THE DESIRE OF ALL EYES.
1537-1547.
Mary was now the most prominent princess in Europe. The character, the
accomplishments, the personal charms of none were so amply discussed,
so widely known, so universally admired. Her beauty is spoken of in
terms which to modern ears sound extravagant. There was scarcely a
marriageable representative of any royal house, who did not aspire to
her hand, for strange as it seems, there is no sign that her political
value was diminished by the birth of an heir to the throne. If Henry
would but have consented to declare her legitimate, Francis I. would
have entered eagerly into a fresh negotiation for her marriage with
the Duke of Orleans, the question of which was being constantly
renewed during the next few years.[218] Sir William Paget, the English
ambassador in France, did his best to promote the match in 1542, and
Henry would have been far more likely to make concessions to please
Francis, than for any other consideration, but to give in on that
point would have been to stultify all that he had done. The Emperor’s
candidate had less chance still. He had never been a _persona grata_
at the English court, and however anxious Henry was to avoid war,
he was far from contemplating a close alliance with Charles. There
remained the German Protestant princes, the Emperor’s enemies, and
they admirably suited Henry’s purpose of hampering Charles in every
possible way; but when this policy threatened to push him into the
arms of France, Henry abandoned the Lutherans, greatly to Cromwell’s
disgust, and suggested that Charles, then a widower, should take Mary,
and his son Philip, her sister Elizabeth. The proposal was sufficient
to save the situation, without committing him to anything definite,
knowing as he did full well, that it would be met by a demand for
Mary’s rehabilitation, without which no step in the direction of such a
marriage would be taken.
It is easy to form a notion of Mary’s personal appearance during these
years, for besides the portraits painted by Holbein, who generally
aimed at faithful likenesses, remarks on her face and form are
sandwiched into most of the longer despatches of the ambassadors of all
the principal powers of Europe. Marillac, the French envoy, wrote more
soberly than most of them, for he was not much inclined to a closer
friendship between his master and a renegade of Henry’s kidney, the
excesses “of this King” being a theme on which he and his colleagues
dwelt freely. He describes Mary as “twenty-four years of age, of medium
height, with well-proportioned features, and a perfect complexion,
which makes her look as if she were but eighteen. Her voice is full and
deep, and rather more masculine in tone than her father’s. Some praise
her musical talents, others her proficiency in languages, others her
dancing; all feel the charm of her goodness and benignity, and the pure
atmosphere that surrounds her, in marvellous contrast to the tainted
air of the court.”[219]
The author of _The Life of Jane Dormer, Duchess of Feria_ observes, in
the stiff phraseology of the time, that when she grew older she was
commended “to the most noble and Catholic princess, the lady Mary, so
persuaded by her grandfather Sidney, whom two of his daughters had
served before, and died in her service much favoured of her Highness
for their virtue. When the queens (the wives of King Henry) had sought
with much importunity to have them in their service, they would by
no means leave the lady Mary, although the King himself requested it.
In those days the house of this princess was the only harbour for
honourable young gentlewomen given any way to piety and devotion. It
was the true school of virtuous demeanour, befitting the education that
ought to be in noble damsels, and the greatest lords of the kingdom
were suitors to her to receive their daughters in her service.“[220]
It was perhaps mainly on account of the esteem in which she was
held, at home and abroad, that Mary was the object of so jealous a
supervision on the part of Henry’s Council. The parents and guardians
of the many “_noble damsels_” who desired an asylum in her house were
peremptorily informed that she might have no more than the prescribed
number; and occasionally one or two would be dismissed in the most
arbitrary manner, no reason being given. Her every movement was watched
with suspicion, and even when she was supposed to be enjoying her
father’s favour, she was continually on the verge of losing it, for
the most innocent causes. She could not exercise the least hospitality
without being subjected to annoyance, and in May 1538, the fact of her
having entertained guests, whom she allowed to sleep under her roof,
was made a matter of accusation to the Council. Her reply to Cromwell’s
remonstrance and warning is significant of the bondage in which she was
held.
“MY LORD,
“After my most hearty commendations to you, these shall be to give
you thanks for the gentle and friendly letter which I received
from you upon Sunday last, whereby I may well perceive, not only
your continual diligence to further me in the King’s highness’s
favour (which I take God to my judge is mine only comfort and
treasure in this world), but also your wise and friendly counsel,
in advertising me to eschew such things, whereby I might seem to
give any other occasion than should be expedient for me; for the
which your goodness, my lord, I think myself more bound to you
than ever I did. For rather than I would willingly commit any jot
contrary to the increasing of the King’s majesty’s favour, my most
gracious and benign father, towards me, I would not only utterly
eschew all occasions to the contrary (according to my bounden
duty), but also suffer certain pain of body; for I take that for
the chief part of my life in this world. Wherefore, concerning the
lodging of strangers that you write to me of, although I fear it
hath been reported to the worst, nevertheless, I will promise you,
with God’s help from henceforth to refrain it so utterly, that
of right, none shall have cause to speak of it; desiring you, my
lord, for God’s sake to continue your goodness, both in exhorting
me to follow such things as you think most convenient for me, and
how I may eschew the contrary. For I confess the frailty of my
youth to be such, that by negligence I may forget myself without
the stay of your good counsel, which whensoever I shall hear, I
trust to follow, and to the uttermost of my power, with God’s
grace. To whose keeping I commit you, desiring him to reward you
for your friendly part in this matter towards me, with all others
in times past. From Richmond the 27th of May.
“Your assured bounden friend during my life,
“MARYE.”[221]
Henry and Cromwell were both anxious to detach her from the Emperor,
and they tried to do so by creating a misunderstanding between them,
telling Mary that he had been wanting in zeal to promote her marriage.
