erself to the king, saying that she neither could
nor would in her conscience think the contrary, but that she was his
lawful daughter born in true matrimony, and that she thought that he in
his own conscience did judge the same.[189]

[Sidenote: Danger to the nation of Mary's attitude.]

Such an attitude in so young a girl was singular, yet not necessarily
censurable. Henry was not her only parent, and if we suppose her to have
been actuated by affection for her mother, her conduct may appear not
pardonable only, but spirited and creditable. In insisting upon her
legitimacy, nevertheless, she was not only asserting the good name and
fame of Catherine of Arragon, but unhappily her own claim to the
succession to the throne. It was natural that under the circumstances
she should have felt her right to assert that claim; for the injury
which she had suffered was patent not only to herself, but to Europe.
Catherine might have been required to give way that the king might have
a son, and that the succession might be established in a prince; but so
long as the child of the second marriage was a daughter only, it seemed
substantially monstrous to set aside the elder for the younger. Yet the
measure was a harsh necessity; a link in the chain which could not be
broken. The harassed nation insisted above all things that no doubt
should hang over the future, and it was impossible in the existing
complications to recognise the daughter of Catherine without excluding
Elizabeth, and excluding the prince who was expected to follow her. By
asserting her title, Mary was making herself the nucleus of sedition,
which on her father's death would lead to a convulsion in the realm. She
might not mean it, but the result would not be affected by a want of
purpose in herself; and it was possible that her resolution might create
immediate and far more painful complications. The king's excommunication
was imminent, and if the censures were enforced by the emperor, she
would be thrust into the unpermitted position of her father's rival.

[Sidenote: The king treats her as a petulant child.]

The political consequences of her conduct, notwithstanding, although
evident to statesmen, might well be concealed from a headstrong,
passionate girl. There was no suspicion that she herself was encouraging
any of these dangerous thoughts, and Henry looked upon her answer to
Lord Hussey and her letter to himself as expressions of petulant folly.
Lord Oxford,