The Tudor Brandons

by Sarah-Beth Watkins

  The Switzers entered first with their banner; then the French gentlemen; then the English gentlemen, and the French princes with the English princes and barons, together with the ambassadors from the Pope, the Venetians, and the Florentines.

  Then followed the Queen, under a white canopy, above and around which were the roses, supported by two porcupines. She was alone beneath it, and Monseigneur [d’Angoulême] on her left hand, but outside. She rode a white palfrey, with rich trappings, and was herself clad in very handsome stiff brocade.

  Next came her litter, very beautiful, adorned with lilies; then five of the principal English ladies, very well dressed; then a carriage of brocade, on which were four ladies, followed by a second carriage with as many more ladies. Next came six ladies on horseback; and then a third carriage, of purple and crimson velvet, with four ladies; after which a crowd of ladies, some twenty in number; then 150 archers in three liveries. In this order they went to the Queen’s house, which was near that of the King. It was a sumptuous entry, and these noblemen of England have very large chains, and are otherwise in good array.12

  Mary, thoroughly exhausted from her day, heard mass at the church of St Vulfran and was formally presented to the king at the Hotel de la Gruthose by the Duke of Norfolk. Louis’ daughter, Claude, then led her to her apartments in the Rue St Giles where she could rest awhile before attending a state banquet and ball in her honour.

  On the 9 October and the Feast of St Denis, Mary married King Louis XII of France. Amidst a fanfare of trumpets, Mary entered the great hall of the Hotel de la Gruthose preceded by ‘twenty-six knights, two heralds and the royal mace-bearers’.13 The Duke of Norfolk and Marquis of Dorset accompanied her and her ladies followed as she took her place next to the king. Dressed magnificently in gold brocade trimmed with ermine and with her hair flowing, Mary curtseyed before Louis who also wore gold brocade to match her gown. He raised her up, kissed her and seated her on a dais under a canopy held by four of France’s greatest nobles. The King of France presented her with a necklace of diamonds and rubies, attaching it to a neck already adorned with some of the finest jewels. After the nuptial mass was conducted by the Bishop of Bayeaux, the new Queen of France returned to her apartments to dine separately with her ladies and to prepare for the evening celebrations.

  After an evening of feasting and dancing where Louis was reported to have danced like a young man, it was time to complete the wedding rituals. Their bridal bed being blessed, Louis retired to his bed chamber first, worn out from dancing and thought to now be in pain. Mary was escorted to a nearby room to ready herself for what could only be an ordeal but her duty too.

  Louis boasted the next morning that he had ‘crossed the river three times that night and would have done more had he chosen’.14 Although he was delighted with his new bride, he wasn’t in the best of health. He suffered a bad attack of gout after the wedding, postponing their journey and state entry into Paris for two weeks.

  Shortly after the wedding, Louis decided to dismiss most of Mary’s ladies, prompting her to write to Henry and Wolsey immediately. It wasn’t a good start to their marriage. To Henry she wrote:

  My Good Brother,

  As heartily as I can I recommend me to your Grace. I marvel at much that I have (not) heard from you since my departing, so often as I have sent and written to you. Now I am left post alone, in effect, for on the morn next after my marriage my Chamberlain and all other menservants were discharged and in likewise my mother Guildford, with other my women and maidens except such as never had experience or knowledge how to advise or give me counsel in any time of need, which is to be feared more shortly than your Grace thought at the time of my departing, as my mother Guildford can more plainly show your Grace than I can write, to whom I beseech you give credence, and if it may be by any means possible, I humbly request you to cause my mother Guildford to repair hither to me again. For if any chance happen other than well, I shall not know where nor of whom to ask my good counsel to your pleasure nor yet to my own desert.

