“After my most hearty commendations to you; forasmuch as I have always found your gentleness such as never refused to further my continual suites to you, it maketh me the bolder to use mine accustomed manner in writing to you, to be mean for me to the King’s Highness, for such things as I have need of, which at this time is this. It hath pleased the King’s majestie, my most gracious father, of his great goodness, to send me every quarter of this year, fourty pounds, as you best know; for you were always a mean for it as (I thank you) you be for all my other suits. And seeing this quarter of Christmas must needs be more chargeable than the rest, specially considering the house I am in, I would desire you, if your wisdom thought it most convenient, to be a suitor to the King’s said Highness (if it may so stand with his gracious pleasure) somewhat to increase that sum. And thus, my Lord, I am ashamed always to be a beggar to you; but that the occasion at this time is such, that I cannot chuse. Wherefore I trust in your goodness, you will accept it thereafter. And thus I commit you to God, desiring him to reward you for all your pains taken for me.
“From Hownsdon, the 8 of December.
“Your assured loving friend during my life,
“Marye.”[226]
Soon after writing this letter, the whirligig of her father’s caprice placed her again at court, and from the beginning of the following year, she was the subject of one matrimonial scheme after another, Henry even pretending to go so far as to associate her with his own plans for a fourth marriage. In January 1539 Christopher Mont or Mount, a German agent in his service, was instructed to proceed to the court of the Duke of Saxony, and treat with Burgartus the Duke’s Vice-chancellor concerning a marriage, between the young Duke of Cleves and the Lady Mary. There is an amusing difference between Henry’s solemn, if hollow forms of negotiation with the first-rate powers of Europe, and the polite contempt with which he treats the petty German princes. If Burgartus desire “the picture of her face,” and say he wrote for it, Mont is to remind him that she is a King’s daughter, and that it was never seen, that the pictures of persons of such degree were sent abroad. Burgartus moreover has seen her, “and can testify of her proportion, countenance and beauty, and though she is only the King’s natural daughter, she is endued, as all the world knows, with such beauty, learning and virtue, that when the rest is agreed, no man would stick for any part concerning her beauty and goodness”.
Having disposed of this matter, Cromwell, in his instructions to Mont, goes on to say that he is diligently to inquire of the beauty and qualities of the elder of the two daughters of the Duke of Cleves, her shape, stature and complexion, and if he hear she is “such as might be likened unto his Majesty,” he shall tell Burgartus, that Cromwell, tendering the King’s alliance in Germany, “would be glad to induce the King to join with them, specially for the Duke of Saxony’s sake, who is allied there, and to make a cross marriage between the young Duke of Cleves and Lady Mary, and the King and the elder daughter of Cleves; for as yet, he knows no conclusion, in any of the overtures of marriage made to his grace in France or Flanders”. But first it was expedient that they should send her portrait. Mont is not to speak as if demanding her, “but rather to give them a prick to offer her”.[227]
Mont performed his mission zealously, and pressed the matter, urging daily, that the portrait of the lady might be sent to England. The Duke promised to send it, but explained that his painter Lucas Cranach was sick at home; and meanwhile Mont wrote, that as for her beauty she was said “to surpass the Duchess of Milan, as the golden sun surpassed the silver moon”.[228] The affair concerning the Lady Anne of Cleves continued its course, and the ultimate sending of her portrait to Henry has been duly chronicled by all writers on his fourth marriage. But the subject of her brother’s union with Mary was alternately dropped and revived, until it was at length allowed to die away in silence. Both schemes were the product of Cromwell’s ingenuity. They register the height to which Lutheran influence in the Church of England had risen at this period, the first decisive step towards his downfall and the return to more Catholic doctrines.
It was while Lutheran doctrines were still in the ascendant in England, and Mary’s possible bestowal on a Lutheran prince was everywhere discussed, that the Empress Isabella died, and immediately rumours were afloat that Charles would marry his cousin. The French at once took alarm, and Marillac, their ambassador in England, asked Henry what truth there was in the report. Henry replied, that whoever proposed such a thing must be out of his senses, although he had himself put the suggestion before Charles. He affected indignation, and declared that he could never trust the Emperor, who had once broken his promise to him, and who was always looking out for an opportunity of setting the Christian princes one against the other, to serve his own ambition, which was so great, that were he the sole monarch of Christendom he would not be satisfied.[229]
Nevertheless, he was not believed, and Melancthon complained, that in England the pious doctrine was again oppressed and adversaries triumphed, and that some suspected it was owing to the deliberations for the marriage of the Emperor with the King of England’s daughter. The French ambassador in Rome said that the Pope was in dread, lest Charles should ally himself with the great enemy of the Church. Reginald Pole, then in Rome, wrote to Cardinal Contarini; “They say it is in treaty to give the Princess to the Emperor. May God do what is best.” There was certainly some excuse for these surmises in the Catholic reaction taking place in England, a reaction however that had as little real bearing on an alliance with the Empire as it had, according to some, on a possible reconciliation with the Pope. Those who had opposed the King on the subject of his first divorce, and who still maintained the validity of his marriage with Katharine of Arragon, were as much in danger as ever, none of his subsequent matrimonial complications effacing the resentments which the first had inspired. He was never less inclined, however much he might persecute heretics, to make up his quarrel with Rome, and Cromwell was still the powerful enemy of the Catholic party, in spite of his having been thwarted by the King in his championship of the German reformers. He could still strike with the other side of his two-edged sword, and the terror of his name was great; for although Henry and his chief secretary were at variance on the subject of sacraments, there was a perfect understanding between them in the matter of the royal supremacy, and headship, and as to the coercive measures necessary to enforce them.
The principal object of their vengeance at this time was Reginald Pole, not merely on account of the book he had written On the Unity of the Church, but more especially because he had appealed to the Emperor to execute the Bull of Deposition fulminated by the Pope against Henry. All attempts to lure him back to England had failed, but he was not therefore to remain entirely unpunished. As it was not possible to strike him directly, he must suffer through the helpless and innocent members of his family, who were still in Henry’s power. In default of the son, there was nothing to prevent reprisals on the mother, and a parliamentary roll, dated 28th April 1539, records the arrest and attainder of Margaret Plantagenet, Countess of Salisbury, of Lord Montague her eldest son, and of several others. The only crimes imputed to them were their correspondence with Reginald Pole and their having “named and promulged that venemous serpent the Bishop of Rome to be supreme head of the Church of England”.