#tudor queens

[elephantlovemedleys]

She was beloved by every- one—from the mightiest of diplomats to the lowliest of subjects. During her 17 years as queen, Elizabeth of York was exactly the consort needed by England to help end the ugly, internecine Wars of the Roses. Sometimes, a gracious personality far outweighs the power of the potentate. Elizabeth of York was such a queen. ⎯ Elizabeth of York: Queenship and Power, Arlene Okerlund

[bookshopcrow]

In October, I decided to challenge myself to produce a miniature illustrated painting each day of the month inspired by the Tudor court and the medium of portrait miniatures.

Lucas Horenbout was a Flemish artist and founding artist of the tradition of painting miniatures. He moved to England in the mid-1520s and worked as the court miniaturist to King Henry VIII from 1525 until Horenbout's death. He captured many of the iconic figures of the era and also taught the art of illumination to Hans Holbein, who would go on to eclipse him as the most famous court artist of that era.

A portrait miniature is a miniature portrait painting, usually undertaken in gouache, watercolour, or enamel. Portrait miniatures evolved out of the techniques required to craft the intricate illustrations and borders of illuminated manuscripts, and became popular among 16th century elites. From the middle of the 18th century, the trend spread across the rest of Europe remaining highly popular until the development of photography in the mid 19th century.

For my challenge, I used black ink, water colours, and 300gsm textured watercolour paper. I bought and thrifted some amazing vintage frames, mostly 2 or 3 inches high. Some are over fifty years old, so consequently there are marks and scratches on them but I think it adds to the charm and overall feel of the pieces as historic miniatures.

I'm really proud that I completed the challenge - and all 31 paintings - and wanted to share a few with you here!

You can see them all over on my website 🖤

[crossedwithblue]

random thought bc I've been listening to Six on repeat: the queens claim that the only reason they're remembered is because of Henry, but would Henry be one of the most iconic and well-known English monarchs if not for them?

[thediamondarcher]

Mary I being called "bloody Mary" to this day while she's literally the monarch who executed the least amount of people of the whole dynasty will never fail to make me angry

[palaceoftears]

He hath come to the bosom of his beloved

Smiling on him, she beareth him to highest heaven

With yearning heart

On thee we gaze

Oh, gold winged messenger of mighty gods

[...]

You better keep your head down-down

- Billie Eilish, GOLDWING

[lizzy-tudor]

From Princess, to Queen, to Duchess

Mary Tudor (March, c. 1496; London, England - June, 1533; Suffolk, England) was an English princess, the third wife of King Louis XII of France and one of the two sisters of King Henry VIII. Mary was also the grandmother of Lady Jane Grey, who would become titular queen of England for nine days in 1553.

Mary’s father, King Henry VII, betrothed her to Archduke Charles —later Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V — in 1507. In 1514, however, political tribulations caused King Henry VIII to renounce such engagement and arrange a match between his beautiful, charming and yound sister and Louis XII, the sick and french monarch of 52. Since Mary was already in love with Charles Brandon, the first Duke of Suffolk, she made Henry promise that after Louis died she would be allowed to choose her next husband.

The marriage with the french king took place on Octouber of 1514, and Mary performed her role as wife and royal consort with kindness and dedication until he died on January of the following year. Before Henry or the new King of France, Francis I, could use her as a pawn in another political arrangement, Mary secretly wed Suffolk in Paris, probably in late February. Henry VIII was infuriated at the news, but eventually the pair regained the king’s favour, with Suffolk paying him a large sum of money and perhaps with the help and intercession of Cardinal Wolsey.Mary and Charles had four children, two daughters and two sons: ⇒ Henry Brandon (11 March 1516 – 1522); ⇒ Lady Frances Brandon (16 July 1517 – 20 November 1559), married to Henry Grey, 3rd Marquess of Dorset, and mother to Lady Jane Grey; ⇒ Lady Eleanor Brandon (1519 – 27 September 1547), married to Henry Clifford, 2nd Earl of Cumberland; ⇒ Henry Brandon, 1st Earl of Lincoln (c. 1523 – March 1534).

