Chapter III (1)

1554-1555

Philip’s first meeting with Mary—The marriage—Discontent
and disappointment of the Spaniards—Philip’s kindness
to his wife—Spanish descriptions of England—Philip in
London—Arrival of Pole—Philip’s religious policy in England—His
attempts to marry Elizabeth to Savoy—The Emperor’s war with
France—Departure of Philip from England

Dusk was falling upon the gloomy day when Philip, having duly performed his devotions and admired the splendid fane of Winchester, found himself at ease in the Dean’s house, which had been prepared for his reception. The Queen’s maiden scruples had been respected, for it was not in accordance with etiquette that they should both sleep under the same roof before they became man and wife; so that whilst the Deanery sheltered the bridegroom, the bride was lodged in Bishop Gardiner’s castle adjoining. Philip supped, and when he was thinking of going to bed, it being ten o’clock at night, some English courtiers and the Mistress of the Robes came and said that the Queen wished him to visit her secretly in her closet, where she awaited him, but that he was to bring only a very few followers. Another beautiful dress had perforce to be assumed, consisting of a French surcoat embroidered in silver and gold, with doublet and trunks of white kid covered with gold embroidery; and then, accompanied by Alba, Medina-Celi, Feria, Aguilar, Egmont, Horn, and a half-dozen more grandees, the Prince was led by his English guides across the lane and still-existing little green to a garden gate, through which only the nobles chosen by Philip were allowed to enter. They found themselves in a delicious garden, and in the mysterious darkness threaded the leafy alleys, until they arrived at the great moated house, which they entered by a little back door, from which a private stair led direct to the Queen’s private apartment.

When the English guide threw open the door at the head of the stair, Philip for the first time looked upon the woman who was to be his second wife. Mary was slowly pacing the long passage or gallery lined with tapestry, which constituted the room. Two gentlemen bore torches before her, and with her were Gardiner and three or four other aged men and some ladies-in-waiting. Philip hung back a few seconds whilst Egmont entered the room. He, being known to the Queen, was greeted by her graciously; and then, as she caught sight of the smart figure of her bridegroom, she walked rapidly towards him, and kissed her hand before she grasped his. Philip did the same, and, in the English fashion of the time, gallantly kissed his elderly bride upon her lips. Mary was, as usual, splendidly dressed, and her trim little figure must have looked stately enough in her black velvet gown, cut high at the neck, her petticoat of frosted silver, her coif of black velvet and gold, and wonderful girdle, collar, and pendants of flashing gems. Her complexion was of that peculiar transparency which usually accompanies red hair; her eyes, which were also of ruddy brown, were almost without eyebrows, as her father’s had been; and her somewhat austere face was wreathed now with smiles of welcome to the man for whose coming she had yearned.

Leading him by the hand to a chair beside her own beneath the canopy, she replied in French to his Spanish compliments. Whilst they were thus seated in happy converse, the irrepressible Lord Admiral Howard broke in with some of his usual suggestive jokes, not in the best taste according to the ideas of to-day, but apparently accepted at that time as quite permissible. Then, one by one, the Spanish nobles were brought forward to kiss the Queen’s hand; and Philip, apparently finding the interview somewhat tedious, as his knowledge of French was not extensive, proposed that he should go into the adjoining apartment to greet the Queen’s ladies. Mary insisted upon accompanying him. The ladies, in pairs, were led forward to courtesy before the Prince, who, cap in hand, “in order not to violate the custom of the country, kissed each of them on the lips as they passed him.” The ceremony, probably, was not over-pleasant to Mary, for when, the kissing being at an end, Philip suggested that it was getting late and he had better retire, the Queen insisted upon leading him to the canopy again for another chat.

Already the Spaniards began to nod and wink to each other to signify that the Queen had fallen in love with her husband thus soon at first sight, and it is quite probable that such was the case. Mary’s heart had been starved for love all her life. There was none of her kin now with whom she could unbend, and, with her crushing responsibility, it must have been for her like a glimpse of heaven to feel that this good-looking, wise, young man, fully her equal in rank, and her superior in power, was in future to be kinsman, husband, and upholder in one. At last the time came for parting, and in jesting mood grave Philip learnt of his bride how to say “Good-night” in English. But alas! before he could reach the ladies in the other room to say the newly learnt words to them, the outlandish sounds had slipped out of his mind, and with much laughter and smiles he had to go back and learn them again from the Queen.[55] In conversation with Philip, the Queen’s governess (Mrs. Clarencius?) expressed her joy at the coming union and thanks to God for letting her live to see the day, though she regretted that she had not reared a more beautiful bride for him;[56] and according to another eyewitness’s account the Queen herself modestly thanked Philip for accepting so old and ugly a wife. Generally speaking, however, Mary does not appear to have produced an unfavourable impression upon the Spaniards. They speak of her manner at this time as being gay and gracious, and her clear complexion was much admired. Certainly Philip played his part to perfection, whatever his private feelings may have been; and if Mary had been a budding beauty of twenty instead of a faded old maid of nearly forty, he could not have been a more gallant bridegroom in appearance than he was: although to his bosom friend, Ruy Gomez, he confided a few days after the wedding that he was prepared with resignation to drain the chalice to the end which his marriage presented to him, since, as his friend knew, he had not married for love, but to restore England to the Church; and such an object made him lose sight of the Queen’s lack of personal attractions.

