Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth | Page 9

I may know from you by writing how I shall order myself; and what is the king's grace's pleasure and yours, that I shall do in every thing.
"My lord, Mr. Shelton saith he is the master of this house: what fashion that shall be, I cannot tell; for I have not seen it before.--I trust your lordship will see the house honourably ordered, howsomever it hath been ordered aforetime.
"My lord, Mr. Shelton would have my lady Elizabeth to dine and sup every day at the board of estate. Alas! my lord, it is not meet for a child of her age to keep such rule yet. I promise you, my lord, I dare not take it upon me to keep her in health and she keep that rule. For there she shall see divers meats and fruits, and wine: which would be hard for me to restrain her grace from it. Ye know, my lord, there is no place of correction there. And she is yet too young to correct greatly. I know well, and she be there, I shall nother bring her up to the king's grace's honour, nor hers; nor to her health, nor my poor honesty. Wherefore I show your lordship this my desire. Beseeching you, my lord, that my lady may have a mess of meat to her own lodging, with a good dish or two, that is meet for her grace to eat of.
"God knoweth my lady hath great pain with her great teeth, and they come very slowly forth: and causeth me to suffer her grace to have her will, more than I would. I trust to God and her teeth were well graft, to have her grace after another fashion than she is yet: so as I trust the king's grace shall have great comfort in her grace. For she is as toward a child, and as gentle of conditions, as ever I knew any in my life. Jesu preserve her grace! As for a day or two at a hey time, or whensomever it shall please the king's grace to have her set abroad, I trust so to endeavour me, that she shall so do, as shall be to the king's honour and hers; and then after to take her ease again.
"Good my lord, have my lady's grace, and us that be her poor servants in your remembrance.
"From Hunsdon." (No date of time.)
[Note 2: This is a word which I am utterly unable to explain; but it is thus printed in Strype's "Memorials," whence the letter is copied.]
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On the day immediately following the death of the unfortunate Anne Boleyn, the king was publicly united in marriage to Jane Seymour; and an act of parliament soon after passed by which the lady Elizabeth was declared incapable of succeeding to the crown, which was now settled on the offspring of Henry by his present queen.
CHAPTER II.
1536 TO 1542.
Vague notions of hereditary succession to the English throne.--Henry's jealousy of the royal family.--Imprisonment of lord T. Howard and lady M. Douglas.--After-fortunes of this lady.--Princess Mary reconciled with her father.--Dissolution of monasteries proceeds.--Insurrections in Lincolnshire and Yorkshire.--Remarkable trait of the power of the nobles.--Rebellion of T. Fitzgerald.--Romantic adventures of Gerald Fitzgerald.--Birth of prince Edward.--Death of the queen.--Rise of the two Seymours.--Henry's views in their advancement.--His enmity to cardinal Pole.--Causes of it.--Geffrey Pole discloses a plot.--Trial and death of lord Montacute, the marquis of Exeter, sir Edward Nevil, and sir N. Carew.--Particulars of these persons.--Attainder of the marchioness of Exeter and countess of Salisbury.--Application of these circumstances to the history of Elizabeth.--Decline of the protestant party.--Its causes.--Cromwel proposes the king's marriage with Anne of Cleves.--Accomplishments of this lady.--Royal marriage.--Cromwel made earl of Essex.--Anger of the Bourchier family.--Justs at Westminster.--The king determines to dissolve his marriage.--Permits the fall of Cromwel.--Is divorced.--Behaviour of the queen.--Marriage of the king to Catherine Howard.--Ascendency of the papists.--Execution of the countess of Salisbury--of lord Leonard Grey.--Discovery of the queen's ill-conduct.--Attainders passed against her and several others.
Nothing could be more opposite to the strict principles of hereditary succession than the ideas entertained, even by the first lawyers of the time of Henry VIII., concerning the manner in which a title to the crown was to be established and recognised.
When Rich, the king's solicitor, was sent by his master to argue with sir Thomas More on the lawfulness of acknowledging the royal supremacy; he inquired in the course of his argument, whether sir Thomas would not own for king any person whatever,--himself for example,--who should have been declared so by parliament? He answered, that he would. Rich then demanded, why he refused to acknowledge a head of the church so appointed? "Because," replied More, "a parliament can make a king and depose him, and that every parliament-man may give his consent thereunto,