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This article was downloaded by: [Columbia University] On: 12 November 2014, At: 17:22 Publisher: Routledge Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK Women's History Review Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rwhr20 A Woman in a Man's World: Mary I and political intimacy, 1553–1558 Anna Whitelock Published online: 14 Jun 2007. To cite this article: Anna Whitelock (2007) A Woman in a Man's World: Mary I and political intimacy, 1553–1558, Women's History Review, 16:3, 323-334, DOI: 10.1080/09612020601022105 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09612020601022105 PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the “Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinions and views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors, and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Content should not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sources of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arising out of the use of the Content. This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub- licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly

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Page 1: A Woman in a Man's World: Mary I and political intimacy, 1553–1558

This article was downloaded by: [Columbia University]On: 12 November 2014, At: 17:22Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH,UK

Women's History ReviewPublication details, including instructions for authorsand subscription information:http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rwhr20

A Woman in a Man's World:Mary I and political intimacy,1553–1558Anna WhitelockPublished online: 14 Jun 2007.

To cite this article: Anna Whitelock (2007) A Woman in a Man's World: Mary Iand political intimacy, 1553–1558, Women's History Review, 16:3, 323-334, DOI:10.1080/09612020601022105

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09612020601022105

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all theinformation (the “Content”) contained in the publications on our platform.However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensors make norepresentations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness, orsuitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinions and views expressedin this publication are the opinions and views of the authors, and are not theviews of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Content shouldnot be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sourcesof information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions,claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilitieswhatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connectionwith, in relation to or arising out of the use of the Content.

This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes.Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly

Page 2: A Woman in a Man's World: Mary I and political intimacy, 1553–1558

forbidden. Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions

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Women’s History Review

Vol. 16, No. 3, July 2007, pp. 323–334

ISSN 0961–2025 (print)/ISSN 1747–583X (online)/07/030323–12 © 2007 Taylor & Francis

DOI: 10.1080/09612020601022105

A Woman in a Man’s World: Mary I and political intimacy,1553–1558

Anna Whitelock

Taylor and FrancisRWHR_A_202105.sgm10.1080/09612020601022105Women’s History Review0961-2025 (print)/1747-583X (online)Original Article2007Taylor & Francis163000000July [email protected]

Mary I (1553–58) was England’s first crowned queen regnant. This article examines how

Mary exercised her power, drawing male figures into a sphere of political intimacy that

defied the established rules of the political game and circumvented the central instrument

of royal governance: the Privy Council. As such, the nature of Mary’s queenship is itself re-

examined, allowing her emergence as an independent, resolute and determined leader.

… the last daie of September 1553, the quene came thoroughe London towardes hircoronation, sytting in a charret of tyssue, drawne with vj. horses, all betrapped withredd velvet… Before hir rydd a nomber of gentlemen and knightes, and then dyversejudges, then diverse doctours of dyvynity; then followed certeyn bushopes; aftertheym came certayn lordes; then followed most parte of her counsaille; after whomfollowed xiij. knights of the bathe… Then followed the lorde of Winchester, beinglorde chauncellor, the merques of Winchester, lorde highe treasurer, having the sealeand mace before them; next came the duke of Norfolk, and after him the erle ofOxforde, who bare the sword before hir; sir Edwarde Hastinges led her horse in hishande. After the quenes chariot… cam theyre sondry gentyllwomen rydyng on horsestraped with redd velvet… then followed ij. other charyots covered with redd sattyn…and certayne gentellwomen betwen every of the saide charyots rydyng in chrymesynsatteyn, ther horses betraped with the same. The nomber of the gentillwomen thatrydd were xlvj. in noumber, besides theym that wer in the charyots.

1

And so Mary I travelled from the Tower of London to the Palace of Westminster on the

eve of her coronation. The procession was part of a triumphant ceremony acknowledg-

ing Mary as queen, and established protocol was the order of the day. Yet amidst such

convention and the following of ‘ancient custom’ things had had to change.

2

Mary was

the first queen regnant in English history to be crowned. She had secured her accession

Anna Whitelock completed a Ph.D. at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge entitled ‘In Opposition and in Govern-

ment: the households and affinities of Mary Tudor, 1516-1558’. She is currently revising her thesis for publication

and writing a biography of Mary Tudor (Bloomsbury/Random House, forthcoming 2008). Correspondence to:

Anna Whitelock, Flat A, 6 Bentinck Terrace, Cambridge, CB2 1HQ, UK. Email: [email protected]

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A. Whitelock

by taking up arms against the ruling establishment. And, for much of the previous five

years, she had lived as a religious pariah, staunchly Catholic in an increasingly

Protestant England.

The accession of Queen Mary I initiated a new episode in the history of the sixteenth-

century royal household, particularly in the Privy Chamber, the most private of the

monarch’s apartments.

3

Hitherto filled with male servants attending the monarch as he

washed, dressed and toileted, Mary’s gender ensured that women replaced men in these

positions of bodily intimacy. The procession on the eve of the coronation represented

the first outing of the newly fashioned court. Gentlemen who had previously

accompanied the monarch in large numbers as the personnel of the Privy Chamber

were now replaced by a ‘flock of peeresses, gentlewomen and ladies in waiting, never

before seen in such numbers’.

