Chapter V: The Great Renunciation (2)

“In my most humble and lowly manner, beseeching your Graces dayly
blessing. Forasmuch as sithens it pleased your most gracious mercy
upon mine hearty repentance for mine offences and trespasses to
your Majestie, and mine humble and simple submission to the same,
of my life, state and condition, to be gladly received at your
Highness hand and appointment, whatsoever the same shall think
convenient for me, without the remainder of any will in myself,
but such as shall be instilled from the most noble mouth of your
excellent Majestie, to grant me licence to write unto you: albeit
I have written twice unto your highness, trusting to have, by some
gracious letters, token or message, perceived sensibly the mercy,
clemency and pity of your Grace, and upon the operation of the
same, at the last also to have attained the fruition of your most
noble presence, which above all worldly things I desire: yet I
have not obtained my said fervent and hearty desire, ne any peice
of the same to my great and intolerable discomfort I am enforced,
by the compulsion of nature, eftsones to cry unto your mercifull
eares, and most humbly prostrate before your feet, to beseech your
Grace to have pity and compassion of me, and in such wise to put
apart your displeasure, justly conceived against me, as I may feel
some piece of your most abundant grace, that hath never wanted to
them that have inwardly repented their offences, not committed
by malice, but by yonghe frailty and ignorance. For yet I remain
almost void of all hope, saving the confidence I have in your
blessed nature recomforteth me. And therefore eftsones, prostrate
at your noble feet I beseech your Majestie to countervail my
transgressions with my repentance for the same, and thereupon to
grant some little spark of my most humble suit and desire, which
(God is my judge) I desire for no worldly respect, trusting in
Almighty God, to use myself so from henceforth as your Grace shall
have cause to think your mercy and pity well extended unto me. To
whom I shall daily pray (as I am most bounden) to preserve your
Highness, with the Queen, and shortly to send you issue, which
shall be gladder tidings to me than I can express in writing.

“From Hunsdon the xiii day of June.

“Your most humble and obedient daughter and handmaid,

“MARYE.“[185]

It was clearly anticipated that Mary’s progress, by almost imperceptible degrees, from vague expressions of repentance to a definite surrender of her will for the future, would have prepared the victim for the final _coup_. Immediately after receiving the above transcript of Cromwell’s draft, Henry sent commissioners to Hunsdon, summoning her to accept the new statute, and to affix her signature to a statement, declaring her own illegitimacy, which had been drawn up with the most ruthless and humiliating detail.

To Henry’s fury and Cromwell’s consternation Mary refused to sign. The Chief Secretary had pledged himself to reduce her to submission, and he knew by experience, that with his master, failure spelt treason, and he trembled accordingly. His answer to Mary’s appeals was brutal in the extreme, yet knowing as we do by the light of after events, that he was not only arrested, but condemned and executed for far less than complicity in Mary’s disobedience, we can scarcely wonder at his tone towards her. None, with the single exception perhaps of Cranmer, knew Henry so well as his chief minister, and to know him was with all time-servers to fear exceedingly.

“MADAM [he wrote],

“I have received your letters, whereby it appeareth you be in
great discomfort, and do desire that I should find the means to
speak with you. For answer whereunto, ye shall understand, that
how great so ever your discomfort is, it can be no greater than
mine, who hath upon your letters spoken so much of your repentance
for your wilfull obstinacy against the King’s Highness, and of
your humble submission in all things, without exception and
qualification, to obey to his pleasure and laws, that knowing how
diversely and contrarily you proceeded at the late being of his
Majesty’s counsell with you, I am both ashamed of that I have
said, and likewise afraid of that I have done; in so much that
what the sequel thereof shall be God knoweth. Thus with your folly
you undoe yourself, and all that hath wished your good; and yet I
will say unto you, as I have said else where heretofore; that it
were great pity ye should not be an example in a punishment, if ye
will make yourself an example in the contempt of God, your natural
father and his lawes, by your own only fantasie, contrary to the
judgements and determinations of all men, that ye must confess do
know and love God as well as you, except you will show yourself
presumption. [Hearne says: “Evidently a mistake for presumptuous
as in the margin of Dr. Smith’s copy”.] Wherefore, Madam, to be
plain with you, as God is my witnes, like as I think you the most
obstinate and obdurate woman all things considered, that ever was,
and one that so persevering, well deserveth the reward of malice
in extremity of mischief: so I dare not open my lips to name you,
unless I may have such a ground thereunto, that it may appear you
were mistaken, or at least that you be both repentant for your
ingratitude and miserable unkindness, and ready to do all things
that ye be bound unto by your duty of allegiance, if nature were
secluded from you, and in a like degree planted in the same, as it
is in every other common subject. And therefore, I have sent unto
you a certain book of articles whereunto if you will sett your
name, you shall undoubtedly please God, being the same conformable
to his truth, so as you will in semblable manner conceive it in
your heart without dissimulation. Upon the receipt whereof again
from you, with a letter declaring that you think in heart that you
have subscribed with hand, I shall eftsones adventure to speak for
your reconciliation. And if you will not with speed leave all your
sinister counsells, which have brought you to the point of utter
undoing, without remedy, and herein follow mine advice, I take
my leave of you for ever, and desire you 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. And I advise you to
nothing, but I beseech God never to help me, if I know it not so
certainly to be your bounden duty, by God’s laws and man’s laws,
that I must needs judge that person that shall refuse it, not meet
to live in a Christian congregation; to the witness whereof I take
Christ, whose mercy I refuse, if I write anything unto you that I
have not professed in my heart and know to be true.”[186]

