But again Philip’s coming was delayed, and the courier Piamontese performed wonderful feats of rapid travelling between Brussels and London, carrying despatches of the utmost weight and significance. “On Wednesday last,” says Michiel, writing on the 23rd November, “at one and the same time, Francesco Piamontese returned from Brussels, and from France the secretary of the Queen’s ambassador there, both one and the other having travelled with such speed, that the one came from Paris to London in 25 hours, and the other out and home from Brussels (although detained there during a day and a half) in five days. Since their arrival until now, the ministers, and Cardinal Pole may be said to have been in very close consultation, assembling every day at 6 A.M. well-nigh before day break, until the dinner hour, and after noon until 6 P.M. or about the second hour of the night according to the Italian fashion. This proceeding is unusual, and Lord Paget having been confined to the house by indisposition, for upwards of a month, they even urged him, on no account to absent himself from the Council board, and although he apologised, as not being in a state to be able to go abroad, I understand that what he could not do by word of mouth, in their presence, was done by him in writing, and that he gave his opinion about what had been asked him at full length. The speed of the couriers, and these long and extraordinary consultations, indicate the gravity and importance of the matter which is being treated so secretly, that as yet, no one has been able to elicit anything certain about it, although from conjecture and conversation rather than from knowledge, many things have been, and still continue to be said, some persons declaring, that some fresh conspiracy, in virtue of an understanding with the French, has been discovered, or some design of the French themselves, on certain places either here or across the Channel. Others, on the contrary, believe the business to be some request from the King to the Queen, to the effect that should the truce be broken, as is feared, war be also waged by England against France, and if this cannot or will not be done, that at least a subsidy of money or troops be given, by reason of the great preparations of the French for Italy, and all the borders; but be it as it may, the deliberation proceeds so silently, that to know anything more about it is difficult. It has been determined for the Earl of Pembroke to cross the Channel, and in two days he will go to Calais, nor is it known whether he is betaking himself to the King. He has ordered his whole household to follow, and it is said that from suspicion, all the guards will be changed.”[634]
On the 1st December, Michiel informed his government that he had discovered Lord Pembroke’s going to Calais to be caused by the French having reinforced their cavalry on the borders of Calais and Guisnes, with a view to a fortress held by the English, named Hammes, the governor of which was Lord Dudley, brother of the traitor Henry Dudley, then still in France, and in great favour with the King.[635] Continuing the same despatch, he says:—
“Three days ago, Miladi Elizabeth arrived from the country, fifteen miles off (from Hatfield) with a handsome retinue, having with her, including lords and gentlemen, upwards of 200 horsemen, clad in her own livery, and dismounted at her own house (Somerset Place) where she has remained ever since, to the infinite pleasure of this entire population, though she was not met by any of the lords or gentlemen of the Court, but many visited her subsequently. Three days afterwards, she went to the Queen, and according to report was received very graciously and familiarly. Yesterday, she returned thither to take leave, having at length had an interview with the Cardinal, whom she visited even in his own chamber, he never having seen her until then, although last year, they both resided at the Court for a whole month, with their apartments very near each other. It cannot yet be ascertained whether she came for any other purpose than that of visiting the Queen, she having with great earnestness solicited to come, and not having been called. With this opportunity, I (according to the custom of my predecessors) now that she seems to be in good favour with her Majesty will not fail to visit her before her departure, not having done so hitherto. Yesterday, the festival of St. Andrew, in Westminster Abbey, which has been restored to the monks, the most illustrious Legate and the royal Council (with all the lords now here, and the nobility of the Court, I also being present, with a great concourse of people) celebrated the anniversary of the kingdom’s release from the schism, which took place on that day, and the twenty-six monks and their abbot made a fine show and procession. The Queen likewise would have been present, had she not been slightly indisposed during the last three or four days, on which account she has not appeared in public, or even in her own chapel at the palace.”[636]
A week later, he wrote again: “The Queen still remains without going abroad, distressing herself about her husband’s troubles”.
Elizabeth, unfortunately, left London before Michiel had time to pay his proposed visit to her, and we are consequently deprived of a description of the Princess at this period, which his realistic pen would no doubt have rendered extremely interesting. He was, moreover, recalled by his Government before the end of the year, and Michiel Surian, who arrived in England as his successor in March 1557, continued the official reports of passing events, without, however, the life-like touches, and vivid colouring of Giovanni Michiel.
