Mary Tudor - Anna Whitelock [44]
He continued:
Thus with your folly you undo yourself, and all that hath wished you good…. Wherefore, Madam, to be plain, as God is my witness … I think you the most obstinate and obdurate woman all things considered, that ever was, and one that so preserving, well deserveth the reward of malice in extremity of mischief, or at least that you be both repentant for your ingratitude and miserable unkindness, and ready to do all things that you be bound unto by your duty of allegiance.
He commanded her to sign the articles required and warned that if she refused he would “take leave” of her forever and desire her “never to write or make mean unto me hereafter. For I will never think you other than the most ungrateful, unnatural, and most obstinate person living, both to God and your most dear and benign father.”11 Mary still refused. It was the very apogee of her resistance. She had become a traitor to the king and his laws. Henry now insisted that she should be treated as such, as should her allies.
IN JUNE, THE MARQUESS of Exeter and Sir William Fitzwilliam were dismissed from the Privy Council as “suspected persons.” Weeks later, Sir Anthony Browne and Sir Francis Bryan, two gentlemen of the Privy Chamber, were arrested and interrogated over their support of Mary.12 Henry believed that such individuals were encouraging the princess in her defiance.13 The examinations of Browne and Bryan implicated Sir Nicholas Carew, who had been in correspondence with the princess, and Thomas Cheney and John Russell, both gentlemen of the Privy Chamber. Bryan deposed that the rest of his “fellows of the Privy Chamber” were rejoicing at the fall of Anne and advancing Mary’s claim should Jane Seymour fail to give Henry a son.14 He claimed further that since the king’s divorce they had been working against Anne Boleyn, supporting Katherine and Mary, liaising with Charles V, and working in defense of the traditional religion.15 They were all now placed in the Tower along with Lady Anne Hussey, the wife of Mary’s chamberlain.
The danger to Mary was now as great as it had been during the months before her mother’s death. According to Ralph Morice, Thomas Cranmer’s old secretary, Henry “fully purposed to send the lady Mary his daughter unto the Tower, and there to suffer as a subject, by cause she would not obey unto the laws of the realm in refusing the bishop of Rome’s authority and religion.”16 Judges were commanded to proceed with a legal inquiry into Mary’s treachery and sentence her as willfully defiant of the king’s authority. Unwilling to use the legal system against her, they gave Mary one final chance. She was to be sent a document entitled “Lady Mary’s Submission,” detailing all points the king required her to agree to.17 If she refused to sign those articles, legal proceedings would begin and she would be charged with treason.
Mary sent word to Chapuys, begging his counsel. He told her that “if the King persisted in his obstinacy, or she found evidence that her life was in danger, either by maltreatment or otherwise,” she should “consent to her father’s wish.” He assured her that this was what the emperor wanted and that “to save her life, on which depended the peace of the realm, and the redress of the great evils which prevail here, she must do everything and dissemble for some time.”
ON THURSDAY, JUNE 22, under threat of death, Mary signed the formal statement required of her. In “The confession of me the Lady Mary made upon certain points and articles under written,” she acknowledged the illegitimacy of her mother’s marriage, her own bastard status, and her father’s Supreme Headship of the Church of England:
First, I confess and [ac]knowledge the King’s Majesty to be my Sovereign Lord and King, in the imperial Crown of this realm of England, and do submit myself to his Highness, and to all and singular laws and statutes of this realm, as becometh