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]