Mary Tudor - Anna Whitelock [75]
Once again she emphasized her poor health in an attempt to bring the confrontation with the king to an end: “were you to know what pain I suffer in bending down my head to write,” she said, he would “not wish to give me occasion to do it. My health is more unstable than that of any creature and I have all the greater need to rejoice in the testimony of pure conscience.”6
A week later Edward wrote, advising Mary that he would see that his laws were obeyed:
Dear and well-beloved sister,
We have seen the letters recently sent to you by our Council, together with your answer thereto, concerning the matter of certain chaplains of your household, who have committed a breach of our laws by singing mass. We have heard their good and suitable admonitions, and your fruitless and wayward misunderstanding of the same. We are moved to write to you these presents, that where the good counsel of our Councillors have failed to persuade, the same advice given by us may haply produce some effect. After giving all due consideration to the matter, it appears to us to stand as follows: that you, our nearest sister, in whom by nature we should place reliance and our highest esteem, wish to break our laws and set them aside deliberately and of your own free will; and moreover sustain and encourage others to commit a like offence….
… it appears by your letters that you have persuaded yourself that you may continue in your erring ways in virtue of a promise which you claim to have received, though we truly know that the said promise was not given with the intention you Lend to it. My sister, you must learn that your courses were tolerated when our laws were first promulgated, not indeed as a permission to break the same, but so that you might be inclined to obey them, seeing the love and indulgence we displayed towards you. We made a difference between you and our subjects, not that all should follow our ordinances, and you alone disregard them, but in order that you should do out of love for us what the rest do out of duty. The error in which you persist is twofold, and each part of it so great that for the love we bear to God we cannot suffer it, but you must strive to remedy it; nor can we do otherwise than desire you to amend your ways, for the affection we bear you … knowledge was offered to you, and you refused it.
Mary would be permitted to “speak frankly” and would be listened to, provided she agreed to abide by Edward’s response. As for the second part of her offense—“the transgression of our laws”—Edward made it clear that he would not tolerate the abuse of his office as king:
We have suffered it until now, with the hope that some improvement might be forthcoming, but none has been shown, how can we suffer it longer to continue? … Your near relationship to us, your exalted rank, the condition of the times, all magnify your offence. It is a scandalous thing that so high a personage should deny our sovereignty; that our sister should be less to us than any of our other subjects is an unnatural example; andfinally, in a troubled republic, it lends colour to faction among the people.
He summed up his position in a postscript written in his own hand: “Sister, consider that an exception has been made in your favour this long time past, to incline you to obey and not to harden you in your resistance.” He could not “say more and worse things because my duty would compel me to use harsher and angrier words. But this I will say with certain intention, that I will see my laws strictly obeyed, and those who break them shall