The History of Mary I, Queen of England: as found in the public records, despatches of ambassadors, in original private letters, and other contemporary documentsStone, J. M. (Jean Mary)
History
The History of Mary I, Queen of England: as found in the public records, despatches of ambassadors, in original private letters, and other contemporary documents
Stone, J. M. (Jean Mary)
Great Britain -- History -- Tudors, 1485-1603; Mary I, Queen of England, 1516-1558
Chapuys told the Emperor that the Pope had said, that “if there was
written evidence of the great familiarity and scandalous conversation,
and bad example of the King and the Lady, and of the ill-treatment of
the Queen, his Holiness would immediately fulminate his censures”. But,
by this time, Henry was reckless of all save Anne, and his hunting
expedition having come to an end, he wished to return to Windsor, and
intimated to Katharine that both she and her daughter must depart. Mary
was to return to Richmond, while she herself had orders to repair to
the More, a house in Hertfordshire, formerly belonging to Wolsey, but
which had come into the possession of the Abbey of St. Albans, and was
granted to the King, in December 1531. The house itself is described
as “a commodious habitation in summer,” but the park and garden were
in a ruinous condition and “the ways so foul that those who went there
in carriages, broke down the pales and made highway through the park”.
The keeper, Sir John Russell, wrote repeatedly to Cromwell about the
condition of the said palings, but could get no answer, and complained
that if the king would “give no money for the paling,” no deer would
be left; and if the charge were not so great, he would bear it out of
his own purse. Moreover, the king would only give the gardener sixpence
a day, and no one would take it at that price. If he would give
eightpence, Sir John declares that he himself would contribute “twenty
nobles of the charge”. “The Queen’s servants, with their carriage,
broke down the pales in many places.”[78]
Katharine remained at this place for several months. She declared
that she would have preferred going to the Tower as a prisoner, but
Chapuys said that the King knew quite well, that if he sent her there,
the people would have risen in mutiny; that he was often waylaid as
he went to hunt, with entreaties to take the Queen back, and that
Anne met with insults from the women wherever she went. Nevertheless,
she protested loudly, that the King would marry her in three or four
months, and began preparing for her royal state.
Katharine never saw her daughter again, and could only communicate
with her secretly. They were sternly forbidden to write to each other,
whereupon Mary begged that some one might be sent from the King to
read the letters which she wrote to her mother, that it might be seen
she only informed her about her health. But even this was refused,
and henceforth none but furtive missives passed between them, letters
written in dread, and conveyed with danger, at times when exceptional
terrors appeared to hang over the one or the other. Henry hoped by a
systematic persecution, to break the spirit of both; but each was of
the blood royal of Spain, the noblest in Europe, and the indignities
heaped upon them only served to increase the dignity with which they
suffered. Mary was, moreover, a Tudor also, and could be as resolute as
her father.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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