We are indebted to Chapuys’ letter to the Emperor, dated 1st July 1536, for a detailed account of the matter that had excited Cromwell’s ire.

“When the Princess, having written several good letters to the King her father and to this Queen, expected to be out of her trouble, trusting to the hope held out to her, she found herself in the most extreme perplexity and danger she had ever been in, and not only herself, but all her principal friends. The King, seven or eight days after the departure of the man whom I sent to your Majesty, took a fancy to insist that the Princess should consent to his statutes, or he would proceed by rigour of law against her, and to induce her to yield, sent to her the duke of Norfolk, the earl of Sussex, the bishop of Chester and certain others, whom she confounded by her wise and prudent answers, till they, seeing that they could not conquer her in argument, told her that since she was so unnatural as to oppose the King’s will so obstinately, they could scarcely believe she was his bastard, and if she was their daughter, they would beat her and knock her head so violently against the wall, that they would make it as soft as baked apples, and that she was a traitress and should be punished, and several other words. And her _gouvernante_ was commanded not to allow any one to speak to her, and that she and another should never lose sight of her, day or night. Nevertheless, the said Princess found means to send me immediate information of everything, begging me not to leave her without counsel in her extreme necessity.

“On this I wrote to her very fully, telling her among other things, that she must make up her mind, if the King persisted in his obstinacy, or she found evidence that her life was in danger, either by maltreatment or otherwise, to consent to her father’s wish, assuring her that such was your advice, 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, especially, as the protestations made, and the cruel violence shown her, preserved her rights inviolate, and likewise her conscience, seeing that nothing was required expressly against God, or the articles of the Faith, and God regarded more the intention than the act; and that now she had more occasion to do thus than during the life of the Concubine, as it was proposed to deprive the Bastard, and make her heiress; and I felt assured that if she came to Court, she would by her wisdom set her father again in the right road, to which the intercession of your Majesty through the reconciliation and establishment of amity would conduce.”[187]

The King suspected that Mary was advised to hold out by certain of her attendants, and made strict inquiries. Several of her ladies were called before the Council, and made to swear to the statutes. The wife of her Chamberlain, whom Chapuys designates as “one of the most virtuous ladies in England,” was sent to the Tower, while Mary’s chief confidential servant was detained for two days in Cromwell’s house. The Council sat for six or seven days from morning till night without intermission, deliberating on Mary’s fate. Cromwell, suspected of having shown himself too favourable to the Princess, was not free from danger. He told Chapuys that for four or five days he looked upon himself as a lost man and dead. The Marquis of Exeter and the Lord Treasurer, Fitzwilliam, were dismissed from the Council as Mary’s friends, and the new Queen, Jane Seymour, was rudely repulsed for speaking in her favour. Continuing the above letter, Chapuys said:—

