XXXIII

Maddame dangloyse me tell you verye true

Me be verye muche Enamored wythe youe

Me love you muche bettro than I cane well saye

Me teache you purlere the fyne spaniolaye.

As the year 1553 drew to a close the Emperor Charles V looked out over the vast reaches of his land with a jaundiced eye. He was master of most of Europe and much of the New World. His dominions stretched from Spain through Italy, where he was duke of Milan and king of Naples and Sicily, up across the Franche-Comté to the Low Countries, the wealthiest region in the Christian world, and eastward through the German-speaking lands of the Holy Roman Empire. He ruled the Cape Verde Islands and the Canaries, the North African territories of Tunis, Oran and Melilia; on the other side of the world the Philippines were his. Treasure ships brought him gold and silver from the mines and ruined empires of Mexico and Peru in seemingly limitless supply, and his viceroys in the Americas ruled millions of acres of bountiful, trackless wilderness. His soldiers were the most fearsome fighters in Europe, while his Spanish and Flemish ships were more numerous and more powerful than the navies of France and England combined. He had governed these regions and marshaled these forces for nearly thirty-five years with a cautious, unspectacular decisiveness amounting to genius, and he was now a time-honored fixture in European politics. It was impossible for the kings and diplomats who had come to maturity during his long reign to imagine life without him.

Yet Charles was only too aware of how much of the world he ruled, and for how many years he had kept up the wearisome task of ruling it. In recent years his body had begun to fail him, and he would never againride before his soldiers in golden armor on his bay Spanish jennet, javelin in hand, looking to his well-read commanders like Caesar before he crossed the Rubicon. He had not lost the inscrutability that had always amazed emissaries sent to his court, however. In 1552 the English ambassador Morison noted that neither the emperor’s features nor his complexion showed the slightest emotion. “There is in him almost nothing that speaks beside his tongue,” Morison wrote ruefully, adding that Charles seemed to epitomize the biblical proverb “Heaven is high; the earth is deep; a king’s heart is unsearchable.” But though he still played the game of diplomacy well Charles was losing ground to recurrent fevers and catarrh that affected his speech, sometimes reducing him to silence for days at a time or forcing him to speak so softly he could not be heard by others in the room. Fever blisters covered his protruding lower lip, and he had to chew herbs in order to keep enough moisture in his mouth to talk.¹ The gout that had crippled the emperor’s legs for years had now spread throughout his body, so that every nerve and joint ached painfully. When even the back of his neck became affected his doctors pronounced him to be in the final stages of the disease, and did not attempt to treat him further. Hemorrhoids tormented him incessantly, swelling to such a point that he could not turn in his chair without “great pain and tears.”

In the intervals between attacks of illness the emperor retired to the solitude of an inner chamber, where he passed the time designing fortresses or joking with his Polonian dwarf. He preferred the company of his grooms to that of his courtiers, and his only productive activity appeared to be the ceaseless setting and winding of his hundreds of clocks. “His single care and occupation, day and night,” one of Charles’ gentlemen wrote to his son Philip, “is to set his clocks and keep them going together; he had many, and they are his chief thought.” The emperor invented a new kind of clock, meant to be set in a window frame, and he was as fascinated by the inner workings of his timepieces as he was by their appearance and accuracy. He was an insomniac, and in the long night hours he liked to call all his servants into a torchlit workroom and set them to helping him take his clocks apart and put them together again.²

What worried the emperor’s advisers most, though, was that he seemed to be slipping into a fatal melancholy like that which had afflicted his mother Joanna the Mad. By 1553 his “troubles of the spirit” had become so grave they had begun to erode his “kindness of manner and usual affability.” He brooded for hours, then began to “weep like a child.” No one dared to approach him in these states, and the work of government piled up unattended. Ambassadors were kept waiting a month or more before they were granted an audience, and some simply lost patience andwent home, muttering that the emperor must either be dead or “no longer fit to govern.”⁸

It was at these times that Charles longed to pass on his enormous task to his son. He saw no reason for the inevitable transfer of power to be delayed until his death; he could teach his son all he needed to know and then, when he was sure Philip had the confidence to govern and the loyalty of his subjects, arrange an orderly abdication. The only flaw in this plan—and it was one which sent the emperor into a “notable pensiveness”—was that Philip of Spain was hated by nearly every population under imperial rule.

