Preview: A Bishop Confessor in Elizabeth I's Reign

After our Memorial Day break, I'll be back on the Son Rise Morning Show Monday, June 5 to discuss another of Father Henry Sebastian Bowden's Mementoes of the English Martyrs and Confessors. On at my usual time, about 6:50 a.m. Central/7:50 a.m. Eastern: please listen live here and/or listen to the podcast later here as we (Matt Swaim or Anna Mitchell and I) discuss Bowden's comments about Bishop David Poole or Pole of Peterborough, a Confessor (not proclaimed a saint but perhaps a martyr in chains in a cause never begun).

Bishop David Poole had a full academic and ecclesiastical career in the midst of Henry VIII's Great Marital Matters, according to the Dictionary of National Biography, although it's not clear from that source how he responded to Henry VIII's efforts to obtain a decree of nullity of his first marriage and how the king resolved that issue, but he must have taken the Oaths of Succession and Supremacy to hold the various offices listed below. Evidently, the date of his birth is not recorded, because he first

appears as a fellow of All Souls' College, Oxford, in 1520. He devoted himself to civil law, and graduated B.Can.L. on 2 July 1526 and D.Can.L. on 17 Feb. 1527-1528. In 1529 he became an advocate in Doctors' Commons. He was connected with the diocese of Lichfield, where he held many preferments, first under Bishop Geoffrey Blyth, and then under Bishop Rowland Lee. He was made prebendary of Tachbrook in Lichfield Cathedral on 11 April 1531, archdeacon of Salop in April 1536, and archdeacon of Derby on 8 Jan. 1542-3. He had previously received the high appointment of dean of the arches and vicar-general of the archbishop of Canterbury on 14 Nov. 1540.

Bishop Rowland Lee was certainly Henry VIII's man, accepting his appointment as the Bishop of Lichfield in 1534 "taking at his consecration the new oath to the king as head of the English Church and not seeking confirmation from the pope. As bishop he remained in Henry’s personal service, endeavouring to establish the legality of his marriage with Anne". Since 1533, Thomas Cranmer had been the Archbishop of Canterbury and in 1540, Henry VIII had been declared the Supreme Head and Governor of the Church of England by Parliament. When Poole was named an Archdeacon, the suppression of the Monasteries had begun. 

Note there's no information about his activities or offices during the reign of Edward VI at all. The 1900 Dictionary of National Biography picks up his career with this statement:

A conscientious adherent of the Roman catholic (sic) faith, he occupied several positions of importance during Mary's reign. In her first year he acted as vicar-general of the bishop of Lichfield (Richard Sampson) and commissioner for the deprivation of married priests (Strype, Memorials, vol. iii. pt. i. p. 168), and in his capacity of archdeacon he sat on the commission for the deprivation of Cranmer, Ridley, and Latimer, and the restoration of Bonner and other deprived bishops (ib. p. 36). He stood high in the favour of Cardinal Pole, said to be a relative, who appointed him his vicar-general (ib. p. 476). During the vacancy of the see of Lichfield on Bishop Sampson's death in 1554, he was appointed commissary for the diocese. In the early part of the same year he took part in the condemnation of Hooper and Taylor (ib. pp. 288, 290). On 25 April 1556 he was appointed on the commission to inquire after heretics, and to proceed against them. On the death of John Chambers, the first bishop of the newly formed diocese of Peterborough, the queen sent letters commendatory to Paul IV in Pole's favour. He was consecrated at Chiswick on 15 Aug. 1557 by Nicholas Heath [q. v.], archbishop of York.

Note that he was consecrated on the feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary and that Queen Mary I and Reginald Cardinal Pole, the Archbishop of Canterbury both died later that year on November 17.

Father Bowden recounts Bishop Poole standing up to Elizabeth I and maintaining his loyalty to the Catholic Church. It's commonly stated that while all the bishops but one (Saint John Fisher, martyr) acceded to Henry VIII's Supremacy, all the bishops appointed during Mary I's reign refused Elizabeth I's Supremacy and Reformation Parliament actions. Owen Oglethorpe of Carlisle did preside at her Coronation but all 20 (twenty) of the Catholic bishops in the House of Lords voted against her Act of Settlement in 1558.

Bowden notes that by the time of Elizabeth I's accession to the throne, Poole was a chronic invalid and received permission not to attend that first Parliament. "Old as he was, he could still bear his witness", Bowden states--Poole would be at least in his 70's if he received his degree before 1520 when he became a Fellow  at All Souls. "He refused to obey Elizabeth's behest" to consecrate Matthew Parker as Archbishop of Canterbury and "he preferred deposition to taking" her Oath of Supremacy. Deprived of his office, he was allowed for a time to live in Staffordshire with a Catholic gentleman, Brian Fowler. Thomas Bentham, Elizabeth I's bishop of Coventry and Lichfield, "represented his presence as injurious to the interests of religion, and he appears to have died in the Fleet [prison] in 1568".

Father Bowden gives this memento the title "Wisdom of the Ancients" and cites Ecclesiasticus/Sirach 8:11-12: "Let not the discourse of the ancients escape thee, for they have learned of their fathers: For of them thou shalt learn understanding, and to give an answer in time of need."

So what lessons do we draw from Bishop Poole's career? While he seems to have gone along with Henry VIII's Supremacy and take-over and remaking of the Church in his image--perhaps he retired from ecclesiastical office during Edward VI's reign?--he seems to have maintained the Catholic Faith and was ready to practice it fully under Mary I and Cardinal Pole. Finally, he was willing to refuse Elizabeth I's Supremacy and remaking of the Church when she came to the throne.

God gave him another opportunity to stand fast for the "Wisdom of the Ancients", the Fathers and Councils of the Church whom St. Thomas More and St. John Fisher and others cited before him. He took it, endured the consequences, and perhaps died as martyr in chains, although that's not certain. His Dictionary of National Biography entry, cited above, says he "was 'courteously treated by all persons among whom he lived, and at last' died 'on one of his farms in a good old age,' in May or June 1568 (Heylyn, Hist. of Reformation, anno 1559; Strype, Annals, vol. i. pt. i. pp. 214, 411)."

There is a stained glass depiction of Bishop Poole in St Mary's, Wellingborough, an Anglo-Catholic parish (refusing women's ordination in the Church of England), designed by Sir Ninian Comper in the Perpendicular Gothic Style.

May he rest in peace.

The Tudors and the Greenwich Church of the Observant Friars

This post ties in with our Son Rise Morning Show discussion today of the correspondence between Queen Catherine of England and Blessed John Forest because it demonstrates the close ties between the founder of the Tudor Dynasty, King Henry VII and the church or chapel of the Observant Friars at Greenwich. From the Medieval Manuscripts blog of the British Library, evidence of that linkage:

Greenwich Palace was a favourite of England’s Tudor monarchs. Beside the palace stood the church of the Observant Friars, founded in 1482. Being so close to a royal residence, the church played a regular part in royal ceremonies — Henry VIII, Mary I and Elizabeth I were all baptised there. This church had political and religious importance, which is reinforced by two manuscripts digitised for the Library’s Medieval and Renaissance Women project. Egerton MS 2341/1 and Egerton MS 2341/2 contain instructions for the glaziers creating the stained glass for the church’s East window. These instructions demonstrate how that window was designed to strengthen the new Tudor dynasty.

Probably originally a single roll, the two manuscripts are undated. They must have been written after 1489, when Margaret Tudor was born, as she is one of the individuals to be depicted in the window. In turn, they presumably pre-date the death of Elizabeth of York, Henry VII’s queen, in February 1503, as the text refers to her in the present tense. They may have been made in the early 1490s, and before the church was consecrated by April 1494.

