Mary Tudor by Anna Whitelock

Author:Anna Whitelock [Whitelock, Anna]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 978-0-679-60398-6
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2009-03-25T16:00:00+00:00

NOW IN POSSESSION of her kingdom, Mary could begin the task of governing. She had won the throne at Framlingham with a small council of her household officers, including Robert Rochester, Edward Waldegrave, and Henry Jerningham, together with figures such as the earls of Sussex and Bath, who had arrived in the early days of the coup. All were of proven loyalty, but few had political experience. Then, as Mary journeyed to London, she had been besieged with apologies and pledges of fidelity from the Edwardian councillors who had been so closely involved with Edward’s Protestant reforms and who had, just days before, conferred the crown on Lady Jane Grey. Some had displayed reluctance in agreeing to Northumberland’s plan, but all had eventually signed Edward’s “Device for the Succession.” Though Mary doubted their loyalty and their motives, most upon their submission were restored to royal favor.

To her existing council of household servants, Mary appointed experienced men such as Sir William Petre, Lord William Paget, the earls of Arundel and Pembroke, Sir John Mason, and Sir Richard Southwell. The earl of Arundel became lord steward; William Paulet, the marquess of Winchester, retained his office of high treasurer. By the time Mary reached the Tower, she had a Privy Council, a hybrid of trust and experience, of some twenty-five members.

Mary also appointed to her Privy Council men who had suffered for their views and faith under the previous regime, including those she had freed from the Tower. Stephen Gardiner was appointed to the Privy Council the day after his release and three weeks later became lord chancellor. Though he had been principal adviser to Henry VIII in the king’s divorce from Katherine of Aragon, he had become increasingly conservative in his religious views during Edward’s reign and had developed a hatred for Northumberland after being imprisoned in 1551. As far as Mary was concerned this sufficiently redeemed him, though he would never come to enjoy the queen’s full confidence. Yet Mary’s political pragmatism was resented by many of the councillors. “Discontent is rife,” the imperial ambassadors reported on August 16, “especially among those who stood by the queen in the days of her adversity and trouble, who feel they have not been rewarded as they deserve, for the conspirators have been raised in authority.”11 Although their commitment to Mary varied, they all shared a fundamental loyalty to the Tudor regime.

In all, Mary’s Privy Council numbered some forty councillors. While it was among these men that a core group formed to govern and administer the realm, it was as much in the halls and corridors of the royal household, in whispered conversations and secret meetings with the queen, that decisions were made and policies formed. Unlike the Privy Council, the upper echelons of the royal household were an exclusive preserve of trusted Catholic loyalists whom Mary relied upon. Members of Mary’s “princely affinity of proven loyalty” replaced all those who had acted against her in the succession crisis. Sir Henry Jerningham, who had

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