#patsy ferran

♚ @dailytudors: TUDOR WEEK 2025 ♚

day two | most interesting Tudor relationship - familial or romantic

Henry VIII and his daughter The Lady Mary arguably out of all his relationships (bar maybe his second wife) was the most changeable and temperamental during his life. During her early life, she was treated as heir presumptive and doted on by Henry, who was described by him as "the pearl of the world". When it became clear that her mother could not produce a male heir, Henry sought to dissolve their marriage. During this time, he became infatuated with Mary's mother's lady-in-waiting, and, after much deliberation, broke with the Catholic church and, in turn, created his own church. He obtained his divorce and declared his marriage invalid. Making Mary illegitimate and displacing her from the line of succession in favour of heirs from his second marriage, regardless of sex. Mary's parents' marriage was still seen as valid by Catholicdom. It was during the long years of obtaining a divorce that he split up Mary and her mother, with them never seeing each other. During her father's second marriage, she refused to take the oath of supremacy, which acknowledged the invalidity of her parents' marriage (and her own illegitimacy) and her father as head of the church in England. After the downfall of his second wife and the displacement of his second daughter (by his second marriage), she signed the oath willingly in hopes of being reunited with her father and his third wife. During her father's third marriage, she became a confidant of her stepmother and was welcomed back into the fold. Because of this, she was appointed the godmother of her half-brother, the long-awaited heir. She also became one of the - maybe the only - champions of her half-sister after her displacement during her father's third and fourth marriages. Mary was a strong supporter of the Catholic religion, with many of her supporters being executed by her father. Depending on who her father was married to depended on how her father treated her, with even his final wife coming from her own court. It was during his sixth marriage that Mary was reinstated to the succession, becoming second in line to the throne. It is said that her father's treatment of her (and her mother) and his break from Rome were one of the reasons her reign played out the way it did; many say her sister was their father's daughter in many ways, but we could also say this about Mary with their gentle and emotional temperaments and their need for absolute destruction of those that had wronged them.

MISS AUSTEN (2025)