The post goes on to describe the saints to be depicted in the stained glass windows, particularly all the Anglo-Saxon female saints and concludes:

By focusing on royal women from before the Norman Conquest, the window placed Henry, his queen and his daughter among a cohort of royal women stretching back over a thousand years. He could claim direct descent from St Margaret, the ancestor of every English king from Henry II onwards. She, in turn, was linked to several of these Saxon saints. This window presented a Tudor history that looked beyond the dynastic squabbles of the 15th century, using these women to emphasise Henry VII’s link to a more distant and less contentious Anglo-Saxon past.

This does make sense because Henry VII's claim to the throne was through his mother's lineage, not his father's. One of the saints featured was Saint Margaret of Scotland, wife of King Malcolm III. She was an English princess, according to the old Encyclopedia Britannica:

the daughter of the English prince Edward, son of Edmund Ironside, and sister of Edgar Ætheling, and was probably born in Hungary. In 1067 the widow and children of Edward fled from Northumberland with a large number of followers and sought the protection of the Scottish king. The marriage of Malcolm and Margaret soon took place and was followed by several invasions of Northumberland by the Scottish king, probably in support of the claims of his brother-in-law Edgar. These, however, had little result beyond the devastation of the province. Far more important were the effects of this alliance upon the history of Scotland. A considerable portion of the old Northumbrian kingdom had been reduced by the Scottish kings in the previous century, but up to this time the English population had little influence upon the ruling element of the kingdom. Malcolm’s marriage undoubtedly improved the condition of the English to a great extent, and under Margaret’s sons, Edgar, Alexander I. and David I., the Scottish court practically became anglicized. Margaret died on the 17th of November 1093, four days after her husband and her eldest son Edward, who were slain in an invasion of Northumberland. She rebuilt the monastery of Iona, and was canonized in 1251 on account of her great benefactions to the Church.

Her feast is celebrated on November 16. Most of her relics were lost (discarded) during the Scottish Reformation. One of her daughters, Maud or Matilda, married King Henry I of England, so she was good choice for Henry VII to highlight. As the blog post notes, not only his mother (Margaret Beaufort), but his eldest daughter was named Margaret too:

Another famous saint to be featured in the window was Margaret of Scotland, the granddaughter of Edmund Ironside and wife of Malcolm III, king of Scots. Their daughter, Maud (or Matilda), married Henry I of England, while Margaret’s great-grandson himself became king as Henry II. In an interesting historical parallel, Margaret, Henry VII’s daughter, who was to appear in the pane below St Margaret, would marry a Scottish king, like her saintly namesake, and have a great-grandson who would become king of England: James VI and I.

Saint Margaret of Scotland, pray for us!

Blessed and Venerable Martyrs of the Observant Franciscans of Greenwich, pray for us!

The Tudors and Renaissance England at the Met

I thought the Wall Street Journal review (might be behind a paywall!) was interesting, because it starts off by mentioning what's NOT in the Exhibition:

This is no stroll through the long gallery of Tudor-era celebrity. Sir Thomas More, the speaker of truth to power in Robert Bolt’s “A Man for All Seasons,” is here in Hans Holbein the Younger’s remorseless portrait of 1527, but More’s nemesis Thomas Cromwell, the manipulative meritocrat of Hilary Mantel’s “Wolf Hall,” is absent. Sea dogs such as Sir Francis Drake, the first man to circumnavigate the globe and survive, or lifelong diplomats like William Howard, who served four of the five Tudor monarchs, are nowhere at all. Of the all-rounders who exemplified the ideal of the Renaissance man, Sir Walter Raleigh appears only as the source of a set of porcelain and gilt “China dishes,” and Sir Philip Sidney, the soldier-poet who pioneered a theory of English literature, is missing in action. There are no portraits of Shakespeare, either.

That's because The Tudors: Art and Majesty in Renaissance England is not aimed a collecting lots of portraits from the Tudor era, but exploring the uses of art to display power and majesty, as reviewer Dominic Green explains:

Curated by the Metropolitan Museum’s Elizabeth Cleland and Adam Eaker, and gathering more than 100 objects from an impressive range of collections, this exhibition instead reframes the Tudors as patrons building a political myth. Its introductory gallery and five thematic zones (such as “Public and Private Faces,” “Languages of Ornament,” “Allegories and Icons”) catch the long arc of image projection.

Even if one can't go to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, the museum's website for the exhibit might be the next best thing to being there, as it provides 131-page booklet, the audio guide, and detailed visiting guide.

One more comment of Green's I cannot pass without my own reaction:

The imagery of power struggled to mask the political reality of dynastic weakness. His heir, the sickly boy-king Edward VI, died in 1553. Edward’s Catholic half-sister, Mary (reign 1553-1558), burned heretics as well as books, and preferred prayer to patronage.

Mary is the odd woman out in the Tudor lineup. The only Catholic among Henry VIII’s children, she risked England’s independence by marrying Philip II of Spain. Here, however, her familiar portrait by Hans Eworth emerges as a template of continuity, a source for the images of her half-sister, Elizabeth.

The second paragraph rather belies the first, doesn't it? It demonstrates that Mary I both understood her predecessor's use of portraiture to convey majesty, and provided Elizabeth I with a model for a female monarch. Also, his comment ignores the facts that Mary I was engaged, through her Archbishop of Canterbury and the surviving faithfully Catholic bishops, with restoring Catholic churches and teaching in the five years she reigned. While Green does mention that Henry VIII had that Catholic patrimony of art and books burned in the paragraph above, he doesn't mention that her father also burned--or hanged, drawn and quartered or mercifully beheaded--heretics, Catholic or Protestant. 

A Delayed Coronation: Elizabeth of York

Henry VII delayed not only his wedding to Elizabeth of York, daughter of Edward IV, until after his coronation (on October 30, 1485), but also her coronation. They were married on January 18, 1486 and she was crowned on November 25, 1487 after their first son and heir, Prince Arthur was born on September 20, 1486. Her coronation may have been delayed but it was appropriately celebrated, according to the Memoir of Elizabeth York in Privy purse expenses of Elizabeth of York: wardrobe accounts of Edward the Fourth, With a memoir of Elizabeth of York edited by Nicholas Harris Nicolas. The ceremonies began on November 23 and continued with her procession from the Tower of London to Westminster on November 24:

On Friday, the 23rd, the Queen left Greenwich by water for her coronation, of which a very interesting narrative is extant [from John Leland]. Arrayed in the robes of royalty, she was accompanied by the Countess of Richmond, her mother-in-law, and by an extensive retinue of peers and peeresses, and was escorted by the Lord-mayor, sheriffs, and aldermen of London. Each Company furnished elegant barges, decorated with silk banners and streamers, richly emblazoned with the arms and badges, and rowed by men dressed in the proper liveries, of the respective crafts. Amidst the various objects of attraction, the Bachelor's barge claimed particular notice for its superior splendour, and from its carrying a red dragon, the ensign of the house of Tudor, which spouted fire into the Thames. Music of all kinds lent its aid to enliven the scene, and, thus attended, her Majesty arrived at the Tower. As she entered it, she was received by the King in the most gracious manner, or, to use the words of the narrator himself, "the King's highness welcomed her in such manner and form, as was to all the estates and others there being present a very good sight, and right joyous and comfortable to behold." Eleven Knights of the Bath were then created; and on the next day, after dinner, her Majesty being "royally apparelled, in a kirtle of white cloth of gold of damask, and a mantle of the same suit, furred with ermine, fastened before her breast with a great lace, curiously wrought of gold and silk, and rich knobs of gold at the end, tasselled; her fair yellow hair hanging down plain behind her back, with a call of pipes over it, and wearing on her head a circle of gold, richly garnished with precious stones," quitted her chamber of state. Her train was borne by her sister, the Lady Cecily, and being attended by a great retinue of lords, ladies, and others, she entered her litter, in which she was conveyed to Westminster.