Prince Philip, son of Charles V and Isabella of Portugal, was a somber, stuffy and rather dull young man of twenty-six whose upbringing had left him little scope for orginality or independence. He was slight in build, and quite short, but he carried himself with dignity; it was in fact his grave, reserved Spanish dignity that was so often mistaken for hauteur by the non-Spaniards among his future subjects. His receding hairline made him appear a little taller and older than he really was, but his face had an appealing, almost childlike look of pathos about it. The large, mild eyes gazing out from his portraits reflect superiority and boredom, but also a faint wistfulness; the dark circles under them probably came from the combined effects of dissipation and dyspepsia, but they gave a noble sadness to his expression. He looked in fact as if he wished he were somewhere else, and though he performed the ceremonial courtesies of his rank with precision and exactness, he bore them like a hereditary affliction for which he would have liked to find a cure.

Philip did his best to enjoy the active pursuits of a young nobleman. He hunted a little, and held his own in the jousts. At one tournament he kept his seat tilting against the Flemish captain Count Mansfeldt, a man much older than he and with vast experience in the wars, and won the prize of the “ladies’ lance,” a brilliant ruby. Another time an opponent’s lance struck his helm with such force that he was unconscious for some hours, but the accident did no lasting harm. The French said Philip was such a poor jouster he could barely find his antagonist, much less hit him, but their reports were too biased to be trusted. In all likelihood Philip jousted like he did everything else: correctly, but without style, feeling or commitment. By the time he reached the age of twenty-six the prince had begun to curtail his exercise for the sake of his health. His constitution was delicate, and his digestion poor; he ate little besides meat, believing that fish, fruit and other foods contained evil humors. He needed plenty of sleep, and his “domestic entertainments” were of the most subdued kind. “His nature,” the Venetian ambassador Suriano wrote of Philip, “is more inclined to tranquillity than to exercise, more suited to repose than to work.”⁴

When Charles V brought his son from Spain to Flanders five years earlier he soon found the young man’s presence a distinct liability. He had hoped to persuade the German Electors to choose Philip as the next emperor, but they took an instant dislike to the prince. The longer he stayed in Flanders the more the Flemish grew to hate his aloof manner and uncongenial temperament. Finally, deeply disappointed, Charles ordered his son to return to Spain, knowing he was only postponing an inevitable clash between Philip and his future subjects. When Mary came to the throne in England, however, the emperor immediately saw how he might make use of his son in an unforeseen role. As Mary’s husband and Charles’ heir Philip would rule both England and the Low Countries, a prospect offering great commercial and trade advantages offsetting his distasteful personality. As soon as he heard of Mary’s victory over Northumberland the emperor laid his plans to unite the longsuffering woman who called him “the father of her soul and of her body” with his son.⁵

At his very first interview with Mary Renard broached the subject of marriage. He conveyed Charles’ feeling that the “great part of the labor of government could with difficulty be undertaken by a woman, and was not within woman’s province.” Mary would need “assistance, protection and comfort” in her new role; only a husband could provide this kind of support. For these reasons Mary ought to decide on a suitable bridegroom as soon as possible, relying on Charles, of course, to advise her. Nothing was said about Philip, but the suggestion was already in the air. As Edward lay dying the papal legate in Brussels wrote to his counterpart in Paris that the emperor had made up his mind to marry Philip to Mary as soon as she became queen.⁶

Mary reacted to the idea of marriage by saying that it had never crossed her mind before she became queen—not a very accurate statement, as she had been involved in marriage negotiations of one sort or another for most of her life. She readily admitted that her “public position” now required that she be married, and declared herself ready to follow the emperor’s advice in choosing a husband. She was confident, she added tactfully, that he would remember that she was a mature woman of thirty-seven and not a young girl, and that he would not expect her to make up her mind before she had seen the man and heard him speak.⁷

