Mary Tudor - Anna Whitelock [142]
A letter written in French in Mary’s own hand at the beginning of 1557 reveals the tension between Mary and Philip over Elizabeth. He had sought to persuade Mary by arguing that she was bound by her faith and conscience to bring about Elizabeth’s marriage to Philibert. But, as Mary explained in the first draft of her letter, her conscientious scruple against Elizabeth’s marrying went back to her sister’s birth in 1533. She then crossed out the passage and replaced it with the more benign statement that she did not understand his argument. In response to Mary’s assertion that the marriage could not be carried out before parliamentary consent, Philip argued that if Parliament refused, he “would impute the blame to me.” Mary begged him not to do that, saying that otherwise “I shall become jealous and uneasy about you, which will be worse to me than death,” adding, “for I have already begun to taste [of such jealousy and uneasiness] too much to my great regret.”
Mary was a submissive wife yet also a shrewd politician: it would not be possible, she declared, for the marriage to be carried out in his absence. He would need to come to England; then they could pray together to God, “who has the direction of the hearts of kings in his hand.”10
CHAPTER 61
A WARMED OVER HONEYMOON
AT FIVE IN THE AFTERNOON OF MARCH 20, 1557, PHILIP FINALLY returned to England. A thirty-two-gun salute greeted him at Greenwich Palace amid shouts of “God save the King and Queen.”1 The following day, the bells of London rang out in celebration. A series of entertainments—banquets, dances, and masques of welcome—culminated on the twenty-third in a grand civic festival as Philip, Mary, and the nobles and ladies of the realm rode through London. It was, as one diplomat described it, “a warmed over honeymoon.”2
Yet despite the festivities, there was little disguising the true purpose of Philip’s visit. The king had returned for money and an English declaration of war against France, a prospect very few Englishmen were happy with.
MONTHS EARLIER, the Habsburg-Valois conflict had reignited. In September 1556, the duke of Alva, Philip’s viceroy in Naples, had launched an invasion of the papal states some thirty years after the armies of Charles V had destroyed Rome. Denouncing Charles V as a “heretic, schismatic and tyrant” whose aim had been to oppress the Holy See and Philip as the “son of iniquity,” the eighty-year-old Italian Pope Paul IV persuaded the French to join him in an attempt to drive Habsburg forces out of Italy.
Philip’s attention immediately turned to England. He sought to relieve the pressure in Italy by striking at the Franco-Flemish frontier. He was effectively bankrupt and desperately needed money and men and an English declaration to defend the Low Countries.3 Philip’s envoy, Figueroa, presented his demands at a series of meetings with the Privy Council held in the queen’s chambers at St. James’s in mid-November.4 Though the Council approved sending money and naval support, it was not prepared to commit troops or renew the Anglo-Flemish treaties for fear of provoking war with France.
On the night of January 5-6, the French launched a surprise attack on the town of Douai on the Flemish frontier. The Treaty of Vaucelles was broken, and on the thirty-first war was formally declared between France and Spain.5 Although there was no direct threat to England, Mary had already begun to prepare the country for war. In January, sheriffs of several eastern and midland counties