Charles Brandon and Mary Tudor

On this day in 1515, Charles Brandon and Mary Tudor were married at Greenwich Palace and so what better day than today, to share with you a guest post about the couple, written by Katherine Marcella.

Happy 498th wedding anniversary Charles and Mary!

Charles Brandon and Mary Tudor

 An Interlude

By Katherine Marcella

Summers for Henry VIII were leisurely.  The large palaces along the Thames were closed, and the courtiers released to their manors to conduct their own business rather than the King’s. For Henry it was the season for progresses to the country where he enjoyed being wined and dined at manors along the way, engaged in meet-and-greets with the local gentry, and allowed the working people to gape at him from their labors in the fields as he rode by.  Most important of all as far as he was concerned, he could spend long days in the saddle hunting the local game.

The summer of 1514 played out differently when politics kept him close to London.

In March of that year two men Henry considered allies, Ferdinand of Spain and the Emperor Maximilian, signed a truce with Louis XII of France behind Henry’s back.  Shifting alliances were the norm in Europe, but Henry was humiliated and vowed to get even. He put his chief adviser, Thomas Wolsey, in charge of the matter. Wolsey set to work crafting a new treaty between England and France, dangling the possibility of marriage to Henry’s beautiful sister Mary as an enticement to the recently widowed Louis.

Portrait of Mary Tudor and Charles Brandon attributed to Jan Mabuse

Unfortunately for Wolsey, he also had to negotiate with Mary.  Betrothed since 1507 to Charles of Austria, the grandson and heir to both to both Ferdinand and Maximilian, Mary had no interest in marrying either him or Louis.  She had fallen in love with Charles Brandon, the Duke of Suffolk, and refused to settle for anyone else. Mary eventually gave in after securing a promise that if she married Louis, after he died, she could marry as she liked. ??The negotiations with all parties were finally concluded, and the ceremonies commenced with Mary’s renunciation of her betrothal.  As Charles of Austria was still a minor, this was a simple matter.  Mary had only to sign an official renunciation of the contract, have it witnessed, and send it off to the church authorities.  This she did in front of various church officials and nobility at Wanstead on July 30, 1514.

But was that all there was to it?

I had read the above story many times in many different Tudor histories, and something about it always bothered me. Eventually I realized the location seemed odd. Wanstead was a royal manor located 30 miles north of Greenwich in Epping Forest.  It was too small for any gathering of the court, but a good size and perfectly situated for hunting parties, and Henry went there often on short trips. Had he, thwarted of his usual summer amusements, taken the opportunity to get in some hunting and forced all the clerical and noble witnesses to come to him there? ??Henry’s movements are well-documented.  After May Day celebrations and some leisure time at Greenwich, he moved to the Bishop’s Palace near St. Paul’s to oversee Wolsey’s consecration as a Cardinal.  He appears to have stayed in London until moving back to Greenwich and from there about 10 miles further down river to Erith in mid-June for the launch of a new ship, the Henry Grace à Dieu. At some point after that, he moved 3 miles south-west of Greenwich to Eltham Palace, where he remained until he turns up in Wanstead on July 31. ¹ ??It seems very unlikely that all the dignitaries had gathered at Eltham only to travel 30 miles for a short ceremony and immediately travel back to Eltham and then to London.  So why was the ceremony at Wanstead?  The only logical answer is because that’s where Mary was.

After the ship launch in June, Mary falls off the radar. She would be expected to be in London.  Though she might not have known exactly who she was going to marry at that point, she knew there was almost certainly to be a wedding and she would have been getting dresses fitted for that wedding.  And a wedding called for seamstresses and all the luxurious fabrics from the international traders and local merchants available only in London. But there is no evidence she was in London or at Eltham at that time. If she was at Wanstead, what was she doing there? Mary wasn’t known to have a particular interest in hunting.  If she had, she could have just stayed at Eltham and gone hunting in Greenwich Park.  Could there have been a different enticement at Wanstead?  I checked into the location a bit further and found when Henry had inherited it from his father he spent a fair amount of money on its refurbishment, even setting up a sinecure as Keeper of Wanstead to oversee the work.  And in 1514 who was the Keeper of Wanstead?  Charles Brandon, the Duke of Suffolk!

As a newly-minted Duke, Charles could have been expected to be traveling around Suffolk inspecting his newly-acquired property, but there’s no evidence that he was there or with Henry at Eltham.  But he does turn up as one of the witnesses for Mary’s betrothal renouncement ², so he was definitely in that vicinity that July. The evidence that Charles and Mary were together at Wanstead is suggestive rather than conclusive. But I like to think that in the midst of all the politics and intrigue swirling around them, they were able to get away alone together to make their own plans for the future.

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¹ Some historians believe he was at Wanstead on the 30th for the ceremony, but the entry in the Letters and Papers of Henry VIII for July 30 (below) make it appear he wasn’t there then.  In any case he was definitely not at Wanstead before the 30th.

² The full entry from Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, of the Reign of Henry VIII, 30 July 1514:

“Public instrument, notifying that on 30th July 1514, in the

royal manor of Wanstead, and in the presence of Thomas duke of

Norfolk, Charles duke of Suffolk, Thomas bp. of London postulate

of York, Richard bp. of Winchester, Thomas bp. of Durham, Charles

earl of Worcester, and Sir Ralph Vernay, the Princess Mary solemly

renounced her compact of marriage with Charles prince of Spain, and

requested the above to intimate the same to the King her brother,

Attested by Rob. Toneys and William Edwards, clk of the diocese of

Hereford”