Mary Tudor (queen consort of France)
This article is about Mary Tudor, queen consort of France. For her niece and namesake, Mary Tudor, queen regnant of England, see Mary I of England.Mary Tudor (
March 28 1496 –
June 25 1533) was the younger sister of
Henry VIII of England and
queen consort of
France due to her marriage to
Louis XII.
Mary was the fifth child of
Henry VII of England and
Elizabeth of York, and the youngest to survive infancy. Her brother
Henry VIII was quite close to her when they were children. He named his daughter, the future
Queen Mary, after her and the warship
Mary Rose was also named in his sister's honour.
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Mary Tudor and Charles Brandon |
Known in her youth as one of the most beautiful princesses of Europe, Mary was
betrothed to
Charles of Burgundy, later
Holy Roman Emperor. However, this wedding did not take place, and on
October 9 1514, at the age of 18, Mary married the 52-year-old
Louis XII of France at
Abbeville. Despite two previous marriages, the king had no living sons and sought to produce an heir; but Louis died on
January 1 1515, less than three months after he married Mary, and their union produced no children. Despite the short duration of the marriage, Mary's English contemporaries frequently referred to her as 'the French Queen'.
Mary had been unhappy with her marriage to Louis, as at this time she was almost certainly in love with
Charles Brandon, 1st
Duke of Suffolk. In late January 1515, Henry sent Suffolk to France to bring Mary back to England. The couple married in secret on
March 3 1515; technically this was
treason as Suffolk 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. However, due to the intervention of
Cardinal Wolsey and Henry's affection for both his sister and Suffolk, the couple were let off with a heavy fine. They were officially married on
May 13 1515 at
Greenwich Palace.
Mary and Suffolk had three children:
*
Henry Brandon, 1st
Earl of Lincoln (
March 11 1516 –
March 8,
1534)
*
Lady Frances Brandon (
July 16 1517 –
November 20 1559), who married
Henry Grey, 3rd
Marquess of Dorset, and was the mother of
Lady Jane Grey *
Lady Eleanor Brandon (
1519 –
September 27,
1547), who married
Henry Clifford, 2nd
Earl of Cumberland.
Relations between Henry VIII and Mary were strained in the late
1520s when she opposed the attempt to obtain an
annulment of his marriage to
Catherine of Aragon. Mary was known to have developed a hatred for the future queen
Anne Boleyn.
Mary is buried at the ruined
abbey at
Bury St Edmunds,
Suffolk.
Mary was portrayed by silent screen star
Marion Davies in the 1922 film
When Knighthood Was in Flower, which is reputed to have been at the time of its release, the most expensive film ever made. It was one of Davies' 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.
She is also the subject of the novels
Mary, Queen of France by
Jean Plaidy,
The Reluctant Queen by
Molly Costain Haycraft, and
Princess of Desire by
Maureen Peters. The novel of
When Knighthood Was in Flower, by Charles Major (under the pen name Edwin Caskoden) was published in 1898, and was the source material for both the Davies and the Disney films about Mary.
* W.C. Richardson,
Mary Tudor: The White Queen, ISBN 0720652065
* Alison Plowden,
Lady Jane Grey and the House of Suffolk, ISBN 0531150003
* Maria Perry,
The Sisters of Henry VIII: The Tumultuous Lives of Margaret of Scotland and Mary of France, ISBN 0306809893
* Alison Weir,
Henry VIII: King and Court, ISBN 0712664513
*
A short biography*
Mary Tudor Gallery