Philip slept late the morning after his arrival at Winchester, and as soon as he was out of bed the Queen’s tailor brought him two superb sets of garments—one made of very rich white brocade profusely embroidered with gold bugles and seed pearls, with diamonds for buttons, and the other a similar suit in crimson. Philip went that day, Tuesday, to Mass at the Cathedral, dressed in a purple velvet surcoat with silver fringe and white satin doublet and trunks; and then after his private dinner, went in great state to visit the Queen publicly. This time she received him in the great hall of the Bishop’s palace, surrounded by the whole of her Court and attended by fifty ladies—“none of them pretty”—dressed in purple velvet. Mary received the Prince at the foot of her daïs, amidst the fanfare of trumpets, and after kissing him affectionately led him to the seat at her side. She must have looked as magnificent as fine clothes could make her as she sat “in sweet converse” with him under her canopy; for we are told that her purple velvet robe and cloth-of-gold petticoat were all aglow with precious stones, and that coif, neck, breast, and wrists, were stiff with pearls and diamonds. There were special ambassadors, too, to receive and welcome: Figueroa, viceroy of Naples, from the Emperor, others from the King of the Romans and his son, from Venice, Florence, Poland, and Ferrara. But one was missing; for Noailles, the Frenchman, for whom this marriage was a dire defeat, had not been bidden to the feast; and in the intervals of his plotting to raise trouble was writing to his baffled master ill-natured and distorted reports, at second hand, of the proceedings.

The next day, Wednesday, 25th July, was the Feast of St. James, the patron of Spain, and the noble cathedral of Winchester was aflame with glowing colour. The ancient nave can never have seen so gorgeous a company as was there assembled in the forenoon. All that pomp, skill, and lavish expenditure could produce was there to do honour to an event which all spectators felt was one of moving interest for the future of the world; because it meant, so far as men might see, the secure fastening upon the neck of England again of the yoke of the Papacy, which Henry VIII. had shaken off, the stifling of the Reformation in Europe, and the reduction of France to a secondary place amongst the nations. Philip, in the white satin suit the Queen had sent him and with a regal mantle of cloth of gold, led his dazzlingly clad bride up the lofty nave to an elevated platform in the centre; and there Gardiner, with three attendant Bishops, made them man and wife. To equalise their rank, it was announced that the Viceroy Figueroa had brought formal instruments from the Emperor, resigning to his son the Kingdoms of Naples and Jerusalem; and this proclamation having been made, the King and Queen, with swords of state borne before them by the Earls of Derby and Pembroke, descended to the high altar, followed by fifty ladies in cloth of gold, to hear Mass, during which, we are told, the Queen never removed her devout eyes from the crucifix.

FROM THE PAINTING BY ANTONIO MOR IN THE PRADO MUSEUM]

Rarely can a marriage have taken place prompted on both sides by such elevation of spirit as this. The objects in view may be condemned now, as they were condemned by many at the time, but there is no gainsaying that, so far as Philip and Mary were concerned, they both believed they were making private sacrifice for the public welfare. This feeling was evident through the whole of the marriage negotiations and afterwards, especially in Philip’s case, until it was seen that the plan had failed. It is true that the famished heart of Mary grew to love her husband for his own sake as time went on; but she loved him first and best because he personified the force that was to make England Catholic, whilst she to him meant the influence that was to enable him and his House to wield the power of England against their enemy.

After the ceremony, the King and Queen walked in procession through an immense crowd to the Bishop’s palace, where in the great hall was laid the wedding banquet. All the courtly ceremony of saluting the royal dishes as they were brought in, the genuflexions to the throne, the trumpeting of minstrels, and the symbolic functions of the great officers of State, aroused the admiration of the form-loving Spaniards; but their hearts were raging with jealousy during the progress of the feast, for their wounded pride did not fail to notice that Mary took precedence of her husband everywhere, that she had a more stately seat, and that while she ate off gold plate he was served on silver. They comforted themselves with the idea that all this would be changed when the King had been crowned; but that their Prince, the Emperor’s son and heir, should take a second place to any one on earth filled them with anger, for they had already begun to realise that they were not to enter into possession of England as they had hoped. The richness and abundance they saw around them made their disappointment the more bitter. Such a show of plate on tables and sideboards as this they had never seen before.[57] All the platters and dishes were of silver, and great buffets loaded with plate stood at both ends of the great hall. The sideboard behind the high table, at which Philip and Mary sat, with Gardiner far off at the end, had upon it a hundred great pieces, “with a great gilt clock half as high as a man, and a marble fountain with a rim of gold.” Before the King and Queen stood Lords Pembroke and Strange with sword and mace; the four services of thirty dishes each, far too much for the 158 noble guests, were borne in to the sound of minstrelsy; and after the feast the Earl of Arundel presented the ewer of water for the King’s hands, whilst the Marquis of Winchester bore the napkin. The only Spaniard allowed to serve the King was the Duke of Infantado’s son, Don Iñigo de Mendoza, as cupbearer: “as for any of the Prince’s own stewards doing anything, such a thing was never thought of, and not one of us took a wand in our own hands, nor does it seem likely we ever shall, not even the controller. They had far better turn us all out as vagabonds.”[58]