Though Mary reiterated at this meeting that marriage was “against her private inclination,” and that she would have preferred to live and die a virgin, the next time she saw Renard she showed delight at the prospect of becoming a bride. “I assure you,” he wrote to Charles V’s prime minister Granvelle, “that when I mentioned marriage she began to laugh, not once but several times, giving me a look that plainly said how agreeable the subject was to her.” Renard now saw reason to hope that, if theemperor were to propose a match with Philip, it might prove “the most welcome news that could be given to her.”

The proposal could not wait much longer, for rival suitors were already making their bids for Mary’s hand. Emmanuel Philibert, duke of Savoy, had been looked on as an eligible candidate for years. A Hapsburg ally, he was an exile from his duchy and would gladly live in England. Paget supported the duke’s suit, but no other councilor did, and he lacked an eloquent advocate to officially plead his cause. The Archduke Ferdinand, on the other hand, had several. The archduke was a nephew of the emperor, the second son of his brother Ferdinand, king of the Romans, and was very popular in the Low Countries. Within weeks of Mary’s accession the king of the Romans sent his great chamberlain to England to propose marriage on behalf of the archduke. Anne of Cleves also came to court to speak on his behalf, but the queen was waiting for the emperor to tell her his choice and hoping, no doubt, that it would be Philip.

By the beginning of September Mary was trying harder than ever to let Charles know, without actually saying it, that she wanted to marry his son. Her professions of daughterly loyalty and gratitude to the emperor were becoming more and more extravagant. She told Renard that she saw his master as her true father, and was so devoted to him that even if Henry VIII were still alive she would obey Charles in choosing her future husband.⁸ What lay behind both Mary and Charles’ tactics was the complication of the Portuguese infanta. It was well known that the emperor had been trying to arrange a marriage between Philip and the king of Portugal’s sister for some time, though no one at the English court knew just how deeply committed Philip was. Mary pretended to believe that the two were already married, receiving from Renard the hoped-for assurance that nothing had been concluded. Yet Charles was determined to hold both options open for as long as possible, realizing that as soon as it was known that he favored the English match the Portuguese negotiations would be broken off immediately. By September this problem had resolved itself. Philip was only slightly less unpopular in Portugal than in Flanders, and the Portuguese diplomats were doing everything they could to delay the drawing up of a final contract. Finally the news came that the infanta’s dowry was to be only a little over 300,000 ducats—far less than a prince of Philip’s rank could have commanded. The insult rankled, and when the emperor wrote to Philip informing him that he meant to make him the husband of the queen of England the prince found the directive opportune.

“If you wish to arrange the [English] match for me, you know that I am so obedient a son that I have no will other than yours, especially in a matter of such high import,” Philip wrote dutifully. The news “arrivedat just the right moment,” he went on, “for I had decided to break off the Portuguese business.”⁹

On October I o Renard delivered a formal proposal from the emperor. It began with a courtly lie. The ambassador was ordered to say first that Charles would be deeply honored to marry Mary himself, if only his age and health would permit it—a sentimental reference to their betrothal in Mary’s childhood. As he was an old and sick man, however, he was obliged to offer his son instead. Mary was happy and relieved to hear at last the proposal she had been waiting for, and thanked her cousin profusely through Renard, insisting that the match was “greater than she deserved.” But her joy was mixed with anxiety. Despite her deep personal satisfaction at the prospect of marrying the emperor’s son, two things worried her. One was the reaction of her subjects to the idea of a Spanish consort. Her first words to Renard after expressing her gratitude were “that she did not know how the people of England would take it.” To satisfy them her husband would have to come and live with her, she said, and she did not see how Philip could do this when he came into his inheritance after the emperor’s death. It was obviously important to her to “weigh the people’s affections” before deciding to accept the proposal, and though she did not say it outright, both Mary and the ambassador had on their minds the extreme antipathy of the English to all foreigners, especially Spaniards.

