Henry VIII.
was no object of especial terror to his children.

"Her Grace replied," wrote Lord Hussey to the council in communicating the
result of his undertaking,[636] that "she could not a little marvel that I
being alone, and not associate with some other the king's most honourable
council, nor yet sufficiently authorised neither by commission not by any
other writing from the King's Highness, would attempt to declare such a
high enterprise and matter of no little weight and importance unto her
Grace, in diminishing her said estate and name; her Grace not doubting that
she is the king's true and legitimate daughter and heir procreate in good
and lawful matrimony; [and] further adding, that unless she were advertised
from his Highness by his writing that his Grace was so minded to diminish
her estate, name, and dignity, which she trusteth his Highness will never
do, she would not believe it."

Inasmuch as Mary was but sixteen at this time, the resolution which she
displayed in sending such a message was considerable. The early English
held almost Roman notions on the nature of parental authority, and the tone
of a child to a father was usually that of the most submissive reverence.
Nor was she contented with replying indirectly through her guardian. She
wrote herself 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.[637]

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
necessit