True...except Henry hedging his bets makes it seem as though he wasn't confident in Anne's fertility (as he shouldn't have been but he didn't know that yet), so WHY would he do that? Might as well keep her legitimate. "Anne can produce sons anyway so it doesn't matter"
Why was Queen Mary I declared illegitimate?
- Thread starter Irrisa
- Start date
Personally, I think it was Henry or Anne, being personally vindictive as well. Do not forget, Anne had Mary as a Lady in Waiting to Elizabeth.
True, being vindictive makes sense since they hated Katherine for not stepping aside quietly.
But I think Mary as lady in waiting to Elizabeth, and Elizabeth not mysteriously dying, is great sign of Mary's kindness because she had good reason to discreetly smother the baby in her sleep...
He wore yellow, which was not actually considered Spanish mourning from what can see, but I can be wrong - what's your source for this?
Not without being beheaded herself as she would have been surrounded with wet nurses and other people. Plus not killing your little sister isn't proof of kindness. Its proof of being a some what alright human being
When your little sister is the reason of a) your mother being exiled to a cold, damp castle that hastened her death by cancer, b) your own demotion from princess to servant, c) the hostility of your step-mother...also she would not always be surrounded by other people...
Few points:
Mary's legitimacy - was not in question at the start of her father's attempts to get out of his marriage to Catherine. Had his request for an annulment been granted it would almost certainly have preserved her legitimacy (though it would be open to question in future which naturally concerned her mother).
Catherine's primary reason for arguing her marriage was valid was that she was a devout woman who believed it to be so in the eyes of God. She probably believed it would imperil her soul to accept Henry's arguments and it cost her everything including her daughter's legitimacy. It is for that reason that when offered an easy way out such as embracing a religious life (freeing Henry to remarry) she consistently refused.
Given she fought and ultimately Henry had to move to get his marriage dissolved in England without Rome's approval Mary became a key concern. Catherine and Mary's refusal to accept the end of the marriage, Mary's illegitimacy and Anne and Henry's marriage, simply hardened Henry's attitude.
Mary (legitimate or not) posed a significant risk to Henry and Anne and any children they might have - she was the cousin of the Emperor, nearly of marriage age and had a lot of supporters at court and in the country at large - more than enough to mount a claim to the throne in the event of Henry's early death it is worth remembering he was in his 40s by this period and every chance he could die before any of his children with Anne were of age.
All the treatment of her at this point was about emphasising her status as the King's illegitimate daughter and not a claimant to the throne, and also about the King's attempts to discipline in his view an unruly and disobedient child - certainly he and Anne could have been kinder, but Mary wasn't just a child she was a symbol of continuing opposition to Anne and a recalcitrant one at that.
The nursemaid idea is a myth - rather similar to the suggestion that Catherine was reduced to absolute penury - Henry took action to reduce their households to ones appropriate for their positions as Dowager Princess of Wales and the King's illegitimate daughter. Catherine's income was still very large.
Mary's personal household was not disbanded until late 1533 - when the King decided his daughter's would share a household - Mary was not a servant in Elizabeth's household, she had her own rooms and her own staff, but her presence was designed to make it clear she was not the heir and would always come behind Elizabeth. The contrast between the two to visitors was obvious.
Henry and Anne's reasons were obviously to elevate Elizabeth's status to the detriment of Mary - its worth remembering that Parliament in 1534 did not do entirely as Henry wished in terms of the first Succession Act - it made clear Elizabeth was heir, but it did not specifically exclude Mary as the King had wanted and in 1536 the leaders of the Pilgrimage of Grace wanted Mary's rights guarding and advancing over Elizabeth's - Mary's status was still up for debate even if the King made it clear.
Catherine's death - Henry's reaction is supposedly to have been one of relief and he did wear yellow and appear to be happy (yellow has been a colour of mourning in some cultures but there is no evidence i've seen that it was used as such by the Spanish royal family at the period) - he is believed to have considered her death would mean a restoration of normal Anglo-Imperial relations. On Anne's reaction there is nothing contemporary about it.
Her celebrating the death would have been a mistake and she was intelligent enough to realise that a) she'd failed to deliver a son and though pregnant would miscarry shortly after Catherine's death b) That Henry was tired of her, his eyes were wandering and she was not the meek submissive wife he preferred c) she was the only remaining impediment to Henry normalising his relationships abroad etc
Mary's legitimacy - was not in question at the start of her father's attempts to get out of his marriage to Catherine. Had his request for an annulment been granted it would almost certainly have preserved her legitimacy (though it would be open to question in future which naturally concerned her mother).
Catherine's primary reason for arguing her marriage was valid was that she was a devout woman who believed it to be so in the eyes of God. She probably believed it would imperil her soul to accept Henry's arguments and it cost her everything including her daughter's legitimacy. It is for that reason that when offered an easy way out such as embracing a religious life (freeing Henry to remarry) she consistently refused.
