Promptly on the heels of the courier that bore the dutiful letter to the Emperor went two nobles of Philip’s household, Don Diego Hurtado de Mendoza and Don Diego de Geneda, to offer congratulations and greetings to the new Queen of England in his name. Geneda bore a secret message to her of a warmer character than mere greeting; and before the sumptuous coronation in Westminster Abbey on the 1st October, Mary had practically made up her mind to marry her second cousin. She knew that England, under Noailles’ artful incitement, was in a ferment of alarm at the idea; but she was a Tudor; she had some long scores to settle, she needed strength to do it, and opposition only made her firmer. Parliament met on the 5th October, and, under pressure from Mary, made a clean sweep of all the anti-Papal laws that had severed England from Rome; but when, influenced by Gardiner and prompted by Noailles, the House of Commons voted an address to the Queen praying her not to marry a foreigner, Mary sent for the members to wait upon her. The Speaker and a deputation of twenty parliament men stood trembling before her and presented their humble address, whilst the angry Queen muttered that she would be a match for Chancellor Gardiner’s cunning. Her reply to the Speaker was haughty and minatory: ‘Your desire to dictate to us the Consort whom we shall choose we consider somewhat superfluous. The English parliament has not been wont to use such language to its sovereigns, and when private persons on such matters suit their own tastes, sovereigns may reasonably be allowed to choose whom they prefer.’[[141]] This was the true Tudor way of dealing with the Commons, and Mary having obtained the religious legislation she needed to legalise her own position on the throne, promptly dissolved the parliament she had flouted.
It was only after much prayerful heart-searching that Mary had so far made up her mind to prefer the Prince of Spain. At first she had tried to make it a condition that the Emperor should not ask her to marry any candidate before she had seen him; but this in Philip’s case was impossible. He was too great a catch to be trotted out for inspection and approval, and when this was gently put to her by Renard, she tearfully implored the ambassador, whose hands she seized and held between her own, not to deceive her with regard to the Prince’s character. Was he really well conducted and discreet, as he had been described to her? The ambassador emphatically protested on his honour that he was; but still the Queen, almost doubting still, wished that she might see him before she gave her word. A good portrait by Titian was sent to her, representing the Prince rather younger than he was, a good-looking young man with the fair Austrian skin and yellow hair, the slight curly beard hardly masking the heavy jaw and underlip he inherited from his father. The portrait appears to have banished the last doubts in Mary’s mind. She had never had a love affair before, often as she had been betrothed: even now her idea had been to marry because her position entailed it. But the contemplation of the face of him who was to be her husband, and Renard’s reiteration of his good qualities, gradually worked in her mind an intense yearning for the affection for which she had hungered in vain during her persecuted youth.
On Sunday evening, the 31st October, she summoned Renard to a room containing an altar upon which the monstrance with the Host was placed. The Queen was alone, except for her devoted nurse Mrs. Clarencius, when the ambassador entered; and with much emotion she told him that since he had presented the Emperor’s letter asking her hand for Philip, she had been sleepless, passing her time in weeping and prayers for guidance as to her choice of a husband. ‘The Holy Sacrament is my resource in all my difficulties,’ she said, ‘and as it is standing upon the altar in this room, I will appeal to it for counsel now;’ and, kneeling, as did Renard and Clarencius, she recited Veni Creator Spiritus almost below her breath. After a short silent prayer she rose, calm and self-possessed, and told the ambassador that she had chosen him for her father confessor with the Emperor. She had considered carefully all that had been told her about Philip, and had consulted Arundel, Paget, and Petre[[142]] on the subject; and, bearing in mind the good qualities and disposition of the Prince, she prayed the Emperor to be indulgent with her, and agree to the conditions necessary for the welfare of her realm; to continue to be a good father to her, since henceforward he would be doubly her father, and to urge Philip to be a good husband. Then solemnly upon the altar, before the Sacred Presence, she promised Renard that she would marry Philip, Prince of Spain, making him a good and faithful wife, loving him devotedly without change.[[143]] She had wavered long in doubt, she said, but God had illumined her, and her mind was now made up: she would marry Philip and no one else.
