The Early Life of Bloody Mary

kurt reply by one of his courtiers. Mary was forbidden to even write to her mother, Catherine, who had obediently accepted exile at the hands of her husband, but who still refused to accept that their marriage had not been valid in the eyes of God. Young Mary, their teenage daughter, had been sent to live in the dreary palace of Hudson House in Hertfordshire, isolated her staff, and her connections

to the outside world slowly diminishing. Her mother, Catherine had been sent even further to a drearier, colder and lonelier place. They said her health was failing, and so while a letter inviting Mary back to court might have seemed promising a return to prominence for the young girl who had grown up as England's only princess, Mary was well aware that she was coming back only as an exercise in humiliation.

Even though the Pope had it dissolved Henry the Eighth's first marriage, Henry had broken from Rome and declared himself head of the Church of England. With that, he proclaimed that his marriage to Catherine had never been valid, and then he privately married the woman with whom he had

already been infatuated with for years, Anne Boleyn. The creation of the Church of England is one of the major seismic events of European history, with massive ramifications across the globe, but one of its first victims was the young teenage Mary Tudor. The princess was informed by her father's men that she was retroactively a bastard, that she was no longer Princess Mary, but Lady Mary. Mary was being summoned to Hatfield, not to reconcile with her father, but to

serve as a maid for her new infant half sister, Elizabeth. King. Henry believed that isolating and humiliating his former wife Katherine and their daughter Mary would be the way to get the proud Catholic women to renounce their positions. They were stones in his shoe, popular both domestically and with allies abroad, and they were guilty reminders that his gambit with Anne

Boleyn was becoming a desperate one. Mary Tudor would outlast Anne Boleyn and go on to become England's first female monarch in her own right, bar during the questionable claims of twelfth century Empress Matilda and the nine day attempted coup that crowned Jane Gray. The conflict between Mary's mother Catherine and Anne Boleyn, and the larger conflict in England between Catholicism and Protestantism would define not only Mary's teenage

years but also her brief reign as queen. Today she's most commonly known as Bloody Mary, but in her lifetime, Princess Mary Tudor was a girl whose life was torn out from under her. I'm Danish Schwartz and this is noble blood. Princess Mary was born in fifteen sixteen beneath the four poster bed with a golden canopy, on a day bed with red silk embroidered with the coats of arms for her father, King Henry the Eighth and her mother,

Queen Catherine of Arragon. Mary was christened with the name of Henry's favorite sister and The chapel was lushly decorated for her baptism with jewel incrusted tapestries. Mary was baptized Catholic and a fond used exclusively for royalty. Her birth was a source of joy, but it was also a source of tension and disappointment. She wasn't the son her

parents had so desperately been praying for. The couple had been trying for seven years to produce an heir, ever since Henry, then just eighteen years old, had chosen to marry the pretty Spanish princess Katherine, daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella.

Catherine had originally been married to Henry's older brother, Arthur the Boy, who was supposed to be king, but he was sickly and mere months after he and Katherine wedd Arthur was dead and Catherine was stranded in England, all but a prisoner of King Henry the Seven, who didn't want to return her generous dowry but also didn't want

to pay for her household. She was alone in a foreign country with no husband and no prospects until Henry the Seventh died and the young, dashing Henry the Eighth came in as her Knight in Shining Armor to marry her. She was twenty three. Because she had been married to Henry's older brother, this marriage required a special papal dispensation from Rome, which they received. Catherine swore before God and a court that her marriage with Arthur had never been consummated.

The people and Henry rejoiced they had a beautiful, patient, virtuous queen and a virile young king. Young Henry the Eighth had saved the Spanish dowry and the alliance with the important country. Within weeks of the wedding, Catherine was pregnant, but the months continued and no baby appeared. She had miscarried, though her belly had remained swollen with an infection, a constant mocking reminder of her own failure. Because, of course, in the sixteenth century, a woman unable to have a

child was considered her failure. The miscarriages continued, the cycle of breathless hope and then bitter disappointment. Finally, one bright New Year's Day, Catherine gave birth to a living child, a son. Henry rode out to a shrine, where he sank to his knees and gave thanks, and he began organizing a festival joust in honor of his new son, whom he of course named Henry. But their joy was

short lived. The infant lived for only three weeks, and so the pregnancy and birth of the future Princess Mary was an event of tremendous superstition and anxiety. The birthing room was transformed into a cocoon for the mother, the floor lined with carpet, the walls hung with tapestries, though no tapestries with any specific or literal imagery lest the mother be provoked into bad dreams. In the room, crucifixes, candlesticks, and relics were carefully placed on an altar for Catherine

