Chapter XI: Book III (1)

I
MARY TUDOR
QUEEN OF ENGLAND AND SPAIN

In the noble gallery at the Prado there hangs the full-length seated portrait of a lady of peculiarly modern aspect, painted by Titian from sketches and descriptions in his extreme old age.[138] Her sad, sweet smile, vague, lymphatic eyes, and high prominent forehead, give to the face a character of far away ideality, such as marked so many of the members of her house: for this is Isabel, the consort of the Emperor, and she, like the greater Isabel’s mother, belonged to the fated royal family of Portugal, whose tainted blood so often carried to its possessors the mysticism that degenerates into madness. Throughout the poor lady’s life of barely thirty-six years, she was overshadowed by the tremendous responsibility of being the mother of the Cæsar’s children. During the long and frequent absences from Spain of Charles V. in his life-struggle against France and heresy on the one side, and the powers of Islam on the other, the Empress Isabel, as Regent, controlled by a council mainly of churchmen, had to squeeze funds for the imperial wars from the commons of Castile, well nigh crushed into financial impotence since the defeat of the parliamentary champions at Villalar.

Like all those who came into immediate contact with Charles in his imperial capacity, his wife was humbly subordinate to the overwhelming magnitude of the policy which he directed, and she had no share in moulding events. For her the glory was sufficient to have borne her husband a son who lived, besides daughters and two boys who died of epilepsy in infancy. The mother of Philip of Spain looked with reverential awe upon her own child, so great and important to mankind was held to be the inheritance to which he was to succeed; and when she flickered out of life in 1539, the boy of twelve was her main contribution and justification to a world which had only known her as Cæsar’s wife, and only remembered her as Philip’s mother.

In the atmosphere of hushed reverence and rigid sacrifice to imperial ends that filled the monastic court of Spain in the absence of the Emperor, Philip was never allowed to forget for an hour the destiny, with all its duties, its responsibilities, and its power, for which he was taught that God had specially selected him as son of his father. As a boy regent in the Emperor’s first great trial of strength with the German Lutherans, his heart had ached at the sufferings of Spain from the cruel drain of blood and treasure for the war in which she had no direct concern; but when he dared, almost passionately, to remonstrate with his father at the ruin which he himself was forced to impose upon the people he loved, he was coldly reminded that it was the cause of God that he and his were fighting, and all earthly considerations must be sacrificed for its triumph. Philip was the son of his forbears, and he learnt his lesson well. Like his grandmother Isabel, he had no love of cruelty for its own sake, but like her he held the mystic belief that he and the Most High were linked in community of cause, and that the greater the suffering the greater the glory. He never spared himself or others when the cause for which he lived, the unification of the faith, demanded sacrifice; but fate was cruel in the era she chose for him. The age when Charles and his son were pledged to force all men to take their faith unquestioned from Rome at the tips of Spanish pikes was that in which the rebellious Monk of Wittemburg had challenged Rome itself, and the world was throbbing with the new revelation, that beyond the trappings that man had hung upon the church, there was a God to whom all were equal, and to whom all might appeal direct.

So, throughout the century of strife, both Charles and his son, rigid as they were, were always obliged to conciliate England, whatever its faith might be; for France, and heresy in their own dominions, were ever the nearest enemies; and for England permanently to have thrown in its lot with either of them would have consigned Spain to impotence. Henry VIII. might defy the Pope, despoil the Church, and insultingly repudiate his blameless Spanish wife, but the Emperor dared not quarrel with him for long together, or provoke him too far. But, withal, it was a hard trial for the champion of orthodoxy to have to speak fair and softly to his heterodox, excommunicated uncle, and welcome alliance with the power that was a standing negation of the cause for which he lived. Still harder was it when Henry was dead; for his personal prestige was great, and his professions of orthodoxy were emphatic, apart from his personal quarrel with the Papacy. But to him there succeeded a child-king ruled by men of small ability, determined to alter the faith of England itself, and make a durable friendship with Spain impossible.

Then almost suddenly the whole aspect of affairs changed. It had been known for some time that the young King of England, Edward VI., was failing, and would probably die without issue; but the uncertain element had been the extent of the Duke of Northumberland’s power and the strength of English Protestantism. Edward VI. died on the 7th July 1553, and the undignified collapse of Northumberland at once decided the Emperor’s plans. The treachery of Maurice of Saxony had brought Charles to the humiliating peace of Passau, and had made for ever impossible the realisation of the great dream of making Philip Emperor as well as King. It was the heaviest blow that Charles had ever suffered; and, if he could have appreciated its significance, he would have seen that it proved the impossibility of the task he had undertaken. He was still at war with the enemy, France, who had supported his Lutheran princes, and he was burning to avenge the crowning disaster of Metz, when the death of the boy King of England opened to his mind’s eye the gates of a shining future. The hollow crown of the Empire might go, with its poor patrimony and its turbulent Lutheran subjects, the fat Portuguese dowry he coveted for his son Philip might be cheerfully sacrificed; but if only rich England could be joined in lasting bonds to Spain, then France would indeed be in the toils, Flanders and Italy safe, the road to unlimited expansion in the East open, and Spain, supreme, might give laws to Latin Christendom, and to heathendom beyond. The prize was worth bidding for, and Charles lost no time.

