et,
and bowed low and kindly to the daughter he was wronging so bitterly. He
explained afterwards that he avoided speaking to her as she was so
obstinate with him, "thanks to her Spanish blood." When the French
ambassador mentioned her kindly, during the conversation, he noted that
Henry's eyes filled with tears, and that he could not refrain from
praising her.[115] But for Anne's jealousy for her own offspring, it is
probable that Mary's legitimacy would have been established by Act of
Parliament; as Cromwell at this time was certainly in favour of it: but
Anne was ever on the watch, especially to arouse Henry's anger by hinting
that Mary was looking to foreigners for counsel, as indeed she was. It was
this latter element in which danger principally lurked. Katharine
naturally appealed to her kin for support; and all through her trouble it
was this fact, joined with her firm refusal to acknowledge Henry's supreme
power, that steeled her husband's heart. But for the King's own daughter
and undoubted born subject to act in the same way made her, what her
mother never had been, a dangerous centre around which the disaffected
elements might gather. The old nobility, as we have seen, were against
Anne: and Henry quite understood the peril of having in his own family a
person who commanded the sympathies of the strongest foreign powers in
Europe, as well as the most influential elements in England. He angrily
told the Marquis of Exeter that it was only confidence in the Emperor
that made Mary so obstinate; but that he was not afraid of the Emperor,
and would bring the girl to her senses: and he then went on to threaten
Exeter himself if he dared to communicate with her. The same course was
soon afterwards taken with Norfolk, who as well as his wife was forbidden
to see the Princess, although he certainly had shown no desire to extend
much leniency to her.

The treatment of Katharine was even more atrocious, though in her case it
was probably more the King's irritated pride than his fears that was the
incentive. When the wretched Elizabeth Barton, the Nun of Kent, was
prosecuted for her crazy prophecies against the King every possible effort
was made to connect the unfortunate Queen with her, though unsuccessfully,
and the attempt to force Katharine to take the oath prescribed by the new
Act of Succession against herself and her daughter was obviously a piece
of persecution and insult.[116] The Commission sent to Buckden to ex