Mary’s other worries were much more problematic. She had never been in love, and had only an outsider’s knowledge of sex. Mary was not prudish, but she was inexperienced, and almost certainly insecure about how attractive she would be to Philip. She joked to Renard about her age, saying that most of the suitors for her hand were so young she was old enough to be their mother, but behind her humor was the fear that a handsome twenty-six-year-old prince might not find her to his taste. If Philip “were disposed to be amorous,” she told Renard, “such was not her desire,” both because of her age and because “she had never harbored thoughts of love.” Her mother had been six years older than her father, and the age difference, along with the related sorrow of Katherine’s inability to bear a son, had helped to push their marriage toward its tragic end. Mary was eleven years older than Philip, and nearing the threshold of middle age; the shadow of her mother’s great unhappiness surely hung over her as she considered marrying a younger man.

Deeper memories haunted her as well, memories of her mother’s loving, patient instruction in piety and chastity, and of the dangers lying in wait for all young girls who give themselves up to voluptuous pleasures. She remembered Vives’ warnings about how the darts of the devil are always flying on every side, and how a woman can only preserve herself by keeping her mind on Christ. Marriage was sanctioned by the Bible,but sex was something her father had indulged in; she knew that one went with the other, yet all that she had been taught and much that she had lived through forced her to experience them as distinct.

Among her recollections was a sordid memory of her father and Francis Bryan testing her purity at a court masque. Henry had been told that his daughter “knew no foul or unclean speeches”—something he found hard to believe given the good-natured ribaldry of his courtiers. He told Francis to go up to Mary and find out, probably either by paying her a vulgar compliment or, conceivably, attempting a mock-serious seduction, whether or not the rumor of her innocence was true. Her behavior convinced Bryan of her profound modesty, but the sight of her father and his notorious gentleman amusing themselves over her lack of sophistication stayed indelibly in Mary’s memory. Many years later she told the story to Dormer, whose biographer recorded it in hopes of building a saintly image of Mary.

Closely linked to Mary’s uncertainties about sex were doubts about how her obedience to her husband might conflict with her responsibility to her people. She would wholly love and obey the man she married, Mary told Renard, “following the divine commandment,” and would not act in any way against his will, but if he tried to interfere in the government of the kingdom she would have to prevent it at all costs. Even such minor interference as appointing foreigners to office she would have to oppose, for the people would not tolerate it.

Renard gave Mary no assurances on this crucial and delicate issue, though he saw clearly enough that what lay behind it was the fact that Mary knew virtually nothing about Philip’s character and personality beyond the inflated flattery of the imperial ambassadors and the alarming slanders of his numerous detractors. And the slanders were increasing daily. As the rumor of Mary’s imminent betrothal to Philip spread, unsettling revelations about his precarious authority, personal repugnance and inclination to vice spread with them. It was said that because of Philip’s “sinister and taciturn disposition” he would almost certainly lose Flanders once he tried to rule there, and Mary was worried by new reports that his cousin the archduke was better liked than the prince not only in the Low Countries but even in his native Spain.

Gossip about Philip’s extravagant sex life—which may have prompted Mary’s ladylike reference to his amorous inclinations—flourished at the English court. Paget, who after dropping Emmanuel Philibert became a staunch supporter of the Spanish marriage, was concerned by the fact that “in order to estrange the queen, people have told her that his highness is very voluptuous and has bastard sons and daughters.”¹⁰ And whatever distressing speculations these reports may have led to were hardly dispelled by the emperor’s virtual admission that there was some truth inwhat was being said. “We admit there may be some youthfulness in our son,” he wrote, “though it is far from being as grave a matter as . . . some people have sought to make out.”¹¹

