th her. Nor was this all. The determined girl refused
to be included in Elizabeth's household, or pay her the respect attaching
to her birth. Elizabeth soon after being removed from Hatfield to the
More, Mary declined to go with her, and obliged the gentlemen in
attendance to place her by force in Mrs. Shelton's litter. The Ambassador
felt the folly of such ineffectual resistance. Never, he said, would he
have advised her to run such a risk of exasperating the King, while the
Lady Anne was never ceasing day or night to injure her. His own advice had
been that when violence was threatened she should yield; but he had been
overruled by Catherine.[276]

Chapuys's intercourse with the Court was now restricted. He was received
when he applied for a formal interview; but for his information on what
was passing there, he was left to secret friends or to his diplomatic
colleagues. He asked the French Ambassador how the King took the Pope's
sentence. The ambassador said the King did not care in the least, which
Chapuys was unable to believe. The action of the Parliament alarmed and
shocked him. Among the hardest blows was the taking from the Bishops the
powers of punishing heretics--a violation, as it appeared to him, of
common right and the constitution of the realm. The sharp treatment of
Bishop Nixe he regarded as an outrage and a crime. The Easter preachers
were ordered to denounce the Pope in their sermons. Chapuys shuddered at
their language. "They surpassed themselves in the abominations which they
uttered." Worse than sermons followed. On the arrival of the "sentence,"
the Commission began its work in requiring the oath to the Succession Act.
Those whose names had been compromised in the revelation of the Nun were
naturally the first to be put to the test. Fisher, who had been found
guilty of misprision of treason, had so far been left unpunished. It is
uncertain whether the Government was aware of his communications with
Chapuys, but enough was known to justify suspicion. The oath was offered
him. He refused to take it, and he was committed to the Tower in earnest.
He had been sentenced to imprisonment before, but had been so far left at
liberty. Sir Thomas More might have been let alone, for there was no fear
that he would lend himself to active treason. He, too, however, was
required to swear, and declined, and followed Fisher to the same place.
The Pope had declared war against the King, and his adherents had become
t