CHAPTER XXI
1553 Mary’s marriage in question—Pole and Courtenay—Foreign suitors—The Prince of Spain proposed to her—Elizabeth’s attitude—Lady Jane’s letter to Hardinge—The coronation—Cranmer in the Tower—Lady Jane attainted—Letter to her father—Sentence of death—The Spanish match.
To Mary there were at present matters of more personal and pressing moment than the fate of her ill-starred cousin. It was essential that the kingdom should be provided as quickly as possible with an heir whose title to the throne should admit of no question. Mary was no longer young and there was no time to lose. The question in all men’s minds was who was to be the Queen’s husband. Amongst Englishmen, Pole, who, though a Cardinal, was not in priest’s orders, and Courtenay, the prisoner of the Tower, were both of royal blood, and considered in the light of possible aspirants to her hand. The first, however, was soon set aside, as disqualified by age and infirmity. Towards Courtenay she appeared for a time not ill-disposed. His unhappy youth, his long captivity, may have told in his favour in the eyes of a woman herself the victim of injustice and misfortune. He was young, not more than twenty-seven, handsome—called by Castlenau “l’un des plus beaux entre les jeunes seigneurs de son âge”—and the Queen cherished a special affection for his mother. He had been restored to the forfeited honours of his family, had been made Earl of Devonshire and Knight of the Bath. Gardiner also, whose opinion carried weight, was an advocate of the match. But on his enfranchisement from prison the young man had not used his liberty wisely. His head turned by the position already his, and the chance of a higher one, he had started his household on a princely scale, inducing many of the courtiers to kneel in his presence. Follies such as these Mary might have condoned, although the fact that she directed her cousin to accept no invitations to dinner without her permission indicates the exercise of a supervision somewhat like that to be kept over an emancipated schoolboy. But at a moment when he was aspiring to the highest rank to be enjoyed by any subject, his moral misconduct was matter of public report and sufficient to deter any woman from becoming his wife. He was also headstrong and self-willed, “so difficult to guide,” sighed Noailles, “that he will believe nobody; and as one who has spent his life in a tower, seeing himself now in the enjoyment of entire liberty, cannot abstain from its delights, having no fear of those things which may be placed before him.”
To these causes, rather than to the romantic passion for Elizabeth attributed to Courtenay by some other writers, Dr. Lingard attributes Mary’s refusal to entertain the idea of becoming his wife. “In public she observed that it was not for her honour to marry a subject, but to her confidential friends she attributed the cause to the immorality of Courtenay.”[201]
Her two English suitors disposed of, it remained to select a husband from amongst foreign princes—the King of Denmark, the Prince of Spain, the Infant of Portugal, the Prince of Piedmont, being all under consideration. A few months ago Mary had been a negligible quantity in the marriage market; she had now become one of the most desirable matches in Europe. She was determined to follow in her choice the advice of the Emperor; and the Emperor had hitherto abstained from proffering it, contenting himself with negativing the candidature of the son of the King of the Romans. It was not until September 20 that, in answer to her repeated inquiries, he instructed his ambassadors to offer her the hand of his son; requesting that the matter should be kept secret, even from her ministers of State, until he had been informed whether she was inclined to accept his suggestion.[202] The contents of the Emperor’s despatch must have been communicated to the Queen immediately before her coronation on September 30; but not being as yet made public there was nothing to interfere with the loyal rejoicings of the people, to whom the very idea of the Spanish match would have been abhorrent.
Meantime the attitude of Elizabeth was increasing the desire of the Catholic party that a direct heir should be born to the Catholic Queen. The nation was insensibly dividing itself into two camps, and the Protestant and Catholic parties eyed one another with suspicion, each looking to the sister who shared its faith for support. The enthusiasm displayed towards Elizabeth by a section of the people was not conducive to the continuance of affectionate relations between the Queen and the next heir to the throne, Pope Julius describing the younger sister as being in the heart and mouth of every one. Elizabeth was in a position of no little difficulty. She desired to continue on good terms with the Queen; she was not willing to relinquish her chief title to honour in Protestant eyes; and it is possible that genuine religious sentiment, a sincere preference for the creed she professed, may have added to her embarrassment. It may have been due to conviction that she declined to bow to her sister’s wishes by attending Mass, refusing so much as to be present at the ceremonial which created Courtenay Earl of Devonshire. It was satisfactory to know that Protestant England looked on and applauded. It was less pleasant to hear that some of the Queen’s hot-headed friends, interpreting her refusal as an act of disrespect to their mistress, had demanded—though vainly—her arrest; and though on September 6 Noailles reported to his master that on the previous Saturday and Sunday the Princess had proved deaf to the arguments of preachers and the solicitations of Councillors, and had gone so far as to make a rude reply to the last, she suddenly changed her tactics, fell on her knees, weeping, before Mary, and begged that books and teachers might be supplied to her, so that she might perhaps see cause to alter the faith in which she had been brought up. The expectation seems to have been promptly realised. On September 8 she accompanied the Queen to Mass, and, expressing an intention of establishing a chapel in her house, wrote to the Emperor to ask permission to purchase the ornaments for it in Brussels.
It was a season of sudden conversions. Elizabeth was not the only person who saw the wisdom of conforming in appearance or in sincerity to the standard set up by the Queen. Hardinge, a chaplain of the Duke of Suffolk’s—he must have succeeded to the post of the worthy Haddon—had recognized his errors; and it is believed that to him a letter of Lady Jane’s—though signed with her unmarried name—was addressed. Printed in English, and abroad, perhaps through the instrumentality of her former tutor, Aylmer, it is an epistle of expostulation, reproof, and warning, couched in the violent language of the time. To her “noble friend, newly fallen from the truth” she writes, marvelling at him, and lamenting the case of one who, once the lively member of Christ, was now the deformed imp of the devil, and from the temple of God was become the kennel of Satan—with much more in the same strain. It has not been recorded what effect, if any, the missive produced upon the delinquent to whom it was addressed.
Elizabeth, for her part, had effectually made her peace with her sister. The coronation, on October 10, found their relations restored to a pleasant footing, and Elizabeth’s proper place at the ceremony was assured to her. To Mary, a sad and lonely woman, the reconciliation must have been welcome. To Elizabeth the material advantages of standing on terms of affection with the Queen will have appealed more strongly than motives of sentiment; and that her attitude was surmised by those about her would seem to be shown by a curious incident reported in the despatches of the imperial ambassador.
As the younger sister bore the crown to be placed upon Mary’s head, she complained to M. de Noailles, who stood near, of its weight. It was heavy, she said, and she was weary.
The Frenchman replied with a flippant jest, overheard by Charles’s ambassador, though Noailles himself, perhaps convicted of indiscretion, makes no mention of it in his account of the day’s proceedings. Let Elizabeth have patience, he replied. When the crown should shortly be upon her own head it would appear lighter.[203]
Outwardly all was as it should be. Mary held her sister’s hand in an affectionate clasp, assigning to her the place of honour next her own at the ensuing banquet, and court and nation looked on and were edified.