Bloody Mary and the Futility of Burning

There is an understandable tendency, I suppose, to read history backwards; to assume, in other words, a given set of outcomes; that what is what had to be. But when Mary Tudor came to the throne in 1553 Protestantism was still a fairly recent graft on to the English tree, and not all that popular, if the Pilgrimage of Grace can be considered as an accurate measure of the national mood. The ease with which Mary swept aside the challenge of Lady Jane Grey and her tiny Protestant party provides additional confirmation, if any such is needed, that there were no real fears of a Catholic restoration.

So Mary was very well placed at the outset of her reign to return England permanently to the Roman faith. Most people had little in the way of deep emotional attachment to the reformed religion, and were quite happy to observe the outward and conventional forms of belief. Even at their height the Marian persecutions only embraced a tiny proportion of the population. But the persecutions and the burnings, as is the way with these things, were completely counter-productive: they did more to foster anti-Catholicism than any Protestant propaganda.

As early as October 1553, Simon Renard, the Ambassador of the Holy Roman Empire, wrote that "It is easy to foresee that there will be difficulty in repressing heretics without causing scandal...The thing most to be feared is that the Queen may be moved by her religious ardour and zeal to attempt to set matters right at one stroke, for this cannot be done in the case of a people that has drunk so deep in error."

The subsequent burnings were to confirm all of his fears, as the dominant mood among the thousands who witnessed these auto-da-fe seems, for the most part, to have been one of sympathy and anger. Foxe's later accounts of the martyrdoms is undeniably biased; but it finds support in contemporary accounts by Catholic observers. Giovanni Micheli, the Venetian ambassador, who witnessed the burning of Rowland Taylor, wrote that the people were so angry that they planned to set fire to the houses "and raise a great tumult; not merely to release the Doctor from the stake, but to punish and revenge themselves on those whose religion was opposed to their own."

When he left England in 1557 he noted that "the public mind is more than ever irritated."

It wasn't just ordinary people who were repelled by the burnings. A reading of the Acts of the Privy Council uncovers many examples of local officials less than enthusiastic in the enforcement of the heresy laws. Action had to be taken against jailers who allowed Protestant prisoners to escape. In 1557 letters were sent out to sheriffs and bailiffs throughout the Home Counties, asking why sentences for heresy were not being carried out. Sir John Butler, the sheriff of Essex, was fined £10 for allowing his deputy to reprieve a woman sentenced to burning. Some, like Thomas Causton, were inspired by example-"Ye say that the Bishops lately burnt were heretics. I pray God make me such a heretic as they were."

Even some of those close to the Queen could see that things were going badly. Stephen Gardiner, the bishop of Winchester, had believed that if an example was made of a few of the leading Protestants that the rest would be frightened into conformity. When this failed to happen he ended burnings in his own diocese. Those who were frightened into conformity elsewhere observed only the outward forms of Catholic belief, as Micheli and others made note, which explains why the Marian counter-reformation was so easily and quickly put into reverse when Elizabeth came to the throne.

But there is also another factor to be drawn in here, the one thing above all others that explain why Mary's policy was so counter-productive. Persecution had worked elsewhere in Europe, particularly in Catholic Austria, in reducing the appeal of heresy; but only when force was accompanied by persuasion; by an active evangelical mission. In England this simply did not happen, or at least not to any significant degree. Quite simply the church lacked the means. All of the land and wealth lost during the Dissolution of the Monasteries was not returned; for to do so would have been a challenge to the interests and power of the nobility; and that, even for Mary, was a step too far. Reginald Pole had pressed for this, with no success; for the beneficiaries of the redistribution had included many Catholics, as well as Protestants. There was no money, so there was no mission; only the terror-and the example-of the burnings.

Mary lacked money; she also lacked time. Her early death from cancer in 1558 ended the counter-reformation. More than that, the failure of Mary's reign, the examples and the lessons it provided, were to be the foundations for the Elizabethan Reformation, more complete and lasting in every way.