After the Queen had pledged her guests in a cup of wine, and a herald had proclaimed Philip’s new style as King of England, France, Naples, and Jerusalem, Prince of Spain, and Count of Flanders, the royal pair retired to another chamber, accompanied by the English and Spanish nobles, where the afternoon was passed in gallant conversation, though apparently with some difficulty to the Spaniards, who were desirous of showing their gallantry to the English ladies. “We had great trouble in making out their meaning, except those who spoke Latin; so we have all resolved not to give them any presents of gloves until we can understand them. The gentlemen who speak the language are mostly very glad to find that we Spaniards cannot do so.”

At the ball that wound up the entertainments, the same difficulty arising from diverse customs stood in the way of intercourse, for the Spanish and English dances were different, and the courtiers of the two nations could not hit upon a common formula until Philip led his wife out to tread a measure in the German fashion, which was known to both.

With every day that passed the discontent and jealousy grew. Philip himself was charming, treating his wife in lover-like fashion, and full of tactful affability to the English people. But the more conciliatory Philip showed himself, the more his Spanish courtiers chafed. They had found their position in England entirely different from what they had expected; and their hopes of easily dominating the country were fading rapidly. The men-at-arms and the bodyguard were still confined to their ships at Portsmouth and Southampton, forbidden to land under pain of death, and were becoming restive; the courtiers themselves and their servants were ridiculed in the streets of Winchester, and even waylaid and robbed if they ventured into the country; and yet they dared not complain. “After this weary voyage these people wish to subject us to some extent to their laws; for it is a new thing for them to have Spaniards in the country, and they wish to feel secure.”[59] “We Spaniards are miserable here, much worse than in Castile; and some say that they would rather be in the barest stubble field of Toledo than here in the groves of Amadis.” Another courtier writing from Winchester says, “Great rogues infest the roads, and have robbed some of us, amongst others, the chamberlain of Don Juan Pacheco, from whom they took 400 crowns and all his jewelry and plate. No trace can be found of the property, nor of the four or five boxes missing from the King’s lodging; though the Council is scouring the country for it. As for the friars, they have had to be lodged in the college for their safety, and they bitterly repent having come.”

It was difficult to please proud, disappointed people who were ready to disapprove of everything; and when the Duchess of Alba came, three days after the marriage, to join her husband, though Mary treated her with almost royal honours, the haughty dame and her kin were in a chronic state of indignation at the position she was obliged to occupy. An amusing account of her first visit to Mary on the third day after the wedding[60] does not suggest any lack of ceremony, though the lodgings assigned to her may not have been so sumptuous as she thought fit. The Duchess was conducted to the Bishop’s palace by the Countesses of Pembroke and Kildare and the Earl of Bedford, and the Queen advanced almost to the door of the presence chamber to meet her. The Duchess knelt, and the Queen, failing in her efforts to raise her, courtesied almost as low, and kissed her upon the mouth, which she usually did only to those of the blood royal. She then led the Duchess to the daïs, and seated herself upon the floor, inviting her guest to do likewise. But the latter refused to sit on the floor until the Queen sat upon a chair. This the Queen would not do, but sent for two stools as a compromise, upon one of which she sat and invited the Duchess to take the other, instead of which the Duchess then sat upon the floor, whereupon the Queen left her stool and also sat upon the floor; and after an almost interminable friendly wrangle, both ladies settled down on the stools, their conversation being interpreted by the Marquis de las Navas, as Mary, although she understood Spanish, did not speak it. When the Earl of Derby was presented to the Duchess, she was horrified at his offering to salute her in the usual English fashion by kissing her lips, and she drew back from him in hot indignation, though hardly in time to avoid contact. But as the lady haughtily expatiated to her own people afterwards upon the uncouth fashion, she declared that the Earl had only just managed to reach her cheek.

By the last day of July most of the English gentry had gone home for the present, the Spaniards being distributed about Winchester and Southampton, whilst the troops were only awaiting a fair wind to carry them to Flanders. With a comparatively small suite the Queen and King set forth on the 31st July for Basing House, fifteen miles away, the seat of Lord Winchester, the Lord Treasurer, and so by short stages to Reading, Windsor, and Richmond, where they remained until the 17th August. In the meanwhile the impatience of the Spaniards at their position in England grew intolerable, and the Duke of Medina-Celi, the premier noble, and of royal descent, was the first to insist upon immediate release with permission to join the Emperor in Flanders. Within a few days eighty other hidalgos had demanded similar licence, and by the time Richmond was reached the only Spanish nobles in attendance upon Philip were Alba, Feria, Olivares, Pedro de Cordova, and three gentlemen, amongst whom was the indefatigable letter-writer, Pedro Enriquez, whose narrative of the events is so expressive of the lack of community between the two peoples. Not only were the manners of the English ladies and their dresses unbecoming in Spanish eyes, and the English food coarsely excessive, but the political institutions of the country appeared to them, used as they were to the absolute monarchy of Castile, to be almost Republican in their hard limitation of the power of the Sovereign.

