Hello, and Welcome to Western civ. Episode two hundred and ninety A glorious
union. Throughout the nation, everyone rejoiced at the news of Mary's ascension.
Mary was proclaimed queen on the twenty second of July fifteen fifty three at Bridge
North. Reportedly, bonfires were lit at every street. Little did everyone know
those bonfires were a sign of things to come, and they just weren't the
kind of bonfires everyone was expecting. But for the moment, nothing happened.
The nation that summer was primed for a religious war that simply never came to
fruition. From the pulpit, various evangelical preachers denounced both Mary and Elizabeth as
bastards who would stop at nothing to return England to its papal past. Mary
did her best not to fan these flames, though, truth be told,
but not insignificant number of her supporters were Catholic, that is true, but
she was very careful at this point. She based her claim to the throne
on her legitimacy through her father, not on religion, at least for the
moment. Her legitimacy was based on her father's will, which did of course
designate her as her heir should Edward die without a child, which he did.
Now, Ultimately, the contest between those two queens from the last episode,
Mary and Jane was really a contest between two days kings, Henry and
Edward. Henry I guess we shouldn't be surprised one out, and so Mary
had become queen. Now there were some who believed the restoration of Henry the
Eighth's daughter would mean a restoration not of Catholicism, but of his brand of
religion, of this sort of compromise that had made his rule palatable for so
many. But again, for the moment, Mary didn't move in any direction
religiously. Abroad, evangelicals weren't fooled, they wrote, prophesizing doom. This
would be the end of the true religion in England. They knew it.
Even if it didn't come quickly, it would happen. They weren't wrong either.
By September in that year, every major evangelical preacher was either incarcerated in
some way or had fled the realm. Even Bishop Kramner found himself the unwilling
guest of the Tower that very month. Interestingly, by and large, these
men simply swapped places in these various prisons with the Conservatives who had been locked
up before them. As example, as Cranmer walked into prison, the old
Bishop Gardner walked out, and there were many other examples of the same sort
of switcheroo. To some reformers, this was all a sign of God's displeasure.
They needed to atown for some sin, even if they didn't really know
what that sin was. That being said, others were just a lot more
pragmatic about the whole situation. Paget, the former secretary to Henry the eighth
and Privy Council member under Edward the sixth, resolved to simply swallow his principles
and of the regime, as he had under the other two kings. By
the end of July, as another example, Princess Elizabeth was in Mary's court
wishing her well, playing the good part, and she'd played the good Catholic
part as much as she needed. By the way. Throughout England, many
evangelical preachers suddenly, and rather inexplicably, it had changes of heart. Before
July was out, these men were just back to saying the traditional Mass as
though nothing had changed. Perhaps the clock could be turned back after all.
At least in the summer of fifteen fifty three. For a moment to Mary,
it appeared like it might be. It was hard, of course,
to determine which of these conversions or reversions I suppose were genuine and which were
merely the product of force. None of them were clear cut. Nowhere was
the transition from old to new and back again more clear than during Edward's funeral.
He had died, by the way, and we still hadn't had his
funeral. So Mary ultimately relented and allowed Archbishop Cranmer to perform the service using
the fifteen fifty two prayer book. It was his last public act as archbishop.
However, meanwhile, in the Tower of London, Mary, who had
not attended that funeral, was listening to Catholic requiems for her brother, uttered
by non author than Stephen Gardner, who was about to walk out of the
tower a free man. Now things began to boil over though in August.
On August eleventh, in London, a priest was interrupted while saying the traditional
mast a chance of quote you lie. A near riot ensued. Somebody threw
a dagger which struck straight into the pulpit, and I shot on that one.
Now, interestingly, there's an argument that this episode was cooked, that
it was completely Corey graft by evangelicals who wanted to stir up trouble so that
they would have an excuse to move people toward religious conflict. Now, absent
more evidence, it's impossible to say whether this is true or not, but
it's an interesting idea. If true, it's safe to say that these people
didn't know what they were getting themselves into. A few days later, the
Privy Council issued a decision to the town mayor that's London that all unlicensed preaching
should be prevented. However, the decision came alongside a really interesting statement from
Mary. Quote, Albeit her Grace's conscience is stayed in matters of religion.