Hurtado de Mendoza was still in England, and Cromwell wrote to inform
her that the ambassador extraordinary would pay her a visit with
Chapuys, at the same time advising her to complain to them of the
Emperor’s coldness on the subject of Don Loys’s suit. But Mary was not
for an instant misled as to Cromwell’s intention, and her answer to his
letter shows that she was learning how to deal with his unscrupulous
policy. On the 24th August 1538, she wrote:—
“MY LORD,
“After my most hearty commendations to you, I have received
your letters by this bearer, whereby I do perceive the King’s
highness’s my most gracious father’s pleasure, touching my
communication to the emperor’s ambassadors, when they shall come
to visit the prince’s grace, my brother; which thing (although
his grace’s pleasure except) I would have been very loath to have
spoken of, considering myself a young maid, and very willing to
continue that life, if his said majesty will permit the same;
nevertheless, according to my duty, I shall fulfil all things
contained in your letters, as well as my simple wit will serve me;
and also write their whole answer unto you as soon as they shall
depart. In the meanwhile, not forgetting the inestimable goodness
of the King’s majesty towards me, in esteeming my bestowing more
than I have or shall deserve, which can do nothing but (as I am
most bounden) in all things obey his grace’s commandments to the
end of my life; as knoweth God, whose help I shall continually ask
to perform my said duty, and thus commit you to his holy keeping.
“From Portgore, this Saint Bartholomew’s day at after dinner.
“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,
“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”.
A letter from John Worth to Lord Lisle, after Lady Salisbury’s arrest,
contains a curious allusion to the old project of betrothing the
Princess Mary to her kinsman.
“Pleaseth your Lordship so it is that there was a coat armour found in
the Duchess of Salisbury’s coffer, and by the one side of the coat,
there was the King’s grace his arms of England, that is the lions
without the _fleur de lys_, and about the whole arms was made pansies
for Pole, and marygolds for my Lady Mary. This was about the coat
armour. And betwixt the marygold and the pansy was made a tree to rise
in the midst, and on the tree a coat of purple hanging on a bough, in
token of the coat of Christ, and on the other side of the coat all
the Passion of Christ. Pole intended to have married my lady Mary,
and betwixt them both should again arise the old doctrine of Christ.
This was the intent that the coat was made, as it is openly known in
the Parliament house, as Master Sir George Speke showed me. And this
my lady Marquess, my lady Salisbury, Sir Adrian Forskew [Fortescue],
Sir Thomas Dingley with divers others are attainted to die by act of
Parliament.”[230]
Pole thus wrote of his mother’s arrest to Cardinal Contarini:—
“You have heard, I believe of my mother being condemned by public
council to death, or rather to eternal life. Not only has he who
condemned her, condemned to death a woman of seventy, than whom he has
no nearer relation except his daughter, and of whom he used to say
there was no holier woman in his kingdom, but at the same time, her
grandson, son of my brother, a child, the remaining hope of our race.
See how far this tyranny has gone, which began with priests, in whose
order it only consumed the best, then [went on] to nobles, and there
too destroyed the best. At length it has come to women and innocent
children; for not only my mother is condemned, but the wife of that
marquis [of Exeter] who was slain with my brother, whose goodness was
famous and whose little son is to follow her. Comparing these things
with what the Turk has done in the East, there is no doubt but that
Christians can suffer worse under this western Turk.”[231]
In Cromwell’s _Remembrances_ occurs this entry: “What the King will
have done with the Lady of Salisbury”.[232] It was his pleasure that
she should languish in prison for two years, before her grey head was
brought to the scaffold, but her son, Lord Montague, had suffered no
such delay. Together with Courtenay, Marquis of Exeter he had been
arrested, the latter for no other crime than for saying, “Knaves rule
about the King,” and that he trusted “to give them a buffet some day,”
and together they were beheaded on Tower Hill. Courtenay’s young son
Edward, mentioned in Pole’s letter, remained in the Tower, grew up
there, and was liberated by Mary in person on her accession.
Chapuys describes Lady Salisbury’s execution in the Tower, in presence
of the Lord Mayor and about 150 persons. He says that when informed of
her sentence she found it very strange, not knowing her crime; but she
walked to the space in front of the Tower where there was no scaffold,
but only a small block, and there commended her soul to God. She
desired those present to pray for the King, Queen, Prince and Princess.
The ordinary executioner being absent, a “blundering garçonneau”
performed the office, who hacked her head and shoulders to pieces.[233]
There is no trace in the public records of the immediate effect
produced on Mary by these frightful occurrences, except that Chapuys
reports to the Emperor that “the Princess has been very ill, and in
some danger of her life, but thanks to God she is beginning to recover,
and there is a hope that owing to the good diet prescribed by her
physicians, and the great care her father, and her own servants take of
her, she will soon recover completely”.
She knew by experience, how slight a remark would suffice to place
her own head in jeopardy, and acutely as she would feel the awful fate
of her best friends, especially that of one to whom she owed next to
her mother all her early training in that “virtue and goodness” of
which even her father was proud, she dared not give utterance to the
least word of sorrow, or even show a mournful countenance lest she
should excite his wrath. When the strain became too great, the nervous
tension ended in a complete break-down that must have been a relief.
When we consider that even thoughts, sympathies and friendships were
interpreted high-treason by this “western Turk,” and that Mary’s mental
attitude was well-known to him, her hair-breadth escapes partake of
the marvellous. In spite of her yielding to his every demand, he knew
full well that his daughter had never given an interior consent to his
new laws, and that in the eyes of Europe, he was on account of those
same laws an object of derision. The only way in which he could claim
respect for himself and for them was by becoming a terror. There is no
doubt that Mary was still of value to him in playing off one of his
allies against another, but at any moment it might suit his policy
better to behead her, than to pretend to dispose of her in marriage.
