Mary Tudor - Anna Whitelock [45]
(SIGNED) “MARY”
I do recognise, accept, take, repute and [ac]knowledge the King’s Highness to be supreme head in earth under Christ of the Church of England, and do utterly refuse the Bishop of Rome’s pretended authority, power and jurisdiction within this realm heretofore usurped …
(SIGNED) “MARY”
I do freely, frankly … recognise and acknowledge that the marriage, heretofore had between his Majesty, and my mother, the late Princess dowager, was, by God’s law and Man’s law, incestuous and unlawful.18
(SIGNED) “MARY”
In one stroke she had been compelled to betray the memory of her mother and the Catholic faith of her childhood. She had signed away all that her mother had resisted until her death; all that Mary herself had clung to and fought so hard to defend. It was in this moment of total and agonizing submission that the seeds of Mary’s future defiance were sown.
CHAPTER 19
INCREDIBLE REJOICING
Most humbly, obediently and gladly lying at the feet of your most excellent majesty, my most dear benign father and sovereign lord, I have this day perceived your gracious clemency and merciful pity to have overcome my most unkind and unnatural proceedings towards you and your most just and virtuous laws; the great and inestimable joy whereof I cannot express…. I shall daily pray to God, whom eftsoons I beseech to send you issue, to his honour and the comfort of the whole realm, From Hunsdon, the 26th of June,
Your grace’s most humble and obedient daughter and handmaid,
Marye. 1
MARY’S CAPITULATION WAS GREETED WITH “INCREDIBLE REJOICING” at court. Restored to favor, she was acknowledged as the king’s daughter once more and offered a sumptuous new wardrobe and a choice of servants.2 Cromwell returned to Hunsdon with “a most gracious letter” from the king and, “kneeling on the ground,” begged Mary’s pardon for his former harsh conduct.3
Three weeks later, Mary journeyed to Hackney for a secret reunion with her father. It was their first meeting for five years. She had been a young teenager when Henry last saw her, and she was now a woman of twenty. Chapuys wrote that the kindness shown by the king to the princess was “inconceivable, regretting that he had been so long separated from her.” He showed her “such love and affection, and such brilliant promises for the future that no father could have behaved better towards his daughter.”4 Jane Seymour gave Mary a diamond ring and Henry 1,000 crowns for her “many pleasures.”5 They spent one night together and parted on Friday, July 7, with Henry promising that she would be brought to court to take her place immediately after the queen.
Yet beneath the veneer of reconciliation there were, as Chapuys observed, “a few drachmas of gall and bitterness mixed with the sweet food of paternal kindness.”6 Before returning to court, Mary was forced to write to the emperor and his sister, Mary of Hungary, regent of the Netherlands, confirming her submission to her father as head of the Church; her acknowledgment of the statutes declaring her mother’s marriage unlawful; and her decision to freely renounce her right to the throne.7 For Henry it was a means of emphasizing his victory over the emperor. According to Chapuys, he had told the princess “that her obstinate resistance to his will had been encouraged and strengthened by the trust she had in you; but that she ought to know that your majesty could not help or favour her in the least as long as he [the king] lived.”8 Henry gave Mary a ring to celebrate her obedience. On one side was a relief of Henry and Jane, on the other a picture of Mary. The Latin inscription read:
Obedience leads to unity, unity to constancy and a quiet mind, and these are treasures of inestimable worth. For God so valued humility that he gave his only son, a perfect exemplar of modesty, who in his obedience to his divine father, taught lessons of obedience and devotion.9
Mary’s submission had cost her dearly. As Chapuys warned the emperor, “this affair of the princess has tormented her more than you think”; she