XXXIX

Nowe singe, noive springe, owe care is exil’d

Owe virtuous Quene is quickned with child.

When Mary’s physicians told her in September that in all probability she was pregnant the news was deeply satisfying. Once again God had intervened at a decisive moment, this time lifting her above the limitations of age and health that many said would prevent her from having children. The event was congruent with the fortuitous course of her life, which had been preserved amid danger and prospered in the face of seemingly overwhelming odds. That she had outlived her father was an amazing improbability; that she had come to the throne a near miracle. Her triumph over Dudley, her resolute defiance of Wyatt, her determined accomplishment of the Spanish marriage were feats none of the men around her had believed possible. To Mary these improbable triumphs were ever increasing proof that she was being guided toward the divinely ordained destiny of restoring the true faith in England. The culmination of that destiny would be the birth of a Catholic heir to ensure that Mary’s religious changes would not die with her.

The immediate effect of the good news was to calm the escalating hostilities between the Spaniards and the English. The rapprochement came none too soon, for the enmity of the English had reached such a pitch that several mass assassinations had been plotted. According to Noailles, one of these plots called for the conspirators to surround Hampton Court in the middle of the night, storm the palace, and slaughter all the Spaniards inside—and the queen and her councilors with them, Noailles felt sure. There were more than enough assaults on a smaller scale to make this rumored conspiracy plausible. The English had begun to carry arquebuses everywhere they went, and at the slightest alarm they rushed through the streets, weapons in hand, falling upon the firstSpaniards they met. Renard reported seeing one of the lower court functionaries attack and beat two Spaniards as they walked in the street at three o’clock in the afternoon. He was no match for them, and soon ran off, but before he did he pulled a gun from under his cloak, pointed it at one of the foreigners, and then, “to show what a brave man he was,” fired it into the air.¹ The Spaniards did not take such insults lightly. Three days after this incident occurred the injured parties found their assailant and killed him not far from the palace.

Renard had felt for some time that the one certain remedy for these disorders would be the announcement of the queen’s pregnancy, and as soon as he heard of her condition he spread the word as widely as he could, “in order to keep the malcontents within bounds.” A visitor to Mary’s court, an ambassador sent by the duke of Savoy, spread the story further. “The queen is with child,” he wrote in a dispatch. “I have personal reason to believe it, as I have noticed her feeling sick to her stomach.” Like Renard the Savoyard talked to the royal doctor, who gave him “positive assurance” of the pregnancy, adding that “if it were not true all the signs described by physicians would prove to be fallacious.”²

By October the mood of the court had changed. Courtiers who had been at each other’s throats mellowed, and returned to the guarded courtesy they had shown one another on Philip’s arrival in July. The Spaniards showed their good will by staging a tournament in the Iberian style—a “cane play” or joust in which canes took the place of lances. The English found the sport bland, but joined in anyway, and it was noticed that the two groups of courtiers no longer kept to themselves at banquets and dances but had begun to mingle again. At one of these dances Admiral Howard presented a masque performed by eight sailors in particolored trousers of cloth of gold and silver with jerkins and hoods to match. They danced a vigorous hornpipe, and then were joined by all those present, including the king and queen. Both were “in health, and merry,” and appeared to be enjoying themselves.

Mary’s pregnancy brought into sharper relief the question of her joint sovereignty with Philip. Strictly speaking he was the queen’s husband and nothing more. He had not been crowned king. Whatever royal prerogative he possessed would not outlast Mary’s lifetime, and those of her subjects who saw him as the future father of the queen’s children and nothing more were in a sense not far wrong. But tradition was stronger than legalities, and tradition called for the wife to defer to her husband’s authority in all things. How a reigning queen, a sovereign recognizing no superior on earth, might be expected to take second place to her much younger husband, a king in name but not in function and a man with few legal rights of any kind within her country, was a dilemma outside the concerns of Mary’s advisers. What mattered was that, to preserve hisdignity, Philip had to be given at the very least the appearance of primacy, and something of its substance as well. For to put Philip second in any way was an insult, while to put Mary second was in accord with scriptural teachings, the norms of society and the unquestioned truism that women were less capable than men.