Without meeting Philip herself Mary could not reconcile the unsettling contradictions in his public image, and shortly after Renard conveyed the official marriage proposal she asked him whether there was any chance the prince might come to England before she committed herself once and for all to becoming his wife. She had heard he was coming to Flanders before long; could he stop in England on his way? Renard hedged, saying he didn’t know whether it would be possible—or proper—for so important a prince to make a detour of that kind, but to lessen her concern somewhat he told her a comforting lie. Philip, he said, had not waited for the emperor to suggest the marriage but, having heard of Mary’s “great virtues,” became eager to woo her on his own. Mary was flattered but not satisfied. Taking Renard by the hand she urged him to tell her whether all the praiseworthy things he had said about the prince up to now were true—“whether he was indeed of even temper, of balanced judgment and well conditioned.” Renard assumed his most effective expression of candor. If his word were enough, he swore, he would back with his oath the assertion that Philip “had qualities as virtuous as any prince in this world.” Again Mary begged him not to lie to her, or to speak as a servant or subject, but to tell her the full truth as he knew it. He begged her in return to take “his honor and his life” as hostages for the utter honesty of his words. Apparently he was convincing enough for, as he wrote to the emperor, Mary then “pressed his hand and said ‘that is well,’“ and went on to discuss other matters.¹²

While he was reassuring Mary Renard was equally busy with the task of wooing the Council. With Paget as his ally, he visited those Council members he thought he could win over most easily, carrying personal letters from Charles V. (The letters were supplied to him by the dozen from the imperial chancery in Brussels, with the salutations left blank; Renard’s secretary wrote in each councilor’s name as the ambassador made up his mind whom to approach.) Arundel and Petre came around to the imperial point of view fairly quickly, and Rochester, both humbled and impressed by his own personal letter from the emperor himself, was persuaded to abandon Courtenay and throw his weight on the side of Philip. All the leading councilors were given gold chains and other costly gifts. Renard distributed thousands of Spanish escudos as well, finding that coins were even more welcome to the English than jewelry or other valuables. In his eagerness to bring off the diplomatic coup of betrothing Mary to Philip, Renard did not scruple to make political promises he had no authority to keep. Bribing the lords with power as well as with money, he told them that, if Mary chose to marry Philip,four of them would be put in charge of the government any time she left the country—a bald inducement that he found very effective. “The English are so grasping,” he wrote to the emperor, “that if one cares to try them with presents and promises one may do what one likes with them by very simple means.”¹⁸

Winning over the Council was in the end to prove more difficult than Renard suspected, but Mary had made up her mind once and for all by the end of October, strengthened in her resolve by two of her cham-berers, Jane Russell and Mistress Shirley, and by Susan Clarencieux, who was present every time the queen spoke with Renard and whose aid he valued. Mary also had the encouragement of the wives of at least three of the councilors—the duchess of Norfolk, the countess of Arundel and Lady Rochester—who favored the Spanish match over any other and who Noailles judged “more to be feared than their husbands under these circumstances.” Even so Mary did not arrive at her decision easily. She spent hours deep in thought, and sometimes in tears; she stayed up until midnight writing to Renard, Paget and others about their progress with her councilors; and, of course, she prayed.

On October 27 and 28 the court was informed that the queen was ill. No one saw her but her women, and when on the evening of Sunday the twenty-ninth she called Renard into her presence he half expected her to receive him in bed. Instead he found her up and dressed, if weary, in a room filled up with an altar.¹⁴ The altar was furnished in every detail, and this plus the affectionate greeting and shining face of Susan Clarencieux told him that he had been summoned to share in a solemn event.

Mary told Renard she had not slept for the past two days, but had spent the time in continual weeping and prayer, asking God to inspire her with the right decision about her marriage. Invoking the sacrament as her “protector, guide and counselor,” she trusted it to show her the way. Then she knelt, and Renard and Clarencieux joined her in repeating the Veni Creator Spiritus. When they had finished she made her announcement. God, “who had performed so many miracles in her favor,” had now performed one more. He had inspired her to make an unbreakable vow in the presence of the sacrament: she promised to marry Philip and to love him perfectly, “and her mind, once made up, would never change.”