Renard was overjoyed at the news, which he sent flying to the Emperor, but kept inviolably secret from all others. But though no one knew, every one suspected; and the muttering of coming trouble sounded on all sides. Lady Jane Grey, Northumberland’s three sons, Cranmer, Ridley, and others, were tried and condemned to death. Risings here and there in the country burst out sporadically, for disaffection was everywhere; Noailles’ confabulations with Elizabeth and Courtenay were discovered and denounced; Pole was stopped by the Emperor on his way to England; and Gardiner, kept in the dark as to the Queen’s irrevocable promise, still battled against the project of a Spanish match. But the secret had to be let out at last, and the Spanish adherents in Mary’s council were obliged to consult Gardiner as to the marriage treaty. They drove a hard bargain, notwithstanding all the bribes and blandishments, for they were determined that the marriage should not mean the political subjugation of England by Spain; and the King Consort’s power was so fenced around by safeguards and limitations that when Philip finally heard the conditions, he was well nigh in despair, for he knew that if they were fulfilled to the letter the marriage would be useless to Spanish interests, and that his sacrifice would be in vain. But of this the populace knew nothing. What they did know was, that a Spaniard was coming to be their King, and London at least shuddered at the plenteous hints that Noailles had spread, that the Inquisition and the auto de fe were coming too.
So when, on the 1st January 1554, a troop of foreign servants and harbingers rode through the city of London to prepare the lodgings of the brilliant imperial embassy that was to arrive next day, even the ’prentices gathered as they passed and greeted them with curses and volleys of snowballs.[[144]] The brilliant Count of Egmont and his train landed duly at the Tower wharf on the morrow, to ask formally for the hand of the Queen for the Emperor’s son. ‘They were met by Sir Anthony Browne, he being clothed in a very gorgeouse apparel. At the Tower Hill the earle of Devonshire (i.e., Courtenay), with the lorde Garrett and dyvers others, receyved him in most honorable and famylier wyse; and so the lorde of Devonshire, gevyng him the right hand, brought him thoroughte Chepsyde, and so fourthe to Dyrram Place (i.e., Durham House in the Strand), the people nothing rejoysing, helde downe their heddes sorrowfully.’[[145]] The formalities were soon got through with a few solemn banquets and courtly ceremonies, and on the 13th January Gardiner, with as good a face as he could put upon the matter, made an oration in the Chamber of Presence at Westminster to the lords and officials, declaring the Queen’s purpose to marry Philip of Spain: ‘in most godly lawfull matrimonye: and further, that she should have for her joynter xxx.mil.. ducketes by the yere, with all the Lowe Country of Flanders; and that the issue betweene them two lawfully begotten shoulde, yf there were any, be heir as well to the Kingdome of Spayne, as also to the sayde Lowe Country. He declared further that we were much bounden to thanck God that so noble, worthye, and famouse a prince, would vouchsafe so to humble himself in this maryadge to take upon him rather as a subject than otherwise: and that the Quene should rule all thinges as nowe: and that there should be of the Counsell no Spanyard, nether should have the custody of any fortes or castells, nether have rule or offyce in the quene’s house or elsewhere in all England.’[[146]] Gardiner made the best of it, but the bare fact was enough to send the friends of the late regime, and not a few of those who had profited by the plunder of the church, into a delirium of fear. Carews, Wyatts, and Greys protested, rebelled and collapsed, for England, in the main, was loyal to Mary, and the vast majority of the people, except in and about London, bitterly resented the iconoclastic changes of Edward’s reign. The Queen knew her own mind too, and in the face of danger was as firm as a rock, for in her sight the Spanish marriage meant the resurrection of her country and the salvation of her people. Charles and his son doubtless thought so too in a general way, but that was not their first object. What they wanted was to humble France permanently by means of their command of English resources, and to make Spain the dictatress of the world.
On the very day that poor Wyatt’s ‘draggletayles,’ all mud-stained and weary with their march from Kingston Bridge, were toiling up Fleet Street to final failure and the gallows, a dusty courier rode into Valladolid with the news for Philip, that the offer of his hand had been accepted by the Queen of England. The prince was at Aranjuez, a hundred miles away, planning his favourite gardens, when the news reached him, with the premature addition that the Earl of Bedford was already on the way to Spain with the marriage contract. Philip stopped his pastime at once and started the same day for Valladolid with his bodyguard of horsemen in the scarlet and gold of Aragon. In haste the old city put itself into holiday garb, and organised tourneys, cane-tiltings and fireworks, to celebrate the agreement which was to make the beloved Prince of Spain King of England. The looms and broidery-frames of all the realms were soon busy making the gorgeous garb and glittering trappings to fit out the nobles and hidalgos who were to follow their prince to England, each, with Spanish ostentation, bent upon outstripping his fellows in splendour. Alba, Medina Celi, Aguilar, Pescara, Feria, Mendoza and Enriquez, and a hundred other haughty magnates, were bidden to make ready with their armies of retainers all in fine new clothes, in spite of Renard’s warning that: ‘Seulement sera requis que les Espaignolez qui suyuront vostre Alteze comportent les façons de faire des Angloys, et soient modestes.’
