Mary Tudor: The First Queen

by Linda Porter

  How much Mary knew of the council’s day-to-day activities is impossible to say. It was what she represented which mattered.The experience of ceremonial and the ability to behave appropriately, to begin to create an image - these were all deemed to be important for Mary’s development. The many visitors who daily thronged her court in the Marches are testimony of the importance that local families attached to her presence among them. There were so many of these importuners that Veysey, only too well aware of Mary’s place in national life, became concerned by the potential threat to her health. Disease spread easily in crowded places in the warm summer days. But Mary stayed healthy and adapted well. If she missed her mother’s visits and the familiarity of the royal residences in the Home Counties, she did not show it. Nor would it have been wise to report any misgivings back to the court in London. Princesses were supposed to know their duty, and those who served them would be blamed if they fell short of the high standards expected. It was the countess of Salisbury’s task to make sure that the transition from London to the Marches was as smooth as possible. Mary’s welfare was the first consideration and Katherine of Aragon was comforted by the knowledge that her old friend was at her daughter’s side.

  Initially, Mary would not have known the knights and minor noble - man of Wales who sought her favour, and most of the members of her large establishment were new faces. The most remarkable of these, in terms of a colourful past, was Mary’s chief lady-in-waiting, Lady Katherine Craddock. This Scottish-born noblewoman had been the wife of Perkin Warbeck, pretender to HenryVII’s throne. She could have opened Mary’s eyes to the fleeting nature of happiness and the uncertainty of the future but she had long since obliterated the memory of Perkin. Content now as the wife of a knight with substantial lands in Glamorgan, it is unlikely that she entertained the princess with her life story. She had once been a great beauty, but there were no children to inherit her looks. She and the countess of Salisbury had both known the fickleness of fortune but their job was to provide Mary with stability, not to raise the spectre that the course of her own life might not run smooth.

  The most striking aspect of the three most senior members of Mary’s household in Wales is how old they were. Margaret Pole, Katherine Craddock and John Veysey had a combined age of 173. They were undoubtedly experienced and worthy but not, one would have thought, the most stimulating of company for a girl of nine.

  Of the rest of Mary’s Welsh staff, only Katherine Pole, her former wet nurse, Alice Baker, one of her ladies, and Richard Sydnor, promoted to be treasurer of the chamber, had been with her since her birth. Her laundress, the Welshwoman Beatrice ap Rice, joined the household in 1519 and stayed with her throughout Mary’s life. The others were newcomers, about a quarter or more of them from Wales. Mary’s arrival was a godsend for these Marcher families, neglected for a generation, who had reason to see the princess as a good employer, as well as their liege lady. Within a year, the total expenses of Mary’s household and council, plus the upkeep of several palaces, ran to £4,500. Her presence in the Marches came at a high cost.

  Mary’s daily life as the head of a large household was structured and not too onerous, regardless of how many lords seeking redress or favour besieged her courtyards and Presence Chamber. The frequent moves from one residence to the next might seem unsettling, but they were an accepted part of court life, and Mary had never known anything else. She did not expect to live in one place for more than a few months and often for no more than a few weeks.14 Location mattered far less than the familiar rhythm of day-to-day activity. Its focus was religious observance and her studies, as well as regular exercise, and relaxation, in the form of music or drawing. There was great emphasis on purity of body (in the form of attention to personal cleanliness) and spirit. The countess of Salisbury was explicitly directed that Mary must ‘at due times, serve God’.This meant the observance of the forms of traditional religion, the hearing of mass at regular intervals during the day and time spent in prayer and reading of scripture. The mass and prayer were the outward forms of religious observance that Mary shared with all her countrymen. They were the markers of daily life that had endured for centuries. Probably most people did not think about them too deeply and were not encouraged to do so.There was comfort in the familiarity of the great religious festivals and the processions that accompanied them, a kind of free entertainment for the ordinary people. All these holy days were observed in Mary’s household, which was untouched by any taint of religious controversy. There were undercurrents of discontent with the church in England, dismay at its power, wealth and worldliness and disgust at the ignorance and lax attitude of many parish priests. Mary knew little of this. Across the Channel, there was much more serious religious ferment, but it did not intrude into Mary’s upbringing. The countess of Salisbury, a devout woman herself, did not need to be told her duty.The princess’s spiritual development might be guided by her chaplains but behind them was Margaret Pole, the epitome of a Christian noblewoman, whose son Reginald, the future Cardinal Pole, had already committed his life to the Church. Mary did not really know this distant cousin then, but she would have heard about his progress from her lady governess, who was a proud mother.

