Tudor princess

Elizabeth and Henry had eight children, one of whom died in infancy, two others within the first year, and one at the age of three. Arthur, the eldest, died at fifteen, while Margaret, Henry, and Mary survived their parents. Mary would have had no recollection of her younger siblings, and grew up as the youngest member of a close family. Arthur died early in her seventh year, and her mother before it was complete. Seven months later her sister Margaret, a few weeks short of her fourteenth birthday, departed for Edinburgh to marry James IV of Scotland. As a result of these changes, and of her father's declining health and close preoccupation with business, Mary grew close to her remaining brother, Henry, nearly five years her senior. The bond of affection between them was lasting, and was to be of great importance to her.

As the only princess of the royal blood remaining at court Mary enjoyed her own retinue of attendants, but they remained an integral part of the royal household. She was not given an independent endowment. Little is known of her upbringing beyond what can be learned from the household accounts. She had her own physician, apothecary, and schoolmaster, as well as attendant ladies. Frequent references to medication suggest delicate health, but they may prove no more than conscientious accountancy. It can be deduced that her schoolmaster taught her Latin and French—although probably not to the same rigorous standards as her brother—because later in life she is known to have had some intellectual interests. Thomas Linacre and John Palsgrave accompanied her to France, and the latter began to write a French grammar for her. She also had a reputation for piety in the humanist mode, and received the dedications of several devotional works. She also learned, although not from the same person, the courtly accomplishments of music and dancing, and the feminine art of embroidery. Princesses were pawns on the chessboard of royal politics, and Mary's hand was first sought in November 1498, when she was about two and a half. The hopeful suitor was Massimiliano, the son of Ludovico Sforza, duke of Milan, a child of about her own age. Sforza was in earnest, but was overreaching himself, and his bid was politely rejected.

The royal marriage market

Visitors to the English court occasionally commented upon Mary as an attractive child, but her real début did not come until 1506, when at the age of ten she helped her father to entertain Philip the Handsome, formerly archduke of Austria and now king of Castile, during his unintended visit to Windsor. She danced, played the lute, and generally made a gracious and desirable impression. Philip died later that year, but Mary's efforts had not been wasted because his father, the emperor Maximilian, then sought her as a bride for his grandson, Philip's eldest son Charles of Ghent (later the Emperor Charles V), who was six. This idea had been aired earlier, and was a proposal very much to Henry's liking, so the negotiation was seriously pursued. The terms were agreed by the end of 1507, and on 21 December a marriage treaty was signed at Calais. It was not until 17 December 1508, however, that the formal betrothal per verba de praesenti took place at Richmond, with the sieur de Bergues standing as proxy for Charles. At this point Mary was nearly thirteen, and although attractive, well schooled, and well disciplined, was thought young for her age. Records do not reveal what she thought of her commitment to Charles, but, as he was some five years her junior, she would have plenty of time to grow up before being required for the duties of childbearing.

Both sides to the bargain were pleased. Henry had bestowed his younger daughter as royally as possible, and in a direction that should have been greatly to his kingdom's advantage. At the same time Maximilian, whose resources never matched his imperial dignity, had managed to extract a loan of 100,000 crowns from his granddaughter-in-law's father, which is in itself an eloquent testimony to Henry's enthusiasm for the match. When the king died in April 1509 Mary was officially styled archduchess of Burgundy and princess of Castile, and it was under the latter title that she was recognized in the will of her grandmother Margaret Beaufort, who died very shortly after her son. Many things changed with Henry VII's death, however. Henry VIII sought war and glory, and his ambitions were directed to re-establishing an English presence in France, which made both Spain and Maximilian necessary allies. So the young king married his widowed sister-in-law Katherine of Aragon, with momentous consequences, and was keen to see his sister's marriage consummated. In October 1513, when Henry and Maximilian were already companions-in-arms, a new treaty was made, stipulating that the union should be completed at Calais not later than 15 May 1514, which must have been the earliest date that Charles's age would have permitted. Mary had been exchanging tokens with Charles since shortly after her father's death, and at the age of fifteen seems to have been looking forward to the reality of marriage with some enthusiasm.