4

Yet the significance of Mary’s accession for the development of the Privy Chamber

went beyond mere changes in gender; it had implications for politics and governance.

Whilst Henry VII had established the Privy Chamber as a means of dividing the public

and private persons of the king and enforcing rules of entrée, Henry VIII transformed

the Privy Chamber into an arena within which both the ceremonial and personal

aspects of kingship were played out.

5

And, whilst his father had appointed a small

group of low-born staff to serve as body servants, Henry VIII filled the Privy Chamber

with high-born favourites with whom he had pre-existing ties of friendship, trust and

favour. Figures like William Compton, Francis Bryan and Nicholas Carew—hitherto

his jousting and sporting companions—were appointed to the Privy Chamber as

Henry’s body servants and increasingly became active political players, used as

representatives of the royal will and special messengers at home and abroad.

6

Accordingly, personal proximity and intimacy gained a political significance and the

Privy Chamber assumed a particular prominence within Tudor government.

The political importance of the Privy Chamber continued under Edward VI,

although, given his minority status, it was initially subverted and used to secure control

of the king.

7

Sir Michael Stanhope, Protector Somerset’s brother-in-law, was

appointed First Gentleman of the Privy Chamber, and other offices, as they fell vacant,

were filled by the Protector’s nominees. As such the Privy Chamber quickly became

little more than ‘an adjunct of Protector Somerset’s household’.

8

Yet, as John Murphy

has observed, ‘government by a Protector from his own household had none of the

legitimacy of the Privy Chamber politics of Henry VIII’s last years’. And in October

1549, the successful

coup d’état

of John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, wrested

control of government and the young king away from Somerset.

9

Rather than subvert-

ing the political function of the Privy Chamber, Northumberland secured his ascen-

dancy by re-ordering the Privy Chamber in line with the king’s own, increasingly

articulated, preferences. Not only did Northumberland procure, as one eyewitness later

put it, ‘great frendes abowte the king’, but he ensured that all were co-religionists of

Edward: Sir Edward Rogers, Barnaby Fitzpatrick, Sir Henry Sidney and Sir Robert

Dudley all shared the king’s religion and his personal favour.

10

Significantly, no

religious conservatives were allowed office in the inner chambers of the palace even

though, as Geoffrey Elton observed, they had technical and numerical superiority on

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the council.

11

The Privy Chamber recovered an exclusive intimacy which marked it out

from the Privy Council and ensured that, in spite of the minority, it remained a second

centre of governance and politics.

Mary’s accession in 1553 changed the rules of the political game; such is the tradi-

tional verdict on Marian government. ‘All the Privy Chamber offices that had been the

most coveted in the household now fell into the hands of women. And this effectively

neutralised them.’

12

Accordingly, the Privy Chamber has been largely written out of

accounts of Marian politics; it ‘ceased to be an independent political body’, becoming

little more than a ‘glorified boudoir’.

13

Revisionist scholarship has emphasised the

political importance of women at court—particularly in the promotion of suits for

pardon or patronage, their role as religious patrons and in the gathering of informa-

tion—but it nevertheless remains true that the feminised Privy Chamber was

relatively

depoliticised during Mary’s reign.

14

The traditional perception of a depoliticised Privy Chamber has had profound

implications for the study of politics and governance during Mary’s reign. Without this

acknowledged second centre of politics, historians have failed to identify the ‘politics

of intimacy’ that, as in the reigns of Mary’s male predecessors, lay at the heart of gover-

nance. Instead political accounts of the reign have been generally limited to the Privy

Council—the formal heart of government—and to the experienced politicians who

dominated the council board.

15

Yet these ‘men of experience’—William Petre, William

Paget and William Paulet, for example—had formerly served Henry VIII or Edward VI

and had, to varying degrees, acted against Mary during the years before. They had been

reappointed to the Privy Council by the queen as an act of political expediency but they

did not have her trust and favour. The implications of this lack of trust have not been

fully explored and historians of the reign have fundamentally underestimated the

political value of trust and fidelity over political experience.

The primary focus on the Privy Council as the centre of government has also had

profound implications for an understanding of Marian queenship. Mary has been

presented as an indecisive monarch who failed to manage a faction-ridden Privy Coun-

cil.

16

In a recent article focusing exclusively on the Privy Council, Dale Hoak has

claimed that with the ‘administrative coup’, which secured the predominance of the

former Edwardian councillors, ‘control’ of the Council was ‘wrested’ from Mary.

17

However, the implication that Mary was somehow distanced from politics takes too

little account of Mary’s perception of government and of policy making. For Mary,

policy was an expression of faith and conducted according to the dictates of her

conscience; and she was far more closely involved with the key policies of the reign than

Hoak’s account suggests.