“The judges, in spite of threats, refused to decide, and advised that a writing should be sent to the Princess, and that if she refused to sign it they should proceed against her. The Princess being informed from various quarters how matters stood, signed the document without reading it. For her better excuse, I had previously sent her the form of the protestation she must make apart. I had also warned her that she must in the first place secure the King’s pardon, and, if possible, not give her approval to the said statutes, except so far as she could do so agreeably to God and her conscience, or that she should promise only not to infringe the said statute, without expressing approval. I have not yet ascertained how the thing has passed, but, in any case, she never made a better day’s work, for if she had let this opportunity slip, there was no remedy in the world for her. As soon as the news arrived of her subscription, incredible joy was shown in all the Court, except by the earl of Essex, who told the King that was a game that would cost him his head, for the injurious language he had used against the Princess. After the Princess had signed the document she was much dejected, but I immediately relieved her of every doubt even of conscience, assuring her that the Pope would not only not impute to her any blame, but would hold it rightly done. Since the Princess subscribed the said document, the King sent back the above commissioners with others, among whom was Master Cromwell, who was charged by the King to carry to her a most gracious letter, and also, according to the custom of the country, another with the paternal blessing, and they all offered her the highest possible honour, addressing her almost continually kneeling upon the ground, especially asking her pardon for their previous conduct. The Princess remains very happy, especially on account of the goodwill Cromwell bears her in the promotion of her affairs. She is only anxious as to how your Majesty will be satisfied with what she has done. And now that she has done it, on my assurance that it was the will of your Majesty, yet it would be a marvellous consolation to her to know it by letters from you. She has also desired me to write to your Majesty’s ambassador at Rome, to procure a secret absolution from the Pope, otherwise her conscience could not be at perfect ease.”[188]

The document to which Henry finally summoned his daughter to affix her signature was drawn up in the following terms:—

“The confession of me the Lady Mary, made upon certain points and articles under written, in the which as I do now plainly and with all mine heart confess and declare mine inward sentence, belief and judgment, with a due conformity of obedience to the laws of the realm; so minding for ever to persist and continue in this determination, without change, alteration or varyance, I do most humbly beseech the King’s Highness, my father, whom I have obstinately and inobediently offended in the denyal of the same heretofore, to forgive mine offences therein, and to take me to his most gracious mercy. First, I confess and knowledge the King’s Majesty to be my Soveraign Lord and King, in the imperial Crown of this realme of England, and do submit myself to his Highness, and to all and singular lawes and statutes of this realm, as becometh a true and faithfull subject to do; which I shall also obey, keep, observe, advance and maintain, according to my bounden duty, with all the power, force and qualities that God hath induced me, during my life.

“_Item._—I do recognize, accept, take, repute and knowledge the
King’s Highness to be supream 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, according to the laws and statutes made in
that behalf, and of all the King’s true subjects, humbly received,
admitted, obeyed, kept and observed. And also do utterly renounce
and forsake all manner of remedy, interest and advantage which
I may by any means claim by the Bishop of Rome’s laws, process,
jurisdiction or sentence, at this present time or in any wise
hereafter, by any manner, title, colour, mean or case that is,
shall, or can be devised for that purpose.

“MARYE.

“_Item._—I do freely, frankly and for the discharge of my duty
towards God, the King’s Highness and his laws, without other
respect, recognize 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 unlawfull.

“MARYE.”[189]

Thus was the great renunciation made. It was probably the worst thing that Mary did in her whole life, for there is nothing in her history on record to compare with this violation of her conscience, and of all that she held most sacred. To excuse her on the score that she never gave interior consent to the sacrifice of her mother’s honour and her own faith would be but a miserable apology. She yielded indeed less to Cromwell’s threats, than to the Emperor’s specious arguments, and to the wretchedness of her own forlorn condition; but her intellect and mental and moral training were such that she was able to appreciate to the full the extent of her fall, and it would be doing her a poor service to attempt to palliate her guilt.

Cromwell prepared yet another letter for the hapless victim to copy, for having drunk the bitter cup to the dregs, she was now required to thank her father humbly for the boon. The passionless utilitarian mind of the Chief Secretary was not bent on causing Mary more pain than was necessary to bring about and perfect the reconciliation which he had set himself to accomplish. He was not wantonly cruel; but he understood Henry, and knew that neither his own head nor Mary’s was safe, until the royal vanity was fed to repletion. He therefore caused her to write the following letter to her father on the 15th June, after having signed the articles:—