Given she fought and ultimately Henry had to move to get his marriage dissolved in England without Rome's approval Mary became a key concern. Catherine and Mary's refusal to accept the end of the marriage, Mary's illegitimacy and Anne and Henry's marriage, simply hardened Henry's attitude.
Mary (legitimate or not) posed a significant risk to Henry and Anne and any children they might have - she was the cousin of the Emperor, nearly of marriage age and had a lot of supporters at court and in the country at large - more than enough to mount a claim to the throne in the event of Henry's early death it is worth remembering he was in his 40s by this period and every chance he could die before any of his children with Anne were of age.
All the treatment of her at this point was about emphasising her status as the King's illegitimate daughter and not a claimant to the throne, and also about the King's attempts to discipline in his view an unruly and disobedient child - certainly he and Anne could have been kinder, but Mary wasn't just a child she was a symbol of continuing opposition to Anne and a recalcitrant one at that.
The nursemaid idea is a myth - rather similar to the suggestion that Catherine was reduced to absolute penury - Henry took action to reduce their households to ones appropriate for their positions as Dowager Princess of Wales and the King's illegitimate daughter. Catherine's income was still very large.
Mary's personal household was not disbanded until late 1533 - when the King decided his daughter's would share a household - Mary was not a servant in Elizabeth's household, she had her own rooms and her own staff, but her presence was designed to make it clear she was not the heir and would always come behind Elizabeth. The contrast between the two to visitors was obvious.
Henry and Anne's reasons were obviously to elevate Elizabeth's status to the detriment of Mary - its worth remembering that Parliament in 1534 did not do entirely as Henry wished in terms of the first Succession Act - it made clear Elizabeth was heir, but it did not specifically exclude Mary as the King had wanted and in 1536 the leaders of the Pilgrimage of Grace wanted Mary's rights guarding and advancing over Elizabeth's - Mary's status was still up for debate even if the King made it clear.
Catherine's death - Henry's reaction is supposedly to have been one of relief and he did wear yellow and appear to be happy (yellow has been a colour of mourning in some cultures but there is no evidence i've seen that it was used as such by the Spanish royal family at the period) - he is believed to have considered her death would mean a restoration of normal Anglo-Imperial relations. On Anne's reaction there is nothing contemporary about it.
Her celebrating the death would have been a mistake and she was intelligent enough to realise that a) she'd failed to deliver a son and though pregnant would miscarry shortly after Catherine's death b) That Henry was tired of her, his eyes were wandering and she was not the meek submissive wife he preferred c) she was the only remaining impediment to Henry normalising his relationships abroad etc
What if Catherine died in 1528 instead and Henry VIII still married Anne?
Well then Anne becomes queen and Mary accepts this since Henry didn't, you know, commit bigamy or drive her mother to death/herself to illness or break from the church she was loyal to...
And that was Katherine's entire problem. She didn't (or didn't want to) understand why Mary COULDN'T rule England.
Nope. Spanish mourning was white (same as France) until Katherine's brother died. That was when Margarethe of Austria introduced Burgundian mourning customs of black crepe into Spain. For the next fifty years it tended to depend on the person in mourning but by the end of Karl V's reign it was black.
Several historians have debunked this myth.
OTOH, yellow in Spain WAS related to LOSS. An edict during the Catalan Revolt of the 1640s prohibits the wearing of yellow ribbons to honour fallen family members. And in 1705-1707 (think it was) Felipe V passed another decree against the wearing of yellow ribbons to this purpose
Again, common myth. Anne tried several times to come to terms with Mary (both before and after Katherine's death). Mary wasn't some innocent little lamb in all this. In the beginning? Yes. By the 1530s, no. She pointedly refused all of Anne's offers, both to have her restored to favour withthe king and restored in rank. Contrary to popular belief this was not accompanied by "if you acknowledge me as queen", it was Mary who repeatedly refused Anne's offers because "if I want that stuff from my dad, he'll give it to me, you're not my real mom" (if this were a modern teenager dealing with a stepmom).
Anne was perhaps a bitch, but Mary didn't make her life ANY easier. There are several records from Hatfield of how, when Elizabeth DIDN'T come down to the Great Hall for lunch/supper, Mary would take the seat reserved for Liz on the dais without thinking twice. And the servants were too scared to tell Mary to go back to the place she normally sat. When Anne confronted her about it, Mary again played the "if its a problem, my dad will tell me. Not his whore".
I admit Mary got a raw deal, but I think her tantrums would've made Jane Seymour bitchslap her a couple times
Catalans were in revolt against the Spanish crown in the 1640s,and in the 1700s they supported Karl VI of Austria. Both instances it was punitive AIUI
So it was to prevent them from using funerals as an excuse to wear disguises?