Mary Tudor - Anna Whitelock [24]
AT THE END of May, a further attempt was made to force Katherine to submit to Henry’s will on the divorce. A delegation of some thirty privy councillors was sent to see her in her Privy Chamber at Greenwich. Once again they made their case on behalf of the king, and once again Katherine’s response was robust:
I say I am his lawful wife, and to him lawfully married and by the order of the holy Church I was to him espoused as his true wife, although I was not so worthy, and in that point I will abide till the court of Rome which was privy to the beginning have made thereof a determination and final ending.16
The king would not approach Katherine again on the matter.
Henry and Anne left court for several weeks, leaving Katherine behind.17 It marked the beginning of their public separation, though Katherine did not at first realize it. She sent a messenger to inquire about her husband’s health, as was usual when they were apart, “and to signify the regret she had experienced at not having been able to see him before his departure for the country.” Could he not at least have bid her farewell? Henry’s reply was cruel and to the point. “He cared not for her adieux,” he replied; “he had no wish to offer her the consolation of which she spoke or any other; and still less that she should send to him or to inquire as to his estate.” He was “angry at her because she had wished to bring shame on him by having him publicly cited.”18 To both Katherine and the emperor’s ambassador, it was obvious who was responsible: it “must have been decreed by her [Anne].”19
Mary and her mother stayed at Windsor, hunting and moving between royal residences. When Henry and Anne were ready to return, the king sent orders that his daughter should go to Richmond and the queen, banished from court, to Wolsey’s former residence, The More in Hertfordshire.20 It was the last time mother and daughter would see each other, though at the time neither realized it. Their separation would, it was hoped, force Katherine to accept a repatriation of the trial back to England. But, as Chapuys predicted, Katherine would never agree, “whatever stratagems may be used for the purpose.”21 Now, without her mother’s comfort and support, the fifteen-year-old Mary would have to grow up alone.
Shortly after parting from her mother, Mary became unwell with sickness and stomach pains.22 She wrote to the king that “no medicine could do her so much good as seeing him and the Queen, and desired his licence to visit them both at Greenwich.” Chapuys reported that “this has been refused her, to gratify the lady, who hates her as much as the Queen, or more so, chiefly because she sees the King has some affection for her.”23 It is likely that Mary’s illness was the onset of menstruation, with recurrent pains and melancholy exacerbated by distress and anxiety. It was a condition from which she would suffer repeatedly.
IN THE SUMMER of 1531, Mario Savorgnano, a wealthy Venetian, visited England from Flanders. His praise of Henry’s warm welcome and impressive physique and intellect was tempered by criticism of his private mores. His wish to divorce his wife “detracts greatly from his merits, as there is now living with