Mary 1. England's first reigning queen (2)

Mary I, by Hans Eworth
Society of Antiquaries
Public domain.

Queen regnant

Mary’s accession has been described as the only successful rebellion in Tudor England. Some historians even believe that she mounted a coup against Jane Grey, the rightful queen. Her claim rested on the fact that she was Henry VIII’s elder surviving child, named as his heir in the Succession Act, and that she had support from the mass of Londoners, and most leading nobles and gentry. As there was no significant male claimant, she was accepted in spite of her gender and the fact that she was still legally a bastard.

But how was a woman to rule when there were no role models for her? Three days before her coronation, Mary appealed on her knees to her councillors for help. The imperial ambassador reported that 

no-one knew how to answer, amazed as they all were by this humble and lowly discourse, so unlike anything ever heard before in England, and by the queen’s great goodness and integrity’. From Helen Castor, She Wolves. 

This could be seen as pleasing feminine modesty, but also lack of self-confidence. 

A few days into her reign, her cousin, Charles V, the son and grandson of reigning queens, had written to offer advice: 

Let her be in all things what she ought to be: a good Englishwoman, and avoid giving the impression that she desires to act on her own authority, letting it be seen that she wishes to have the assistance and consent of the foremost men of the land.… You will also point out to her that it will be necessary in order to be supported in matters that are not of ladies’ capacity, that she soon contract matrimony with the person who shall appear to her most fit from the above point of view.

As ever, Mary, having little confidence in her own judgement, was very ready to take the emperor's advice. On 28 July she told the imperial ambassadors that ‘after God, she desired to obey none but’ her cousin Charles, ‘whom she regarded as a father’. These instructions were communicated through the Spanish ambassador, Simon Renard. He took to visiting her in disguise in her privy apartments. It was on Renard’s advice that, against her own judgement, she allowed her brother, Edward VI, to be buried with Protestant rites.


The accession of a Queen regnant meant a change in the monarch’s private apartments. Because the key to power lay in access to the monarch, a position such as Mistress of the Robes became politically important. This worried Charles V, who believed that Mary’s ladies were using their new powers to advance their relatives.

Mary’s coronation, on 1 October 1553, was the first for a Queen regnant and it combined both precedent and novelty. She dressed as a male monarch in the traditional state robes of crimson velvet. She was anointed in a petticoat of purple velvet and crowned with the crown of Edward the Confessor. But she only touched the ceremonial spurs, rather than having them placed on her. 

The Spanish marriage

It was generally expected that she would marry: all monarchs needed an heir and a female monarch also someone to assist her in government. She was 37, time was not on her side, and she would have to make her choice quickly. 

Her marriage raised the dilemma that confronted every queen regnant. If she married a subject, this could cause faction-fighting among the nobility. If she married a foreigner, she put her country under the dominance of another. In Mary’s case, there was another dimension. Europe was torn apart by the power struggle between Habsburg and Valois, the Holy Roman Empire and France. Mary was bound to take the imperial side and this meant that she would look to Charles V to provide her with a husband. 

From the emperor’s point of view, a marriage with his 26-year-old son, Philip, would be a glittering prize. It would secure the sea route between England and the Netherlands and would encircle France. It would also provide a counter to the proposed marriage between Mary Queen of Scots and the Dauphin of France. The marriage, therefore, would have geopolitical significance. On 10 October Renard formally offered her Philip’s hand.

Philip II, by Titian
Prado National Museum
Public domain

But the choice was controversial because he was a foreigner and most of her counsellors favoured a marriage to the Yorkist, Edward Courtenay, great-grandson of Edward IV. On 16 November 1553 she faced a deputation from the Commons trying to dissuade her from marrying Philip. The terms of the treaty were officially proclaimed to Parliament on 14 January. The immediate result was Wyatt’s rebellion.

Mary responded with courage to this rebellion and managed to turn her gender to her advantage. In an address to the Guildhall on 1 February she said: 

I cannot tell how naturally a mother loveth her children, for I never had any, but if the subjects may be loved as a mother doth her child, then assure yourselves that I, your sovereign lady and your Queen, do earnestly love and favour you.

It was a speech that won over the crowd.

