1531.]
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answer. A more passive resistance would have been more dignified; but Catherine was a queen, and a queen she chose to be; and in defence of her own high honour, and of her daughter's, by no act of hers would she abate one tittle of her dignity, or cease to assert her claim to it. Her reply, however, appears to have been anticipated, and the request was only preparatory to ulterior measures. For the sake of public decency, and certainly in no unkind spirit towards herself, a retirement from the Court was now to be forced upon her. At Midsummer she accompanied the King to Windsor; July.in the middle of July he left her there, and never saw her again. She was removed to the More, a house in Hertfordshire, which had been originally built by George Neville, Archbishop of York, and had belonged to Wolsey, who had maintained it with his usual splendour.[1] Once more an attempt was made to persuade her to submit; but with no better result, and a formal establishment was then provided for her at Ampthill, a large place belonging to Henry not far from Dunstable. There at least she was her own mistress, surrounded by her own friends, who were true to her as Queen, and she attracted to her side from all parts of England those whom sympathy or policy attached to her cause. The Court, though keeping a partial surveillance over her, did not dare to restrict her liberty; and as the measures against the Church became more stringent, and a
- ↑ It seems to have been his favourite place of retirement. The gardens and fishponds were peculiarly elaborate and beautiful.—Sir John Russell to Cromwell: MS. State Paper Office.