This article will argue that despite the relative depoliticisation of the Privy Chamber,

a politics of intimacy continued to characterise Tudor government during Mary’s

reign. However, the Privy Chamber was no longer the theatre within which a politics

of intimacy was exclusively played out. Instead, Mary’s arena of intimacy was a more

amorphous sphere within the royal household and her male political intimates—tradi-

tionally written out of political accounts of the reign—enjoyed a position of trust,

access and favour comparable to those of Henry VIII. Indeed the key decisions of the

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A. Whitelock

reign—the Spanish marriage, reunion with Rome and war with France—were taken

outside of the Privy Council and in the sphere of intimacy that surrounded her. Less a

weak-willed and easily influenced woman distanced from politics and policy making,

Mary can be understood as a determined and resolute monarch who ultimately proved

to be very much her own woman.

Whilst Henry’s political intimates were jousting and sporting companions, the ‘great

frendes’ around Edward and Mary were their princely familiars and co-religionists.

Whilst Edward’s trusted intimates were Protestant, proven Catholic loyalty was the key

to access to Mary. Accordingly, during the mid-Tudor period, religious loyalty can be

seen to have acquired a particular political value that in many ways transcended the

value of political experience. Many of Mary’s familiars had served in her princely

household and had been her companions during the years when all she held true and

legitimate—her parents’ marriage, her place in the succession and the Catholic

Church—was challenged. Robert Rochester, Henry Jerningham and Edward Walde-

grave had even been imprisoned for their devotion to Mary and to the Catholic mass

which she continued to practise.

18

Many of the same figures had masterminded her

successful counter

coup

against the Duke of Northumberland’s conspiracy which

sought to place Lady Jane Grey on the throne.

19

Such were the bonds of trust between

Mary and these figures that on her accession they were appointed to positions within

the royal household: Robert Rochester became Comptroller, Edward Waldegrave,

Master of the Wardrobe, Edward Hastings, Master of the Horse, Francis Englefield,

Master of the Wards and Henry Jerningham, Vice-Chamberlain.

20

Household Government

Like the political intimates of Henry VIII’s Privy Chamber, Mary’s household men

controlled access, presented petitions and acted as intermediaries. Robert Rochester,

for example, clearly assumed a position of influence that surpassed his official position

as Comptroller. The imperial ambassadorial despatch of 16 August 1553 described

how, before Mary’s departure to Richmond, the ambassadors ‘sent a messenger to her

controller [Rochester] … to ask for private audience for one of us’.

21

Not only was

Rochester being approached to grant access but also to arrange a private audience that

circumvented normal procedure. Again in June 1556 Rochester operated as a conduit

to the queen. In his letter of 22 June to Francis Talbot, the Earl of Shrewsbury, Robert

Swift describes how ‘her L.[adyship] [Lady Bray] wente to the Cowtre and ther speke

w[i]t[h] the Co[n]troller and delyvered yor letter’ who gave her ‘verey fayre words and

mad[e] her fayre promises: and in lyke case w[i]t[h] the Solyster [William Cordell]:

and they both p[ro]mised her frome daye to daye she sh[o]uld speke w[i]t[h] the

Quene’.

22

Other household intimates apparently played a similar role.

23

Whilst Mary’s Privy Chamber was predominantly a female sanctum, some Catholic

men of proven service did continue to hold posts. Although Gentlemen of Mary’s Privy

Chamber, such as James Bassett and Anthony Kempe, were not in positions of bodily

intimacy, they continued to enjoy political influence. On 8 May 1555, for example,

Edward Courtenay wrote to James Basset requesting him to ‘be a suitor’ to his uncle

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John Blount for a licence to travel.

24

Besides his role as Chief Gentleman of the Privy

Chamber, Bassett also served as Mary’s private secretary. His correspondence with

William Paget demonstrates that he handled communications directed to the Queen,

promoted state papers for signature and acted as an intermediary between Mary and

the ‘professional’ politicians of the council such as William Paget. In his letter to Paget

of 14 December 1556 Bassett writes of how having received his letter he was ‘called for

by the Queens highness vpon thoccasion of certeyn byls which her maiestie then signed

giving me order for the deliuering of them’. Presented with the opportunity, Basset

‘declared to her maiestie how I had even then receued a pacquette from your lordship’

and ‘dyd offer the same vnto her highnes to peruse’.

25

Mary read the letters in his pres-

ence and commented to him on its contents. In Paget’s response, Bassett’s role as an

intermediary is made clear: ‘I thanke youe for your paines taken in shewing my letters

to the qwenis maieste and according to her maiestes pleasure my letter to the kinges

maiestie shalbe ordred’.

26

Yet such a position of access and influence was no longer

limited to a place in the Privy Chamber. In a letter to Sir Henry Bedingfeld, Sir Henry

Jerningham, Vice-Chamberlain, describes how he had shown Bedingfeld’s two letters

to the Queen ‘which her grace received in good part with thanks’.

27

Such was their proximity and position of trust that Mary’s male intimates were also

used to represent the royal will. On 22 July 1556 Sir Edward Hastings, Master of the

Horse and a key figure in mobilising support in the succession crisis, instructed Sir

Henry Bedingfeld that ‘the queen majesty’s pleasure is that you shall suffer this bearer

Mr Turner to resort unto his brother and release him with all such things as you think

necessary’. The queen had specifically instructed Hastings to pass the message on: ‘this

being her highness pleasure she commanded me to signify it unto you’.

