Young Mary Tudor, Future Queen of England

Young Mary Tudor, Future Queen of England

In the early hours of 18th February 1516, Henry VIII’s first wife Katharine of Aragon, gave birth to a healthy baby girl at the Palace of Placentia, Greenwich.

They called her Mary.

It was Katharine’s fifth pregnancy –
She had given birth prematurely to a stillborn daughter in 1510.
A son, died when he was just fifty-two days old, in January 1511.
A boy, either stillborn or lived for just a few days in 1513.
Another boy, stillborn in 1514.

The pregnancy losses had already started to take a toll on the royal marriage, though pregnancy loss and infant death were certainly not uncommon in the Tudor period.

Henry told the Venetian ambassador, that he and Katharine were both still young and that –

“if it was a daughter this time, by the grace of God the sons will follow.”

Mary would be baptised into the Catholic faith a few days later at the Church of the Observant Friars, while Katharine recovered from the birth.

Mary was placed in the care of a wet nurse, Katherine Pole, who nursed Mary for the first two years of her life.

Princess Mary had four cradle-rockers and a laundress to tend to her clothing personally.

Mary was a pretty and precocious child, Henry doted on his precious Daughter, and during her childhood, they had a very close relationship.

Katharine made sure Mary received a good education.
At only four and a half years old, she entertained a visiting French delegation, with a performance on the Virginals.

By the age of nine, Mary could read and write Latin.
She studied French, Spanish, music, dance, and Greek.

Mary had a fair complexion with pale blue eyes and reddish-golden hair.
She was rosy-cheeked – a trait she inherited from her father.

Despite his affection for Mary, Henry was deeply disappointed that his marriage to her mother had produced no living sons.

While Mary’s every need was seen to, Katharine and Henry would continue to attempt to grow their royal family, with hopes of their long-awaited son.

By the time Mary was nine years old, it was apparent that Henry and Katharine would have no more children ~ leaving Henry without a legitimate male heir.

As Henry started to look elsewhere to sire an heir, Mary’s charmed life began to unravel.
It was the beginning of the end of Mary’s life as she knew it……

🥀 Portrait of Mary Tudor, by a unidentified artist from the Netherlands.