Mary had enjoyed unprecedented freedom during her teenage years at her brother's court. Just fourteen when her father, Henry VII died, she spent the next five years almost completely unchaperoned, encouraged to participate in every event, celebration and feast, each planned to display the opulence of the english royal family. She shared Henry's exuberance for spectacle and, for some time, was one of the central ladies of the court, admired and sociable. Like him, she loved dancing, masques, and parties; they were also very close, with the princess being the apple of the king's eye. It's rumored that Henry's famous warship, the Mary Rose, was named after both his favorite sister and his only daughter with Catherine of Aragon.

Upon her arrival in France, Mary was proclamed, by the Venetian Ambassador, to be "handsome and well favoured, grey-eyed; slight, rather than defective from corpulence, and conducts herself with so much grace, and has such good manners, that for her age of 18 years—and she does not look more—she is a paradise." She was particularly admired by her contemporaries for her long red hair, which she had inherited from the Plantagenet lineage through her mother, Elizabeth of York, who had also been an celebrated beauty.

After her second marriage, the Duchess of Suffolk lived a quiet life in the country, retired from court, although she had been know to have attended the famous Field of the Cloth of Gold at Guines, near Calais, in 1520. Often referred to as the French Queen, she was known to dislike Anne Boleyn and in defiance of her brother was to prove a firm supporter of her sister-in-law, Catherine of Aragon, in the matter of Henry VIII's annulment of his marriage to his first wife.

Mary visited London for the last time to celebrate the wedding of her eldest daughter, Lady Frances Brandon, to Henry Grey, Marquess of Dorset, in 1533. After suffering failing health for some years, Mary Tudor died on 25 June 1533 at the age of thirty-eight at Westhorpe Hall, Westhorpe, Suffolk, possibly of cancer. Henry VIII had requiem masses sung at Westminster Abbey for the repose of her soul and she was given a magnificent funeral, which her husband did not attend. Her body was interred at the Abbey of Bury St Edmunds. The Duke of Suffolk quickly remarried again, in that same year, to his fourteen-year-old ward, Katherine Willoughby (1519–1580), suo jure Baroness Willoughby de Eresby. Katherine had been betrothed to his eldest surviving son, Henry, Earl of Lincoln, but the boy was too young to marry, and Charles, to eager to add the heiress fourtune to his own.

[thedudleywomen]

ON THIS DAY - 14 October 1586

On This Day (14 Oct) in 1586, the trial of Mary, Queen of Scots began at Fotheringhay Castle, Northamptonshire: she had been charged with plotting the assassination of Elizabeth I.

Mary had been arrested on 11 Aug 1586 whilst being held prisoner at Chartley Manor, Staffordshire; she had been held there since Dec 1585, the residence of Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex. From here she was transported to nearby Tixall House, before finally being moved to Fotheringhay on 25 Sep 1586.

It was whilst at Chartley that Mary corresponded with Anthony Babington, a Catholic and long-time supporter of hers; letters were written in cypher and transported in and out of the house in beer barrels. Babington was the head of the eponymous 'Babington Plot' - a conspiracy to assassinate Elizabeth and place the Catholic Mary on the English throne. However, Elizabeth's Secretary of State and 'spymaster' Sir Francis Walsingham was able to intercept these letters, leading the arrest of Babington, his co-conspirators and eventually Mary. It was these letters that were used as evidence against Mary, and led to her being tried on charges of high treason.

Mary's trial was held in the Great Hall at Fotheringhay - an 'examination' of the evidence by a panel of English nobles, under the 'Act of Association'. Being found guilty under this act would lead to Mary being stripped of her claim to the English throne, and lawfully being put to death. She appeared in person at 9 o'clock in the morning, in front of crown representatives and noblemen, including William Cecil, Baron Burghley (Elizabeth's Lord High Treasurer) Walsingham and George Talbot, 6th Earl of Shrewsbury, under whose custody she had been held for 15 years. She wore her favoured garments of her captive years: a black velvet dress and mantle, with white headdress (with widows peak) and veil.

