Alexander Samson, Mary and Phillip: The Marriage of Tudor England and Habsburg Spain. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2020. 279 pp. $39 paperback ISBN 9781526160249.
Reviewed by Edward Kirsch
Alexander Samson’s Mary and Phillip falls within a revisionist trend that emerged over the past several decades that reassesses the traditional narrative of Mary I’s brief reign which the author argues was unjustifiably and unfavorably colored by the anti-Catholic, anti-papal, religious and political propaganda of her own age, authored and promoted by radical Protestant exiles, that resulted in the epitaph “Bloody” Mary, which was not applied until 1658. (9) Samson argues these negative anti-Catholic narratives were used, alongside the “Black Legend” of Spain, to rationalize the British Empire’s displacement of Spanish colonial power and frame the Reformation as a national liberation movement well into the twentieth century. (1, 3) Samson argues convincingly against the commonplace that Mary was an unstable, dour, “tragic”, “desolate” figure in a failed marriage who was ineffective as a ruler and whose brief reign was a regrettable “’barren interruption’” in Britain’s destiny to lead the Protestant world. (4, quoting Harbison (1970), 6) These images persist in popular culture today and the author argues they are unsupported.
The book is not a comprehensive biography of Mary; rather, it addresses these negative historical interpretations and tropes by “foregrounding” alternative narratives that cast Mary in a positive light. In the first Chapter, “Prenuptial,” Samson demonstrates that Mary was shrewd and prepared to take power and was far from the “rather stupid” political neophyte described by Geoffrey Elton. (5) Rather, she cultivated local alliances such that within hours of confirming Edward VI’s death, she was sending circular letters to mobilize the nobles and gentry in the areas where she had large landholdings demanding she be proclaimed queen. She quickly mobilized supporting forces among Catholic sympathizers, but also among many Protestants and urban elites which resulted in the Privy Council backing her and Northumberland’s arrest and execution. (28-29, 33) Samson argues far from being imposed on a reluctant populace, “the return of traditional [Catholic] religion was joyfully celebrated” with the ringing of bells, processions of the rosary and images of the Virgin in London. (34)
The second chapter, “Contracting Matrimony,” focuses on the strategic considerations underlying the marriage contract, also an international treaty, by which Mary and Phillip were married, and the Hapsburg Empire and England allied. Samson deftly uses contemporaneous Spanish and English sources to reveal the parties’ strategic goals and counter long-standing arguments that the marriage undermined English sovereignty due to the anomaly of a female ruler, and that Phillip was reluctant to marry. He notes the terms of the treaty, negotiated by Mary and Stephen Gardiner for the English, included measures to “safeguard English sovereignty” beginning with the recitation that Phillip would be an English “’subject,’” and therefore incongruently “subordinate to his wife as queen,” notwithstanding the social and legal inequality of husband and wife in the period. (67-68) The treaty also sought to preclude Phillip from developing an independent power base in England by precluding him from “independent powers of patronage with English royal lands, income, or appointments,” and from “’innovation’” in the laws and customs of England. (68, 72) The treaty also contemplated Phillip merely “’adyd[ing]’” the queen in “’administration.’” and precluded him from interfering in the succession upon Mary’s death, a provision he subsequently honored. (68, 73)
Throughout the work, Samson adroitly weaves together contemporaneous narratives by Spanish and English sources to buttress his arguments. (34) The author is a “Reader” in Early Modern Studies at University College London who has conducted significant research in the early colonial history of the Americas, the reign of Mary I, and Anglo-Spanish intercultural interactions. He teaches courses in Spanish drama and history and is fluent in Spanish. Thus, his work foregrounds Spanish original sources that have often been overlooked by other historians.
In the third chapter, Samson analyzes contemporaneous representations of Wyatt’s revolt by the conspirators as an anti-Spanish, patriotic revolt to prevent Spanish domination, and the Marion reply that the conspirators were motivated primarily by religion. Samson concedes historians are divided on the conspirator’s motives, notwithstanding Protestant propaganda claiming a nationalist motivation, and concludes that whether motived by hatred of Spain or Catholicism, such sentiments were not widely held as evidenced by the limited support for the revolt. (90-91) Returning to this theme in chapter 7, Samson argues that England was not “inexorably xenophobic” which is an assertion employed by historians of an earlier generation to assert Phillip II was unacceptable to the English people, resulting in the failure of the co-monarchy. (137) Samson argues convincingly that the acerbic “propaganda of evangelical Marian exiles” circulated principally among literate elites and did not result in widespread “Hispanophobia” until the era of the Spanish Armada. (222)
Samson’s view is consistent with Immigrant England which concludes England was not xenophobic during the period. Omrod demonstrates that violence against aliens was rare and most often led by London merchants resentful of competition from foreigners – a conclusion shared with Samson. (Omrod, 117) Both authors view the cause of events such as the 1517 Evil May Day riots as rooted in economic rivalry and conclude the presence of Spaniards in England was small and did not engender hatred. (140, 143, 257) These conclusions are significant because purported English xenophobia and hostility to Spain underlie traditional arguments that the marriage was foisted upon a reluctant English people, inevitably resulting in the failure of the marriage, co-monarchy, and alliance, which Samson disputes. (137-39)
In chapters 4 and 5, Samson explores the co-monarchy’s messaging and how the wedding ceremony, and the couple’s entry into London were staged to placate the English populace by reinforcing the Queen’s precedence, memorialized in both the marriage treaty and an Act of Parliament. Mary’s primacy was underscored by the couple’s choice of dress, and positioning in relation to each other. (116) During the wedding and entry, Mary occupied the position on the right associated with the dominant male, while Phillip was to her the left in the traditional position of a Queen consort. (110-11) Further, Phillip was dressed in English style, and with the Order of the Garter given him by Mary. Samson asserts the monarchs were aware of the gender inversion embodied in these symbols and hoped the symbols would buttress Phillip’s acceptance in England and assuage fears of a loss of sovereignty. (111) Samson argues Phillip, far from being loathed, was greeted with enthusiasm upon his entry into London with the foreign merchant community assuming a large role in funding and planning the welcoming pageants in anticipation of enhanced trade. The Hanse merchants, for example, financed a triumphal arch that emphasized the alliance secured by the marriage treaty which promised closer ties between London and its most important trading partner – the low countries. (129)
Samson argues convincingly that despite gender expectations, Mary was an able and engaged monarch “perfectly capable of following her own counsel and refusing to do [Phillip’s] bidding” by, for example, declining to enter the war with France for two years until the Stafford Raid. (175) He shows Mary was deeply involved in establishing a more humanist English Catholic restoration that “absorbed” positive aspects of reform including a focus on clerical education, evangelism, theological reform, and spirituality, while downplaying the miracles, saints, relics, and shrines of the pre-Henrician Catholic church. (185) In sum, far from a failure, Samson’s Mary set a precedent for ably exercising both queenly and kingly power and established an “iconography of female power to legitimate” female rule, both of which benefited her half-sister, Elizabeth upon her accession. (7, 186-88)
