It was undoubtedly to Anne's prompting that the ungenerous treatment of the Princess Mary was due, a treatment that aroused the indignation even of those to whom its execution was entrusted. Henry was deeply attached to his daughter, but it touched his pride for her to refuse to submit without protest to his behest. When Norfolk told him of the attitude of the Princess on her being taken to Hatfield to attend upon Elizabeth, he decided to bring his parental authority to bear upon her personally, and decided to see her. But Anne, "considering the easiness or rather levity of the King, and that the great beauty and goodness of the Princess might overcome his displeasure with her, and, moved by her virtues and his fatherly pity for her, be induced to treat her better and restore her title to her, sent Cromwell and other messengers posting after the King to prevent him, at any cost, from seeing or speaking to the Princess."[114] When Henry arrived at Hatfield and saw his baby daughter Elizabeth, the elder Princess begged to be allowed to salute him. The request was not granted; but when the King mounted his horse in the courtyard Mary stood upon a terrace above to see him. The King was informed of her presence, or saw her by chance; and, as she caught his eye, she threw herself upon her knees in an attitude of prayer, whereupon the father touched his bonnet, and bowed low and kindly to the daughter he was wronging so bitterly. He explained afterwards that he avoided speaking to her as she was so obstinate with him, "thanks to her Spanish blood." When the French ambassador mentioned her kindly, during the conversation, he noted that Henry's eyes filled with tears, and that he could not refrain from praising her.[115] But for Anne's jealousy for her own offspring, it is probable that Mary's legitimacy would have been established by Act of Parliament; as Cromwell at this time was certainly in favour of it: but Anne was ever on the watch, especially to arouse Henry's anger by hinting that Mary was looking to foreigners for counsel, as indeed she was. It was this latter element in which danger principally lurked. Katharine naturally appealed to her kin for support; and all through her trouble it was this fact, joined with her firm refusal to acknowledge Henry's supreme power, that steeled her husband's heart. But for the King's own daughter and undoubted born subject to act in the same way made her, what her mother never had been, a dangerous centre around which the disaffected elements might gather. The old nobility, as we have seen, were against Anne: and Henry quite understood the peril of having in his own family a person who commanded the sympathies of the strongest foreign powers in Europe, as well as the most influential elements in England. He angrily told the Marquis of Exeter that it was only confidence in the Emperor that made Mary so obstinate; but that he was not afraid of the Emperor,