* * * * *

In the brilliant summer weather of late July in 1553, a faded little woman with a white pinched face, no eyebrows, and russet hair, rode in a blaze of triumph through the green-bordered roads of Suffolk and Essex towards London. Around her thronged a thousand gentlemen in velvet doublets and gold chains, whilst a great force of armed men followed to support if need be the right of Mary Queen of England. It was not much more than a fortnight since her brother had died, but into that time the poignant emotions of a century had been crammed. The traitors who had proclaimed Queen Jane had tumbled over each other to be the first to betray some of their companions, and all to disown the despotic craven who had led them, the wretched Northumberland; Protestant London, even, had greeted with frantic joy the name of the Catholic Queen, whose right it knew, and whose unmerited sufferings it pitied; but at thirty-seven, an old maid, disillusioned and wearied by years of cruel injustice, Mary Tudor came to her heritage resigned rather than elated.

Amongst the crowds of officials and gentlemen who rode out of London to pay homage to the new Queen, were two men, each pledged to outwit the other in his quest. They were of similar age, about fifty, both Frenchmen, though one was born in the Burgundian territory of the Franche Comté, and both were ambassadors; one, Simon Renard, representing the Emperor, and the other, Antoine de Noailles, the King of France, and they went racing towards Chelmsford, each to try to win Queen Mary to the side of his master. Noailles was the more courtly and aristocratic; and his insinuating grace made him a dangerous rival, for it hid a spirit that stopped at no falsity or treachery if it would serve his turn. But in gaining Mary Tudor he was fatally handicapped, though when she received him at New Hall she spoke so fairly that he thought he had succeeded.[139] For Simon Renard represented the power that throughout all the bitter trials of her life Mary had looked to as her only friend. Again and again the imperial ambassadors alone had dared to claim better treatment for her and her outraged mother; and had threatened her father with vengeance if ill befell her; whilst France had always taken the opposite side, and egged King Henry on to work his own will in despite of Spain and the empire. So, though Mary was diplomatic to Noailles she was friendly to Renard, for to him and his master she looked to keep secure her trembling throne.

Already it was seen that the Queen must marry. She had been betrothed times out of number as an instrument of policy, but of her own will she desired no husband; and when Renard, in a long private chat with her at New Hall on the 1st August, broached the subject, she told him that she knew her duty in that respect and would do it, but prayed for the guidance of the Emperor in her choice of a husband. She was no longer young, she said, and hoped that too youthful a husband would not be recommended to her. Renard knew that already English people had chosen as the Queen’s prospective bridegroom young Courtenay, still in the Tower as a prisoner; and that failing him, some had thought of Cardinal Pole; but he knew well, as did the Emperor, that Mary was too proud to marry a subject, and looked to her marriage as a means of strengthening her throne; and soon afterwards even Noailles saw that Courtenay had spoilt his chance by dissoluteness of life, though he continued to make use of him as a tool for conspiracy against Mary and her Spanish friends.

On the 3rd August the new Queen, dressed in violet velvet, and mounted on a milk-white pony, came to her city of London through the gaily decked portal of Aldgate, and so to the Tower, where she released those who had lain there in prison to suit the policy of the men who had ruled Edward VI. Events moved apace. Gardiner from a prison was suddenly raised to the post of chief minister. Bonner, the hated Bishop of London, came from the Marshalsea to his throne in Saint Paul’s; and everywhere, though yet illegal, the mass was already being introduced. The Emperor kept warning Mary to be moderate, and to walk warily; whilst the churchmen, burning with zeal to come upon their own again, were obstinately shutting their eyes to all that had happened since bluff Henry’s death. Renard it was who almost daily saw the Queen with these messages of modern counsel from his master; and the subject of marriage was mentioned more than once. Noailles and Gardiner were pushing as hard as they might the suit of Courtenay; but on the 7th August Mary told Renard that she saw no fit match for her in her own country, and had decided to marry a foreigner.

Then gently and tentatively the ambassador mentioned the Emperor’s only son Philip. She affected to laugh at the idea, for the Prince was only twenty-seven—the same age as Courtenay, by the way—and, as she said on another occasion, most of the bridegrooms they offered her might have been her sons. But Renard saw that his suggestion was not altogether an unwelcome one, and hastened to ask his master for further instructions. ‘Do not overpress her,’ wrote Granvelle, ‘to divert her from any other match; because if she have the whim she will carry it forward if she be like other women.’ But Mary Tudor’s birth and trials had made her not like other women; and she listened to the tale of marriage, not because she hankered for a husband, but because she hungered for a son to present to her people.

