A NYONE who writes the life of Mary Tudor, daughter of Henry VII., must owe a debt of gratitude to Mrs Everett Green, who first drove a wedge through the mass of documents dealing with the subject. Since that date, however, new evidence has come to light and fresh readings of mutilated documents have been possible. Here and there a detail has been verified, nothing in itself, but when fitted in suggesting a new meaning to the whole; for this romantic history, dealing as it does with personal det

T O write the full life of Mary Tudor, second daughter of Henry VII., is to attempt the impossible, for the term usually implies a consecutive story from the gate of birth to that of death. We do know now the dates written over both these gates, but while her early days are shrouded by lack of information, her later years are equally indistinct. For less than a couple of years Mary Tudor lives and moves before us, and only this watch and vision is clear. From October 1514 to May 1516 she reveals

H ENRY VII. on his death-bed saw clearly that his policy of thwarting Ferdinand and seizing the government of Castile in favour of his son-in-law was not one which could be followed out by an inexperienced prince, and much as he distrusted Aragon, he knew it would be better that his son should have him for a friend at the outset than be entangled at once in his rancorous schemes. The prince must buy his own experience, and Henry's advice to him was to marry Katharine with all convenient speed, f

T HE musters of the mercenaries had been fixed for Dunkirk on May 20, and the captain of the vanguard, the Earl of Shrewsbury, was to be at Calais on the 16th,  [133] but, as is so often the case, paper plans drawn by able clerks did not develop rapidly into accomplished facts, and by the 19th nothing was ready.  [134] What a muddle it all reads, and the marvel is that any men were ever shipped at all! First all the shipping had to be pressed or borrowed, and the hoys had to be hired in the Low

H ENRY had arranged with Margaret that the marriage of Mary and the Prince should take place at Calais in six months' time, on May 15, and for that purpose he began making arrangements on his usual splendid scale on his return from Flanders. What Mary had been doing during the months of her brother's absence can only be conjectured. Probably she had been busy like Queen Katharine, sewing banners and ensigns for the army to be sent against the Scots. She did not accompany her sister-in-law when s

T HOUGH Louis de Longueville has always had the credit of arranging the match between the Princess Mary and Louis XII. of France, there was another who claimed openly the initiation of the idea. Margaret of Savoy said that the Pope had been to her knowledge the promoter of the whole business,  [256] and Leo X. claimed  [257] that he had been the first to propose it to France and England. It had been discussed secretly in Rome by the Bishop of Marseilles and the Bishop of Worcester, who met frequ

M ARY'S lodging is said to have been "at the corner of the street leading from the Castle of Ponthieu to the rue St Giles," and this, according to "Le Roi des Ribauds," was connected by a temporary gallery with the Hotel Gruthuse,  [312] the King's house, from which it was distanced a short stone's throw. But the gardens adjoined, and it was by this way,  [313] the morning being fine, that the marriage procession passed about eight o'clock on Monday, October 9, for the wedding was to take place

O N Monday, September 28, before the marriage, Montjoye, the French Herald, had carried the French challenge to England, and the jousts had been proclaimed at Canterbury by the Garter King at Arms. The date now had been definitely fixed for November 13, and nothing else was talked of in Paris, while the Dauphin was and had been so busy with the arrangements that he had not attended any councils, nor taken part in any of the deliberations with the English ambassadors.  [341] The Earl of Dorset ha

T RADITION says that Mary fainted on being told of the death of her husband, and in spite of the covert sneers of his countrymen, the thing is not impossible, for her situation, difficult as it had been, became now a hundred times more so, and for the moment she might easily fall under its weight. For the moment there were ceremonies to be gone through, and the King had to be carried away from the palace to the melancholy sound of the tinkling "campanes" and cries of "le bon roi Louis, père du p

T HE commission of the Duke of Suffolk, Sir Richard Wingfield, and Dr West was for the renewing of the peace with France which had been concluded with Louis XII. for the lives of the two Kings and one year after, and for the settling of the Dowager-Queen's affairs and the conveying of her out of the realm. "They were to demand restitution as well of such jewels, precious stones, plate, apparel and other things that her Grace brought with her, as also of the charge of her traduction, which the Fr

T HEY turned to the question of money. Henry had already, at the instance of his Council perhaps, told Suffolk that he was not quite content with his handling of the dower question, and wrote to him about the end of February that had he done his devoir, or would do his devoir, the Queen would obtain all her stuff and jewels. Suffolk replied, "as touching that, and if I have not done the best therein and will do the best therein, never be good lord to me, and that I report [ i.e. refer] me to my

S O far as consecutive dated documents go, Mary's history comes to an end with her open marriage, for this last chapter is largely made up of odds and ends of information, undated letters, dated scraps, as tantalizing in their laconic information as the fuller undated letters in their vagueness. When possible from internal evidence, the letters have been dated, but generally this is not so, and they are chiefly valuable as accentuating that pleasant trait in Mary's character, already noticed in

I. Papers relating to the preparations for the marriage of Princess Mary to the Prince of Castile at Calais in May 1514. i [Cotton MSS. Vitellius, xi. 150.] The margins are burnt. For the transporting of Lady Mary, princesse of Castell. First it may please the King's grace to name some honorable aged person to be her chamberlayne for the tyme. And he to devise for thapparell of her chamber and for officers of the same. Item to Appoint some sadde personne to be tresourer of her chamber for the ty

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