“Their Majesties” (writes Pedro Enriquez from Richmond) “are the happiest married couple in the world, and are more in love with each other than I can write here. The King never leaves her, and on the road he rides by her side, helping her to mount and dismount. They sometimes dine together in public, and on Feast days he accompanies her to Mass. Although the Queen is not at all beautiful, for she is little, and thin rather than stout, she is very red and white. She has no eyebrows, she is a perfect saint, but she dresses very badly. The ladies here all wear farthingales of coloured cloth, without silk, their outer garments being of coloured damask, satin, or velvet, but very badly made. Some of them wear velvet shoes, but most of them kid. They wear black stockings, and even show their legs, some of them up to the knees, at least whilst they are riding, for their skirts are not long enough. They look quite indelicate when they are travelling thus, and even when they are seated. They are not at all beautiful, nor are they graceful in dancing, which with them consists simply of prancing and trotting.[61] None of the Spanish gentlemen are in love with them or think anything of them, nor they of the Spaniards. They are not worth troubling about, or feasting much, or spending money upon, which is a good thing for the Spaniards. All the rejoicing here consists of eating and drinking. The Queen spends in food 300,000 ducats a year. The whole of the Lords of the Council—thirteen of them—feed in the palace, as do the Officers of State, the Lord Steward, the Lord Chamberlain, the Master of the Horse, and the King’s English household with all their wives. The ladies and their servants and the households of all the courtiers and two hundred guards all live in the palace as well. Each officer has a cook to look after his food in the Queen’s kitchens. There are eighteen kitchens, and there is such a hurly-burly in them that each one is a veritable hell. So that, notwithstanding the greatness of these palaces, ... and the smallest of the four we have seen has more rooms and better ones than the _Alcazar_ of Madrid, the crowds in them are so great as to be hardly contained.... The ordinary consumption in the palace every day is from eighty to a hundred sheep, with a dozen fat oxen and dozen and a half of calves, besides vast quantities of game, poultry, venison, wild boar, and rabbits; whilst, as for the beer, they drink more in the summer than the river would hold in Valladolid. The ladies and some of the gentlemen put sugar into their wine. The noise and bustle in the palace are dreadful. And notwithstanding the vast number of rooms, they have never given to the Duchess of Alba a chamber in the palace. They are the most ungrateful people ever seen. Not even in the villages where we stay—and each one has a village—do they give to the Duke and Duchess a house to themselves, or the best one. They have fine trouble over their lodgings, as if it were not enough to prevent them from serving in their offices without housing them badly.”

Already the courtiers saw that the chance of Philip being allowed to dominate England in consequence of his marriage was a slender one, but the King himself, in his patient, prudent way, persevered. His personal influence over his wife grew stronger every day, and when later she gave him hopes of the birth of an heir, a new prospect for the future seemed to open to him. The Londoners were as yet still almost in a panic at the coming of the Spanish King, and the most exaggerated ideas with regard to the number of armed men he would bring with him prevailed, artfully fostered by Noailles and the Protestant party. On the eve of the state entry of the royal pair into London the appearance of affairs was unpromising enough, as may be seen by Pedro Enriquez’s letter dated on the 17th August.

“The English cannot bear the sight of the Spaniards: they would rather see the devil. They rob us, even in the towns, and on the road none of us dare to stray for a couple of miles for fear of being robbed. A body of Englishmen on one occasion plundered and beat no less than fifty Spaniards. The Councillors know all about it, but they shut their eyes. The number of thieves in the country is quite incredible. They go about sometimes twenty together. There is neither justice nor fear of God.... For us there is no justice at all. The King commands us to raise no questions, but whilst we are here to put up with everything and suffer all their spite without a word. So, of course, they treat us badly and despise us. When we have complained to Bribiesca (the magistrate) and to the ambassadors, they tell us that it is to his Majesty’s interest that we should overlook everything. This marriage will have been of small use if this Queen does not have a child, of which I am not at all sure. When we were in Castile they said that as soon as his Highness was King of England we should be masters of France. The opposite is the case, for the French are now stronger and more aggressive than ever in Flanders.... Kings in this country do not command more than if they were subjects. The real rulers are the Councillors, who are not only masters of the country but masters of the King as well. They are all lords, some enriched by the plunder of the monasteries, some by inheritance, but they are much more feared and reverenced than the Sovereign. They say now that they will not let his Highness go unless the Queen and they please, as this realm is quite big enough for a King without any others. Seeing what they are, I should not wonder if they do it, ... for they know how hard pressed we are in Flanders and are glad of it; ... they would not care a farthing if Flanders were lost, and his Majesty with it. The King and Queen enter London to-morrow, and I am sure we ought not to do so, seeing the way they are treating the Spaniards already there. Not only do they not provide lodgings for them, insulting them as if they were savages, but they rob them in the inns. As for the friars who came with his Majesty, they had better have stayed at home, for these English are so wicked and godless that they even maltreat friars, and these dare not leave their lodgings. Don Pedro de Cordova and his nephew, Don Antonio, are knights, and the people wanted to strip them of their habits the other day, making fun of them and asking them why they wore those crosses on their coats.”