Cromwell, it is true, seemed to be her friend, but in the past, he had
been the origin of her troubles, and it was evident to all, that his
friendship would be as chaff before the wind, if she stood between him
and the attainment of his purpose. It has been more than once pointed
out by biographers of Cromwell, that he was not unnecessarily cruel,
that he never sent any to the block from private passion, that he took
no delight in bloodshed for its own sake. Neither was he accessible to
any feeling of generosity or pity. All the thews and sinews of his make
were of iron; humanity he esteemed a weakness, and altogether beside
his one absorbing study of the advancement of self, by ministering
to the greed, vanity and caprice of his master. He at last came to
understand Henry’s character better than his own, and could have
foretold the doom that awaited him, if he had been able to estimate the
extent of his own capacity to satisfy the tyrant.
But for her tact and judgment, cultivated by Chapuys, Mary must
inevitably, like innumerable others, even after her supreme sacrifice,
have been crushed between these two millstones.
Henry had concluded the negotiations for his marriage with Anne of
Cleves, in the autumn of 1539, and the lady arrived in England before
the end of the year. But the subject of Mary’s union with Anne’s
brother having now been dropped, another aspirant to her hand appeared
on the scene. This was Philip, Duke of Bavaria, nephew of the Count
Palatine, whose wooing was surrounded with some little romance. The
preliminaries for this proposed marriage went farther, and gave more
promise of fulfilment than any of the various plans for the disposal
of the Princess since her childhood. The object of Duke Philip’s visit
to England was at first kept secret, although Marillac, the shrewd
ambassador of Francis I., was not long in discovering it. “There is a
talk,” he wrote to Montmorency, “of the marriage of this King’s eldest
daughter with the young Duke of the house of Bavaria, but there seems
no appearance of it, except that he will not give her to a powerful
prince, lest he should afterwards raise some claim to this crown.”[234]
Sir Thomas Wriothesley was sent to Hertford Castle, where Mary was
then residing, to announce to her this new proposal. It does not
appear whether she had any warning of his errand, Chapuys being then
absent from England, and although her agreement to whatever marriage
Henry might decide on for her was a foregone conclusion, Wriothesley’s
account of the interview and her own answer to Cromwell are interesting
documents.
Wriothesley wrote as follows:—
“Pleaseth your Lordship to understand, that arriving here at
Hertford castle this afternoon about two of the clock, upon
knowledge given of my coming and desire to speak with my Lady
Mary’s Grace, I had immediately access to the same, to whom after
the delivery of the King’s Majestie’s token, with his Grace’s most
hearty commendations, I opened the cause and purpose of my coming,
in as good sort as my poor witt had conceived the same. Whereunto
she made me answer, that albeit the matter were towards her of
great importance, and besides of such sort and nature, as the
King’s Majestie not offended, she would wish and desire never to
enter that kind of religion, but to continue still a maid during
her life: yet remembering how by the laws of God and nature she
was bound to be in this, and all other things obedient to the
King’s Highness, and how by her own bond and obligation she had
heretofore of her free will, according to her said bond and duty,
obliged herself to the same, tho she might by frailty be induced
in this so weighty a thing to cast many doubts, and to take great
stay with herself: yet wholly and entirely without qualification,
she committed herself to his Majestie, as to her most benign and
mercifull father and most gracious Soveraign Lord; trusting and
assuredly knowing, that his goodness and wisdom would so provide
in all things for her, as should much exceed her simple capacity,
and redound to his Grace’s honour and her quiet; which thing she
will this night write with her Grace’s own hand, to be sent by me
to-morrow at my return. I assure your Lordship, here can no more
be desired, than with all humility and obedience is offered. And
because I must tarry all night for these letters, I thought meet
to signifie how farr I had proceeded, to the intent, the King’s
Majestie knowing the same, may further in all things determine, as
to his Grace’s high wisdom shall be thought meet and expedient.
“When I had done with her Grace, I went then to my Lady
Elizabeth’s Grace, and to the same made the King’s Majestie’s most
hearty commendations, declaring that his Highness desired to hear
of her health, and sent her his blessing. She gave humble thanks,
enquiring again of his Majestie’s welfare, and that with as great
a gravitie as she had been 40 years old. If she be no worse
educated than she now appeareth to me, she will prove of no less
honor and womanhood than shall beseem her father’s daughter; whom
our Lord long preserve unto us, and send your Lordship also long
life many years to serve the same.
“From Hartford Castle this Wednesday the seventeenth of December.
“Your lordship’s bounden beadsman,
“THOMAS WRIOTHESLEY.”[235]
It is to be regretted that Mary’s letter to her father on this occasion
has been lost, but to Cromwell she wrote as follows:—
“MY LORD,
“After my most hearty commendations, I do in semblable manner
thank you for your gentle and friendly letters. How I have
proceeded, touching the counsel of the same for the matter
declared by Mr. Wriothesley, because both by his relation and by
my letters, to the King’s Majesty you shall perceive, I shall not
trouble you with my vain words in writing: only this I will add,
that howsoever I am in this kind of thing affected, his Highness
in this, and all other things during my life shall find me his
most humble and obedient daughter, subject and servant; and so
I beseech you ever to say and answer for me. I shall not, God
willing, disapprove your saying in the same, while the breath
shall be in my body; as knows our Lord, who send you health.
“From Hertford Castle, the 17th of December, late at night. I
beseech your lordship to pardon me that I write not this letter of
mine own hand. I was something weary with the writing of the other
letter, and upon trust of your goodness, I caused one of my men in
this to supply the place of a secretary.
