Abstract
Immediately after Mary’s public announcement of her intention to take Philip of Spain as her consort, anxiety arose among the English about the role he would play. He was feared as a potential conqueror and tyrant, an “uncro[w]ned king out of a straunge lande,” and a foreign prince whose fellow countrymen would ravish Englishwomen.1 Moreover, it was thought that he would prove powerful enough to seize the crown and usurp control of the government, thus politically emasculating Englishmen and leaving them powerless. Although those who opposed the marriage envisioned the arrival of a virile foreign male consort as a grave threat, those who supported Mary’s choice cast that virility in a more positive light, hoping that the union would produce the longed-for male heir to the throne.
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Notes
Mary to the counties touching the Duke of Suffolk’s rebellion, Calendar of State Papers: Domestic Series, of the Reign of Mary I, 1553–1558, Preserved in the Public Record Office, ed. C. S. Knighton (London: Public Record Office [P. R. O.], 1998), 24. [Hereafter CSP Mary I.]
Rebecca W. Bushnell, Tragedies of Tyrants: Political Thought and Theater in the English Renaissance (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1990), 1–36; Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince (Rome, 1532), chapters 17–18.
John Foxe, The Acts and Monuments of John Foxe: With a Life of the Martyrologist, and Vindication of the Work, ed. George Townsend, 8 vols. (New York: AMS Press Inc., 1965), 6:555.
Stephen Gardiner, A Discourse on the Coming of the English and Normans to Britain, ed. and trans. as A Machiavellian Treatise by Peter Samuel Donaldson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975).
For the debate about authorship, see Dermot Fenlon’s “Review of A Machiavellian Treatise by Stephen Gardiner,” Historical Journal 19, no. 4 (1976): 1019–23;
Sydney Anglo, “Crypto-Machiavellism in Early Tudor England: The Problem of the Ragionamento dell’advenimento delli Inglesi, et Normanni in Britannia,” Renaissance and Reformation 14, no. 2 (1978): 182–93;
Peter Donaldson, “Bishop Gardiner, Machiavellian,” Historical Journal 23, no. 1 (1980): 1–16;
Glyn Redworth, In Defence of the Church Catholic: The Life of Stephen Gardiner (Cambridge, MA: Blackwell, 1990), 308n83;
and A. N. McLaren, Political Culture in the Reign of Elizabeth I: Queen and Commonwealth, 1558–1585 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 91n49.
Calendar of Letters, Despatches, and State Papers Relating to the Negotiations between England and Spain Preserved in the Archives at Simancas and Elsewhere, ed. Royall Tyler et al. 13 vols. (London: His Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1862–1954), 11:326. [Series hereafter cited as CalStP-Spanish.] Renard also wrote to the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V in November 1553 that “the Queen is desirous of hastening on the consummation of the marriage, so your Majesty would do well to come to a decision as soon as possible on the articles, the public proposal and his Highness’ coming” (ibid., 11:331).
For Anne Boleyn, see my chapter 1, note 104; see also Helen Hackett, Virgin Mother, Maiden Queen: Elizabeth I and the Cult of the Virgin Mary (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1995), 29–32.
For comparisons of other queen consorts to the Virgin, see Gordon Kipling, Enter the King: Theatre, Liturgy, and Ritual in the Medieval Civic Triumph (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998), 289–356;
and John Carmi Parsons, “The Queen’s Intercession in Thirteenth-Century England,” in Power of the Weak: Studies on Medieval Women, ed. Jennifer Carpenter and Sally-Beth MacLean (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1995), 147–77.
William Douglas Hamilton, ed., A Chronicle of England during the Reigns of the Tudors from A.D. 1485–1559, by Charles Wriothesley (New York: Johnson Reprints, 1965), 2:124. After the sermon ended, “Te Deum was sunge, and solemne processionwas made of Salve, festa dies, goeinge the circuite of the churche,” in thanksgiving for Mary’s pregnancy.
Calendar of State Papers and Manuscripts Relating to English Affairs, Existing in the Archives and Collections of Venice, And in Other Libraries of Northern Italy, ed. Rawdon Brown et al., 39 vols. (London: His Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1864–90), 5:587. [Series hereafter cited as CalStP-Venetian.]