Noailles soon got wind of the plan to marry Mary to the Emperor’s son, and wherever French gold or interest could reach the enemies of the new regime they were plied with hints of the terrible results that would come if Spain ruled England by Torquemada’s methods. A gust of panic swept over London at the idea of an Inquisition; for the Queen had come at first with promises of toleration, and already the zeal of the churchmen had darkened the horizon. On the eve of the Queen’s coronation, on the 1st October, a Spanish resident in London, whilst professing to despair of the probability of the match, writes words that show how well aware even private citizens were of the advantage that it would bring to Spain. ‘And if the Lord vouchsafed us to behold this glorious day, what great advantage would befall our Spain, by holding the Frenchmen in check, by the union of these kingdoms with his Majesty. And if it were only to preserve Flanders his Majesty and his son must greatly desire it, ... for when the Lord shall call his Majesty away the Low Countries will be in peril of the Frenchmen attacking them, or of the Germans (_i.e._, Lutherans) invading them by their help, the succour from Spain being so remote, and the people (_i.e._, of Flanders) not being well affected towards our nation. It would also be most advantageous to Spain, because if aught should happen to the Prince’s son (_i.e._, Don Carlos) the son born here would be King of both countries, and, in sooth, this would be advantageous to the English also.’[140]

We may be sure that Mary’s coyly sympathetic attitude was not lost on the Emperor. But Philip was a man of twenty-seven, a widower since his boyhood, with a mistress (Isabel de Osorio) whom he loved; and for many years past he had been his own master, and practically King of Spain, though nominally only Prince Regent. His marriage, moreover, to a Portuguese cousin with a rich dowry was in active final negotiation, and the Emperor could not be sure how the Prince would receive the suggestion of marriage with an unattractive foreign woman more than ten years his senior, and living in a far country. He need have had no distrust. Philip under his system had been brought up from his birth to regard sacrifice to his mission as a supreme duty. He was a statesman and a patriot, and he saw as clearly as his father the increment of strength that the union with England would bring to the cause to which their lives were pledged; and his reply, given, as Sandoval says, ‘like a second Isaac ready to sacrifice himself to his father’s will and for the good of the church,’ was, ‘I have no other will than that of your Majesty, and whatever you desire, that will I do.’

Promptly on the heels of the courier that bore the dutiful letter to the Emperor went two nobles of Philip’s household, Don Diego Hurtado de Mendoza and Don Diego de Geneda, to offer congratulations and greetings to the new Queen of England in his name. Geneda bore a secret message to her of a warmer character than mere greeting; and before the sumptuous coronation in Westminster Abbey on the 1st October, Mary had practically made up her mind to marry her second cousin. She knew that England, under Noailles’ artful incitement, was in a ferment of alarm at the idea; but she was a Tudor; she had some long scores to settle, she needed strength to do it, and opposition only made her firmer. Parliament met on the 5th October, and, under pressure from Mary, made a clean sweep of all the anti-Papal laws that had severed England from Rome; but when, influenced by Gardiner and prompted by Noailles, the House of Commons voted an address to the Queen praying her not to marry a foreigner, Mary sent for the members to wait upon her. The Speaker and a deputation of twenty parliament men stood trembling before her and presented their humble address, whilst the angry Queen muttered that she would be a match for Chancellor Gardiner’s cunning. Her reply to the Speaker was haughty and minatory: ‘Your desire to dictate to us the Consort whom we shall choose we consider somewhat superfluous. The English parliament has not been wont to use such language to its sovereigns, and when private persons on such matters suit their own tastes, sovereigns may reasonably be allowed to choose whom they prefer.’[141] This was the true Tudor way of dealing with the Commons, and Mary having obtained the religious legislation she needed to legalise her own position on the throne, promptly dissolved the parliament she had flouted.

It was only after much prayerful heart-searching that Mary had so far made up her mind to prefer the Prince of Spain. At first she had tried to make it a condition that the Emperor should not ask her to marry any candidate before she had seen him; but this in Philip’s case was impossible. He was too great a catch to be trotted out for inspection and approval, and when this was gently put to her by Renard, she tearfully implored the ambassador, whose hands she seized and held between her own, not to deceive her with regard to the Prince’s character. Was he really well conducted and discreet, as he had been described to her? The ambassador emphatically protested on his honour that he was; but still the Queen, almost doubting still, wished that she might see him before she gave her word. A good portrait by Titian was sent to her, representing the Prince rather younger than he was, a good-looking young man with the fair Austrian skin and yellow hair, the slight curly beard hardly masking the heavy jaw and underlip he inherited from his father. The portrait appears to have banished the last doubts in Mary’s mind. She had never had a love affair before, often as she had been betrothed: even now her idea had been to marry because her position entailed it. But the contemplation of the face of him who was to be her husband, and Renard’s reiteration of his good qualities, gradually worked in her mind an intense yearning for the affection for which she had hungered in vain during her persecuted youth.

On Sunday evening, the 31st October, she summoned Renard to a room containing an altar upon which the monstrance with the Host was placed. The Queen was alone, except for her devoted nurse Mrs. Clarencius, when the ambassador entered; and with much emotion she told him that since he had presented the Emperor’s letter asking her hand for Philip, she had been sleepless, passing her time in weeping and prayers for guidance as to her choice of a husband. ‘The Holy Sacrament is my resource in all my difficulties,’ she said, ‘and as it is standing upon the altar in this room, I will appeal to it for counsel now;’ and, kneeling, as did Renard and Clarencius, she recited _Veni Creator Spiritus_ almost below her breath. After a short silent prayer she rose, calm and self-possessed, and told the ambassador that she had chosen him for her father confessor with the Emperor. She had considered carefully all that had been told her about Philip, and had consulted Arundel, Paget, and Petre[142] on the subject; and, bearing in mind the good qualities and disposition of the Prince, she prayed the Emperor to be indulgent with her, and agree to the conditions necessary for the welfare of her realm; to continue to be a good father to her, since henceforward he would be doubly her father, and to urge Philip to be a good husband. Then solemnly upon the altar, before the Sacred Presence, she promised Renard that she would marry Philip, Prince of Spain, making him a good and faithful wife, loving him devotedly without change.[143] She had wavered long in doubt, she said, but God had illumined her, and her mind was now made up: she would marry Philip and no one else.

