Mary’s head-quarters were at Ludlow, but she travelled constantly from place to place, visiting all the more accessible parts of the principality, and the surrounding country. On the 3rd September 1526, she was at Langley, as we learn from a letter addressed to Wolsey from that place:—
“My lady Princess came on Saturday. Surely, Sir, of her age, as goodly a child as ever I have seen, and of as good gesture and countenance. Her Grace was well accompanied with a goodly number of persons of gravity.”[46]
These “persons of gravity” included, besides councillors, chamberlains, clerks, surveyors, etc., the Countess of Salisbury, the Countess of Devon, Lady Katharine Grey, Dr. Wootton, Dean of the Chapel; Mr. John Featherstone, schoolmaster, and many others, amounting in all to 304 persons, of the most honourable sort.
Mary had authority to kill or give deer at her pleasure, in any forest or park within the territory appointed to her, and her warrants were served under pain of the King’s indignation.[47] Careful directions had been given by the King in Council, concerning her own training, health, clothing, food and recreation, for all of which the Countess of Salisbury was primarily responsible. She was “to take open air in gardens, sweet and wholesome places, and walks,” and everything about her was to be “pure, sweet, clean and wholesome,” while “all things noisome and displeasant” were to be “forborne and excluded”. Great attention was to be paid to her food, and to the manner in which it was served, with cheerful society, “comfortable, joyous and merry communication, in all honourable and virtuous maner”. Her council was to meet once a month, at least, and to consult on her health, virtuous education, etc., “taking into communication my lady Governess, and the Princess if expedient”.[48] Mr. Featherstone was to instruct her in Latin, in the place of the Queen, who had hitherto undertaken this branch of her studies. Shortly before going to Wales, Mary had received a letter from her mother, in which, after expressing her trouble at the long absence of the King, and of her daughter, and assuring her that her health is “meetly good” and that she rejoices to hear that Mary’s own health is mended, Katharine goes on to say:—
“As for your writing in Latin, I am glad that ye shall change from me to master Federston, for that shall do you much good to learn by him to write aright. But yet sometimes I would be glad when ye do write to master Federston of your own inditing, when he hath read it, that I may see it, for it shall be a great comfort to me to see you keep your Latin and fair writing and all, and so I pray you to recommend me to my lady of Salisbury.”[49]
Katharine had spared no pains in the education of her daughter, basing it upon a solid foundation of piety, and imparting a taste for learning, which helped to support Mary in the dark days to come. The celebrated Ludovicus Vives had already contributed to her instruction before her departure into Wales, and on her return continued to direct one branch of her studies. In 1524 he had dedicated to the Princess 213 symbols or mottoes, with paraphrases upon each. The first one was called Scopus Vitæ Christus, and the last Mente Deo defixus, “and these,” says a contemporary writer, “the Princess seemed to have in perpetual memory, by the practice of her whole life, for she made Christ the beginning and end of all her actions, from whose goodness all things do proceed, and to whom all things do tend, having a most lively example in her virtuous mother”.[50]
The list of Latin works proposed by Vives, and in which Mary soon began to delight, is startling from the profound character of the subjects chosen. Among these works were the Epistles of St. Jerome, the Dialogues of Plato, “particularly,” observes Sir Frederick Madden, “those of a political turn”;[51] the works of Cicero, Seneca, Plutarch, St. Ambrose, St. Augustine, St. Thomas, and other equally serious books.
That her mind responded to this severely classical and religious training, is evident from the remarks scattered about the correspondence of the more or less distinguished personages who at different times came in contact with her. Her own countrymen were not a little proud of her talents. Lord Morley, in the preface to his book, A New-Year’s Angelical Salutation by Tho. Aquine, which he presented to Mary as a New-Year’s gift, mentions the translation of a prayer by St. Thomas which she had made. “I do remember,” he says, “that skante ye were come to xij. yeres of age, but that ye were so rype in the Laten tongue that rathe doth happen to the women sex, that your grace not only could perfectly rede, wright and construe Laten, but furthermore translate eny harde thing of the Laten in to our Inglysshe tongue, and among all other your most vertuous occupacions, I have seen one prayer translated of your doing of Sayncte Thomas Alquyne, that I do ensuer your grace is so well done, so near to the Laten, that when I loke upon it, as I have one of the exemplars of yt, I have not only mervell at the doinge of it, but further for the well doing, have set yt as well in my boke or bokes, as also in my pore wyfe’s, your humble beadeswoman, and my chyldern, to gyve them occasion to remember to praye for your grace.“[52]