See Hackett, Virgin Mother, Maiden Queen, 33–36. In addition, Mary’s enemies reversed her role as Virgin Mother to portray her as a monstrous mother, as the woodcuts of Maria Ruyna Anglia did in depicting her as a many-breasted mother suckling Spaniards, bishops, and priests. See David M. Loades, Mary Tudor: A Life (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1989), 335.
Paul Doe, Tallis (London: Oxford University Press, 1976), 20–29.
Henry Machyn recorded just such a rumor on April 30, 1555. Henry Machyn, The Diary of Henry Machyn: Citizen and Merchant-Taylor of London, from A.D. 1550–1563, ed. John Gough Nichols (London: Printed for the Camden Society, 1848), 86; another rumor circulated in early May, see British Library (BL), Cotton MS, Titus Bii, f. 142(v); Philip’s sister Juana wrote to him on July 5 that she had received the news of the queen’s delivery of a son (see P. R. O., Transcripts from Spanish Archives, Series 1, 31/11/14).
See BL, Harleian MS 643, ff. 47(v)–48; Loades, Mary Tudor, 249–50; Susan Brigden, London and the Reformation (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989), 596.
See also Margaret Cornfield, “A Legend Concerning Edward VI,” English Historical Review 23 (1908): 286–90.
Carole Levin, The Heart and Stomach of a King: Elizabeth I and the Politics of Sex and Power (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1994), 91–120, has explored the links between beliefs in rumors of Edward’s survival and pretenders and the perceived lack of legitimacy of Mary I and Elizabeth I.
See also Levin, “Queens and Claimants: Political Insecurity in Sixteenth-Century England,” in Gender, Ideology, and Action: Historical Perspectives on Women’s Public Lives, ed. Janet Sharistanian (New York: Greenwood Press, 1986), 41–66.
In addition, a rumor surfaced during Mary’s reign that she had borne an illegitimate child fathered by Stephen Gardiner: see John Strype, Memorials of the Reverend Father in God, Thomas Cranmer (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1840), 456.
Alexander Samson, “Changing Places: The Marriage and Royal Entry of Philip, Prince of Austria, and Mary Tudor, July–August 1554,” Sixteenth Century Journal 36, no. 3 (2005): 783.
Statutes of the Realm, Volume 4, Part 1 [1547–1585] (London: Record Commission, 1819), 255–56. Mortimer Levine, Tudor Dynastic Problems 1460–1571 (London: Allen and Unwin, 1973), 94. The act, however, also upheld the marriage treaties and the limitations they imposed upon Philip’s power for the duration of the minority: if the child were to die before reaching his or her majority, Elizabeth rather than Philip would succeed to the throne.
David M. Loades, The Reign of Mary Tudor: Politics, Government, and Religion in England, 1553–58, 2nd ed. (London: Longman, 1991), 164–65.
John Gough Nichols, ed., Narratives of the Days of the Reformation, Chiefly from the Manuscripts of John Foxe (1859; repr., New York and London: AMS Press, 1968), 289.
Charles T. Wood, “The First Two Queens Elizabeth,” in Women and Sovereignty, ed. Louise Olga Fradenberg (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1992), 121–31. See p. 130.
In the case of Katherine Howard, the French ambassador reported on September 16, 1541, that Henry VIII was “furnishing a great lodging of an old abbey” and “has had brought from London his richest tapestry, plate, and dress … This seems to betoken some extraordinary triumph like an interview of kings or a coronation of this Queen, which is spoken of to put the people of York in hope of having a Duke if she were to have a son.” See Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, of the Reign of Henry VIII, 1509–47: Preserved in the Public Record Office, the British Museum and Elsewhere in England, ed. J. Brewer, J. Gairdner, and R. Brodie, 21 vols. (London, 1862–1920), 16:550–51.
Renard to Charles V, November 23, 1554 (CalStP-Spanish, 13:102). See Judith M. Richards, “Mary Tudor as ‘Sole Quene’? Gendering Tudor Monarchy,” Historical Journal 40, no. 4 (December 1997): 895–924, esp. 919–22, for a discussion of contemporary beliefs that a crowned king consort would be more powerful than a crowned queen consort.
