Ludlow Castle

In 1525, a nine-year-old Mary was sent to the Welsh Marches. The orders of Henry VIII stipulated that ‘the good order quiet and tranquilitie of the Countreyes thereabout hath greatlie bene alterd and subverted’ by the absence of royal authority that a Prince of Wales and his council would represent. Thus Mary, the monarch’s ‘deerest most beloved onely doughter’, would go to Ludlow with a council and hold court there.

Mary would act as the nominal head of a new Council of Wales and preside over an impressive household. Ludlow Castle is often identified in discussions on Mary’s progress to the Welsh Marches as being her principal seat. Yet her time there was short lived, evidenced in an itinerary of her journey established by W. R. B Robinson. According to Robinson,

As her biographers have assumed that Ludlow castle was her principal residence during her stay in the Marches, it should be noted that the evidence for her presence there in early May 1526 is indirect and that no other evidence for her being at Ludlow has been found. Robinson, 'Princess Mary's Itinerary in the Marches of Wales 1525–1527: a Provisional Record', Historical Research, 71, 175 (2002), p.239.

In the itinerary, Robinson has identified that on the 3rd and 4th May 1526, Mary’s governess, Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury, is noted to have been present at Ludlow inferring that Mary was also there. That is the only evidence of Mary’s stay at the castle. A letter from the president of the council in the marches of Wales and supervisor of Mary’s household, John Veysey, bishop of Exeter, indicates that there was plague nearby and subsequently there were concerns for Mary’s health. Veysey wrote to Wolsey alerting him of the numerous local areas inflicted by illness, a worry given that many had travelled from thereabouts to Ludlow in order to pay homage to the princess and advance respective petitions. The presence of the king’s daughter, and in many people’s eyes the de facto Princess of Wales, naturally excited many and drew crowds. Mary was Henry’s only legitimate child; her health was of extreme importance. So Wolsey recommended that Mary be moved from the council to some ‘place solitary’. The location of this site is unknown, though clearly Mary left Ludlow. Mary is next mentioned at Hartlebury, and then progressed on to Worcester, thus making her route back to Greenwich Palace. She was back there for St George’s Day 1527.


Yet Mary did stay at Ludlow, like her mother around twenty-five years before her. Katherine had gone as the official Princess of Wales, married to the heir to the throne, Arthur, son of Henry VII. Like her daughter, Katherine’s stay at Ludlow was limited though longer than Mary’s. Katherine arrived at Ludlow in December 1501 and on 2nd April 1502 Arthur died, possibly of the sweating sickness or some other virulent disease. News from Veysey of illness in the surrounding areas must have revived unpleasant memories.


Ludlow today lies in ruins. Situated in one of the most beautiful counties in England and affixed to a picturesque town, Ludlow Castle is the ideal tourist attraction. A while back I decided to visit as many of Mary’s pre-accession households as possible and, having never been to Ludlow, I made a trip last Saturday. Here are some photos I took of the castle:

The judges' lodgings; lodgings for administrators including those that accompanied Mary to Ludlow. On the walls you can see remains of fireplaces, marking the level of floors once present.

Stairs of the Judges' lodgings

The Round Chapel. Dating to the eleventh-century, the chapel was dedicated to St Mary Magdelene and originally had a square chancel with a polygonal apse, the foundations of which can still be seen. For many years it was known as Prince Arthurs Chappel, after Arthur Tudor, who worshiped there along with his household.

The north range. The stairs lead to the Great Hall, the centre of Ludlow Castle and of Mary’s household. The Great Chamber is situated to the right, and was used as the Lord President’s apartments (I think Katherine of Aragon’s apartments were situated here). Prince Arthur’s apartments were alleged to the left – the western solar block. These grand apartments may have been used by Mary during her stay.

Detail of the western apartments that may have been used by Mary. Here are remains of a grand fireplace.

Further detail of the western apartments

Detail of the Great Hall, the centre of Mary’s household.

