Mary Tudor: A Most Unhappy Queen

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The greatest demonstration of all occurred in 1553, when King Edward died at the early age of 15, and Northumberland attempted to put a puppet of his own on the throne as Queen. The puppet in question was Northumberland’s daughter-in-law, Lady Jane Grey, who was also a great-granddaughter of Henry VII. The unfortunate Jane, however, spent her nine day reign in the Tower of London, where Northumberland had placed her for safe-keeping while he carried through his coup d’etat. The people, their sense of fair play deeply outraged, would have none of it. Few doubted that Henry VIII’s older daughter had the better claim to the throne of England and one after the other, towns, villages and districts throughout the land rejected Jane and declared for Mary. Cold feet set in among Northumberland’s cronies who were with Jane in the Tower, and on 19th July some of them escaped while Northumberland was absent. Shortly afterwards, Mary’s accession was publicly proclaimed from Tower Hill.

Public joy at this outcome verged on the hysterical. Great was the triumph here at London, wrote one chronicler. The number of caps that were thrown up at the proclamation are not to be told. … Money was thrown out at windows for joy. The bonfires were without number…and ringing of bells……besides banquettings and singing in the streets for joy.

Two weeks later, when Mary entered London, the people greeted her in similar mood as the embodiment of the Tudor magic they revered and the Tudor courage they admired. It was not, as yet, apparent that the lustrous image they had of this particular Tudor was flawed by the long years of adversity that had lined her face and stiffened her mind.

The tragic truth soon emerged. Mary made the fatal mistake of presuming that the nationwide support she had received implied acceptance of everything she stood for. Gripped as she was by this unshakable conviction, Mary ignored vital facts that would have been obvious to a shrewder, more emotionally balanced person. Of these, by far the most important was the fact that the English had for many years’ harboured two pet hates–the Pope and foreign (particularly Spanish) influence. The unwary Mary outraged both these prejudices. She began by openly declaring her intention of restoring the English Church to the jurisdiction of Rome. Her initial methods were example, persuasion and a certain amount of emotional blackmail which exploited her subjects’ genuine love for her. This gentle arm-twisting failed completely to woo the stubborn English. Only ten days after Mary’s triumphal entry, there was a riot in London’s Horsemarket when Mass was publicly celebrated there. Two days later, an anonymous pamphlet was circulated branding Mary and her government as detestable papists who were out to poison the people.

Already, though, Mary was well on the way to giving her subjects another cause for fury. She proposed to marry 26-year-old Philip of Spain, the son of her cousin Charles and the premier Catholic Prince of Europe. Not until very much later, and too late, did Mary realise the realities behind Phillip’s offer of marriage. It was a political move, designed to keep England as an ally against Spain’s great enemy, France.

For the cold-hearted Philip, marriage to the English Queen, who was 11 years older than himself, involved great personal sacrifice: he was repelled by what seemed to him a scrawny, neurotic woman on the verge of crabby middle age.

Mary, unfortunately, was love struck. All she could see in Philip was a husband who would love her and give her a child to rear as a truly Catholic heir to the Tudor throne. This brilliant vision blinded her to the violent protests of her subjects, to whom a Spanish King–the role Philip would inevitably assume–was complete anathema.

Once more, London was the scene of riots. Catholic priests were beaten up and threatened, and in January 1554 a full-scale rebellion erupted in Kent. Fifteen thousand armed men, led by Sir Thomas Wyatt, marched on London with demands that Queen Mary enter the Tower and that four Privy Councillors be handed over as hostages for her promise to marry an Englishman. By the time the rising was thwarted, on 7th February, pitched battles had stained London’s streets with blood and Mary herself had nearly been killed when the rebels attacked Whitehall Palace and bombarded the windows with arrows. Afterwards, Mary’s Protestant half sister Elizabeth was implicated in the rebellion and was clapped in the Tower for a time. This provoked yet another furor of protest, for as Mary’s popularity plunged, Elizabeth’s soared.

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