On November 25, her coronation as Queen Consort took place:

The next morning she was arrayed in a kirtle and mantle of purple velvet, furred with ermine laced in front, and wore in her hair a circle of gold richly set with pearls and other jewels. In this dress, she proceeded to Westminster Hall, where she remained under a canopy of state until the procession was ready. From the place where she stood to the pulpit in the Abbey the ground was covered with new ray cloth, and the struggle of the crowd to cut it to pieces after she passed was extremely great. The Earl of Arundel bore the staff with the dove, the Duke of Suffolk the sceptre, and the Duke of Bedford, who was bareheaded, the crown. On one side, her Majesty was supported by the Bishop of Winchester, and on the other, by the Bishop of Ely, and she was immediately followed by the Princess Cecily, who held her train. In this order she entered the west door of Westminster Abbey, and took her seat near the pulpit, when the usual ceremonies were performed; after which she returned to the Palace at Westminster. The King was a spectator from a handsome latticed stage, between the pulpit and the high altar, where also stood his mother, and many other ladies of rank.

Notice that there's no description of "the usual ceremonies"! This blog provides some information, based upon the last coronation of a Queen Consort performed in England on May 12, 1937, when King George VI and Queen Elizabeth, the present Queen Elizabeth II's parents, were crowned:

Once the King receives the Sovereign’s Ring, the Sceptre and the Rod, the Archbishop places St Edward’s Crown on the Sovereign’s head and prayers start. If there is a Queen Consort, she is crowned at this point in a very simple ceremony immediately before homage is paid: the Queen is Crowned and anointed under the same canopy which was used for the King. Just like the King, the Queen Consort also has her Crown (typically, a new one made for her) and the Coronation Ring (the Consort’s Ring). Once the short ceremony is over, the Communion interrupted earlier is resumed and completed.

That coronation took place in the context of the King Regnant's ceremony, however. King Henry VIII had Anne Boleyn crowned as Queen Consort on June 1, 1533 but this description is rather lacking in detail too:

She prostrated herself before the High Altar, then, once more on her feet, received the Crown of St Edward, the rod and the sceptre, from the Archbishop of Canterbury. A Te Deum was sung, before Anne returned to preside over the extravagant coronation feast at Westminster Hall.

Like his father, Henry VIII waited until Anne was delivered of a baby who seemed likely to survive (the Princess Elizabeth) before crowning her. The changes that had taken place in England between 1487 and 1533 are remarkable, however, especially in religious practice and context.

One of Wolsey's Predecessors: Thomas Rotherham

Image Credit

Yesterday, we celebrated Blessed Margaret Pole, survivor of the Wars of the Roses and martyr during Henry VIII's English Reformation. Today, some biographical information about a Lord Chancellor and Archbishop of York at the end of those Wars and the beginning of the Tudor Dynasty, Thomas Rotherham, from the Dictionary of National Biography. He was Keeper of the Privy Seal and Lord Chancellor for King Edward IV and concelebrated his Funeral Mass, and then he sided with Edward's widow and heirs:

Rotherham's fidelity to Elizabeth led to the forfeiture of the chancellorship. At the death of Edward IV (9 April 1483) the vantage of power seemed in the queen and her kindred. Before the month closed the boy king was in Gloucester's hands, the queen's brother, Lord Rivers, and her son, Lord Grey, were imprisoned, and the queen herself was seeking sanctuary. Lord Hastings assured Rotherham that there was no danger to the young king, and that all would be well. ‘Be it as well as it will,’ was Rotherham's reply, ‘it will never be as well as we have seen it.’ He hastened with his retinue of servants in the middle of the night to the queen, and found her sitting on the rushes among the trunks and household stuff for her use in sanctuary. Rotherham assured her of his loyalty, declared that if anything should happen to the young king he would crown the next brother, the Duke of York, who was still with the queen, and, as the greatest proof of faithfulness he could give, put the great seal into her hands. This surrender was of course indefensible, and after a few hours' reflection he sent for the seal again. But for his action that night he was deprived of office before the end of May, and on 13 June, concurrently with the hurried and brutal execution of Hastings, he was thrown into prison. In some editions of the ‘History of Richard III’ assigned to Sir Thomas More, and in Holinshed's and Stowe's ‘Chronicles,’ Rotherham appears as a consenting party to the next move of the Duke of Gloucester, by which he gained the delivery of the little Duke of York out of his mother's hands in sanctuary through Bourchier the archbishop of Canterbury; but the actual date of that transaction (16 June) given by the Croyland continuator proves that Rotherham was then in prison. After the coronation of Richard at the beginning of July he was released. But he took no share in the splendid reception of the king and queen shortly afterwards at York. According to the York register, although Richard lodged at the archbishop's palace, Rotherham himself was not present, the bishop of Durham being the officiating prelate (, Hist. of the Metropolitan Church of York, pp. 260–1). He did not wholly withdraw from public affairs. He appears as one of the commissioners at Nottingham for managing a marriage ‘between the Prince of Scottes and one of the Kinge's blood’ (1484), and was among the triers of petitions in the parliaments of Richard and Henry VII until 1496. He attended, although ‘not in pontificals,’ the creation of Henry (afterwards Henry VIII) as Duke of York, and at the three days' jousts which followed (1494) (Gairdner, Letters … illustrative of the Reigns of Richard and Henry VII, pp. 64, 393, 403).

Rotherham ranks among the great benefactors of the two English universities. Oxford lay within his diocese of Lincoln, and he was visitor of Lincoln College. At the time of his first visitation (1474) the college was in great distress. Through the carelessness of a scribe the charter it had received from Edward IV about twelve years before had been so drawn that the crown claimed to resume its grants to it. In the course of a sermon before the bishop, the rector, or one of the fellows, described the desolate condition of the college, and appealed to him for help. Rotherham's response was immediate and thorough. For the present needs of the college he made it an annual grant of 5l. for his life. He afterwards built the southern side of the quadrangle. He impropriated the benefices of Long Combe and Twyford to the endowment; obtained from Edward IV a larger charter, which confirmed the college perpetually in its old rights of property, and in 1480 gave the college a new body of statutes. For these great services he was styled the second founder of Lincoln; his portrait, now removed, was placed in the Bodleian among the benefactors of Oxford and another portrait, in cope and mitre, with a crosier in his hand—the gift, according to tradition, of Bishop Saunderson—hangs in the college hall at Lincoln (Clark, The Colleges of Oxford, pp. 171–6). Cambridge, Rotherham's own university, chose him several times her chancellor (1469, 1473, 1475, 1478, 1483), and petitioned Gloucester to release him from captivity in 1483. The completion of the schools, which had been proceeding slowly for several years, was due to his munificence. The eastern front, with its noble gateway, and the library on its first floor, enriched by him with two hundred volumes, were his special work. His arms also are still visible on the tower of St. Mary's, which he helped to repair (Guest, Rotherham, p. 94; Robert Willis, Architectural Hist. of Cambridge, ed. Clark, iii. 13–15). He was elected also master of Pembroke Hall (1480), and held the office for six years, and perhaps longer (Wrenn MS.)

He died on the 29th of May in 1500. He appears in Shakespeare's Richard III, Act 2, Scene 4. His speech ends the scene:

My gracious lady, go;
And thither bear your treasure and your goods.
For my part, I'll resign unto your grace
The seal I keep: and so betide to me
As well I tender you and all of yours!
Come, I'll conduct you to the sanctuary.