“Your assured loving friend during my life,
“MARYE.”[236]
Henry’s sole object in this negotiation appears to have been to
hoodwink the Emperor into a belief that he was again throwing himself
on the side of the German Princes, and to secure this, he allowed
matters to go further towards a conclusion than he had ever before
suffered them to go. With a great pretence of secrecy, he took care
that the French and Imperial ambassadors should know all about the
affair. Marillac wrote on the 27th December, to say that the news he
communicated to Montmorency on the 24th was confirmed “touching the
marriage of the lady Mary with the Duke of Bavaria, who three or four
days ago, _as secretly as he could_, went to visit her in a house of
the Abbot of Westminster, in the gardens of the Abbey, a mile from this
town, whither she had been brought. After having kissed her, which is
an argument either of marriage or of near relationship, seeing that
since the death of the late marquis, no lord of this kingdom has dared
to go so far, the said Duke had a long conversation with her, partly
in German, through an interpretator, and partly in Latin, of which she
is not ignorant. Finally, they mutually declared, the said lord his
resolution, taken with this King, to have her for wife, ‘_pourveu que
sa personne luy feust agréable_,’ and the said lady her willingness
to obey her father. He cannot say when the marriage will come off,
but some think in fifteen or twenty days; others that the weddings of
father and daughter will be on the same day, that is, as soon as the
lady, who is at Calais arrives. She is only detained by the wind, which
yesterday was not contrary.”[237]
The Duke presented his supposed fiancée with a cross of diamonds set
with four pearls, and one great pearl pendant,[238] and there the
matter ended for the moment. Anne of Cleves had landed at Deal, and
Henry was taken up with the subject of his own marriage.
A letter in the Record Office from Henry VIII. to some person
unnamed, commands him to prepare himself “and all other things meet
and convenient, to bring unto us our entirely beloved daughters, the
ladies Mary and Elizabeth, in such honourable sort as you can”. They
were among the foremost to receive their father’s bride, and took part
in the wedding festivities. These were however clouded by the royal
bridegroom’s disappointment on seeing the lady. Reports of her beauty,
and also of her want of beauty have been greatly exaggerated. Henry
remarked to Cromwell that she was “nothing so fair as she had been
reported,” that she was “well and seemly, but nothing else”.[239] The
wedding took place on the feast of the Epiphany, 1540, with marked
reluctance on Henry’s part. He afterwards said that he would never
have married her, “but for fear of making a ruffle in the world, and
of driving her brother into the hands of the Emperor and the French
King”.[240] But his discontent was kept secret for a time, although
the day after his marriage he pointedly asked Cromwell, “What remedy?”
Cromwell said he knew of none, and hoped for the best. He had been
more facile in the case of Queen Katharine and of Anne Boleyn, but
his ingenuity seemed to have forsaken him at the moment when it might
have saved him from ruin. His fall was as swift and as unforeseen by
himself, as that of any of the victims of his policy.
On the 11th June, the French ambassador wrote to Francis I.: “I have
just been informed that Master Thomas Cramvel Keeper of the Privy Seal
of this King, and his Vicar General in things spiritual, who since the
death of the Cardinal had the principal management of the affairs of
this kingdom and had lately been made Grand Chamberlain, was an hour
ago led prisoner to the Tower of London, and all his goods seized and
confiscated. Although this might be thought a private matter and of
little importance, inasmuch as they have but reduced a personage thus
to the condition from which they raised him, treating him only as they
all say he deserved, nevertheless, considering the consequence of the
matter, ... especially as regards the innovations in religion, of which
the said Cramvel had been the principal author, the news seems to me of
so much importance, that it ought to be communicated forthwith.” Later
on he adds:—
“Sire, as I was on the point of closing this letter, a gentleman of
the Court came to me from the King his master to tell me not to be
surprised that Cramvel had been sent to the Tower, and that as the
common, ignorant people as usual spoke of it variously, and in such
a manner as to mislead one, I might think and write accordingly, he
wished me to know the truth, and the reason why he had taken him all
invested in authority as he was”. He goes on to say that the King,
according to his own statement, wished to settle religious matters in
England on a Catholic basis, and was opposed by Cromwell, who was in
league with the German Lutherans, and working against his master and
the Acts of Parliament; that he had betrayed himself, and said that he
hoped to do away with the old preachers, so that the new ones would
be listened to, adding that “the affair would soon be brought to such
a pass, that the King with all his power would not be able to prevent
it, but that his own party would be so strong that he would make the
King descend to the new doctrines, even if he had to take arms against
him, in which case, he reckoned that he would not be inferior but
rather superior in power, and able to establish that which he had long
proposed to do”.[241]
This was Henry’s version of his minister’s disgrace, and there was,
beyond doubt, an element of truth in it, but the immediate irritating
cause of Henry’s displeasure was, as we shall presently see, Cromwell’s
guilt in providing him with a wife whom he disliked, and his inability
to release him from a bond, for the forming of which he was mainly
responsible. Meanwhile, Marillac gives an interesting description of
Cromwell’s arrest:—
“To begin with the day of his taking, in the Council Chamber of
this King’s house at Westminster—as soon as the Lieutenant of the
Tower declared the charge he had received from the King, to take him
prisoner, the said Cramvel, moved with indignation, took off his cap
and threw it on the ground in a rage, saying to the Duke of Norfolk,
and others of the Privy Council there assembled, that this then was
the reward of his good services towards the King, and that he appealed
to their consciences as to whether he was a traitor; but as he was
treated thus, he renounced all the mercy and pardon that might be
done to him, as one who never thought to have offended, and that all
he asked of the King his master, if he had such an opinion of him was,
not to let him languish long. Thereupon, some said he was a traitor,
others that it was meet he should be judged by the laws he had himself
made, which were so bloody, that often words which had been spoken
inadvertently, with a good intention, he had constituted high treason.