“Most humbly prostrate before the feet of your most excellent
Majestie, your most humble, faithfull and obedient subject, which
hath so extremely offended your most gracious Highness that mine
heavy and fearfull heart dare not presume to call you father, ne
your Majesty hath any cause by my deserts, saving the benignity
of your most blessed nature doth surmount all evils, offences and
trespasses, and is ever mercifull and ready to accept the penitent
calling for grace in any convenient time. Having received this
thursday at night certain letters from Mr. Secretary, as well
advising me to make mine humble submission immediately to your
self, which because I durst not without your gracious licence
presume to do before I lately sent unto him, as signifying that
your most mercifull heart and fatherly pity had granted me your
blessing, with condition that I should persevere in that I had
commenced and begun, and that I should not eftsones offend
your Majesty by the denyal or refusal of any such articles and
commandments as it may please your Highness to address unto me
for the perfect tryal of mine heart and inward affection. For the
perfect declaration of the bottom of my heart and stomack, first I
knowledge my self to have most unkindly and unnaturally offended
your most excellent Highness, in that I have not submitted myself
to your most just and vertuous laws, and for mine offence therein,
which I must confess were in me a thousand fold more grievous,
than they could be in any other living creature. I put my self
wholly and entirely to your gracious mercy, at whose hand I
cannot receive that punishment for the same that I have deserved.
Secondly, to open mine heart to your Grace in these things which
I have hitherto refused to condescend unto, and have now written
with mine own hand sending the same to your Highness herewith. I
shall never beseech your Grace to have pity and compassion of me,
if ever you shall perceive that I shall prevyly or apertly vary
or alter from one peice of that I have written and subscribed, or
refuse to confirm, ratifie or declare the same where your Majesty
shall appoint me. Thirdly, as I have and shall, knowing your
excellent learning, virtue, wisdom and knowledge, put my soul into
your direction, and by the same hath and will in all things from
henceforth direct my conscience, so my body I do wholly commit to
your mercy and fatherly pity; desiring no state, no condition nor
no manner degree of living, but such as your Grace shall appoint
unto me; knowledging and confessing that my state cannot be so
vile as either the extremity of justice would appoint unto me, or
as my offences have required and deserved; and whatsoever your
Grace shall command me to do, touching any of these points, either
for things past, present or to come, I shall as gladly do the same
as your Majesty can command me. Most humbly therefore, beseeching
your mercy, most gracious soveraign Lord and benign father, to
have pity and compassion of your miserable and sorrowfull child,
and with the abundance of your inestimable goodness to overcome
mine iniquities towards God, your Grace, and your whole realm,
as I may feel some sensible token of reconciliation, which, God
is my Judge, I only desire without any respect. To whom I shall
dayly pray for the preservation of your Highness, with the Queen’s
grace, and that it may please him to send you issue. From Hownsdon
at 11 of the clock at night. Your grace’s most humble and obedient
daughter and handmaid,

“MARYE.”[190]

Henry was now pleased to accept Mary’s holocaust, and intimated to her his forgiveness. Cromwell’s hand is again evident in her reply. Even now, if left to her own expressions of affection, she might fail to attain to the proper degree of servility. On the 26th June she wrote:—

“Most humbly, obediently and gladly, lying at the feet of your
most excellent Majesty, my most dear and benigne soveraigne Lord.
I have this day perceived your gracious clemency and mercifull
pity to have overcome my most unkind and unnatural proceedings
towards you and your most just and vertuous lawes; the great and
inestimable joy, whereof I cannot express ne have any thing worthy
to be again presented to your Majesty for the same your fatherly
pity extended towards me, most ingrately on my part abandoned,
as much as in me lay; but my poor heart, which I send unto your
Highness, to remain in your hand, to be for ever used, directed
and framed, whiles God shall suffer life to remain in it, at your
only pleasure; most humbly beseeching your Grace to accept and
receive the same, being all that I have to offer, which shall
never alter, vary or change from that confession and submission
which I have made unto your Highness in the presence of your
council and others attending upon the same; for whose preservation
with my most gracious mother the Queen, I shall daily pray to God,
whom eftsones I beseech to send you issue, to his honour and the
comfort of your whole realm.

“From Hounsdon the 26 day of June.

“Your Grace’s most humble and obedient daughter and handmaid,

“MARYE.”[191]

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 150: Gairdner, _Cal._, x., 141.]

[Footnote 151: Gairdner, _Cal._, x., 141.]