28

Similarly, in

August 1556, Robert Rochester and Henry Jerningham wrote to Bedingfeld from the

court at Eltham of how, in response to Lady Courtenay’s suit regarding the imprisoned

William Courtenay: ‘the Queen’s highness hath commanded us to give you knowledge

that her pleasure is that William Courtenay may dine and sup with you…’

29

Anthony

Kempe, Gentleman of the Privy Chamber performed a similar role. Writing to William

Cordell, the Queen’s solicitor in June 1556 concerning the Dudley conspirators, Kempe

declared ‘that the Queen’s majesty hath commanded me to signify unto you that hir

pleasure is that you shall go forward with the arraignment of Westforth tomorrow and

the other [Edward Verney] may be deferred until tomorrow’.

30

Given their position

close to the Queen, these figures also had ready access to news. For example, on 26 May

1554, Edward Hastings informed Bedingfeld that ‘yesterday the Queen’s highness

received advertisement from the earl of Bedford of his arrival in Spain, declaring that

the prince [Philip] mindeth to embark, the latter end of the month’.

31

The fact that

Hastings was aware of such news is significant and is indicative of his position of

intimacy.

As can be seen in these extracts, the pre-existing trust and favour enjoyed by Mary’s

princely familiars

did

translate into a political role at court. They inhabited a sphere of

intimacy which was not institutionally prescribed to the Privy Chamber but allowed

them to fulfil many of the functions performed by those Gentlemen active in the service

of Henry VIII. They also performed a representative role beyond the court. Like

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A. Whitelock

Henry’s Gentleman, they were used abroad as ‘chamber diplomats’ and messengers

accompanying the more traditional embassies. Unlike her father’s political intimates,

Mary’s ‘near familiars’ performed a very particular version of representation: they

served as intimate and trusted messengers between husband and wife during Philip’s

long absences abroad.

32

Anthony Kempe and James Bassett, Gentlemen of both Mary and Philip’s Privy

Chambers, were each employed in this manner.

33

Kempe’s letter of 25 February 1554

to Edward Courtenay, Earl of Devon, reveals his industry as he apologises for not

having written earlier: ‘I have been such a post between Greenwich and Brussels that I

had little leisure to visit or use any remembrance to my friends’.

34

In their ambassado-

rial despatch of 11 July 1554, Courriéres and Renard, the imperial envoys, informed the

Emperor Charles V that Kempe had arrived the previous night at Farnham from Spain

bringing letters from his highness.

35

In late November 1555 Giovanni Michiel, the

Venetian ambassador, described how Philip’s return to England as ‘confirmed by his

letters to the Queen brought on the day before yesterday by her messenger, Mr. Kempe

besides what he reported by word of mouth, will take place at the latest at the

Epiphany’.

36

In his letter to Mary of 13 February 1556 Sir John Mason, ambassador to

the Emperor’s court at Brussels, wrote of how ‘Mr Kempe, the bearer, can certify her

Majesty of the good estate of the King, and on what terms the estate of this Court stands

at present’. Mason adds that ‘Mr Kempe will tell how great desire the king has to be

with her Majesty’.

37

James Bassett undertook similar messenger activity between Mary and Philip. In

April 1555 he was sent with a letter from the Council to Mason in Brussels and in

October, having been with the King at Brussels, Bassett assured Mary that Philip would

return ‘as speedily as possible’.

38

As Michiel, the Venetian ambassador, goes on to

describe in his despatch, ‘her Majesty, who had already commenced complaining, thus

remains comforted’.

39

In January 1558, Bassett was sent by Mary to give Philip the ‘sure

advice of her being pregnant’.

40

Only the most trusted messenger would suffice for

such intimate news.

Mary also sent Edward Hastings, her Master of the Horse, to represent her on the

continent, particularly at the imperial court. Whilst not a Gentleman of the Privy

Chamber, he was one of Mary’s closest intimates. On 5 November 1554 she informed

the Emperor that she was sending William Paget and Edward Hastings to Flanders to

make known her ‘good pleasure touching the coming hither of my cousin Cardinal

Pole’ and to accompany him to England. Paget and Hastings were also instructed to

visit the Emperor and acquaint him with the circumstances of the Cardinal’s mission.

41

Once more trust and experience were allied together in a necessary partnership. Henry

Jerningham, Vice-Chamberlain of the royal household, was also sent to the imperial

court. In May 1556 Mary’s letter to the Emperor reveals the details of Jerningham’s

mission: ‘he told me that your Majesty was pleased to take in good part the spirit in

which I accepted the journey of the King, my husband, to meet your Majesty. He also

gave me hopes that the King would shortly return to England’.

42

Whilst Gentlemen of

the Privy Chamber continued to be used as foreign envoys during Mary’s reign, so too

were other household intimates.

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Mary also used her trusted Catholic familiars within the realm as special messengers

and representatives of royal will in the midst of insurrection and threat. In response to

the threats posed by Wyatt’s rebellion, and later Dudley’s conspiracy, she relied partic-

ularly upon the personal loyalism of her own following. On 22 January 1554 Mary sent

Sir Edward Hastings and Sir Thomas Cornwallis as direct representatives of royal

authority to inform the rebels that if they were protesting at the Spanish marriage it was

‘the duty of true subjects to sue by petition and not with arms in their hands’. If the rebels

would lay down their arms, Hastings and Cornwallis were to offer negotiation.

