things to begin again he would not do as much. Report said also that there were nouvelles amours; but, as the alleged object of the King's attention was a lady devoted to Queen Catherine, the amour was probably innocent. The Ambassador built little upon this; Anne's will to injure the Princess he knew to be boundless, and he believed her power over Henry still to be great. Mary herself had sent him word that she had discovered practices for her destruction.
Any peril to which she might be exposed would approach her, as Chapuys was obliged to confess, from one side only. He ascertained that "when certain members of the Council had advised harsh measures to please the Lady Anne," the King had told them that he would never consent, and no one at the Court—neither the Lady nor any other person—dared speak against the Princess. "The King loved her," so Cromwell said, "a hundred times more than his latest born." The notion that the statute was to be enforced against her life was a chimera of malice. In her illness he showed the deepest anxiety; he sent his own physician to attend on her, and he sent for her mother's physician from Kimbolton. Chapuys admitted that he was naturally kind—"d'aymable et cordiale nature"—that his daughter's death would be a serious blow to himself, however welcome to Anne and to politicians, and that, beyond his natural feeling, he was conscious that, occurring under the present circumstances, it would be a stain on his reputation.
More than once Henry had interfered for Mary's protection. He had perhaps heard of what Anne had threatened to do to her on his proposed journey to Calais. She had been the occasion, at any rate, of sharp differences between them. He had resented,
