Mary Tudor: The First Queen

by Linda Porter

  Mary arrived at Hatfield forlorn and apprehensive, dreading what lay ahead and convinced that she would not find friends there. Norfolk, still doggedly carrying out Henry’s instructions, asked whether she would like to ‘see and pay court to the princess’. This was deliberate provocation of a vulnerable young woman, stripped of all the certainties of her existence. From the very outset, she was placed in a hostile relationship with Elizabeth. But, even at this moment, she strove to retain her dignity and deflect any animosity that she might have felt for the baby. ‘She answered that she knew of no other princess in England but herself. She would treat her as a sister, but that was all.’ Mary was then asked whether she had any message for her father and replied: ‘None, except that the princess of Wales, his daughter, asked for his blessing.’12 It was a vain hope and probably Mary knew it. Henry, when he heard, was angry with Norfolk, reproaching him for treating his stubborn daughter too mildly. This was not the way to make her see sense. ‘He would soon find the means of humiliating her and subduing her temper.’13 Perhaps if he had seen her he would have realised that he had made a good start. Mary, often in tears, passed a miserable Christmas at Hatfield.

  At the New Year, Anne Boleyn presented her husband with ‘a goodly gilt bason, having a rail or board of gold in the midst of the brim, garnished with rubies and pearls, wherein standeth a fountain, also having a rail of gold about it garnished with diamonds; out thereof issueth water, at the teats of three naked women standing at the foot of the same fountain’.14 This lavish and slightly risqué gift (Anne may not have condoned lax morals among her ladies but she evidently had a broader sense of humour where Henry was concerned) was beyond the reach of Mary, whose finances were entirely dependent on what her father chose to give her. In any case, there is no record of the king and his wayward daughter exchanging any gifts at the start of 1534. Too much had come between them. Mary was not merely in disgrace; she was now effectively under house arrest.

  Anne Shelton did not see herself as a jailer. She was about 50 years old and a mother of six children when she found herself in charge of the joint household of Elizabeth and Mary. At a time when she might have expected to concentrate on her own family and enjoy the comforts of her home in Norfolk, this younger sister of Sir Thomas Boleyn found herself in charge of the king’s two daughters. Despite the salary and status, it was a task she often found unrewarding. In theory, Elizabeth was her primary responsibility, and though the baby’s day-to-day welfare was in the hands of an experienced team (as Mary’s had been, at the same age), Lady Shelton knew she would shoulder the blame if the little princess fell ill, or - an even more uncomfortable thought - died.

  Mary, though, was a quite different case.The general assumption that Anne Boleyn engineered her aunt’s appointment in order to make Mary’s life a misery has an element of truth, but Mary gave as good as she got. From the moment she arrived at Hatfield, she radiated resentment and the stubbornness that came with her pride and sense of loss. She was determined to be treated differently, requiring meals at times that did not fit in with the rest of the household, a separate and more expensive diet and the freedom to take copious amounts of exercise.This was believed to be good for her menstrual problems and was undoubtedly of great psychological importance to her, as well as physical benefit. From Lady Shelton’s point of view, though, it was a vexing demand. She could not allow Mary to ride, or even walk, unsupervised. The girl’s fragile health merely added to her difficulties. How serious was it? How should it be treated? Supposing, as Chapuys pointed out, Mary died in her care? Then there would be accusations of poison.The lady governess was horrified. It was difficult enough to follow the king’s commands where his daughter was concerned, and Mary’s uncooperativeness exasperated her. But to be suspected as a poisoner was too much.

  Strained as their relationship often was, Lady Shelton actually admired Mary. She knew that she was a great lady brought low, and when she failed to follow some of the nastier orders for breaking Mary’s spirit, it was because she baulked at the idea of grinding a king’s daughter into the ground. At the end of February 1534, she was told off by the duke of Norfolk and Lord Rochford, Anne’s brother, ‘for behaving to the princess with too much respect and kindness, saying that she ought only to be treated as a bastard’. Anne Shelton gave a robust reply:‘Even if the princess were only the bastard of a poor gentleman, she deserved honour and good treatment for her goodness and virtues.’ In other circumstances, the new governess might have been a suitable replacement for the countess of Salisbury, but Mary was never going to trust a Boleyn. Nor could the queen’s aunt extend too much tolerance, given that her instructions were to keep Mary closely watched and to try, whenever she could, to get her to acknowledge the precedence of Anne Boleyn and her daughter. Whether Mary did this freely or reluctantly did not much matter.

