They must have known little of Catherine, if they thought she could be influenced by childish vanity.  It was for no vain glory that she cared, she answered proudly; she was the king’s true wife, and her conscience forbade her to call herself otherwise; the princess was his true begotten child; and as God hath given her to them, so for her part she would render her again; neither for daughter, family, nor possessions, would she yield in her cause; and she made a solemn protestation, calling on every one present to bear witness to what she said, that the king’s wife she was, and such she would take herself to be, and that she would never surrender the name of queen till the pope had decided that she must bear it no longer.

So ended the first interview.  Catherine, before the commissioners left her, desired to have a copy of the proposals which they had brought, that she might translate and send them to Rome.  They returned with them the next day, when she requested to see the report which they intended to send to the council of the preceding conversation.  It was placed in her hands; and as she read it and found there the name of Princess Dowager, she took a pen and dashed out the words, the mark of which indignant ink-stroke may now be seen in the letter from which this account is taken.[444] With the accuracy of the rest she appeared to be satisfied—­only when she found again their poor suggestion that she was influenced by vanity, she broke out with a burst of passionate indignation.

“I would rather be a poor beggar’s wife,” she said, “and be sure of heaven, than queen of all the world, and stand in doubt thereof by reason of my own consent.  I stick not so for vain glory, but because I know myself the king’s true wife—­and while you call me the king’s subject, I was his subject while he took me for his wife.  But if he take me not for his wife, I came not into this Realm as merchandise, nor to be married to any merchant; nor do I continue in the same but as his lawful wife, and not as a subject to live under his dominion otherwise.  I have always demeaned myself well and truly towards the king—­and if it can be proved that either in writing to the pope or any other, I have either stirred or procured anything against his Grace, or have been the means to any person to make any motion which might be prejudicial to his Grace or to his Realm, I am content to suffer for it.  I have done England little good, and I should be sorry to do it any harm.  But if I should agree to your motions and persuasions, I should slander myself, and confess to have been the king’s harlot for twenty-four years.  The cause, I cannot tell by what subtle means, has been determined here within the king’s Realm, before a man of his own making, the Bishop of Canterbury, no person indifferent I think in that behalf; and for the indifference of the place, I think the place had been more indifferent to have been judged in hell; for no truth can be suffered here, whereas the devils themselves I suppose do tremble to see the truth in this cause so sore oppressed."[445]