#eustace chapuys

[thomascromwelll]

📅TUDORWEEK2024 by @dailytudors Day 2: Favourite Tudor contemporary quote about or said by the Tudor family.

⋅˚₊‧ 𐙚 ‧₊˚ ⋅ "Am I not a man like others?"⋅˚₊‧ 𐙚 ‧₊˚ ⋅

"At last, wishing to turn the conversation, the King said that he wished to ensure the succession to his kingdom by having children, which he had not at present, and upon my remarking to him that he had one daughter, the most virtuous and accomplished that could be thought of, just of suitable age to be married and get children, and that it seemed as if Nature had decided that the succession to the English throne should be through the female line, as he himself had obtained it, and therefore, that he could by marrying the Princess to some one secure the succession he was so anxious for, he replied that he knew better than that; and would marry again in order to have children himself. And upon my observing to him that he could not be sure of that he asked me three times running: "Am I not a man like others?" and he afterwards added: "I need not give proofs of the contrary, or let you into my secrets," no doubt implying thereby that his beloved Lady is already in the family way."

—Eustace Chapuys to the Emperor, written on 15 April 1533 (x)

TV Show: The Tudors (2007-2010) [ season two, episode eight] Jonathan Rhys Meyers as King Henry VIII

[wolfhalledits]

Thomas Cromwell and Eustace Chapuys in Wolf Hall — "Three Card Trick"

[beyondthisdarkhouse]

Actually, history is more frequently written by that little weirdo in the corner taking notes

[catalinadearagonsblog]

Mary Tudor : The death of her mother

The year 1536 was hardly begun when Mary lost her mother. Katherine of Aragon, who had fought so unflinchingly for herself and her daughter, died at Kimbolton Castle on 7 January. She was fifty years old. Katherine told Ambassador Chapuys wanted to bequeath to Mary her furs and the gold cross she had brought with her from Spain in 1501. Few other possessions remained to her. She had suffered with “pain in her stomach” for several months and had begged Henry to allow Mary to visit her. Yet mother and daughter, separated for four years, were not to be granted the solace of a final meeting.

Four days after Katherine’s death, Lady Shelton went to Mary and “most unceremoniously without the least preparation” told her that her mother was dead. That evening Mary requested that Katherine’s physician and apothecary be allowed to visit her so she might hear of her mother’s final hours and of the manner of her death. Charles V wrote to his wife, the Empress Isabella, that Mary was “inconsolable at the loss she has sustained, especially when she thinks of her father’s past behaviour towards herself, and the little favour she can expect for the future.” Chapuys encouraged Princess Mary to show ‘good heart and constancy … great sense and incomparable virtue and patience’ to bear the loss of ‘such a mother to whom she bore as much love as any daughter ever did to her mother, who was her chief refuge in her troubles’.

In the final inventory of Katherine’s possessions taken after her death, the scribe noted that she bequeathed four small, frayed quilts to her daughter, Mary. These quilts were used by Katherine during the lying-in period of Mary’s birth and were willed to Mary as swaddling for her own children. Katherine does not say why she kept these quilts or what they meant to her. She doesn’t need to. These quilts are deeply emotional objects that convey love and affection and ultimately, sadness, because we know, from our vantage point centuries later, that Mary never had a chance to use them because she never gave birth to a child.

Sources:

Catherine of Aragon: Infanta of Spain, Queen of England by Theresa Earenfight

Mary Tudor: The First Queen by Linda Porter

Mary Tudor: England's First Queen by Anna Whitelock

Catherine of Aragon: An Intimate Life of Henry VIII's True Wife by Amy Licence,

[the-tvdors]

MARY TUDOR and EUSTACE CHAPUYS relationship throughout seasons.

requested by @lost-in-the-shelves

[janesemel]

Eustace who stood beside his mother in court as a 14 year old boy helping her fight his uncles for the property rights of his late father watching 19 year old Mary stand beside her mother even as the whole English court discards her and she’s threatened with death. Nobody is doing it like them.

[rosalinesurvived]

Whodunnit gothic tragicomedy

[marythequeen]

At the same time, Chapuys viewed Mary as an impressionable young friend for whom he felt a protective responsibility. He regularly included reports to Charles about the devotion the public retained for Mary. It is a telling characteristic of his relationship with the princess that with all the domestic and international political intrigue playing out around him, Chapuys was most moved by the safety and well-being of a young woman still in her teenage years. Chapuys’s place in history is largely due to his antagonistic stance regarding Anne Boleyn, but this is perhaps due to historical interest being more vested in conflict rather than agreement. The evidence that remains from the period, however, suggests quite strongly that Chapuys was more interested and invested in protecting Mary than he was in damaging Anne.