43

Their

efforts were unsuccessful, but their proximity to and intimacy with Mary was thought

to add weight to their authority.

44

Thus, in his contemporary account of Wyatt’s rebel-

lion, John Proctor recognised Cornwallis and Hastings as ‘the Queen’s agents’.

45

Queenship

Mary’s use of male political intimates and an informal political sphere calls for a revision

of the traditional understanding of Marian governance. Mary never attended the Privy

Council, but she was conscientious and determined to be closely involved in government

business and policy-making. As Michiel, the Venetian ambassador, said, she rose ‘at

daybreak when, after saying her prayers and hearing mass in private, she transacts

business incessantly until after midnight’.

46

An understanding of the nature of policy-

making during Mary’s reign requires an appreciation of her innate eccentricity towards

English government which grew out of her experiences during the years before her acces-

sion. Whilst she received counsel within the informal political sphere that surrounded

her, in the key policy decisions of the reign she ultimately sidelined both the council

and

her trusted intimates. The only significant and consistent influence on Mary was

Spanish, first through her attachment to the Emperor Charles V and later her husband

Philip.

The imperial campaign for a Spanish match between Mary and Philip of Spain, son

of the Emperor, was pursued from the outset in the extra-conciliar arena of counsel

that centred on Mary. Throughout the marriage negotiations, Mary maintained a

distance from the professional politicians of the council and only formally approached

them to present them with a

fait accompli

. Her principal source of counsel was the

imperial ambassador, Simon Renard, who, as representative of Charles V, Mary’s Cath-

olic cousin, quickly won her trust and confidence. Throughout the early months of the

reign, the Spanish match was continually discussed between Mary and the ambassador.

Renard described how Mary dared not speak to anyone except the Spanish envoys as

‘she could not trust her council too much, well knowing the particular character of its

members’.

47

As such, Mary wrote to Renard in what became a typical refrain and indic-

ative of the dynamics of policy making and the location of counsel: ‘I would like to

speak to you in private before doing so in the council’s presence’.

48

On 28 October at

a private meeting Philip was formally proposed and two days later Mary accepted. It

was only after Mary’s decision had been made that Renard formally presented the

proposal to six members of the council.

49

As Penry Williams has observed, ‘once she

[Mary] had decided, she pretended to consult the council but this was no more than a

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A. Whitelock

formality’.

50

As Mary declared, ‘she felt inspired by God… and her mind, once made

up would never change’.

51

Whilst Mary ignored the petitions for an English match from her household men,

their machinations in opposition to the Spanish match nevertheless demonstrate their

position of access within an informal sphere of political intimacy. Although devoted to

Mary on personal and religious grounds, her most trusted intimates opposed the Span-

ish marriage because they feared it would jeopardise the restoration of Catholicism in

England and the preservation of national integrity. In his despatch of 14 September,

Renard wrote of how Stephen Gardiner, Robert Rochester, Francis Englefield and

Edward Waldegrave had spoken to the Queen ‘persuading her to marry and naming

Courtenay as a desirable and acceptable match’.

52

The mere fact that they had access to

Mary and could do so undoubtedly suggests a position of political proximity. The same

group, with the addition of Richard Southwell, repeated their petition on 21 October.

As Renard reports, Mary described how these ‘trusty counsellors’ had declared to her

that ‘she would do well to give some thought to their advice which was dictated by

whole-hearted affection and devotion to her service, for they had emboldened

themselves to speak in the knowledge that they were her oldest servants’; the Queen

answered that she ‘could never take the advice of such trusty counsellors in bad part’.

53

The very nature of the advice given to Mary by her household intimates suggests that

far from being politically inept and naïve, their counsel was considered and politically

astute.

54

Whilst Sir Francis Englefield argued that as Philip had a kingdom of his own

he would not wish to leave it, Sir Edward Waldegrave contended that a Spanish

marriage would mean the country ‘would have to go to war with the French’.

55

That

Mary’s meetings with these household figures took place before the marital alliance had

been formally declared to the council is indicative of the location of a second centre of

counsel, albeit ‘negative’ counsel in this case. Mary emerges as a resolute figure who,

though arguably misguided, demonstrated determined and independent decision

making.

Mary’s decisions to restore links with Rome were also taken outside the formal

arena of counsel—the Privy Council. In a letter of early August announcing her

accession, Mary had made secret overtures to Pope Julius III to remit all ecclesiastical

censures against the kingdom in order to restore links with the apostolic see. At this

point, Mary was ‘taking counsel’ with her household servants: these overtures were

not yet known by the Privy Council.

56

In response to Mary’s approach, two papal

envoys were secretly despatched to England. Cardinal Commendone, papal nuncio,

came on behalf of Pope Julius, and Henry Penning under instructions from Pole.

Both had secret audiences with the queen in which Mary made representations for

papal absolution in advance of the coronation. Penning clearly acknowledged the

extra-conciliar nature of the directive as in his report to the pope he wrote of how

Mary ‘did not impart her negotiations with me to any of the Lords of the Council

nor to anyone else’.

