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.

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:—

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.

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:—

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:—

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]