The Heretic Heir, page 6
part #2 of The Elizabeth of England Chronicles Series
And sometimes, even when love is nothing more than a fiction, it can endure. Sometimes love is false fiction, for only one heart reaches out in adoration of another, but that love is not real, not tangible. It slips through the fingers like the air we breathe. Love, when it comes from one heart alone, is not true love, but that does not mean it is not still powerful.
When Mary was a small girl, her mother and our father betrothed her to her grand cousin Charles V of Spain, a man much older than she and already in possession of a huge empire. Katherine of Aragon’s love for her homeland was such that although royal betrothals are made and unmade faster than the turning of the seasons, Katherine convinced Mary that this betrothal was sealed by love. When Mary and Charles married, her mother promised, they would have such as the love that Katherine and her husband, Henry, had, a true love, an equal love, and Mary would return to help to rule the country that her mother adored and dreamed of, the hot and sultry shores of Spain. There were many fictions in such tales, as we were to see later.
Telling tales to a small girl about her future marriage may seem innocent enough, but perhaps not… It does depend on how seriously the girl takes those stories. Mary fell for her mother’s promises with all enthusiasm, and when she was eventually told that Charles, who was around twenty years older than she, had married another, it broke her tiny heart.
Mary had a jewel the Spanish Ambassador gave to her from Charles when they were betrothed. Mary carried it in a pouch, kept close to her heart, since she was a little girl, and still wore the little gem even now she was grown. As the Queen, Mary had many more fabulous jewels to adorn herself with than this little thing, but yet still she wore it.
There was a deep sentimental streak in Mary, as there had been in our father, as there was too in me. That little jewel meant a great deal to my sister.
So, when the question of her marriage came to the fore, I knew that Mary would hark back to those echoes of love still sounding in her heart. Echoes of a fabled, mythical love which existed before all of her sorrow and pain; the fulfilment of the marriage her mother had so wished for, the marriage that would see Mary restored to happiness… marriage to the man she had loved and idolised as a child.
There was but one small problem with this fantasy; Charles was an old man now, a wasted and weary emperor whose exploits had been as great as his chin was long. He had been married much, and was not taken with the idea of marrying again.
But he had a son.
Charles’ son was a young man, a handsome prince, who was the heir and would one day be the ruler of the Hapsburg Empire. So, if the father was too old then why not the son? The Spanish were keen for it; Mary might be an old woman by the standards of marriage, but she was also the Queen of a strategically important isle, and this match would mean another advantage over the French, which the Spanish were most keen on. They had no love for their neighbours the Valois kings of France, with whom they were presently at war.
Mary was horribly keen, and terrible at disguising it. How often had she longed for a family that loved her? A husband of her own, and children to grace her days? And here was the handsome, young son of Spain being offered to her… I am surprised she was able to keep still on her throne in her excitement.
But the English were not keen. A king married to our queen would have power in this land which was unknown, uncharted. With this first ascension of a queen to the throne, it was hardly known what position her king should take… Would he have overall power of the land, just as a man should have by law when he married a woman and took on mastery of her house? If Mary retained her own power, and had power over her husband, would this be out of the bounds of the laws of God and man? If Mary’s husband was king of another land, would England become annexed as part of the property of that country?
No one really knew, and it made Englishmen uneasy in their beds to think they may have fought to put their Tudor queen on the throne, only to have her hand her power over to a foreign potentate. The English wanted to be ruled by the English. I understood my countrymen well enough; they feared a foreign power squashing out their individuality and power. If Mary took this route, she would have opposition on her hands.
There was another option; Mary could marry an Englishman, a noble. Our father had, after all, married often into the noble lines of England, so there was prescience for such a match. Our cousin Edward Courtenay had been put forward as a possible suitor and he may have proved a good solution to the problems which worried the men of England so. But I believe Mary’s mind was made even before she had seen the portrait of the striking Prince Phillip of Spain.
The French Ambassador, Noialles, who had started to visit me on a regular basis, told me that Phillip had a salient collection of salacious portraits in his private collection; female nudes whose forms seemed less to represent appreciation of art, than appreciation of the naked. He whispered it to me with a delighted yet horrified expression which caused me to smile and laugh a little. I’m not sure if he intended me to relay this to my dour sister, looking for ways to discredit the Spanish Prince in the eyes of the Queen, but I had little opportunity to do so these days. I think really the Ambassador just wanted the rumour of Phillip’s dalliances to be cast about court to increase the fears of the populace, which in truth, needed little encouragement.
My sister eventually received rather helpful and timely divine intervention in her choice of a husband. One morning, Mary and her lady in waiting, Susan Clarencieux, had just bowed before the communion bread when the Spanish Ambassador walked into the Queen’s audience chamber. Suddenly, Mary was taken…. possessed…. with the Holy Spirit, to reveal that she was destined to marry Phillip of Spain by the will of God.