Renard to Charles V, November 14, 1554 (CalStP-Spanish, 13:84); CalStP-Venetian, 6.1:xxxv; Elmore Harris Harbison, Rival Ambassadors at the Court of Queen Mary (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1940), 219.
CalStP-Venetian, 6.1:299. See also Jennifer Loach, Parliament and the Crown in the Reign of Mary Tudor (Oxford: Clarendon, 1986), 194–95; Levine, Tudor Dynastic Problems, 94–95; and Loades, Mary Tudor, 257–59.
See Loades, Mary Tudor, 233. See also David M. Loades, “Philip II and the Government of England,” in Law and Government under the Tudors, ed. Claire Cross, David Loades, and J. J. Scarisbrick (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 180. In addition, according to Loach, Parliament and the Crown, “The House of Commons … rarely succeeded in blocking important pieces of government legislation: even the turbulent events of 1555 did not bring about the loss in the Commons of any bill about which the queen minded passionately. Although Mary declared in late 1555 that she would have Philip crowned on her own initiative in spite of parliamentary opposition, she did not do so, nor is it likely that she was serious. She realized that parliamentary support was necessary for an act that would potentially change the course of the succession” (231). See also CalStP-Venetian, 6.1:227; Loach, Parliament and the Crown, 196. Similarly, Lady Jane Grey wrote to Mary I that after she had been declared queen, when she “was reasoning of many things with my husband, he assented that if he were to be made king, he would be made so by me, by act of parliament.”
See Mary Anne Everett Wood, ed., Letters of Royal, and Illustrious Ladies of Great Britain, from the Commencement of the Twelfeth Century to the Close of the Reign of Queen Mary (London: Henry Colburn, 1846), 3:278.
Anton Blok, Honourand Violence (Cambridge, UK: Polity, 2001), 223.
Imperial Chancery to Thomas Danett, July 1566, Victor von Klarwill, ed., Queen Elizabeth and Some Foreigners: Being a Series of Hitherto Unpublished Letters from the Archives of the Hapsburg Family (London: Bodley Head, 1928), 263. Emperor Maximilian then clarified this statement in a September 30, 1567, letter to the Earl of Sussex: “Herein the illustrious Archduke does not demand aught that is repugnant to the liberties, privileges, laws, rights, statutes, decrees and customs of the glorious English realm; and although he would not unwillingly consent to what in this regard was conceded to the King of Spain, he yet entertains the hope that the illustrious Queen will in the proper place and at the proper time bear in mind what is due to this accession to the dignity and honor of His Highness, so that His Highness may suffer no slight from what Her Highness is able to concede.” Klarwill, Queen Elizabeth, 277.
L. O. Aranye Fradenburg, Women and Sovereignty (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1992), 4.
Caroline Hibbard, “Translating Royalty: Henrietta Maria and the Transition from Princess to Queen,” Court Historian 5, no. 1 (May 2000): 15–28; see also 27–28.
Loades, “Philip II and the Government,” 179–80. Glyn Redworth, “‘Matters Impertinent to Women’: Male and Female Monarchy under Philip and Mary,” English Historical Review 112 (June 1997): 597–613, argued that Philip wielded a great deal of power in spite of the fact that he was never crowned.
The phrase “Catholic King” is that of J. H. Elliott, “Power and Propaganda in the Spain of Philip IV.” In Rites of Power: Symbolism, Ritual, and Politics since the Middle Ages, edited by Sean Wilentz, 145–74. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1985.
See Elliott, “Power and Propaganda,” 148–52. See Teofilo F. Ruiz, “Unsacred Monarchy: The Kings of Castile in the Late Middle Ages,” in Rites of Power: Symbolism, Ritual, and Politics since the Middle Ages, edited by Sean Wilenz (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999), 109–44, for a discussion of other symbols of Spanish kingship.
A. G. Dickens, “Robert Parkyn’s Narrative of the Reformation,” English Historical Review 62 (1947): 58–83.
Dickens, “Robert Parkyn’s Narrative,” see 83. Pole pronounced November 30 the Feast of the Reconciliation, to be celebrated as a holy day from that point onward: it was celebrated, however, only for the duration of Mary’s reign. See Jaspar Godwin Ridley, The Tudor Age (London: Constable, 1988), 210.
Rex H. Pogson, “Reginald Pole and the Priorities of Government in Mary Tudor’s Church,” Historical Journal 18, no. 1 (1975): 3–20, esp. 11.