Of a Gay King and a Red Hot Poker

It is often claimed that James I was homosexual, though this is a contention that cannot be proved conclusively; it is unknown and unknowable. This is also true of Edward II, though to a far lesser degree, and there is enough material to make out a good circumstantial case, if one were so minded. So, at my peril, here it is.

Piers Gaveston, Edward's greatest friend, was introduced into his household by his father, seemingly as a suitable role model for the young prince. Later the Chronicle of the Civil Wars of Edward II was to claim that an immediate bond formed between the two; that Edward felt such regard that "he tied himself against all mortals with an indissoluble bond of love." The first contemporary reference we have is from a letter written by Edward himself in 1305, after the King had reduced his household, separating him from Gaveston and Gilbert de Clare, another young knight. In this he urges his sister Margaret to persuade Queen Margaret their step-mother, to intervene with the King to allow both men to return-"If we had those two, along with others we have, we would be greatly relieved of the anguish which we have endured and from which we continue to suffer from one day to the next."

Both were eventually restored, but in 1306 Gaveston was banished for unspecified reasons. He was only allowed to return after the King's death in the summer of 1307. It is now that expressions of disquiet become ever more evident in the sources, including that given by the Vita Edwardi Secundi. Robert of Reading goes even further in the Flores Historiarum, saying that Edward entered into 'illicit and sinful unions', rejecting the 'sweet embraces of his wife.' In the Chronicle written by John of Trokelowe, Edward no sooner brought his new bride, Isabella of France, to England after their marriage at Boulogne in 1308, than he rushed to greet Gaveston, showering him with 'hugs and kisses.' During the Queen's coronation Edward's attentions to Gaveston, and his neglect of his bride, caused her uncles, Louis de Everaux and Charles de Orleans to storm out in anger. That same summer Isabella wrote to Philip the Fair, her father, complaining of ill-treatment.

The final piece of evidence comes in the spring of 1312 when Edward fled in the company of Gaveston from the Baronial forces of Thomas of Lancaster, abandoning jewels, plate and his pregnant wife in his haste.

None of this amounts to a conclusive case-and one always has to be mindful of the bias in Medieval sources-, but it shows both an astonishing lack of judgement and degrees of intimacy with a single individual that exceeds all reasonable fraternal bonds; a degree of intimacy that would seem to go beyond mere considerations of personal loyalty. Edward was a king who came close to losing his throne not for the love of a woman but for his love of a man, in whatever form that was expressed.

He was later deposed by Isabella and her lover, Roger Mortimer, disappearing behind the walls of Pontefract Castle, where it was later claimed that his bowels were burnt out by the insertion of a red hot poker, a comment, I think, by chroniclers on his supposed sexual tastes

Englishness

There was already a consciousness of Englishness and England before the Danish onslaught in the ninth century; before Alfred and even before Bede. However, England, as we have come to know it, and Englishness as a given identity, was formed, it might be said, by a gradual process of cultural and historical sedimentation. A loose identity was given a definite shape and direction by adversity; by war and the threat of war; by victory, and yes, by defeat. The successive victories of Alfred, of Ethelfleda and Edward the Elder established England on a new and more lasting basis, one that could not be threatened by the fresh wave of Norse invasions in the tenth and eleventh centuries, when the country was absorbed into a Danish empire.

Even so, this England, and once Anglo-Saxon and Viking, effectively came to an end with the Norman Conquest in 1066. No longer part of a Germanic and Scandinavian world, the country was drawn into the mainstream of European feudal civilization; no more than an appange, it might be said, of a trans-continental empire. And there it might have remained, no more politically significant than Provence, but for one man: good old, bad old King John. An unusual 'hero' of Englishness, I know; but it was his loss of Normandy and the bulk of the Angevin Empire that threw England back on itself; that gave the country a new sense of its political importance, notwithstanding the fact that there was still a huge cultural divide between an English-speaking peasantry and a French-speaking aristocracy. The victory of William Marshal over the invading force of Prince Louis was also an important step in safeguarding this new political independence and sense of self-reliance.