In the months following her marriage Mary found that her delight in Philip’s comforting presence had been acquired at a considerable cost. In the eyes of the men in her government she had become the king’s wife, the lesser partner in the monarchy, who was expected to settle comfortably into a role heretofore denied her only because of the dynastic peculiarities of the house of Tudor. It was as if the cohesive leadership she had shown during the first year of her reign—leadership that had never failed to amaze them, and that had been forgotten by the time the next crisis arrived—was a mere aberration in the continuity of male sovereignty in England. Now that she was married this sort of authority was no longer needed.

Two things made this shift in perception both insidious and devastating. One was that it was not overt but tacit: an unspoken, all-pervasive, commonly held belief about the natural status of the king’s wife. There was no malice in it either; Mary was to be subordinate to Philip less because of her personal inadequacy than because of the ponderous, impersonal weight of custom centuries old. The other was that from now on Mary had to contend with conflicting forces within herself. In childhood she had learned to expect marriage, to abhor yet emphasize her attractive powers and to esteem herself below men. In adolescence this deep conditioning had been shaken by the tormenting spectacle of her parents’ divorce and her own disgrace, and since the age of twenty Mary had been sustained by an alternative vision of her future. Instead of expecting the conventional destiny of marriage she had come to believe that she would fulfill a more exalted role. This higher destiny did not preclude marriage, but it was hardly compatible with a life of passive subordination.

For the time being, however, this conflict had been resolved by the joyous compromise of Mary’s pregnancy. For if in the view of those around her her condition underscored the inappropriateness of her supremacy in the government it nonetheless satisfied both her childhood expectations and her adult hopes. The child she carried fulfilled her earliest image of herself, while at the same time it reaffirmed her conviction in the divinely guided course of her life. She could afford to let Philip bear more than his share of authority while she undertook the all-important responsibility of nurturing the Catholic heir to the throne.

Even before Philip landed at Southampton Mary’s courtiers were speaking of him as if they expected him to rule them as well as reign over them. The proverb “Novus Rex, Nova Lex”—“New King, NewLaw”—was repeated at the Council table and in the letters of courtiers to one another, and English diplomats at foreign courts sent nervous inquiries about whether they should expect to be recalled once the new king arrived. There was no outward change in the procedure of government, apart from an order from the Council that a brief summary of state business should be drawn up from time to time, in Latin or Spanish, and given to whomever Philip appointed to review it on his behalf. Documents bearing the names of both sovereigns were to be signed by both, it was decided, but this too was a simple and obvious matter of administrative routine. Coins struck with Mary’s image alone were replaced by new ones with the profiles of both the king and queen in mid-September, by which time Philip appeared, to foreign visitors at least, to be in command of affairs. The Savoyard ambassador reported that “the king hears and dispatches all state affairs, as it befits his dignity and authority that he should.” Philip seemed to be as approachable and friendly with the English as if he were an Englishman himself, the ambassador remarked, adding significantly that “he already has the same authority as his predecessors on the throne of England.”³

Correspondence between Philip’s retainers and his councilors in Spain puts his situation in England in quite a different light. Late in August Philip was asking that a ship be sent from Spain to be “placed at his disposal so that he may return without delay.” Correctly or not, the Spanish Council took this to be an urgent appeal for rescue. The Council members were anxious, and the admiral, presuming Philip to be in grave danger, drew up an escape plan. He would quickly equip a fleet, ostensibly to take soldiers to Flanders but in fact to bring Philip back to Spain. The Spanish fleet would anchor off an English port, and then, on the pretext of inspecting it, Philip would be rowed out to the flagship. Once aboard he would be safely out of English hands. He could leave without a word, or he could strike a bargain with the English under which he would agree to come ashore on condition that they “arrange matters so as to permit him to live there as befits their Sovereign Lord.”⁴

Whether or not Philip was on satisfactory terms with Mary’s councilors, on one point at least the queen, king and Council were agreed. Now that Mary was pregnant it was more important than ever that England be reconciled with the church of Rome.

