Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 36.djvu/343

Mary I followed by a change in Anne's attitude towards her. The queen, conscious that her own influence over Henry was waning, fell back on a conciliatory policy ; she promised to be a second mother to Mary if she would submit to the king. The princess declared that she was ready to obey her father in all things saving her honour and conscience, but she would never abjure the pope. Anne Boleyn's execution in May 1536 relieved Mary of her most determined foe. Jane Seymour, Anne's successor as Henry's queen, had always regarded Mary and her mother with sympathy, and Mary, worn out with the three years' conflict, was anxious to seek a reconciliation with her father. Ohapuys, too, advised surrender. He believed that the king was incapable of begetting more children, and seeing that Elizabeth was to be declared a bastard and that the Duke of Richmond was on his deathbed, he concluded that Mary, if she conducted herself with tact, was certain of the succession. She was allowed writing materials once again, and she sent a letter to Cromwell (26 May 1536) begging him to secure her father's blessing and permission to write to him. On 1 June she wrote askingHenry 's forgiveness for her past offences. The king was quite willing to pardon her, but his terms were hard. Mary was to acknowledge her mother's marriage to be illegal, her own birth illegitimate, and the king's supremacy over the church absolute. At first she hesitated. 'She could not assent, she said, to what she held to be inconsistent with the laws of God, and she explained her doubts to Cromwell. The minister sent an angry reply. She was, he told her, the 'most obstinate and obdurate woman, all things considered, that ever was.' The pressure put on her had its effect, and the obnoxious art ides were at length signed. One more demand was made. She was directed to take the oath of supremacy. Again she held back, but her friends hardly appreciated her resistance, and neither Chapuys nor his master counselled it. The Duke of Norfolk and Lord Sussex, who were sent to administer the oath to her, told her that if she was their daughter ' they would knock her head against the wall till it was as soft as a baked apple,' Mary did as she was requested, and friends and foes were satisfied. She had hopes that a papal absolution might relieve her of the pains of perjury. On 8 July Chapuys wrote : ' Her treatment improves every day ; j she never had so much liberty as now. . . . She will want nothing in future but the name of Princess of Wales, and that is of no consequence ; for all the rest she will have more abundantly than before' (Spanish Cal. vol. v. pt. ii. p. 221). On 21 July she wrote to thank her father for his ' gracious mercy and fatherly pity surmounting mine offences at this time.' Finally, on 9 Dec. 1536 she revisited the royal palace at Richmond. 'My daughter,' Henry is reported to have said, 'she who did you so much harm and prevented me from seeing you for so long, has paid the penalty ' (Spanish Chronicle of Henry VIII, ed. Sharp Hume, p. 72). At New Year of 1537 she received handsome presents from the king, Cromwell, and the queen. Soon afterwards she revisited Newhall, returnicg to the court at Greenwich, and leaving it for Westminster at the end of February. In March she was at St. James's Palace, and for the rest of the year she was constantly moving from one royal palace in the neighbourhood of London to another. Throughout the period Mary showed many amiable personal traits. Her attendants always received every consideration from her, and in behalf of the servants discharged on her mother's death she wrote many letters to influential friends (Green, ii. 320). One of her maids of honour whom the king dismissed is said to have died of grief at her separation from her mistress (Spanish Cal. 1538-42, p. 309). Mary at all times distributed pensions and charitable gifts with as much freedom as her circumstances would allow, and displayed a natural liking forchildren by accepting numerous invitations to act as godmother. She stood sponsor for fifteen children during 1537, among them for her new-born brother Edward (afterwards Edward VI), to whom she gave a gold cup. The death of Queen Jane, ten days after her son's birth (October 1537), was a serious grief to Mary, but it strengthened the ties between her and her father. When the dead queen lay in state in Hampton Court chapel, Mary knelt as chief mourner at the head of the coffin while masses and dirges were sung; she rode on horseback in the funeral procession from Hampton Court to Windsor, figured as chief mourner at the burial, paid for thirteen masses for the repose of the queen's soul, and gave money to the queen's servants. She stayed with her father at Windsor till Christmas, and took a very tender interest in her brother and godson, Edward, whom she constantly visited throughout his infancy. Mary's position was rendered less secure in the next year, 1538. The northern rebels made Mary's restoration to royal rank one of their demands, and she displeased Cromwell and Henry by entertaining some desolate strangers, apparently dispossessed nuns. The rising in the north impelled Cromwell, too. to proceed to extremities against those who still resisted the Act of Supremacy, and many of Mary's intimate friends suffered