Mary denied the charges put to her, as well as arguing that she had been denied access to legal counsel. She continued to assert her authority as an anointed queen, and expected to be treated so. Correspondence between the two were passed around, in addition to Babington's deposition and signed confessions of two co-conspirators; Mary denied ever having met Anthony Babington, and accused Walsingham of inventing the cyphers and manufacturing the plot to implicate her. However, she confirmed that she continued to support Catholic interests in England, as well as abroad.

Elizabeth had ordered that no sentence be passed until all the evidence had been presented to herself, and following the conclusion of the trial on 15 Oct, the panel returned to London. Their findings were subsequently presented to Elizabeth on 25 Oct 1586 at the Star Chamber in London; Mary was found guilty of being "not only accessory and privy to the conspiracy, but also an imaginer and compass of her majesty's destruction" and a sentence of death was passed. However, Elizabeth continued to demonstrate ambiguity, requesting attempts to obtain a 'full confession' from the Scottish Queen, in an attempt to save her life, and void any retaliatory action from Mary's Catholic allies abroad.

[anne1522boleyn]

February 13, 1542 Katherine Howard was beheaded RIP🤍

[sammygems]

ok this is the most important poll i got for y'all /hj

[samanthajameswriter]

A Royal Tudor Dinner Party: Conversations With The Six Wives Of King Henry VIII - Part Two

[imogenheaneys]

ABBIE HERN as PRINCESS ELIZABETH 'BESS' TUDOR in MY LADY JANE (2024)

[elephantlovemedleys]

Initially, the princess's life would have been a simple one, based in the old palace of Placentia at Greenwich. Nothing remains now of the buildings Elizabeth would have known there as a child, which would be demolished and rebuilt by her future husband, Henry VII.

⎯ Amy Licence, Elizabeth of York: The Forgotten Tudor Queen

[bookshopcrow]

Katherine of Aragon 🖤

Black ink and watercolour

Follow the full challenge on IG

[jamesfrain]

Kate Phillips as Jane Seymour Wolf Hall: The Mirror and The Light | Episode three 'Defiance'

[thediamondarcher]

it's not Henry VIII and his six wives

it's actually Catherine Of Aragon, Anne Boleyn, Jane Seymour, Anne Of Cleves, Catherine Howard and Catherine Parr

six women who were casually married to the same guy

[palaceoftears]

"It is, of course, possible that these Spaniards lied, or dressed up the truth, to protect their beloved princess. It is also possible that they did not. Either way, they were no more or less likely to be lying than the witnesses in England. That makes their testimony as valid as that of those who claimed to have met an ebullient Arthur demanding beer to quench the thirst of a night of hard love-making. Their words add, if not a definitive tilt, then some extra grains of sand to one side of the moral balance on which Catherine is habitually weighed. That balance measures whether she was the pious victim of a cruel, selfish husband or a consummate liar hiding behind an apparently saintly exterior. Judgements of her have swung backwards and forwards from one extreme to the other over the centuries – and still divide people today. [...] Catherine can, of course, be measured on many more scales than just that which deems her either truthful or deceiving. The most important traits of her character have, in fact, little to do with honesty or falsehood. What really matters about her is the strength of that character. A protected childhood amid a family of intense, self-demanding Spanish women does much to explain where this came from. Catherine grew up to become a woman of deep, even exaggerated, intensity. The complex and unhappy early English years, with their constant illnesses, eating problems and stern written instructions from the pope to avoid the self-harm of excessive fasting, give the first few clues to that nature. These were the reactions of a young, perfectionist woman who found herself lonely, lost and unloved in a foreign land. That same intensity and perfectionism explain, too, both her success and popularity as a queen consort and her final embrace of potential martyrdom."

-Giles Tremlett, Catherine of Aragon: Henry's Spanish Queen