On November 20, 1554, Cardinal Reginald Pole landed at Dover and made his way to London, where the third Parliament of the reign had been convened several weeks earlier. He had been appointed legate by the pope, Julius III, fifteen months before, but his coming to England had been repeatedly postponed. Mary had written him several times, urging him to be as patient and deliberate as she was in the work of returningEngland to the Catholic fold, and though he could not agree with her policy he had no choice but to wait at Brussels until he received the formal summons from the queen. In the twenty years since he left England Pole had become a changed man. He was no longer the witty courtier whose urbanity and keen mind had won him the favor of Henry VIII. He had become “sad and grave” in appearance, and his long, somewhat drawn face with its solemn, widely-spaced eyes and feline features was that of a fastidious ascetic. It was also the face of a man deeply scarred by family tragedy and, behind the mildness and melancholy in his eyes, animated by revenge.

Pole had become a great churchman, a principal figure in the movement of reform that had been renovating the Roman church since the 1530s. Appointed to the college of cardinals by Paul III, first of a series of popes concerned with purifying the lives of the clergy and restoring to Rome the spiritual leadership of the Christian world, Pole had worked for two decades to rid the church of the worldliness and institutionalized greed that fed anticlericalism and helped Protestantism to flourish. His commitment to the cause of the church was deepened by the evident success of his efforts and by his increasingly high standing among his peers. In the papal election of 1549 a group of cardinals offered to make him pope “by adoration,” but because he hesitated to accept the honor he lost the election by two votes. He made light of his lost opportunity, largely because, like Mary, he believed he was being saved for some higher purpose.

Pole’s years in exile had deepened not only his faith but his bitterness. He blamed Henry VIII for the tortured course of his personal life. It was Henry’s willful breach with the pope which had first sent Pole into exile, and later, when he had become the king’s hated enemy, it was Henry’s cruelty which brought Pole’s entire family to the block. The one brother who had been spared, the pitiable Geoffrey Pole, brought the cardinal more shame than comfort, and only made the loss of his other relatives more poignant.

In the aftermath of this loss Pole seems to have conceived a sanguinary view of his experience. He envisioned the execution of his blameless old mother as a martyrdom to be compared to the deaths of Christ and the saints of the early church. He called himself the “son of a martyr,” and referred to his injuries at the hands of the king as if they were physical wounds. His pain and grief he called the “stigmata of his obedience” to the church, and he clearly believed his life had to be sacrificed to God in order to avenge the wrongs done to his relatives.⁵The appropriate victim of his vengeance would have been Henry VIII, but Henry was dead. The Protestant doctrines he had helped to bring into England were still in existence, however. By helping to root themout Pole would be destroying a substantial part of the king’s legacy while serving the interests of the church and ensuring the salvation of the countrymen from whom he had been estranged for so long. This, he believed, was the work God intended him for—the preordained purpose for his life.

If Mary delayed Pole’s return to England for political reasons, the emperor encouraged the delay for quite different reasons of his own. A year earlier Renard had written him that Mary had more regard for Pole than for all the members of her Council put together, and the last thing Charles wanted was another influential man at Mary’s court, Philip, not Pole, must remain the primary source of support and advice to the queen. Yet as much as Mary loved her husband, she was bound to the cardinal by unique ties. Both had known their happiest times in the days before England’s breach with Rome. Both had had their lives shattered by the king’s divorce; both had lost their mothers to the king’s cruelty. Both had lived through years of isolation and suffering for the sake of the Catholic faith, living in danger of death yet believing that in the end their fidelity would result in a glorious vindication.

The remarkable similarity of their emotional experience, plus the natural affinity between them, meant that Pole’s influence on Mary would be very great—and very harmful. For of all the men around the queen who minimized her authority, Pole was the most blatant. He had not been with her at Framlingham; he had not heard her speech at the Guildhall when Wyatt was at the gates of London. He had not seen her handle Gardiner or Paget, or assert her will eloquently In Parliament. He assumed that she was weak and incapable, and he had the effect of making her believe it too.

