ought not and could not declare war.”
¹⁴
They would approve financial and naval support to Philip but would not promise troops or declare openly against France.
¹⁵
The realm, they maintained, was in no condition to wage war: food was scarce, the coffers were empty and the people discontented. It would be disastrous to cut off England’s trade with France because neither Spain nor Flanders could supply all that was needed. Finally, they stated that the marriage treaty expressly forbade Philip to draw England into his struggle with France.
¹⁶

Mary was furious. She ordered the councillors to meet again and draft a reply that would “satisfy her and her husband.”
¹⁷
The Council
remained defiant, and the stalemate continued. Yet Mary was determined to fulfill Philip’s demands.
¹⁸
As Noailles reported, Mary would force “not only men, but also the elements themselves, to consent to her will.”
¹⁹
On April 13, before the court removed to Greenwich for Easter, Mary summoned the councillors privately to her room and threatened each of them, “some with death, others with the loss of their goods and estates, if they did not consent to the will of her husband.”
²⁰
They now offered money and troops, but Philip refused to be satisfied with anything less than an open declaration of war.

O
N APRIL 23, 1557, SIR THOMAS STAFFORD, AN ENGLISH PROTESTANT
exile, landed on the Yorkshire coast at Scarborough with two French ships and a force of up to a hundred English and French rebels and seized Scarborough Castle.
¹
His aim was to depose Mary, an “unrightful and unworthy Queen” who had “forfeited the right by her marriage with a Spaniard.”
²

Styling himself “protector of the realm,” he came, he said, to deliver his countrymen of the tyranny of strangers and warned of an influx of Spaniards who would enslave the people. He would “defeat the most devilish device of Mary,” who “most justly deserved to be deprived from the Crown, because she being naturally born half Spanish and half English, beareth not herself indifferently towards both nations, but showing herself a whole Spaniard, and no English Woman, in loving Spaniards, and hating Englishmen.” For the defense of the country, he promised that the crown would revert “to the true English blood of our own natural Country.”
³

The government reacted quickly. Within five days, the earl of Westmoreland had retaken the castle, and on April 30 a proclamation was issued in London announcing Stafford’s capture. He was tried, condemned, and executed for treason at Tyburn a month later.

The rebellion provided the catalyst for the declaration of war with France. Writing to Emmanuel Philibert, duke of Savoy, from London on April 28, the Spanish commander, Don Bernardino de Mendoza, declared, “As for the breach of the truce, the French have spared us the trouble.”
⁴
And in London, on June 7, 1557, the queen’s heralds formally proclaimed war with France: