It was, as ever, necessary to tread very cautiously, for the King had changed since the death of Anne; he was less jovial; he had aged considerably and looked more than his forty-five years; he did not laugh so frequently, and there was a glitter in his eyes, which could send cold shivers down the spine of a man though he might have no knowledge of having displeased the King. His matrimonial adventures had been conspicuously unsuccessful, and though Jane had been reported to be pregnant before the death of Anne—well, Katharine of Aragon had been pregnant a good many times without much result; and Anne had had no success either. Young Richmond, on whom the King doted, as his only son, had ever since the death of Anne been spitting blood. “She has cast a spell on him,” said Mary. “She would murder him as she tried to murder me, for Richmond has death in his face if ever one had.” And what if Richmond died and Jane Seymour was without issue! Elizabeth was a bastard now, no less then Mary.

“It is time,” said her friends to Mary, “that you began to woo the King.”

“And defame my mother!” cried Mary.

“She who was responsible for your mother’s position is now herself cast off and done with. You should try to gain His Majesty’s friendship.”

“I do not believe he will listen to me.”

“There is a way of approaching him.”

“Which way is that?”

“Through Cromwell. It is not only the best, but the only possible way for you.”

The result was that Cromwell came to visit Mary at Hunsdon whither she had been banished. Cromwell came eagerly enough, seeing good reasons for having Mary taken back into favor. He knew that the King would never receive his daughter unless she agreed that her mother’s marriage had been unlawful and incestuous; and if Mary could be brought to such admission, she would cease to have the sympathy of the people. There were many nobles in the land who deplored the break with Rome; who were silently awaiting an opportunity to repair the link. If they were ever able to do this, what would happen to those who had worked for the break! And was not the greatest of them Thomas Cromwell! Cromwell could therefore see much good in the King’s reconciliation with his daughter.

Henry’s eyes were speculative regarding the prospect laid out before him by Cromwell. How he loathed that man! But what good work he was doing with the smaller abbeys, and what better work he would do with the larger ones! If there was to be a reconciliation with Mary, Cromwell was right in thinking this was the time to make it. Many people considered Mary had been badly treated; the common people were particularly ready to be incensed on her behalf. He had separated her from her mother, had not allowed her to see Katharine on her deathbed. He could not help feeling a stirring of his conscience over Mary. But if he effected a reconciliation at this moment, he himself would emerge from the dangerous matter, not as a monster but as a misguided man who had been under the influence of a witch and a scorceress. Anne, the harlot and would-be-prisoner, could be shown to have been entirely responsible for the King’s treatment of his daughter. “Why,” people would say, “as soon as the whore was sent to her well-deserved death, the King becomes reconciled to his daughter!” A well-deserved death! Henry liked that phrase. He had suffered many disturbed nights of late; he would awaken and think she lay beside him; he would find sleep impossible for hours at a time; and once he dreamed of her looking into a pool at Hever: and when he looked too, he saw her head with its black hair, and blood was streaming from it. A well-deserved death! thought Henry complacently, and he sent Norfolk to see his daughter at Hunsdon.

“Tell the girl,” he said, “that she is willful and disobedient, but that we are ever ready to take pity on those who repent.”

Mary saw that she was expected to deny all that she had previously upheld, and was frightened by the storm that she had aroused.

“My mother was the King’s true wife,” she insisted. “I can say naught but that!”

She was reminded ominously that many had lost their heads for saying what she had said. She was not easily frightened and she tried to assure herself that she would go to the block as readily as More and Fisher had done.

