Tudor Marriage: Scandal - Charles Brandon and Mary Tudor

Henry VIII was not the only one to make up his own rules when it came to marriage. His sister, Mary, infuriated him when she demonstrated that she, too, would wed where she found love and desire rather than where she was told her duty lie.

Like many princesses before her, Mary Tudor was pledged to marry for the purposes of international relations and treaty arrangements. She was eighteen to her husband’s fifty-two, but that mattered little in these types of arrangements. Her brief marriage to Louis XII left her with the title “The French Queen” for as long as she lived, though she was married to her second husband for much more of her life.

King Henry’s closest friend was Charles Brandon. The two had grown up together after Brandon’s father died defending Henry’s at the Battle of Bosworth where the Tudor dynasty was born. They habitually enjoyed the same sports and activities and were known to joust in matching armor. Despite this close connection, Brandon could not have anticipated the wrath of his king when he dared to marry Henry’s sister.

Mary Tudor and Charles Brandon

Brandon was no stranger to marriage scandal, though Henry had not created any of his own at that time. Seven years older than his king, Brandon had revealed his ambitions and willingness to use and dispose of women in his treatment of his first wife, Anne Browne. Attempting to annul their marriage and marry the girl’s affluent aunt, Brandon was forced to accept Anne after she birthed him a daughter and people refused to accept the so-called annulment. However, Anne died in 1512, and Brandon betrothed himself to his eight-year-old ward, Elizabeth Grey.

While he waited for her to be old enough for marriage, Brandon flirted with other women and marriage plans, including an embarrassing incident with Margaret of the Netherlands. She would not think of accepting the upstart’s hand, but things were still looking up for Brandon. In 1514, he was given the illustrious title of Duke of Suffolk, and the king’s beautiful younger sister was in love with him.

Henry knew of the feelings that his sister and best friend had for one another, but he trusted both to respect and honor his command that they marry elsewhere. Initially, Mary did. She made the best of her betrothal to the aged King of France, despite her own wishes, but the marriage lasted less than three months. Brandon was sent to retrieve Mary from France when her elderly husband died, supposedly from too much physical activity in bed with his frisky teenage bride. One might wonder if Henry was purposefully testing his friend and sister, putting them in this position. If he was, they failed the test. When they next presented themselves to Henry, it was as man and wife after a private ceremony in France.

Already contemplating where Mary could next be wed to give Henry the greatest advantage, he was furious to see her wasted on Brandon, regardless of how much he treasured the friendship. The new French king, Francios, had also suggested new matches to Mary after her enforced seclusion of forty days to ensure that she was not with child by the late king. However, she was able to gain the French king’s sympathy and support for her marriage to Brandon and hoped that she would be able to do the same with her brother. Mary reminded Henry that he had promised that she could choose her next husband if she went along with the French match, but, of course, Henry had only said that to make her submissive. He had never expected her to act upon it, and so quickly!

The couple was sent away from court and fined heavily, but Henry eventually relented. The marriage between Mary Tudor and Charles Brandon would provide the fuel for future Tudor scandals. Their daughter, Frances, would become the mother of England’s “nine day queen” Lady Jane Grey. Her sisters did not fare much better.

All of that was far in the future though, in 1515, when the spirited Tudor princess got to marry the man she loved. Some members of the king’s council, who already thought that Brandon wielded too much power over the king, lobbied for Brandon’s execution since marrying the princess without royal consent amounted to treason. However, as angry as Henry was, he loved Charles and Mary and eventually forgave them.

It was not until a decade later when Henry pursued an annulment of his marriage to Katherine of Aragon that his relationship with his sister soured. Mary did not support her brother’s setting aside of his formerly beloved wife. This may be in part due to her deep dislike of Anne Boleyn, the woman queued up as the queen’s replacement. Even then, Henry did not punish Mary the way he did others. Even those close to him, such as Thomas Moore, paid the ultimate price for disagreeing with the king. From his sister, Henry tolerated what he would not from any other quarter. While Henry pursued divorce from Katherine and a new marriage to Anne, Mary had little to say about it. Her own health was failing, and she kept to her private estates.

Mary did not survive to witness the full drama of her brother’s quest for a son. She could not have foreseen that it would be her own children eventually named in his will, second only to his own three children who each were born of a different mother. Besides Frances, who would become the couple’s most famous offspring, Mary bore two sons and another daughter for Charles. The boys, both named Henry, died young. Eleanor, went on to marry Henry Clifford. When Mary died in 1533, her husband married his fourteen-year-old ward, Catherine Willoughby, who was betrothed to his son, again proving that barriers to marriage meant little to Charles Brandon.


Don't miss the rest of the Tudor Marriage Blog Series!

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Additional Reading:

De Lisle, Leanda. Tudor: Passion. Manipulation. Murder. The Story of England’s Most Notorious Royal Family. New York: PublicAffairs, 2013.