Wife of Louis XII, king of France, and sister of Henry VIII
In 1515, Henry VIII, looking to increase his prestige among European leaders, decided a marriage between his sister, Mary Tudor, and the widowed king of France, Louis XII, was in the best dynastic interest of England. However, Mary, born in 1496 and Henry’s favorite sister, demonstrated intelligence, courage, and determination in her decision to avoid the fate of all princesses forced to play the dynastic marriage game.
For her part, Mary wanted to pick her own husband and had already set her heart upon Charles Brandon, duke of Suffolk, and Henry’s best friend. Without revealing this to Henry, Mary used every means at her disposal to convince him to change his mind. Henry was as implacable as ever, and Mary finally compromised: she agreed to wed Louis, thirty-four years her senior, while Henry promised she could, if Louis died first, marry the man of her own choosing the next time.
In the fall of 1515, Mary became the queen of France, and the celebrations lasted three months. At the end of those celebrations, Louis, apparently worn out, died, leaving Mary a single woman determined to not play the dynastic marriage game again. Realizing she had to act quickly to hold Henry to his promise, Mary convinced Brandon, who had come to Paris to bring her home, to marry her, and with the aid of Francis I the couple wed at the Palais de Cluny in the spring of 1516. Though the marriage was technically a crime and Mary and Charles had to face Henry’s full wrath, Henry agreed to forgive them after levying a heavy fine.
The marriage of Mary Tudor and Charles Brandon was successful, though her last years of life were somewhat difficult with respect to her relationship with her brother. Henry’s decisions to divorce Catherine of Aragon and separate England from the Roman Catholic church strained their relationship. Mary openly opposed the divorce and absolutely refused to acknowledge Anne Boleyn as Henry’s new wife, up to her death on 24 June 1533.As she had in her youth, Mary continued to demonstrate she had a will of her own and that, despite her powerful relative, she would do what she believed was right.
Timothy G. Elston
See also Marriage; Religious Reform and Women.
Bibliography
Harvey, Nancy Lenz. The Rose and the Thorn: The Lives of Mary and Margaret Tudor. New York: Macmillan, 1975.
Perry, Maria. Sisters to the King: The Tumultuous Lives of Henry VIII’s Sisters, Margaret of Scotland and Mary of France. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1999.
Richardson, Walter Cecil. Mary Tudor: The White Queen. London: Owen, 1970.
World History
