Mary Tudor (1496-1533)

Mary Tudor (Richmond Palace, March 18, 1496 - Westhorpe Hall, Suffolk, June 25, 1533) was an English princess, and briefly queen consort of France by her marriage to Louis XII of France. She was also Duchess of Suffolk after marrying Charles Brandon. Her parents were Henry VII of England and Elizabeth of York.

Mary's second marriage produced four children; She was the maternal grandmother of Juana Gray through her eldest daughter Frances. Gray was the de facto queen of England for nine days in July 1553 before she was accused of treason and beheaded.

Early years

Mary was born on March 18, 1496 at Richmond Palace, the fifth of seven children of King Henry VII of England and Elizabeth of York. At six years old she was granted her own house, complete with "ladies assigned to serve her", a teacher and a physicist. She received instruction in French, Latin, music, dance and embroidery.

As a child, Mary was very close to her brother, the future King Henry VIII, who named his first daughter Mary (future Queen Mary I Tudor) in her honour. Her other siblings were Arthur Tudor (the first husband of Catherine of Aragon, who married Henry VIII when she was widowed) and Margaret Tudor. Mary lost her mother when she was seven years old, and given the large number of bills paid to her apothecary between 1504 and 1509, it appears that her own health was also fragile.

His governess was Juana Vaux, whom he called "Mother Guildford". The two had a very close relationship and Mary was outraged when Joan was sent back to England upon her arrival in France after marrying King Louis.

Mary Tudor was known in her youth as one of the most beautiful princesses in Europe. The Venetian ambassador to the court of Henry VIII described her as "a paradise: tall, thin, with gray eyes and with extreme paleness." In December 1507 her marriage was arranged with Charles of Austria, the future Emperor Charles V. However, changes in the political alliances of the European powers ultimately made the wedding impossible.

The ship Mary Rose was named in her honor. This ship is the only warship of the 16th century rescued from the sea.

First marriage

In 1506, during a visit by Philip I of Castile, Mary entertained guests, dancing and playing the lute and harpsichord. She arranged a possible engagement with her firstborn. In September 1506, Philip died, and on December 21, 1507, Mary became engaged to her son Charles, later Holy Roman Emperor. The engagement was canceled in 1513.

Cardinal Wolsey negotiated a peace treaty with France, and on October 9, 1514, at the age of 18, Mary was married in Abbeville Cathedral to King Louis XII of France, who was then 52 years old.. One of her bridesmaids who accompanied her to France was Anne Boleyn.

Despite his two previous marriages, the French king had no sons and intended to get an heir with the young Mary. However, the marriage barely lasted three months, as the king died in Paris on January 1, 1515, supposedly from "his excesses in the bedroom," but more likely from gout.

He was succeeded to the throne by his son-in-law and cousin Francis I, married to his daughter Claudia of France. The widow was detained for forty days in the Hôtel de Cluny, until it was proven that she was not pregnant. This union produced no children. Mary returned to England, although thereafter she was known to her English contemporaries as Queen of France.

Second marriage

After Louis' death, the new King Francis I made attempts to arrange a second marriage. Mary had not been happy in her first marriage, and by then was probably already in love with Charles Brandon, 1st Duke of Suffolk, ambassador accredited to King Louis XII, whom he had met at the jousts held in France for his wedding. Henry was aware of his sister's feelings: there are letters from 1515 in which Mary only agrees to the marriage with Louis XII, with the condition that "if she survives him, she will marry whoever she wishes." However, Henry wanted for her a state marriage, and the Council was also opposed to the wedding to prevent Brandon from increasing his power at court.

When Henry VIII sent Brandon to accompany Mary back to England at the end of January 1515, he made the duke promise not to propose to her. Mary, fearful of being sacrificed again for political reasons, married secretly with Brandon in Paris on March 3, 1515. Two days later, the Duke of Suffolk announced the wedding to his friend, Cardinal Thomas Wolsey. Technically, it was an act of treason, as Brandon had married a royal princess without the consent of King Henry VIII. The sovereign was outraged, and the Privy Council urged that Brandon be imprisoned or executed. Thanks to the intervention of Thomas Wolsey, and Henry's affection for both, the couple only had to pay a heavy fine, which was later reduced by the king. The official marriage took place at Greenwich Palace on May 13, 1515.

