Bury St Edmunds' own queen Mary Tudor – a story of love, intrigue and dynastic conspiracy
Bury St Edmunds historian Martyn Taylor looks back at the life of Mary Tudor.
Mary Tudor was the youngest of four children who survived infancy born to her parents, Elizabeth of York and Henry Tudor, who went on to become Henry VII.
Henry had united the houses of York and Lancaster after defeating Richard III at the battle of Bosworth in 1585, thus ending the Wars of the Roses.
Indirectly, an incident that occurred in Bury St Edmunds led to the Wars of the Roses (began 1455) when the Duke of Gloucester, Humphrey Plantagenet, was found dead – probably murdered – at St Saviour’s Hospital in 1447 after Henry VI, his young nephew, had called parliament to Bury to lay various charges against him.
Mary’s siblings were: Arthur, who would have been king had he not died in 1502, aged 15, possibly from TB; Henry, who on the death of his father Henry VII in 1509 consequently ascended the throne as Henry VIII aged 17, and Margaret, who married King James IV of Scotland in 1503 aged 14 and who would have her grandson, James VI of Scotland, ascend the English throne as James I in 1603, the first of the Stuarts.
EARLY YEARS
Mary was born on March 18, 1496. Henry, her brother, had a great affection for her, even naming his first child with Catherine of Aragon, Mary after her. Ironically, this Mary Tudor would come be known in later life as ‘Bloody Mary’.
Henry’s sister Mary was brought up in the many Tudor palaces, Greenwich being her favourite. She was well educated for her status as a royal child could be used in marriage for brokering an alliance.
At an early age she was betrothed to the Holy Roman Emperor’s grandson, Charles of Castille, but the deadline for the wedding passed so Henry VIII looked around for another suitable candidate with the vivacious red (golden?) haired princess now in her teens considered quite a catch.
FIRST MARRIAGE
Henry had been seeking an alliance with France and so Mary was to be married to the ageing, thrice married Louis XII, he 52 and she 18. He was, according to reports, toothless, foul breathed and suffered from gout, hardly an outstanding husband-to-be.
A marriage by proxy took place at Greenwich on August 13, 1514, with the King, Queen Catherine, the whole court and the Archbishop of Canterbury, officiating, in attendance.
The Duc de Longueville stood in for Louis. With Mary in a nightgown, vows were exchanged and then they lay beside each other, the Duc touching her briefly with his naked leg. Archbishop William Warham announced that the marriage had been symbolically ‘consummated’. Mary then went off to change into richer garments.
Mary left London for France on September 19 and, after a rather storm tossed voyage, arrived suffering from sea sickness. Here she met Louis who was immediately struck by her beauty.
Officially married on October 9, Mary was showered with jewellery including a stunning diamond and pearl necklace called ‘The Mirror of Naples’.
However, 82 days later Louis died on New Year’s Day 1515. It was said he died probably from over dancing, but with a smile on his face. He certainly loved her, whether she loved him, who knows? Mary, though, had extracted a promise from Henry that if Louis died, she could marry whom she wanted. That man was Charles Brandon.
French custom then dictated that she spend 40 days in ‘quarantine’ in case she was pregnant. She did this at Cluny Abbey, time passing very slowly, however she was not carrying a child.
CHARLES BRANDON
Brandon did not come from aristocratic stock. Born in 1484, his father, William, died a year later in 1485 at the battle of Bosworth, being Henry Tudor’s standard bearer. Charles was then brought up in the Royal household as some form of repayment for his father’s service.
A lover of outdoor pursuits and physical combat, he became an ideal comrade for the younger Henry, a friendship that would last all their lives.
With the death of Henry VII, the ‘spare’ Henry came to the throne in 1509. The commoner Charles was given various appointments –Marshall of the King’s Bench and Chamberlain of the Principality of North Wales. These were followed in 1512 by being made Keeper of The Royal Estate at Wanstead, in Essex. And in 1514 he was made Duke of Suffolk, a title once held by the noble De La Poles. The appointment angered many at court including the powerful Duke of Norfolk.
However, Brandon had an ally at court in the scheming Thomas Wolsey, who became chancellor in 1515. Wolsey just as ambitious as Charles Brandon.
Charles had once been betrothed to Anne Browne, and although consummated (a daughter was born to them in 1506), it would seem no actual marriage ceremony took place. With the lower classes this sort of thing took place all the time – it was common for a man ‘to test the water’ so to speak . . . no use having a barren wife. Although the Brownes were fairly wealthy, Brandon looked for a ‘sugar mummy’ and married Margaret Mortimer, a wealthy widow almost twice his age. The Browne family protested that Brandon was contracted to marry Anne and, fortunately for him, the Mortimer marriage was annulled.