to pray to. For the entire period leading up until the birth, no men were allowed into the chamber. Male servants bearing food or fresh laundry had to leave it at the door. The baby girl was born healthy, but she was born a girl. If Henry was disappointed, and of course he was disappointed, well, Henry hit it well. Already. The ambassadors were making snyde remarks about how we would have announced the sex of the infant already if it had been a boy. When one ambassador congratulated him on

the birth. Henry replied that he and Katherine were still young. If it be a daughter this time, God willing sons may follow. In the meantime, the young Princess Mary was spoiled and pampered. As an infant. She had a full household, a mistress ahead of staff, a wet nurse, a laundress just for her own clothing, and three rockers to soothe her. She had an everyday cradle and another cradle, a cradle of a state with an embossed canopy, and an ear mean quilt that Mary would be put in when she

was expect acting visitors. She was given a princely education, taught music and languages, a specialty curriculum that her mother had drawn up just for her. One of the most important figures in her young life, her godmother, the Countess of Salisbury, was assigned the role of her governess, and the two became so close that Mary came to see

her almost as a second mother. Salisbury was one of the most fascinating women of the era in her own right, a distinguished noblewoman, niece of King Edward the fourth and Richard the third, and one of only two women to be a Purist in England at the time, in her own right, without a titled husband, and the fifth richest peer in all of England. When Mary was a toddler, Henry would parade through court with her riding on his shoulders. He called her his pearl, and he frequently delighted in

inviting her to perform music for visiting dignitaries. This child never cries, Henry bragged to an ambassador. He knelt down and kissed the young Mary's extended hand. She was a pretty child, with red hair like her father, and talented in all of her lessons. In other words, she was incredibly valuable as a diplomatic pawn when it came to her future marriage. When Mary was two, she was engaged

to the Daufin of France, Francis. Only four years later she was engaged to her cousin, the Holy Roman Emperor Charles five, an alliance against the French. The relationship between England and the Holy Roman Empire was essential in Henry's

ambitions to reclaim his ancient birthright the French throne. Charles agreed that with marrying Mary, he would back an English force invading France, but the time finally came for an invasion, and the English troops were slowed both by bad weather and unexpectedly strong French resistance, and Charles the Fifth failed to initiate an offensive. Henry, disappointed and distrustful, considered breaking the betrothal and marrying Mary to some one else, maybe

James the fifth of Scotland. Those rumors reached Charles, who was equally skittish now about the future match. But Cardinal Wolseley, the King's adviser, quelled their anxieties. He had Young Mary sent her cousin in emerald ring as a sign of her devotion and love for young Mary. Those feelings weren't just courtly politeness. She was infatuated with her older Spanish cousin, her mother's nephew, a dashing boy in his twenties, who

wore black velvet and always treated her kindly. Looking at portraits of him now with a modern eye, you might not understand why she was so enthused. Charles has what is generously referred to as a habsburg chin, But Charles the Fifth shared the fondness for his young cousin. When he received the ring, he put it on his pinky finger and promised he would never take it off. But it was still years before Mary would be old enough

for marriage, and Charles was getting impatient. The lands he inherited were vast, and he wanted to get married sooner rather than later, so that he could set his wife up ruling Spain while he toured and consolidated his power elsewhere. Tantalizingly close was Isabella of Portugal, already of marrying age.

Rather than break up his engagement with Mary outright, Charles the Fifth insisted that Mary be handed over to him immediately so she could begin to learn Castilian and the habits of his court, so that when she did finally get her period, there would be no time wasted. Henry refused, and so the betrothal was broken. Almost immediately, Charles married Isabella of Portugal. Mary was heart broken, her first love no longer destined to become her husband. Her mother, Catherine

was heartbroken as well. The end of the betrothal meant the end of the Spanish Anglo alliance, a strong link between her homeland and her married home, But soon the loss of that engagement would be the least of their worries. Henry was nervous. The War of the Roses the devastating civil war between the Yorks and the Lancasters was still within living memory. Some still suggested that Henry's father, Henry

the seventh, was a usurper. Without an air and a clear line of succession, the country was at risk of descending once more into civil war. Someone with an older families than Henry's could easily swoop in and overpower the claim of a young girl. Though Henry treated Princess Mary as his heir, informally positioning her as the Princess of Wales, there was no indication that the country would accept a female ruler, at least not unanimously until he had a

legitimately born son. The tutor line was vulnerable. Henry was nervous, and he was nervous that he didn't have a son yet because he was being punished. In Leviticus, the Bible says, if a man marries his brother's wife, it is an act of impurity. He has dishonored his brother. They will be childless. He had married his brother's wife, hadn't he, And sure they weren't childless, but not having a son was as good as being child lost for a king.