Renard was overjoyed at the news, which he sent flying to the Emperor, but kept inviolably secret from all others. But though no one knew, every one suspected; and the muttering of coming trouble sounded on all sides. Lady Jane Grey, Northumberland’s three sons, Cranmer, Ridley, and others, were tried and condemned to death. Risings here and there in the country burst out sporadically, for disaffection was everywhere; Noailles’ confabulations with Elizabeth and Courtenay were discovered and denounced; Pole was stopped by the Emperor on his way to England; and Gardiner, kept in the dark as to the Queen’s irrevocable promise, still battled against the project of a Spanish match. But the secret had to be let out at last, and the Spanish adherents in Mary’s council were obliged to consult Gardiner as to the marriage treaty. They drove a hard bargain, notwithstanding all the bribes and blandishments, for they were determined that the marriage should not mean the political subjugation of England by Spain; and the King Consort’s power was so fenced around by safeguards and limitations that when Philip finally heard the conditions, he was well nigh in despair, for he knew that if they were fulfilled to the letter the marriage would be useless to Spanish interests, and that his sacrifice would be in vain. But of this the populace knew nothing. What they did know was, that a Spaniard was coming to be their King, and London at least shuddered at the plenteous hints that Noailles had spread, that the Inquisition and the _auto de fe_ were coming too.

So when, on the 1st January 1554, a troop of foreign servants and harbingers rode through the city of London to prepare the lodgings of the brilliant imperial embassy that was to arrive next day, even the ’prentices gathered as they passed and greeted them with curses and volleys of snowballs.[144] The brilliant Count of Egmont and his train landed duly at the Tower wharf on the morrow, to ask formally for the hand of the Queen for the Emperor’s son. ‘They were met by Sir Anthony Browne, he being clothed in a very gorgeouse apparel. At the Tower Hill the earle of Devonshire (_i.e._, Courtenay), with the lorde Garrett and dyvers others, receyved him in most honorable and famylier wyse; and so the lorde of Devonshire, gevyng him the right hand, brought him thoroughte Chepsyde, and so fourthe to Dyrram Place (_i.e._, Durham House in the Strand), the people nothing rejoysing, helde downe their heddes sorrowfully.’[145] The formalities were soon got through with a few solemn banquets and courtly ceremonies, and on the 13th January Gardiner, with as good a face as he could put upon the matter, made an oration in the Chamber of Presence at Westminster to the lords and officials, declaring the Queen’s purpose to marry Philip of Spain: ‘in most godly lawfull matrimonye: and further, that she should have for her joynter xxx.^{mil}.. ducketes by the yere, with all the Lowe Country of Flanders; and that the issue betweene them two lawfully begotten shoulde, yf there were any, be heir as well to the Kingdome of Spayne, as also to the sayde Lowe Country. He declared further that we were much bounden to thanck God that so noble, worthye, and famouse a prince, would vouchsafe so to humble himself in this maryadge to take upon him rather as a subject than otherwise: and that the Quene should rule all thinges as nowe: and that there should be of the Counsell no Spanyard, nether should have the custody of any fortes or castells, nether have rule or offyce in the quene’s house or elsewhere in all England.’[146] Gardiner made the best of it, but the bare fact was enough to send the friends of the late regime, and not a few of those who had profited by the plunder of the church, into a delirium of fear. Carews, Wyatts, and Greys protested, rebelled and collapsed, for England, in the main, was loyal to Mary, and the vast majority of the people, except in and about London, bitterly resented the iconoclastic changes of Edward’s reign. The Queen knew her own mind too, and in the face of danger was as firm as a rock, for in her sight the Spanish marriage meant the resurrection of her country and the salvation of her people. Charles and his son doubtless thought so too in a general way, but that was not their first object. What they wanted was to humble France permanently by means of their command of English resources, and to make Spain the dictatress of the world.

On the very day that poor Wyatt’s ‘draggletayles,’ all mud-stained and weary with their march from Kingston Bridge, were toiling up Fleet Street to final failure and the gallows, a dusty courier rode into Valladolid with the news for Philip, that the offer of his hand had been accepted by the Queen of England. The prince was at Aranjuez, a hundred miles away, planning his favourite gardens, when the news reached him, with the premature addition that the Earl of Bedford was already on the way to Spain with the marriage contract. Philip stopped his pastime at once and started the same day for Valladolid with his bodyguard of horsemen in the scarlet and gold of Aragon. In haste the old city put itself into holiday garb, and organised tourneys, cane-tiltings and fireworks, to celebrate the agreement which was to make the beloved Prince of Spain King of England. The looms and broidery-frames of all the realms were soon busy making the gorgeous garb and glittering trappings to fit out the nobles and hidalgos who were to follow their prince to England, each, with Spanish ostentation, bent upon outstripping his fellows in splendour. Alba, Medina Celi, Aguilar, Pescara, Feria, Mendoza and Enriquez, and a hundred other haughty magnates, were bidden to make ready with their armies of retainers all in fine new clothes, in spite of Renard’s warning that: ‘_Seulement sera requis que les Espaignolez qui suyuront vostre Alteze comportent les façons de faire des Angloys, et soient modestes._’

