The Reign of Mary Tudor

by James Anthony Froude

While the true heroes of the age were fighting for freedom with the weapons of noble suffering, the world was about to recommence its own battles, with which it is less easy to sympathise. The attempt on Calais having failed, it became a question at the French court, whether, after having given so just cause of quarrel to England, wisdom would not suggest an abandonment of the intention of recommencing the war with Philip. Noailles crossed to Paris in December, where the king questioned him whether Mary would be able to declare war. Noailles assured him, "that out of doubt she would not; for if she should send those whom she trusted out of the realm, then would they whom she trusted not, not fail to be busy within the realm."[597] Reassured by the ambassador's opinion, Henry resumed his intentions. In March, the Duke of Guise led an army into Italy. The pope recovered courage, defied Alva, and again laid claim to Naples; and it was to be seen now whether Noailles was right—whether the English people would unite with the court to resent the French king's conduct sufficiently to permit Mary at last to join in the quarrel.

Philip, anxious and hopeful, paid England the respect of returning for a few weeks, and in the same month of March came over to sue the council in person. The affair at Calais was a substantial ground for a rupture, but the attack, though intended, had not been actually made. The story might seem, to the suspicions of the country, to have been invented by the court; and, in other respects, Mary's injuries were not the injuries of the nation. The currency was still prostrate; the people in unexampled distress. The Flanders debts were as heavy as ever, and the queen had insisted on abandoning a fifth of her revenues. A war would inevitably be most unpopular. The attempt nevertheless was made. The queen produced the treaty of 1546, between England and the empire; and, in compliance with its provisions, laid before the privy council a proposal, if not to declare war with France, yet to threaten a declaration, in the event of an invasion of the Netherlands.

The privy council considered the queen's request; their conclusion was not what she desired.

The treaty of 1546, the council replied, had been abrogated by the treaty of marriage, so far as it might involve England in a war with France. "Her majesty would be unable to maintain a war, and, therefore, to say to the French king that she would aid her husband, according to the treaty, and not being able to perform it, indeed would be dishonourable, and many ways dangerous." "It was to be considered further, that, if by these means the realm should be drawn into war, the fault would be imputed to the king's majesty." "The common people of the realm were at present many ways grieved—some pinched with famine, some for want of payment of money due to them, some discontented for matters of religion; and, generally, all yet tasting the smart of the late wars. It would be hard to have any aid of money of them. And in times past," the council added, significantly, "although the prince found himself able to make and maintain wars, yet the causes of those wars were opened for the most part in parliament."[598]

Objections so decided and so just would have hardly been overcome, but for an injudicious enterprise of the refugees, under French auspices. The French court believed that, by keeping Mary in alarm at home, they would make it the less easy for her to join in the war. They mistook the disposition of the people, who resented and detested the interference of France in their concerns.

Among the exiles at the court of Paris, the most distinguished by birth, if not by ability, was Sir Thomas Stafford, Lord Stafford's second son, and grandson of the Duke of Buckingham, who was put to death under Henry VIII. On the 27th of April, Wotton sent notice to the queen that Stafford had sailed from the mouth of the Seine with two vessels well manned and appointed. His destination was unknown; but it was understood that he intended to take some fortress on the English coast, and that the refugees, in a body, intended to follow him. Before Wotton's letter arrived, the scheme, such as it was, had been already executed. Stafford, with thirty Englishmen and one Frenchman, had surprised Scarborough Castle, and sent his proclamations through Yorkshire. He was come, he said, to deliver his country from foreign tyranny. He had sure evidence that an army of Spaniards was about to land, and that Philip intended to seize the crown by force. The queen, by her marriage with a stranger, had forfeited her own rights; and he himself, as the protector of English liberty, intended to bestow the crown on the next rightful heir, and to restore all such acts, laws, liberties, and customs as were established in the time of that most prudent prince, King Henry VIII. "He did not mind," he thought it necessary to add, "to work his own advancement touching possession of the crown, but to restore the blood and house of the Staffords to its pristine estate, which had been wrongfully suppressed by Cardinal Wolsey."[599]

The landing of Edward IV., at Ravenspurg, had made any wild enterprise seem feasible, and Stafford had counted on the notorious hatred of the people for the queen.

But if the Spaniards meditated a descent upon England, it was not by adventurers like the refugees that their coming would be either prevented or avenged; and the good sense of the country had determined once for all to give no countenance to revolution supported by France. The occupation of Scarborough lasted two days, at the end of which Stafford and his whole party were taken by the Earl of Westmoreland. Thirty-two prisoners were sent to London; thirty-one were put to death; and the council reluctantly withdrew their opposition to the war. A hundred and forty thousand pounds were in the exchequer, being part of the subsidy granted by parliament to pay the crown debts.[600] With this the court prepared to commence, trusting to fortune for the future. War was to be declared on the 7th of June, and, while seven thousand men were to cross the Channel and join Pembroke in the Low Countries,[601] Howard was to cruise with the fleet in the Channel to use his discretion in annoying the enemy, and, if possible, to destroy the French ships at Dieppe.[602]

Happy, however, in having succeeded in gratifying her husband, the queen brought at once upon herself a blow which she had little foreseen, and from a quarter from which an injury was most painful. In her desire to punish France for assisting her rebellious heretical subjects, she seemed to have forgotten that France had an ally beyond the Alps. No sooner did Paul IV. learn that England was about to declare on the side of Philip, than, under the plausible pretence that he could have no ambassador residing in a country with which he was at war, he resolved to gratify his old animosity against Cardinal Pole, and cancel his legation.

Sir Edward Karne, the English resident at Rome, waited on the pope to remonstrate. He urged Paul to recollect how much the Holy See owed to the queen, and how dangerous it might be to re-open a wound imperfectly healed. The pope at first was obstinate. At length he seemed so far inclined to yield as to say that, if the queen would herself expressly desire it, he would distinguish between her and her husband.[603] But the suspension of the legation, though not at first published, was carried through the Consistory; and so ingeniously was it worded, that not only the formal and especial commission was declared at an end, but the legatine privileges, attached by immemorial custom to the archbishopric of Canterbury, were cancelled with it. The pope chose to leave himself without representative, ordinary or extraordinary, at the English court.