  A sensible woman, Lady Shelton recognised from the outset that she was unlikely to meet her niece’s wishes in that respect, but she was vigilant in barring access to Mary by Chapuys and his servants.This would have been too obvious a dereliction of duty and, besides, she must have known that Mary had means of communicating with the outside world. She could not afford to keep an open house. The king’s wrath if Mary escaped was an ever-present concern. But there is no evidence, despite Anne’s threats and the imperial ambassador’s fears, that Mary was ever physically assaulted. Anne might order her aunt to ‘box her ears as a cursed bastard’ if Mary continued wilfully to refer to herself as ‘princess’ but the lady governess did not resort to violence. Letting Mary know what had been said would have been enough to cause great distress, and Anne Shelton soon learned that provoking Mary never produced the desired effect.There was no poison at Hatfield, as Chapuys dreaded there might be, but the atmosphere was constantly tense and harsh words were often exchanged. Mary’s temper was not helped by the fact that she had very little to do except dwell on her situation. Her formal education came to an end in 1533. There was no schoolroom with the attentive Dr Fetherstone at Hatfield. The contrast with the domestic tranquillity of Mary’s life as a princess could not have been more marked. If her emotions frequently got the better of her, it is hardly surprising. And Anne Shelton, having to cope daily with her charge’s hostility, did not have an easy time of it.

  Henry and Anne now had Mary where they wanted, but they could not get her to do what they wanted. Henry demanded Mary’s obedience and he was getting tired of being told how to manage his family. Charles V may have felt there was nothing to be done while his aunt lost her throne and his cousin her inheritance, but even he seems to have been stung by the desperate, bitter letter Katherine of Aragon addressed to him in February 1534. She begged the pope to do her justice and the emperor to take action in the matter. She and Mary, she said, were imprisoned ‘like the most miserable creatures in the world’.15 Her rebuke developed in the emperor a high-minded intention that he would become a father to Mary since her own had evidently abandoned her. Naturally, this did not sit at all well with Henry VIII. The emperor’s efforts to find Mary a husband, as a way out of her troubles, caused especial offence. They were also unlikely to succeed for, as James V of Scotland, a potential bridegroom, pointed out, Charles was not in a position to deliver Mary and her own father had declared her to be a bastard. But Mary was grateful for the emperor’s support and she did, indeed, begin to think of him as a father from this time. Charles’s most lasting contribution to the entire divorce episode was to widen the breach between the king and his daughter.

  When Chapuys finally obtained an audience with the king at the end of February, the ambassador protested about the treatment of Katherine and Mary. Henry must have expected this and he responded ‘graciously’at first, remarking that Chapuys knew he was legally married to his present wife. The first marriage, Henry reminded him, had been pronounced unlawful, so Katherine could not be called queen and Mary could not succeed. And he added, significantly: ‘Even if she [Mary] were legitimate, her disobedience merited disinheritance.
’ But Chapuys was not deterred. He pointed out that Parliament could not make Mary a bastard. Legitimacy cases could be decided only by ecclesiastical judges, and, besides, Mary was legitimate ‘owing to the lawful ignorance of her parents. The king himself had considered her as the true Princess until the birth of his new daughter.’ This may have been the truth, but it was definitely not what Henry wanted to hear, and he grew irritated. According to English law, he told Chapuys, Mary could not succeed: ‘there was no other princess except his daughter Elizabeth, until he had a son, which he thought should happen soon’. In other words, time would solve the problem and Henry did not consider Elizabeth as a serious successor, either.