It is odd, is it not, that a piece of bread may be capable of transmitting God’s thoughts to a person? In the Bible when He spoke to the prophets or fore-fathers, He generally did not do so through a pastry or a loaf. To the Protestant within me, that bit of bread was just a symbol of the bread broken at the Last Supper. To Mary, that bread was the incarnation of the spirit of God. So I suppose there was always going to be a difference in the way we viewed the Host. All the same, it seemed God had a remarkably political sense of timing about Him that day, as He sent His spirit to inform Mary she was destined to marry Phillip, just as the Spanish Ambassador arrived in her chambers…. But there is a saying that God works in mysterious ways, and here so it seemed He did, with Mary and His wishes for her country. God wanted Mary to marry Phillip, apparently.
I believe we would all have found the little scene more convincing, had the bread told Mary to marry Courtenay, rather than confirming the desires of her own heart.
The refuge of the uncertain is often in the pretence of power; I wondered myself over the years if Mary had really fooled herself by her own play-acting in this matter. Sometimes when we want something enough, it becomes easy, too easy, to convince ourselves that it is not only right that we want it, but that it is meant to be.
The heart is a dangerous enemy. Mary’s heart was leading her down a path she might come to regret. But it now seemed the Queen had the direct approval of God on her side, to achieve what she desired.
Chapter Ten
The Court of Mary I, London
1553
Mary wanted to marry Phillip of Spain.
Assured by no less than the Holy Spirit that her choice was the right one, she made her will plain to those around her. She wanted to marry, she needed to marry; not only as it was the right condition for a queen to have a king, to complete her ring of royalty, but also to bear an heir for her country.
And God wanted her to marry into the arms of Spain, or so we heard from Mary.
Mary’s Council were divided on her choice; yes, they wanted her to marry and as soon as possible; but many were uneasy with the idea of a foreign prince coming to marry their queen. With all the rights a husband should have of his wife’s property, essentially and in all terms traditional under the eyes of God, this would mean that England would belong to Spain. The English were afraid to lose their country, to become but a part of another power; but more than that, they were afraid to relinquish their identity, their independence, something they had become proud of, justifiably.
If the sexes were reversed and our queen had been a king, there would have been no problem with marriage to a foreign princess. That lady would have travelled the wide seas to England, bringing with her riches and no personal power other than those diplomatic persuasions princesses are often trained in to advance the interests of their homelands. A foreign princess would have brought no confusion to the ritual of royal marriage. But with a queen bringing a king to her… that was different.
Most men fear change; for in the unknown lurks every deep shadow of possibility. Those of limited imagination will simply refuse change for as long as possible, and blame change for anything untoward that occurs, retreating into memories brim full of past and history to tell us how good things used to be. Those of more imagination, more realisation, will learn how change can be cultured and altered to suit themselves.
Some men benefit from change as they would do from stagnation, and some will benefit from neither. Some are active in this life, and some are passive. We must all of us seek to find the best of any situation life hands to us, using all the wit God gifted to us, to carve our own space in the ever-changing world.
Mary knew that her people were averse to the idea of her marrying a foreign prince. Our father, although he had done many controversial acts in his reign, had still granted his people an impression of their own power in the world. England had grown, broken from Rome and still stood tall. We traded with other nations, fought enemies and we were still here, still standing; this little isle in the middle of the seas, a nation of sailors, adventurers and bold risk-takers. Mary was in the process of threatening that very special sense of her people’s identity. There were many rumbles against this marriage; from her Council, her nobles and, more importantly, from the common man.
Kings only hold their power through the will of the common man. Although in the simplest terms, it seems as though the King is all-powerful, it is not so. A king is a fragile thing, made of flash and appearance, of sparkling gold and recognition of family blood. Throughout history, thrones have been given, stolen and taken, and it is not only having a claim to a throne which means a king may hold it. It is only through either love or fear that a king may hold his crown. Mary ascended to the throne on a wave of love from her people, and now it seemed that her personal desire for love was the emotion most likely to make her risk everything she had achieved thus far.
Mary succeeded in manipulating her Council into agreeing with her marriage to Phillip of Spain by flatly refusing to consider any other suitor. They realized that if they were to have a king and an heir to secure the Catholic future, then they would have to agree with the Queen. Then, on the 16th November 1553, Mary faced the House of Commons to do the same. The Speaker started by presenting a petition, on behalf of the realm, asking the Queen to marry into an English bloodline, to choose a man from her own realm to be her king. We all knew they were thinking of Courtenay, although no name was mentioned.
