De Feria arrived in London on the 9th November, to find that the Queen’s recovery was despaired of by all her English and Spanish physicians. She was attended only by an Italian doctor, afterwards suspected of having poisoned her, and was growing gradually weaker every hour. A smile hovered over her face when de Feria spoke to her of her husband, but she had no strength to read the letter which he sent her, in explanation of the grave reasons for his remaining in Flanders. All she could do was to send him a ring, as a pledge of her love and fidelity.[693]
From Mary’s death-bed, the envoy passed to the Council Chamber, where he found all the members assembled except Pembroke and Paget. He noticed Masone, who was accounted one of Elizabeth’s most confidential friends, and took the opportunity of declaring in a loud voice, that the King was extremely glad, that the Princess was to succeed her sister, and that he would do all that depended on himself to help her to mount the throne. The next day, he went to express the same sentiments to Elizabeth in person. She received him in a friendly manner, but was less gracious than she had shown herself to Christopher d’Assonleville, who had visited her in August, at a moment when she felt less secure of the future, and to whom she had expressed much gratitude for Philip’s protection, at a time when she had been suspected by the Queen. In order to flatter her vanity which was great, de Feria said that the King had always been very sensible of her charms, and that if she continued in the Catholic religion, he would be disposed to seek her hand. She replied with some asperity, that the King had wished her to marry the Duke of Savoy, but that she herself could not forget how the Queen had in a great measure, lost the affection of her people through having married a foreigner.[694] In concluding his letter, de Feria remarked that Elizabeth was surrounded by persons as favourable to heresy as they were hostile to his Majesty, and that she herself, combining vanity with astuteness, would not fail soon to follow in the footsteps of her father King Henry VIII.[695]
De Feria was not alone, in paying court to the rising sun.
“Many personages of the kingdom,” wrote Surian, “flocked to the house of Miladi Elizabeth [at Hatfield], the crowd constantly increasing with great frequency.”[696]
A smaller crowd, but more mixed, gathered round Mary’s death-bed. It was composed of her most devoted friends—with the exception of Cardinal Pole, who himself lay dying—and of those who were eagerly watching for her last sigh. The end came in the gloomy dawn of the 17th November, and the sympathetic chronicler of the life of the Duchess of Feria thus describes the scene:—
“That morning hearing Mass, which was celebrated in her chamber, she being at the last point (for no day passed in her life that she heard not Mass), and although sick to death, she heard it with so good attention, zeal and devotion, as she answered in every part with him that served the Priest; such yet was the quickness of her senses and memory. And when the priest came to that part to say ‘Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi,’ she answered plainly and distinctly to every one, ‘Miserere nobis, Miserere nobis, Dona nobis pacem’. Afterwards, seeming to meditate something with herself, when the Priest took the Sacred Host to consume it, she adored it with her voice and countenance, presently closed her eyes and rendered her blessed soul to God. This, the duchess [Jane Dormer] hath related to me, the tears pouring from her eyes, that the last thing which the queen saw in this world, was her Saviour and Redeemer in the Sacramental species; no doubt to behold Him presently after in His glorious Body in heaven. A blessed and glorious passage. ‘Anima mea cum anima ejus.’”[697]
Monsignor Priuli, writing to his brother ten days later, thus describes the death of Mary and that of her friend and kinsman, Reginald Pole:—
“I wrote last week that the Queen’s life was in danger, and also that of my right reverend Lord, since when, it has pleased God, so to increase the malady of both, that on the 17th inst., seven hours after midnight, the Queen passed from this life, and my right reverend Lord followed her at 7 o’clock in the evening of the same day; and each departed with such piety as might have been expected from persons who had led such lives.