ish woman, and of no
experience.[305]

The difficulty was very great. To refuse so natural a request was to
appear hard and unfeeling; yet to allow Catherine and Mary to be together
was to furnish a head to the disaffection, of the extent of which the King
was perfectly aware. He knew Catherine, and his words about her are a key
to much of their relations to one another. "She was of such high
courage," he said, "that, with her daughter at her side, she might raise
an army and take the field against him with as much spirit as her mother
Isabella."[306]

Catherine of Aragon had qualities with which history has not credited her.
She was no patient, suffering saint, but a bold and daring woman, capable,
if the opportunity was offered her, of making Henry repent of what he had
done. But would the opportunity ever come? Charles was still silent.
Chapuys continued to feed the fire with promises. Granvelle, Charles's
Minister, might be more persuasive than himself. To Granvelle the
Ambassador wrote "that the Concubine had bribed some one to pretend a
revelation from God that she was not to conceive children while the Queen
and the Princess were alive. The Concubine had sent the man with the
message to the King, and never ceased [Wolsey had called Anne 'the night
crow'] to exclaim that the ladies were rebels and traitresses, and
deserved to die."[307]

Norfolk, irritated at Anne's insolence to him, withdrew from court in
ill-humour. He complained to Reginald Pole's brother, Lord Montague, that
his advice was not attended to, and that his niece was intolerable. The
Marquis of Exeter regretted to Chapuys that the chance had not been
allowed him so far to shed his blood for the Queen and Princess. "Let the
movement begin, and he would not be the last to join." Mary,
notwithstanding the precautions taken to keep her safe, had not parted
with her hope of escape. If she could not be with her mother she thought
the Emperor might, perhaps, intercede with the King to remove her from
under Mrs. Shelton's charge. The King might be brought to consent; and
then, Chapuys said, with a pinnace and two ships in the river, she might
still be carried off when again at Greenwich, as he could find means to
get her out of the house at any hour of the night.[308]

At length the suspense was at an end, and the long-waited-for decision of
the Emperor arrived. He had considered, he said, the communications of
Lord Darcy and Lord Sandys; he admitted t