Geoffrey Parker, “The Place of Tudor England in the Messianic Visior of Philip II of Spain (The Prothero Lecture),” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 6th series, 12 (2002): 182.
Foxe, Acts and Monuments, 6:574. The connection of Philip to Christ had been used before. According to Geoffrey Parker, some five years earlier, in 1549, Nicholas Mameranus “offered the prince a presentation copy of a book with a binding that juxtaposed the names of Philip and Christ in gold letters and called upon the prince to bring peace to Christendom, extirpate heresy and wrest Constantinople and Jerusalem from the Turks.” See Parker, “Place of Tudor England,” 180–81. In addition, Marie Tanner, The Last Descendant of Aeneas: The Hapsburgs and the Mythic Image of the Emperor (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1993), has pointed out that during Philip’s triumphal entry into Augsburg in 1549, “appearing to the emperor and the prince are two nearly identical, symmetrically placed figures of Christ and God the Father ruling in tandem” (136).
Elizabeth I would later also be compared to Solomon. See John N. King, Tudor Royal Iconography: Literature and Art in an Age of Religious Crisis (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1989), 254–57.
Lois L. Huneycutt, “Intercession and the High-Medieval Queen: The Esther Topos,” in Carpenter and MacLean, Power of the Weak, 126–46; Parsons, “Queen’s Intercession,” 147–77; Paul Strohm, Hochon’s Arrow: The Social Imagination of Fourteenth-Century Texts (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992), 95–119.
J. J. Scarisbrick, Henry VIII (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1968), 67.
M. J. Rodríguez-Salgado and Simon Adams, eds., “The Count of Feria’s Dispatch to Philip II of 14 November 1558,” in Camden Miscellany 28, Camden 4th Series 29 (London: Offices of the Royal Historical Society, 1984), 302–44, see 330. See also Henry Clifford, E. E. Estcourt, and Joseph Stevenson, The Life of Jane Dormer, Duchess of Feria (London: Burns and Oates, 1887), 88.
Rev. Dr. Giles, ed., The Whole Works of Roger Ascham, Now First Collected and Revised, with a life of the author, vol. 1 (London: John Russell Smith, 1865), 414–29.
See David M. Loades, “The English Church during the Reign of Mary,” in Reforming Catholicism in the England of Mary Tudor: The Achievement of Friar Bartolomé Carranza, ed. John Edwards and Ronald Truman (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005), 34;
Judith M. Richards, Mary Tudor (London and New York: Routledge, 2008), 192–93.
Anna Whitelock, Mary Tudor: England’s First Queen (London: Bloomsbury, 2009), 265.
Eamon Duffy, Fires of Faith: Catholic England under Mary Tudor (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2009), 7.
Hyder E. Rollins, ed., Old English Ballads, 1553–1625, Chiefly from Manuscripts (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1920), 14. See also my chapter 2 and King, Tudor Royal Iconography, 216–19.
Susan Doran, “A ‘Sharp Rod’ of Chastisement: Mary I through Protestant Eyes during the Reign of Elizabeth I,” in Mary Tudor: Old and New Perspectives, ed. Susan Doran and Thomas S. Freeman (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), 28–31.
See Joseph Pérez, L’Espagne de Philippe II (Paris: Librairie Artheme Fayard, 1999), 42–43.
See Jennifer Loach, “The Marian Establishment and the Printing Press,” English Historical Review 101, no. 398 (1986), 135–48;
Jennifer Loach, “Pamphlets and Politics, 1553–8,” Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research 48 (1975), 31–44;
David M. Loades, “The Theory and Practice of Censorship in Sixteenth-Century England,” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 5th series, vol. 24. (London: Royal Historical Society, 1974), 141–57.
See James M. Boyden, The Courtier and the King: Ruy Gómez de Silva, Philip II, and the Court of Spain (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995), 46–52. Boyden points out that in the fall of 1554, numerous rumors were in circulation about Charles V’s imminent intention to abdicate (47).
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© 2012 Sarah Duncan
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Duncan, S. (2012). “An Uncroned King out of a Straunge Lande”: Philip as Conqueror or Savior. In: Mary I. Queenship and Power. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137047908_8
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