57

This is particularly revealing. Not only was the council not to

be informed of Penning’s meeting with the queen, but nor were her most trusted

Catholic intimates. This was a negotiation conducted by Mary alone. Pole arrived in

England in November 1554 and the reunion with Rome was accomplished; England

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331

was once more a Catholic country, and Mary had achieved her primary goal without

recourse to the Privy Council.

The descent into war with France also reflected an extra-conciliar process that

centred on the queen.

58

Whilst the Privy Council was resolutely opposed to any

measure that would compromise English neutrality and raise the prospect of war with

the papacy, who were at that time allied with the French, so too were Mary’s house-

hold intimates. The negotiations that led to the declaration of war were firmly centred

on Mary’s person and her desire to satisfy her husband. They reveal the extremely

personal nature of the monarchy under Mary: the extent to which political intimacy

and counsel were translated into real political influence was entirely dictated by the

queen. In supporting Philip’s request for English aid she isolated herself from both

spheres of counsel, the formal and the informal. Whilst Mary and figures such as

Robert Rochester and Edward Waldegrave might be united by shared experiences,

friendship and even their Catholicism, war with France had demonstrated that their

‘Englishness’ and Mary’s ‘Spanishness’ ultimately divided Mary’s political intimates

from herself.

59

The evidence about the dynamics of policy making suggests an alternative view of

Marian politics from that which has dominated accounts of Marian government to

date. Far from being distanced from the formulation of policy, decision making was

resolutely personal and ultimately lay with Mary alone. There was no absence of

leadership and the verdict of the imperial ambassador Simon Renard that Mary was

‘easily influenced, inexpert in worldly matters and a novice all round’ can be

questioned.

60

Though his assessment of the failure of Marian government has been

accepted by generations of historians, it can instead be argued that it was perhaps the

very fact that Mary was not ‘easily influenced’ by domestic counsellors that

ultimately undermined her government and policy making. As Geoffrey Elton

acknowledged, Mary consistently ‘broke the rules of the political game’. However,

Elton argued that such rule-breaking was based on the fact that Mary made ‘no effort

to retain the support of that aristocratic layer of society—nobility and gentry—on

whose voluntary and conscientious cooperation Tudor government depended’.

Rather, she ‘put her trust in advisers as ill-instructed in the country she governed as

she was’.

61

Yet the evidence suggests this was in fact not the case and Mary’s ‘ill-

instructed’ trusted advisers demonstrated wisdom enough in the counsel they

offered. During the negotiations for the Spanish match they argued that it would

cause rebellion and lead England to war with France. And on the basis of their

Catholicism they opposed the war with France. On both counts they might be

considered correct. Mary broke the political rules by removing herself from any

domestic advice, instead only listening to the Emperor or Philip. To understand fully

the dynamics of policy making it is necessary to have a far less Anglo-centred focus

than has dominated accounts hitherto. Nevertheless, what is clear is that Mary

remained the final arbiter and, though inhabiting what was traditionally a male

world of monarchy, the personality of the monarch continued to be the key to the

determination and execution of policy.

62

The Marian regime was, in short, an

emphatically personal monarchy.

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A. Whitelock

Notes

1

[1] J. G. Nichols (Ed.) (1852)

The Chronicle of Queen Jane and of Two Years of Queen Mary and

especially of the Rebellion of Sir Thomas Wyatt

(London: Camden Society, 1st series, 48), pp.

27–28.

2

[2] D. MacCulloch (Ed.) (1984)

The Vita Mariae Angliae Reginae of Robert Wingfield of Brantham

(London: Camden Society, 4th series, 29), p. 274.

3

[3] Work on Mary’s household has been limited. Edward Chambers bypasses the years 1547–58

in his study of the organisation of the court. See E. K. Chambers (1923)

The Elizabethan Stage

,

4 vols (Oxford: Clarendon Press). Similarly, Robert Braddock’s dissertation on office-holding

in the royal household is limited in its comment concerning the Marian household. See R. C.

Braddock (1971)

The Royal Household, 1540–60: a study in office-holding in Tudor England

(unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Northwestern University). Pam Wright’s study of the royal house-

hold under Elizabeth I, written as if Mary’s reign had never existed, ignores the ‘change in

direction’ brought about by Mary’s accession. However, some of Wright’s conclusions can be

projected back to inform a study of Mary’s reign. See P. Wright (1987) A Change in Direction:

the ramifications of a female household, 1558–1603, in D. Starkey (Ed.)

The English Court

from the Wars of the Roses to the Civil War

(London: Longman), pp. 147–172. Charlotte

Merton’s doctoral thesis focuses on the political and domestic role of the women of the

Marian and Elizabethan Privy Chamber: C. Merton (1992)

The Women Who Served Queen

Mary and Queen Elizabeth: ladies, gentlewomen and maids of the Privy Chamber, 1553–1603

(unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Cambridge). John Murphy has made the most signif-

icant contribution in his chapter on the Edwardian and Marian Privy Chambers. See J.