St. Philip Howard's Maternal Grandfather

Henry FitzAlan, grandfather of St. Philip Howard, was born on April 23, 1512. He was the 12th Earl of Arundel and the last FitzAlan to hold that title, which upon his death on February 24, 1580, was inherited by Philip through his mother, Mary FitzAlan, Henry's third daughter, who had married Thomas Howard, the 4th Duke of Norfolk. FitzAlan served Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary I, and Elizabeth I to various degrees of success and failure, sometimes in grave danger, according to the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica entry:

He was one of the twelve counsellors nominated in Henry VIII.’s will to assist the executors, but he had little power during the protectorship of Somerset or the ascendancy of Warwick (afterwards duke of Northumberland), and in 1550 by the latter’s device he was accused of embezzlement, removed from the council, confined to his house, and fined £12,000—£8000 of this sum being afterwards remitted and the charges never being proved. Subsequently he allied himself with Somerset, and was implicated in 1551 in the latter’s plot against Northumberland, being imprisoned in the Tower in November. On the 3rd of December 1552, though he had never been brought to trial, he signed a submission and confession before the privy council, and was liberated after having been again heavily fined. As Edward’s reign drew to its close, Arundel’s support was desired by Northumberland to further his designs on the throne for his family, and he was accordingly reinstated in the council and discharged of his fine. In June 1553 he opposed Edward’s “device” for the succession, which passed over his sisters Mary and Elizabeth as illegitimate, and left the crown to the children of the duchess of Suffolk, and alone of the council refused the “engagement” to support it, though he signed the letters patent. On the death of Edward (July 6, 1553) he ostensibly joined in furthering the duke’s plans, but secretly took measures to destroy them, and according to some accounts sent a letter to Mary the same evening informing her of Edward’s death and advising her to retreat to a place of security. Meanwhile he continued to attend the meetings of the council, signed the letter to Mary declaring her illegitimacy and Lady Jane Grey’s right to the throne, accompanied Northumberland to announce to Jane her accession, and urged Northumberland to leave London and place himself at the head of the forces to attack Mary, wishing him God-speed on his departure. In Northumberland’s absence, he gained over his fellow-councillors, and having succeeded with them in getting out of the Tower, called an assembly of the corporation and chief men of the city, denounced Northumberland, and had Mary proclaimed queen, subsequently riding off to join her with the Great Seal at Framlingham. On the 20th of July he secured Northumberland at Cambridge, and returned in triumph with Mary to London on the 3rd of August, riding before her with the sword of state. 

Rewarded for his assistance:

He was now made a privy councillor and lord steward, and was granted several favours and privileges, acting as high constable at the coronation, and obtaining the right to create sixty knights. He took a prominent part in various public acts of the reign, was a commissioner to treat for the queen’s marriage, presided at the trial of the duke of Suffolk, assisted in suppressing Wyatt’s rebellion in 1554, was despatched on foreign missions, and in September 1555 accompanied Philip to Brussels. The same year he received, together with other persons, a charter under the name of the Merchant Adventurers of England, for the discovery of unknown lands, and was made high steward of Oxford University, being chosen chancellor in 1559, but resigning his office in the same year. In 1557, on the prospect of the war with France, he was appointed lieutenant-general of the forces for the defence of the country, and in 1558 attended the conference at the abbey of Cercamp for the negotiation of a peace. He returned to England on the death of Mary in November 1558, and is described to Philip II. at that time as “going about in high glee, very smart” and with hopes of marrying the queen, but as “flighty” and of “small ability.”

Things did not go smoothly for him under Elizabeth I because he was a staunch Catholic:

He was reinstated in all his offices by Elizabeth, served as high constable at her coronation, and was visited several times by the queen at Nonsuch in Surrey. As a Roman Catholic he violently opposed the arrest of his co-religionists and the war with Scotland, and in 1560 came to blows with Lord Clinton in the queen’s presence on a dispute arising on those questions. He incurred the queen’s displeasure in 1562 by holding a meeting at his house during her illness to consider the question of the succession and promote the claims of Lady Catherine Grey. In 1564, being suspected of intrigues against the government, he was dismissed from the lord-stewardship and confined to his house, but was restored to favour in December. In March 1566 he went to Padua, but being summoned back by the queen he returned to London accompanied by a large cavalcade on the 17th of April 1567. Next year he served on the commission of inquiry into the charges against Mary, queen of Scots. 

He got involved in Norfolk's plots to become Mary, Queen of Scots' fourth husband (even though the Earl of Bothwell, imprisoned in Denmark, was still alive), and worked with Philip II of Spain to overthrow Elizabeth:

Subsequently he furthered the marriage of Mary with the duke of Norfolk, his son-in-law, together with the restoration of the Roman Catholic religion and government, and deposition of Elizabeth, in collusion with Spain. He made use of the incident in 1568, of the seizure of treasure at Southampton intended for Philip, as a means of effecting Cecil’s overthrow, and urged upon the Spanish government the stoppage of trade. He is described in 1569 to Philip as having “good intentions,” “whilst benefiting himself as he was very needy.” In January he alarmed Elizabeth by communicating to her a supposed Spanish project for aiding Mary and replacing her on her throne, and put before the queen in writing his own objections to the adoption of extreme measures against her. In June he received with Norfolk and Lumley 6000 crowns from Philip. In September, on the discovery of Norfolk’s plot, he was arrested, but not having committed himself sufficiently to incur the charge of treason in the northern rebellion he escaped punishment, was released in March 1570, and was recalled by Leicester to the council with the aim of embarrassing Cecil. He again renewed his treasonable intrigues, which were at length to some extent exposed by the discovery of the Ridolfi plot in September 1571. He was once more arrested, and not liberated till December 1572 after Norfolk’s execution.

He is fortunate to have died in bed after being nursed by his eldest daughter, Jane Lumley, Baroness Lumley at Arundel Castle, before she predeceased him in 1578. He was buried in the chapel. His son and heir Henry had died in 1556; Jane and John Lumley, Baron Lumley had no children; and Thomas Howard, the 4th Duke of Norfolk and his son-in-law having been executed on June 2, 1572, Philip Howard became the 13th Earl of Arundel. Sometimes Henry is designated the 19th Earl of Arundel and Philip the 20th.

Arthur Tudor, Prince of Wales: RIP

On April 2, 1502, Arthur Tudor, the Prince of Wales, died at Ludlow Castle in Wales. He and his bride, Katherine of Aragon, the Princess of Wales, had become ill from some sweating sickness in March of 1502: she recovered; he did not.

Sean Cunningham discusses the repercussions of Arthur's death on his widow and his younger brother Henry, the Duke of York, for the BBC History Magazine:

The five months that Catherine and Arthur spent together in 1501–02 must have created intense memories for Catherine. For Henry VII’s other surviving son, Henry, Prince Arthur perhaps stirred different recollections. Henry VIII’s divorce of Catherine was secured without the truth of events in his brother’s marriage-bed being established. By 1530, the need to know the intimate details of Catherine’s first marriage forced Henry VIII to think deeply about his dead brother.

Arthur and Henry were alive together for only 11 years. As duke of York, Prince Henry was mindful that all of his father’s attention was diverted towards preparing Arthur to rule. Prince Henry stayed around the royal household and during Arthur’s life he received little training for a role as a loyal supporter of his brother’s future reign. Arthur’s residence at Ludlow meant that they met only at state occasions and probably a few other unrecorded times. Arthur seems to have shouldered the burdens of personal rule from an early age, whereas Henry used his charm and attractiveness to master the social side of courtly life. That trained Henry to be a political manipulator, but did little to involve him in the mechanics of government before his brother’s death. By then, Henry’s love of the good things about court and household was deeply engrained. Yet, as Prince Henry entered his teenage years, his father had to force him into a new role as Prince of Wales, with all the responsibilities that went with it. Arthur’s death came as the king’s old friends were also beginning to die off. These personal losses created the pressure to expand the Tudor royal family – something that led directly to the death of Queen Elizabeth in childbirth on her 37th birthday, 11 February 1503.