Yet she meaneth graciously not to compel or constrain other men's consciences other thaise than
God shall, or as she trusteth, put in their hearts a persuasion of
the truth that she is in through the opening of His Word, unto them
by godly, virtuous and learned preachers end quote. This was an almost remarkable
statement in favor of what seuns like religious toleration, especially for an age that
had no concept of separation of church and state, but it was likely just
a tactic. Mary knew that London for the moment was pretty decidedly against her.
For the moment, she would not provoke the wrath of the capitol.
Mary followed up on this with another proclamation on the eighteenth of August, once
again expressing her intention not to force religious conformity, though she added for herself
at least she quote cannot hide that religion which God and the world knoweth she
hath ever professed from her infancy and quote, of course she means Catholicism.
It was England's first ever declaration of formal religious toleration, albeit an explicitly temporary
one at least in the countryside. What all this meant was, in practical
terms, Catholicism was back. It had never really completely left the rural parts
of England. In fact, one contemporary remark that by September the third there
was hardly a parish in rural England in which mass was not being said.
Interestingly, Parliament had never repealed the Book of Common Prayer nor the requirement to
use it, so for a few months at least Mary's administration simply encouraged people
to break the standing law, the laws under Edward the sixth, which for
the moment were still in place. What they did was they simply refused to
enforce those laws. For their part, evangelicals continued to hold to the letter
of the law. Altars were rebuilt, and then under the law they were
torn down and they were rebuilt again. Community was essentially in open schism.
Once Parliament opened in October. The evangelicals, however, lost even their legal
standing. On October, the first Mass was said before the Queen's official coronation.
On October the fifth Mass was said again, this time for the opening
of Parliament. Edwardian clergymen protested noisily but ineffectually. Parliament then proceeded to invalidate
all the religious legislation enacted under Edward the sixth. They just wiped it away.
Clerical marriage was overturned, Divine service was returned to the age of Henry
the eighth, not before, and that's going to be a key sticking point.
There remained some pockets of resistance. One firebrand evangelical preacher continued using the
Book of Common Prayer until late December fifteen fifty three. On January the third
fifteen fifty four, thirty London preachers were hauled before a tribunal which demand to
know why Mass was not being said in Latin. Apparently, so much for
religious toleration right, at least so far as the government was concerned. The
war for the mass was over, the conservative faction had won, and everybody
had to get in line. Yet, as always I need to remind you,
conformity cannot be taken for true acceptance. Really, what we have going
on in England between fifteen forty seven and fifteen fifty four is, in the
words of one great historian I'm not one of those are kind of protracted theological
symposium involving the entire country, and one in which the people actually got to
vote, at least in some ways. But if Mary and her advisors took
all of this as evidence that the war over England's religion was a done deal,
they were sadly mistaken. No one wanted to know other war of the
roses, that was very true. But once the dust from the succession crisis
settled, there was no way of knowing that the people would resist these efforts
at religious conformity. On the twelve of November fifteen fifty three, James Brooks,
master of Bayol College, Oxford, and chaplain to Stephen Gardner, took
his turn in the pulpit at Paul's Cross. His sermon was a powerful lament
for the sins of the schism a time. He said of quote, change
in doctrine, change in books, change in tongues, change in altars,
change in placing, change in gesture, change in apparel, change in bread,
change in giving, change in receiving, with many changes, more so
that we had still change upon change, and like never to have left changing
till all the world had been changed end quote. To remedy, this,
in his opinion, was a return to the true Catholic Church, to the
mystical body of Christ. Brooks sermon would later be reprinted. Yet a couple
of words, curiously, Pope, Holy Father and Bishop of Rome were all
omitted. By Christmas fifteen fifty three, Mary had very effectively turned black the
clock to fifteen forty seven to the Church of Henry. The eighth. Reunion
with Rome, however, would be another matter. For years people had been
bombarded with claims and allegations of papal depravity to get people to suddenly accept reunion
with Rome would be a tall order, and it's worth pointing out that even
some conservative preachers, such as Stephen Gardner himself, weren't willing to turn back
the clock. Prior to fifteen forty seven, at least not initially. One
piece of Edwardian legislation was still very much in place, the Chantries Act of
fifteen fifty three. You see, back under Henry the Eighth a lot of
people had supported the disillusion of the monasteries. A lot of people had bought
church property. Now technically canon law held that you could not alienate church property
from the church. The Chantries Act gave legal protection to those who had bought
those lands, and purchasers of monastic lands had every reason to feel nervous.
