Mary Tudor Read Online Free PDF

if he thought fit, by his last will and testament, but in spite of this, it was as complete a statement of ‘constitutional’ engineering as could well be imagined. It was determined neither by legitimacy, nor by hereditary right, but by the will of Parliament. Despite being named as heirs to the throne, neither Mary nor Elizabeth was legitimated, and Frances Grey was preferred to Mary Stuart. Chapuys did not know what to make of this. In a sense it gave the Emperor what he wanted – Mary was now in the order of succession – but it had been done in a fashion that he simply could not comprehend; and in any case a statute could always be repealed. Furthermore, Henry’s preoccupation with Boulogne cost him the Emperor’s good will, and almost as soon as the town was taken Charles made a separate peace with France at Crespy, leaving Henry to defend his conquest as best he could. [96] The war continued for another eighteen months – but that is not really part of this story.

    1. Mary from a group portrait of Henry VIII and his family, painted in about 1545. The female figure in the background is supposed to be her jester, Jane the Fool.
     

    2. Princess Elizabeth from the same family group, aged about ten. The figure in the background is supposed to be Henry’s jester, Will Somers.
     

    3. Princess Elizabeth at about the time of her father’s death, aged twelve. By an unknown artist, in the Royal Collection.
     

    4. Edward VI from the same family group as illustrations 1 and 2.
     

    5. Holbein’s design for a jewelled pendant for Mary, probably executed during his first visit to England in 1527–8, when Mary was still the king’s heir.
     

    6. Margaret Tudor, Mary’s aunt. She married James IV of Scotland, and after his death at Flodden in 1513, remarried Archibald, Earl of Angus. She was the grandmother of Mary, Queen of Scots. From a drawing by an unknown artist.
     

    7. Lady Jane Dudley (Grey). Put up by Edward as an alternative to Mary for the succession, she was defeated in July 1553, and executed after the Wyatt rising in February 1554, at the age of seventeen.
     

    8. Edward’s ‘Device’ for the succession, naming Jane Grey as his heir. The document is in the king’s hand throughout, except for the amendments, which make all the difference to its meaning.
     

    9. A page from Edward VI’s journal, for 18 March 1551, in which he refers to Mary and his dispute with her over the mass.
     

    10. A later pastiche of Henry VIII and Mary, based on portraits by Holbein and Hans Eworth. The figure in the background is again Will Somers.
     

    11. Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury, in 1546. A painting by Gerhard Flicke in the National Portrait Gallery.
     

    12. Mary at the age of twenty-eight (in 1543), by the sergeant painter known as ‘Master John’. In the National Portrait Gallery.
     

    13. Thomas Wolsey, Cardinal Archbishop of York and Lord Chancellor. A drawing by Jacques le Boucq in the Bibilotheque d’Arras.
     

    14. Stephen Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester and Mary’s Lord Chancellor, by an unknown artist.
     

    15. John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, by Hans Holbein. A fierce defender of Catherine’s marriage and of Mary’s legitimacy, he was executed by the king for treason in 1535.
     

    16. A cartoon of Thomas More and his family, executed in 1527–8. A painting based on this cartoon was made by Rowland Lockey in 1593, and is now in the National Portrait Gallery.
     

    17. An allegorical representation of the betrothal of Mary to the Duke of Orléans, the second son of Francis I of France, in 1527.
     

    18. Third Succession Act (35 Henry VIII, c . 1), 1544. This was the act which designated Mary and Elizabeth to follow Edward if he should die without heirs, and broke new ground in that it authorised the succession of illegitimate children.
     

    19. A nineteenth-century representation of Mary entering London on 3 August 1553, having successfully overcome the challenge of Jane