We cannot know if the 11-year-old child Henry somehow blamed Arthur for the change in his circumstances or for the death of their mother. A manuscript illustration recently identified in the National Library of Wales (Vaux Passional, Peniarth MS 482D) shows the court in mourning for the queen, with a young Prince Henry sobbing separately in the background. A few years later, Henry would have realised that he could not have become king had his brother lived a healthy adult life; so his feelings, eventually, must have been mixed. Henry kept Arthur’s portrait and some of his books and clothes but also maintained a lifelong fear of infectious disease. He seems to have loved Arthur deeply, but more as a memory of princely virtue than as an elder sibling with whom he had shared any childhood time. The nature of Arthur’s sudden death preyed on Henry’s mind the longer he went without a male heir. That failure was a major factor in the annulment of Henry’s marriage to Queen Catherine.

Cunningham, author of Prince Arthur: The Tudor King Who Never Was (Stroud, Gloucestershire: Amberley, 2017), concludes:

Henry had followed in Arthur’s footsteps as second son, second Prince of Wales, and from 11 June 1509, second husband to Catherine of Aragon. Whatever he learned about Arthur’s character surely came through conversations after 1502 with Catherine and others who had known Arthur in the Welsh Marches. His own memories of his brother must have been limited and idealised. Arthur probably remained a mysterious figure to the second Tudor king, but he was a prince whose short life had a profound impact upon England’s subsequent history.

The KING'S Bedpost: A Model in its Genre

The genre I'm referring to is the reinterpretation or correction of a common theory about a historical object or event, suggesting another, accepted view is incorrect or incomplete.

The late Margaret Aston took on Roy Strong's dating of the allegorical painting Edward VI and the Pope in this wonderfully illustrated and elegantly argued exploration of religious issues during Elizabeth I's reign. Aston does it with such good humour and careful explanation that I think that even Roy Strong wouldn't mind her suggestion that he was wrong to date this painting to the reign of Edward VI, even though it seems to depict events occurring while that new Josiah was on the throne and his Protectors and Council were implementing a truly Calvinist and iconoclastic Reformation in England.

Much of Aston's evidence is graphic as she dates the sphinx-like bedpost at the bottom of Henry VIII's bed, and indeed Henry VIII's posture, including the hand on his knee and the pointing finger, by citing another image, created after both Edward and Mary I reigned, on the Continent by Peter Galle in 1564. Aston also found a drawing of the Fall of Babel dating to 1567 upon which the inset picture of the destruction of idols could be based. Those two models take the allegorical picture out of Edward VI's reign and into Elizabeth's reign.

Aston then describes how in the minds of many Puritans, Elizabeth was not as strong on the destruction of idols as she should be. She refused, for example, to get rid of the crucifix and candles on the altar in her private chapel; nor would she allow the Eleanor Cross in Cheapside, which included an image of the Blessed Virgin Mary and Jesus on a panel, to be destroyed. She was not the Josiah her brother had been at all.

John Martiall (1534-97), an English Catholic living in exile rejoiced that Elizabeth prayed before a Crucifix. He wrote A Treatyse of the Crosse, gathred out of the Scriptures, Councelles, and auncient Fathers of the Primitiue Church in 1564 and dedicated it to Elizabeth! James Calfhill of Oxford responded with Answer to the Treatise of the Crosse and Martiall wrote again in response to Calfhill with A Replie to M. Calfhills "blasphemous Answer made against the Treatise of the Crosse.

Numerous attempts were made to persuade Elizabeth to get rid of that Crucifix and it was even destroyed by a couple of visitors to the chapel. Calvinists preached sermons to her; courtiers counselled her, and even common men wrote to her, but she replaced the Crucifix and candlesticks again and was adamant that they would remain in her chapel! She did stop having the candles lit.

This allegory would have been a reminder to her that only the strong leadership of a Josiah or Hezekiah, or other great Old Testament king, could contend with the dangers of the Papacy--which she well knew as a source of rebellion against--and Popery. To demonstrate that leadership she had to destroy all the idols in England, in her chapel and in her capital.

Aston also describes the predicament of Thomas Howard, the son of Henry Howard, the Earl of Surrey, and father of St. Philip Howard. She suggests that this painting, with the depiction of the two Seymour brothers, Edward and Thomas, who brought down his father and grandfather at the end of Henry VIII's reign, would have been a warning to him to stop flirting with Popery by plotting to marry the deposed Mary Stuart of Scotland, at that time a "guest" of Elizabeth. John Foxe, who had been Howard's tutor, urged him to avoid the grave danger he was getting into and to return absolutely to the strong Calvinist doctrine he had taught him.

Aston does not contend that she has proved beyond a doubt that she is right about either of these theories, but this article notes that later scientific research did prove she was right about the dating of the painting:

Twenty years later, in 2013 (and possibly as a result of Aston’s work), King Edward VI and the Pope was chosen as one of three portraits to be renovated by the National Portrait Gallery through support of an art conservation project. This project confirmed the theory of a later production date. Dendrochronological analysis helped researchers conclude that the panel was made from a tree that was felled between 1574 and 1590.

This is really masterful work, explaining many facets of the English Reformation through the analysis of an allegorical painting which is not really a great work of art but a fascinating image nonetheless. 

Bishop Edmund Bonner, RIP

Bishop Edmund Bonner, who at first accepted Henry VIII's supremacy and takeover of the Church in England, died on September 5, 1569 in Marshalsea Prison. As the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica describes his career during the latter part of Henry's reign and Edward VI's more radical Reformation:

Hitherto Bonner had been known as a somewhat coarse and unscrupulous tool of Cromwell, a sort of ecclesiastical Wriothesley, He is not known to have protested against any of the changes effected by his masters; he professed to be no theologian, and was wont, when asked theological questions, to refer his interrogators to the divines. He had graduated in law, and not in theology. There was nothing in the Reformation to appeal to him, except the repudiation of papal control; and he was one of those numerous Englishmen whose views were faithfully reflected in the Six Articles. He became a staunch Conservative, and, apart from his embassy to the emperor in 1524–1543, was mainly occupied during the last years of Henry's reign in brandishing the “whip with six strings.”

The accession of Edward VI opened a fresh and more creditable chapter in Bonner's career. Like Gardiner, he could hardly repudiate that royal supremacy, in the establishment of which he had been so active an agent; but he began to doubt that supremacy when he saw to what uses it could be put by a Protestant council, and either he or Gardiner evolved the theory that the royal supremacy was in abeyance during a royal minority. The ground was skilfully chosen, but it was not legally nor constitutionally tenable. Both he and Gardiner had in fact sought fresh licences to exercise their ecclesiastical jurisdiction from the young king; and, if he was supreme enough to confer jurisdiction, he was supreme enough to issue the injunctions and order the visitation to which Bonner objected. Moreover, if a minority involved an abeyance of the royal supremacy in the ecclesiastical sphere, it must do the same in the temporal sphere, and there could be nothing but anarchy. It was on this question that Bonner came into conflict with Edward's government. He resisted the visitation of August 1547, and was committed to the Fleet; but he withdrew his opposition, and was released in time to take an active part against the government in the parliament of November 1547. In the next session, November 1548-March 1549, he was a leading opponent of the first Act of Uniformity and Book of Common Prayer. When these became law, he neglected to enforce them, and on the 1st of September 1549 he was required by the council to maintain at St Paul's Cross that the royal authority was as great as if the king were forty years of age. He failed to comply, and after a seven days' trial he was deprived of his bishopric by an ecclesiastical court over which Cranmer presided, and was sent to the Marshalsea. The fall of Somerset in the following month raised Bonner's hopes, and he appealed from Cranmer to the council. After a struggle the Protestant faction gained the upper hand, and on the 7th of February 1550 Bonner's deprivation was confirmed by the council sitting in the Star Chamber, and he was further condemned to perpetual imprisonment.