  Mary is so closely identified, even today, with Roman Catholicism that it is difficult to disentangle the woman from her faith. Popular history books still refer to her as ‘the Catholic Queen’, implying that this was an impediment, an underlying flaw that may explain, but cannot condone, who she was. Yet nobody thought of her, during her childhood, as ‘a Catholic Princess’.What else would a princess of England be? Her own father had issued a learned broadside against the teachings of Martin Luther in 1521 and been awarded with the title of Defender of the Faith. In Mary’s early childhood, there was no irony in that. As she knelt before the priests of her household at mass, Mary would not have recognised herself as the pious practitioner of an old-fashioned, beleaguered creed.The religion that she followed was so much a part of her life that she probably did not dwell on it at all. It was the ritual she grew to love; the familiar cadences of the Latin, the superb, uplifting music, the colour and richness of the textures of robes and ornaments. Religion was beauty to Mary, a beauty that daily gave hope of eternal life. For at its centre was the miracle of the translation of the bread and the wine into the body and blood of Christ, a mystery that promised salvation to every soul. But her personal beliefs were unremarkable. Her father loved his mass as well, even when he had long since parted company with the rule of Rome. Mary was no different from her parents, her cousin the emperor or, in 1525, all but a small number of Englishmen who were beginning to be influenced by ideas from the nearby Continent. The worship of God was at the core of her life and would always be there.

  When she translated the Prayer of St Thomas Aquinas into English at the age of 11, while still in Wales, she saw it primarily as a school exercise, something to prove to her mother that the Latin was going well. The prayer may have been suggested by Fetherstone but it could have been her own choice. Given its sentiments, it is tempting to think that the princess may have thought, as her life unfolded, of the lines she had translated when the world revolved around her:Good Lord, make my way sure and straight to thee, that I fail not between prosperity and adversity, but that in prosperous things I may give thee thanks and in adversity be patient, so that I be not lifted up with the one, nor oppressed with the other … My most loving Lord and God, give me a waking heart, that no curious thought withdraw me from thee. Let it be so strong, that no unworthy affection draw me backward. So stable that no tribulation break it. And so free that no election by violence make any challenge to it.15

  Religious practice was not confined to Church ceremony and Mary’s establishment played its part in the giving of alms to the poor and the sick.When Mary was a very small child this was obviously done in her name, but as she grew older she took an interest in the recipients themselves. She was a regular, though not extravagant, benefactress. It was part of her duty as a Chr
istian and a great lady.

  Mary passed from childhood to the threshold of womanhood while she was based in the Marches.This was, in itself, part of the reason for sending her there.The 16th century had no concept of adolescence, and if 12 seems young to be considered as an adult, it was also viewed as old enough to marry and cohabit.The girl herself, the real Mary, is elusive, but not invisible. The infant princess, who had expressed so early a love for music, charmed visiting French diplomats and endeared herself (though nothing more) as the child-fiancée of the emperor CharlesV, was becoming a young lady. She had poise and regal bearing and she loved her parents. Mary was solicitous for her mother’s health but enjoyed her father’s company, his joie de vivre (which she seems to have shared, for it was remarked that she was a joyful child) and the culture of his court. Her time in Wales was a progression in her training, not a banishment, and she returned to court for state occasions.The Christmas of her first year away she did not spend with her parents but the late summer of 1526 was passed with the king and queen in Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire. She journeyed with them west to Ampthill until 1 October, when she returned to Wales. Richard Sampson, diplomat and confidant of Wolsey, witnessed her arrival at Langley, near Woodstock. He was struck by her composure and bearing:‘My lady princess came hither on Saturday; surely, sir, of her age as goodly a child as ever I have seen, and of as good gesture and countenance. ’16 He was also impressed by Mary’s substantial retinue, many of whom were apparently present when she and her father greeted each other.

