Mary Tudor - Anna Whitelock [28]
Incredulous, Mary immediately wrote to her father:
This morning my chamberlain came and showed me that he had received a letter from Sir William Paulet, comptroller of your household … wherein was written that “the lady Mary, the King’s daughter, should remove to the place aforesaid”—the leaving out of the name of princess. Which, when I heard, I could not a little marvel, trusting verily that your grace was not privy to the same letter, as concerning the leaving out of the name of princess, forasmuch as I doubt not in your goodness, but that your grace doth take me for his lawful daughter, born in true matrimony. Wherefore, if I were to say to the contrary, I should in my conscience run into the displeasure of God, which I hope assuredly your grace would not that I should.
And in all other things your grace shall have me as, always, as humble and obedient daughter and handmaid, as ever was child to the father …
By your most humble daughter
Mary, Princess.4
She had signed herself “Princess.” Henry’s response was immediate. A deputation led by the earl of Oxford was sent to visit her at the king’s manor at Beaulieu (New Hall), in Essex, with a clear message:
The King is surprised to be informed, both by Lord Hussey’s letters and his daughter’s own … that she, forgetting her filial duty and allegiance, attempts, in spite of the commandment given … arrogantly to usurp the title of Princess, pretending to be heir-apparent, and encourages others to do the like declaring that she cannot in conscience think she is the King’s lawful daughter, born in true matrimony, and believes the King in his own conscience thinks the same.
To prevent her “pernicious example” spreading, the earls were commanded to make clear “the folly and danger of her conduct, and how the King intends that she shall use herself henceforth, both as to her title and her household.” She has “worthily deserved the King’s high displeasure and punishment by law, but that on her conforming to his will he may incline of his fatherly pity to promote her welfare.”5
In spite of the threats, Mary stood her ground.6 When the delegation left, she wrote to her father, telling him that “as long as she lived she would obey his commands, but that she could not renounce the titles, rights and privileges which God, Nature and her own parents had given her.” Compliance for Mary would mean acknowledging her own illegitimacy and the invalidity of her mother’s marriage, and that she would not do.
ON DECEMBER 10, three months after her birth, Elizabeth was taken from court to Hatfield in Hertfordshire, a house some seventeen miles from London. Although there was “a shorter and better road … for great solemnity and to insinuate to the people that she is the true Princess,” she was carried through the City accompanied not only by her new household but also by a distinguished escort of dukes, lords, and gentlemen.7
The following day, Thomas Howard, duke of Norfolk, was sent to Beaulieu to inform Mary that her father desired her “to go to the Court and service of [Elizabeth], whom he named Princess.”8 Mary responded that “the title belonged to herself and no other.” Norfolk made no answer, declaring “he had not come to dispute but to accomplish the King’s will.” When Mary was told that she would be allowed to take very few servants with her, Margaret Pole—her longtime governess and godmother, who had been in Mary’s entourage since the princess was three—asked if she might continue to serve Mary at her own expense and pay for the whole household. Her request was refused.9 Henry wanted Mary, like Katherine, to be separated from those she trusted to encourage her submission. As Chapuys surmised, Pole would have prevented them from
executing their