Because Edward VI died in 1553, that perpetual imprisonment did not last that long. He participated in the ecclesiastical investigations of heresy, but the Catholic Encyclopedia notes that the image of him as "Bloody Bonner", presented by Foxe and Bale, had been corrected in later centuries:

Tardy justice is now being done to his memory by historians, Catholic and Protestant alike, yet there remains immense prejudice against his memory in the popular mind. Nor could this be otherwise in face of the calumnies that have been. repeated by tradition. The reckless charges of Bale and Foxe were repeated by Burnet Hume, and others, who join in representing him as an inhuman persecutor, "a man of profligate manners and of a brutal character, who seemed to rejoice in the torments of the unhappy sufferers" (Hume c. xxxvii). The first historian of note to challenge this verdict was the Catholic, Lingard, though even he wrote in a very tentative way and it was by an Anglican historian, S.R. Maitland, that anything like justice was first done to Bonner. This writer's analysis remains the most discriminating summary of the bishop's character. "Setting aside declamation and looking at the details of facts left by those who may be called, if people please, Bonner's victims, and their friends, we find, very consistently maintained, the character of a man, straightforward and hearty, familiar and humorous, sometimes rough, perhaps coarse, naturally hot tempered, but obviously (by the testimony of his enemies) placable and easily intreated, capable of bearing most patiently much intemperate and insolent language, much reviling and low abuse directed against himself personally, against his order, and against those peculiar doctrines and practices of his church for maintaining which he had himself suffered the loss of all things, and borne long imprisonment. At the same time not incapable of being provoked into saying harsh and passionate things, but much more frequently meaning nothing by the threatenings and slaughter which he breathed out, than to intimidate those on whose ignorance and simplicity argument seemed to be thrown away-in short, we can scarcely read with attention any one of the cases detailed by those who were no friends of Bonner, without seeing in him a judge who (even if we grant that he was dispensing bad laws badly) was obviously desirous to save the prisoner's life." This verdict has been generally followed by later historians, and the last word has been added, for the present, in. the recently published volume on the Reformation, in the "Cambridge Modern History" planned by Lord Acton (1903) where the statement is expressly made: "It is now generally admitted that the part played by Bonner was not that attributed to him by Foxe, of a cruel bigot who exulted in sending his victims to the stake. The number of those put to death in his diocese of London was undoubtedly disproportionately large, but this would seem to have been more the result of the strength of the reforming element in the capital and in Essex than of the employment of exceptional rigor; while the evidence also shows that he himself patiently dealt with many of the Protestants, and did his best to induce them to renounce what he conscientiously believed to be their errors."

Even A.F. Pollard, a definite Whig historian, in the Encyclopedia Britannica tries to be more balanced in his view of Bishop Bonner:

On the other hand, Bonner did not go out of his way to persecute; many of his victims were forced upon him by the council, which sometimes thought that he had not been severe enough (see Acts of the P.C. 1554–1556, pp. 115, 139; 1556–1558, pp. 18, 19, 216, 276). So completely had the state dominated the church that religious persecutions had become state persecutions, and Bonner was acting as an ecclesiastical sheriff in the most refractory district of the realm. Even Foxe records instances in which Bonner failed to persecute. But he had no mercy for a fallen foe; and he is seen at his worst in his brutal jeers at Cranmer, when he was entrusted with the duty of degrading his former chief. It is a more remarkable fact that, in spite of his prominence, neither Henry VIII. nor Mary should ever have admitted him to the privy council. He seems to have been regarded by his own party as a useful instrument, especially in disagreeable work, rather than as a desirable colleague.

Pollard describes Bonner's last years:

On her accession Elizabeth refused to allow him to kiss her hand; but he sat and voted in the parliament and convocation of 1559. In May he refused to take the oath of supremacy, acquiring like his colleagues consistency with old age. He was sent to the Marshalsea, and a few years later was indicted on a charge of praemunire on refusing the oath when tendered him by his diocesan, Bishop Horne of Winchester. He challenged the legality of Horne's consecration, and a special act of parliament was passed to meet the point, while the charge against Bonner was withdrawn. He died in the Marshalsea on the 5th of September 1569, and was buried in St George's, Southwark, at midnight to avoid the risk of a hostile demonstration.

Sir Thomas Denys, RIP

Sir Thomas Denys of Devon died on February 18, 1561. Reading his biography on the History of Parliament website demonstrates to me once again how careful English MPs and officials had to be during the Tudor era:

With the rise of Wolsey, Denys found himself serving both King and minister. He took part in the Tournai campaign of 1513 but was knighted only in the following year. It was because of his new status ‘and for other considerations’—doubtless his call to be elsewhere—that in February 1515 he was excused the marshalship of his inn. In that year he is mentioned as one of those employed by Wolsey to victual the army abroad, a capacity in which he probably served again in 1523. He eventually became chamberlain of Wolsey’s household, an appointment which he retained until the cardinal’s death and which served him and his family well: by 1530 his services were retained by the majority of monastic houses and boroughs in Devon, while his friendship with another of Wolsey’s servants, Cromwell, was to prove an insurance for the future.5

So he could have been affected by the fall of Wolsey but his friendship with Thomas Cromwell saved him from losing his influence and position. Note that there were about 20 monasteries (abbeys and priories) in Devon before the Dissolution.

His closeness to Wolsey neither deterred nor debarred Denys from sitting in the Parliament which joined in the cardinal’s overthrow, and he seems to have been equally unaffected by his place in the household of Princess Mary: for the rest, his standing and influence in the shire must have made him an obvious partner for his friend Sir William Courtenay I. His attendance was interrupted by ill-health. He twice excused himself to Cromwell for not making the journey from Devon for the third session when he had a poisoned leg, and for the final one when he was forced to keep his bed: on the first of these occasions Denys was again sheriff and ten days after reporting his disability he supervised the burning of the heretic Thomas Benet at Exeter. His part in the proceedings of this Parliament is glimpsed only in its seventh session, when his name occurs in a list of Members written by Cromwell on the back of a letter of December 1534: the Members concerned are thought to have had a particular connexion with the treason bill then passing through Parliament, perhaps as belonging to a committee, and Denys would have been appropriately included as a lawyer, household official and friend of Cromwell. His attachment to the minister was strengthened about this time by the marriage of his step-daughter to Richard Cromwell alias Williams*, and early in 1534 he had been rewarded with an authority to grant export licences for tin.6

See the entry for Thomas Benet in Foxe's Book of Martyrs.