Philip’s steward, Padilla, was sent hurrying to the coast to receive the Earl of Bedford, who did not start from England for another month; and the Marquis de las Novas, loaded with splendid presents from Philip to his bride, set out for England. Mary was conspicuously fond of fine garments and jewels, and Philip in his youth, and on state occasions, wore the richest of apparel; but even they must have been sated at the piled-up sumptuousness for which their wedding was an excuse. Philip’s offering to Mary, sent by Las Novas, consisted of ‘a great table diamond, mounted as a rose in a superb gold setting, valued at 50,000 ducats; a collar or necklace of eighteen large brilliants, exquisitely mounted and set with dainty grace, valued at 32,000 ducats; a great diamond and a large pearl pendant from it (this was Mary’s favourite jewel, and may be seen in the accompanying portrait), the most beautiful gems, says a contemporary eyewitness, ever seen in the world, and worth 25,000 ducats; and then follows a list of pearls, diamonds, emeralds and rubies, without number, sent to Mary and her ladies by the gallant bridegroom.[147]

Whilst all these fine preparations were going on in Spain, the Emperor more than once questioned the wisdom or safety of allowing his son to risk himself amongst a people so incensed against the match as the English, and in partial rebellion against it; and Renard held many anxious conferences with Mary and her council on the subject. The Queen declared again and again that she would answer for Philip’s safety; and she put aside, as gently as she could, Renard’s incessant promptings of greater severity upon Elizabeth, Courtenay and the rest of the suspects and rebels. Once, at the end of March, Renard told her that if she was so lenient to rebels, he doubted whether Prince Philip could be trusted in her realm, ‘as he could not come armed; and if anything befell him it would be a most disastrous and lamentable scandal. Not only would the person of his Highness suffer, but also the lords and gentlemen who accompanied him: and I could not help doubting whether she had taken all the necessary steps to ensure safety.’ To this she answered, with tears in her eyes, ‘that she had rather never been born than that any outrage should happen to the Prince; and she fervently hoped to God that no such thing would occur. All the members of her Council would do their duty in their reception of the Prince, and were going to great expense about it. Her Council shall be reduced to six members, as Paget and Petre had advised; and she would do her best to dispose the goodwill of her subjects who wish for the Prince’s coming.’[148]

Mary was overwhelmed with anxiety. ‘She had neither rest nor sleep,’ she said, ‘for thinking of the means of security for Philip in England.’ But she would not sacrifice Elizabeth for all the clamouring of Renard, and even of Gardiner. She knew that the French were almost openly subsidising rebellion against her; and that her people grew more apprehensive daily that her marriage with Philip would mean a war with France for Spanish objects, but she had now set her mind upon the marriage, and nothing in the world would shake her. Philip, though he was not personally brave, was equally firm about coming, even at risk of his life; for his was a spirit of sacrifice and his marriage was a sacred duty. From duty Philip never shrank, whatever the suffering it entailed.

On the 14th May 1554 Philip rode out of Valladolid with nearly a thousand horsemen in gaudy raiment. First going south west to near the Portuguese frontier to meet his sister Joan, who had just lost her husband, the Prince of Portugal, he turned aside to take a last farewell to his grandmother, Joan the Mad, in her prison-palace at Tordesillas, and then passed on from town to town, through Leon and Galicia; his puny, hydrocephalic heir, Don Carlos, by his side, towards Santiago and Corunna. Loving greeting and good wishes followed him everywhere; for was he not going to fix upon yet another land, and that a rich one, the seal that marked it as within the circle of the Spanish realms? Proud were these hidalgos who rode behind him, proud the Spaniards, high and low, who welcomed him and sped him on his way, proud the very lackeys in the smallest squireling’s train; for they were all Spaniards, and they felt that this was a Spanish victory.

On the vigil of St. John, 23rd June, Philip was received at the gates of Santiago by kneeling citizens with golden keys as usual; and as he and his train, all flashing in the southern sun, pranced through the streets of the apostolic capital, two English lords, Bedford and Fitzwalter, sat at a window with their mantles before their faces, watching the progress of their future King. The next morning the English special envoys were publicly led into Philip’s presence. He met them at the door of the chamber leading into the great hall, and as the Englishmen bent the knee and doffed their bonnets the Prince uncovered and bowed low. Bedford, ‘a grandee and a good Christian,’ we are told by an eyewitness, then handed the marriage contract to him, and kissed hand, as did his colleagues. On leaving the room one Englishman said to another, apparently delighted at Philip’s demeanour, ‘O! God be praised for sending us so good a King as this’; and the Spaniard who heard the remark and understood English was only too glad of an opportunity of repeating it to his gratified compatriots. The envoys had good reason to be pleased with Philip, for though he was usually a bad paymaster to those who served him, he could be very liberal when it suited him; and on the day after the state interview a splendid piece of gold plate, magnificently worked, and standing nearly five feet high, was presented to Bedford, all the rest of the Englishmen being dealt with in similar generous fashion.