  I marvel much that my good Lord of Norfolk would at all times so lightly grant everything at their requests here. I am well assured that when ye know the truth of anything as my mother Guildford can show you, ye would full little have thought I should have been thus treated. Would God my Lord of York had come with me in the room of my Lord of Norfolk. For I am sure I should have been left more at my heartsease than I am now, and thus I bid your Grace farewell.15

  Mary was scared and lonely. Even her tutor and secretary Palsgrave had been dismissed and she felt she had no one to turn to. She feared that Louis might die and she would be left at the mercy of the French court with no support or advice. She ended her letter by repeating ‘Give credence to my mother Guildford’. Whatever Henry needed to hear he would get a truer account from Lady Guildford, Mary’s closest and most constant companion. Wolsey tried to intervene, writing to Louis, to get her reinstated but the French king would not budge. He thought her to be interfering and as the Earl of Worcester reported he did not want ‘when he would be merry with his wife to have any strange woman with her’.16 Wary of spies, he left Mary with her youngest ladies and gave the more important roles to women he trusted like Madame d’Aumont, Mary of Luxembourg and his daughter, Claude.

  As Mary started her married life feeling miserable on the inside but showing herself to be a true and loyal wife on the outside, Charles Brandon arrived in France. Francis, the Dauphin, had issued a challenge to England’s finest jousters to attend a celebratory tournament to be held in honour of Mary’s coronation. Henry sent his best, Charles, the Marquis of Dorset, Lord Clinton, Sir Edward Neville, Sir Giles Capell and Thomas Cheyney but Charles and Dorset travelled over to France in disguise trusted with another mission.

  Charles Brandon and the Marquis of Dorset had also been sent to greet the king and arrange a meeting between himself and Henry early the next year to discuss a possible offensive against Ferdinand, the Spanish king. Charles had also been made to promise Henry that whatever happened he would do nothing to seduce Mary or make any kind of romantic overtures towards her. On 26th October, Charles caught up with the royal party at Beauvais and was received by Louis lying in bed suffering with an acute attack of gout with Mary by his side. Charles wrote to Henry:

  … I did my reverence, and kneeled down by his bedside ; and so he embraced me in his arms, and held me a good while, and said that I was heartily welcome ; and asked me “how does mine especial good brother, whom I am so much bound to love above all the world?” and, Sire, I showed his grace that your grace recommended you to him, as unto your most entirely beloved, brother ; and further I showed him that you commanded me to give unto him thanks on your part, for the great honour and love that he had showed unto the queen, your sister.17

  Mary must have felt caught between the two men; the one whom she had married and made her queen and the other whom she would love to be with if circumstances were different. Charles assured Henry:

  And, Sire, I assure your grace that there was never queen nor lady that ordered herself more honourably nor wiser, the which I assure your grace rejoiced me not a little ; your grace knows why : for I think that there was never queen in France that hath demeaned herself more honourably, nor wiselier ; and so says all the noblemen in France that have seen her demeanour, the which letted not to speak it ; and as for the king, [there was] never man that set his mind more upon [woman] than he does on her, because she demeans herself so winning unto him, the which, I am sure, will be of little comfort unto your grace.18

  Once Louis was recovered, the royal couple set off for St Denis, stopping at each town for Mary to free any prisoners, as was the custom. Mary was not permitted to enter Paris yet until she had been crowned. They arrived on All Saints’ Day, and the following day being All Souls’ Day, they were spent quietly in religious observance. Mary finally received her crown at the Abbey of St Denis on 5 November. The Bishop of Bayeaux officiated again, and invested Mary with the ring, rod and sce
ptre of justice. The Dauphin had to hold the crown above her head, due to its weight, while she heard mass sitting on a throne in the sanctuary.

  After Mary’s coronation, Louis left for Paris to ensure all would be in order for her ceremonious arrival into the capital. While the coronation had been a relatively quiet affair, her state entry into Paris would be triumphant. Paris had been decorated with roses and lilies – for England and France – and the city was alive with people straining to get a glimpse of the new queen. Mary rode in a sumptuous open carriage, dressed in a bejewelled robe of cloth of gold, to pass by five ‘tableau vivants’ that had been erected in her honour. The poet, Pierre Gringoire, had been employed to ‘produce a series of pageants redolent with symbolic imagery’19 to welcome Mary to Paris. At St Denis, the scene depicted a ship with Paris sailing at the helm, buffeted by the four winds. The second pageant showed the three Graces dancing in a garden, roses and lilies entwined around a marble fountain whilst a poem was read out celebrating their union. The third depicted Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, a wise king brought peace by his queen. The fourth staged in front of the Church of the Holy Innocents showed God holding a heart and roses over a depiction of the king and queen. The other pageants, including a rosebush that sprouted a rosebud that ascended to meet with a lily and rise to a throne of honour, all displayed imagery that symbolised Mary as a peace bringing queen, sealing a new age of harmony between England and France.

