Mary Tudor, Queen of France: Difference between revisions

Mary Tudor (/ˈtuːdər, ˈtjuː-/; 18 March 1496 – 25 June 1533), the third daughter of Henry VII of England and Elizabeth of York, was Queen of France. Mary became the third wife of Louis XII of France, more than 30 years her senior. Following his death, she married Charles Brandon, 1st Duke of Suffolk. The marriage, which was performed secretly in France, took place without her brother's consent. This necessitated the intervention of Thomas Wolsey and the couple were eventually pardoned by Henry VIII, although they were forced to pay a large fine.

Mary's second marriage produced four children; and through her eldest daughter Frances, Mary was the maternal grandmother of Lady Jane Grey, who was the de facto monarch of England for a little over a week in July 1553.

Mary was the fifth child of Henry VII of England and Elizabeth of York, and the youngest to survive infancy. She was born at Sheen Palace. She and her brother, Henry, were close as children—he named his daughter, the future Queen Mary I, after her.

Known in her youth as one of the most beautiful princesses in Europe,^[1] Mary was betrothed in December 1507 to Charles of Castile, later Holy Roman Emperor. However, changes in the political alliances of the European powers meant this wedding did not take place.^[2] Instead, Cardinal Wolsey negotiated a peace treaty with France, and on 9 October 1514, at the age of 18, Mary married the 52-year-old King Louis XII of France in Abbeville. One of the Maids of Honour who attended her in France was Anne Boleyn. Mary was described by the Venetian Ambassador as "a Paradise—tall, slender, grey-eyed, possessing an extreme pallor"^{[citation needed]}. She wore her glorious silken red-gold hair flowing loose to her waist.^[3] Despite two previous marriages, Louis had no living sons, and sought to produce an heir; but he died on 1 January 1515, less than three months after marrying Mary, reputedly worn out by his exertions in the bedchamber.^[4] Their union produced no children. Following Louis' death, the new King Francis I made attempts to arrange a second marriage for the beautiful widow.^[5]

Mary had been unhappy with her marriage of state to Louis, as at this time she was almost certainly already in love with Charles Brandon, 1st Duke of Suffolk.^[6] Henry knew of his sister's feelings^[7] but wanted any future marriage to be to his advantage. When he sent Brandon to bring Mary back to England in late January 1515 he made the Duke promise that he would not propose to her.^[8] However, the couple married in secret in France on 3 March 1515. Technically this was treason, as Brandon had married a Royal Princess without Henry's consent. The King was outraged, and the Privy Council urged that Brandon should be imprisoned or executed. Because of the intervention of Thomas Wolsey, and Henry's affection for both his sister and Brandon, the couple were let off with a heavy fine.^[9] They were officially married on 13 May 1515 at Greenwich Palace.

English Royalty
House of Tudor
Royal Coat of Arms
Henry VII
Arthur, Prince of Wales Margaret, Queen of Scots Henry VIII Elizabeth Mary, Queen of France Edmund, Duke of Somerset
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Mary was Brandon's third wife, and he had two daughters, Anne and Mary by his second marriage to Anne Browne. She had died in 1511. Mary would raise the girls alongside her own children. Even after her second marriage, Mary was normally referred to at the English Court as "the French Queen," and was not known as "the Duchess of Suffolk" in her lifetime,^{[10][better source needed]} despite being legally allowed to be. Mary spent most of her time at the Duke's country seat of Westhorpe Hall in Suffolk.^[11]

Relations between Henry VIII and Mary were strained in the late 1520s when she opposed the King's attempt to obtain an annulment of his marriage to Catherine of Aragon, whom Mary had known for many years, and developed a strong dislike for Anne Boleyn,^[12] whom she had first encountered in France.^[13]

Mary died at Westhorpe, Suffolk, on 25 June 1533, and was first interred at Bury St Edmunds Abbey. Her body was moved to nearby St Mary's Church, Bury St. Edmunds, when the abbey was destroyed during the Dissolution of the Monasteries. Mary's husband would later marry their son's betrothed, who was also his ward, the fourteen-year-old Catherine Willoughby, by whom he had two sons.^[14]

Mary and Brandon had four children, two daughters and two sons:

• Henry Brandon (11 March 1516 – 1522)
• Lady Frances Brandon (16 July 1517 – 20 November 1559), who married Henry Grey, 3rd Marquess of Dorset, and was the mother of Lady Jane Grey
• Lady Eleanor Brandon (1519 – 27 September 1547), who married Henry Clifford, 2nd Earl of Cumberland.
• Henry Brandon, 1st Earl of Lincoln (c.1523 - March 1534).

Mary and Charles's two sons, both named Henry, are commonly mistaken for being the same son. Both boys died when they were children.

• Mary was portrayed by silent screen star Marion Davies in the 1922 film When Knighthood Was in Flower by Robert G. Vignola, reputed to have been, at the time of its release, the most expensive film ever made. It was one of Davies's biggest hits.
• Another fictionalized version of Mary's marital adventures is portrayed in the 1953 Walt Disney film The Sword and the Rose starring Richard Todd and Glynis Johns.

The drama series The Tudors:^[15][16] portrays the relationship between Mary and Charles Brandon, though the character is named Princess Margaret, and is a composite of Mary and her sister Margaret Tudor, portrayed by Gabrielle Anwar. Charles Brandon is portrayed by Henry Cavill. Many liberties have been taken with the story. For example, in the television series, Henry arranges his sister's marriage with the aged King of Portugal (who, at the time, would be John III of Portugal, in his twenties), not of France, in the mid-1520s. Margaret/Mary then kills her husband. Another fictitious sub-plot has Henry making Charles Brandon Duke of Suffolk so the latter would be of appropriate rank to give away Henry's sister at her supposed wedding to the King of Portugal. In the story, the Tudor/Brandon marriage soon cools and no mention is made of their four children. Yet another discontinuity relates to Henry's sister dying before Wolsey (who died in 1530).

She is the main character in several historical fiction novels:

• When Knighthood Was in Flower, by Edwin Caskoden (the pen name of Charles Major) (1898), the novel was the source material for both the Davies and the Disney films.
• The Reluctant Queen by Molly Costain Haycraft (1962),
• Mary, Queen of France by Jean Plaidy (1964),
• Princess of Desire by Maureen Peters (1970),
• Rose of England by Hilda Lewis (1977),
• Heart of a Rose by Hilda Lewis (1978),
• The Secret Bride by Diane Haeger (2008),
• Reluctant Queen: Mary Rose Tudor, the Defiant Little Sister of Infamous English King, Henry VIII by Geraldine Evans (2014).

She was also fictionalized in the historical fiction novel The Last Boleyn by Karen Harper.

• Goff, Cecilie (1930). A Woman of the Tudor Age. London: John Murray.
• Plowden, Alison (1986). Lady Jane Grey and the House of Suffolk. Franklin Watts. ISBN 0-531-15000-3.
• Perry, Maria (2000). The Sisters of Henry VIII: The Tumultuous Lives of Margaret of Scotland and Mary of France. Da Capo Press. ISBN 0-306-80989-3.
• Richardson, W.C. (1970). Mary Tudor: The White Queen. Peter Owen Publishers. ISBN 0-7206-5206-5.
• Weir, Alison (2002). Henry VIII: King and Court. Pimlico. ISBN 0-7126-6451-3.

• A short biography
• Mary Tudor Gallery
• Longer Biography
• studies about famous tapestries representing Mary Tudor
• Images from the Festival Book of the Betrothal to Charles of Castile

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