On 25th June 1533, thirty-seven year-old Mary Tudor, sister of Henry VIII and wife of his friend Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, died at her home of Westhorpe Hall in Suffolk. She was survived by Suffolk, who was her second husband, and their children: Frances, Eleanor and Henry, although Henry died in March 1534. Suffolk remarried just three months later, marrying his ward, Katherine Willoughby, who had been betrothed to his son Henry.
It is not known what killed Mary and theories include angina, tuberculosis and cancer. She was buried first at the local abbey in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, but when the abbey was dissolved her remains were moved to St Mary’s Church, Bury St Edmunds. As Sarah Bryson points out in her article on Mary over at the Tudor Society, her funeral was befitting of her rank as dowager queen of France and sister of the king, and was a very lavish affair. Click here to read all the details.
What a lovely and beautiful funeral, worthy of a Queen. RIP Lovely Mary Rose Tudor, Queen of France, Duchess of Suffolk.
Mary Tudor is the only English princess at least since the Conquest to become Queen of France. Quite the diplomatic feat really. All those English Kings married to French princesses,
most of the marriages being disasters, but Henry Tudor and Wolsey managed to do what no else did.
Mary was every bit as formidable as her siblings. Had she borne Louis XII a son, imagine….
Tudors running things everywhere…..she was meant to be the only one of her siblings to marry for love successfully. Brandon’s quick remarriage is more indicative of the need for cash (the settlement that allowed the marriage virtually beggared Suffolk and Mary), with perhaps a dash of need for female consolation. Brandon was never a man to be alone for long, however he may have loved his wife.
Truly a remarkable Princess, Queen and Duchess.
She was very pretty with delicate features and she appears to have resembled her mother Elizabeth of York, her father having rather gaunt features, she was said to have been Henrys favourite sister and was very close to her sister in law Queen Katherine, she and Anne disliked each other and no one has ever known why but she deplored Henrys action in trying to replace his Queen with Anne so her animosity towards the latter can be explained, however why Anne disliked her is unknown maybe when her and Mary were in France she favoured her more as they were both in attendance on her, thirty seven is so young to die and yet Henry does not appear to have mourned her very deeply being in the throes of the divorce, now the only Tudor siblings remaining were Henry and Margaret in Scotland.
Mary was the only royal Person to be moved at the Dissolution of the Monasteries. Any other king/queen/prince/princesses’ remains were lost when the buildings were so ruthlessly destroyed. Henry must have loved her very much.