  Perhaps he thought this would disarm the imperialists, but Chapuys boldly pushed for better conditions for Mary and asked that she be allowed to live with her mother. He raised the possibility of unpleasant rumours if Mary fell ill. This upset the royal equilibrium altogether. Mary, Henry claimed, ‘was well and in a good place, and he might dispose of her as he wished, without anyone laying down the law to him, and without giving account to anyone’. Later he was to state that children owed some obedience to their mothers but more to their fathers. There was nothing remarkable in this. Henry was a king and a man of his times. Mary owed him unquestioning loyalty and she had forfeited all due consideration by refusing it.To place her with her mother would mean that she could never be brought to see reason. Neither king nor ambassador emerged fully satisfied from this encounter, and Chapuys continued to believe that the king’s ‘amie’ would press for harsher treatment still.16

  He was right to be fearful. Mary stood between Anne and her husband, as well as threatening the queen’s security. The relationship between Anne and Henry was always tempestuous. Her outspokenness and involvement in politics did not make her an easy spouse; there was a great deal of love but also a great deal of temper. And Anne, for all her declamations, was less confident than she seemed.There had been many attacks on her and she stood at the centre of a storm that showed no sign of abating. Despite what Henry had told Chapuys, there was a notable defensiveness about official pronouncements on Henry’s marriage. Suspiciously fulsome depictions of the new queen appeared in instructions given to the churchman Nicholas Heath when he prepared to go on embassy to the German princes. Anne was described as a personwhose approved and excellent virtues, that is to say, the purity of her life, her constant virginity, her maidenly and womanly pudicity, her soberness, her chasteness, her meekness, her wisdom, her descent of right noble and high parentage, her education in all good and laudable thewes and manners, her aptness to procreation of children, with other infinite good qualities … cannot but be most acceptable unto Almighty God, and deserve His high grace and favour, to the singular weal and benefit of the king’s realm and subjects.17

  Was it truly necessary to depict Anne as such a paragon to the already disaffected vassals of Charles V in Germany? Even if the wording was intended to be used in other countries as well, its air of special pleading indicates that Henry strongly felt the need to underline Anne’s credentials as queen. She was deliberately being positioned against Katherine and Mary.There had always been universal praise for Mary’s virtues and achievements, and Anne’s credibility needed a boost. She was not, after all, of royal blood, and the mystery that attached to royalty always eluded her, anointed queen consort though she was. The queen herself was acutely aware of the intangible nature of the ties between Henry and his daughter, and she worried about them. She was determined to isolate Mary and to stiffen Henry’s resolve.

  Her persistence is understandable, since the signs are that Henry was at first minded to bring matters to a head by speaking to Mary in person. In mid-January 1534, when Mary had been at Hatfield for only a month, Henry set out from London with the intention of visiting both his daughters. ‘One of the principal causes of his going was to persuade or force the princess to renounce her title.’ But, once he had gone, Anne grew anxious. She sent Cromwell after the king to dissuade him from seeing Mary. She feared, probably justifiably, that at best the meeting would be inconclusive; more worryingly, Henry might be persuaded by his daughter’s pleading to give way. The king followed Cromwell’s advice and sent the minister himself to press Mary to renounce her title. It is not clear whether he had ever spoken directly to Mary before, but he could have been left in no doubt of her firmness of purpose. She told him ‘that she had already given a decided answer, it was labour wasted to press her and they were deceived if they thought that bad treatment or rudeness, or even the chance of death, would make her change her determination’.

  Aware that there might not be many such chances to appeal directly to her father, Mary asked for leave to come and kiss his hand. This was refused, but still she was not to be entirely thwarted. She must, at least, make sure he saw her, so that he would retain in his mind the imprint of a gesture of submissiveness. ‘When the king was going to mount his horse she went on to a terrace at the top of the house to see him. The king, either being told of it, or by chance, turned round, and seeing her on her knees with her hands joined, bowed to her and put his hand to his hat.’18 This courtly response was second nature to Henry VIII, but it did not mean that his heart was melted. His ambivalence remained. He told the French ambassador that he had not spoken to the princess because of her obstinacy, which came from her Spanish blood.Yet when the ambassador politely remarked that Mary had been very well brought up, ‘the tears came into his eyes and he could not refrain from praising her’. But he continued to heed his wife’s concerns. Mary did not see her father again for more than two and a half years.