In early fifteen fifty four, Gardner himself had once written in support of the
disillusion. His evangelical opponents, now somewhat gleefully pointed out how closely he was
skirting hypocrisy. Across the English Channel. Everyone watched affairs in England. Rome
was overjoyed for decades, Kingdom after kingdom had leaked away from Rome. Now
it looked like Mary, dubbed the Queen of Heaven by the Pope would reverse
this trend. On August the fifth, fifteen fifty three, Pope Julius the
Third appointed Englishman Reginald Pohle his official legate to England. His instructions were to
reconcile the English people to the Roman Church. He even had authority to absolve
people who had purchased monastic lands, so long as they at least made a
token gesture of offering to return them first. But the mood in Rome quickly
soured. Many cardinals believed it was too early to just launch Pole into action.
They believed Mary needed time to consolidate her government before England and could be
reconciled to the Roman Catholic Church. The Imperial advisers, also constantly present in
her court, counseled Mary to be patient. The mass was easy, restoring
relations with Rome and dealing with property issues were much bigger asks. Better,
they said, to move slowly. Parliament had been willing to declare Catherine of
Arragon's marriage to Henry valid, but for the moment that was all a scheme
to restore religious law to fifteen thirty two and therefore restore Rome's supremacy through sort
of backdoor legislation was ultimately rejected. For the moment, the English Church would
stay in limbo, allied to Rome but independent of it. But there was
more to being queen than simply religion. Mary had other pressing affairs to deal
with as well. Pressing of these was her need to marry. For her
line to continue. She needed an air. Moreover, there was a huge
stigma against women in positions of power in Tudor, England. Henry the Eighth
himself had written in fifteen thirty two, with Mary firmly in mind, by
the way a female ruler quote cannot govern long without a husband end quote.
Mary's instincts were to seek a renewed dynastic union with the Habsburgs. Initially she
thought about Charles the fifth, far too old for her, but whatever though,
he quickly nixed that suggestion. Instead, he pushed for union with his
son, the Spanish born Philip. He was a widower since fifteen forty five,
when his then wife died giving birth to their son. There was really
only one domestic alternative anyway, a guy by the name of Edward Courtney,
Earl of Devon. Edward, a staunch conservative, had just been released from
the Tower on Mary's ascension and in the Tower, Edward had become very close
to Stephen Gardner, who now pushed his cause. Courtney's candidacy never really got
off the ground, though he was not suited to be king. He was
rash and intemperant. Plus he had been a prisoner since he was twelve years
old and really had no courtly connections at all. Her marriage to him would
bring Mary few, if any benefits. Regardless, Mary made up her mind
quickly. On October twenty ninth, she swore to Mary Philip before the Imperial
ambassador. The news quickly leaked, and Mary found herself summoned before the House
of Lords to explain the decision. She was arked at that complaining a male
would never have been treated dustly. She wasn't wrong, but it didn't matter
her. The English lords were set at the moment against having a Spanish king.
Gardner realized, probably rightly, that a Spanish match, combined with a
full Catholic restoration, was more than the kingdom could stomach. These were problems
that became exponential when they were combined. Now, Sadly, as we'll see,
Mary's not going to listen if Philip is the man about to become the
King of England, we should probably know something about him. Philip, as
we know, was the firstborn son of Charles the fifth and Isabella of Portugal.
