Transcriber's note: Obvious printer errors have been repaired, but spelling has not been standardized. Text printed in bold in the original text has been marked =like this=. _ROMANTIC HISTORY_ MARY TUDOR, QUEEN OF FRANCE ROMANTIC HISTORY TWO ENGLISH QUEENS AND PHILIP. MARTIN HUME, M.A. THE FIRST GOVERNESS OF THE NETHERLANDS. ELEANOR E. TREMAYNE. MARGARET OF AUSTRIA. ELEANOR E. TREMAYNE. THE NINE DAYS' QUEEN. RICHARD DAVEY. THE GREAT INFANTA. L. KLINGENSTEIN. ISABEL, SOVEREIGN OF THE NETHERLANDS. L. KLINGENSTEIN. MARY TUDOR, QUEEN OF FRANCE. MARY CROOM BROWN. [Illustration: MARY TUDOR, DUCHESS OF SUFFOLK, AND HER HUSBAND CHARLES BRANDON, DUKE OF SUFFOLK FROM THE PAINTING BY JEAN DE MABUSE IN THE POSSESSION OF THE EARL OF YARBOROUGH] MARY TUDOR QUEEN OF FRANCE BY MARY CROOM BROWN WITH TWELVE ILLUSTRATIONS METHUEN & CO. LTD. 36 ESSEX STREET W.C. LONDON _First Published in 1911_ PREFACE Anyone who writes the life of Mary Tudor, daughter of Henry VII., must owe a debt of gratitude to Mrs Everett Green, who first drove a wedge through the mass of documents dealing with the subject. Since that date, however, new evidence has come to light and fresh readings of mutilated documents have been possible. Here and there a detail has been verified, nothing in itself, but when fitted in suggesting a new meaning to the whole; for this romantic history, dealing as it does with personal detail, is a very jig-saw puzzle. The date of the princess's birth, now at last definitely ascertained, is one of these details; the fact that in France she was twice married to Charles Brandon is another; and, to give a third instance, the detailed evidence shows that in the question of the dismissal of her English train from the French Court, Mary was as much sinner as sinned against. But after all is said, the difference between a book written fifty years ago, and one of to-day lies not so much in the matter newly discovered, as in the method of handling the same documents, and in the present incorrigible habit of valuing personality above ceremony, in this case looking for the woman in the princess and finding her. So while fifty years ago Princess Mary "penned many epistles," now she writes letters; then "she was advanced to maternal honours," now her first child is born. It all means the same thing set to differing measures. We jig along: they walked solemnly. My thanks are due in no small measure to Miss A. M. Allen and to Mr P. C. Allen for their careful and friendly help, and to the Librarian of Exeter College and the officials of the Record Office for their courtesy. CONTENTS CHAPTER I PAGE CHILDHOOD AND BETROTHAL TO CHARLES OF CASTILE 1 CHAPTER II EUROPEAN COMPLICATIONS 25 CHAPTER III