View of Ludlow from the castle. The church is St Laurence’s. Arthur Tudor’s heart was buried there; his body lies in Worcester Cathedral.

Modern portrait of Mary in Castle Lodge, Ludlow. Appears to be based on the c.1544 portrait of Mary by ‘Master John’ (National Portrait Gallery, London).

For further reading see: Jeri L. McIntosh,'Princess Mary as the de facto Prince(ss) of Wales, 1525' (2010)

Princess Mary’s lodgings at Whitehall Palace

A while back I made a post on Mary’s connection to Beaulieu Palace, including a recent archaeological dig there that has unearthed a nursery that was probably made for Mary.


This short post looks at evidence of another residence used by Mary – her apartments at Whitehall Palace. The extravagance of her apartments gives us some indication of the way in which Mary was treated and regarded by her father, Henry VIII, who constructed the rooms for her.





The images depicted here are from two paintings of Whitehall Palace. The image on the top comes from a painting of Whitehall made in c.1700 whilst the other is from The Lord Mayor’s Procession on the River Thames (artist unknown, mid-seventeenth century). The building focused upon is the lodgings of Mary which were situated by the riverside gallery and were completed in 1543, five years prior to the death of her father. Her Whitehall lodging consisted of a small courtyard house which the building accounts describe as ‘my lady maries newe lodging’.[1] It was built on the two southernmost bastions of the river wall which were used as bases for two-storey bay windows, with oriel windows set at first-floor level. The intervening wall space was also filled with windows to make the east wall of the lodgings more or less entirely glass on the first floor.


The splendour of Mary’s apartments indicates the favour she enjoyed from her royal father. It was during this year that Mary was re-included in Henry’s succession via a parliamentary statue, despite her illegitimacy. The lodgings may also be a symbol of the steady harmonious relationship between Henry and Mary, which had initially been wrecked by Henry’s repudiation of Katherine of Aragon, his break from Rome, Mary’s own downgrade in status, and Mary’s refusal to recognise the legality of her father’s actions. In June 1536 Henry managed to break Mary’s resolve, and after swearing to recognise Henry’s ecclesiastical status, the invalidity of her parent’s marriage and her own illegitimate status, Mary set to present herself as the king’s obedient daughter. Furthermore it seems that Henry enjoyed Mary’s company and that Mary had established a place for herself at court. Interestingly 1543 was the year Henry married Katherine Parr who was a member of Mary’s household. It is possible that Henry began to take notice of Katherine during visits with his daughter. Such visits were frequent; by February 1543 one contemporary noted that the king ‘was calling at [the princess’] apartments two or three times a day’ [2]. It is therefore possible that these lodgings provided a setting for Henry’s pursuit of his last wife.






On my YouTube channel I have posted a video on Whitehall which features Simon Thurley. It gives some idea of what the palace was like during Henry VIII’s reign:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NDbEBIGAUU


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[1] Source from Simon Thurley, The Royal Palaces of Tudor England: Architecture and Court Life, 1460-1547 (New Haven and London, 1993), p. 79.

[2] Susan James, Catherine Parr: Henry VIII’s Last Love (Gloucestershire, 2009), p. 77.

Retracing Mary’s steps

A few weeks ago I travelled to the city of Gloucester, one of several places Mary stayed during her route to Ludlow in 1525. Mary was nine years old when she started her journey to the Marches of Wales to represent the monarch in this region. For nineteen months Mary travelled to, stayed in and left Ludlow. Details of her itinerary still survive, although there is some uncertainty regarding the length of visits to various places. However the journal of Prior William More of Worcester Cathedral provides detail about Mary’s stay in that city.



Nearly two weeks ago I travelled to Worcester to see the cathedral in which Mary took mass on at least two separate occasions in 1526. In front of the High Altar is the tomb of King John, an English monarch who like Mary has not enjoyed a fantastic historical reputation!