There were rumors that Queen Catherine had stopped menstruating. It had been years even since a failed pregnancy, and a woman named Anne Boleyn had arrived at court, dazzling wit and a preternatural grace at the Chateau There Pageant, the new lady maid, just arrived from a childhood in French Court, played the part of perseverance in the evening's play, wearing a white satin gown. Henry's infatuation became an obsession. Anne

represented everything that Catherine wasn't. Flirtatious where she was pious, dark haired, where she was fair, young, where she was old. Anne represented the promise of a new dynasty of sons. Their flirtation became an open secret. Catherine turned a blind eye. Henry had had affairs before he had even borne a son, with a woman named Bessie Blunt. She didn't know how determined Henry was to make Anne the queen. Henry had sent his personal secretary to Rome to appeal to the

Pope for an annulment of his marriage to Catherine. To overthrow the ruling of the previous pope. Henry and Anne appeared together in public as a couple for the first time at the Greenwich Ball in May of fifty seven. Just twelve days later, Henry secretly met before a tribunal led by Cardinal Wolsey to discuss the religious problems with

a marriage to a dead brother's wife. Catherine had had no idea that the threat to her position had become so serious until Henry came to her chambers one evening and gave a rehearsed speech about how his conscience had been troubling him that he wanted their marriage annulled. She and Mary would be cared for, of course, not as queen and princess, but provided for Nonetheless, Henry didn't happen to mention his intention to marry Anne Boleyn, but he

didn't have to. Catherine, in her shock and fear, began to weep. Henry lost his nerve. He mumbled that everything was going to be done for the best, and he quickly told her to keep what he had said a secret. If Henry had been expecting Catherine to go quietly to live a dignified retirement in a position as the king's sister, he could not have been more wrong. Catherine was a deeply religious Catholic woman who had sworn that her marriage

with Arthur had never been consummated. She knew that her marriage with Henry was valid, and she didn't want her daughter married to become a mastard. If Henry wanted their marriage to end, it would take the Pope. Unfortunately for Henry, his appeals to the Pope were not going to make much progress thanks to the sacking of Rome, where the Imperial army had pillaged the city. Pope Clement the seventh was basically a prisoner of the Holy Roman Emperor, the

Holy Roman Emperor Charles, the Holy Roman Emperor. Catherine of Argan's nephew. Catherine wrote to her nephew, who immediately wrote to Henry in defense of the queen. Charles wrote that he couldn't believe quote that having as they have, so sweet a princess of their daughter, that the king would consent to have her or her mother dishonored a thing so monstrous of itself and holy without precedent in ancient or modern history. The pope was stuck between a rock

and a hard place. He didn't want to dis appoint Henry, and he couldn't disappoint Charles, and so his strategy was just to deflect and delay. So for the time being twelve year old Princess Mary. She was still Princess Mary for the time being. Henry and Catherine were living together at Court, an uneasy period of distrust and anger on Henry's part and growing fear on Catherine and Mary's. Catherine continued to hope that Henry's feelings for Anne Boleyn would

fade in fight. When the sweating sickness broke out in London, Court was dispersed to protect themselves. Anne left the city to the seclusion of the Bowlin residents at Heaver Castle, but the sickness caught her. Princess Mary was nearly as religious as her mother, but I think the young girl could be forgiven if she had ill thoughts towards Anne's recovery. Anne was the other woman, threatening not just her parents marriage,

but the very shape of her own life. Unfortunately for Mary, Henry sent his own personal physician to Hubert to take care of band, and she recovered. The Pope had punted the issue of Henry's marriage back to England, and so in fifteen twenty nine, the first public trial of the King's marriage to Catherine of Aragon was held in the Parliament chambers of the Dominican Friary at Blackfriars in London.