In the harbour a fine fleet of vessels rode at anchor with several English royal vessels; and Bedford prayed that Philip would make the voyage in one of the latter. This, however, was not considered prudent or dignified; but the English envoys were given the privilege of choosing amongst the Spanish vessels that which should carry the King. It was a fine ship they selected, belonging to Martin de Bertondona, one of the first sailors in Spain; and when Philip went to inspect it the next day it must have presented a splendid sight, with its towering gilded poop and forecastle, its thousand fluttering pennons; and over all the proud royal standard of crimson damask thirty yards long.[149] At length, after much ceremonious junketing, the heralds announced that the King would embark the next day, 12th July. There were over a hundred sail, fully armed and carrying a body of over six thousand men to reinforce the Emperor, besides six thousand sailors; and when the King stepped upon his beautiful twenty-four-oared galley, all decked with silk and cloth of gold, with minstrels and rowers clad in damask doublets and plumed bonnets to go on board the ship that was to bear him to England, the ‘Espiritu Santo,’ the great crowd on shore cried aloud to God and Santiago to send the royal traveller a safe and happy voyage, and confusion to the French. On the fifth day out a Flemish fleet of eighteen sail hove in sight off the Land’s End, and convoyed the Prince past the Needles with some ships of the English navy; and on Thursday, 19th July 1554, the combined fleets anchored in Southampton Water amidst the thunderous salutes of the English and Flemish ships at anchor there to greet them.

The English and Flemish sailors had not got on well together during the stay of the Flemish fleet at Southampton. The officers suspected the Lord Admiral of England (Lord William Howard) of intriguing with the French to capture Philip on his way; and reported that he made little account of the Flemish Admiral, de la Chapelle, and called his ships mussel shells. When some of the Flemings had landed the English soldiers had hustled and insulted them in the streets; and by the time Philip arrived in Southampton water the two naval forces were not on speaking terms.[150] On shore things were no better. The nobility of England, usually so lavish, except those around the Queen, were for the most part sulking as much as they dared. They were too poor, they declared, to make great and costly preparations to receive the King, and even a majority of the Queen’s Council were suspected of plotting in favour of Elizabeth; whilst Noailles was tireless in his efforts to spread alarm and disaffection.

Bedford had reported that Philip was a bad sailor, but fortunately the voyage had been a calm one, and he remained at anchor for twenty hours before he landed for the first time in England; so that he was quite able to carry out the instructions of his father, and the recommendations of Renard, to conciliate the English in every possible way. During his visit years before to Germany and Flanders he had offended the subjects there by his cold precision of manner and his Spanish abstemiousness; but from the first hour of his stay in England, his whole behaviour underwent a change, for at the call of duty he was even willing to sacrifice all his usual tastes and habits. A crowd of English nobles and courtiers who were to be Philip’s household came off at once to salute him on board the ‘Espiritu Santo’; and when the next day he stepped into the magnificent royal barge that was to bear him to land, the Earl of Arundel invested him with the badge of the Garter in the name of the Queen. With him, besides the English lords, there went in the barge a stately crowd of Spanish grandees, Alba, Feria, Ruy Gomez, his only friend, Olivares, with Egmont, Horn, and Bergues; but no soldier or man-at-arms was allowed on shore on pain of death. Philip had learnt from Renard the agony of distrust felt in England of Spanish arms, and at the same time came the even less welcome news that the Emperor had suffered a defeat in Flanders, and needed urgently every soldier that could be sent to him. So the Spanish fleet was not even allowed to enter the port of Southampton, but after some delay and much grumbling on the part of the Spaniards at what they considered churlish treatment, was sent to Portsmouth to revictual for their voyage to Flanders.

As Philip stepped ashore, Sir Anthony Browne in a Latin speech announced that the Queen had appointed him her consort’s master of the horse, and had sent him the beautiful white charger, housed in crimson velvet and gold, that was champing its bit hard by. The King would have preferred to walk the short distance to the house prepared for him; but Browne and the lords in waiting told him that this was not usual, and the former ‘took him up in his arms and placed him in the saddle, then kissing the stirrup, marched bareheaded by the side of his new master to the Church of Holy Rood.’ The King must have looked a gracious figure as he passed through the curious crowd smiling and bowing, dapper and erect on his steed, with his short yellow beard and close-cropped yellow head; dressed as he was in black velvet and silver, with massive gold chains and glittering gems on his breast, around his velvet bonnet, and at his neck and wrists; and every one around him, so far as fine clothes went, was a fit pendant to him. All the English guards, archers, and porters wore the red and yellow of Aragon; and the nobles in attendance, both English and Spanish, were splendid in the extreme; but beneath the silk and jewels beat hearts full of hate. The Spanish servants, 400 of them, who landed, were not allowed by the jealous English to act for their master in any way; and at Philip’s public dinner the day before he left Southampton, Alba forcibly asserted his right to hand the napkin to his master; whilst all the lowlier courtiers stood by, idly scoffing and sneering at the clumsy service of their English supplanters.

