“Your assured loving friend during my life,
“Marye.”[222]
She then at once communicated Cromwell’s letter to the envoys, in order that they might be prepared with an answer, when they came to see her. Chapuys, on behalf of both, thus described the whole matter to the Emperor, six days later:—
“The King granted us permission to visit the Prince and the Princess, though we perceived that had we not applied for such permission, he himself would have requested us to go, for he evidently wished the latter to speak to us, as prescribed in a letter of Sir Cromwell, addressed to her in his (the King’s) name. The substance of the letter was that she (the Princess) had heard from an authentic quarter, the dissimulation employed by us, your Majesty’s ambassadors, in the discussion of the affair concerning her individually, and that from the fact of your Majesty being her good lord and cousin, all people would have thought that your kindness and friendship towards her would have been of greater magnitude. Being a woman, she could not help saying so much to us; not indeed that she felt any particular desire or anxiety for the issue of the matter in question (since she only obeyed in that respect the commands of her most gracious and loving father the King, in whom, after God, she placed all her trust) but because after so many overtures and fine words, nothing had been concluded, as she heard; and also because when merchants were in the habit of bestowing as a dower on their daughters, one fourth of their annual revenue in cash, we Imperial ministers should only have offered 20,000 ducats, and even those so uncertain as to the manner of settlement, that had misfortune obliged her to leave England, and have recourse to her dower, she might perhaps never have known upon what her revenue was settled. Sir Cromwell, as it appears, had besides, written to her to use the very words of the letter, coupled with such gentle terms as her own wisdom and natural discretion might suggest, and immediately inform him of what passed at the interview with us. We must observe that the contents of Sir Cromwell’s letter to the Princess had been duly communicated by her to us, the day before we called, that we might be prepared to shape our answer in writing; which we did accordingly, that she herself might transmit it to her father the King.
“The answer, as we flatter ourselves, is courteous and satisfactory for both parties. We omit it for fear of lengthening this despatch of ours already too prolix perhaps.
“After visiting the Prince, who is the prettiest child we ever set eyes upon, we returned to the Princess, and began again, to speak about Sir Cromwell’s letter, and our own answer to it. After a good deal of conversation on the subject, the Princess said to us, that all her hopes centred in God, and your Imperial Majesty, and that she held you in the room of father and mother, and was so affectionately attached to you, that it seemed almost impossible to her to have such an affection and love for a kinsman. She knew perfectly well, that it had not been your fault, if the affair of her marriage had remained in the state in which it is, that she really believed what we had told her to be the exact truth, in spite of the efforts made to persuade her to the contrary. Indeed, she owned to us, that about last Lent, the King her father had tried to convince her that your Imperial Majesty proceeded in the affair with the utmost dissimulation, and without any wish whatsoever to treat of it, so much so that it seemed as if the whole thing had been planned, in order to bring discredit upon him (the King). She, the Princess, had before and after her father’s representations, experienced that the contrary was the case, and therefore she was now ready to act one way or the other, whichever your Imperial Majesty decided, respecting the marriage proposal. This seemed to us a fair opportunity to ask her, as we did, then and there, whether in case of a favourable opportunity presenting itself, she would have courage enough to leave England by stealth. To this question of ours, the Princess, from modesty, as we presume, did at first show some reluctance to reply. Then she said that she could not say yes or no, for things might arrive at such a pitch, and the occasion for her departure from this country might become so propitious and favourable, that she would have no scruple or difficulty at all in leaving. Anyhow she would let me know her intentions on that score; for it might happen after all, that the King her father might hereafter show greater consideration for her, or cause her to be more respected and better treated than she had been until now; in which case, she would much prefer remaining in England, and conforming herself entirely to her father’s commands and wishes, obeying him implicitly and so forth, though still acting by my advice. Such was the Princess’s language in the two long conferences we held with her. In short, she begged us to present to your Majesty her most humble commendations, until she herself did so by letter.”[223]
Mary had reasons enough to dread worse treatment, in spite of her humble expressions of submissive obedience. After the first flush of her reconciliation and return to court, and more especially after the death of Queen Jane, who had always befriended her, Henry’s irritation broke out afresh. At Easter 1538, the mourning for the Queen being over, Lady Kingston sent to Wriothesley, Keeper of the Wardrobe and Cromwell’s Secretary, “to know the King’s pleasure whether my Lady Mary’s grace should leave wearing of black this Easter or not”. She received the ungracious reply that the Lady Mary might wear “what colour she would”. Nothing daunted, Lady Kingston again wrote, “My Lady’s grace desireth you now to be a suitor to the King’s grace, for her wearing her whiten taffety edged with velvet, which used to be to his own liking, whenever he saw her grace, and suiteth to this joyful feast of our Lord’s holy rising from the dead”.[224] There is no answer to this letter, but about the same time there is a warrant in Cromwell’s Remembrances, written in Wriothesley’s hand, “for apparell for my Lady Mary”.[225]
During the whole of this year, although supposed to be in favour, Mary was not only in an uncomfortable, but in a more or less dangerous position. She was virtually a prisoner in her own house, and was not even allowed to take the exercise which her health needed. Henry saw her occasionally and dined with her at Richmond in May; but she was closely watched, and scarcely ever permitted to appear in public, while the sums allowed for her household expenses were painfully inadequate.
On the 14th September, Mendoza wrote to Charles V., that when he last saw her, she was in good health, but he had heard, that she had been unwell for the last few days, and that he thought the cause of it was to be found in the confinement in which she lived, “for nowadays she is kept much closer, and more poorly than before”. This new piece of persecution had for its sole object to force her to give up her only powerful friend, the Emperor, whose advice to her Henry felt was continually getting in the way of his own particular affairs. He could not apparently convince her that Charles’s friendship was not disinterested, but at least he could keep her a constant “suitor,” and in the humble position of a beggar, at his own royal and sacred feet. The letter which she wrote to Cromwell, in her urgent need for money, was entirely after the despot’s heart.
“My Lord,