It had become a monomania with Henry that he should be father of a lawful son; and when the child of his second union was expected, he so took the consummation of his wishes for granted that those in attendance on his wife were actually afraid to tell him the truth. It would have been fortune and social honour to whosoever should bear him the glad tidings. We may be sure then that news so welcome would never have been perverted by those who had so much to gain. As it was, the “lady-mistress”--as she called herself--of the little Princess, Mrs. (afterwards Lady) Bryan, wrote in her letter to Lord Cromwell in 1536--Elizabeth being then in her third year:-- “She is as toward a child and as gentle of conditions, as ever I knew any in my life.” The writer could have had no ignorance as to the sex of the child, for in the same letter she gives Cromwell a list of her wants in the way of clothing; which list is of the most intimate kind, including gown, kirtle, petticoat, “no manner of linen nor smocks,” kerchiefs, rails, body stitchets, handkerchiefs, sleeves, mufflers, biggens. As in the same letter it is mentioned that the women attending the child were under the rule of Lady Bryan--an accomplished nurse who had brought up Princess Mary and had been “governess to the children his Grace have had ever since”--it can be easily understood she was well acquainted with even the smallest detail of the royal nursery. Had the trouble of the lady-mistress been with regard to superabundance of underclothing, one might have understood ignorance on the part of the responsible controller; but in the plentiful lack of almost every garment necessary for the child’s wear by day or by night there could be no question as to her ostensible sex at this age. Thence on, there were experienced and devoted persons round the little Princess, whose value in her father’s eyes was largely enhanced since he had secured, for the time, her legitimacy by an Act of Parliament.