  Foreign commentators spoke highly of Mary as well, and it is from them that more can be discovered about her appearance. In the spring of 1527 the Venetian ambassador, Gasparo Spinelli, writing to his brother, was nearly breathless in his description of the princess and the magnificent pageant in which she had played a prominent part. This spectacle was part of the entertainment given by Henry VIII to honour the count of Turenne and other French dignitaries, as discussions continued about another French marriage for Mary. This time the prospective bridegroom was the second son of Francis I, the duke of Orléans, and Mary was very much on show.

  After a joust marred by the spring rains, the company went back to the palace at Greenwich to witness the kind of spectacle for which the English court was renowned. Spinelli said he had never witnessed the like, anywhere. The decorations, the plate used at the sumptuous banquet, even the decorum and silence in which such public entertainments were given, all amazed him. Yet most stunning of all was the princess Mary herself. She was one of eight damsels ‘of such rare beauty as to be supposed goddesses. They were arrayed in cloth of gold, their hair gathered into a net, with a very richly jewelled garland, surmounted by a velvet cap, the hanging sleeves of their surcoats being so long that they well nigh touched the ground.’ In this company, Mary outshone all the others: ‘Her beauty in this array produced such an effect on everybody that all other marvellous sights … were forgotten and they gave themselves up solely to contemplation of so fair an angel. On her person were so many precious stones that their splendour and radiance dazzled the sight.’ Mary and the ladies then performed a dance with great skill. And at the end, when Mary presented herself to her father, he ‘took off her cap, and, the net being displaced, a profusion of silver tresses as beautiful as ever seen on human head fell over her shoulders’.17

  It is a wonderful description, but Spinelli’s Italian gallantry was perhaps overstated. Mary’s hair was auburn, not silver, unless it had been specially dressed for the occasion. Nor was his rapturous description of the princess’s appearance shared by the hard-headed Turenne. The Frenchman confined his compliments to Mary’s intellectual achievements, but his primary concern was to find a bride who could be married without delay. In his judgement, Mary was ‘too thin, spare and small’ to be married for the next three years. She did not look like childbearing materrial for the House of Valois.The French king took Turenne’s advice. He married his son, the future Henry II, to a plainer, podgier and very rich young Italian called Katherine de Medici. She failed, for many years, to produce children, but when she did, they came thick and fast. Her marriage was desperately unhappy and there is no reason to suppose that Mary would have fared any better, so perhaps it was a lucky escape.

  So there were contrasting views of the princess, but they were not necessarily contradictory. Mary was described elsewhere as being small for her age, though before her teens her health does not seem to have been a problem. She was a small-framed person, which might explain Turenne’s comments about her weight.There were reports in 1528 that she was suffering from smallpox, but if she did it could not have been a serious bout of that often deadly and disfiguring ailment. One thing on which all observers would agree, throughout her life, was that she was blessed with a beautiful complexion. She seems also, as a girl, to have had a charming and endearing personality, not as extroverted as her father but less withdrawn than her mother, or, at least, as her mother had become. Her servants loved her devotedly and she frequently repaid them with lifelong support. She revered and loved her parents, and she was a dutiful god-daughter, writing to Wolsey in 1528 that she knew it was through his intercession that ‘I have been allowed, for a month to enjoy, to my supreme delight, the society of the king and queen my parents.’ The one thing that had vexed her, she told the cardinal, was that she had been unable to visit him and thank him personally for ‘your frequent favours vouchsafed to me and mine’. It is the earliest of Mary’s letters to survive, and it has about it an air of sincerity and warmth.18 Mary was a princess full of grace, with the presence of royalty and a mind well suited to the duties that lay ahead.