Queen of France

However, political unions were slippery properties. First Ferdinand of Aragon made a separate peace with France. Henry was furious, and Katherine distressed, but worse was to follow. The more the English pressed for the marriage to be completed, the more Maximilian vacillated. There were divided councils in Brussels, and tempting offers from France. The treaty date passed, and the excuses became lamer. By the summer of 1514 it had become clear to Henry that Maximilian intended to make a separate peace, and marry his grandson elsewhere. To avoid the humiliation of being stranded in this way, the king moved fast, impelled by the man who was now his chief adviser, Thomas Wolsey. On 30 July Mary solemnly repudiated her marriage contract, and a week later was pledged to Louis XII of France (1462–1515) by the terms of the peace treaty that brought the war to an end. Romantic fiction has attributed to Mary a bargain with her brother, whereby she agreed to exchange her youthful bridegroom for a broken man of fifty-two on the condition that she could have her own choice next time. However, nothing is known about her feelings. Her repudiation of Charles was a formal statement, written for her, and she is not known to have raised any objection to being unexpectedly raised to the dignity of queen of France. At eighteen Mary was beautiful, poised, and charming: a desirable bride for any king. A French observer described her as 'a nymph from heaven' and 'one of the most beautiful young women in the world' (Russell, 5–6). She was also apparently a dutiful and obedient sister, prepared to serve the political purposes of a brother for whom she had a genuine affection and respect. On 18 August she was married by proxy, per verba de praesenti, for the second time, the duc de Longueville representing Louis. On the 22nd she appointed the earl of Worcester as her own proxy to repeat the ceremony in Paris, and that was done on 14 September. The ceremony at Greenwich had been enhanced by a symbolic gesture of consummation, presumably to make it more binding, but this time neither party had any intention of reneging, and Mary embarked with a suitable retinue at Dover on 2 October.

After a stormy crossing, during which one ship was wrecked, an extremely seasick princess was literally carried ashore near Boulogne the following day. Hasty repairs to Mary's poise and magnificence ensued before she could join the French king at Abbeville on 8 October, and their marriage was celebrated with great pomp the following day. However pleased Louis may have been with his bride, he was not pleased with her entourage, which numbered over a hundred, and was exclusively English. Whether such tactlessness was calculated is not clear, but Louis had had trouble with the Breton attendants of his first wife, and was not going to be caught again. His reaction was equally unmannerly, and the day after the wedding most of the queen's retinue was dismissed. Mary was perfectly at home in the French language, but felt suddenly isolated and vulnerable. She complained bitterly to her brother, and a diplomatic storm was narrowly averted. Louis refused to modify his orders, but he did condescend to explain the reasons for them, and both Henry and Mary professed themselves content. A handful of English ladies (including Anne Boleyn) were allowed to remain. The new queen of France was crowned at St Denis on 5 November, and entered Paris in great state the next day. Mary's reign was an almost continuous round of jousts and triumphs, and partly for that reason was extremely brief. Louis died on 1 January 1515, danced to death, it was said, by his energetic young consort.

The possibility that this might happen had occupied Wolsey's mind for some weeks, and was one of the reasons why the delegation of honour led by Charles Brandon, duke of Suffolk (c. 1484–1545), had lingered in Paris after the coronation. Ostensibly the captain of the English jousting team, Brandon had also been entrusted with the delicate task of suggesting an offensive alliance against Ferdinand of Aragon, and with the even more delicate (and secret) responsibility of safeguarding the queen if Louis's fragile health should indeed collapse. Believing that all was well, Henry had recalled him before Christmas, and then rushed him back to France as soon as the news of the king's death was received. A widowed queen not yet nineteen years old was extremely vulnerable, and Louis was scarcely buried before her name was being linked with both the duke of Savoy and the duke of Lorraine. Such a match would not have been at all in Henry's interest, and he also knew that Brandon, who was his closest friend, aspired to marry her himself. Before Suffolk returned to France it was agreed that such a marriage might take place, but only after a seemly interval and once the pair were back in England.

Marriage to Charles Brandon

Mary, however, had other ideas. She may well have been fearful of being used in another political match that might have been personally distasteful. Neither Henry, nor François I, Louis's successor, could be altogether trusted when a sudden advantage beckoned. Nor was François, a notorious womanizer, altogether trustworthy in other respects. Suffolk was a desirable partner, and he was immediately available, so ignoring the conventions of 'shamfastness', and with a courage born equally of lust and desperation, the dowager queen virtually forced him to marry her secretly in mid-February. It was the one decisive action of her life, and it nearly ruined both of them. Suffolk's mission, apart from escorting the king's sister home, had been to establish good relations with the new king of France. He did that, but not quite in the way that Henry had envisaged, by seeking and securing François's support for his secret marriage. Henry was furious; mainly because he had been deceived and his honour tarnished, rather than because he had any other destination in mind for his sister. The crisis also impinged immediately upon the politics of the English court. Wolsey, humbly begged for his intercession, supported Suffolk. The Howards, and most of the rest of the council, denounced him, some out of envy of Suffolk and some out of hostility to Wolsey. It soon transpired that Wolsey was the best judge of the king's mind. For about two months Suffolk did his best to redeem himself by extracting the balance of his wife's dower, the jewels that she claimed Louis had given her, and a continuation of her French income from a reluctant François. Eventually a complex bargain was struck, which recovered a portion of what was claimed. This ruined the rest of Suffolk's intended diplomacy because he had become heavily dependent upon François's goodwill, and in mid-April with repeated messages of self-abasement he and Mary set out apprehensively to return to England.