Anne Browne died in 1512 and in December of that year Brandon acquired the ward ship of Elizabeth Grey, the eight-year-old daughter and heiress of the late Lord Lisle of Berkshire.
In modern parlance, Charles ‘put it about a bit’ because he announced his betrothal to Elizabeth in 1513 and as her prospective husband could enjoy her wealth until she became of age or was contracted off in marriage. Brandon thus assumed the title of Lord Lisle. This enabled him to be given a military command in France by Henry’ with 3,000 men under his command.
MARRIAGE TO CHARLES BRANDON
With the death of Louis, the Duke of Suffolk was dispatched to fetch Mary back. Now, as Queen of France, she was now an even more valuable asset to Henry.
When Charles arrived in France he was confronted by Francois De Angouleme, the future Francis I, whom with Henry would share the fabulous ‘Field of Cloth of Gold’ in 1520, a tournament par excellance.
Francois extracted from Mary her future marital status. She told him of her love for Charles, and although they had grown up together, there was no hint of impropriety.
Francois was pleased to hear this as he was concerned Henry would marry her off to one of his adversaries.
Mary poured out her heart to Charles and basically said ‘marry me now or the chance is gone forever.’ What could he say? In February, 1515, they were married in the chapel at Cluny; Francois a surprising ally in writing to Henry to try to smooth things over. Charles also wrote to Wolsey to intercede on the newlywed’s behalf, after all it was treason to marry in these circumstances without the king’s permission.
When Henry received the news, he was incandescent with rage but it seemed Wolsey’s calming ultimately worked.
THE AFTER EFFECTS
The newlyweds arrived back in England in May. Henry had trusted the Duke of Suffolk implicitly but Mary politely reminded Henry of the promise he agreed with her that she could marry for love. After all she had said that if Henry did not keep his promise she would enter a nunnery and would be miserable for the rest of her life.
Henry eventually forgave the couple, but only after reminding them that they had to pay back her enormous dowry of £24,000, a burden they had to shoulder for the rest of their lives. In addition to this, the jewels Louis had given to Mary, including the Mirror of Naples, had to be handed over to Henry.
On May 13 an official ‘English’ wedding took place at Greenwich Palace without the Court present. March 11, 1516, saw Mary give birth to a son, named after Henry. Queen Catherine, who was pregnant at the same time, would be delivered of a daughter, Mary, eventually to become the first Queen Regnant. Henry would gladly have exchanged the births.
The Duchess of Suffolk had two more surviving children – Frances, born in 1517 and probably named after the French king, and Eleanor, born in 1519.
Mary Brandon had a good relationship with Catherine, after all she had grown up with her, so she had to be extremely tactful when the king’s affair with Anne Boleyne became known to her, especially considering that Anne’s sister Mary had been a lady in waiting for her while she was in France.
It was this affair, plus the inability of Catherine to provide a male heir, that set in motion the monumental break with Rome, thus creating Henry as ‘Defender of the Faith’.
THE LATER YEARS
The Duke and Duchess of Suffolk lived in Suffolk at Westhorpe, now the site of a care home. All that is left of what must have been a grand house on the site is a moat.
The couple attended the splendid annual Bury Fair held on Le Mustowe (today’s Angel Hill), literally holding court in a pavilion with Mary reminding people of her status and to address her as Queen of France, though her official married name was Mary Brandon, Duchess of Suffolk.
While staying in London they lived in Charles’ town house, Suffolk Place, on the banks of the Thames at Southwark.
Whether Charles Brandon secretly harboured ambitions of creating a new dynastic line we don’t know, but he certainly thought he was in with a chance with no prospect of a royal boy child. Ironically, it was a daughter of Charles, Frances, who was to produce that; a puppet queen in 1553, Lady Jane Grey.
In 1518 the Duchess was ill with the dreaded ‘sweating sickness’, which she somehow survived, however it was to have a marked influence on her remaining years.
The couple even enjoyed staying at Butley Priory, near Orford, Charles having acquired this once great monastic house after the dissolution.
In 1529, Charles’ marriage to Margaret Mortimer was officially annulled by way of a Papal Bull and witnessed by the Bishop of Norwich; this was done to tie up loose ends. Margaret died around this time as well.
Two years later, in 1531, Queen Catherine was banished from court, then subsequently divorced in 1534.
Mary had long ceased having any influence with her brother and, with the Bolyne family very much dominant at court, Mary attended less and less.
It would seem Mary had been a good mother, even bringing up Charles Brandon’s two illegitimate children, Anne and Mary Brandon, born out of wedlock with Anne Browne.
At the beginning of May 1533, Mary Tudor was in ill health again and on June 26 she died at the age of 38, probably from a family condition, TB.
Arrangements were made for the funeral.
