Anne Was not a Wicked Stepmother
With her parent’s divorce, Princess Mary was stripped of her royal prerogative and declared illegitimate. Now known as simply “The Lady Mary”, she was also forbidden to see her mother. On the face of it, Anne Boleyn seemed to add to this degradation and loss. After the birth of Princess Elizabeth, with her own household abandoned, Mary was forced to join her baby sister’s household as an attendant. However, Mary refused to be crushed. She said she would call Elizabeth her sister, in the same way as she acknowledged Henry Fitzroy, Henry’s son with Bessie Blount her brother. But the title of Princess belonged to her alone.
When Anne hear of this, she reputedly flew into a rage gave instructions that if Mary continued to behave like this, she was to be starved and if she attempted to use the title of Princess, she was to have her ears boxed “as the cursed bastard” she was. Anne was also supposed to have raged that she would curb Mary’s “cursed Spanish blood” and even have her executed if she did not submit.
However, despite these outbursts and threats, it seems Anne did attempt to hold out the hand of friendship to Mary. In 1534, during a visit to Elizabeth’s household, she told the former Princess she would welcome her back to court and try to reconcile her with her father- if only she would acknowledge Anne as Queen. However, Mary refused. Anne tried again when Katherine was dying and received the same response. Perhaps Anne was not such a wicked stepmother after all. Her outbursts are more indicative of a woman desperately trying to have her new position acknowledged, to bolster a growing sense of insecurity than of true malice.