In a sense their concern was exaggerated. When Henry met his sister at Birling on 3 May his anger had largely evaporated. He did not pretend to be pleased, but he attended their public wedding at Greenwich on the 13th, and was publicly reconciled to his old friend. Wolsey's ascendancy was firmly re-established, but Suffolk became little more than his client. This was useful as the duke recovered Henry's favour, but was based upon a sense of obligation rather than common purpose. In spite of the king's apparent indulgence, the financial settlement imposed upon the erring couple was onerous. Mary was to pay her brother £2000 a year for twelve years, drawn from the income of her dower lands in France, which can have left her with very little independent income. Suffolk lost the wardship and marriage of Lady Lisle, but kept control of her lands until she should come of age. On 12 May the duke and duchess entered into the enormous recognizance of £100,000 to abide by the terms of the settlement. Thereafter Suffolk discovered urgent (and genuine) business to attend to on his estates, particularly in East Anglia where he was trying to establish himself on the former de la Pole lands. He soon returned to regular attendance at the council, but Mary became only an occasional visitor to the court. However passionate the origin of her relationship with her husband, her children arrived only after discreet intervals. Henry was born on 11 March 1516, Frances [see Grey, Frances, duchess of Suffolk] on 16 July 1517, Eleanor at some time between 1518 and 1521, and a second Henry in 1522, after the death of the first-born of that name.

Later life

Mary's occasional appearances at court over the next decade are duly chronicled. In 1517 the Suffolks escorted Queen Katherine to Walsingham; in the spring of 1518 Mary was taken ill at Woodstock and attended by the royal physicians; in October of the same year she attended the espousal of Princess Mary to the dauphin at Greenwich. In 1520, in spite of further illness, she accompanied her brother, both in his meeting with Charles V and to the competitive festivities of the Field of Cloth of Gold, where it was she, rather than Queen Katherine, who provided the ‘female lead’. The treaty of the More with France in 1525 finally settled outstanding issues relating to her dower, which had fallen into arrears as a result of the war, and in May 1526 she was again at Greenwich as the king's guest. The troubles over Henry's Great Matter, which began in 1527, and the fall of Wolsey in 1529 made little difference to the fortunes of the Suffolks, although the duke's successful request to Clement VII in 1528 for a bull protecting his marriage from being impugned on grounds of precontract may have been prompted by his brother-in-law's concerns.

Mary did not, however, approve of Anne Boleyn. The two women exchanged insults of a semi-public nature, and when Anne accompanied Henry VIII to Calais for a meeting with François I in 1532, Mary refused to attend, although her health may also have been a reason for that. It is possible that Anne knew something about the origins of Mary's relationship with her husband, and had attempted to use that knowledge in a manner that led to personal as well as political estrangement. Mary died at Westhorpe in Suffolk on 25 June 1533, and was interred in Bury St Edmunds Abbey. Her quarrel with the king over his second marriage does not seem to have been reconciled, and in spite of the close relationship that they had once enjoyed, he left no recorded reaction to her death. She was survived by her second son, Henry, earl of Lincoln (who died in 1534), and by her two daughters, Frances and Eleanor. On 7 September Charles Brandon married his fourteen-year-old ward, Catherine Willoughby.

Mary was important for who she was rather than for what she did, although for a few months in 1514–15 her actions and reactions affected the high politics of the realm. Apart from the circumstances of her marriage to the duke of Suffolk, her main impact on the history of the period came in the claim to the English throne that she transmitted via her elder daughter, Frances, to Jane and Katherine Grey, Frances's daughters from her marriage to Henry Grey, seventh marquess of Dorset. Her younger daughter, Eleanor, married Henry Clifford, later second earl of Cumberland, in 1535, and died in 1547. A number of portraits of Mary survive. The best known of these, now at Woburn Abbey, represents her with Charles Brandon and was probably painted shortly after their marriage. It bears eloquent testimony to her good looks.