In one other respect his advice was misguided. He assumed that the religious situation in England was not unlike that in Italy, where the Protestant heresy had taken rather shallow root and had been decisively crushed by the papal Inquisition. He would never realize how profoundly the English had changed during their generation of independence from papal rule, and how hardy English Protestantism had become. Restoration of the Catholic faith in England was a far greater challenge than Pole was prepared to undertake when he sailed in the queen’s barge from Gravesend to London on that November day, his silver cross shining over the prow.

On the afternoon of November 28 the cardinal came before Parliament at Whitehall and spoke to the members about the purpose of his commission. After praising Mary—“a virgin, helpless, naked, and unarmed,” who “prevailed and had the victory over tyrants”—he explained that he had been given the power to formally reunite England with the church of Rome, in a spirit of forgiveness and welcome. “My commissionis not of prejudice to any person,” he told them. “I come to reconcile, not to condemn. I come not to compel, but to call again.” Most important, he assured the members indirectly that once England was rejoined to Rome no attempt would be made to take back the lands that had once belonged to the church but had long since been in private hands. “Touching all matters that be past,” he said, “they shall be as things cast into the sea of forgetfulness.”⁶

Two days later Parliament made its official request for reunion with Rome. It was in the form of a petition to Philip and Mary, as “persons undefiled in the offence of this body,” to intercede with the legate to grant the papal pardon. The Lords and Commons fell on their knees, and Pole pronounced the absolution. A public absolution was made the following Sunday. The legate came to St. Paul’s, his cross and poleaxes carried before him. There he met Gardiner and a crowd of bishops and clergy, and a Te Deum was sung. Afterward they met Philip, who had come from Westminster with a great many of the courtiers and his four hundred guardsmen. A huge crowd of fifteen thousand people—the largest crowd ever seen in St. Paul’s churchyard, it was said—heard Gardiner deliver a two-hour sermon on the text “It is time to awake out of sleep.” At its end he announced that Pole had given him the authority to absolve all who were present. The entire crowd knelt for his blessing. “A sight to be seen it was,” wrote a Spanish eyewitness. “And the silence was such that not a cough was heard.”

The reunion with Rome was nearly complete. Now all that remained was for Parliament to enact the legal instruments that would restore the ancient faith by statute. During December this task was accomplished. In the lengthy Second Statute of Repeal all legislation hindering the authority of the pope in England was repealed, and the country declared absolved of its schismatic errors. All the clergy ordained and promoted since the schism began were declared confirmed in their orders and benefices. All the marriages performed by schismatic clerics were made legal, and the children born of them legitimate. The judgments made by the church courts were upheld, and the current possessors of church lands were confirmed in their possessions, “clear from all dangers of the censures of the church.” In view of the expected birth there was legislation providing for the eventuality of Mary’s death in childbirth. Philip was declared regent for the heir to the throne should the queen die while he or she was a minor. Philip expected a proposal to be made to crown him king, but there was none.

More ominous was the revival, soon after the absolution was declared, of medieval statutes prescribing how heretics tried in church courts were to be handed over to the civil officials for execution. How this bill was brought before Parliament is unclear, but it was not an unusual proposal in a session preoccupied with religious affairs. It was in any case a purely procedural change, since the death penalty for heresy was a punishment of long standing. Whatever its origin, the bill passed unanimously.

In political terms, the reunion with Rome was at best a compromise. The Lords and Commons were willing to rejoin the Catholic confession only if they were allowed to keep the spoils of the dissolution. The spiritual rights of the church could be restored as long as its temporal wealth remained in private hands. But to Mary this flaw in the proceedings was of little consequence compared to the overwhelming triumph she had gained. What her father had destroyed she and Pole had built up again. And if there were any doubt that God was directing the course of events to fulfill his will, Mary had special proof of his favor. She had received a holy sign.

In the gospel of Luke the writer described the meeting of the virgin Mary and her cousin Elizabeth. Both women were pregnant, Mary with Jesus and Elizabeth with John, the future John the Baptist. When Elizabeth saw Mary she felt her child leap within her, in recognition of Mary’s son. When Mary Tudor first glimpsed Cardinal Pole, she believed she could feel her child leap in her womb.