Mary Tudor (56 page)

Read Mary Tudor Online

Authors: Linda Porter

The queen wrote to her sister from the palace of St James as soon as the news was confirmed that Wyatt was at the head of a substantial force in Kent. The letter described the danger of rebellion and also revealed that the queen knew something of Elizabeth’s plans, which Mary was ordering her to change. It described how
certain ill-disposed persons, minding more the satisfaction of their own malicious and seditious minds than their duty of allegiance towards us, have of late falsely spread lewd and untrue rumours and … do travail to induce our good and loving subjects to an unnatural rebellion … we, tendering the surety of your person, which might be in some peril if any sudden tumult should arise, either where you be now or at Donnington, whither (as we understand) you are bound shortly to remove, do therefore think it expedient you should put yourself in good readiness with all convenient speed to make your repair hither to us, which, we pray you, fail not to do …
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Elizabeth, pleading ill health and the great difficulties of travelling given the poor condition of the roads, declined. Besides, the news could not have come as a great surprise to her, since she had known about the timing of the uprising before Mary. Sir James Croft had made a detour to Ashridge on his way home to Wales and had taken Elizabeth into his confidence. It was he who advised her to move out of harm’s way, to her house at Donnington in Berkshire. Enigmatic as ever, Elizabeth stayed put, but she did not send post-haste to advise her sister of what she knew, nor did she make any public profession of loyalty at this stage.The decision to allow Elizabeth to leave court now seemed a dangerous mistake, especially when events took a still more serious turn. On the same day that Mary wrote to her sister, a French spy was intercepted near Rochester carrying Noailles’ dispatches. He was found to have in his possession a French translation of a letter written by Elizabeth to Mary some days earlier.
How did it get there and what, if anything, did it prove? The case of Elizabeth’s letter is one of the great diplomatic intrigues of the 16th century, and there has never been a wholly compelling explanation of how it came to be in the Frenchman’s pouch.The letter itself was unremarkable. It referred to Elizabeth’s continued ill health and gave the impression that she had not enjoyed the festive season: ‘I have been troubled, since my arrival at my house, with such a cold and headache that I have never felt their like, and especially during the last three weeks I have had no respite because of the pain in my head and also in my arms.’Then there was a reference to the fact that Mary had written, in her own hand, to her sister:‘To tell me the conclusion of your marriage and of the articles to accompany it.’ She was circumspect in what she said about this, noting only that ‘this is a deep and weighty matter, but I have no doubt that it will redound to the glory of God’.
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Despite what some writers have said, this was not a copy of Elizabeth’s refusal to come to court in response to Wyatt’s uprising in Kent. Mary did not write to Ashridge until the day the French courier was detained, and Elizabeth’s letter, though undated, is clearly earlier.
But the implications for the queen of this unexpected find were disturbing. Either there were traitors on the council, passing on her correspondence to the French, or her sister had established a secret line of communication with the French ambassador.The first possibility left Mary isolated, with only the increasingly hysterical Renard as someone she could trust.The second explanation intensified her suspicions of her absent sister. She could not discount either theory.
The truth will never be known for sure, but the deviousness of those involved, an atmosphere laden with false trails, half-lies and a complex system of espionage, suggests one possible interpretation that Mary never considered. Renard was often given copies of Mary’s correspondence by the queen herself. He could have translated it personally and ensured that it got to Noailles through the shadowy network of agents that both men used. Its discovery would be a further indictment against Elizabeth, the kind of proof that Mary’s advisers were demanding if action were to be taken against the queen’s sister.Yet the timing of the ‘discovery’ meant that Renard, if he was, indeed, responsible, had played his hand too soon.The prospect of a major attack on London by Wyatt’s men was far more serious. Elizabeth could wait.
 