During the four days of Philip’s stay at Southampton, whilst his belongings were being landed, splendid presents and loving messages passed almost hourly to and fro between Mary and her betrothed. Hundreds of gaily clad servitors, with finely houselled horses, diamond rings and gold chains galore, came from the Queen at Winchester, though a continuous pelting rain was falling; and on Monday, 23rd July, the great cavalcade set out from Southampton 3000 strong. To the disgust of the Spaniards the King was surrounded by Englishmen alone; and on the way 600 more English gentlemen in black velvet and gold chains met him, sent by the Queen as an additional bodyguard; followed a few miles further on by another embassy from her of six pages clad in crimson brocade and gold sashes, with six more beautiful horses.[151] The rain never ceased, and soon Philip’s felt cloak failed to keep dry his black velvet surcoat and his trunks and doublet of white satin embroidered with gold. So wet was he, indeed, that he had to stay at St. Cross to don another suit just as splendid, consisting of a black velvet surcoat covered with gold bugles, and white velvet doublet and trunks. And so clad he and his train rode to the stately cathedral of Winchester to hear mass; and then to the Dean’s house close by, where he was to lodge.

That night at ten o’clock, after he had supped, the Earl of Arundel came and told him that the Queen awaited him at the Bishop’s palace on the other side of the Cathedral. Once more he donned a change of garments: this time of white kid covered with gold embroidery; and with a little crowd of English and Spanish nobles, he crossed the narrow lane between the two gardens, and entered that of the Bishop by a door in the wall.[152] A private staircase gave access to the Queen’s apartment, and there Philip saw his bride for the first time. The apartment was a long narrow gallery, where Gardiner and several other elderly councillors were assembled; and as Philip entered the Queen was pacing up and down impatiently. She was, as usual, magnificently dressed, with many jewels over her black velvet gown, cut high, with a petticoat of frosted silver. When her eyes lighted on him who was to be her husband, she came rapidly forward, kissing her hand before taking his, whilst he gallantly kissed her upon the mouth, in English fashion.

In her case, at all events, it was love at first sight. The poor woman, starved and hungry for love all her life, betrayed and ill-treated by those who should have shielded her, with a soul driven back upon itself, at last had found in this fair, trim built, young man, ten years her junior, a being whom she could love without reproach and without distrust. He confronted the match in a pure spirit of sacrifice; for to him it meant the victory of the cause for which he and his great father lived. It meant, sooner or later, the crushing of France, the extirpation of heresy, and the hegemony of Spain over Europe; and though Mary was no beauty, Philip was a chivalrous gentleman, and, having decided to offer himself as a sacrifice for the cause, he did so with a good grace. Sitting under the canopy side by side, the lovers chatted amicably; he speaking in Spanish and she in French, though she made some coquettish attempts to teach him English words.

The next day brought fresh changes of gorgeous raiment, this time of purple velvet and gold, and the public reception of Philip by his bride in the great hall. There, under the canopy of state, the betrothed pledged each other in a cup of wine, whilst the Spanish courtiers sneered at everything English, and the Englishmen frowned at the Spaniards. On the day of St. James, the patron saint of Spain (25th July), the ancient cathedral was aglow with brilliant colour. All the pomp that expenditure could command, or fancy devise, was there to honour a wedding which apparently was to decide the fate of the world for centuries. The Queen, we are told, blazed with jewels to an extent that dazzled those who gazed upon her, as she swept up to her seat before the altar, with her long train of cloth of gold over her black velvet gown sparkling with precious stones. Philip wore a similar mantle, covered with gems, over a dress of white satin almost hidden by chains and jewels. Upon a platform erected in the midst of the nave, Philip and Mary were made man and wife by Bishop Gardiner, who afterwards proclaimed to the assembly that the Emperor had transferred to his son the title of King of Naples.

At the wedding banquet in the bishop’s palace that afternoon Mary took precedence of her husband. She sat on the higher throne, and ate off gold plate, whilst Philip was served on silver; and Spaniards scowled at the idea that their prince should be second to any. The solid sumptuousness and abundance of everything struck the Spaniards with amazement, both at the banquet and at the ball and supper which followed. But the richer the country the greater their disappointment. Already they were grumbling that the sacrifice the King had made was vain. Philip, after all, was not to be master in England, and must go to a council to ask permission to do anything with English resources. Nay, said the courtiers, so far from being master, it is he who has to dance as these Englishmen play: he must bend to their prejudices and caprices, not they to his, as was fitting for vassals. The English, on their side, were just as dour under the terrifying predictions of French agents; and as the royal lovers travelled to Basing, and so to Windsor, Richmond and London, matters grew worse and worse.

Philip and Renard did their best to smooth ruffled susceptibilities. All acts of clemency were ostentatiously coupled with Philip’s name, and the King surpassed himself in amiability and generosity.[153] Mary, in the meantime, was perfectly infatuated with her young husband, and he was kind and gentle to her, as he was to each of his wives in turn. ‘Their Majesties,’ writes a Spanish courtier, ‘are the happiest couple in the world, and are more in love with each other than I can say. He never leaves her, and on the road is always by her side, lifting her into the saddle and helping her to dismount. He dines with her, publicly sometimes, and they go to mass together on feast days.’ Then the same writer continues: ‘These English are the most ungrateful people in the world, and hate Spaniards worse than the devil. They rob us, even in the middle of the city, and not a soul of us dares to venture two miles away for fear of molestation. There is no justice for us at all. We are ordered by the King to avoid disputes and put up with everything whilst we are here, and to endure all their attacks in silence.... We are told that we must bear everything for his Majesty’s sake.’[154]

