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had Mass celebrated.”12 Mary wrote to Somerset, protesting at the “fantasy and new fangleness” and declaring that the Henrican religion had been established by parliamentary statute and it was illegal to defy it. Her father, she claimed, had left the realm in “Godly order and Quietness,” which the Council was now disrupting with innovations.13 No change should be made to the religious settlement imposed by the Act of Six Articles until the king came of age and was old enough to make his own decisions about religion. Somerset professed astonishment at Mary’s attitude, believing that her words could not have “proceeded from the sincere mind of so virtuous and wise a lady, but rather by the setting on and procurement of some uncharitable and malicious persons.” Henry had, Somerset continued, died before he had achieved all that “he purposed to have done” in religion.14

AS THE ACT OF Uniformity made its way through Parliament in January 1549, making the Book of Common Prayer the only legal form of worship, confrontation between Mary and the Edwardian government seemed inevitable. While maintaining doctrinal conservatism, the book represented a significant break with the past. The number of saints’ days was reduced; only plain vestments were to be worn by the priest; and the Latin Mass was to be said in English and was now described ambiguously as “the supper of the Lord and the holy communion commonly called the mass.”15 The Elevation of the Host was abolished and the Catholic doctrine of the sacrifice of the Mass omitted.

When van der Delft visited Mary in late March, she complained bitterly of the changes brought about in the kingdom and of her private distress, saying she would rather give up her life than her religion. Once again she looked to the emperor for protection against the law that was shortly to come into effect. She explained how “in these miserable times,” Charles was her “only refuge.”16

Days later Mary addressed a letter directly to the emperor:

We have never been in so great necessity and I therefore entreat your Majesty, considering the changes that are taking place in the kingdom, to provide, as your affairs may best permit, that I may continue to live in the ancient faith and in peace with my conscience.

She feared that, except by way of his Majesty, the emperor, she would “not be permitted to do so, judging by what has been settled in Parliament,” and she reaffirmed her commitment “that in life and death I will not forsake the Catholic religion of the Church our mother.”17

Charles was determined that he would “suffer no pressure to be put upon her [Mary], our close relative, or allow religious innovations to cause them to assume a different and less suitable manner towards her.”18 He ordered his ambassador to obtain a written assurance,

in definite, suitable and permanent form, that notwithstanding all new laws and ordinances made upon religion, she may live in the observance of our ancient religion as she has done up to the present, so that neither the King nor Parliament may ever molest her, directly or indirectly by any means whatever.19

His dispatch to his ambassador on June 8 underlined his position:

With regard to the Princess our cousin, the Protector and all other worthy people must understand that, her near kinship to us and close affinity, the perfect friendship we have always felt and feel for her, make it impossible that we should ever desist from our endeavours to save her from molestation in the free practice and observance of her faith … the Protector’s answer that the Princess must obey the laws of the realm, is too bare and harsh to our cousin, the King’s own sister … neither we nor our brother, the King of the Romans, nor any of the relatives of the Princess could tolerate such attempts, as the Protector might well suppose.20

Under instruction from the emperor, van der Delft went to Somerset to try to get a guarantee of Mary’s freedom of worship. Somerset made it clear that “it was not in his power to act against the laws passed by Parliament” and that the ambassador had