  Anne Boleyn got her way. She succeeded in keeping them apart and never wavered from this course. A more subtle woman might have considered outmanoeuvring Mary by occasionally bringing her to court, treating her with kindness and consideration and letting her show the world that, if she continued to defy her father, she was just a sulky, jealous child and a disobedient daughter. The new queen, who liked to be the centre of attention, feared Mary too much to follow such a strategy. Their meetings during Anne’s reign, though few, followed a predictable course. Anne attempted to reason with Mary, holding out the promise of better treatment; Mary invariably responded with scathing rudeness, as only someone brought up as a princess could;Anne, her temper barely in check at most times, then got very angry indeed. But the moral victory was clear. It was always Mary’s. A striking example of this is their confrontation in March 1534, when Anne had gone to Hatfield to see Elizabeth.‘She urgently solicited the princess to visit her and honour her as queen, saying that it would be a means of reconciliation with the king, and she herself would intercede with him for her, and she would be as well or better treated than ever.’ Mary’s response was icy:‘she knew no queen in England except her mother’, but if ‘madame Anne Boleyn’ would speak to her father on her behalf, she would be much obliged. Anne tried again, to no effect, ‘and in the end threatened her’, but Mary was unmoved.19

  It did her no good. Her defiance clouded her judgement and led to humiliation. Lacking any other form of protest, obstruction was the only course she could follow.This caused her to concentrate on the distinction between herself and Elizabeth; she was absolutely determined not to recognise the child’s superior status.This resolution went to the core of her being. Sometimes it gave rise to tantrums that may have been deliberately calculated, as well as providing an outlet for venting frustrations. At the end of March, Elizabeth’s household removed from Hatfield and Mary refused to accompany Anne Shelton in the litter provided for their transport.To follow after Elizabeth would have meant an acknowledgement of her precedence and this Mary was adamant she must avoid. Eventually, one of the gentlemen present had to lift her up and put her bodily in the litter. Often portrayed as an act of gratuitous violence, it may have actually suited Mary quite well.‘She made a public protestation of the compulsion used and that her act should not prejudice her right and title.’ She would do this whenever she could. Still, it seems ig
nominious and Chapuys disapproved.‘I should not have advised the princess to have gone to this extreme, for fear of irritating her father and consequently suffering worse treatment’.20

  Her treatment remained about the same, with Henry’s outlook being more generous at some times than others. For Mary and her mother there was an empty triumph when the pope finally ruled in Katherine’s favour in April. Henry was personally angered but it merely confirmed his determination to deny Rome any further role in English affairs.The pope was a distant figure without authority, his pronouncements no longer recognised in England. There was already a new Act of Succession with an oath attached that required all to acknowledge the Boleyn marriage. This placed a further burden on Mary, though she was not forced to take the oath immediately. Any respite she enjoyed was only temporary and the pressure on her, and members of her former household, was maintained. Lady Anne Hussey, wife of Mary’s chamberlain, was questioned in the Tower of London about her contact with Mary ‘since she lost the name of princess’, and whether she had continued to refer to Mary by her title. In July, Anne Boleyn’s father, the earl of Wiltshire, pressed Mary to renounce her title, promising that, if she did, the king ‘would treat her better than she could wish’. Still, Mary held firm.

  There was, however, a price to be paid for her principles. Few people could have come unscathed through the trauma and stress that Mary had suffered. Her world had collapsed, shrunk to a handful of faithful servants and the letters of a desperate mother and a largely powerless imperial representative. Nobody else dared to acknowledge her any longer as a princess.The fear of execution was already there. God alone knew what lay in the future. As the summer came to an end, Mary became seriously ill. Her sickness continued, at varying intervals, over the next two years. Poor health was something Mary had endured since her mid-teens, but this was more severe, more alarming than anything seen before. Chapuys decided to make a major fuss. Mary must not be neglected. He appealed directly to the king and Henry responded by sending his own physician.