Due to the lengthy absences of his father, he mainly grew up with
his mother, absorbing a Spanish mentality and lifestyle. Born in valadelid On the
twenty first of May fifteen twenty seven, he would have been twenty seven at
the time he married Queen Mary. The Prince was an intelligent child and received
in all around education, making him one of the smartest monarchs of the time.
He developed a passion for collecting books and art objects, but he also
collected mechanical instruments and a lot of relics. Philip the second of Spain was
very much a man of the age. Certainly he was a monarch of the
age. In fact, he might be what we could properly describe as the
first early modern monarch. He was a respected lawyer and advised his bureaucrats to
quote learn about the personality of their children and quote, by which, of
course, he meant his people. Like many people, he believed in astrology.
In fact, he had both he and Mary's horoscopes prepared by the English
magician John Dee, but he could also be very skeptical of magic. On
one occasion, when presented by a classical source on astronomy, he claimed the
entire thing was hogwash, noting how because the Romans were not Christians, they
could not believe anything they liked, but that hardly made it true. Philip,
like many monarchs at the time, was seduced by the allure of alchemy.
He wanted to be able to turn metals into gold and silver, and
of course he had good reason, as we'll find out, to want that.
Philip was always short on money, something he inherited from his father.
In fact, he had to suspend interest payments to his bankers in fifteen seventy
seven. Eventually, however, he learned his lesson and would later describe alchemy
as a fake science as a great hoax. He would support pharmacists until the
end of his life, though Philip was a big believer in early modern medicine,
even if most of it was nothing but quack cures. Philip knew he
could not prolong his life forever, but he certainly hoped to use whatever means
at his disposal to extend it somewhat. The consultants who worked at the famous
palace of Philip the Second. The Escorial epitomized the spirit of adventure, experimentation,
empiricism, and faith that infused almost every facet of Spanish and European culture,
one aspect perhaps of the same spirit of discovery that had launched the Spaniards
on their conquest of the New World. An English Catholic called Richard Stanhorst wrote
a small tract specifically for Philip, entitled The Touchstone of Alchemy, explaining how
to distinguish between Charlatan's and the true practitioners of the art. He wrote,
quote, be neither unduly credulous nor wholly disbelieving, for the Indies would have
gone undiscovered if no one had believed Columbus end quote. While Philip clearly kept
an open mind about astrology and the wider claims of alchemy, he was deeply
and obsessively superstitious about the power of religious relics. As Protestants across his ancestral
domains in Northern Europe publicly abandoned their faith in these sacred talismans, he had
an army of agents at work, acquiring as many desiccated cadavers, heads and
other saintly body parts, hairs from the head of the Madonna, and pieces
of the True Cross as they could find, kind of like ancient questing Nazis
from the old Indiana Jones movies. Luther had joked of the widespread forgery of
relics, the three hundred men would not be enough to carry all the pieces
of the cross then revered across Christendom, and Philip was greatly amused that his
enthusiasm had encouraged a flourishing cottage industry foraging for the full range. This accumulation
of sacred bits and pieces was clearly in part of a political charge affirmation of
the Council of Trent and the counter Reformation. In other words, spending all
this month to acquire parts of the True Cross wasn't anything about the Cross itself,
necessarily, it was about affirming the values of Catholicism. It could also
be a demonstration of his centralizing power, as was his compulsory purchase of Saint
Lawrence's head from a convent in Santiago de Compostela in the face of bitter opposition
from the nuns and archbishop there. But he also believed very much. He
amassed seven thousand, four hundred and forty nine AH, just one shy of
seventy five hundred individual relics by the time of his death. And as he
lay dying agonizing, his body bursting with sores, his blood poisoned, unable
to move from his soiled bed, racked by fever and thirst, he sustained
himself for an incredible fifty three days by putting his faith in these objects of
devotion. He had amongst him Saint Sebastian's knee, Albin's rib, and Vincent
Ferrer's arm placed next to his own own corresponding and painful body parts as he
listened to readings from Teresa of Avila. Philip was therefore in the words of
many, and I suppose this typifies the very age, the end of the
sixteenth century, middle to end of the sixteenth century a man and a period
of great contradictions. In fifteen forty eight, Philip left Spain for the first
time, spending several years visiting the various territories under Habsburg Dominion. He also
met representatives of the Austrian line of the dynasty, in contrast to most of
the Habsburgs from the generations that preceded him, who as a rule, experienced
in extremely polygot and international upbringing. Philip had grown up in Spain with Castilian
Spanish as his mother tongue, and he hadn't really learned any other languages.