On the day that this was written Philip and Mary and their Court in state barges rowed from Richmond to Southwark, where they landed at the Bishop of Winchester’s house, and after killing a fat buck in Southwark Park, slept at the palace which stood upon the site of the present London Bridge Station, in order to start betimes in the morning of the next day across London Bridge, and so through the capital to Whitehall. All the fifty gibbets in the streets upon which Wyatt’s men had hanged were cleared away; the heads of the noble malefactors on the spikes at the Bridge-foot were no longer to be seen. All that paint and gilt and pageantry and pleasant looks could do to make the dour Londoners think well of the Queen’s Consort was done. Gog and Magog in new suits stood at the drawbridge that spanned the space from London Bridge end to the Southwark shore. Triumphs stood at the street corners, one of the first, that in Gracechurch Street, containing the maladroit statue of Henry VIII. with the Bible labelled _Verbum Dei_ in his hand, that so much moved Bishop Gardiner’s wrath.[62] Past kneeling aldermen and velvet-clad guildsmen, and with a great train of splendid courtiers, Philip and his English wife rode through the silent crowds, whilst the guns of the White Tower thundered what was at the same time a salute to the King and a warning to the people. The official greetings were, as usual, extravagantly fulsome. That borne by Gog and Magog is thus translated—

“O Noble Prince, sole hope of Cæsar’s side,
By God appointed all the world to guide,
Right harteley welcome art thou to our land.
The archer Britayne yieldeth thee her hand;
And noble England openeth her bosom
Of hartie affection for to bid thee welcome:
But chiefly London doth her love vouchsafe,
Rejoicing that her Philip has come safe.
She seeith her citizens love thee on each side
And trusts they shall be happy of such a guide,
And al do thinke that thou art sent to their citie
By th’ only means of God’s paternal pitie,
So that their minde, voice, study, power and will,
Is only set to love thee, Philip, still”—[63]

and from Gracechurch to Whitehall tributes in Latin verse even more eulogistic than this greeted the man whose very presence the great mass of the people had been taught to dread. All the Philips that ever lived were dwarfed, he was told, by such a paragon of excellence as himself; Orpheus had not such power to move as by his eloquence could this reticent, mumbling Philip, who spoke but little of any language but his own.

“In like case now, thy grace of speech so franke,
Doth comfort us whose minds afore were bleak
And therefore England giveth thee harty thanke
Whose chiefest joy is to hear thee Philip speke.”[64]

Mary herself could see no evil in her husband, and we are told that she was highly gratified at all this dithyrambic praise of him. As they dismounted at Whitehall Gate, and she led him, all smiles, into the great presence chamber, Mary and Philip seemed to onlookers an ideally happy couple, notwithstanding the difference in their ages. Ruy Gomez, writing on the 24th August to Eraso in Spain, says: “The King entertains the Queen excellently, and well knows how to pass over what is not attractive in her for the sensibility of the flesh. He keeps her so pleased that verily when they were together the other day alone she almost made love to him and he answered in the same fashion. As for these gentlemen (_i.e._, the English nobles), his behaviour towards them is such that they themselves confess that they never yet had a King in England who so soon won the hearts of all men.”[65]

Philip, indeed, had by his tact and amiability already begun to break down the hatred and distrust that had heralded his approach. At the period of the state entry into London, a diarist writing in the Tower of London no doubt only reflected the general feeling of apprehension when he wrote: “At this time there were so many Spaniards in London; that a man should have met in the street for one Englishman about four Spaniards, to the great discomfort of the English nation. The Halls (_i.e._, of the City companies) taken up for the Spaniards.”[66] In actual fact the number of Spanish servants and followers left to Philip at the time was very few—less than a dozen noblemen with their respective households, probably not more than two or three hundred people at most; and as time wore on, and it was seen that no attempt was made by Philip and his countrymen to interfere with the English, the influence of the King personally being recognised as invariably on the side of conciliation, a more equable frame of mind became general. News had come that the Emperor and his son had detained Cardinal Pole on the way to England, and had vetoed the extreme Papal policy with which he had at first been entrusted; and it was seen also that Mary herself, as well as her husband, assumed a desire to avoid drawing England into hostility with France, which was the great fear of the English people.

Noailles had not been bidden to the marriage, and had only been coldly and tardily invited to the state entry, which invitation he refused. But on the 21st August, whilst the Queen was at Whitehall, the French ambassador could hardly avoid offering some form of congratulation, for it was of the highest importance that England should not be driven to espouse the Emperor’s war. Noailles was as grudging as possible in his felicitations, dryly commenting upon the fact that he had not been asked to the wedding, but hoped that it would not interfere with the friendship between England and France. Mary was most emphatic in her assurance that the peace would never be broken on her side, and as the ambassador left the Queen’s presence, somewhat reassured, he turned to Bishop Gardiner, who was conducting him, and said that if there was no objection he would like to salute Philip also. The Bishop was delighted, and conducted Noailles at once to the King, to whom the ambassador expressed a hope that the peace which had existed so long between England and France would not be imperilled by the coming of a Spanish Consort to England. He, for his part, would do his best to prevent any rupture. Philip called Gardiner to him and, speaking in Latin, told him to reply to Noailles, that although he understood French he did not speak it. “He had sworn,” he said, “both before and after his arrival in England, to maintain all the friendships and alliances existing between this and other countries, and he would keep his word faithfully. For his part the peace should not be broken so long it served the interests of England.”[67]

