If Margaret becomes queen, what happens? Does she abolish Elizabeth's religious settlement? Restore the settlement Mary I had established, with a revival of the heretic act? Or would England develop as a state with a catholic royal family but a protestant populace? It happened in OTL but didn't stick, but here religious is still fluid..
Matthew Stewart was an ambitious: he wanted to be made king.
The Queen had a long discussion about this with her husband, and she «asserted that, if he was to be made king, he was not to be made by her, but by an Act of Parliament». She could have done him only Duke of Clarence; he replied that he did not want to be a duke, but king.
When Sir Nicholas Bacon heard of the argument, he insisted that Margaret should consult Cecil on this.
Because Margaret was a devoted Catholic, it was believed her husband, formally Protestant, a great counterbalance.
Further, under the English common law doctrine of «jure uxoris», as the property and titles belonging to a woman became of her husband with the marriage, so any man married to the Queen would thereby become King of England in fact and in name.
Thus the Parliament, referring to the terms of the Queen Mary's Marriage Act and the Queen Consort Act 1540, drafted in haste the King Consort Act 1562, which gave to Matthew the title of «King of England and Ireland» because that he «shall aid her Highness [...] in the happy administration of her Grace’s realms and dominions», only for Margaret's lifetime.
Formally, King [Matthew] was to co-reign with his wife according to the Act, which nevertheless ensured that the new king would not become too powerful.
But Margaret had another problem to be addressed.
The ceremony was traditionally officiated by the Archbishop of Canterbury, who has precedence over all other clergymen and over all laymen. Queen Mary I, a Catholic, has refused to be crowned by the Protestant Archbishop Thomas Cranmer; the coronation on 1st October was instead performed by Stephen Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester.
Also Queen Margaret was Catholic, and also she has refused to be crowned by the Protestant Archbishop of Canterbury, Matthew Parker. The queen had also spoken to depose all bishops appointed by Elizabeth and to restore in their Sees the earlier Catholic bishops. But King Matthew had wisely advised his wife to have prudence.
On the other side, Matthew Parker said not himself willing to crown «a papist woman as Queen and Supreme Governor of the Church of England», when, in the Tower, «there was a young mother who boasted legal rights to the Crown»: Catherine Grey.
Usually, in cases where the Archbishop of Canterbury has failed to participate, his place has been taken by a senior cleric: the Archbishop of York is second in precedence, the Bishop of London third, the Bishop of Durham fourth, and the Bishop of Winchester fifth.
But even Thomas Young, Archbishop of York, Edmund Grindal, Bishop of London, James Pilkington, Bishop of Durham, and Robert Horne, Bishop of Winchester, at the instigation and the example of Parker, refused to perform the ceremony, even them threatening the specter of Lady Grey, had they not been confirmed unconditionally in their positions and offices.
Despite having reigned briefly, Elizabeth had managed to deprive and replaced, one by one, the Catholic bishops with Protestants. Of the old church's hierarchy had only three bishops in their Episcopal Sees.
Anthony Kitchin (also known as Anthony Dunstone), Bishop of Llandaff, retained his see under Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary and Elizabeth. He followed the opinion of whichever monarch reigned provided that was allowed at him to hold on the See of Llandaff. But Kitchin was an old man of ninety, who could never make the journey by Bishop's Palace in Mathern, south east Wales, to London.
Thomas Stanley, Bishop of Sodor and Man, restored to the bishopric in 1556 then subsequently confirmed as such and appointed as Governor of the Isle of Man by the Queen Mary I, «was remained in favour under Queen Elizabeth I's reign because cousin Edward Stanley, 3rd Earl of Derby and member of the Privy Council. Stanley was famous because notoriously absent in the Episcopal See, and for the neglect of his many responsibilities».
Hugh Curwen, in 1555 by Queen Mary nominated to the Archbishopric of Dublin (nomination confirmed at Rome), and appointed Lord Chancellor of Ireland, on the accession of Elizabeth, had accommodated himself to the new conditions by declaring himself a Protestant: he was, then, an notoriously apostate.
But, here, was appeared William Cecil with of solutions.
He tried, in this way, to show himself, once again, to be necessary and irreplaceable for the Queen Margaret.
The bishopric of Bristol was vacant. After the death of John Holyman in December 1558, no bishop was been appointed in Bristol for several years and then, by letters patent bearing date 29 April 1562, Richard Cheyney, consecrated bishop of Gloucester on 19 April, was allowed to hold the see of Bristol «in commendam».
Now, Queen Margaret could appoint to this episcopal see one of the Catholic bishops who, on her first entry into London, had been recently released from their captivity into the Tower, and she could ask at him to preside the ceremony of coronation.
But it was a risky move, since the queen could be discredited by the Protestants. The precedent of the Queen Mary had no value: Gardiner was not appointed, but "restored" in his Bishopric.
The other solution could have more chances. Cecil had "miraculously" found the letters patent with which Thomas Goldwell was been nominated to the See of Oxford by Queen Mary: the letters of credence by the Pope had been made out, but the royal documents were drawn up, but were not enacted due to queen's death. In June Goldwell has decided to escape from England and since then the bishopric of Oxford was vacant.
Queen Margaret would not have to do anything but call up Godwell from exile Italian, receive from him the homage for the Episcopal See, and entrust to him the ceremony.
But it was necessary to hurry.
Matthew and Margaret were crowned together at Westminster Abbey on Sunday 27 December 1562 by the Bishop of Oxford in a sumptuous and lavish ceremony.
A week later, the eldest son of the couple, the seventeen-year-old Lord Henry Darnley, became heir-apparent and Duke of Cornwall, was created immediately Prince of Wales and Earl of Chester and on next St George's Day he was made a Knight of the Garter. In York Minster, the other son, Charles was created Duke of York.