The Quire with the High Altar in the back

According to Prior More’s account, the young princess made an offering at the mass he conducted in mid to late January 1526 and again on Easter Day of that year.

The High Altar, at which the young Mary celebrated mass.

King John’s tomb in front of the High Altar. Prince Arthur’s chantry is in the background

As Mary was celebrating mass, a controversial figure connected closely to her parents rested nearby. To the south of the high altar is the chantry chapel of Prince Arthur, eldest son of Henry VII, eldest brother to Mary’s father, Henry VIII, and the first husband of Mary’s mother, Katherine of Aragon. Arthur was not a controversial figure in his own right, but his marriage to Katherine of Aragon would prove to be a contentious matter when Henry VIII wished to annul his marriage to Katherine. By 1526 Henry VIII already seems to have fallen for Anne Boleyn and his doubts concerning his first marriage appears to have formulated since his failure to produce a living male heir with Katherine. Little did Mary know that the memory of Prince Arthur, whose tomb she had prayed by, would be evoked the following year for means that would change her life and the course of English history...





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I've posted images of Arthur, prince of Wales's tomb on my Flickr page:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/20631910@N03/

Mary and the royal manor of Beaulieu

A few months back, Channel 4 aired a fantastic documentary on Henry VIII’s palaces, which involved the guys from Time Team. They attempted to recover evidence of Henry VIII’s lost palaces and examined the area where the Palace of Beaulieu once stood [1]. Prior to Henry’s building work, the site contained an impressive manor which was granted to Thomas Boteler (or ‘Butler’), Earl of Ormonde by Henry VII in 1491. In 1515 Thomas died and the property was granted to his daughter and coheir, Margaret who had married Sir William Boleyn [2]. William sold the property to Henry VIII sometime in 1515 and by January 1516 the king had already started to rebuild the manor.





When Beaulieu is mentioned in connection to Mary it often concerns her time there as an adolescent or later in life. It was at this royal manor that Mary composed a letter to her father detailing her astonishment that she had lost the title princess owing to his decision to annul his marriage to Katherine of Aragon and marry Anne Boleyn in 1533. It was also where the duke of Norfolk was sent to tell Mary that Henry desired her ‘to go to the Court and service of [Elizabeth], whom he named Princess’. In short, this was where Mary was informed that her new half-sister was now considered the king’s legitimate daughter and that she was now the illegitimate ‘Lady Mary’.


In her father’s will Mary was granted Beaulieu along with numerous other properties [3]. And in 1553, just after Mary had been pronounced as queen across the country, Beaulieu was where she was presented with a purse made of crimson velvet and filled with coins from the City of London, as a token of their respect for their new queen.


So Beaulieu became a well favoured residence for Mary. It was also where she declared before the sacrament that she would marry Philip of Spain with the Imperial ambassador and her lady-in-waiting Susan Clarencius being the only ones present. However it is not Mary’s connections as an adolescent or as queen to the royal manor that was examined in the Time Team programme. A much earlier connection was uncovered.


Whilst examining the ruins of the old royal manor in search of Henry VIII’s own apartments, the archaeologists came across another area where the original drainage system was existent and there were signs of previous massive bay windows that characterised the grand rooms of that period. Jonathon Foyle, an architectural historian who was present at the dig, proposed the theory that the rooms found were the royal nursery built for the infant Mary. He argued that the presence of either kitchens or a laundry belonging to rooms above indicated that the chambers belonged to an important individual, like a royal child.


Layout of Beaulieu. The red area to the bottom left marks the spot of the royal nursery.



The dates make sense. Henry purchases the manor in 1515 and work starts in January of 1516. By that point Katherine of Aragon was heavily pregnant and Mary was born in February of that year. Perhaps Henry, anticipating the birth of a male heir, purchased the manor for the child. The home was outside London and situated in the countryside and therefore away from dangers like plague making it a perfect location for the baby. Around £17,000 was spent on the manor between 1516 and 1522, indicating that the improvements were for someone notable [4].