But then Denys ran into some trouble:

The years which followed saw Denys’s hitherto unruffled progress placed at risk. In January 1538 he wrote to Cromwell to rebut accusations that he had concealed a robbery, was a papist, and ‘hung at other men’s sleeves’. The second of these charges he met by affirming his acceptance of the supreme headship—for which he and Sir William Kingston had found precedent in the description of the King as vicarius Christiin ‘a book called Bracton’ recommended to them by Cromwell three years ago—while to the third he declared that he was no man’s save the King’s, and that the fee of £4 a year and mastership of game which he had ‘from a great man’ he would surrender if the King so wished. As the great man was the Marquess of Exeter, who before the year was out would be executed for alleged treason, Cromwell’s reassurance that the King would consign to oblivion the complaints against Denys, and would remain his very good lord, could not have spared its recipient continuing apprehension, perhaps reflected in his plea to the minister to help advance his children. Two years later he had cause for fresh anxiety when it was Cromwell’s turn to go down, although as in 1529 Denys was again a Member of the Parliament which abetted that process. He had also been made chancellor to the new Queen whose rejection had preceded the palace revolution.8

So he survived another crisis when Anne of Cleves was replaced by Katherine Howard and Cromwell was attainted and beheaded. He received grants of two monasteries: the Cistercian house of Buckfast Abbey (not to be confused with the modern foundation of a Benedictine house there) and St. Nicholas Priory, a Benedictine house in Exeter. Denys also paid rent on grants of land from Shirborne Abbey in Dorset (the nave is pictured from a Wikipedia Commons photo, used with permission), and the Cistercian Abbey of the Vale of St. Mary in Croxen. From the latter, somehow the Uttoxeter Casket, an Anglo-Saxon era reliquary survived. More about it here.

When Sir Thomas Denys died on February 18, 1561, he had survived the reigns of Edward VI and Mary I; his age prevented him from serving Elizabeth I. He left his son a great estate, gained through the grants and the selling and renting of lands obtained through the Dissolution of the Monasteries.

Montagu and Exeter Executed

On January 9, 1539, Henry Pole, Baron Montagu and Henry Courtenay, Marquess of Exeter were beheaded on Tower Hill, victims of the so-called Exeter Conspiracy. As the Tudor Times notes, other family members were still held in the Tower, including Margaret Pole, Montagu's mother, the Countess of Salisbury; Gertrude (nee Blount, daughter of William Blount, Baron Mountjoy), Marchioness of Exeter; and Jane (nee Neville), the Baroness Montagu:

Neither Lady Salisbury, nor Lady Exeter were tried. Lady Salisbury was moved to the Tower, and summarily executed in 1541, with no trial or formal charge ever having been made against her.

Lady Exeter was released in 1539, and given a pension, although the Exeter estates remained confiscated.

The two boys remained in the Tower. Henry Pole, Montague's son, disappeared and Edward Courtenay, Exeter's son, remained imprisoned until 1553.

The Tudor Times also presents some theories about why Henry VIII and Thomas Cromwell, on pretty flimsy evidence, accused these families of treason and acted against them:

Others historians are in agreement with the contemporary European assessment about dynastic fears. Both France and the Empire believed that Henry's concerns were dynastic, and that he wished to annihilate the remaining members of the House of York. Exeter was his first cousin and grandson of Edward IV, and Montague was Edward IV's great-nephew. M L Bush and Dr David Starkey disagree with this assessment, pointing to the favour shown by Henry to his relatives.

Far more worrying than a claim by Montague or Exeter was the idea that his "illegitimate" daughter, Mary, might marry Reginald Pole (who, despite being a Cardinal was not actually a priest) and be placed on the throne by a popular uprising. Mary's reinstatement in the succession had been a demand of the Pilgrimage of Grace, and the Poles and Exeters had been strong supporters of Mary and her mother, Katharine of Aragon. Henry would have been determined to protect his baby son, Edward, at all costs.

Another theory is that the Poles were being punished for Reginald Pole's activities abroad and certainly, if Reginald had not written De Unitate and not attempted to provoke an invasion, then Geoffrey would not have been committing treason by corresponding with him or trying to join him. However, this does not seem to account entirely for the charges against Exeter, Nevill and Carew.

Here's a link to the timeline of events.

Jane Pole, the Baronness of Montagu, was released in 1540 while Edward Courtenay, Montagu's son, was held in the Tower until the accession of Mary I in 1553--held for 15 years in the Tower without specific charge, trial or conviction, except that he was the son of a traitor. Mary I named him the first Earl of Devon, and there was talk that he would be a good match for her as a native, noble English consort. Things did not work out that way, however, and he ended up in exile.

Margaret Pole was held in the Tower until May 27, 1541 when she was brutally beheaded (without charge, trial, or conviction). That must be one of the low points of Thomas Cromwell's career as Henry VIII's henchman. Henry Pole, junior we could call him, Montagu's son, was held in the Tower until his death in late 1542--Alison Weir believes of starvation.

Image Credit: Henry Courtenay, KG, shown 2nd from left wearing a mantle displaying the arms of Courtenay, with in the 1st quarter the Royal arms of England within a bordure counter-changed, detail from procession of Garter Knights in the Black Book of the Garter, c.1535, Royal Collection, Windsor.

Image Credit: Portrait of Edward Courtenay, 1st Earl of Devon (1526 - 1556). In background a ruined castle, possibly Tiverton Castle, seat of the Earls of Devon

Tallis is dead, and Music dies

Thomas Tallis died on November 23, 1585 (Julian Calendar). William Byrd wrote this elegy for his colleague:

Ye sacred Muses, race of Jove, whom 

Music's lore delighteth,

Come down from crystal heav'ns above

to earth where sorrow dwelleth,

In mourning weeds, with tears in eyes:

Tallis is dead, and Music dies.

As Naxos notes, the religious changes of the Tudor dynasty influenced Tallis's career and composition styles:

The career of the English composer Thomas Tallis spans the troubled period of the reign of Henry VIII, with the sequestration of monastic property, the Protestant regime of his successor, the re-establishment of Catholicism under Queen Mary, and the subsequent changes under Queen Elizabeth. These political and religious upheavals had an obvious effect on music and musicians. Tallis began his career as organist at the Benedictine Priory at Dover, followed by similar service at Waltham Abbey until the dissolution of the monasteries in 1540. He was then organist at Canterbury Cathedral and in 1543 became a Gentleman of the Chapel Royal, a position he retained until his death. Like Byrd, his pupil, he seems to have remained loyal to the old religion while nevertheless continuing to enjoy royal favour.

Queen Mary I and Reginald Pole, RIP

Hopes for the Catholic revival in England ended on November 17, 1558, when Mary I and Reginald Cardinal Pole, the Archbishop of Canterbury both died. The National Catholic Register has posted my comments on how Catholics should respond to the history of her reign--particularly the burning of Protestants and heretics at the stake:

On November 17 in 1558, the first and only Catholic Queen Regnant of England died. She was Mary I, the daughter of King Henry VIII and his first wife, Queen Katherine of Aragon. She is better known as “Bloody Mary” because of the almost 300 men and women burned alive at the stake after being found guilty of heresy during her reign. These men and women included bishops and ministers of the Church of England, many Protestant laity, and some who denied basic Christian doctrines, such as the divinity of Jesus or of the Holy Spirit. Those men and women, particularly celebrated by John Foxe in his “Book of Martyrs”, have haunted Catholicism in England and in the modern world for centuries.

How should Catholics respond to these haunting echoes of the past? Very carefully and precisely.

Please read the rest there.

We must also remember that Reginald Cardinal Pole, the last Catholic Archbishop of Canterbury died the same day. The Catholic Encyclopedia has this comment on his character:

Throughout his life Pole's moral conduct was above reproach, his sincere piety and ascetical habits were the admiration of all. "Seldom", writes Dr. James Gairdner, than whom no one is more competent to pronounce judgment, "has any life been animated by a more single-minded purpose". As compared with the majority of his contemporaries, Pole was conspicuously gentle, both in his opinions and in his language. He had the gift ofinspiring warm friendships and he was most generous and charitable in the administration of his revenues.