Murphy (1987) The Illusion of Decline: the Privy Chamber, 1547–1558, in Starkey (Ed.),

The

English Court

, pp. 119–146. Murphy points to the continued political and administrative rele-

vance of the Privy Chamber during Mary’s reign.

4

[4] MacCulloch (Ed.),

Vita Mariae

, pp. 275–276.

5

[5] For the development of the Privy Chamber under Henry VII and Henry VIII see D. Starkey

(1987) Intimacy and Innovation: the rise of the Privy Chamber, 1485–1547, in Starkey (Ed.),

The English Court

, pp. 71–118.

6

[6] Ibid., pp. 82–92. For a discussion of the symbolic representative role of these figures see also

D. Starkey (1997) Representation through Intimacy: a study in the symbolism of monarchy

and court office in early modern England, in J. Guy (Ed.)

The Tudor Monarchy (London:

Arnold), pp. 42–78.7

[7] For the development of the Privy Chamber under Edward VI see D. Hoak (1982) The King’s

Privy Chamber, 1547–1553, in D. J. Guth & J. W. McKenna (Eds) Tudor Rule and Revolutions:

essays for G. R. Elton from his American friends (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), pp.

87–108, and Murphy, ‘The Illusion of Decline’, pp. 121–140.8

[8] Murphy, ‘The Illusion of Decline’, p. 121.9

[9] Ibid., p. 127.10

[10] British Library, Add. MS 48126, fols 15v–16, cited in Hoak, ‘The King’s Privy Chamber’, p. 87.11

[11] Murphy, ‘The Illusion of Decline’, p. 138. See also G. R. Elton (1977) Reform and Reformation:

England 1509–1558 (London: Arnold), p. 351.12

[12] Murphy, ‘The Illusion of Decline’, p. 140.13

[13] S. Adams (1982) Faction, Clientage and Party: English politics, 1550–1603, History Today, 32,

p. 36. Similarly, Pam Wright describes how the Privy Chamber under Elizabeth ‘retreated into

mere domesticity’: Wright, ‘A Change in Direction’, p. 150.14

[14] In her doctoral thesis, Charlotte Merton argued that ‘whilst at face value the women of the

Privy Chamber were wholly domestic… this does not take into account the informal way in

which life at court, especially political life, was conducted. This unofficial work on behalf of

complex networks of importunate clients and as gleaners of information was vital’ (Merton,

The Women Who Served Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth). More generally, scholars such as

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Women’s History Review 333

Barbara Harris have argued for the political significance of aristocratic women at court. See B.

J. Harris (2002) English Aristocratic Women 1450–1550, especially ch. 9 (Oxford: Oxford

University Press). See also J. Daybell (Ed.) (2004) Women and Politics in Early Modern

England (Aldershot: Ashgate).15

[15] Typical studies of this conciliar preoccupation with Mary’s reign are: Elton, Reform and Refor-

mation; D. Loades (1991; reprint edition) The Reign of Mary Tudor: politics, government and

religion in England 1553–1558 (London: Longman); D. Hoak (1986) Two Revolutions in

Tudor Government: the formation and organisation of Mary I’s Privy Council, in C. Coleman

& D. Starkey (Eds) Revolution Reassessed: studies in Tudor government and administration

(Oxford: Clarendon Press), pp. 87–115.16

[16] The idea of Mary as a weak monarch has been a fundamental part of the whole theory of a

‘mid-Tudor crisis’. For example, David Loades has emphasised the ‘numerous and deep

divisions’ in the Privy Council and described Mary as ‘often confused and lacking in self-

confidence’: Loades, The Reign of Mary Tudor, pp. 394–395.17

[17] Hoak, ‘Two Revolutions in Tudor Government’, p. 91.18

[18] For a detailed discussion of the role of such figures during the years before 1553 see A. M.

Whitelock (2004) In Opposition and in Government: the households and affinities of Mary

Tudor 1516–1558 (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Cambridge).19

[19] For a contemporary account of the coup which celebrates the role of Mary’s household see

MacCulloch (Ed.), Vita Mariae, pp. 244–301.20

[20] When Sir John Gage, Lord Chamberlain, died in the summer of 1556 he was replaced by Sir

Edward Hastings. Hastings was himself succeeded as Master of the Horse by Sir Henry

Jerningham. Sir Henry Bedingfeld, who had been one of the first to rally in support of Mary in

the succession crisis, in turn succeeded Jerningham. When Sir Robert Rochester died in the

autumn of 1557 another Marian loyalist, Sir Thomas Cornwallis, replaced him as

Comptroller.21

[21] R. Tyler (Ed.) (1862–1969) Calendar of State Papers, Spanish, 1553–1558 (hereafter CSP Span)

(London), xi, p. 166.22

[22] Talbot Papers, vol. P, fol. 279 printed in E. Lodge (Ed.) (1791) Illustrations of British History,

Biography and Manners in the Reigns of Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary, Elizabeth and James I,

exhibited in a series of original papers, i, 216 (London).23

[23] See the letter in May 1558 from the same Robert Swift to the Earl of Shrewsbury. Ibid., vol. P,

fol. 349 (i, 299).24

[24] Public Record Office (hereafter PRO) SP 11/5 no. 14 as abstracted in C. S. Knighton (Ed.)