There is also another and more striking indication that the manor has a connection to the infant Mary. Beaulieu is now lost to us but the arms of Henry VIII that formerly belonged to the outer gatehouse of the manor still survives. In the top right a pomegranate is included (the badge of Katherine of Aragon) and instead of being depicted with a slit with seeds poking through to symbolise fertility, a Tudor rose is emerging. It was argued that this represented the birth of a new Tudor, which in 1516 was of course Mary.



The investigation into the manor house provides us with valuable insight into one of Mary’s early residences. The episode can be watched here:
Part 1 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSYJ69hZPsk
Part 2 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2mPHsdzp_kY&feature=related

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[1] Beaulieu is also known as Newhall, Essex.
[2] Sir William Boleyn (c.1451–1505) was Anne Boleyn’s paternal grandfather
[3] For a list of the properties Mary inherited from her father’s will (Beaulieu is given as ‘Newhall): http://www.flickr.com/photos/20631910@N03/2682859787/in/set-72157604065573545/
[4] Figures given in David Loades, Mary Tudor: A Life, p. 138.



References

Simon Thurley, The Royal Palaces of Tudor England: Architecture and Court Life, 1460-1547 (New Haven and London, 1993), pp. 44-5.

Anna Whitelock, Mary Tudor: England’s First Queen (London, 2009), pp. 56-7, 179.

Mary’s betrothal to Henri, duc d'Orléans, 1527

I thought it would be interesting to do some occasional posts on various images of or connected to Mary.

When most people think of Mary they frequently picture the notable portraits of her as queen – namely the wonderful Hans Eworth of Antonis Mor images. The very young Mary can often be overlooked, although admittedly we have few images of her as a preadolescent.


This image of Mary is from a marriage contract between herself and Henri, duc d'Orléans (second son of François I of France). Henri is depicted on the left and between himself and Mary is Hymenaeus, the God of marriage. The marriage contract was ratified on the 18th August 1527 and signified a peace treaty between Henry VIII and François. There had previously been discussion of a marriage between the widowed François and the eleven year old Mary, although it was decided that the eight year old Henri would be her prospective husband.


Mary had previously been betrothed to Henri’s elder brother, the dauphin of France (the heir to the French throne) although the match broke when Henry repudiated the peace treaty between England and France and betrothed Mary instead to the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V (who was Katherine of Aragon’s nephew, hence Mary’s first cousin). After Charles subsequently abandoned Mary to marry Isabella of Portugal, Henry turned back to France and the treaty of Amiens was made.


Accompanying this newfound friendship between France and England was the exchange of honours. François installed Henry as a knight of the Order of St Michael in November 1527 and in the same month Henry made the French king a knight of the Garter. The statutes of the Order of the Garter that was presented to François can be seen to the left. At the bottom there is a woman holding together the Tudor rose and the French fleurs-de-lis, indicating the unity between the two kings. She is Concord and it has been suggested that she is representing Princess Mary, whose marriage to the French prince would cement the treaty.



Ultimately Mary and Henri did not marry – talk of the marriage dissolved with the alliance and when Mary’s status was attacked by father’s decision to annul his first marriage. The year in which Henry VIII officially annulled his marriage to Katherine of Aragon and Mary was subsequently illegitimatised marked Henri’s marriage to Catherine de’Medici. Both Henri and Mary would go on to be monarchs – Henri became his father’s heir in 1536 and ruled as Henri II (1547-1559). Despite the peaceful tone of the treaty that once promised Mary and Henri to each other, the pair would ultimately engage in conflict and it was to Henri that Mary lost Calais.





References

Charles Giry-Deloison, ‘A Diplomatic Revolution? Anglo-French Relations and the Treaties of 1527’, in David Starkey (ed.), Henry VIII: A European Court in England (London, 1991), pp. 77-87.

David Starkey, 'The Order of the Garter and St Michael', in David Starkey (ed.), Henry VIII: A European Court in England (London, 1991), pp. 94-99.