  Yet at the joust, hostilities still festered. The Dauphin had arranged the tournament in the Parc des Tournelles for 13 November as a celebratory display but it fast became ‘a trial of strength between the nations’.20 England was well known for its skilled jousters and Francis hoped to show that the French were their match. Charles Brandon headed the English team throughout ten days of relentless rain, watched by Mary and a reclining Louis, who was ill with gout again.

  Charles shone out as a skilled challenger as did the Marquis of Dorset. When it seemed like France would lose to the English jousters, Francis, who had injured his hand and was unable to ride, sent out a disguised hulking German to challenge Charles. Charles unhorsed the man and a fight ensued, allowed by the joust’s judges. The man unleashed several hard blows on Charles who retaliated in kind, grabbing the German around the neck ‘and pommeled (him) so about the head that the blood issued out of his nose’.21 In defeat, the man was whisked away so his true identity and Francis’ deception could not be revealed.

  Dorset wrote to Henry that ‘they brought a German and put him to my Lord of Suffolk to have us put to shame, but advantage they got none of us, but rather the contrary’. He went on to say that Mary had also informed them that ‘the King her husband said to her that my Lord of Suffolk and I did shame all France and that we should carry the prize into England’.22

  Mary’s feeling for Charles must have pained her. Here was the man she had grown up with showing his might and skill to all whilst her new husband lay frail and aged. But life had to go on. Charles returned to England with his other victorious jousting companions and Mary, bereft of her English compatriots, settled into her life as Louis’ queen. Later in November, she had a welcome respite sojourning to St Germain-en-Laye to stay at the king’s country palace but after three weeks, the royal couple returned to Paris. Louis’ health was failing.

  Still delighted with his bride, Louis wrote his last letter to Henry on 28 December praising how she ‘has hitherto conducted herself, and still does every day … in such a manner that I cannot be delighted with her, and love and honour her more and more each day’.23 He also praised Charles for his virtues, manners and politeness as Henry’s closest companion and ambassador. There was never a hint that the relationship between Mary and Charles was anything but platonic. Both had played the roles that Henry had demanded of them – but it wouldn’t be for long.

  After eighty-two days of marriage, Mary’s life changed yet again. Louis XII, King of France died on 1 January 1515. Some said from his over exertions in the marriage bed but more likely from complications of the chronic gout he was suffering after weeks of overindulgence and celebrating his marriage. Mary would soon be free.

  The Wedding Portrait of Mary Tudor and Charles Brandon

  Chapter Five

  1515

  Mary & Charles

  After Louis’ death, Mary immediately announced that she was not pregnant with the king’s heir so that Francis, the Dauphin, could succeed as King of France. She then retired to her rooms in the Hotel de Cluny, originally an abbey for Cluniac monks, for the mourning period of forty days, remaining in relative seclusion while the old king was buried at St Denis on 12 January 1515. Custom demanded that her rooms be darkened with the curtains drawn and the room lit only by candlelight. There she sat dressed in traditional white, the colour of royal mourning, earning her the title ‘la reine blanche’ or ‘the white queen’. She still had some of her French ladies to attend on her and Francis regularly visited.

  Both Henry VIII and Francis knew Mary was a valuable and vulnerable possession. After her mourning time had passed she would be back in the marriage market and a ‘major political asset’1 to whichever king controlled her. For Francis, there was also a financial side to keeping Mary in France. If she returned to England, her dowry would go with her and she would be entitled to a yearly dowager’s pension. Francis might also lose precious plate and jewellery that had been gifts to Mary from Louis. It would serve him well if Mary stayed at court and, to this end, he began to consider arranging a marriage between Mary and either the Duke of Lorraine or the Duke of Savoy. But he also paid Mary such attention that she felt it most inappropriate. She dreaded him coming to her rooms at all hours and acting overly familiar with her, and fear set in. Fear for her future but also plans for escape.