The Duke of Norfolk, having reproached him with some villanies done
by him, snatched off the order of St. George, which he wore round his
neck, and the Admiral, to show himself as great an enemy in adversity,
as he had been thought a friend in prosperity, untied the Garter. Then
by a door which opens upon the water, he was put into a boat, and taken
to the Tower, without the people of this city suspecting it, until
they saw all the King’s archers under Mr. Cheyney at the door of the
prisoner’s house, where they made an inventory of his goods, which were
not of such value as it was thought, although too much for a fellow
of his cloth. The money was £7,000 sterling, equal to 28,000 crowns
of our currency, and the silver plate, including crosses, chalices,
mitres, vases and other spoils of the Church, might amount to rather
more. These moveables were taken before night to the King’s treasury,
which is a sign that they will not be restored. The next day, were
found several letters which he had written to, or received from the
German lords who adhered to the doctrines of Luther. I have not been
able to learn their contents, except that this King was so embittered
against the said Cramvel, that he will no longer hear him spoken of,
but desires as soon as possible to abolish all memory of him, as the
meanest wretch ever born in England. To begin, this King at once
distributed all his offices as it pleased him, and had it proclaimed
that no one should call him Lord Privy Seal or by any other title of
estate, but only Thomas Cramvel, Shearman, depriving him of all his
privileges and prerogatives of nobility, which he had before given him,
dividing his less valuable effects among the servants of the prisoner,
who were commanded no longer to wear their master’s livery. Wherefore
it is inferred, Sire, that the said Cramvel will not be judged
according to the solemnity used to the great of this country, nor
beheaded as they are, but will be dragged along like an ignoble person,
and afterwards hanged and quartered. A few days will show, especially
as they have resolved to empty the Tower at this Parliament, which
finishes with this month.”[242]
Cromwell’s tone of indignation, real or pretended, changed to one of
the humblest entreaty for mercy as soon as he was lodged in the Tower.
His letters to the King were contemptible. Henry replied to them by
ordering him to write an account of all he knew about his marriage with
Anne of Cleves, and having had ample experience of his ex-minister’s
complaisance in his matrimonial affairs, he was justified in thinking
that Cromwell would not stick at trifles now. The result was a detailed
story of the whole matter, with the very words that had passed between
himself and the King, the day after the marriage, most of which is
unfit to print.[243] But nothing that he could write or say availed to
save him; the axe that he had so long held over the heads of the nation
fell at last on his own head, the only favour granted to him being the
manner of his death, for he had been condemned to be hanged. According
to the proceedings which he had himself instituted, he was attainted in
Parliament in his absence, and convicted without a hearing. Hated by
every member of the Council, feared throughout the realm, disliked and
suspected abroad, he was regretted by none. Cranmer who had been his
only friend, styling him, “Mine own entirely beloved Cromwell,” did as
he had done on Anne Boleyn’s arrest, and wrote to Henry that he stood
amazed and grieved, but was glad as a loyal subject, that Cromwell’s
treasons had been discovered![244]
The nation once more breathed freely, and even on the continent
considerable relief was felt. The Constable of France said that “every
honest man was much bound to God and Henry, that Christendom should
be dispatched of such a ribald who thought to have my lady Mary in
marriage”; and the Portuguese ambassador in France was heard to say
that Henry was like to have made Cromwell a duke, and then have given
him his daughter, as he had given his sister to the Duke of Suffolk,
and that therefore Cromwell did his best to break every marriage
proposed for her. He swore he could not remember who first told him,
“but the bruit was common among ambassadors two years past”.[245]
Meanwhile, the new Queen had been sent to Richmond, ostensibly to be
out of reach of the plague, and it was given out that Henry would
follow her there in a few days. But proceedings for a divorce had been
already instituted in Parliament, and in an incredibly short space of
time her marriage with the King was declared null, by reason of her
pre-contract with the son of the Duke of Lorraine. She was endowed with
lands, to the value of £4,000 annually, with two houses to live in, one
at Richmond, the other at Bletchingly.
With this arrangement Anne was perfectly content. She expressed her
willingness to be divorced, and had desired the Duke of Cleves’
messenger “to commend her to her brother and say she was merry and well
entreated. This she did with such alacrity and pleasant gesture, that
he may well testify that he found her not miscontented. After she had
dined, she sent the King the ring delivered unto her at their pretended
marriage, desiring that it might be broken in pieces, as a thing which
she knew of no force or value.” Henry sent her many gifts and tokens,
“as his sister and none otherwise,” in which capacity she was to be the
first lady in the realm, next after the Queen and the King’s children.
In his letters Henry exhorts her to be “quiet and merry,” which
injunction she seems to have obeyed, without any great effort, and he
subscribes himself “Your loving brother and friend”. A _douceur_ was
administered to the Duke of Cleves, and all parties concerned were as
well pleased and friendly as possible. After Henry’s fifth marriage,
Anne was spoken of as “the old Queen, the King’s sister”.
