m Kimbolton. "Alas!" urged
Katharine, "if it be only a mile away, I cannot visit her. I beseech that
she be allowed to come to where I am. I will answer for her security with
my life." But Cromwell or his master was full of suspicion of imperial
plots for the escape of Mary to foreign soil, and Katharine's maternal
prayer remained unheard.

The unhappy mother tried again soon afterwards to obtain access to her
sick daughter by means of Chapuys. She besought for charity's sake that
the King would allow her to tend Mary with her own hands. "You shall also
tell his Highness that there is no need for any other person but myself to
nurse her: I will put her in my own bed where I sleep, and will watch her
when needful." When Chapuys saw the King with this pathetic message Henry
was less arrogant than usual. "He wished to do his best for his daughter's
health; but he must be careful of his own honour and interests, which
would be jeopardised if Mary were conveyed abroad, or if she escaped, as
she easily might do if she were with her mother; for he had some suspicion
that the Emperor had a design to get her away." Henry threw all the blame
for Mary's obstinacy upon Katharine, who he knew was in close and constant
touch with his opponents: and the fear he expressed that the Emperor and
his friends in England would try to spirit Mary across the sea to
Flanders, where, indeed, she might have been made a thorn in her father's
side, were perfectly well founded, and these plans were at the time the
gravest peril that threatened Henry and England.[124]

Cruel, therefore, as his action towards his daughter may seem, it was
really prompted by pressing considerations of his own safety. Apart from
this desire to keep Mary away from foreign influence working against him
through her mother, Henry exhibited frequent signs of tenderness towards
his elder daughter, much to Anne's dismay. In May 1534, for instance, he
sent her a gentle message to the effect that he hoped she would obey him,
and that in such case her position would be preserved. But the girl was
proud and, not unnaturally, resentful, and sent back a haughty answer to
what she thought was an attempt to entrap her. To her foreign friends she
said that she believed her father meant to poison her, but that she cared
little. She was sure of going to heaven, and was only sorry for her
mother.

In the meanwhile Anne's influence over the King was weakening. She saw the
gathering cloud