Mary Tudor - Anna Whitelock [76]
Mary was stunned. Replying two days later, she declared that his words, accusing her of being “a breaker of your laws” and “inciting others to do the same,” had caused her “more suffering than any illness even unto death.” She had been promised free expression of her faith and implored him to command his ambassador in Brussels to learn from the emperor “the truth concerning the said promise” so that he could see that she was guilty of no offense. She beseeched him “for the love of God to suffer me to live as in the past” and reiterated that rather than offend him and her conscience she would “lose all that I have left in the world, and my life too.”8
The same day Mary sent another hastily written letter to Francesco Moronelli, a former servant of van der Delft, who had traveled in secret to meet her at Beaulieu months before. At the time she had made him promise that if she were ever in trouble he would travel to Flanders to tell the emperor’s ministers that help was urgently needed. That moment had now arrived.
Francisco, you must make great haste concerning the message, for since your departure I have received worse and more dangerous letters than ever before from the King himself, written in haste the 3rd of February.
[Postscript]: I request and command you to burn this note directly after you have read it. 9
Charles again made representations to the Privy Council through Scheyfve, but Edward remained firm. In March, to affirm his determination, he summoned Mary to court. No further disobedience would be tolerated.10
CHAPTER 32
NAUGHTY OPINION
ON MARCH 15, 1551, MARY ARRIVED IN LONDON, RIDING TO HER house at St. John’s, Clerkenwell. Fifty knights and gentlemen in velvet coats and chains of gold rode before her; some four hundred gentlemen and ladies followed behind. As Henry Machyn the London diarist recorded, each carried a “pair of beads of black”—a rosary. It was a dramatic display of Catholic defiance and the scale of Mary’s power and support.1 By the time she reached the gates of the city, there were more than four hundred people in her train. It was, in Machyn’s assessment, the greatest demonstration of loyalty in living memory: “The people ran five or six miles out of town and were marvellously overjoyed to see her, showing clearly how much they love her.”2
The following day, Mary was met unceremoniously at the court gate at Whitehall and led into the Presence Chamber, where the young king and his Council waited to receive her. She was charged with disobedience and ordered to obey. In his journal, Edward described the meeting:
The Lady Mary my sister came to me at Westminster, where after salutations she was called with my Council into a chamber, where was declared how long I had suffered her Mass [against my will; crossed out], in hope of her reconciliation and how now, being no hope, which I perceived by her letters, except I saw some short amendment, I could not bear it. She answered that her soul was God[’s], and her faith she would not change, nor dissemble her opinion with contrary doings. It was said I constrained not her faith, but willed her [not as a King to rule; inserted] but as a subject to obey. And that her example might breed too much inconvenience.3
When Edward warned her of the dangers of continuing to practice the old religion, Mary put it to him again that he was not yet old enough to be making decisions, assuring him “Riper age and experience will teach Your Majesty much more yet.” This time Edward snapped back, “You also may have somewhat to learn. None are too old for that.” Mary reasoned that even if there had been no assurance to hear Mass, she hoped that, as her brother, he “would have shown her enough respect to allow her to continue in the observance of the old religion, and to prevent her from being troubled in any way.” Did he want “to take away her life rather than the old religion, in which she desired to live and die?” Edward responded that “he wished for no such sacrifice.”
The meeting broke up unresolved. Mary left beseeching Edward