Whatever others said of these startling events, Mary apparently said
nothing. Not a single remark of hers is chronicled that might be
an indication of her feelings on the fall of Cromwell. He had been
her greatest foe, but had seemed in later years to befriend her,
and she believed that she owed her father’s restored favour to his
intercession. Whether he really aspired to her hand, and whether she
knew of it, must remain one of the mysteries of the reign. That he had
worked with Henry on her behalf is certain, and perhaps her fear of
him was balanced by gratitude, a sentiment which Mary alone of all the
Tudors seems to have cherished. Many of her appeals to Cromwell had
been penned in charitable solicitude for servants of her own and her
mother’s, for she never forgot a service rendered, and never hesitated
to become importunate, where the welfare and comfort of her dependants
were concerned. Among a number of such appeals is one of the year 1537,
in which she desires him to have in remembrance “mine earnest suit
made unto you for mistress Coke, my mother’s old servant, touching the
farm of Rysbridge, belonging to the new college in Oxford, the warden
whereof hath neither used you nor me, as I think gently therein. And
therefore, as my sheet-anchor, next the king’s majesty, I recommend it
wholly unto you, and even so beseech our Lord to send you no worse to
fare than I would myself.”[246]
In December 1540, Henry married Katharine Howard, grand-daughter of
the Duke of Norfolk, whose reputation was already so bad, that it is
impossible to believe him to have been ignorant of it. She complained
to Henry of not being treated by Mary with the same respect as she had
shown to the two preceding Queens. An attempt was made about the same
time to remove from the Princess’s household two of her maidservants,
a petty piece of persecution which it was thought came from the new
Queen’s hostility. Some means of conciliation was however found, and
the two maids were allowed to remain, but this was not the only trouble
of the kind, for Chapuys, writing to the Queen of Hungary, says that
Mary is well in health, “though exceedingly distressed and sad, at the
death of one of her damsels, who has actually died of grief at having
been removed from her service by the King’s order”. Nevertheless, Mary
had been too well schooled in adversity to indulge in resentment, and
she sent Katharine a New Year’s present, with which Henry was much
pleased, as well as with her present to him, and sent her messenger
back to her with two magnificent gifts from himself and the Queen. She
still contrived to hold herself aloof from the court, but the deposed
Queen Anne seems to have had no such scruple, and Marillac gives a
description of her New Year’s visit to the King and her rival, which is
too amusing to be passed over. In a letter to Francis he says:—
“Sire, to omit nothing that may be written about this country, Madame
Anne, sister of the Duke of Cleves formerly Queen of England, passed
the recent festivities at Richmond, four miles from Hampton Court, to
which place, the King and also the Queen sent her on the first day of
the year rich presents of clothes, plate and jewels, valued at six
or seven thousand crowns. And on the second day, she was summoned to
appear at Hampton Court, where she was very honourably conducted by
several of the nobility, and being arrived, this king received her
very graciously as did also the queen, with whom she remained nearly
the whole afternoon. They danced together, and seemed so happy that
neither did the new queen appear to be jealous or afraid that the
other had come to raise the siege, as it was rumoured, nor did the
said lady of Cleves show any sign of discontent at seeing her rival in
her place. Moreover, Sire, if it please you to hear the end of this
farce, that evening and the next, the two ladies supped at the King’s
table together, although the lady of Cleves sat a little backward in
a corner, where the Princess of England, Madame Mary is wont to be;
and the following day, the said lady of Cleves returned with the same
escort to Richmond, where she is visited by all the personages of the
court, which makes people think that she is about to be reinstated in
her former position.”[247]
In May, Henry and Katharine went to visit Prince Edward at Mary’s
request, “but chiefly,” says Chapuys, “at the intercession of the Queen
herself”. Henry gave Mary on this occasion full permission to reside at
court, “and the Queen,” Chapuys adds, “has countenanced it with a good
grace”. Mary had therefore no choice but to spend the next few months
with her new stepmother, keeping outwardly on good terms with her,
and presenting a strange contrast to her surroundings. When at last
it suited Henry to have his eyes opened to Katharine’s outrageously
loose conduct, his indignation, or that which passed for such, knew
no bounds. During her trial, the palace at Hampton Court, where she
was imprisoned, was so strictly guarded that none but certain officers
could enter or leave it. Mary was sent away, and her father announced
that he was heart-broken at the Queen’s immorality and perfidy. Anne of
Cleves was thought by Chapuys to rejoice greatly at Katharine’s fall,
but her execution caused little comment throughout the country. Either
the people were indifferent to her fate, or they had become accustomed
to the disgrace of Queens consorts.
But for Mary there seemed no escape from tragedies. The block was
never long absent from her life, which was often passed under its very
shadow. When, in May 1541, the Countess of Salisbury was beheaded,
under peculiarly aggravated circumstances, her goddaughter, on whose
behalf she indirectly suffered, might well walk in terror. The axe had
never before come so near Mary’s own head. Fear for her safety was
universal. The Emperor shared the common apprehension, and was anxious
to protect his cousin by seeming to be on especially good terms with
her father. Chapuys therefore advised him no longer to address Henry as
uncle, for the title only served to reopen old sores, and for the same
reason, he thought it better to give up the word princess in addressing
Mary. The King having now a son, it might be dropped without any loss
of dignity, as it really implied heiress to the Crown, a title to which
she had no longer any right.[248]
But the constant anxiety in which she lived, resulted, as often before,
in a serious illness. Illness however was sometimes her best friend,
for when she was in danger of death Henry would perhaps remember that
she was the idolised child of his youth, connected with his happier
days, and would hasten to show her that kindness and affection which
always helped to restore her to health. It was not until she appeared
to be _in extremis_ that he could be roused to any degree of interest,
whereas Chapuys was ever ready with sympathy. Thus on the 7th April
1542, he says that Mary had sent to him three or four days ago, to
thank him for certain letters which he had written to her during her
illness, saying that they had acted “as a most health-restoring cordial
to her”. And he ends, “To say the truth, I did my very best to comfort
and cheer her in the midst of her ailments”. But she was still far
from recovery, and on the 22nd he writes to the Queen of Hungary, “The
Princess has not improved in health of late; on the contrary, she has
occasionally been in danger of her life. I pray and beseech God to
grant her more consolation and pleasure than she has hitherto enjoyed.”
