DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.67417#0073
EDWARD VI. AND QUEEN MARY 47
Edward VI.’s sister and successor, Mary, spent
little of her youth at Hampton Court; but the
palace is closely connected with the tragedy of her
married life. A few weeks after the Queen’s wedding
at Winchester, in August 1554, she and her Spanish
husband came to Hampton Court and spent a month
there in retirement. They dined in private, and dis-
gusted their subjects by keeping the doors of the hall
closed, a thing altogether contrary to the traditions
and practice of English monarchs. From the first the
Spanish marriage had been most unpopular. Par-
liament had petitioned the Queen to wed, but not to
choose a foreigner, and although Philip assumed the
title of King of England, he was never crowned.
Throughout the country the cry was everywhere
against the foreigner. The haughty, reserved
manners of Philip II. and his nobles formed a
marked contrast to the bluff and genial ways of
the Tudor princes. The Spaniards, on the other
hand, regarded the Englishmen as barbarians, say-
ing that the courtiers had no manners and the
common people were churlish, and complaining that
they were cheated in the towns and robbed if they
ventured to walk in the country. “ In fact,” wrote
one of Philip’s courtiers, in some amusing letters
which he addressed from this country to a friend at
Salamanca, “ they hate us as if we were the devil,
and lose no opportunity of letting us see this.”
Nor were the writer’s impressions of English ladies
any more favourable. He describes the Queen her-
self as “ ugly, small, lean, with a pink and white
complexion, no eyebrows, very devout, and exceed-
Edward VI.’s sister and successor, Mary, spent
little of her youth at Hampton Court; but the
palace is closely connected with the tragedy of her
married life. A few weeks after the Queen’s wedding
at Winchester, in August 1554, she and her Spanish
husband came to Hampton Court and spent a month
there in retirement. They dined in private, and dis-
gusted their subjects by keeping the doors of the hall
closed, a thing altogether contrary to the traditions
and practice of English monarchs. From the first the
Spanish marriage had been most unpopular. Par-
liament had petitioned the Queen to wed, but not to
choose a foreigner, and although Philip assumed the
title of King of England, he was never crowned.
Throughout the country the cry was everywhere
against the foreigner. The haughty, reserved
manners of Philip II. and his nobles formed a
marked contrast to the bluff and genial ways of
the Tudor princes. The Spaniards, on the other
hand, regarded the Englishmen as barbarians, say-
ing that the courtiers had no manners and the
common people were churlish, and complaining that
they were cheated in the towns and robbed if they
ventured to walk in the country. “ In fact,” wrote
one of Philip’s courtiers, in some amusing letters
which he addressed from this country to a friend at
Salamanca, “ they hate us as if we were the devil,
and lose no opportunity of letting us see this.”
Nor were the writer’s impressions of English ladies
any more favourable. He describes the Queen her-
self as “ ugly, small, lean, with a pink and white
complexion, no eyebrows, very devout, and exceed-