THE FUNERAL OF MARY, QUEEN OF FRANCE
The funeral was a very grand affair, befitting a person of royal rank. After her body had laid in state for a while at Westhorpe, a cortege led by French heralds and 100 poor men in black hoods and gowns made of rough cloth carrying wax tapers preceded to Bury St Edmunds.
The hearse, drawn by six black horses magnificently draped in black velvet, was followed by chaplains, mounted knights, and family mourners. These included Mary’s daughter, Frances Grey and her husband-to-be, Henry Grey third Marquess of Dorset, and Henry Brandon, Frances’s brother.
Neither the king nor Charles Brandon attended the funeral, which in those days was not uncommon.
Winding their way to the still magnificent Abbey of St Edmundsbury (Henry’s commissioners were to do their worst in 1539), they went through the villages of Bacton, Wyverstone, Badwell Ash, Ashfield, Norton and Thurston. En route, peasants left the fields to swell the cortege – an incentive of free ale and food and a few pence was not to be sneered at.
Into Bury the procession came, down the street known as the Churchgate and through what we know today as The Norman Tower into the enormous Abbey Church of St Edmund, the French heralds proclaiming all the time ‘pray for the soul of the right high excellent princess and right Christian Queen Mary, late Queen of France’.
This was to be the last great procession to take this route.
After Abbot John Reeve, of St Edmunds Abbey, had officiated at the service, on July 22, 1533, she was buried in a handsome alabaster monumental tomb – destroyed six years later in the dissolution.
WHAT HAPPENED TO CHARLES BRANDON?
Charles Brandon’s son, Henry Brandon (with Mary) Earl of Lincoln (1525), was betrothed to his father’s wealthy ward, Catherine Willoughby. But Charles said his son was too young and promptly married his 13-year-old ward in September, 1533. This was pure avarice on his part as he risked losing her wealth if he broke off the betrothal. And Charles was by now free of having to pay back Mary’s dowry. Their union produced two sons, Henry and Charles.
Lord Henry Brandon became the Second Duke of Suffolk in 1545 (Henry Earl of Lincoln having died in 1533) when Charles Brandon died aged 60/61.
The second duke died on July 14, 1551, from the sweating sickness, and his younger brother an hour later. Unfortunately for Charles Brandon, Henry VIII had a son, Edward, by Jane Seymour in 1537 and by an act of succession passed in 1533, his sister’s line was excluded.
The sickly King Edward VI ascended the throne on Henry’s death in 1547 and died in 1553.
LADY JANE GREY
Henry Grey had married Frances Brandon and had a daughter, Lady Jane Grey, in 1537. She married Lord Guildford Dudley, son of the Duke of Northumberland. On his deathbed, King Edward VI was pressurised into naming Jane Grey as his successor. She was just an innocent pawn in a power struggle which she lost when the rightful Queen Mary I raised her standard at Framlingham Castle, the masses flocking to it. Nine days later it was all over; the unfortunate Lady Jane and her husband went to the scaffold on February 12, 1554, her father-in-law the year before.
Mary tried to re-introduce the Catholic faith to England and in the few years of her reign many hundreds were burnt at the stake for their Protestant faith, several in Bury.
AFTER MARY’S DEATH
With the dissolution and the ruination of Bury’s abbey church the body of Mary was moved to the nearby St Mary’s parish church. It was placed in a box tomb but this was later to be reduced in height as it got in the way of the altar.
Queen Elizabeth came here in 1578 to pay her respects during her progress through Suffolk.
A tablet recording Mary’s status and marriage to Charles Brandon was put up in 1758, paid for by Dr Symonds, of St Edmunds Hill (now Moreton Hall).
Her tomb was opened in 1784 under the watchful eyes of the churchwardens and Sir John Cullum. Her body, in a lead coffin and lying on a plank, had been embalmed and she was wrapped in course linen. Mary still had her long red (golden?) hair nearly 2ft long and locks were trimmed off, one eventually ending up in Moyse’s Hall Museum. An account of the opening of the tomb can be found on pages 180-181of Samuel Tymms book on St Mary’s, 1854.
When Edward VII came to Bury in 1904, he visited St Mary’s and paid particular attention to the stained glass window on the south side, given by his mother Queen Victoria in 1881, depicting the life of Mary Tudor. A simple kerb paid for by the King was put around her grave on the north wall of the chancel.
Beside the tomb today are pictures of Mary and her husband with a brief history of them.
Perhaps the most poignant reminder of Mary was the sinking of the pride of Henry VIII’s fleet, The Mary Rose. Launched in 1511, Henry named the ship after his favourite sister. It tragically sank with the loss of all hands in 1545 off Portsmouth.
In 1982 it was raised and the hull is now on view in Portsmouth historic dockyard. The many artefacts found on the ship, including textiles, weapons and utensils, can be seen in the Mary Rose Museum. However, think on this, how many parish churches in the country can lay a claim to having royalty entombed within?