Marillac also informed Francis of the extremely critical state in
which she lay. However, at the end of the month, Chapuys reported her
convalescence, with the news that Henry was taking great care of her,
and that “with God’s help and good diet,” it was hoped that she would
shortly be well. From this time onwards, till her father’s death,
Mary’s lot improved, a fact that may have been owing to the King’s
marriage with Katharine Parr, who had a great regard for the desolate
girl. In September, we find that “the King has just been entertaining
and feasting the Princess, beyond measure, presenting her with certain
rings and jewels”. She was recalled to Hampton Court for the Christmas
festivities, and was “triumphantly attended, and accompanied on her
passage through London”. Henry received her kindly and “spoke the
most gracious and amiable words that a father could address to his
daughter”.[249] On New Year’s Day, he presented her with more rings,
silver plate and jewels, among which were two rubies of inestimable
value. In the course of the year, Chapuys tells the Emperor that “the
King continues to treat her kindly, and has made her stay with the new
Queen, who behaves affectionately towards her. As to Anne Boleyn’s
daughter, the King has sent her back to stay with the Prince his son.”
Mary and Katharine had many tastes in common, and were excellent
companions. Both were fond of study, though in an unequal degree, for
to Mary it had been her only resource and consolation, in the midst
of her fiercest trials. Friendships she had cultivated, as far as
they were allowed to her, but books had been her constant refuge, and
the taste for them once formed never forsook her. The New Learning
had found in her an apt pupil, and she had eagerly welcomed the works
of Erasmus, as they flowed from his facile and ever industrious pen.
His _Paraphrase on the New Testament_ had been printed in the year of
her birth. It formed a part of her education, and was the basis on
which her piety was founded. In later years, she translated a portion
of it—“The Paraphrase on the Gospel of St. John”—into English. Udal
gave it to the world with a translation of the whole work, which he
dedicated to Katharine Parr. In his preface he says:—
“And in this behalf, like as to your highness, most noble Queen
Catherine, for causing these paraphrases of the most famous clerk and
most godly writer, Erasmus of Rotterdam, to be translated into our
vulgar language, England can never be able to render thanks sufficient;
so may it never be able, as her deserts require, enough to praise and
magnify the most noble, the most virtuous, the most witty, and the most
studious Lady Mary’s grace, daughter of the late most puissant and
victorious King Henry the Eighth, etc., it may never be able I say,
enough to praise and magnify her grace for taking such great study,
pain and travail in translating this paraphrase of the said Erasmus
upon the Gospel of St. John, at your highness’ special contemplation,
as a number of right well-learned men both would have made courtesy at,
and also would have brought to worse frame in the doing.”
The book was published after Henry’s death, but a letter from Katharine
to Mary, and belonging to the year 1544, is interesting as showing how
much of it was really Mary’s own work, and the arguments employed by
the Queen to persuade her to acknowledge the fact of her authorship
publicly.
“Although most noble and dearest Lady, there are many reasons
that easily induce my writing to you at this time, yet nothing so
greatly moves me thereto as my concern for your health, which as I
hope is very good, so am I greatly desirous to be assured thereof.
Wherefore I despatch to you this messenger, who will be (I judge)
most acceptable to you, not only from his skill in music, in
which you, I am well aware take as much delight as myself, but
also because having long sojourned with me, he can give the most
certain information of my whole estate and health. And in truth, I
have had it in my mind before this, to have made a journey to you,
and salute you in person; but all things do not correspond with
my will. Now however, I hope this winter, and that ere long, that
being nearer, we shall meet, than which, I assure you, nothing
can be to me more agreeable, and more to my heart’s desire. Now
since, as I have heard, the finishing touch (as far as translation
is concerned) is given by Mallet to Erasmus’s work upon John, and
nought now remains, but that proper care and vigilance should be
taken in revising, I entreat you to send over to me this very
excellent and useful work, now amended by Mallet, or some of
your people, that it may be committed to the press in due time;
and farther to signify whether you wish it to go forth to the
world (most auspiciously) under your name, or as the production
of an unknown writer. To which work you will in my opinion do a
real injury, if you refuse to let it go down to posterity under
the auspices of your own name, since you have undertaken so much
labour in accurately translating it for the great good of the
public, and would have undertaken still greater (as is well known)
if the health of your body had permitted. And since all the world
knows that you have toiled and laboured much in this business,
I do not see why you should repudiate that praise which all men
justly confer on you. However, I leave this whole matter to your
discretion, and whatsoever resolution you may adopt, that will
meet my fullest approbation. For the purse which you have sent me
as a present, I return you great thanks. I pray God, the greatest
and best of beings that He deign to bless you uninterruptedly with
true and unalloyed happiness. May you long fare well in him.
“From Hennworth, 20th September.
“Most devotedly and lovingly yours,
“CATHERINE THE QUEEN K.P.”[250]
During the remaining three years of her father’s life, Mary was
allowed to lead her own quiet, studious life in peace. She was held
in very great consideration both at home and abroad; ambassadors
were instructed after receiving their first audience of the King to
visit “the most serene Queen Katharine Parr and the most illustrious
Princess, the King’s daughter”.
Negotiations for her marriage still continued, but were nothing more
than tactics of war to mislead the enemy, so long as the purpose
served. Duke Philip of Bavaria had taken leave of her in January 1540,
believing that he was soon to return and claim his bride. The Emperor
considered the matter settled, and deep sympathy was felt for her at
his court in Brussels. Granvelle thought, however, that the marriage
must be suffered, provided she was made to consent to nothing against
her religion, and he sent over yet another form of protestation to
be used at the ceremony. In England it was even reported that she
was already married to the Duke; and all these various comments were
exactly what Henry wished to call forth, without pledging himself
irrevocably, or having the least intention of concluding the treaty.