Philip’s steward, Padilla, was sent hurrying to the coast to receive the Earl of Bedford, who did not start from England for another month; and the Marquis de las Novas, loaded with splendid presents from Philip to his bride, set out for England. Mary was conspicuously fond of fine garments and jewels, and Philip in his youth, and on state occasions, wore the richest of apparel; but even they must have been sated at the piled-up sumptuousness for which their wedding was an excuse. Philip’s offering to Mary, sent by Las Novas, consisted of ‘a great table diamond, mounted as a rose in a superb gold setting, valued at 50,000 ducats; a collar or necklace of eighteen large brilliants, exquisitely mounted and set with dainty grace, valued at 32,000 ducats; a great diamond and a large pearl pendant from it (this was Mary’s favourite jewel, and may be seen in the accompanying portrait), the most beautiful gems, says a contemporary eyewitness, ever seen in the world, and worth 25,000 ducats; and then follows a list of pearls, diamonds, emeralds and rubies, without number, sent to Mary and her ladies by the gallant bridegroom.[[147]]
Whilst all these fine preparations were going on in Spain, the Emperor more than once questioned the wisdom or safety of allowing his son to risk himself amongst a people so incensed against the match as the English, and in partial rebellion against it; and Renard held many anxious conferences with Mary and her council on the subject. The Queen declared again and again that she would answer for Philip’s safety; and she put aside, as gently as she could, Renard’s incessant promptings of greater severity upon Elizabeth, Courtenay and the rest of the suspects and rebels. Once, at the end of March, Renard told her that if she was so lenient to rebels, he doubted whether Prince Philip could be trusted in her realm, ‘as he could not come armed; and if anything befell him it would be a most disastrous and lamentable scandal. Not only would the person of his Highness suffer, but also the lords and gentlemen who accompanied him: and I could not help doubting whether she had taken all the necessary steps to ensure safety.’ To this she answered, with tears in her eyes, ‘that she had rather never been born than that any outrage should happen to the Prince; and she fervently hoped to God that no such thing would occur. All the members of her Council would do their duty in their reception of the Prince, and were going to great expense about it. Her Council shall be reduced to six members, as Paget and Petre had advised; and she would do her best to dispose the goodwill of her subjects who wish for the Prince’s coming.’[[148]]
Mary was overwhelmed with anxiety. ‘She had neither rest nor sleep,’ she said, ‘for thinking of the means of security for Philip in England.’ But she would not sacrifice Elizabeth for all the clamouring of Renard, and even of Gardiner. She knew that the French were almost openly subsidising rebellion against her; and that her people grew more apprehensive daily that her marriage with Philip would mean a war with France for Spanish objects, but she had now set her mind upon the marriage, and nothing in the world would shake her. Philip, though he was not personally brave, was equally firm about coming, even at risk of his life; for his was a spirit of sacrifice and his marriage was a sacred duty. From duty Philip never shrank, whatever the suffering it entailed.
On the 14th May 1554 Philip rode out of Valladolid with nearly a thousand horsemen in gaudy raiment. First going south west to near the Portuguese frontier to meet his sister Joan, who had just lost her husband, the Prince of Portugal, he turned aside to take a last farewell to his grandmother, Joan the Mad, in her prison-palace at Tordesillas, and then passed on from town to town, through Leon and Galicia; his puny, hydrocephalic heir, Don Carlos, by his side, towards Santiago and Corunna. Loving greeting and good wishes followed him everywhere; for was he not going to fix upon yet another land, and that a rich one, the seal that marked it as within the circle of the Spanish realms? Proud were these hidalgos who rode behind him, proud the Spaniards, high and low, who welcomed him and sped him on his way, proud the very lackeys in the smallest squireling’s train; for they were all Spaniards, and they felt that this was a Spanish victory.