James' reply indicates that Anne had accused him of not loving her, of only marrying her because of her high birth, and of listening to rumours that she might turn Catholic: "I thank God," he wrote, "I carry that love and respect unto you which by the law of God and nature I ought to do my wife and mother of my children, but not for ye are a King's daughter, for whether ye were a King's or a cook's daughter ye must be all alike to me, being once my wife." And he swore "upon the peril of my salvation and damnation, that neither the Earl of Mar nor any flesh living ever informed me that ye was upon any papist or Spanish course." Stewart, 170.