While Mary was sadly resigned to her fate, and all Europe was pitying
her, Henry was merely trifling with the German Protestants for
political reasons. But the trifling was of a very solemn sort, and as
late as 1546, a treaty was drawn up but never signed, between the Duke
of Bavaria and the Lady Mary, in which it was provided that “the Duke
shall transport the Lady within three months, the King to give the
Duke 12,000 florins, in hands towards her transporting”.[251] It was
also enacted that her dowry was to consist of 40,000 florins in gold,
20,000 to be paid on the day of her marriage, the rest at Frankfort a
year later.
But yet another aspirant, the Duke of Holstein, came forward, and Henry
played him off against Duke Philip, as he had played Philip off against
the Emperor and Francis I., and his son, without of course any definite
result.
At the age of twenty-eight Mary was still admired, although bad health,
and trouble of mind had left their marks on a face, the beauty of which
had been praised in such lavish terms. In 1544 the secretary of the
Duke of Najera merely said of her, “The Princess Mary has a pleasing
countenance and person. The dress she wore was a petticoat of cloth of
gold and gown of violet-coloured three-piled velvet, with a head-dress
of many rich stones.” It was in this year that she sat to the now
unknown painter, for the portrait which has passed into the National
Portrait Gallery. The somewhat hard outlines of the picture betoken a
hand far less skilful than that of Holbein, who painted her earlier,
or that of Sir Antonio More and Lucas Van Heere, who painted her later
portraits. It will be observed that the style of dress resembles that
of the more pleasing Oxford portrait, which must have been executed
about the same time.
Henry’s various machinations were cut short by death, and Mary’s
troubles were henceforth to take an entirely different form.
[Illustration:
_Walker & Cockerell, Photographers, London._
THE PRINCESS MARY AT THE AGE OF TWENTY-EIGHT.
From the original painting in the National Portrait Gallery.]
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 218: Francis told Marillac, his ambassador in England, that
as the Dauphin had no children, it would be a great pleasure to him to
see his son Orleans marry Lady Mary of England, and he was to inquire
of her physician whether all she had suffered would not prevent her
bearing children (Gairdner, _Cal._, xvi., 1186).]
[Footnote 219: _Correspondance Politique de MM. de Castillon et de
Marillac, ambassadeurs de France en Angleterre_, p. 349.]
[Footnote 220: P. 63. The _Household Book of Queen Mary_ mentions (pp.
119, 126 and 184) the names of Mabel and Elizabeth Sydney.]
[Footnote 221: Cotton MS. Otho C. x., f. 282. Printed in _Letters of
Royal and Illustrious Ladies_, by M. A. E. Wood (afterwards Green),
vol. iii., p. 13.]
[Footnote 222: Smith MS. lxviii., f. 15, Bodleian Library. Printed in
_Letters of Royal and Illustrious Ladies_, vol. iii., p. 15.]
[Footnote 223: Don Diego and Chapuys to Charles V., 31st August 1538,
Vienna Archives.]
[Footnote 224: Gairdner, _Cal._, xiii., pt. i., 647.]
[Footnote 225: Cotton MS. Titus B. i., 465, Brit. Mus.]
[Footnote 226: Cotton MS. Otho C. x., f. 277, Brit. Mus. Printed in
Hearne’s _Sylloge_, 135.]
[Footnote 227: Cromwell’s Memorial of Instructions to his friend
Christopher Mount. Cotton MS. Vit. B. xxi., f. 159, Brit. Mus.]
[Footnote 228: Cotton MS. Vit. B. xxi., f. 86, 18th March 1539.]
[Footnote 229: _Correspondance Politique de M. de Marillac_, p. 275.]
[Footnote 230: Gairdner, _Cal._, xiv., pt. i., 980.]
[Footnote 231: Gairdner, _Cal._, xiv., pt. ii., 212.]
[Footnote 232: Cotton MS. Titus B. i., 489, Brit. Mus.]
[Footnote 233: Gairdner, _Cal._, xvi., 897, Chapuys to the Queen of
Hungary, 10th June 1541.]
[Footnote 234: There is a draft of a treaty in the British Museum
between Henry VIII. and Philip Count Palatine, and Duke of Bavaria,
for a marriage between him and the Lady Mary. In this treaty she is
declared incapable by the laws and statutes of the realm of claiming
any succession or title by right of inheritance.]
[Footnote 235: Smith MS. xlvii., fol. 31-2. Hearne’s _Sylloge_, p. 149.]
[Footnote 236: Smith MS. lxviii., fol. 17. Printed in _Letters of Royal
and Illustrious Ladies_, vol. iii., p. 89.]
[Footnote 237: _Correspondance Politique_, p. 148.]
[Footnote 238: _Privy Purse Expenses of the Princess Mary_, p. 176.]
[Footnote 239: Cotton MS. Titus B. i., 409.]
[Footnote 240: Cromwell to Henry VIII., Hatfield MS.]
[Footnote 241: _Correspondance Politique de Castillon et de Marillac_,
p. 189.]
[Footnote 242: _Correspondance Politique de Castillon et de Marillac_,
p. 193.]
[Footnote 243: The whole account is to be found in Gairdner’s _Calendar
of State Papers of the year 1540_.]
[Footnote 244: _Cranmer’s Works_, p. 401.]
[Footnote 245: Wallop and Carne to Henry VIII., State Papers, viii.,
376 and 387, Record Office.]
[Footnote 246: Cotton MS. Vesp. F. xiii., art. 223, fol. 202. Printed
in _Letters of Royal and Illustrious Ladies_, vol. ii., p. 320.]
[Footnote 247: _Correspondance Politique_, p. 258.]
[Footnote 248: Gayangos, _Cal._, vol. vi., pt. ii., p. 16.]
[Footnote 249: Gayangos, _Cal._, vol. vi., pt. ii., p. 190.]
[Footnote 250: Cotton MS. Vesp. F. iii., art. 35, fol. 29.]
[Footnote 251: State Papers, Henry VIII., box CC., i., Record Office.]