Noailles partly suspected what to us now is clear, namely, that all this suavity and tolerance on the part of the Prince of the proudest nation on earth was only a part of the deep-laid plan of the Emperor to obtain for his son the full control of English policy that the marriage treaty had withheld from him. Mary probably suspected this as little as any one. Her position was extremely difficult. She was by this time really in love with her husband, and was deeply desirous of pleasing him; she was anxious for the aggrandisement of Spain, which would mean, she thought, the triumph of the Church over heresy in Europe, and the consolidation of her own throne. But she knew that her people dreaded above all things being dragged into a war with their nearest neighbour in a quarrel which did not concern them: she was an English Queen determined, so far as in her lay, to govern for the benefit of her country, and to her the only road to safety seemed to strive her hardest to bring about a peace between the two antagonists before England was involved in the war. Pole had also been entrusted by the Pope with the mission of pacifying the Emperor and Henry II., and was as earnest in his efforts to do so as was Mary herself. From Brussels, where he had been kept chafing impotently, he had gone to Paris on his mission of peace, but the French arms were on the whole in the ascendant at the time, and he returned to Flanders unsuccessful.[68]

These efforts of Mary, Pole, and Gardiner, to reconcile France and Spain, received no active help from Philip and his father. The object of the Emperor was to cripple France by the aid of England, not to patch up another temporary peace with her, and the whole tendency of the Imperial policy was to obtain complete control over England as the first step to this principal object. The Emperor had always used religion when necessary as an instrument for political ends, and it is not surprising that the English Catholic Churchmen should regard his present attitude towards the Catholic party as inconsistent. Gardiner, Pole, Bonner, and the rest of them, who had never yearned for the Spanish connection, thought, perhaps correctly, that they could have restored England to the Church more speedily and safely if they had been unencumbered by the unpopular marriage. Mary, for whom the question was complicated by considerations of her personal maintenance upon the throne, thought otherwise, and wisely the Churchmen had made the best of the position. But they had no intention, if they could help it, of slackening in their own purpose, or of allowing the restoration of their faith in England to be retarded or imperilled for the political interests of the Emperor; and the harsh action of Bonner particularly, supported as it was by Gardiner, caused bitter complaints amongst the English people, and something approaching dismay in the Spanish party of Mary’s Council.

Throughout the home and eastern countries, where Protestantism was strong, the action of the priests gave rise to constant brawls, the actors of which were unfortunately not proceeded against by the civil authorities but by ecclesiastics on the charge of heresy. Philip, by means of his friends on the Council, did his best to discourage these tactics, for which he saw he would unjustly have to suffer the unpopularity. Whilst Philip and his wife were living at Hampton Court, in September, there was a wild rumour in London that twelve thousand Spanish troops were on their way to land in England and seize the Crown,[69] and almost simultaneously people indignantly whispered that the Archbishopric of Canterbury was to be given to a Spanish friar. The most extravagant false news, too, was current that many leading noblemen and Councillors had been proclaimed traitors, amongst them Pembroke, Shrewsbury, Westmorland; that Dr. Petre had been dismissed from the Council; that the Marquis of Winchester had been forced to give Basing House to the Queen; that the King and Queen, in violation of the ordinary English traditions, had become inaccessible to the lieges;[70] and much else of the same sort, evidently designed to keep up the irritation against the Spanish Consort, who, for his part, was using every means to ingratiate himself with his poor faded wife[71] and her suspicious subjects.

It is obvious that, so far as religion alone was concerned, the great majority of English people would have been ready without demur to accept Catholicism again if it had come without the foreign mark upon it, and the moderative policy of the Emperor was dictated solely by the political aim of conciliating the minority, who it was thought would be most strongly opposed to Spanish influence. For this the Churchmen cared nothing, whilst the Protestants and French party, instead of being conciliated by the King’s attitude, naturally seized upon the ecclesiastical prosecutions, which he deprecated, still further to discredit him. Pole in the meanwhile was growing restive. He was a man of high and unselfish aims, a true Catholic as well as a true Englishman, and he resented his exclusion from his own country at the bidding of a foreign potentate after his long exile for the cause of his faith. His letters of exhortation to Mary and to Philip are throughout inspired by the Churchman’s zeal, and not infrequently by scorn of the opportunist policy which was, in his view, hampering the prompt and complete return of his country to the Church.[72]

Almost from Mary’s accession Cardinal Pole had been held back from his mission by the action of the Emperor, thanks mainly to the complaisancy of the new Pope Julius III. The great difficulty was the question of the restitution of the Church property which had been confiscated in the previous reigns. There were few noble courtly families in England which had not indeed been enriched from this source; and the Emperor expressed his opinion to Pole that the English people cared neither for one form of faith or the other, so long as they could keep their property.[73] “Pole,” said the Venetian ambassador at Brussels, “might beg for permission to go to England for ten thousand years without avail, unless he went with the briefs confirming the alienation of the Church properties: for if the Church insists upon reclaiming them disorder will prevail throughout the country.”

