• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 797 0

’s blessing and favour; but I perceived that no body durst speak for me, as long as that woman lived, which now is gone, whom I pray our Lord of his great mercy to forgive. Wherefore, now she is gone, I am the bolder to write to you, as she which taketh you for one of my chief friends. And therefore I desire you for the love of God to be a suitor for me to the King’s Grace, to have his blessing and licence to write unto his Grace, which shall be a great comfort to me, as God knoweth; who have you evermore in his holy keeping. Moreover I must desire you to accept mine evil writing. For I have not done so much this two year and more, nor could not have found the means to do it at this time, but my Lady Kingston’s being here.

At Hunsdon, the 26th of May.

By your loving friend,

Marye.1

AFTER THE FALL OF ANNE BOLEYN, MARY HOPED SHE MIGHT REGAIN her father’s favor. She had waited at Hunsdon to be summoned to court, but when no word came she wrote to Cromwell asking him to intercede with Henry now that “that woman” was dead.

Four days later, Mary wrote again, thanking him for leave to write to the king and assuring him that “you shall find me as obedient to the King’s Grace, as you can reasonably require of me.” She trusted that this would be enough to withdraw her father’s displeasure and permit her to “come into his presence.”2 Cromwell had been enlisted as mediator between Henry and Mary as Jane Seymour pressed for reconciliation. The king, however, remained determined that Mary submit. The price of his restored favor would be her complete subjugation to his will.

On June 1, Mary addressed a letter to Henry directly. In “as humble and lowly a manner, as is possible for a child to use to her father,” she begged for forgiveness:

I beseech your Grace of your daily blessing, which is my chief desire in the world. And in the same humble ways [ac]knowledging all the offences that I have done … I pray your Grace, in the honour of God, and for your fatherly pity, to forgive me them; for the which I am sorry, as any creature living; and next unto God, I do and will submit me in and all things to your goodness and pleasure to do with me whatsoever shall please your grace.

She prayed God to send him a prince, “whereof,” she declared, “no creature living shall more rejoice or heartier pray for continually than I,” and signed herself “Your grace’s most humble and obedient daughter and handmaid, Mary.”3

After she had been granted leave to write to him, Mary had assumed that her father had forgiven her and withdrawn his “dreadful displeasure.” Yet her letter met with no response. She had submitted to her father “next unto God,” but this was not enough. She wrote again, begging to receive some sign of his favor and to be called into his presence, but again there was no reply.4 On the tenth she drafted another letter, this time sending a copy to Cromwell. In it she declared herself “most humbly prostrate before your noble feet, your most obedient subject and humble child, that hath not only repented her offences hitherto, but also decreed simply from henceforth and wholly next to Almighty God, to put my state, continuance and living in your gracious mercy.”5 As Mary added in her dispatch to Cromwell:

I trust you shall perceive that I have followed your advice and counsel, and will do in all things concerning my duty to the King’s Grace (God and my conscience not offended) for I take you for one of my chief friends, next unto his Grace and the Queen. Wherefore, I desire you, for the passion which Christ suffered for you and me, and as my very trust is in you, that you will find such means through your great wisdom, that I be not moved to agree to any further entry in this matter than I have done. But if I be put to any more (I am plain with you as with my great friends) my said conscience will in no ways suffer me to consent thereunto.6

Cromwell’s letter does not survive, but his disapproval is clear from Mary’s reply. He had taken exception to her qualified response and, enclosing a draft for her guidance, instructed her to write