Though Henry sent proxies, Catherine surprisingly arrived in person. She appealed, protesting that the trial was happening at all, saying that as a foreigner she couldn't expect a fair trial in England. The court adjourned, and when they reconvened the next week,

the King was present in person too. He argued that Catherine expecting their case to be settled in Rome was unreasonable as well, considering the whole her nephew holding the pope hostage thing, but that she would definitely get a fair trial and that she could choose her lawyers the best lawyers whoever she wanted. At this Catherine came over to her husband and knelt at his feet. She begged him in broken English to consider the honor of her,

her daughter, of him, and of her family abroad. At several times during her impassioned speech, Henry, visibly uncomfortable, tried to get her to rise. She didn't. She set her peace, and then, without waiting for reply, stood and left the court room. The legate upon whom the decision rested, Campeggio, said that he couldn't make a decision, and that the court would continue up again in a few months. It

never did. Meanwhile, Mary found that her father was dodging her, becoming more reluctant to see her, not inviting her to the events that she used to attend. Her father, who had once adored and praised and cherished her, now ignored her all at the behest of the paranoid Anne Boleyn, who believed that if Princess Mary was alone with her father, she might turn him against her. Mary was sent away

from court to Richmond without her mother. King Henry. Separating Mary and her mother Catherine was a strategic move, intending to make them unhappy and docile, hoping that then they would agree to his terms, agreeing that the marriage was illegitimate, then they would be able to see each other again. Henry demanded that Catherine choose between his company and that of their daughters, implying that if she left court to

visit Mary, she wouldn't be allowed back. Catherine replied, saying, I won't leave you for my daughter, nor for anyone else in the world, breaking her own heart, her loyalty to Henry, and her self sacrifice would ultimately be for nothing. Mary would never see her mother again. From fifty one, Mary became frequently sick to her stomach, sweating and pale, her cramps so bad she could sometimes scarcely leave the bed.

Historians aren't sure if they were symptoms of her regular menstruation, or of the stress or depression at being kept from both of her parents, the stress of her entire life being pulled out from under her, maybe all of the above. The girl, who was the only legitimate child of the King of England was living in a distant palace and then given word that she was being sent to an even further palace, one with a dampness that even her loyal servants and the fires they let couldn't keep out.

Though Mary was of marriageable age, there were no more talks of prospects for her betrothal. Her only company was her ladies and her Governess Salisbury, but her staff was slowly disappearing. Henry was attempting to starve his daughter out. Queen Catherine was similarly isolated, sent to her own distant palace,

and forbidden from contacting the King in any way. When she tried to send him a gold cup, Henry scolded the servant who presented it to him, and the cup was sent back for the first time in their lifetimes. Henry didn't send Mary or Catherine presents for the New Year's and he insisted that his counsel do the same. Anne, on the other hand, was gifted a room of gold

and silver cloth and crimson satin beautifully embroidered. She was living in the rooms that the queen used to occupy, and accompanied by as many ladies as if she were already the Queen. While Mary and Catherine were still isolated, stranded in the countryside with fewer and fewer servants and no kindness, Henry declared himself head of the Church of England and he married Anne Boleyn. Workmen removed Catherine of

Arragon's arms from Westminster and from the royal barge. Catherine's new title was Dowager Princess of Wales, the titles she had only from being married to Henry's older brother, and Catherine was kept under house arrest at Buckton Palace. The rumors came to Mary about her father's remarriage, her mother's banishment and then subsequently diminishing health. Mary wasn't allowed to even write letters to her mother, not even simple letters,

just to ask about how she was feeling. She begged her father, saying that he could have someone vet the letters just to make sure that she was only asking about Catherine's health, or the King could himself read all of their correspondence. Just please please let her contact her mother. Henry refused. Anne Boleyn, the new Queen of England, openly bragged that she would have the former Princess Mary serving as her lady's maid, or that she would marry marry

off to some common varlet. Her stereotypical evil stepmother. Cruelty came from a place of fear. She knew that Catherine and Mary both remained popular throughout England. People had hissed at Anne's barge when it came down the Thames. Catherine and Mary were still the Queen and princess in the people's minds, and Mary still being eligible for prominent marriage

made her a threat. Anne Boleyn was pregnant immediately, but in September she gave birth not to the long promised son that Henry had up ended all of Christendom for, but to a daughter. Courtiers and ambassadors loyal to Catherine and Mary murmured that it was God's punishment, but it was still a legitimate child. Henry was married to Anne. Now she was queen and her children were the ones in line for the throne. Mary was swiftly demoted, told that she was no longer Princess Mary but Lady Mary.

