A Queen Twice Over: Mary Tudor the Elder Marries Francis I of France

There’s more deaths? Please no more child deaths. My poor heart can’t take it! I just want all the little babies to be ok! Hell I even want charles and Mary to be ok!
 
You're all going to hate me for this chapter, so let's just get it out of the way, shall we?

Amboise, December 1524

It swiftly becomes apparent that little Mademoiselle Marie is nowhere near as strong and healthy as her older siblings.

She struggles to feed, often panting for breath between gulps of her wet nurse’s milk. As such, she soon loses her natal chubbiness, losing rather than gaining weight. This in itself is concerning enough, but adding to the worry is the blue-grey tinge to her skin whenever she rests, as though she isn’t quite breathing enough while she sleeps. And that’s all before one takes into account how her heart flutters palpably beneath her mother’s caring hand.

It is almost, Marie confesses to Lady Parr one night shortly before her confinement ends and her namesake daughter is taken to join the nursery at Amboise, when exhaustion brings down her walls, as though her youngest daughter has never stepped fully into the human realm, but instead kept one hand on the Virgin’s heavenly train.

Breaking with protocol, Lady Parr puts a gentle, consoling hand on Marie’s back between her shoulder blades.

“We’ll love her and serve her for as long as we’re given the privilege, Madam,” she promises, knowing the words aren’t enough – will never be enough – but not knowing what else she can say. She’s a governess, not a physician, and even the best doctors in the land, for all their skill, haven’t been able to discern the reason for little Marie’s frailty.

No one will actually say the words, particularly not in front of the doting mother, but anyone with half an eye can see that France’s youngest Lady isn’t long for this world.



It is a cold that fells her in the end. A simple cold.

Louise gets it first, whining and sniffling miserably every time one of her attendants tries to set her down. The rising four-year-old might be confident and lively, but illness always renders her hopelessly clingy.

From her, it passes to the boys, meaning Lady Parr and the other attendants are rushed off their feet caring for three snuffly children who hate being stuck in bed.

Kate and Margot, bless their hearts, are desperate to help. At twelve and eight respectively, they can see how overwhelmed the household is, and so, without being asked, they take the lion’s share of little Marie’s care upon themselves, rocking her and entertaining her for hours on end. They only call upon the nurses if Marie is demanding the breast and won’t be pacified without food.

Unfortunately, no one realises, that while Margot is showing no signs of illness, that doesn’t mean she isn’t carrying the disease.

She kisses baby Marie goodnight one evening, after having sung her to sleep. By the morning, Marie is coughing and spluttering. By the following day, she is fighting for her life.

Lady Parr does what she can, but it is soon clear she is fighting a losing battle.

She has the presence of mind to send for the Queen, and little Marie survives long enough for her mother to arrive, so that Marie is with them on the final night.

The two women sit either side of the cradle, listening to little Marie’s gasping, spluttering breaths fill the air between them. Each one grows fainter and more effortful than the last.

Tears pricking her eyelids, Marie reaches into the cradle, laying her hand gently on the tiny, straining chest.

“It’s all right, sweetheart,” she whispers, swallowing hard past the lump in her throat, “It’s all right. You can go. Go and meet your grandmother. Tell her I love her. Tell her I love you. I love you both.”

She leans down and kisses her daughter’s brow, letting her lips linger against the soft, peach-like skin.

“I love you,” she repeats, before beginning to croon an old Welsh ballad, one that was once a staple in the English royal nursery.

It is a long one, with five verses. Little Marie’s breath has ceased long before her mother stops singing. The last notes fade away into deathly silence.

Marie counts the seconds: ten… twenty... thirty…

The colour drains from her face. Lady Parr moves instinctively, but before she can reach Marie, the younger woman looks up and stills her in her tracks. Horror is written all over her face, but she doesn’t want to be comforted. Nothing is going to help, not now.