In considering the whole question of the formation of modern England by far the most significant figure of all, as far as I am concerned, has to be Edward III. It was he who began the political and cultural transformation of the nation; he who embarked on a War that helped form a new national consciousness; a war that consolidated and defined some of the country's most enduring political institutions. It was his patronage that turned St. George into a national saint, and his policy that, in 1362, saw English recognised as the 'tongue of the nation.' It was during his time that the old divisions between Norman-French and Anglo-Saxon became less and less distinct, and Englishness, the Englishness of Chaucer and others, emerged on its modern path

Edward III-Father of the English Nation

I've been reading Ian Mortimer's book, The Perfect King: the Life of Edward III, Father of the English Nation. Yes, there is much in Mortimer's thesis that stands up to scrutiny. Perhaps the most common perception of Edward's reign is one that brought England success in war, from the Halidon Hill and Neville's Cross against Scotland, to the even greater victories against France at Crecy and Poitiers. In 1356 England had two enemy kings in captivity: David II of Scotland and John II of France. In some ways the country had reached the high point in its Medieval history. But success in war brought two more innovations: the enhanced role of ordinary people in attaining military success, and the rise of Parliament as a unique English political institution.

Before Edward England had continued to rely on the feudal levy for its military arm, which meant, in essence, dependency on the great feudal nobility and the armed knight. But Edward's wars saw the recruitment of professional armies, where the decisive arm was not the knight but the plebeian archer.

It was through Edward's wars that the ordinary people of England (and Wales!) acquired a direct interest in the course and the outcome of the nation's foreign adventures, which did much to forge a common sense of nationhood, distinctly lacking at earlier periods. Even more important, the wars demanded money, and money meant Parliamentary grants, and Parliamentary grants meant detailed scrutiny of expenditure, as well as the granting of petitions. By the end of Edward's reign the Commons were able not only able to introduce legislation, but also to hold officials to account. His successor, Richard II was to discover just how assertive Parliament could be.

It was Edward who raised England from the nadir of the reign of his father, and created a sense of common identity and purpose. More than that, it was his patronage that turned St. George into a national saint, and he was the first king to give first place to the English language, as opposed to the Norman-French favoured by his predecessors. Not only did he use English himself in everyday discourse, but also in 1362 he passed legislation recognising English as 'the tongue of the nation.' Where he led the great nobility followed. So, the answer has to be, yes: Edward has every justified right to be considered as the father of the English nation.

A Pretty, Witty King

So, what was Charles really like as a man and a ruler? The early Whig historians had no doubt about this, going so far as to describe him as one of the most criminal princes in all of English history, whose reign was, in the words of one, 'a disgrace to our country.' The 'Merry Monarch' school grew up as a corrective to this rather dour reaction. The truth is closer, I suppose, to the Whig view: Charles was far from admirable as a man, showing many of the worst personality traits, including cynicism, meanness and simple dishonesty.

His reign was also far from admirable, a time when England was at its lowest point in Europe, judged in political and military terms. He began his reign with every possible advantage, including a Parliament solidly behind the throne. Yet, within a few years of the Restoration, growing distrust of the court, and of Charles' motives and policies, led to a poisonous political atmosphere, which finally came to a head in the Popish Plot, the greatest political crisis of the reign. Charles' rule in Scotland, moreover, was marked by brutality and increasing religious persecution; a time when methods were used to suppress dissent later perfected on the Continent by Louis XIV. Above all, his foreign policy, and his military campaigns were disastrous. Writing about the Raid on the Medway, one poet managed to combine comment on this with the king's well-established reputation for debauchery;

So our great prince, when the Dutch fleet arriv'd
Saw his ships burn and, as they burn'd, he swiv'd.
So kind was he in our extremist need,
He would those flames extinguish with his seed.