Once Wyatt moved, he did not do things by half-measures. His campaigning instincts and leadership qualities quickly brought 3,000 men flocking to his standard. Kent was fertile ground for any attack on the government, with its history of rebelliousness and dislike of London’s authority. But in London, at the hastily convened meetings and crisis talks of the court and council, there was fear and uncertainty mixed with an air of unreality. Paget and Gardiner blamed each other for the threat that the queen now faced, while concurring that as much should be kept from her as possible. Their withholding of information disadvantaged them as much as it infuriated Mary. The only person willing, almost eager, to tell her what he thought was going on was, of course, Renard. The council resented his intimacy with the queen, his self-appointed role as chief adviser, which gave the entirely false impression that the defence of Mary Tudor’s throne was being orchestrated by an agent of the emperor.
And Mary had dire need of men that she could trust and who would treat her as the monarch she was, rather than as a feeble woman. For although the intended uprisings in Devon, the Midlands and Wales failed to materialise through lack of local support,Wyatt’s insurrection looked daily more menacing. It needed to be met with organised military strength.The force sent to confront Wyatt at Rochester was commanded by the duke of Norfolk, still the senior peer of the realm, and despite his age it was felt that he had the authority to handle the situation. But even Norfolk himself, when he wrote to the council on 29 January, did not sound optimistic about his chances: ‘they have fortified the bridge at Rochester, so it will be hard passing them. We shall do the best we can … Think no ill of such lords and gentlemen as were appointed to come with me, for they have honest excuse, the weather being so terrible that no man can stir by water or well by land.’
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The duke was compelled to retire the next day when most of his men, who may have received financial inducements from Noailles, went over to Wyatt. In this ignominious way, the council’s attempt to defeat the rebels by direct military engagement was snuffed out and Wyatt moved towards London unimpeded.
Contrasting emotions now beset those around the queen. Panicked by rumours that their lives were in danger, the imperial commissioners decided to hotfoot it back to the Low Countries before the approaching rebels could muster an attack on the capital. Gardiner advised the queen to flee for her own safety, but Renard and Paget told her she must not leave. The lords in charge of the military defence of the capital, the earl of Pembroke and Lord Edward Clinton, thought the physical danger exaggerated. But both had been strong supporters of Northumberland and had joined him on his ill-fated military foray against Mary in July. They received the queen’s clemency, but how far their loyalty to her went was unproven. Both claimed they did not rate Wyatt’s supporters, despite Wyatt’s own undoubted military prowess. Instead, they contented themselves with raising a crack force of 500 foot and 200 horse, of whose loyalty to the queen they could be more certain than they could of that of the normal defence, the London-trained bands, who opposed the Spanish marriage.
The one person who showed consistent calm determination and a great deal of personal courage, amid all this uncertainty and foreboding, was Mary. She knew instinctively the importance of the defiant gesture and the sheer power of majesty. In resolve and eloquence she was every bit the equal of her father and sister. And she also knew that she would fail if she could not turn public opinion in London to her cause. She must intervene personally, or the situation could slip away from her. On 1 February, she rode with her councillors to the Guildhall to make an impassioned speech to the government of London.
Mary told her listeners that Wyatt had rejected an attempt at compromise and that he proposed to hold her hostage. Her speech to the wary audience of aldermen and City of London worthies was a masterclass in Tudor oratory. At her coronation, she said, she had been ‘wedded to the realm’, and she showed her audience her coronation ring:‘I have on my finger, which hitherto never was, nor hereafter never shall be, left off.’ She reminded them that she was Henry VIII’s daughter and that she loved her people: ‘On the word of a prince, I cannot tell how naturally the mother loveth the child, for I was never mother of any. But certainly, if a prince and a governor may as naturally and earnestly love her subjects as the mother doth love the child, then assure yourselves that I, being your lady and mistress, do as earnestly and tenderly love and favour you.’ This was clever stuff with just the right note of underlying feminine vulnerability. It alluded to the long years of disappointment when she was young and naturally hoped for motherhood, yet it also subtly suggested that Mary’s marriage, the underlying cause of the current unrest and her direct appeal to London, would always come second to her commitment to England. She went on to speak of the reasons that had led her make the decision to marry, against her personal volition. Then she made an extraordinary statement, not previously discussed with any adviser, even Simon Renard: ‘On the word of a queen I promise you that if it shall not probably appear to all the nobility and commons in the high court of parliament that this marriage shall be for the benefit and commodity of the whole realm, then I will abstain from marriage while I live.’
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Mary’s audience, swept up in her emotion and the stirring manner of her delivery (her deep, strong voice was a powerful weapon, filling the Guildhall), did not raise the obvious question; she had already roundly dismissed the deputation from the House of Commons in November when it pleaded with her not to proceed with the Spanish marriage. So what had changed her mind and was the change genuine? Perhaps those present believed that the danger she faced had caused her to think again.
The only problem was that it had not. At another moment of extreme crisis, in 1536, when her father’s psychological abuse had become too much to bear, Mary was compelled to lie. Now she even lied to Renard about what she had actually said, claiming that she told the people of London ‘that if they had not understood the causes and occasions [of her marriage], she would repeat them to a Parliament’. And she certainly intended, as did her advisers, for a bill confirming her marriage and detailing the treaty to go before Parliament, as it eventually did in April 1554. But she was not truly prepared to alter her decision. Clearly, she did not care how her credibility would be damaged if the lie were exposed. Such considerations were not for princes.
The speech worked. When Wyatt arrived with his force at London Bridge two days later, on 3 February, he found it well guarded by forces loyal to the queen.The imperial commissioners might have fled for their lives but the prospects of London going over to the rebels did not seem good. Nevertheless, he persisted and on 6 February he managed to evade Mary’s soldiers and cross the River Thames by night at Kingston. He would attack the city from the west.
The news that Wyatt had not faded away, that attack was imminent, caused pandemonium when it reached the palace of Westminster in the small hours of the morning.Wyatt’s forces launched a half-hearted attack on the palace, shooting arrows at the windows, but made no attempt to breach its outer defences. Mary was woken at 3 a.m. and informed of the likelihood of a direct assault. She rose, to find her presence chamber full of armed men and her ladies wild with fright. Edward Underhill, one of the queen’s pensioners, described the scene vividly: ‘After supper I put on my armour as the rest did, for we were appointed to watch all the night. So being all armed, we came up into the chamber of presence with our poleaxes in our hands, wherewith the ladies were very fearful; some lamenting, crying, and wringing their hands, said, “Alas, there is some great mischief toward; we shall all be destroyed this night! What a sight is this, to see the queen’s chamber full of armed men” .’
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Their understandable alarm was not helped when there were further calls for the queen to flee, this time by boat: ‘All is lost; away, away; a barge, a barge!’ Reluctant to follow such advice, Mary resisted courageously:
… her grace never changed her cheer, nor would remove one foot out of the house, but asked for the lord of Pembroke, in whom her grace had worthily reposed great confidence. Answer being made that he was in the field,‘Well then,’ quod her grace,‘fall to prayer, and I warrant you we shall hear better news anon; for my lord will not deceive me, I know well; if he would, God will not, in whom my chief trust is, who will not deceive me.’
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