At last, it was announced that the King was indeed coming without further delay. He had set out by the end of the first week in March, and was met at each important place through which he passed, by two gentlemen, sent by the Queen, one of whom returned immediately to Greenwich, where she awaited her husband’s arrival, to bring her news of him, and enable her to follow his journey stage by stage. “Thursday, the 18 day of March,” says Machyn, “the King landed at Dover, about x of the clock in the night.” His courtesy and attention to national and local customs were as apparent as on his first setting foot in England, and having inadvertently entered Canterbury Cathedral with his spurs on, he gracefully paid the fine he had thereby incurred, by emptying his purse full of gold pieces, into the cap of a young student who claimed it.[637] After two days spent in retirement at Greenwich, Philip rode through London to Whitehall, by the side of the Queen, who was carried in a litter. He had no cause to complain of his reception by the citizens, and he in his turn did his best to please them, by pardoning and releasing certain prisoners in the Tower, “nevertheless, from what I hear,” reported Surian, “the Spaniards are so greatly hated, that neither his Majesty nor the Queen are well looked on by the multitude”. On the other hand, all the members of the Privy Council were his firm friends, “owing,” said the new Venetian ambassador, “to the great rewards they have had from him, for when last here, he spent and gave a considerable quantity of money, and distributed vast revenues in Spain and Flanders, to propitiate the leading people here, and he found by experience that what my father used to say of this kingdom was perfectly true, that all, from first to last are venal, and do anything for money”.[638]
He went on to say that the Count de Feria had assured him, that the King had so much influence with the Council that he could do with them what he pleased, and that it was in his Majesty’s power to make the country wage war against France, when and in what manner he chose. Surian thought however that Philip would only demand pecuniary help, in which surmise his shrewdness was at fault. “Thus,” he continued, ”do the affairs of the government proceed at present, and those of the religion are regulated with less severity, both to avoid further exasperation of the public mind, as also because, although few are perhaps really Catholic at heart, everybody nevertheless, in appearance, makes a show of living religiously, so there is no cause for proceeding against them.”[639]
Philip’s return, hailed by the Queen and Council, was an occasion of some embarrassment to Cardinal Pole. On the one hand, he rejoiced to be free from the burden of secular affairs, that had weighed so heavily on him, and to be at last able to attend to his archdiocese; but on the other, his position as Papal Legate, and as a member of the Sacred College made it impossible for him to meet on terms of amity, one who was at war with the Pope. In his official capacity he could not meet Philip at all, and he sent to excuse himself for not going to visit him; but before leaving for Canterbury, he went secretly, unattended, and in his private character, to the King’s apartments, at which proceeding the French King affected to be somewhat scandalised, declaring it to be “an unbecoming act”. What passed at the interview did not tend to smooth difficulties with the Pope, or to cause him to listen more patiently to the Queen’s ceaseless appeals on behalf of her husband, as the following transcript from a letter of the Venetian ambassador at the Vatican very well shows. Bernardo Navagero in describing an audience with Paul IV. on the 8th May 1557, quotes the Pope’s own words: “The Queen’s ambassador (Sir Edward Carne) who for a native of those regions is modest and very intelligent, has been to us in the name of the Queen and of the kingdom, to pray me not to abandon them, but to remember that it has lately come to our obedience. We answered him that we love the Queen for her own sake, as she is good, and has done good works; for the sake of her mother, who honoured us extremely, when we were sent to that kingdom by Leo,[640] and for the sake of her grandfather, the late Catholic King, to whom we are much obliged for the love he bore us, and he was assuredly a worthy King, nor could we ever have believed that his descendants would have degenerated so much as Charles and Philip; but we told the Ambassador, that we would willingly separate the Queen’s cause from that of her—we know not whether to call him husband, cousin or nephew—and have her as daughter, bidding her attend to the government of her kingdom, and not let herself be induced to do anything to our detriment nor to that of our confederates, as for instance the King of France, for we would spare neither relations nor friends, but include in our maledictions and anathemas all those who shall desert the cause of God. Even yesterday, we had a letter from the Cardinal of England, telling us that on the arrival of Philip in London, he departed for his bishopric, and he did well, for he could not in honour remain there. He says that he visited King Philip in his own name, as he could not do so in ours, seeing that he has no commission to that effect, as we on the contrary have revoked the legations, and recalled nuncios, and all the ministers of the Apostolic See, in the realms of that individual, to deprive him of the means for doing injury to God and to us. Cardinal Pole also writes that the said individual told him, he would gladly be reconciled to us, and that he has provided for his realms so as to prevent their molestation. This reconciliation fails through him, as induratum est cor ejus, and we believe that he will not reform until his head has been soundly beaten. God knows that for nothing do we pray Him more earnestly, than for our quiet, and that of all Christendom, which were He to grant us, we should close these eyes most contentedly.”[641]
But Mary’s most pressing cause for anxiety was Philip’s determination to invade France, and to prevail on the English, not only to succour his army with troops and money, but to consent to an aggressive alliance, and a formal declaration of war against Henry II. Under other conditions there would have been nothing repugnant to Mary in an open rupture with the most Christian King, who from the moment of her accession had been her secret, powerful and most insidious enemy. He it was, who by his persistent intrigues was mainly responsible for the disturbed relations between herself and her people, and nothing short of honest, open-handed warfare would get rid of the poison with which he had inoculated the blood of the nation. Greatly as she loved peace, and ardently as she had desired it, and striven to secure it, she knew well that it could be bought at too high a price. But war with France, in the interest of Spain, would, it was clear, be extremely unpopular, while it would constitute an infringement of one of the articles of her marriage treaty by which Philip undertook not to involve the country in his personal quarrel with any Continental power. Nevertheless, he was closeted early and late with the Privy Council,[642] with the result that Surian informed the Doge and Venetian Senate on the 21st April, that the hope of peace with the Pope had come to nothing, and that there was more talk of war than ever. He went on to say, that no army would be mustered until the next harvest was gathered in, for never in memory of man, had there been such scarcity of everything in England, and that although for a long while, great supplies of grain had been coming from Denmark and Sweden, and from the Hanse towns, these had been stopped by the ice, and as there was no means of providing for the ordinary consumption of the people, either in Flanders or England, still less could provision be made for so great an army as was then being mustered.
As late as the beginning of May, Philip, in spite of his influence with the Council, had only obtained assurances of such support as the nation was bound to give him, by ancient treaties then still existing, as an ally of the House of Burgundy. He was to have 5,000 infantry, and 1,000 horse for four months, these to be commanded by the Earl of Pembroke, Lord Grey, Sir Thomas Cheyne, Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports, Lord Montague, and some others, “all of whom were considered good soldiers, except Montagu, who was appointed because he was rich, and spent willingly on his troops, who were to serve the King in Flanders”.[643]