Dr. James Gairdner was a British historian specializing in the Tudor era.

One More Time: Mary I of England

On this anniversary of Mary I's coronation as Queen Regnant of England in 1553, another attempt to bring some balance to our appraisal of her life and reign, this time from Anna Whitelock in the pages of the BBC History Magazine in the Christmas 2014 issue:

Having secured the throne, Mary then had to establish herself as a female monarch. It was an unprecedented position in a deeply patriarchal society – indeed, many questioned whether a woman could wear the crown. The monarch was understood to be God’s representative on Earth, a figure of defence and justice – a role premised on military might. The language, image and expectations of English monarchy and royal majesty were unequivocally male, and the rights of a queen regnant were a matter of great uncertainty.

Mary’s accession had changed the rules of the game, and the nature of this new feminised politics was yet to be defined, yet in many respects Mary proved more than equal to the task. Decisions over the details of the practice and power of a queen regnant became precedents for the future. In April 1554 Mary’s parliament passed the Act for Regal Power, which enshrined in law that queens held power as “fully, wholly and absolutely” as their male predecessors, thereby establishing the gender-free authority of the crown.

Mary’s coronation saw her accepting the full regalia of a male monarch and assuming the sacral role that had hitherto been confined to kings. Previously, it had been precisely the exercise of this semi-priestly power, derived from the coronation, that – it was argued – precluded women from acceding to the throne. By continuing practices undertaken by previous kings – providing the healing touch for the ‘king’s evil’ (scrofula) and blessing rings believed to cure cramp and epilepsy – Mary showed that the office of crowned monarch was not limited by gender.

Mary had stated a preference for remaining single but accepted the need to marry to fulfil her public duty to her faith and her kingdom. Everyone agreed on the need for a husband who could guide her in ruling, and produce a male heir, thereby securing the succession. Though it has traditionally been argued that Mary’s marriage to Philip of Spain was unpopular, an alliance with Habsburg Spain was politically expedient. Certainly, the marriage treaty was as “favourable as possible for the interest and security and even the grandeur of England”, with Mary’s legal rights as queen preserved and Spanish influence kept to a minimum.

Read the rest there. The article was surely based upon Whitelock's 2010 book about Mary, which I reviewed here in 2011.

Her Nine Days Were Up Today in 1553

From History.com: This Day in History: July 19, 1553:

After only nine days as the monarch of England, Lady Jane Grey is deposed in favor of her cousin Mary. The 15-year-old Lady Jane, beautiful and intelligent, had only reluctantly agreed to be put on the throne. The decision would result in her execution.

Lady Jane Grey was the great-granddaughter of King Henry VII and the cousin of King Edward VI. Lady Jane and Edward were the same age, and they had almost been married in 1549. In May 1553 she was married to Lord Guildford Dudley, the son of John Dudley, the duke of Northumberland. When King Edward fell deathly ill with tuberculosis soon after, Jane’s father-in-law, John Dudley persuaded the dying king that Jane, a Protestant, should be chosen the royal successor over Edward’s half-sister Mary, a Catholic. On July 6, 1553, Edward died, and four days later Lady Jane Grey was proclaimed queen of England.

Lady Jane’s ascendance was supported by the Royal Council, but the populace supported Mary, the rightful heir. Two days into Lady Jane’s reign, Dudley departed London with an army to suppress Mary’s forces, and in his absence the Council declared him a traitor and Mary the queen, ending Jane’s nine-day reign.

Author Samantha Wilcoxon writes about why we don't refer to Lady Jane Grey as Queen Jane:

A recent post of mine brought questions to the forefront regarding Lady Jane Grey's status as a Tudor queen. I included her in my list of monarchs but noted that she is not always included in others. This list, for example, mentions her only parenthetically. Jane is referred to as a ruler by Royal.UK, but is still listed by the name Lady Jane Grey. In fact, we most commonly refer to her as Lady Jane Grey rather than Queen Jane.

Why is that? She had not had a coronation, but there are other examples of monarchs who have been accepted as such despite the lack of this ceremony. Edward V is a notable example quite close to Jane's time. Little Edward is never left out of discussions of England's kings though he ruled even less than his distant cousin Jane did.

Jane was proclaimed and deposed with lightening speed, causing some to refer to her as an unsuccessful usurper rather than a legal queen.

Read the rest there.

Image credit: the Streatham Portrait, discovered in 2005/2006, as noted by The Guardian:

Queen of England for nine days, then dispatched by the axeman at the Tower of London at the age of just 17, Lady Jane Grey and her tragic story have exerted a deep fascination for centuries. She is the only English monarch since 1500 of whom no portrait survives. Or so it has long been assumed.

But experts are now claiming that a painting that hung for years in a house in Streatham, south-west London, is of Lady Jane. The owner inherited the work from his great-grandfather, a collector of 16th-century antiques.

A pawn in the ambitious power games of her parents and father-in-law, Lady Jane was briefly queen after the death of her cousin Edward VI - until her short rule from the Tower of London was transformed into imprisonment when Mary I successfully claimed the throne.

Were this a painting of Lady Jane, it would satisfy a centuries-old hunger to know the appearance of this unfortunate teenager, described at the time as "prettily shaped and graceful" with a "gracious and animated figure". . . .

The "new" portrait, which experts have confidently dated to the second half of the 16th century, shows a slender young woman in an opulent gown and jewels, a book held in her left hand. Above her shoulder is a faint inscription reading "Lady Jayne". The costume she wears was in fashion in the early 1550s; Jane was queen in 1553.

There was quite a debate about whether or not this was a portrait of Lady Jane Grey; David Starkey rejected it. Eric Ives, evidently, accepted its validity enough to have it used on the cover of his 2009 book:

Lady Jane Grey, (sic) is one of the most elusive and tragic characters in English history.

In July 1553 the death of the childless Edward VI threw the Tudor dynasty into crisis. On Edward's instructions his cousin Jane Grey was proclaimed queen, only to be ousted 13 days later by his illegitimate half sister Mary and later beheaded. In this radical reassessment, Eric Ives rejects traditional portraits of Jane both as hapless victim of political intrigue or Protestant martyr. Instead he presents her as an accomplished young woman with a fierce personal integrity. The result is a compelling dissection by a master historian and storyteller of one of history’s most shocking injustices.

Judging a Book by Its Cover

New from Gracewing Publishers, this study of Mary I, England's first Queen Regnant, written per the publisher on a popular level:

Although several books on Queen Mary have been published in recent years, they are overly academic in nature. This volume seeks to introduce a more general audience to Mary and her reign as well as offer a pathway to weightier tomes on the subject through three interconnected parts. The first is a historiography which outlines the reasons for the vilification of Mary and her administration, the second is a biography that traces Mary’s life from her birth to her becoming queen and the third is a reappraisal of the key controversies of her reign. It seeks to demonstrate both that Mary’s sobriquet “bloody” is undeserved and that her reign was considerably more successful than its detractors have claimed. This book not only reassesses the state of late Mediaeval and early Tudor religion but examines several aspects of Mary’s reign, including Mary as politician, her personal faith, the role of Cardinal Pole in policy-making and the challenges of the Catholic Restoration.

The book also posits that the critical reaction to Mary’s reign helped to define the nature of the English/British nation-state as well as contribute to Britain’s national “ideology” and self-understanding for five hundred years.

Dr Gregory Slysz has a PH.D in History and Politics from the University of Kent and has taught at both university and high school. Currently Head of History at DLD Independent College in London, he has written and lectured extensively on both current affairs and his research interests in history.

It is certainly a gorgeous cover, with the rich colors and vivid illustration of Mary I's triumphant entry into London after the Duke of Northumberland's attempted coup was defeated.