Peterborough

Peterborough is the setting for a rare public display of loyalty to Margaret Pole and the late Katherine of Aragon. In January 1536, after a snowy journey north, Margaret enters the city under armed escort and is welcomed by people who bless the dead queen, her daughter, and Margaret’s house. The reception makes the city more than a stop on the road: it becomes a vivid measure of popular feeling against the House of Tudor.

Setting and Arrival

The approach to Peterborough is harsh and slow. Snow makes the roads difficult, and Margaret reaches the city on the afternoon of the journey’s third day. Ahead, the spire of Peterborough Abbey rises against the iron-gray sky as her horse pushes through the cold wind. A dozen men-at-arms accompany her; at the city gates, with the curfew bell tolling, they draw close around her as residents watch.

Margaret initially fears that the crowd will see her as one of the court’s newly enriched lords, despite her loss of royal favor. The welcome that follows sharply reverses that expectation. From an overhanging window, a woman calls down blessings on the white rose, Katherine, and the princess. Children and beggars cheer as the soldiers pass; people emerge from shops, workhouses, churches, and alehouses, removing their hats, while some kneel in the freezing mud.

A Public Welcome

The crowd’s response joins three objects of loyalty: the late queen, her daughter, and Margaret herself and her household. The people do not merely greet a passing noblewoman; their gestures place her alongside the royal women and the older dynasty. Their recognition is striking because Margaret has been associated with the court and its new lords, yet the welcome treats her as a representative of a different political inheritance.

The old cry of “À Warwick!” resurfaces during the procession. Its appearance connects the present crowd to memories of a time when, in Margaret’s account, a Yorkist king ruled without claiming the papacy and royal mistresses and children were not presented as queen and heirs. Peterborough’s streets thus become a stage on which dynastic memory is voiced publicly, rather than confined to Margaret’s own recollection.

Political Meaning

Margaret reads the welcome as evidence that the people have turned against the Tudors. She links their anger to the king’s actions: taking the Church and monasteries, setting aside his queen, and putting his leading men to death. Katherine’s death has not ended her public standing; the crowd continues to bless her and speaks of her as a martyr and saint. Their cheers for Princess Mary Tudor likewise keep the displaced royal family visible in public life.

The scene also sharpens the political meaning of Katherine’s burial. Margaret concludes that Henry VIII was right to fear a popular reaction if the queen had been buried with the dignity due to her at Westminster Abbey: in her view, the city would have risen to mourn her, and London might have rioted. Peterborough supplies the immediate evidence for that fear. Here, amid snow and curfew, the crowd’s welcome turns private grief and dynastic allegiance into an unmistakable public rebuke.