With the failure of the revolt, Mary gave her reluctant consent to the execution of Jane Grey. 

The marriage treaty broke new ground, as it had to, for there was no precedent. Charles V made many concessions. Philip was granted the style and name of King of England, but he had no regal power. Should Mary die first, he had no claim to the throne, and only the children of their marriage could succeed. Don Carlos, his heir from his first marriage, did not have a claim. No foreign office-holders would be appointed, and England would not be involved in Habsburg wars. Mary was to be ‘sole Queen’.  Yet there was always an underlying tension in the marriage of a reigning queen and the heir to a great Empire. A member of Philip’s entourage revealed that 

the marriage was made for no fleshy consideration, but in order to preserve the disorders of this country and to preserve the Low Countries.

The wedding took place at Winchester Cathedral on 25 July 1554. Mary pledged ‘from henceforth to be compliant and obedient…as much in mind as body’. Philip pledged to endow her with all his worldly goods.

Two days after the wedding the privy council stipulated that state documents should be in Spanish as well as Latin. In September the first new coins were issued, with Philip and Mary in profile, and his name appearing first. 

Philip and Mary
Public domain

The restoration of Catholicism

With Philip’s arrival, the restoration of Catholicism began in earnest. This was presided over by Reginald Pole, first as papal legate and then as Archbishop of Canterbury, who arrived back in England in November 1554. In a speech to Parliament in the same month, he spoke of Mary’s providential role: God had ‘miraculously’ preserved the Queen, ‘a virgin, helpless, naked, unarmed’ to prevail over tyranny.

The 'pregnancy'

In the autumn the marriage seemed to have achieved its primary object when it was rumoured that Mary was pregnant. With Elizabeth the unacknowledged heir to the throne, the future of the Catholic restoration in England seemed assured. The expected date was on or around 9 May 1555. Because of the dangers of childbirth, provision was made for Philip to be guardian of the realm should Mary die. But by the end of July it was clear that there was no baby. In August, with no immediate prospect of an heir, Philip left for the Low Countries. 

'Bloody Mary': the persecution of the Protestants

Meanwhile, with the execution of John Rogers at Smithfield in February 1554, the persecution of Protestants had begun. On 16 October 1555 Nicholas Ridley and Hugh Latimer were burned at the stake in Oxford. The most dramatic – and the most disastrous for Mary from a propaganda perspective – was the burning of Thomas Cranmer on 21 March 1556. He died recanting his initial recantation.

The martyrdom of Cranmer at Oxford
From John Foxe's Acts and Monuments.

The loss of Calais

On 16 January 1556 Charles V abdicated and Philip became ruler of Spain and the Low Countries. He was now more than ever preoccupied with European affairs. He arrived back in March 1557, but he had come back not for Mary’s sake but for money and an English declaration of war against France. 

In April he and Mary petitioned the privy council for a declaration. The declaration was formally proclaimed on 7 June 1557.   To Mary’s intense grief this put her at odds with the virulently anti-Spanish Pope Paul IV. Within weeks Philip sailed from Dover and he and Mary never saw each other again. 

In July an English force crossed the Channel. On 7 January 1558 the ill-prepared, undermanned and poorly defended garrison at Calais fell to the Duke of Guise. 

Death and the accession of Elizabeth

The Venetian ambassador described Mary as ‘a queen of regrets’.  She had failed to have a child, her husband was away, the Pope was hostile and she had been unable to prevent the near-certainty of Elizabeth’s accession. Yet at the beginning of 1558 she was again convinced that she was pregnant. She made a will leaving Philip the guardian of her child. But this was another false pregnancy and on 6 November Mary, knowing she was dying, accepted Elizabeth as her heir. (The other possible contender, Mary Queen of Scots, was now married to the Dauphin, making her accession diplomatically impossible.)

Conclusion

Mary was only 42 when she died. Her reign was not as calamitous as has sometimes been thought, but it cannot be said to have been successful. She died leaving the country at war and suffering from two years of poor harvests. Her choice of a husband had seemed to make sense dynastically and diplomatically, but it had been a political mistake. If she had lived longer, her religious policy might have been successful, but its failure left a long-lasting legacy of anti-Catholicism, embodied in the Actes and Monuments of John Foxe.