Spanish nobles were openly insulted in the streets of London, and Spanish priests stoned in the churches: but this was not the worst. What galled most was the growing conviction that all this humiliation was in vain. Instead of a submissive people ready to bow the neck to the new King and his countrymen, the Spaniards found a country where the sovereign’s power was strictly circumscribed, and where a foreigner’s only hope of domination was by force of arms. ‘This marriage will, indeed, have been a failure if the Queen have no children,’ wrote one of Philip’s chamberlains. ‘They told us in Castile that if his Highness became King of England we should be masters of France ... but instead of that the French are stronger than ever, and are doing as they like in Flanders. Kings here have as little power as if they were subjects; the people who really govern are the councillors, who are the King’s masters.... They say openly that they will not let our King go until they and the Queen think fit, as this country is quite big enough to satisfy any one King.’

But still Philip struggled on, gaining ascendency over his wife and gradually influencing the councillors by gifts and graciousness.[155] The fifty gallows that had borne as many dead sympathisers of Wyatt were cleared from the streets, and the skulls of the higher offenders were banished from London Bridge, so that the triumphant entry of Philip and Mary into the capital should be marred by no evil reminders; but though London was loyal to Mary, it hated Spaniards more than any city in the realm; and the crowd that hailed the Queen effusively when, on the 18th August, she and her husband went in state from Southwark through the city to Whitehall, listened and believed the wild and foolish rumours that a great army of Spaniards was coming to fetch away the crown of England; that a Spanish friar was to be Archbishop of Canterbury, that English treasure was being sent from the Tower to fill the Emperor’s coffers, and much else of the same sort that French agents set afloat; so, withal, there were few who smiled upon the Queen’s consort, let him smile as he might upon them. Fair pageants decked the street corners, and far-fetched compliments were recited to the King and Queen by children dressed as angels, for the corporation of London had been warned that there must be no lack of official signs of welcome; but to prove how sensitive and apprehensive both the court and the people were, the story is told of how the Conduit in Gracechurch Street was decked with painted figures of kings, one of whom, Henry VIII., was represented with a bible labelled ‘_Verbum Dei_’ in his hand; whereupon Gardiner, in a towering rage, thinking this quite innocent representation was intended as an insult to the Catholic idea of the Bible, sent for the painter and threatened him with all sorts of punishments.

Philip’s patience, however, was gradually breaking down the distrust entertained in him. It was seen that wherever his influence was exerted it was on the side of moderation; though of course it was not understood that this and all his sweetness was only part of the deep plan of the Emperor to obtain for his son full control of English policy. Mary’s position at the time was a most difficult one. She was deeply in love with her husband; and she desired fervently the aggrandisement of Spain, which would mean the triumph of Catholicism over heresy and security for her throne; but she was an English Queen, determined if she could to rule for the good of her people, and to bring about peace with France before she was drawn into the war. When Noailles saw Mary to give his tardy and insincere congratulations on the marriage that he had tried so hard to thwart, she assured him that her friendship with France was unchanged, and Philip immediately afterwards added his assurance that he would maintain intact all the alliances contracted by England, whilst they were for England’s good.[156]

After Pole had been made to understand that the full restitution of church property in England must not be pressed, or revolution would result, he was allowed to come to England as legate, and the country formally returned to the pale of the church in November 1554. On the very day that Pole arrived it was officially announced that the Queen was pregnant; and all England, and still more all Spaniards, greeted the great news as a special favour vouchsafed by heaven. To Philip and his father it meant very much; for if a son was born the hold of Spain over England would be complete for generations, at least long enough for the great task of unification of the faith to be effected. Its significance, even in anticipation, was made use of by Philip at once, and during the jubilation to which it gave rise, he caused his spokesman in parliament to propose the sending of an armed English contingent to aid the Emperor in the war against France, and the appointment of himself as Regent of England in case the expected child outlived his mother. The zeal of Bonner and Gardiner, however, spoilt it all. They had already begun their fell work of religious persecution; and the reaction that naturally resulted against Spain compelled the Queen to dissolve parliament in a hurry before Philip’s turn was served.

Not only was Philip personally opposed to the persecution in England, which he saw would injure his object, but he caused his chaplains openly to denounce from the pulpit the policy pursued by the English bishops. Renard ceaselessly deplored in his letters to the Emperor this over zeal of the English churchman, whose one idea of course was to serve, as they thought, their church, and not Spanish political ends. For six months Philip stood in the breach and dammed the tide of persecution: but his father was growing impatient for his presence in Flanders. The deadly torpor was creeping over him, though he was not yet old, as it had crept over others of his house; and he had begged for months that his son should come and relieve him of his burden. Philip had waited week after week in the ever deluded hope that Mary’s promise of issue would be fulfilled; but, at last, even the unhappy Queen herself had become incredulous, and her husband could delay his departure no longer. By August 1555 the rogations and intercessions to the Almighty for the safe birth of a prince were ordered to be discontinued, and the splendid plot of the Emperor and Philip to bring England and its resources permanently to their side against France and heresy, was admitted to be a failure.