Intrigue and Treason. The Tudor Court, 1547-1558 (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: Intrigue and Treason. The Tudor Court, 1547-1558 Ralph Houlbrooke Intrigue and Treason. The Tudor Court, 1547-1558. By David Loades. Harlow:Pearson Longman. 2004. x, 326 pp. £19.99. ISBN 0582772265. This study of the mid-Tudor court focuses on the interaction between political and institutional developments. Biographer of Mary Tudor and John Dudley, historian of the major conspiracies of Mary's reign, and anatomist of the Tudor court, David Loades is well-qualified to write such a study. After an initial definition of the court and analysis of its functions during the early 1540s, he devotes most of his book to a brisk political narrative covering the years 1540-59, punctuated by accounts of changes in organization and personnel, together with descriptions of court entertainments, viewed as magnificent manifestations of royal power. A final chapter pulls together the book's thematic strands and succinctly demonstrates that its lurid title is deceptive. 'The court was always a place of intrigue, and inevitably it was fiercely competitive' (p. 288). Nevertheless, such intrigue caused few if any of the major political upheavals of the period. Neither the fall of Southampton in 1547 nor that of Somerset in 1549 resulted from it. Control of the court was not enough to save Somerset from being stripped of his protectoral dignity by the conciliar majority opposed to him. Thomas Seymour used his personal relationship with Edward VI in his attempts to involve his royal nephew in his dangerous intrigues, but he had no power base or party in the court. 'Both Northumberland and Mary were confronted with numerous protests and conspiracies, but none of these had either root or flower in the court' (p. 291). Mary's court, indeed, 'seems to have been remarkably free from plotting and faction, and completely free from anything that could be called treason' (p. 293). According to Loades, Edward VI, unprompted by any courtier, was the original author of the attempted exclusion of Mary from the throne in 1553, and the ensuing struggle was 'fought out partly in the council and partly in the country', at a time when 'the court was virtually in abeyance' (p. 291). The years covered by this book did nevertheless see notable episodes of political turbulence. In giving them a central place [End Page 267] in his narrative, Loades supplies a valuable corrective to the impression of purposeful consensus given by some recent accounts of Edward's reign in particular. He is almost certainly right to suggest that Northumberland was too hard on himself when, before his death, he confessed that he had fabricated the case that brought Somerset to the block. The erstwhile protector's disgruntled indiscretions had made him seem a dangerous liability. The most thought-provoking chapter among those Loades devotes to Edward's reign is however about the king's education and entertainment. Loades casts no doubt on Edward's commitment to godly kingship, but nevertheless suggests that William Thomas, under Northumberland's aegis, imparted aMachiavellian moral relativism to the king's studies which was the antithesis of his tutor John Cheke's approach. Among the chapters concerned with the Marian court the most interesting is perhaps the one about 'King Philip', which demonstrates how well Mary's much maligned husband fulfilled the very difficult role of king consort and how positively he influenced the English regime. His participation in knightly combats brought a touch of sorely needed glamour to Mary's court. Loades exploits in some of his most vivid passages the contrast between Mary, the pious, dowdy queen utterly without charisma who embraced marriage out of duty, and her sister, the perhaps unwilling virgin, 'an instinctive flirt . . . a young woman whose sexuality was as lively as her mind' (p. 257), who used to the full her power to excite and manipulate men. [End Page 268] Ralph Houlbrooke University of Reading Copyright © 2006 Edinburgh University Press Ltd.