Her household was dissolved, and her loyal companion, the Countess of Salisbury, Margaret Pole, was dismissed. Even as the Countess begged to stay on, stating that she would pay for the household and all expenses, she was refused. Henry couldn't risk eating Mary as a princess any longer. There must be no appearances that indicated that Henry's marriage to Catherine was or ever had been valid. All loyalty to Mary

and Catherine needed to be quashed. Symbolism would be effective, particularly having the new quote Lady Mary serve as Princess

Elizabeth's lady maid. When Mary was informed that she was no longer a princess by an apologetic courtier, Mary wrote to her father, quote, this morning, my chamberlain came and showed me that he had received a letter from Sir William paula comptroller of your household, wherein it was written that the quote Lady Mary, the King's daughter, should remove to the place afort said, leaving out the name of Princess, which when I heard, I could not a little marvel,

trusting verily that your race was not privy to the same letter as concerning the leaving out of the name of princess for us so much I doubt not in your goodness, but that your grace doth take me for his lawful daughter born in true matrimony. Wherefore, if I were to say to the contrary, I should, in my conscience run to the displeasure of God, which I hope

assuredly your grace would not that I should. And in all other things your grace should have me always as humble and obedient daughter and handmaid, as ever was child to the father. Mary signed the letter your most humble daughter, Mary Comma Princess. Was it bravery, stubbornness, pride self preservation? Surely she had to know that she would be treated with more kindness and mercy if she just accepted the King's decision and a agreed to live happily as his

bastard daughter. But she couldn't. Her love for her mother was greater than her fear, her dignity greater than her vanity. The King didn't write back personally, but she received a

letter from court. The King is surprised to be informed, both by Lord Hughcy's letter and by his daughter's own, delivered by one of her servants, that she, forgetting her filial duty and allegiance, attempts, in spite of the commandment given to her, arrogantly to usurp the title of princess, pretending to be heir apparent, declaring that she cannot in conscious think that she is but the King's lawful daughter, born in true matrimony, and believes that the King and

his conscious thinks the same. The rebuke was sharp. In December thirty three, Mary was forced to join Princess Elizabeth's household. It had field. Mary refused to denounce her own status or give in to her father's demands, and she wasn't allowed to see or speak to her mother, even via messenger, Even as rumors of Catherine's deteriorating health continued to swirl.

Catherine was clearly ill. Some said that she was dying of heartbreak, but some said that the King or his men were poisoning Catherine to get her out of the way. Catherine died in January of fifteen thirty six. Mary never got to say goodbye to her mother. Just four months later, Anne Boleyn was beheaded. Their downfalls had coincided in the end. Two weeks after Anne Boleyn's death, Mary had a new stepmom, Jane Seymour, who helped foster a reconciliation between Mary and

her father. At the urging of Mary's longtime ally, her cousin, Charles five, Mary eventually signed documents agreeing to the King's terms and her new position at court. From that point on, at least, she was given her own household and her own expenditures. It would remain a long journey for Mary

until she became queen in her own right. Her loyalty to her mother, her fervent dedication to Catholicism, they were the keys to protecting her title, but in the end they might also have been the factors that contributed to her downfall. Mary's younger half sister would also become queen, of course, the future Elizabeth, the first. The two of them, Mary and Elizabeth would be in their lifetimes both allies and enemies, but that's a story for a later episode.

That was the story of young Princess Mary Tutor. But keep listening after a brief sponsor break to hear a little bit more about one of the main side characters in this story. It's at this point in the show that I usually offer a tidbit about where the story went from there. But I'm so fascinated about Mary's life, and there's so much to say about her after she became queen that I'm going to give her rein its

own entire episode. But do you remember Mary's beloved governess, the wealthy Countess Salisbury, Margaret Pole, Well, she had her own wild story that could have merited its own episode. After King Henry's death during the reign of his son Edward the sixth, Salisbury gets implicated in a plot of Catholic loyalty orchestrated by one of her sons. She's locked in the Tower of London and eventually beheaded. Famously, Henry the Ape had fired a French swordsman to expertly remove

Anne Boleyn's head. The Countess of Salisbury, Margaret Pole, was offered no such grace. She was given an inexperienced axemen who required so many thrusts to cut through Salisbury spine that her neck and shoulders were hacked to pieces before she was dead. Sorry to leave you on such a gruesome bummer of a note, but this is, after all, a podcast called Noble Blood. Noble Blood is a production of I Heart Radio and Grimm and Mild from Aaron Minky.

The show was written and hosted by Dana Schwartz and produced by Aaron Mankey, Matt Frederick, Alex Williams, and Trevor Young. Noble Blood is on social media at Noble Blood Tales, and you can learn more about the show over at Noble blood tails dot com. For more podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit at the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. M M