Elizabeth was not slow to profit by the permission obtained for her to write to the Council through the intermediary allowed, and Sir Henry's letter-book contains the following transcript of his report written in his own hand.
"My lady Elizabeth's Grace's suit:—
"My lady Elizabeth, this present 30th of July, required me to make report of her Grace's mind as her suit to your honours to be means to the Queen's Majesty on her behalf to this effect. To beseech your lordships all to consider her woeful case, that being but once licensed to write as an humble suitress unto the Queen's Highness, and received thereby no such comfort as she hoped to have done, but to her further discomfort in a message by me opened, that it was the Queen's Highness's pleasure not to be any more molested with her Grace's letters, that it may please the same, and that upon very pity, considering her long imprisonment and restraint of liberty, either to charge her with special matter to be answered unto and tried, or to grant her liberty to come unto Her Highness's presence, which she saith she would not desire, were it not that she knoweth herself to be clear, even before God, of her allegiance. And if also by your good mediations she might not enjoy the Queen's Highness's most gracious favour without any scruples or suspicions of her truth, she had rather willingly suffer this that she doth, and much more, than her Majesty should in any case be troubled or disquieted, touching her whose honour surely and preservation she saith she doth desire above all things in this world. Requiring me further to move chiefly as many of you my lords as were a Council, parties, and privy to and for the execution of the will of the King's Majesty her father, to further this her Grace's suit above said. And if neither of these two her suits may be obtained by your lordships for her, that then it might please the Queen's Highness to grant that some of you my lords may have leave to repair hither unto her, and to receive her suit of her own mouth to be opened. Whereby she may take a release not to think herself utterly desolate of all refuge in this world."
To this the Council made reply on the 7th August that "the Queen's Highness" would "take a time to consider, and at convenient leisure make such answer thereunto as shall be` necessary"; but Elizabeth's imperious temper brooked no delay, and Sir Henry was soon prevailed on to jog their lordship's memories:—
"Upon Friday last," he wrote, "my lady Elizabeth's Grace, in the time of her walk in the over garden here, in the forenoon of the same day, said unto me, 'I have very slow speed in the answer of any of my suits, and I know it is ever so, when that there is not one appointed to give daily attendance in suit-making for answer. And therefore,' saith she, 'I pray you let me send a servant of mine own to whom I will do the message in your hearing that he shall do by my commandment; and this I think,' said she, 'is not against the order and service appointed unto you.' To which I answered requiring her Grace to be contented, for I neither could nor would assent to any such her request. 'Then,' said she, 'I am at a marvellous afterdeal [disadvantage], for I have known that the wife hath been received to sue for her husband, the kinsman, friend or servant for them that hath been in the case I now am, and never denied.' To that I answered: 'I myself am of small experience in such case; that notwithstanding, I trust ye shall not be long, or my lords of the Council will remember your suit, and answer the same.'" And so her Grace ended.
Harsh as this refusal may appear at first sight, it must be admitted that Sir Henry, in reporting his conversations with Elizabeth to the Council often obtained for her if not exactly what she had asked for, at least some concession, which, had she been entirely in good faith, would have served her purpose as well. But in spite of her jailor's "scrupulousness " she contrived to communicate pretty freely by means of Parry, her cofferer, and others, with the outside world. Bolts and bars were ineffectual so long as those who surrounded her were willing intermediaries between her and the enemies of the queen, and Sir Henry knew it well. He desired nothing more than to be rid of his onerous charge, as is seen by the following letter to Thirlby, Bishop of Ely:—
"After my hearty commendations to your good lordship, so it is that as you do know, I have continued this service by the space of fifteen weeks, in care of mind and some travail of body, which I would be glad to make suit to be relieved of, if I might know it should be taken in good part. And having no friend whom I believe myself to be so assured of as your lordship, even thereupon I am bold by these heartily to desire your travail in my behalf [if it so stand with your good opinion] to the Queen's Majesty, to grant me my discharge from the same. Wherein I trust my Lord Chancellor* will join with you, if it content you to move him thereunto, who, by words of marvellous effect comprising both the Queen's commandment that I should enter into it, and his earnest request at that time also, did cause me to take in hand the same. And lest my, said Lord should forget, I pray you put him in remembrance that he had this talk with me upon the causeway betwixt the house of Saint James and Charing Cross. And what it shall content you to do for me herein, I shall desire you to be ascertained by your letters, upon the return of the messenger. I made late a suit to you for your house at Blackfriars, and received answer that you had otherwise disposed the same; yet remembering that you had an house of my Lord of Bath in Holborn, which, as the case now standeth, I think your Lordship will have little pleasure to use, and if, by your good mean, I might obtain the same at my Lord of Bath's hands, you should do unto me a great good turn, which have no house of refuge in London, but the common inn, and would be glad to give large money to be avoided of that inconvenience. And thus remaining at the Queen's Majesty's house of Woodstock [out of which I was never, by the space of six hours, sith my coming into the same], I leave to trouble your Lordship with this my rude writing.
"At the house aforesaid, the 16th day of August 1554."
* Stephen Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester.
But nothing came of his efforts to get himself released, and the unequal contest between his "scrupulousness," and Elizabeth's astute, unfathomable diplomacy was still to be waged for many months. Her request to be allowed to send a verbal message to the Council by one of her servants was indeed declined, but she received permission to commit her petition to paper. On the 20th September, Sir Henry wrote to the Council:—