(1998) Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series, of the Reign of Mary I preserved in the Public

Record Office (hereafter CSP Dom Mary), p. 168 (London).25

[25] B. L. Beer & S. M. Jack (Eds) (1974) The Letters of William Lord Paget of Beaudesert, 1547–63,

Camden Miscellany, 25 (London: Camden Society, 4th series, 13), pp. 139–144.26

[26] ‘The letters of William, Lord Paget of Beaudesert’, pp. 117–119.27

[27] Uncatalogued Bedingfeld Papers at Oxburgh Hall, Sir Henry Jerningham to Sir Henry

Bedingfeld, 25 February, 1556.28

[28] Bedingfeld Papers, Sir Edward Hastings to Sir Henry Bedingfeld, 22 July, 1556.29

[29] Bedingfeld Papers, Sir Robert Rochester and Sir Henry Jerningham to Sir Henry Bedingfeld,

9 August, 1556.30

[30] Bedingfeld Papers, Sir Anthony Kempe to William Cordell, c.30 June 1556.31

[31] Bedingfeld Papers, Sir Edward Hastings to Sir Henry Bedingfeld, 26 May 1554.32

[32] For diplomatic activities of Henry VIII’s intimates see Starkey, ‘Intimacy and Innovation’,

pp. 84–86.33

[33] Kempe had in fact been maintaining contact with Mary and the imperial court since before

her accession. On the eve of her coronation, Mary requested Kempe’s return for a two or three

month stay; see, CSP Span, xi, pp. 257, 275. In fact Kempe returned indefinitely and from

1554 onwards he served as a messenger between England and the continent.

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34

[34] PRO, SP 11/7 no. 11 (CSP Dom Mary, p. 313).35

[35] CSP Span, xii, p. 310.36

[36] R. Brown (Ed.) (1864–98) Calendar of State Papers and Manuscripts, relating to English affairs,

existing in the Archives and Collections of Venice (hereafter CSP Ven), vii, i, 289 (London),

p. 262 .37

[37] W. B Turnbull (Ed.) (1861) Calendar of State Papers, Foreign, 1553–8 (London), p. 210.38

[38] PRO, SP 11/5 no. 8, fols 65–66v (CSP Dom Mary, p. 162).39

[39] CSP Ven, viii, p. 207.40

[40] CSP Ven, vi, iii, p. 1432.41

[41] CSP Span, xiii, pp. 77, 87–92.42

[42] CSP Span, xiii, p. 267.43

[43] PRO, SP 11/2 no. 9 (CSP Dom Mary, no. 31). In the calendar of state papers this letter is dated

22 January. See the debate in D. Loades (1965) Two Tudor Conspiracies (Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press), p. 53.44

[44] Cornwallis had been a loyal Catholic in the succession crisis and replaced Robert Rochester as

Comptroller on his death in 1557. Cornwallis’s wife Anne was a lady of the Privy Chamber

from the beginning of Mary’s reign.45

[45] J. Proctor (1903) Historie of Wyate’s Rebellion, in A. Pollard (Ed.) Tudor Tracts 1532–1558

(London: Archibald Constable), p. 237.46

[46] CSP Ven, v, pp. 532–533.47

[47] CSP Span, xi, pp. 251–252.48

[48] Ibid., p. 324.49

[49] Ibid., p. 349.50

[50] P. Williams (1995) The Later Tudors: England 1547–1603 (Oxford: Clarendon Press), p. 89.51

[51] CSP Span, xi, p. 328.52

[52] Ibid., p. 236.53

[53] Ibid., p. 310.54

[54] Pollard said of Mary’s faithful household servants ‘in their counsel there was little wisdom’: A.

F. Pollard (1910) The History of England from the Accession of Edward VI to the death of Eliza-

beth (London: Longmans), p. 95.55

[55] CSP Span, xi, p. 312.56

[56] MacCulloch (Ed.), Vita Mariae, p. 252.57

[57] CSP Ven, v, p. 431.58

[58] Much work on Philip’s role in English government remains to be done although a detailed

discussion of his position within Mary’s sphere of intimacy falls outside the scope of this

article. The main published work on Philip is D. Loades (1988) Philip II and the Government

of England, in C. Cross, D. Loades & J. Scarisbrick (Eds) Law and Government under the

Tudors: essays presented to Sir Geoffrey Elton, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press),

pp. 177–194 and G. Redworth (1997) Matters Impertinent to Women: male and female

monarchy under Philip and Mary, English Historical Review, 112, pp. 597–613.59

[59] This was also true in terms of the marriage and is thrown into sharp relief by the fact that John

Leigh, one of Mary’s household men, became a French informer in an effort to block the

Queen’s plans for a Spanish match. See E. H. Harbison (1940) French Intrigue at the Court of

Queen Mary I, American Historical Review, 65, pp. 542–545.60

[60] CSP Span, xi, p. 228.61

[61] Elton, Reform and Reformation, p. 395.62

[62] S. J. Gunn (1995) The Structures of Politics in Early Tudor England, Transactions of the Royal

Historical Society, 6th series, 5, p. 86.

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