Mary’s Lord Chancellor, Gardiner went to speak for Mary, but she stopped him, and stepped forward herself. She thanked the House for its wish that she should marry, but went on:
“The English Parliament has not been wont to use such languages to their sovereigns. And where private persons in such cases follow their own private tastes, sovereigns may reasonably challenge an equal liberty. We have heard much from you of the incommodities which may attend our marriage… we have not heard from you of the commodities thereof; one of which is of some weight with us, the commodity namely, of our private inclination. We have not forgotten our coronation oath. We shall marry as God shall direct our choice, to his honour, and our country’s good.”
Mary was magnificent; even I will admit that to you. Her speech was clear, strong, bold… insisting that her will and her private inclination in marriage was the only right one, and it was approved by God. Mary was in essence claiming that her choice was divinely inspired, that her will was God’s will; if it was God’s will then that she marry with Spain, no one should stand against it.
It is a sure, yet, interestingly unimaginative way for a person to put to an end an argument… Stating they have divine approval of their choices, rather than relying on the certainty of their own will, or on argument of logic and reason, seems rather… unfair. For my own part, I have little believed that God would intervene so in the everyday tasks of man; He gave us our qualities and the wit to make our choices, and therein His work is done, and ours begins. It is we, His people, who make the choices for good or ill that shape our world, and our responsibility is to try to make the best choices we can, to show to Him we acknowledge and honour His gifts to us.
Mary was using God to ensure her own wishes were carried out; something no mortal man or woman should ever take lightly.
But no one was going to argue against her since she was sure she had God on her side. To counter the argument, her Councillors or Members of Parliament would need a holy intervention of their own, and there are only so many interventions that can be ascribed to God before things start to appear faintly ridiculous.
In December, a marriage treaty was drafted. It must have been the oddest marriage proposal that was ever made. Phillip was to be the King Consort, a king, but one in name only. He would hold no governing power in England and neither would his nobles. He would not take any part of England as part of Mary’s dowry, and Spain would not be able to draw England legally into any of her wars or conquests. Mary would not leave England; her prince would have to come to her.
An odd proposal and a novel one for this age… in which a woman brings nothing but her body to the bed of her husband!
The Spanish were so keen on having a foot in England that they agreed to all the terms. I am sure they thought that once their handsome prince stepped into England, he could charm Mary so thoroughly that she would acquiesce to their needs later. In the country, however, the muttering grew to openly spoken discontent, the whispers started to turn to growls of anger that our queen was to give herself, and England, to a Spanish prince. The common man did not understand, or care to try to understand, the marriage proposal being laid down. They understood that their queen would be subject to her king as any woman was to her husband, and that was all. Their queen was opening her legs and her country, to consensual conquest by the Spanish.
At court, Mary was still making my life a misery; giving Margaret Douglas precedence ahead of me in court activities, giving our Lennox cousin rich gifts and allowing her to live at court without paying for room or food. My household and I were not given any such honour. Mary muttered to her Ambassadors, particularly Renard of Spain, of the trouble I gave her and was obviously not above degrading my lineage and birth to them. She did not move publicly to remove me as her heir, but I think she wanted to, more than anything. Such an action would be a balm to the hurt and sorrow of her childhood humiliation.
Her pressure on me to alter my religion was such that I now had to attend Catholic Mass at the chapel royal frequently. I never went without at least a little protest, but I could not refuse entirely. The iron will of my sister was stuck around my waist, pulling me and thrusting me, trying to force me into her idea of what I should be. But I did not think her will was right… I was seeing enough of her mistakes in this, the youth of her reign, to know that trouble was coming.
It was becoming intolerable for me to stay at court, both personally and politically. I decided that it was time I retreated into my estates. If the common opinion was so against this marriage, then it was best for me to be apart from the spectacle of it. I did not want the people associating me with the ills that they believed Mary was bringing to their country. In a personal sense, my every step was being watched, my sister was becoming overtly hostile to me and her constant pressure on me to change my religion was starting to make an impact on my health. Worries of the mind so easily come to plague the blood and bone of the body. I had found this in times past when I had faced situations of anxiety; sometimes I had feigned illness to escape danger, but now, with Mary’s pressures and disapproval on me like a weight about my neck, I found I was affected with a constant tiredness of soul and body. I needed to leave the court for a while.
I went to Mary a little before Christmas, and asked to remove to my country estates at Ashridge.
“The court and the airs of London are making me feel weary in my body and my mind, Your Majesty,” I said as I knelt before her. “Since your glorious ascension to the throne, there have been so many entertainments and diversions that I believe I have exerted myself and depleted my strength. I was so happy to see my good sister take her rightful place as queen, that I failed to notice the weakening state of my health.” I looked up at her and smiled pathetically, “I hope, Majesty, you will forgive my absence at your side for your first Christmas as queen, but I am in truth feeling most feeble, and I fear that further exertion might have a lasting effect on my health.”
