Mary Tudor - Anna Whitelock [114]
The Queen knelt down and called God to witness that she had not consented to marry out of carnal affection or desire, not for any motive except her kingdom’s honour and prosperity and the repose and tranquillity of her subjects, and that her firm resolve was to keep the marriage and oath she had made to the crown.7
While the marriage treaty prescribed Mary’s independent sovereignty, another act passed in the same Parliament, the Act Concerning Regal Power, stated that Mary held her regal power as fully and absolutely as her male predecessors had. According to an account written twenty-five years later by Sir William Fleetwood, recorder of London, this additional act was passed after a conspiracy that proposed that Mary “take upon the title of Conqueror” so that she might “at her pleasure reform the monasteries, advance her friends, suppress her enemies, establish religion, and do what she like.”8 Given the unprecedented nature of female rule, there was no existing statute, including Magna Carta, that limited the authority of a queen.
Fleetwood described how, having been presented with the proposal, Mary read it “over and over again, and the more she read and thought of it, the more she misliked it,” believing it a breach of her coronation oath, by which she had promised “to keep to the people of England and others your realms and dominions the laws and liberties of this realm.” She then “cast it into the fire,” after which the chancellor “devised the said Act of Parliament.”9
To prevent confusion among “malicious and ignorant persons,” the bill for the act, drafted by Gardiner, declared that “the regal power of this realm is in the Queen’s Majesty as fully and absolutely as ever it was in any of her most noble progenitors Kings of this realm.” It was passed in the Commons and two days later in the Lords.
Be it declared … that the Law of this Realm is and ever hath been and ought to be understood, that the Kingly or Regal office of the Realm … being invested either in male or female, are, and be, and ought to be, as fully, absolutely and entirely deemed, judged, accepted, invested and taken in the one as in the other.10
The act clarified the ambiguity of Mary’s status as queen regnant. By throwing the proposal into the fire, Mary had declared her intent to be a parliamentary queen. Her sovereignty would be dependent on and prescribed by statute law. Thus Mary had chosen to follow the precedents of her male progenitors. The inauguration of female sovereignty could not have been placed in safer hands.
As Mary made her speech at Parliament’s dissolution in May, she was interrupted five or six times by shouts of “God save the Queen!” as most of those present were “moved to tears by her eloquence and virtue.”11
MARY NOW WROTE to Philip, informing him that Parliament had ratified the marriage articles and expressing her “entire confidence that his coming to England should be safe and agreeable” to him.12
Though Philip had pledged to be an obedient son and follow his father’s will, the marriage held few personal attractions for him. Mary was eleven years his senior, and he referred to her as his cara y muy amada tía (dear and beloved aunt). Further, he disavowed the treaty, declaring that he was not bound by an agreement that had been reached without his knowledge. He would sign it so that the marriage could take place, “but by no means in order to bind himself or his heirs to observe the articles, especially any that might burden his conscience.”13
As the prince prepared to leave La Coruña for England, Charles wrote to the duke of Alva, who was accompanying him, “For the love of God, see to it that my son behaves in the right manner; for otherwise I tell you I would rather never have taken the matter in hand at all.”14
CHAPTER 48
GOOD NIGHT, MY LORDS ALL
WITH PARLIAMENT DISSOLVED AND THE MARRIAGE