Mary Tudor - Anna Whitelock [132]
Increasingly, Protestantism was associated with resistance to Spanish domination and the defense of English liberty, with Philip being held responsible by many for the burnings. However, just days after John Rogers’s execution, Alfonso de Castro, Philip’s confessor, preached a sermon at court with the king’s sanction, attacking the burnings and “saying plainly that they learned it not in scripture, to burn any for conscience sake; but the contrary, that they should live and be converted.”16 Renard advised Philip that haste in religious matters should be avoided:
Religion is not yet firmly established and … the heretics are on the watch for every possible opportunity to revive error and compromise the good beginning that has been made. They use as an argument the cruel punishments which they assert are being applied, with recourse to fire rather than doctrine and good examples, to lead the country back [to Catholicism].17
Although Philip did not play the direct role many attributed to him, he did nothing to forestall the persecution, and the burnings continued. But for Mary, to halt the process would have been to condone heresy, and this she could never do. It was an affront to her conscience that had been forged in the fires of persecution in the years before she had become queen. As the Venetian ambassador, Giovanni Soranzo, observed, during her brother’s reign Mary had not conformed to the new religious service, “her belief in that into which she was born being so strong that had the opportunity offered, she would have displayed it at the stake.”18
CHAPTER 56
EXTRAORDINARILY IN LOVE
My lord and good father. I have learnt by what the King, my Lord and good husband, has told me and also by the letter which you were pleased to send me that for a long time past the state of your affairs has demanded that your Majesty and he should meet in order to be able to confer together and reach the appropriate decisions. However, you have been pleased to put off the moment of separating him from me until now, for which I humbly thank your Majesty. I assure you, Sire, that there is nothing in this world that I set so much store by as the King’s presence. But as I have more concern for your Majesties’ welfare than my own desires, I submit to what regard you as necessary. I firmly hope that the King’s absence will be brief, for I assure your Majesty, that quite apart from my own feelings, his presence in this kingdom has done much good and is of great importance for the good governance of this country. For the rest, I am content with whatever may be your Majesty’s pleasure.1
—MARY TO CHARLES V, JULY-AUGUST 1555
ON AUGUST 27, MARY AND PHILIP RODE FROM HAMPTON COURT through London to Greenwich, accompanied by the lord mayor and aldermen, the English and Spanish nobility, and Cardinal Pole. Mary had planned to travel by barge and Philip to ride through the city, but at the last moment she chose to give Londoners the “satisfaction of seeing her likewise in his company.”
The streets thronged with people, joyful not only to see the king and queen together but to be reassured, after months of rumors during her supposed pregnancy, that their queen was not dead. As Michieli wrote, “when they knew of her appearance, they all ran from one place to another, as to an unexpected sight.” It was “as if they were crazy, to ascertain thoroughly that it was her, and on recognising and seeing her in better plight than ever, they by shouts and salutations, and every other demonstration, then gave greater signs of joy.”2 Two days later, Philip departed by river to commence his journey to Dover and then to Flanders. Mary watched at a window from the palace at Greenwich as the barge prepared to leave, and Philip waved his hat in her direction, “demonstrating great affection.”3 It was, for Mary, a sorrowful parting:
The Queen … chose to come with him through all the chambers and galleries to the head of the stairs, constraining herself the