"Trusty and right well-beloved, we greet you well. And where we be informed that Sands, one of the women presently attending about our sister the Lady Elizabeth, is a person of an evil opinion, and not fit to remain about our said sister's person, we let you wit, our will and pleasure is, you shall travail with our said sister, and by the best means ye can persuade her to be contented to have the said Sands removed from her, and to accept in her place, Elizabeth Marbery, another of her women, who shall be sent thither for that purpose: whom at her coming we require you to be placed there, and to give order that the said Sands may be removed from thence accordingly.
"Given under our signet, at our manor of St. James, the 26th day of
May, the first year of our reign."
It was soon found necessary to cancel the permission for strangers to have access to the captive princess, and the Council accordingly wrote to Sir Henry:—
"And forasmuch as it appeareth hereby that such private persons as be disposed to disquiet will not let to take occasion if they may, to convey messages or letters in and out by some secret practice, her Majesty's further pleasure is for the avoiding hereof, that ye shall henceforth suffer no manner person other than such as are already appointed to, be about the Lady Elizabeth, to come unto her or have any manner, talk, or conference with her, any former instructions or letters heretofore sent you to the contrary notwithstanding."
Elizabeth made difficulties with regard to every detail of her custody, and the substitution of Marbery, although she was one of her own women, for Sands, was not effected without a struggle; but on the 5th June Sir Henry was able to report that: "The same was done this present day, about 2 of the clock in the afternoon, not without great mourning both of my Lady's Grace and Sands. And she was conveyed into the town by my brother Edmund, and by him delivered to Mr. Parry, who at my desire yesternight did prepare horse and men to be ready to convey her either to Clerkenwell beside London to her uncle there, or else into Kent, to her father, towards the which he promised she should go. This I do signify unto your lordships, because I think her a woman meet to be looked unto for her obstinate disposition."
In another very long letter he certifies that the princess has asked for an English Bible "of the smallest possible volume," desiring that he would send to her cofferer for one. But the cofferer replied that he had none at all, but sent a servant with three books, one of which contained the Psalms of David and the Canticles. Leave was given for her to have an English Bible, and for her to write to the Queen as she desired.
On the 12th June Sir Henry wrote to the Council a letter highly informative as to the difficulties of his position:—
"Pleaseth it your honourable lordships to be advertised, that the same day I last wrote unto you, my lady Elizabeth's Grace demanded of me whether I had provided her the book of the Bible in English of the smallest volume, or no. I answered, because there were divers Latin books in my hands ready to be delivered if it pleased her to have them, wherein as I thought she should have more delight, seeing she understandeth the same so well; therefore I had not provided the same, which answer I perceived she took not in good part, and within half-an-hour after that, in her walking in the nether garden, in the most unpleasant sort that ever I saw her since her coming from the Tower, she called me to her again, and said in these words: 'I have at divers times spoken to you to write to my lords of certain my requests, and you never make me answer to any of them. I think (quoth she) you make none of my lords privy to my suit, but only my Lord Chamberlain, who, although I know him to be a good gentleman, yet by age, and other his earnest business, I know he hath occasion to forget many things.' To this I answered that I did never write in her Grace's matter to any of you my lords privately, and said unto her Grace further, that I thought this was a time that your lordships had great business in,* and therefore her Grace could not look for direct answer upon the first suit. 'Well,' said she, 'once again I require you to do thus much for me, to write unto my said lords, on my behalf to be means unto the Queen's Majesty, to grant me leave to write unto her Highness with mine own hand, and in this I pray you let me have answer as soon as you can.' To this I answered: 'I shall do for your Grace that I am able to do, which is to write to my said Lords, and then it must needs rest in their honourable considerations whether I shall have answer or no,' since which time her Grace never spoke to me. Surely, I take it that the remembrance of Elizabeth Sands' departing, and the only placing Marbery in her room, clearly against her late desire, is some cause of her grief [grievance]."
* On account of the Queen's approaching marriage.
The effect produced by the princess's letter to Mary may be gathered from the following reply, written by the Queen to Sir Henry:—