Not when she has just lost her baby daughter.
Like @FalconHonour, I too knew this was coming. It hurts to think on. #SuchMarie #MuchSad
 
Section LVIII - December 1524
Blois, December 1524

Blois is glittering in cream and silver in the December mists. The ornate Gothic building rises out of the snow, which lies thick on the ground, muffling the horses’ hooves almost as effectively as the sackcloth they’re wearing. Indeed, if it weren’t for the heavy bell tolling at the head of the procession, Mademoiselle Marie’s funeral cortege would enter Blois in complete silence.

Blois is an unusual choice for a Lady of France’s final resting place. Many expected her to be buried at Amboise, if she wasn’t taken to St Denis to lie with her ancestors.

But Marie has insisted upon Blois, digging her heels in when Francis wrote to suggest taking their daughter’s body to Paris.

Marie was born at Blois. It’s the only place I truly knew her, the only place I have any good memories of her. Please, mon amour, let me keep her close. Let me bury her where I knew her.”

In the end, Francis hasn’t the heart to refuse his grieving wife, and so he rides to Blois like the wind, and is there on the steps to greet the cortege, ready to help Marie prepare to say goodbye to the only child they have yet lost in infancy. Little Marie’s godfather, the Duke of Nemours, stands behind him, pale and composed.

Francis is just about to say something to him when Marie, swathed in white velvet with a miniver cloak over her shoulders to ward off the icy winter chill, appears in the palace gateway.

Seated high on her favourite chestnut palfrey, she looks utterly serene at first glance, at least to an outsider.

Francis, however, can see the devastation she is fighting to hide. He can see it in the set of her shoulders, in how tightly she, usually such a consummate horsewoman, is gripping her reins. He can see it in the curve of her mouth, in the way she is holding her eyes just a touch wider than they naturally go to stop the burning tears from falling.

He glances behind her to look at the heartbreakingly tiny bier, just once, and then he is across the courtyard, lifting her down into his arms.

Ma lionne,” he exhales into her hair, not knowing what else to say.

And Marie, his beautiful, spirited Marie, buries her face in his chest and lets the tears – tears she has held back for days – fall as he shields her from the crowd.



Mademoiselle Marie is laid to rest in the choir of the Chapel Royal, close to where her parents kneel for Mass every morning and every night.

Francis and Marie cannot, of course, attend the ceremony themselves, lest anyone connect the King to death, but the young Duchess of Brittany, her long fair hair spiling over the shoulders of her cream brocade gown, makes a fine chief mourner for her goddaughter, and the Bishop of Angouleme, chosen in honour of the King’s natal roots, delivers a moving eulogy, extolling the sweet nature with which Marie bore all the ill health she suffered in her short life.

No sooner has the funeral finished than Francis orders the royal stonemasons to set to work building Marie a beautiful marble monument. Her sleeping effigy lies on a bed of roses, two little angels holding her crown above her head. A dog curls at her feet to lend her company in the afterlife, and the plaque displaying her name and dates is supported by another pair of angels, these wearing crowns of oak leaves. A border of fleur-de-lys completes the tomb. It is the finest, most delicate commission the master masons have been given in years and they execute it flawlessly.

As Francis promises Marie when they first design the memorial together, no one who ever prays in Blois’s Chapel Royal again will doubt that Marie de Valois was precious, or that she was loved, for every single one of her 98 days on Earth.
 
Blois is a unique choice for a burial place for a Princess of France. It will no doubt be a tourist attraction in later years.
 
Lovely if bittersweet chapter.
Thank you. Bittersweet was what I was going for!
Awww so sweet and touching, I am glad that Francis is able to comfort poor Marie. Great chapter!
They adore each other, and little Marie's death has only brought them closer together. Doesn't mean Francis doesn't have his mistresses, but none of them, except perhaps Francoise de Foix in the VERY early days have ever even come CLOSE to being uncrowned Queens.
 
I know I am rather late with replying, but rereading that devastating chapter is requiring a surprising amount of tissues

Well written, and so bloody painful
 
I know I am rather late with replying, but rereading that devastating chapter is requiring a surprising amount of tissues

Well written, and so bloody painful
Oh dear. Sorry. I promise happier chapters are coming (I'm currently writing a chapter involving a joust and lots of various family interactions..)
 
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