#air drops this to anna whitelock

[fideidefenswhore]

Although Mary was able to overawe Shelton into continuing to indulge her expensive dietary preferences, this was probably one of the few concessions allowed her. Taking together the information available from Anne Boleyn’s accounts, from Henry’s instructions to his ambassador, and from Shelton’s report, it is possible to infer the materiality of Mary’s life in the combined household. Her ‘state’ was respectable, royal, but carefully distinguished from that of a legitimate princess or a credible successor to the throne. Mary was certainly not in rags, but it was the infant Elizabeth who now received guests beneath the satin cloths of estate. The king likely reduced Mary’s material 'state’ to a point at which the contrast between her furnishings and clothing and those of Elizabeth would have been obvious to even the most casual observer. Contemporaries would have recognized that that the sumptuousness of Princess Elizabeth’s clothes and furnishings indicated that the support of the crown now belonged entirely to her.

From Heads of Household to Heads of State. The Preaccession Households of Mary and Elizabeth Tudor, 1516-1558. by J.L. McIntosh.