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 to check out the links in the show notes below. The link there to the website that has all the additional content, and also have a link to
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