At last the Cardinal had to accept the inevitable, not without some bitterness of heart,[74] and steps were taken in the Parliament, which met at Westminster early in November, to reverse the act of attainder against him. His coming was regarded in some sense by the country as that of a restraining force upon the dreaded Spanish influence in the English Councils. He was known to be single-minded in his attachment both to the Church and to England. He was not ambitious, and had nothing to gain by serving as a tool for anti-English forces, whilst his rank, his ability, and his good repute promised that his authority would be great, even if necessary, against the foreign King-Consort. On the 5th November, 1554, a deputation was despatched by Mary, consisting of Lords Paget and Hastings and Sir William Cecil, to invite Pole to England, not ostensibly as Legate, but as Cardinal and ambassador, on condition that the Pope would consent to the present owners of the ecclesiastical lands being left unmolested. Renard had already been sent over to Flanders to persuade Pole of the need for this proviso, and had returned successful. The Cardinal was ready, and rejoiced greatly when Sir John Mason, the English ambassador, told him the news; though, “Marry, quoth he, you know I am at this present, as it were, in another’s ward [keeping].—I must depart when it please the Emperor, who is not at all times to be spoken withal. I have already one sent to M. d’Arras (_i.e._, Granvelle) to be my mean to have access to his Majesty to take my leave.... Marry, the truth is that they have had as yet no news out of England of the Queen’s determination.”[75] Mason assured the Cardinal that it was all settled and that the embassy named had been despatched to fetch him.

This news Mason also carried to the Emperor, who was better and brighter than he had been for years, for he knew that Pole would now go only to carry out his policy, so far as regarded restitution, and he was already full of hope that a child was to be born to Philip and Mary. That, indeed, would be to fix the hand of Spain upon England for at least long enough for his great purpose to be effected. In answer to an inquiry as to the Queen’s state, somewhat too coarsely worded to be quoted verbatim here, Mason was able on this occasion to inform the Emperor that: “I understand to my great joy and comfort that her garments wax very strait.” “I never doubted, quoth the Emperor, of the matter; but that God, who had for her wrought so many miracles, could make the same perfect by assisting nature to His good and most desired work. And I warrant it shall be, quoth he, a man child. Be it man or woman, quoth I, welcome shall it be: for by that shall we come to some certainty, to whom God shall appoint by succession the government of our State.... Doubt not, quoth he, God will provide both with fruit and otherwise: so as I trust to see yet that realm to return to a great piece of that surety and estimation that I have seen it in my time.”[76] Here, indeed, the wish was father to the thought. For some weeks past it had been whispered at Hampton Court that the Queen was with child, though Mary herself refused to confirm it or otherwise; but to the Spanish party such a fact was all-important, and the Emperor’s jubilation was heart-felt. Noailles, on the other hand, scoffed incredulously at what he asserted was only a conspiracy to cheat the English people into giving Philip greater power and importance in the country, and he quotes as an instance of the way in which the hope was regarded by English people, a scurrilous placard on the subject which, he says, was nailed to the door of Whitehall Palace.

Cardinal Pole, already ailing and elderly, was carried in his litter with great ecclesiastical state from Brussels to Calais, and crossed the Channel as soon as news reached him that the Parliament at Westminster had reversed his attainder. Travelling by road, as usual, from Dover to Gravesend, he found awaiting him at the latter port King Philip’s own state barge to convey him to Westminster. On his way to London, on Saturday, 24th November, he was met by all the English Catholic Bishops and the Lords of the Council in their barges, and then, leading the imposing procession with uplifted crosier before him, the English Cardinal, in his rochet, tippet, and scarlet hat, passed up the London river to the palace of his royal ancestors.

King Philip was at dinner at Whitehall when news came to him that the Cardinal’s barge had shot the dangerous rapids formed by the narrow arches of London Bridge. Rising from the table at once the King descended to the landing-stage of the Palace as the state barge was approaching it. With uncovered head and respectful mien Philip greeted the great English Churchman with more honour than he might have shown to any sovereign prince, leading him on his right hand through the alleys and galleries to the entrance to the hall, where at the head of the stairs stood Queen Mary. Making a profound obeisance to the huge uplifted cross which preceded her husband and Pole, she advanced to meet them, Pole kneeling at her approach. Curtseying low and kissing her kinsman the Queen assisted him to rise, and then between him and her husband she led the way to the canopy, where for half an hour in polyglot converse, for Pole had lost some of his English, and Philip knew little Italian, Mary must have been for once in her life happy.[77]

Nothing could exceed the honour shown by the Sovereigns to Pole, for it was Philip’s policy to win him over entirely to his side, and Mary was overjoyed at the prospect of the full reconciliation of her country with the Papacy on conditions that seemed to promise general harmony. The people, too, who knew Pole’s history, welcomed him warmly. He, like Mary herself, had been unjustly used, and his family judicially murdered; he was virtuous, upright, and honest,[78] and above all, in the eyes of the populace, he represented an English force strong enough to champion the cause of his countrymen, if needs be, against the Spanish faction. Pole was lodged at Lambeth Palace, from which the unhappy Cranmer had been sent to the Tower, and on the day of the Cardinal’s arrival in London, Mary offered him the primacy, an offer which Pole for the moment put aside until, as he said, he had done his errand as papal ambassador. For the next three days Pole and the Sovereigns were closeted for hours together settling the preliminaries for the formal return of England to the papal fold, and Philip himself on one occasion, breaking through all the traditions of his house, crossed alone to Lambeth and remained with Pole for the entire afternoon.

