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styling her “Princess.” Of these, Lady Anne Hussey, formerly one of Mary’s gentlewomen, was interrogated on August 3.13 Questions were asked about her contact with Mary “since she lost the name of princess.” Did she know that the Lady Mary was justly declared by law not to be a princess and yet she had called her so? Had she received any messages or tokens from the Lady Mary? She had, she explained, visited Mary only once since the king had discharged her from the lady’s service the previous Whitsuntide. Hussey admitted that she had inadvertently addressed Mary as “Princess” twice, not from any wish to disobey the law but from having long been accustomed to doing so. She also confessed that she had received a present from Mary and that she had sent Mary secret notes and received tokens from her in return. After signing a confession and begging forgiveness, Hussey was released.14

The conditions of Mary’s house arrest grew more restrictive. She received fewer and fewer visitors, and those who did visit her were heavily scrutinized and reported to the Privy Council. Often when people came to pay their respects to the infant Elizabeth, Mary was locked in her room and the windows were nailed shut. In February 1534, as she walked along a gallery, she was spotted by some local people, who called out to her as their princess and waved their caps, after which she was watched more closely.15 Lady Shelton continued to torment Mary, saying that if she were Henry she would throw her out of the house for disobedience and that “the King is known to have said that she would make her lose her head for violating the laws of his realm.”16

CHAPTER 15

WORSE THAN A LION

IN FEBRUARY 1535, TWO WEEKS BEFORE HER NINETEENTH BIRTHDAY, Mary fell “dangerously ill” with pain in her head and stomach. It was feared she had been poisoned. Few had forgotten Anne Boleyn’s threats against her.

Henry was reported to be “as much grieved at her sickness as any father could be for his daughter”; he sent his own physician, Sir William Butts, and instructed Chapuys to choose one or two others to visit her. Their presence was to be strictly controlled: they were not to speak to Mary unless other people were present and then in no language other than English for fear that she would use them to convey messages to the emperor.1

Butts informed the king that Mary’s illness was partly caused by “sorrow and trouble.” He advised that she should be sent to her mother, arguing that it would be both less expensive and better for her health and that if anything did happen to her, the king would be free from suspicion. But Henry did nothing. It was a “great misfortune,” he declared, that she was so stubborn, as she “took away from him all occasion to treat her as well as he would.”2

When Katherine learned of her daughter’s condition, she asked Chapuys to petition the king to reconsider. She had “grave suspicion” about the cause of Mary’s ill health and insisted that “there is no need of any person but myself to nurse her … I will put her in my own bed where I sleep, and watch her when needful.”3 But Henry again did nothing. He blamed Katherine for Mary’s “obstinacy and disobedience,” asserting that “although sons and daughters were bound to some obedience towards their mothers, their chief duty was to their fathers.” He believed that if Mary had the comfort of her mother, “there would be no hope of bringing her to do what he wanted, to renounce her lawful and true succession.”4 In this trial of wills, he hoped to break Mary’s resolve by starving her of affection and blunt the threat that she and her mother represented. “The Lady Katherine,” Henry declared, “is a proud, stubborn woman of high courage. If she took it into her head to take her daughter’s part, she could quite easily take the field, muster a great army, and wage against me a war as fierce as any her mother Isabella ever wages in Spain.”5 It was a grudging acknowledgment of Katherine’s resolve and her mighty political lineage.

Henry did agree that Mary could be moved to a house nearer Kimbolton, where