(Cover image – © Unknown Artist – The National Portrait Gallery)
If you hear the name Mary Tudor, your mind will probably fly all the way back to Mary I, known as Bloody Mary, first queen of England by her own right and daughter of the infamous Henry VIII. But before her, it came her aunt Mary Tudor, sister of said king, from which she received her name.
Mary was born on 18 March 1496 to her parents Henry VII and Elizabeth of York, at Sheen Palace. She was the fifth and youngest surviving child of the royal pair, tagging along to her existing siblings: Prince Arthur, Princess Margaret and Prince Henry.
Mary, who’s said to be one of the prettiest princesses in Europe (in fact, her future husband Louis XII called her a “nymph from heaven”), received a fittingly traditional education, learning French, Latin as well as other talents, such as dancing, embroidering and playing music.
Back then, having daughters was like having a chess piece. Women were married off to strengthen political unions, sign peace treaties and enrich the family. Mary was no exception. During her childhood, King Henry VII promised her in marriage to Charles of Castile (who would go on to become Holy Roman Emperor, and who was Catherine of Aragon’s nephew), but that plan went up in smoke after her father died in 1509. Her brother Henry VIII decided that he would rather have her marrying the French king, who was her senior by many years at 52 years old. Mary married Louis XII on October 9th in 1514. She was 18 years old and not very happy with the decision. However, it is believed that before leaving for France, she made Henry VIII promise her freedom to choose whom to marry when her old-soon-to-be-husband died.
Some speculate and play with the idea that she might have been already in love with some lad, but the truth is that Louis XII died less than three months after the nuptials and Mary took the chance and married her brother’s best friend, Charles Brandon, 1st duke of Suffolk, who had come to take her back to England, where her brother may have very well be planning who to marry her to.
Anyway, the wedding had to be made in secret right there and then, and it’s not difficult to fathom where the need to be hush about it came from. The English King was furious when he got the news. Not only had they acted behind his royal back, showing no respect, but them being married left his sister off the political market. The privy council roared for their heads, especially, Brandon’s, as Mary was the King’s sister meant that she could not be executed because of her royal blood. It resulted only in a £24,000 fine and the payment of Mary’s dowry from King Louis XII, as well as the gold plate and jewels that had been promised to her by her late husband. With Henry, all was well if you could pay him for your faults.
An official public wedding followed on 13th of May 1515, making Mary Brandon’s third wife, but she was still referred to at court as the Queen of France and not as the new Duchess of Suffolk.
Thus, Mary got to stay in England and ended up bearing four children:
- Henry Brandon, who died aged six.
- Lady Frances Brandon, mother of nine-day-queen Lady Jane Grey.
- Lady Eleanor Brandon, wife to 2nd Earl of Cumberland.
- Henry Brandon, 1st Earl of Lincoln.
But drama just never dies in this family.
During the years of “the King’s Great Matter”, Mary’s relationship with her brother grew strained due to her being really close to Catherine of Aragon, whom Henry was trying to divorce at any costs. Mary had accompanied Catherine on a pilgrimage when the latter was praying to have a son and acted as hostess when she was pregnant or ill.
In 1522, Mary met Anne Boleyn and, in spite of what would later blow out to be a fierce enmity, it’s possible that she liked her a bit at first, Anne being a fashionable new girl at court that had just arrived from France, just like her, and also her being Mary Boleyn’s sister. Mary Boleyn had been lady-in-waiting back in France when Mary Tudor married Louis XII, and it is likely that the both of them got along. But by 1527, Henry’s infatuation with Anne was loud and clear, and Mary resented her and him, for the pain they were causing Catherine.
Catherine of Aragon got banished from court and Anne became the center of the King’s attentions. Mary couldn’t do anything but swallow the events, though she still refused to accompany the couple on a state visit to France (where it’s believed that Henry VIII and Anne first consummated the union after years of cat and mouse games).
Mary, who had previously overcome the sweating sickness, saw her health rapidly declining by then. To this we must add the fact that her brother wasn’t as fond of her as before due to the hostility between her and his now pregnant wife Anne, and Charles was in charge of the coronation celebrations, thus rarely being at home. That’s why he couldn’t be by her side when she finally passed away in Westhorpe on 26th of June 1533, at only thirty-eight years old.
Sadly, her death didn’t make big news, as everyone was waiting for the birth of Anne Boleyn’s child, who everyone was willing to be a male heir.
That would be none other than Elizabeth I, who has gone down in history as Gloriana.
On 22nd of July a French delegation joined in for the funeral ceremony, where Mary’s daughter Frances was chief mourner. Dictated by tradition, neither Charles nor Henry VIII attended the services. The mass and burial took place the following day, and Mary was laid to rest within the crypt of St. Edmunds Abbey. That wouldn’t be her final destination, though. Five years later her remains were moved to the nearby St. Mary’s Church, after the monastery where she had been got dissolved thanks to his brother’s religious reformation.
In 1784 she was exhumated again and reburied in the Sanctuary, where she now lays. But not without her coffin being opened and having locks of hair taken by Horace Walpole and several others. A pendant with a few of her hairs is displayed as part of the collection of Reverend Ashby’s family, at the Moyse’s Hall Museum.
Not that long ago, in 1881, Queen Victoria gave St. Mary’s Church a colorful stained-glass window of Mary Tudor, along with Henry VIII, Charles of Castile, Louis XII and Charles Brandon.
And that’s the life and afterlife of Mary Tudor, whose birth date we’re celebrating today, centuries later. A woman who is remembered as a Queen who bargained to be able to marry for love in a world that didn’t make it easy.
- Have a ‘Tudor-fic’ week!
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