  By this time Wolsey had become Henry’s right-hand man in all affairs of state. He had served Henry’s father and joined the new king’s Privy Council in 1509 soon rising to the position of Lord Chancellor. He wrote to Mary early in January to warn her to be careful and to not consider any remarriage at this time, which prompted Mary to write back that ‘you will not reckon in me such childhood’.2 Her retort may have put Wolsey in his place but he was to be her greatest ally and advisor in her forthcoming negotiations with her brother.

  Mary had also been visited by two friars, who may have been Katherine of Aragon’s men, to warn her that Henry would not allow her to marry whomever she wanted. They knew of her previous agreement with her brother and that Charles Brandon was on his way to France, scaring her with talk of Charles being in league with the devil and Henry’s revised plan to marry her off to Charles of Castile.

  Henry wanted Mary back in England, so he sent Charles to negotiate her return. Given Henry knew where Mary’s heart lay, Charles was either a strange choice or a wise move. If Francis had really begun to arrange a political marriage for Mary that suited him, could sending Charles mean that Henry secretly hoped she would marry him and thus disentangle herself from any further French alliance, or did he hope that failing successful negotiations Charles would just rescue Mary from the French court and bring her back to English soil where he could take control of her next marriage? He had specifically asked Charles to promise that he would not act on his feelings for Mary until they returned to which he acquiesced but Henry still knew ‘how persuasive she could be’.3

  Charles arrived in Paris on 31 January and met up with Francis at Senlis, not long after the new French king’s coronation at Reims. Continuing onto Paris, Charles went straight to see Mary accompanied by Nicholas West and Sir Richard Wingfield and reported back to Henry that his sister wished to return home immediately. But before that could be arranged the English ambassadors needed to negotiate their way through the financial implications of Mary’s departure and discuss the return of Tournai to the French. Francis needed to be appeased but there was still the matter of the one million gold crowns that Louis had agreed was owed to England in the previous August’s peace treaty. Louis’ gifts to
Mary were also a sticking point – were they given to Mary his wife or Mary the queen? If the jewels were for the French queen and Mary was no longer Queen of France then they should revert to her successor.

  And Francis was in no rush to return Mary. His visits to her had continued to the point that rumours had started that he may put aside his own wife, Claude, and marry Mary instead. Apart from his over-amorous visits, he feared that if he did not control her next marriage that Henry may marry her off to his enemies creating an anti-French alliance, so that when Mary, in a tense conversation with the new king, confessed she wished to marry Charles Brandon, Francis was relieved. Charles posed no threat to him and his country. There was still the financial side of things to iron out but Francis agreed to the match. Charles was called to a secret meeting after which the duke reported back to Wolsey:

  My very good lord, I recommend me unto you—and so it is, I need not write you of none thing [but only of] a matter secret, for all other matters you shall perceive by the letters sent to the king, the one from me, and the other from my fellows and me. My lord, so it was that the same day that the French king gave us audience, his grace called me unto him, and had me into his bed-chamber, and said unto me – ‘My Lord of Suffolk, so it is that there is a bruit in this my realm, that you are come to marry with the queen, your master’s sister;’ and when I heard him say so, I answered and said that I trusted his grace would not reckon so great folly in me, to come into a strange realm and to marry a queen of the realm, without his knowledge, and without authority from the king my master to him, and that they both might be content ; but I said I assured his grace that I had no such thing, and that it was never intended on the king my master’s behalf, nor on mine – and then he said it was not so; for then (since) that I would not be plain with him, he would be plain with me, and showed me that the queen herself had broken her mind unto him, and that he had promised her his faith and truth, and by the truth of a king, that he would help her, and to do what was possibly in him to help her to obtain her heart’s desire.4