Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 2.djvu/65

1533.] was subsequently executed for his complicity in the Pilgrimage of Grace, the avowed object of which was the restoration of Mary to her place as heir-apparent. We may believe, therefore, that while under his surveillance she experienced no severe restraint, nor received that advice with respect to her conduct which prudence would have dictated. Lord Hussey, however, for the present enjoyed the confidence of the King, and was directed to inform his charge, that for the future she was to consider herself not as princess, but as the King's natural daughter, the Lady Mary Tudor. The message was a painful one; painful, we will hope, more on her mother's account than on her own; but her answer implied that, as yet, Henry VIII. was no object of especial terror to his children.

'Her Grace replied,' wrote Lord Hussey to the Council in communicating the result of his undertaking, that 'she could not a little marvel that I being alone, and not associate with some other the King's most honourable council, nor yet sufficiently authorized neither by commission nor by any other writing from the King's Highness, would attempt to declare such a high enterprise and matter of no little weight and importance unto her Grace, in diminishing her said estate and name; her Grace not doubting that she is the King's true and legitimate daughter and heir procreate in good and lawful matrimony; [and] further adding, that unless she were advertised from his Highness by