-Writing Mary I: History, Historiography, and Fiction

[edwardseymour]

[fideidefenswhore]

Around six weeks later – in late September 1533, after the birth of Princess Elizabeth – Cromwell asked for another private audience with Chapuys in order to discuss Henry’s situation. The imperial ambassador suggested that Henry recognise his error in marrying Anne, annul the union, and return to his lawful wife, Catherine, ‘who has shown great patience’ in the midst of this frustrating situation. He continued by assuring Cromwell that it would not be seen as ‘inconstancy’, as there were several princes before Henry who had ‘by force of justice’ been ‘compelled to return to their lawful wives and give up others as adulterers’. Cromwell himself was seeking a rapprochement [of Anglo-Imperial relations], mostly to minimise the dangers of a potential invasion, and this may have guided his response. ‘Thank you for the affection and good words you have towards my master [Henry VIII] and I praise your suggestions and motives,’ he humbly replied, before alluding to the Pope’s declaration of the marriage as illegitimate – including any descendants from Henry and Anne. ‘It is not regarded as of great importance, for as the king found by the opinion of several doctors of this realm and of the University of Orléans, it was unjust and invalid, and the king […] expect[s] it to be revoked.’ Cromwell ended the conversation by revealing that his judgement on the matter had much to do with the strength of Henry’s feelings for Anne: ‘The king’s love is too vehement.’ Perhaps if his feelings changed, things would be different.

Thorns, Lust, and Glory: The Betrayal of Anne Boleyn, Estelle Paranque

[marianrevisionist]

In December 1542, Henry invited Mary to court for New Year festivities. Eustace Chapuys, Imperial Ambassador, reported to Charles V that “this came very a propos for the Princess, who, in default of a queen, was called to Court triumphantly, accompanied by many ladies.” For the 1543 New Year celebration, Mary occupied a leading role in the gift exchange and the associated court ceremony. She embodied the role of queen consort, a foreshadowing of her future position as queen regnant. Her December privy purse accounts recorded the gifts she gave to the Prince’s household officers “at my ladies coming thens to the Kings Highnes.” The January accounts recorded her gifts “Geuen amongs the king’s officers vpon newyers Daye.”

— Mary’s Participation in the Ritual of the New Year’s Gift Exchange as Princess and Queen by Jane Lawson, 2022. In Mary I in Writing: Letters, Literature, and Representation, edited by Valerie Schutte and Jessica S. Hower

[historicconfessions]

[kirby-of-aragon]

María Doyle Kennedy, James Frain and Anthony Brophy in Nothing Personal

Fun fact: The movie is about a conflict between Catholics and Protestants. James' character is Protestant, Brophy is Catholic, and Maria is the ex wife of James' character.

[nostalgia-tblr]

when the book refers to the sacred text primary source that shows up in every book on that topic

[catalinadearagonsblog]

The conservative party saw their chance to strike and supplant Anne Boleyn with Jane Seymour, who, they hoped, would convince the King to return to the Catholic Church and Princess Mary legitimised and reinstated to the line of succession. By April 1536, Mary was informed by her friends who conspired against Anne Boleyn that “very shortly her rival would be dismissed”. Mary took a keen interest in the unfolding conspiracy and firmly believed that her father would soon divorce Anne. She instructed Eustace Chapuys to “watch the proceedings, and if possible help to accomplish the said divorce”. Mary was eager to emphasise that she did not wish for the King’s divorce from Anne Boleyn “out of revenge for the many injuries inflicted on her mother, the late Queen, and on herself” because she had forgotten and forgiven them “for the honour of God, and she now bore no ill-will to anyone whomsoever”

It is evident that neither Mary nor Anne Boleyn’s enemies were aware of what was about to happen. They often used the words “dismiss” and “divorce” interchangeably when speaking about Anne’s ruin. This clearly points out that they expected Henry VIII to divorce Anne and send her away from court in disgrace.

On 27 April, John Stokesley, Bishop of London, was approached to give his opinion “as to whether the King could or could not abandon” Anne Boleyn, but he wisely refused to give his verdict unless invited to do so by the King himself. Clearly, the conspirators tried to ascertain whether there were any legal grounds that the King could use to annul his marriage to Anne.

At some point, however, the conspiracy turned deadly. Thomas Cromwell soon began interrogating Anne’s ladies-in-waiting, hoping to build a case against the Queen. On 2 May, Anne Boleyn was arrested on multiple charges of adultery, incest with her brother George and plotting the King’s death. She was executed on 19 May.

Sylvia Barbara Soberton, The Forgotten Tudor Women: Gertrude Courtenay. Wife and Mother of the last Plantagenets

[janesemel]

It’s because at first the version of Mary that exists in Chapuys’ head is little more than a sexist, paternalistic remix of her real identity, so thoroughly warped by the age & class difference that he sees her as barely more than a porcelain madonna, a moral/religious figurehead, so sexless she’s barely human. But as Mary ages and their relationship is maintained through less explicitly stressful circumstances then the ones it was conceived under amidst the Great Matter, she begins to grow outside of the parameters he established for her internally. She gets her life back, she’s not just pretty and in pain anymore, she’s energetic, provocative, romantically active, loud. And that scares him, the way it scared him with Cesare’s mother, but it also excites and intrigues him, not least of all because he can’t be physically intimate with Mary the way he was with the mistress who bore his illegitimate son. The illegitimate son he left so he could go perform diplomatic duties in the same country as Mary. Who wants to be a mother. Who loves children. Who is at once everything he’d ever want in a woman and young enough to be his biological child, facts which would be so blatantly immoral if he ever confronted their coexistence that he has to force himself to stay in denial about it. While Mary goes around planning for the future and playing footsie with Phillip of Bavaria, more or less unaware that her very existence is eating this poor bastard’s brain. Eustace is a 50 year old politician with TSwift’s “You Belong With Me” playing in his head every time he meets eyes with his dead friend’s 21 year old daughter. It’s pathetic. It’s disgusting. It’s narratively delicious.