[Footnote 152: Gayangos, _Cal._, vol. v., pt. ii., p. 33, Charles V. to the Empress, Naples, 1st Feb. 1536.]

[Footnote 153: Gairdner, _Cal._, x., 901. “The said Semel” (Seymour), he continues, “is not a woman of great wit, but she may have good understanding.... She bears great love and reverence to the Princess. I know not if honours will make her change hereafter.”]

[Footnote 154: Gairdner, _Cal._, x., 307. The original letter, in French, is in the Vienna Archives.]

[Footnote 155: Gairdner, _Cal._, x., 351.]

[Footnote 156: Gayangos, _Cal._, vol. v., pt. ii., p. 39.]

[Footnote 157: Gairdner, _Cal._, x., 307.]

[Footnote 158: _Ibid._]

[Footnote 159: _Ibid._]

[Footnote 160: _Anne Boleyn_, vol. ii., p. 227.]

[Footnote 161: Gairdner, _Cal._, x., 601.]

[Footnote 162: Gairdner, _Cal._, x., 601. The ambassador refers here not to Henry’s former connection with Anne’s sister Mary, but to the intimacy which by common report had once existed between the King and the mother of both.]

[Footnote 163: By Mr. Friedmann in his _Anne Boleyn_.]

[Footnote 164: Perhaps the most damning proof against her is the fact that her daughter Elizabeth never made the least attempt to rehabilitate her memory.]

[Footnote 165: Gairdner, _Cal._, x., 908.]

[Footnote 166: Gayangos, _Cal._, vol. v., pt. ii., p. 127.]

[Footnote 167: Cotton MS. Otho. C. x., Brit. Mus. Burnet, vol. iv., p. 291.]

[Footnote 168: _Anne Boleyn_, vol. ii., p. 293.]

[Footnote 169: Cotton MS. Otho C. x., f. 283; printed in Hearne’s _Sylloge_, p. 140.]

[Footnote 170: Chapuys to Granvelle, 6th June 1536, Vienna Archives. Gayangos, _Cal._, vol. v., pt. ii., p. 574.]

[Footnote 171: Cotton MS. Otho. C. x. f. 230. Burnet, i., 320.]

[Footnote 172: Chapuys to Charles V., Despatch of the 19th May 1536, Vienna Archives. Gairdner, _Cal._, x., 908.]

[Footnote 173: Crapelet, _Lettres de Henri VIII._ p. 167.]

[Footnote 174: Gairdner, _Cal._, x., 726. Harl. MS. 282, f. 7, Brit. Mus.]

[Footnote 175: Gairdner, _Cal._, x., 887. Vienna Archives, dated 15th May 1536.]

[Footnote 176: Cotton MS. Vit. B. xiv., 177. This, and all the letters written by Mary to her father and Cromwell at this time, are to be seen at the British Museum; they are all written in her own firm, clear hand, but many of them are much damaged by the fire at Cotton House.]

[Footnote 177: Cotton MS. Otho C. x., f. 283; printed in Hearne’s _Sylloge_, p. 140.]

[Footnote 178: _Vide_ his letter to Charles V., p. 111.]

[Footnote 179: Cotton MS. Otho C. x., f. 284. Hearne’s _Sylloge_, p. 146.]

[Footnote 180: Cotton MS. Otho C. x., f. 265. Hearne, p. 147.]

[Footnote 181: Cotton MS. Otho C. x., f. 286. Hearne, p. 148.]

[Footnote 182: Cotton MS. Otho C. x., f. 287. Hearne, p. 149.]

[Footnote 183: Cotton MS. Otho C. x., f. 271. Hearne, p. 124.]

[Footnote 184: Cotton MS. Otho C. x., f. 270. Hearne, p. 126.]

[Footnote 185: Cotton MS. Otho C. x., f. 272. Hearne, p. 127.]

[Footnote 186: Cotton MS. Otho C. x., f. 280. Hearne, p. 137.]

[Footnote 187: Gairdner, _Cal._, xi., 7.]

[Footnote 188: Gairdner, _Cal._, xi., 7.]

[Footnote 189: Harl. MS. 283, f. 114^b, 112. Hearne, p. 142.]

[Footnote 190: Harl. MS. 283, f. 111^b. Hearne, p. 140.]

[Footnote 191: Cotton MS. Otho C. x., f. 273, Brit. Mus. Hearne, p. 128.]