tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5513034568756106415.post1889387492520263983..comments2023-10-28T01:47:09.746-07:00Comments on Mary Tudor: Renaissance Queen: “[she] changes every day”; Mary Tudor and fashionlittle_miss_sunnydalehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04834404563322701533noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5513034568756106415.post-86276197070210225872010-05-20T16:00:10.559-07:002010-05-20T16:00:10.559-07:00Sorry for the duplicate post - I did not see the o...Sorry for the duplicate post - I did not see the other one earlier.Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02525483370282480685noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5513034568756106415.post-40917463248401343822010-05-20T15:58:50.954-07:002010-05-20T15:58:50.954-07:00I thought I had posted something yesterday but I c...I thought I had posted something yesterday but I can't see it! Perhaps I merely previewed it withing posting...<br /><br />Just wanted to say - another great post by LMS! Made for a very informative and enjoyable read. Thanks!<br /><br />It is definitely very interesting to speculate what might have happened had Mary acquiesced earlier than she did. I wonder if Henry would have arranged a foreign marriage for her in that case - Anne might have encouraged it since she would have felt a lot safer with Mary out of the way. Perhaps a Scottish marriage as her aunt Queen Margaret had hoped for?<br /><br />And re: the other Margaret, her daughter the Countess of Lennox, I thought she and Mary went way back - right from the time they were kids. They were first cousins after all, only a few months apart, and I believe Margaret was raised at court with Mary under Henry's close supervision. So they would have been friends long before Margaret served Anne Boleyn.<br /><br />I think Mary was also friends with Jane Parker, Lady Rochford. She was sent to the Tower for her public expressions of support for Mary & Katherine in 1535.Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02525483370282480685noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5513034568756106415.post-14443102391882924322010-05-19T19:55:18.332-07:002010-05-19T19:55:18.332-07:00This comment has been removed by the author.Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02525483370282480685noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5513034568756106415.post-73101745355583407692010-05-11T07:50:55.322-07:002010-05-11T07:50:55.322-07:00Thank you both for your comments!
Jack – Mary'...Thank you both for your comments!<br /><br />Jack – Mary's status throughout Henry's reign is interesting. Technically, Mary was not specifically declared illegitimate in the 1534 Act of Succession. It was implied, for it was stated that only Henry VIII’s issue by Anne Boleyn were his legitimate heirs. Probably Henry felt this was sufficient enough to deem his first daughter illegitimate. But clearly it was not, thus in the 1536 Act of Succession, both Mary and Elizabeth were specifically denied a place in the succession. This remained till 1544 when another act was passed that re-included them, albeit they were still the monarch’s illegitimate issue.<br /><br />So Mary’s own position from 1533 to 1536 was rather ambiguous. It was clear from Henry’s actions, that after 1533 she was to be regarded as his illegitimate child, and he publicly demoted her status with the dismantling of her household along with the confiscation of many of her goods, jewellery included. But he failed to enshrine this in law.<br /><br />After 1536, matters changed, for Mary did comply and did recognise the superior claim of her brother, Edward. It was Mary’s constant efforts to propagate herself as a loyal subject that helped to lead to her subsequent inclusion in the succession. During 1536-1544, Mary was the monarch’s favoured daughter – one historian calls her his ‘trophy daughter’. The fact that she was born from a match which many still regarded as legitimate (hence why Mary found it so easy as queen to revoke her father’s actions), helped her and set her apart from her half-brother, Henry Fitzroy. Officially though from 1536-1544 she was regarded as the monarch’s illegitimate daughter, with no claim to the throne, though nonetheless highly favoured by him.<br /><br /><br />Your question of what would have happened had Mary complied from the start is interesting. When Mary learnt of her father’s marriage to Anne Boleyn she did not voice any refusal to recognise the match. In fact, initially she had congratulated her father upon news of his nuptials. It was when Elizabeth was born and she realised that her status was now under attack that she acted the way she did. There were certainly some among Anne’s allies that recognised Mary’s status, hence why a number served both women at respective times. Margaret Douglas, the king’s niece, served Anne and later become good friends with Mary and Mary counted a number of Howard women amongst her confidantes (the Howard were Anne’s maternal relations). Some, I think, were quite willing to bend with the times and had Mary remained favoured by the king owing to her obedience, she would have received the support of diverse individuals.little_miss_sunnydalehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04834404563322701533noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5513034568756106415.post-2080881213575445672010-05-09T15:39:34.956-07:002010-05-09T15:39:34.956-07:00Love your blog. Mary has always been a sympathetic...Love your blog. Mary has always been a sympathetic figure to me. Reading history, she may have the worst politician among the Tudors but she seemed to have a personal kindnesss and frailty that her grandfather, father and lionized half-sister lacked. Not to mention the fact that I think the whole "Bloody Mary" thing is unfair when compared with the blood spilled by other rulers.<br /><br />I've always wondered though exactly what was Mary's status between the 1536 (when she gave in to her father) and she was put back in the Succession. She was no longer a "princess" and just a bastard (declared so by the Archbishop of Canterbury himself) and a merely a "lady" without any title but she was of royal blood on both sides, and many of the populace of England, not to mention much of Europe, considered her still royal. This was something even her half-brother, Richmond, who was made a duke did not have. Yet she was treated horribly when she was made to serve in Elizabeth's household and looked down on by people who were her social inferior in every way.If she had given in to her father from the start what exactly position would she have been in? If she could afford jewels and clothes and the many servants she did as a "bastard" she must have had some status even among Anne's partisans (outside of their fear of her), no?Jack B.https://www.blogger.com/profile/10535561070313996833noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5513034568756106415.post-65307600808159602712010-05-09T05:47:47.959-07:002010-05-09T05:47:47.959-07:00I have been reading your excellent blog for quite ...I have been reading your excellent blog for quite a few weeks now, and I am enjoying your excellent topics about amazing Queen Mary I. Congratulations, and please keep it up. Greetings from Brazil.Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18423971281884079949noreply@blogger.com