Mary could see now that she had been wrong in blaming Anne for her treatment. Norfolk was brusque with her, insulting even; she had never been so humiliated when Anne was living. It was Anne who had begged that they might bury their quarrel, that Mary should come to court, and had told her that she should walk beside her and need not carry her train. Lady Kingston had come to her with an account of Anne’s plea for forgiveness and Mary had shrugged her shoulders at that. Forgiveness! What good would that do Anne Boleyn! When Mary died she would look down on Anne, burning in hell, for burn in hell she assuredly would. She had carried out the old religious rites until her death, but she had listened to and even applauded the lies of Martin Luther and so earned eternal damnation. Mary was not cruel at heart; she knew only two ways, the right and the wrong, and the right way was through the Roman Catholic Church. No true Catholic burned in hell; but this was a fate which those who were not true Catholics could not possibly escape. But she saw that though Anne would assuredly burn in hell for her responsibility in the severance of England from Rome, she could not in all truth be entirely blamed for the King’s treatment of his elder daughter. Mary decided that although she could not forgive Anne, she would at least be as kind as she could to Anne’s daughter.

Henry was furious at the reports brought back to him. He swore that he could not trust Mary. He was an angry man. It was but a matter of days since he had married Jane Seymour and yet he was not happy. He could not forget Anne Boleyn; he was dissatisfied with Jane; and he was enraged against Mary. A man’s daughter to work against him! He would not have it! He called the council together. A man cannot trust those nearest to him! was his cry. There should be an inquiry. If he found his daughter guilty of conspiracy she should suffer the penalty of traitors.

“I’ll have no more disobedience!” foamed Henry. “There is one road traitors should tread, and by God, I’ll see that they tread it!”

There was tension in court circles. It was well known that, while Anne lived, Mary and her mother had had secret communications from Chapuys; and that the ambassador had had plans for—with the Emperor’s aid—setting Katharine or Mary on the throne.

The King, as was his custom, chose Cromwell to do the unpleasant work; he was to go secretly into the houses of suspected persons and search for evidence against the Princess.

The Queen came to the King.

“What ails thee?” growled the newly married husband. “Dost not see I am occupied with matters of state!”

“Most gracious lord,” said Jane, not realizing his dangerous mood, “I would have speech with you. The Princess Mary has ever been in my thoughts, and now that I know she repents and longs to be restored in your affections...”

Jane got no further.

“Be off!” roared the King. “And meddle not in my affairs!”

Jane wept, but Henry strode angrily from her, and in his mind’s eye, he seemed to see a pair of black eyes laughing at him, and although he was furious he was also wistful. He growled: “There is none I can trust. My nearest and those who should be my dearest are ready to betray me!”

Mary’s life was in danger. Chapuys wrote to her advising her to submit to the King’s demands, since it was unsafe for her not to do so. She must acknowledge her father Supreme Head of the Church; she must agree that her mother had never been truly married to the King. It was useless to think that as his daughter she was safe, since there was no safety for those who opposed Henry. Let her think, Chapuys advised her, of the King’s last concubine to whom he had been exclusively devoted over several years; he had not hesitated to send her to the block; nor would he hesitate in his present mood to send his own daughter.

But the shrewd man Henry had become knew that the unpopularity he had incurred, first by his marriage with Anne and then by his murder of her, would be further increased if he shed the blood of his daughter. The enmity of the people, ever a dark bogey in his life since he felt his dynasty to be unsafe, seemed as close as it had when he broke from the Church of Rome. He told Cromwell to write to her telling her that if she did not leave all her sinister councils she would lose her chance of gaining the King’s favor.

Mary was defeated, since even Chapuys was against her holding out; she gave in, acknowledged the King Supreme Head of the Church, admitted the Pope to be a pretender, and agreed that her mother’s marriage was incestuous and unlawful. She signed the papers she was required to sign and she retired to the privacy of her rooms where she wept bitterly, calling on her saintly mother to forgive her for what she had done. She thought of More and Fisher. “Ah! That I had been brave as they!” she sobbed.

Henry was well pleased; instead of a recalcitrant daughter, he had a dutiful one. Uneasy about the death of Anne, he wished to assure himself and the world that he had done right to rid himself of her. He was a family man; he loved his children. Anne had threatened to poison his daughter, his beloved Mary. Did his people not now see that Anne had met a just fate? Was not Mary once more his beloved daughter? It mattered not that she had been born out of wedlock. She was his daughter and she should come to court. With the death of the harlot who had tried to poison his daughter, everything was well between her and her father.