Tudor MythBuster: When was the last time Mary Tudor saw her mother?

One of the things I came across while researching my new book Rival Sisters: Mary & Elizabeth Tudor was that Princess Mary saw her mother for the last time in the summer of 1531. I've read that in nearly every single biography of Mary Tudor and believed it until I found a primary source that says otherwise. 

In June of 1531, Henry VIII broke with tradition and took only Anne Boleyn on an annual summer progress, leaving his wife Katharine of Aragon behind at Windsor Castle.1 The Queen drew consolation from the fact that her daughter, the fifteen-year-old Princess Mary, was allowed to spend the summer with her. On 31 July 1531, the imperial ambassador Eustace Chapuys wrote that the Queen and princess intended to pass their time hunting and visiting the royal seats around Windsor, but their reunion was to be cut short. In mid-August the King informed Katharine that he wished to hunt near Windsor and she should remove to The More, while Princess Mary was ordered to leave for Richmond Palace.

Most historians will tell you that the summer of 1531 was the last time Princess Mary saw her mother.2 Yet this is clearly not the case because on 27 September 1534 ambassador Chapuys wrote to Charles V that Katharine of Aragon was allowed to visit Mary:

“The Princess [Mary] has been very ill. Having been obliged to remove and follow the Bastard [Mary’s half sister Elizabeth] when a little indisposed, it increased her illness, but she is better. It has been a great comfort to her that the King her father sent her his physician, and permitted the Queen also to visit her, and the apothecary from whom she has received all her medicines for four years.”3

Mary’s condition was apparently so serious that the King sent his own physician to treat her and allowed Katharine of Aragon to come and see her; this is often overlooked by historians who state that Katharine and Mary never met after 1531. This sudden change in Henry VIII’s treatment of Mary reflects his love for his elder daughter and, perhaps, a personal disappointment. That summer, Anne Boleyn was not by Henry’s side. She had given birth to a stillborn child, dashing the King’s hopes for a male heir yet again.4 However, when Katharine of Aragon died in 1536, Henry didn’t allow Mary to see her, but that’s a different story.

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1. Letters and Papers, Henry VIII, Volume 5, n. 308.

2. See for example my favourite biography of Mary by Dr Anna Whitelock Mary Tudor: England's First Queen, p. 48: “It was the last time mother and daughter would see each other, though at the time neither realised it.”

3. Letters and Papers, Henry VIII, Volume 7, n. 1193.
4. During my research I stumbled upon evidence that in the summer of 1534 Anne Boleyn gave birth to a stillborn child. Some historians believe she miscarried.