Lady Mary Tudor did
not accept Anne for who she was, cared nothing for her, and despised her. She
blamed Anne for her father King Henry VIII annulling his marriage to her mother
Katherine of Aragon, her being branded as a bastard and cut out of the line of
succession, and King Henry VIII deciding to break apart from Rome. Anne
considered her to be a threat to her daughter Princess Elizabeth’s position as
long as she refused to acknowledge Anne’s marriage to King Henry VIII and her
position as the Queen of England and Elizabeth’s position as the Princess of
England. She did what she could to make Lady Mary submit and ended up furious
with her when she refused. Anne would fiercely rail against Lady Mary by
calling her names and describing in horrible various fashions how she would
abruptly make Lady Mary her lady-waiting, marry her off to some varlet, poison
her, or even put both Katherine and Mary to death if King Henry VIII left her
as regent in his absence while he was in France when she was in one of these
moods and she threatened to curb “her proud Spanish blood”, but she was just
ranting to express her frustrations with Lady Mary and there is no evidence to
suggest she carried out any of her threats against Lady Mary. However Anne did tell her aunt Lady Anne Shelton
who was in charge of Lady Mary’s care to starve her back into the Great Hall if
she continued to eat a large breakfast in order to avoid having to eat dinner
in the Great Hall and pleading illness to have supper brought to her chamber
and that she should box Lady Mary’s ears as “the cursed bastard she was” if she
tried to use the banned title of princess for herself
and she ended up having Mary surrender her
jewels to her for she felt they must now adorn Princess Elizabeth for she was
the king’s lawful heiress until the time that she had a brother.
A
picture of Queen Anne trying to reason with Lady Mary to acknowledge her as the
Queen of England
However Anne did
attempt to reason with the Lady Mary and have her see that she wanted to be a
good stepmother to her. In March 1534 Anne sent for Lady Mary to come see her
while she was visiting her daughter Princess Elizabeth. She offered to invite
her back to the English Court and reconciliation with her father King Henry
VIII if she would just accept their marriage and acknowledge her as the Queen
of England. Lady Mary promptly responded
with a cruel insult, “I know no Queen in England but my mother. But if you,
Madam, as my father’s mistress, will intercede for me with him, I should be
grateful.” Anne did not lose her temper with Lady Mary as she pointed out the
absurdity of the request and repeated her offer to Lady Mary. Then Mary refused
to answer Anne and Anne left in a rage.
At another time according to “legend,” Anne and Lady
Mary were both in the Eltham Palace chapel at the same time. According to the
story an attendant told Anne that Lady Mary had acknowledged her as the Queen of
England by curtsying to her. Anne had not been able to see it and she came to
be embarrassed at not noticing that Lady Mary had acknowledged her as the Queen
of England. She was deeply pleased that Lady Mary had acknowledged her as the
Queen of England and ended up sending a message to her where she as the Queen
greeted her warmly and to apologize for not seeing her curtsy towards her and
that she desired that “ this may be the entrance of friendly correspondence”
which she would embrace. Lady Mary replied that it was impossible for the queen
to have been there for her mother was not there and that again she acknowledged
no other queen save her mother and the curtsy she made was to the altar not
her.
Anne and Princess Elizabeth’s
untenable positions occupied in English politics was highlighted by the problem
with Lady Mary refusing to acknowledge King Henry VIII’s marriage to Anne and
Anne as the Queen of England and Princess Elizabeth as the Princess of England.
Many of King Henry VIII’s subjects did not who to call Princess and who was the
rightful heir to the English throne between Lady Mary and Princess Elizabeth
and who was the true wife between Anne and Katherine of Aragon. Evidently
Katherine of Aragon lived on still calling herself the Queen of England and
Lady Mary, encouraged by the spiteful Imperial ambassador Eustace Chapuys,
still called herself the Princess of England. Furthermore ambassador Chapuys,
who openly did not accept Anne for who she was, cared nothing for her, and
despised her and disgustedly ended up referring to her in his official
communications as “the concubine” and that “whore” or with polite disdain “The
Lady” and Princess Elizabeth as “the brat” or “the little bastard”, told Lady
Mary that Anne was planning to have her murdered. It was a terrible lie but one that Lady Mary,
in her hysterical state, was inclined to believe. She refused to go when word
came that Princess Elizabeth’s household and her were moving from Hatfield to
The More as she believed that she would be moved and quietly murdered. This led
to guards have to actually seize and throw her into her litter. Her distress
from this would have naturally made her ill.
Such events helped to cement Lady
Mary's inability to accept her half-sister Princess Elizabeth for who she was,
her lack of care for her, and the lifelong hatred she would have for her
half-sister. Her Spanish friends continually spread nasty rumors about Anne and
Princess Elizabeth as they said that the infant princess was monstrous in
appearance and physically deformed. To dispel this, in April 1534, King Henry
VIII showed off the naked infant Princess Elizabeth to several continental
ambassadors.
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