Mary was the third wife of Charles Brandon, who already had two daughters, Anne and Mary, from his second marriage to Anne Browne, who died in 1511. Mary raised the girls along with her own sons. Mary was still known at the English court as "the queen of France", so the title Duchess of Suffolk was never used to refer to her, despite it being the one that legally corresponded to her. Mary spent most of her life at the Duke's country house, Westhorpe Hall, Suffolk.

In the late 1520s, relations between King Henry VIII and his sister Mary deteriorated when she opposed the king's attempt to obtain an annulment of his marriage to Catherine of Aragon: Mary sided with Catherine against Anne. Boleyn. In March 1532, the Venetian ambassador, Carlo Capello, wrote of an incident in which:

One of the main lords at the service of the aforementioned Duke of Norfolk, with 20 followers, assaulted and killed Sir William Pennington, the chief gentleman and relative of the Duke of Suffolk in the sanctuary of Westminster. As a result of this fact, the whole court was fussed.

Although the assault was said to have been caused by a private dispute, Ambassador Capello claimed it was due to "insulting language used against Queen Anne by the King's sister, Duchess of Suffolk and Dowager Queen of France. 3. 4;.

Offspring

From the union with her second husband, four children were born:

• Enrique Brandon (11 March 1516 – 1522).
• Frances Brandon (Bishop's Hatfield, Hertfordshire, July 16, 1517 - Chaterhouse, Sheen, Surrey, November 20, 1559). From his marriage to Henry, Marquis of Dorset, was born Joan Grey, who briefly reigned between Edward VI and Mary I of England at the request of the first.
• Leonor Brandon (London, ca.1519 - Brougham Castle, September 27, 1547), married to Enrique Clifford, Count of Cumberland.
• Enrique Brandon (c. 1523 - 1 March 1534), appointed count of Lincoln on 18 June 1525.

The two sons are often confused because they both died in childhood and had the same name. In the Tudor era, it was customary to name a child after another deceased child.

Relationship with Henry VIII

Mary's relations with her brother the king went through a delicate period after their sudden wedding, aggravated by the fact that Charles Brandon had been married three times before: to Margaret Neville - a marriage annulled for reasons of kinship -, to Anne Browne—whom he was widowed—and with Elizabeth Grey, Viscountess of Lisle, a marriage that took place civilly and was annulled before the religious ceremony was held. Furthermore, Suffolk's first wife was still alive. However, Henry VIII soon forgave his sister and reconciled with Suffolk.

In 1528 Pope Clement VII issued a bull legitimizing the marriage between Mary and Charles and the children born from their union.

Relations between Mary and her brother the king were also affected when she opposed his divorce from his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, whom Mary had known for years. Mary developed a deep antipathy for Anne Boleyn, whom she had met on the occasion of her first marriage: Anne and her sister Mary were part of the entourage that had accompanied Mary to France for her wedding to King Louis XII.

Death

Mary died at Westhorpe Hall, Suffolk, on 25 June 1533, aged 37, without having fully recovered from the English Sweat she had suffered in 1528. The cause of her death is unclear, it could have been due to angina, tuberculosis, appendicitis or cancer. She was initially buried in Bury St Edmunds Abbey, Suffolk, but five years later, during the Dissolution of the Monasteries, her remains were moved to nearby St Mary's Church.

Her widower later married his 14-year-old protégé and his son's fiancée, Catherine Willoughby (1520–1580). This marriage had two sons.

Filmography

• The Tudors (English TV Series 2007-2010): It relates the relationship between Mary and Charles Brandon, although the character is called Princess Margarita and is a combination of Mary and her sister Margarita Tudor, played by Gabrielle Anwar. Henry Cavill gives life to Charles Brandon. The script of the series has taken many historical liberties. For example, instead of marrying the king of France, Henry arranges his sister's marriage to the supposedly old king of Portugal, who at that time, in the mid 1520s, should be John III and round the twentieth. Margarita/María's character kills her husband. In the series it is also given by fact that Henry named Brandon duque de Suffolk in order to have the necessary range to replace him at his sister's wedding with the king of Portugal. In history, marriage with Brandon is getting cold and its four children are not mentioned. In addition, in the series, Enrique's sister died before Wolsey (who died in 1530).

Ancestry