  Another Italian, Mario Savagnano, was not so effusive as Spinelli when he met Mary four years later, at the palace of Richmond, though he acknowledged that she was attractive and accomplished. Mary came out to greet Savagnano and other members of an Italian deputation, supported by the faithful countess of Salisbury and six maids of honour. He described her as ‘not tall, [she] has a pretty face, and is well-proportioned [no longer, apparently so thin and spare], with a very beautiful complexion … she speaks Latin, French and Spanish, besides her own mother-English tongue and is well-grounded in Greek and understands Italian but does not venture to speak it’. This, if true, showed a formidable range of linguistic achievement. ‘She sings excellently and plays on several musical instruments, so that she combines every accomplishment. ’ After the Italian visitors had left, Mary, ever the perfect English hostess, sent them a present of wine and ale and white bread.19

  The princess Mary was 15 when she received this testimonial, though four years had passed since she was recalled from the Marches. At the time, her return may not have been intended as permanent - she had come and gone on several occasions during her residence there - and the Council of the Marches continued to function at Ludlow till 1534. Yet Henry chose to keep his daughter in the south-east of England and her public appearances became less frequent.The reasons for this are not clear.There were concerns about the size and expense of her establishment in the west, but this could always have been managed differently. Far less easy for Wolsey, or anyone else among the king’s advisers, to soothe was their monarch’s underlying doubts about the wisdom of having Mary, no matter how well trained, succeed him at all.The failure of yet another French marriage negotiation could have played on Henry’s mind. The inescapable truth was that the future of the Tudors depended on a young girl and her ability to produce the male heirs that Henry himself did not have. Even if there was a realistic chance that she might do this by the age of 16, the interval in between would have been uncomfortable, given the state of European politics. And the personality of the king himself was hardly that of an indulgent grandfather.

  There was no hint of tension or undercurrent of concern in the Italian account of the meeting with Mary, but by then both she and the countess of Salisbury knew that her life had lost the simple certainties of childhood. This unpalatable truth, complicated by the onset of menstruation, wa
s made worse because it had been unspoken. The countess had seen it as her duty to protect Mary for as long as possible, rather than introduce her to emotional complexity or the harsh realities of power politics. This well-meaning reluctance only made the inevitable realisation of what was happening to her parents’ marriage harder for Mary to bear. Even when she grasped it, when it became impossible to shield her any longer, she still refused to face the implications for her own situation.

  Yet the disaster that would overturn her world had been creeping up on Mary for some time; its origins went as far back as 1522. In that year, the year of the princess’s engagement to Charles V and the emperor’s memorable visit to London, the daughter of an English knight and diplomat made a sensational debut at the English court. Her sophistication, wit and sexuality immediately made her the centre of attention. In Katherine of Aragon’s rather staid circle of ladies and maids of honour, there was nothing like this newcomer at all. She had been educated as a European gentlewoman in the courts of Burgundy and France, but her charisma was all her own. Her name was Anne Boleyn, and when she eventually caught the king’s eye, the course of English history, and of Mary’s life, was changed.

  PART TWO

  The Rejected Princess 1528-47

  Chapter Three

  The Queen and the Concubine

  ‘I say I am his lawful wife, and to him lawfully married.’

  Queen Katherine to a delegation of the king’s council, 31 May 1531

  Anne Boleyn is English history’s most famous ‘other woman’, and before he became a wife-murderer, when he was still full of longing and the romance of unfulfilled love, Henry VIII wrote her a series of beautiful letters. No Renaissance monarch could have better expressed the journey from the stylised amours of courtly love to the passion of real emotion: ‘The proofs of your affection are such,’ he wrote at the beginning of 1527, ‘the fine poesies of the letters so warmly couched, that they constrain me ever truly to honour, love and serve you, praying that you will continue in the same firm and constant purpose, ensuring you, for my part, that I will the rather go beyond than make reciproque, if loyalty of heart, the desire to do you pleasure, even with my whole heart root, may serve to advance it.’1