“Now the King and the Concubine are planning in several ways to entangle the Princess in their webs, and compel her to consent to their damnable statutes and detestable opinions,” wrote the ambassador, Cromwell having declared that thenceforth there remained nothing to prevent friendship between the King and the Emperor, but Mary’s submission. The new tactics were as puzzling as they were cruel. Scarcely were Mary’s hopes of better times encouraged by some small attention, such as a present of money for distribution to the poor, on her journeys from one residence to another, when a fresh act of petty tyranny would fill her mind with renewed apprehensions. The occasional favours were probably intended as a blind to the Emperor, while the insults which the unhappy girl was still made to suffer were instances of Anne’s increasing spite and fury. Thus Cromwell, after showing her some kindness, summoned her to deliver up a little cross which her mother had bequeathed to her. Chapuys estimated that there could not be ten crowns’ worth of gold in the whole trinket, which contained no jewels, but a fragment of the true Cross to which Mary had great devotion. “Your Majesty,” said Chapuys, in relating the circumstance, “may judge what reliance is to be placed upon the words of these men. I think that God will never give them grace to recognise their error, lest they should avoid the punishment of their abominable misdeeds.”[150] Pending instructions from Charles, his ambassador advised the same line of conduct which Mary had hitherto followed, urging her “to show as good courage and constancy as ever, with requisite modesty and dignity,” for if they began to find her at all shaken, they would pursue her to the end, without ever leaving her in peace. He thought that they would not insist very much now, on Mary’s openly renouncing her rights, nor on her abjuring the Pope’s authority directly, but would be content if she acknowledged Anne as Queen, a concession that would not cost her much, her mother being dead. And probably this would have been the case, if Anne Boleyn had continued to share Henry’s throne. Chapuys told the Princess to avoid all discussion with the King’s messengers, but to entreat them to leave her in peace, that she might pray for her mother’s soul, and for herself, a poor, simple orphan, without experience or counsel, ignorant of laws and canons. She was to beseech them to intercede with her father on her behalf, and beg him to have pity on her, and if she thought it necessary to say more, she might add with her customary gentleness, that as it was not the custom in England to swear fealty to queens, and that as such a thing had not been done when her mother was held as Queen, she could not but suspect that her swearing would be, either directly or indirectly, to her prejudice. Moreover, if Anne Boleyn really were queen, her swearing or refusing to swear did not matter, and if she were not, it would be the same.