He spoke very little French, Italian or German, reinforced by his aloof nature.
This shortcoming is going to hinder communication with the who did not speak Spanish,
and in fact under his ability to communicate with Queen Mary. As a
result, he soon acquired a reputation for arrogance, especially amongst his Austrian relatives.
In the Low Countries, he encountered the rich cultural life of these regions,
which was, as we're going to find out, to leave a very
lasting mark on him for the rest of his life, though he would be
a keen collector of the works by the Flemish masters. Philip did not succeed
his father, Charles the Fifth as ruler of Spain, the Low Countries,
and various Italian domains until fifteen fifty five, when Charles the Fifth finally and
permanently retired. At that time, Charles severed his European Empire, granting his
Austrian and German holdings to his brother Maximilian Loss. At the time that Philip
was engaged to marry, he was on the cusp of becoming one of the
most powerful men in Erahim, but he wasn't quite there yet. The marriage
were thrashed out in early December. Children of the match would inherit England and
the Netherlands, but have no claim to Spain in its empire, while Don
Carlos's line continued. Philip, as joint sovereign, would receive the title of
king, but retain no rights in England if Mary predeceased him. Moreover,
he was not to exercise authority in his own right, grant English offices to
foreigners, or take the queen abroad without the consent of the nobility. The
strikingly restrictive provisions were designed to alleviate anxieties in England. Philip considered them demeaning
and swore secretly that he did not consider himself bound by them, even without
knowing that some Englishmen decided that the marriage must be stopped and Mary forcibly removed
from the throne. The conspiracy that was hatched in November, ten days before
Mary rebuffed the parliamentary delegation four members of Parliament, among them Sir Peter Carew
and Thomas Throckmore met secretly with other prominent figures, including the former Clerk to
the Council William Thomas, the former Lord Deputy of Ireland, Sir James Croft,
a former Gloucestershire MP and member of the Council. In the Marches,
Sir Nicholas Arnold, and the Kentish landowner and soldier Sir Thomas Wyatt All were
staunch evangelicals. They were soon joined by the Duke of Suffolk, who had
escaped lightly only a few days imprisonment in the Tower for his part in the
pseudo reign of his daughter. The plan was to replace Queen Mary with the
Princess Elizabeth. She would have the legitimacy conferred upon her by Henry the Eighth's
will, and moreover, she would then be married to Edward Courtney, the
man that Mary rejected for Philip, who was brought into the scheme though he
remained patently unreliable. The French were also very much in on the plot,
as Henry the Second in Paris had zero point zero percent interest in seeing a
Habsburg on the English throne. Elizabeth, for her part, was aware of
the plot but never intimately involved. She continued to play the part of the
dutiful half sister throughout Christmas fifteen fifty three. Regardless, the elaborate plan never
came to pass. On January the second, fifteen fifty four, Philip arrived
in London to mostly a shower of jeers and a couple of stones. That
same day, the Privy Council convinced a nervous Sir Peter Carew that the government
was very much in on him and knew about his little conspiracy. By January
the eighteenth, suspicious activity in French ports led many to believe an invasion was
imminent. Three days later, Archbishop Gardiner got Edward Courtney to spill the proverbial
beans on the whole thing, and the conspirators all fled the capitol like rats,
fleeing a sinking ship to the countryside. But Sir Peter boarded a ship
for exile in France that same week. He was done conspiring. Wyatt was
not in Kent. He raised the standard of rebellion with the usual claims that
this was not about the queen, but rather about ridding her of her wicked
advisers. The message he was pedlig was easy to predict. The Spanish were
coming. They would dominate England. Unless the marriage will stopped right now,
the Pope would be in charge now Whyatt was actually pretty successful in Kent.
