Queens and Power in Medieval and Early Modern England

3. "Most godly heart fraight with al mercie": Queens' Mercy during the Reigns of Mary I and Elizabeth I

Queens’ Mercy during the Reigns of Mary I and Elizabeth I sarah duncan During and after her reign Protestant writers criticized Mary I of England as a Jezebel, a tyrant, and a woman without mercy. Modern historians have likewise criticized England’s first ruling queen for being too merciful to political opponents and not merciful enough to religious dissenters. Mary’s sister Elizabeth I would also struggle with questions of mercy: she was concerned to appear merciful and yet chastised for showing too much clemency . K. J. Kesselring has demonstrated that “each of the Tudor monarchs recognized the need to appear merciful” and “responded to the broad cultural demands that a legitimate ruler embody both justice and mercy.”1 Nevertheless, the perception and performance of mercy was of special importance for regnant queens, and could prove to be a pitfall. Although mercy was a virtue traditionally associated with queens in their position as king’s consort, the notion of the queen’s mercy became complicated for both Mary I and Elizabeth I because they were the first female English rulers to wield the (heretofore kingly) sword of justice as well. They were subject, therefore, to concerns “Most godly heart fraight with al mercie” 3 ฀32 sarah duncan about the extent and degree to which they practiced clemency. In Mary’s case, balancing these two roles became even more complex after her marriage to Philip. The importance of defining the queen’s mercy continued in the reign of Elizabeth I. Attuned to the negative connotations of being labeled merciless as a result of the successful propaganda against Mary I, Elizabeth had to walk a fine line between appearing to be a queen without mercy and a queen too merciful, thus endangering her realm. Before the reigns of the first two regnant queens of England the dispensation of the king’s royal mercy could be influenced by, and was associated with, queen consorts, who exercised their intercessory power to sway the king to acts of clemency.2 Over the course of the Middle Ages, English queenly power contracted from the public sphere to the private sphere, and, as John Carmi Parsons has put it, “the queen became ever more isolated from government, in the process emerging as an attractive intercessor for those apprehensive of officialdom.”3 According to Parsons, “The queen’s prescribed isolation from her husband’s public authority touches, too, on the tendency prevalent in male medieval writing to place in opposition not only male and female but the qualities associated with them. For a king’s wife, this set up a complementarity of powers: he the intelligence, she the heart, or the king as law and the queen as mercy.”4 Coronation ritual and civic pageantry reinforced queens’ intercessory role: queen consorts interceded for pardons at the time of their marriage or coronation, and even the queen’s placement on the king’s left side during the coronation ceremony associated her “with the virge of justice and equity he held in that hand, . . . [and] related her to such qualities as mercy that he could not delegate.”5 Civic pageantry compared queen consorts to the Virgin Mary: their role as mediator between the king and his subjects mirrored that of Mary’s role as intercessor between God and Christians.6 33 “most godly heart fraight with al mercie” By the sixteenth century the queen’s intercessory role was well understood. During the Tudor period, one of the most famous queenly intercessions was made by Catherine of Aragon after Evil May Day, May 1, 1517, when several hundred Londoners rioted in the streets threatening the mayor of London and Cardinal Wolsey with death and, in the words of the Venetian ambassador, plotting “to cut to pieces all of the strangers in London.” After Henry VIII demonstrated “very great vengeance” on the ringleaders, Queen Catherine interceded on behalf of the approximately four hundred still awaiting execution, and this “most serene and most compassionate Queen, with tears in her eyes and on her bended knees, obtained their pardon from his Majesty.”7 The official pardoning was then carried out in a public ceremony at Westminster Hall by the king as the prisoners, chained and in handcuffs, filed past him shouting “Mercy!”8 As queen consort, Catherine exercised her ability to temper the king’s justice with mercy. As a queen in her own right, however, her daughter...