Yet, having said this, while Charles was often responsible for the troubles of his reign, he had the political and personal skills to end these troubles to his advantage, skills which his father and his brother so obviously lacked. By this measure, and by this measure alone, his achievements are worthy of note, allowing him to end his reign in relative peace. He was at his best, his most skilful, during the tensions induced by the Popish Plot, giving way when he had to give way, standing strong when he had to stand strong. In the end he completely outmanoeuvred his opponents, the great combination known as the Whigs, which had grown up to oppose the policies of the throne, and might very well have destroyed the monarchy itself. And this was no mean achievement; for it involved the defeat of Anthony Ashley Cooper, 1st Earl of Shaftesbury, one of the first truly great party leaders in English history; a dangerous politician and a dangerous man.

Charles greatest talent, his genius, perhaps, was in his appreciation of the realities of political power within his three kingdoms. Here his sense of realism and, indeed, his cynicism, worked to best effect, allowing him to play the system to the advantage of the Crown. He was also arguably the first king in English history to understand the importance of appealing to and managing public opinion. He was a survivor, which is probably the greatest compliment one can make about any Stuart king on the English throne!

Henry III and the Cult of the Confessor

We cannot say for certain what it was that attracted Henry III to the cult of the Edward the Confessor, the penultimate Anglo-Saxon King of England, though his devotion was real enough.

In The Reign of Henry III David Carpenter suggests the key period in the development of Henry's interest in the Edward cult came in the mid 1230s, closely tied up with a number of religious and political considerations. It's possible that the senior monks of Westminster, who had much to gain from the amplification of the Confessor, persuaded the king to take an interest in the native English saint. Henry also adopted Edward at the time of his marriage to Eleanor of Provence in 1236, suggesting that the acquisition of a personal saint was a sign of growing up.

The monarchy, moreover, was beginning to lose its Norman origins, acquiring a more English identity in the process. And what better way of doing this than by linking its destiny with that of an English royal saint. Henry was to take this one step further by giving his sons Edward and Edmund Anglo-Saxon names.

I should add that while Edward was certainly a suitable subject for devotion he was not the best model of Medieval kingship, which required altogether more earthly qualities. Henry's lavish devotions were high among the factors that led to a new round of baronial wars, in the course of which a far worldlier Edward came to the rescue of the crown.

Richard III, the English Macbeth

Given the ruthless politics of the day no usurper, no matter how wide his base of support, was content to allow a rival source of authority and legitimacy to live, which would have been a dangerous political miscalculation. It cannot be proved with certainty that Mortimer and Isabella ordered the murder of Edward II, just as it cannot be proved that Henry IV ordered the death of Richard II; but murdered they were and for obvious political reasons, as was Henry VI.

Now, as far as Richard III and his young nephews, Edward V and Richard, Duke of York, are concerned we have no direct evidence that he ordered their murder, and we are unlikely ever to have such evidence. But to assume that he allowed them to live would reverse all we know about the dynastic politics of the day. No serious historian of the period has any doubts that, on the balance of probability, he ordered their deaths. To argue, as the Ricardians do, that they survived into the reign of Henry VII, in dark obscurity, is to stretch what is credible to breaking point, and beyond.

What I can say-and those of you familiar with the Close Rolls, Pipe Rolls and Exchequer Rolls will understand this point-is that English records contain an amazing amount of detail on financial grants, wardship, maintenance allowances, even laundry bills and the like, often for some of the most obscure individuals.

For important state prisoners, like Edward and Richard of York, the detail is especially fulsome. The little Princes are there in abundance until the summer of 1483, when all mention of them ends. As far as the official records are concerned they had, by this time, ceased to exist. If they ceased to exist in record there is no surer guarantee that they had ceased to exist in fact. They were dead.

But, even so, I do not think that Richard was as bad a king, and as dark a tyrant, as made out by Sir Thomas More and his Tudor contemporaries. As Duke of Gloucester he had been an able lieutenant to his brother Edward IV; an able soldier, an able administrator and an able judge. He went on to be an able king, ruthless, yes, but no more so than any other monarch of the day. But, save for the circumstances of his coming, and of his going, his short reign is one of the least memorable in all of English history. It is almost certain that if it had not been for the hunchback villain created by Shakespeare that his reign would be little more than a footnote in the general record, of concern only to specialists. But as the dark monster-or the maligned hero-he will live for ever in the popular imagination.