AFTER A PAINTING BY SEBASTIANO DEL PIOMBO]

At length, on Wednesday, 28th November, all was ready, and in the great hall of the Palace the assembled Lords and Commons were gathered in the presence of the Queen and King to receive the Pope’s representative. Outside the people were still saying—to the horror of the Spanish listeners—that the Pope was only a man, after all, and could do no more than other men[79]; but here, in Mary’s Parliament, no inharmonious note was sounded, as the Lord Chancellor, Bishop Gardiner, rose and introduced the Cardinal as the messenger from the Apostolic Pontiff. Pole, speaking from the second stage of the daïs just beyond the canopy, begged in Latin permission of the Queen to address the assembly in English; which granted, he spoke first feelingly of his long unjust exile and the persecution of his House, his attachment to the land of his birth through all his trouble, and then he launched into an eloquent appeal for the reunion of England to the Church. He praised the Emperor for his sturdy defence of orthodoxy; but said that for some inscrutable reason God had not allowed him to achieve his end. “But,” continued Pole, “I can well compare him [_i.e._, the Emperor] to David, whiche thoughe he were a manne elected of God, yet for that he was contaminate with bloode and war could not builde the temple of Jerusalem, but left the finishing thereof to his son Solomon, which was _Rex pacificus_. So may it be thoughte that the appeasing of controversies of religion in Christendom is not appointed to this Emperor but rather to his son who shal perfourme the building that his father hath begun.”[80]

When the long and moving extempore speech was finished, the Queen desired Gardiner to express her thanks and congratulations to the Cardinal, and to desire Parliament to consider deeply his weighty words. On that very day, as Noailles insisted for the purpose of forwarding Pole’s mission, official letters were despatched in the Queen’s name ordering that thanksgiving and rogations should be offered in all the churches for her pregnancy, now openly acknowledged. Whatever the malicious Frenchman may have said, it is quite incredible that Mary herself did not believe the assertion of her condition, nor is it likely that Philip thought otherwise, seeing the assurances which, even in private letters, he gave to his father on the subject.[81] The Queen’s subjects, too, rejoiced exceedingly at the news, for a disputed succession seemed to portend if Mary died childless. But, in any case, the announcement was most opportune both for the success of Pole’s mission, and for another mission to be mentioned presently, which was nearer the Emperor’s heart, and he had entrusted secretly to Paget when he had gone to Flanders to escort Pole to England.

On Thursday, 29th November, 1554, during the discussion of the ecclesiastical question in the House of Lords, the lay peers roundly blamed the Bishops for all the schism and trouble that had occurred. If they had not been poltroons, and had refused to humour King Henry in his repudiation of his wife[82] and his defiance of the Holy See all would have been well, said the laymen; but recriminations apart, both Lords and Commons promptly adopted, almost unanimously, a resolution repealing the acts that separated England from the Papacy, and authorising a commission of twenty-four members of both Houses to beg the Queen’s approval of the resolution, and to present to the papal ambassador the submission of the nation to the head of the universal Church, begging for absolution and readmittance to the fold. The next day, St. Andrew’s Day, 30th November, the formal ceremony was held in the Palace of Whitehall. That morning Philip had gone to Mass at Westminster Abbey in state with 100 German, 100 Spanish, and English guards, all in new uniforms, 50 Flemish archers, and 150 smartly-clad pages, as if to mark the occasion as one of special significance, and at five o’clock in the afternoon the Cardinal in his pontifical vestments rowed across from Lambeth, the King receiving him at the foot of the Palace stairs. In the presence chamber the Commissioners of Parliament presented their petition to the Sovereigns through Lord Chancellor Gardiner. Then the King and Queen rose, and crossing to the Cardinal’s chair, in attitude of supplication asked him as the Pope’s ambassador to receive the submission of England; after which the Sovereigns, having returned to their thrones, Pole’s powers from the Pope were read, and the Cardinal in an English discourse heartily welcomed the strayed sheep into the fold again.[83] Kneeling, the whole assembly received absolution and the apostolic blessing, and England was recognised as a Catholic country again.

To spectators of the scene, and especially to Spaniards, this seemed to be an occurrence which for importance surpassed all others of the time. Spain burst out into uncontrollable rejoicing, and Philip, the man who his countrymen thought had performed this miracle by God’s mercy, was more revered than ever. Now indeed, with the almost certainty of a son to be born and to succeed as King of a Catholic England in close union with Spain, the Frenchmen must rest content with a secondary place and the House of Burgundy-Habsburg must lead. This view, to some extent, was one that it suited Philip himself to promote in England, and he left no stone unturned to impress upon his wife’s subjects the profound significance of the formal reconciliation of the country to the Papacy; a power which, when it had suited his father and himself, they had flouted again and again, and which, within a year under the new Pope, Paul IV., was to denounce them both with invective more bitter than was applied to the worst of heretics.