More noble families fought with him than against him, though most remained aloof the
watch out for the Spanish message was a good one. On January the twenty
eighth, the Duke of Norfolk led an army of five hundred men to try
and destroy Wyatt, but his men promptly defected to the rebels. Evidently this
had been pre arranged by the way. Wyatt now had three thousand men and
nothing between him and London. But in a tale as old as time,
he moved too slowly. Anti Spanish sentiment in London was reaching a fever pitch.
Yet he dithered, taking pointless Royalist house after pointless Royalist house, all
while giving Mary the time to regroup and recover. Mary remained firm in the
capitol. She would not flee. Instead, she delivered a series of rousing
and somewhat misleading speeches to London citizenry. I mean if Wyatt can make stuff
up. She can too, right, she claimed. Whyatt was coming to
sack London. She said he wasn't and they needed to band together to stop
him. Ultimately, Wyatt didn't reach London until the third of February, but
by the seventh he still seemed poised to take the city, and he moved
faster he almost certainly would have. Yet Mary remained firm. She refused to
leave, and in the end that was enough. London refused to open its
gates. Wyatt suddenly found his supporters melting away, in no mood for a
siege. Wyatt then allowed himself to be arrested. While Mary later would claim
that she had been saved by divine intervention, she had not. She had
been saved by what was essentially London's own referendum on her rule. London Head
picksides it would keep Queen Mary for now. There was an inevitable reckoning in
London. Quote one sees nothing but gibbets and hanged men, and quote a
witness wrote. On the seventeenth of February, Wyatt was executed, as was
now the Duke of Suffolk, in about one hundred others at various places in
London and Kent. The bulk of the Kentish participants were pardoned by the Queen
in a choreographed show of royal mercy, after being paraded before her with symbolic
halters around their necks. Courtney, likewise was pardoned. There was merciful justice,
perhaps more than she deserved, for the woman the conspirators intended to be
Courtney's consort. Letters seized from the French ambassador's courier implicated the Princess Elizabeth.
It was the view of some that for the safety of the realm, including
by the way Archbishop Stephen Gardner, that Elizabeth had to die, But despite
some close questioning in the tower, no really solid evidence could be found,
and Wyat performed Elizabeth a last service by swearing at his execution on the eleventh
of April that neither she nor Edward Courtney was privy to his plans. In
May, Elizabeth was sent from the tower to house arrest in Woodstock, Oxfordshire.
Here she let the mask slip a little bit, demanding an English Bible
in the right to recite the litany in English quote set forth in the King
my Father's Days end quote. But when ordered to desist and conform fully to
Catholicism. She did it. Mary was lenient, even imprudently so. Yet
a full treason trial, which lacked unanimous support from the Privy Council, carried
risks as well. In April, to the dismay and fury of the government,
Nicholas Throckmorton was spectacularly acquitted of treason. It was almost unprecedented, frankly,
but Throckmorton conducted a brilliant defense, challenging the selection of the jurors and
arguing it was not treason under existing law quote to talk against the coming hither
of the spaniards end quote angered by demonstrations of rejoicing. At this acquittal,
Mary took to her bed and the jury was fined and imprisoned. On the
day of the verdict, Wyatt's head was stolen from its place of public display,
an indication that the traitor was considered by some to be a martyr.
Now, as I mentioned previously, there was no mercy for Jane Gray,
who had actually still been in the tower. Her sentence of death had been
suspended since November. At this point it was promptly carried out. The young
lady was only sixteen years old. Now, the battle at this point was
far from over. Sure Mary would get the marriage that she wanted, but
the notion that England would be quickly and easily reconciled to Rome remained very much
a fanciful one, and as we were going to see next week, the
reality was much much more complicated. If you've enjoyed the show, feel free
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