edmundtudor

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Happy Birthday, Queen!!!

18 february of 1516 — The Birthday of Queen Mary I of England

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hey um i’ve got some bad news. we mulled your boyfriend. he fell in the wine and we mulled him. yeah with the cinnamon sticks.

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becoming elizabeth as a show is so funny because it's one of the few shows that's at it's most interesting when it's not on it's title character every scene with mary and edward is electric then elizabeth shows up and it becomes woefully drab which is strange because i'd argue these are some of the most fascinating parts of elizabeths life and ripe for drama but alas.

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England’s Pearl and Their Beloved Queen

Mary I and Katherine of Aragon by @francy-sketches

Guys. I have not been so excited for a commission in my life. I know it’s not ASOIAF so definitely not as anticipated among my friends, but it’s just so well done. I adore Katherine and Mary and this turned out so beautifully. I cannot sing Francy’s praises high enough; after the initial reference pictures I sent her, I did not need to correct anything at all, she completely got the vision.

As anyone who has ever encountered me before will have known, I am incredibly particular about commissions and therefore very involved. I usually like to give pieces I pay for extra thought and historical authenticity. For this piece, I went and looked for available quotes and contemporary accounts of Katherine’s fashion choices. I wanted to make sure from the base of the dress (the farthingale underneath) to the jewelry were all as accurate as was reasonably possible. I did even learn a thing or two, despite my initial intention of just checking to make sure everything I had previously believed was true. For example, I learned that Katherine sometimes wore a flemish hood, which I wouldn’t have thought that would align with her fashion sense; I was proven wrong. I have seen practically all the artworks available to the public that have been confirmed to be Katherine, so I had already guessed black was her favorite color to wear. But I did learn that her other favorites were purple and red. I decided to keep it simple with the black. It’s elegant and regal, black was an expensive color but still is not obnoxiously ostentatious. The jewels around her neckline as taken directly from portraits of her. The pearls seem a mainstay for her, but I did learn that her dresses had many other colored jewels tied into them. I just thought black looked the best. Her dresses were fur-lined, although I would definitely say we took some liberties on what the fur looked. The fur she wore was pretty much exclusively ermine. The sleeves also have true gold, which Spanish royalty traditionally loved (for hundreds of years, by this point, at least). Katherine’s Spanish outfits, of which she had many, definitely collected dust in favor of more traditional English outfits. There’s no indication that she was forced into this, as she did sometimes dress in the Spanish style when it struck her fancy, but it was important for her to present herself as English with English loyalties and priorities in mind. That being said, something as innocuous as gold embroidery, which was not completely foreign to the English court, was definitely something she could implement from back home without seeming like a foreigner. I have pomegranate embroidery on her sleeves, which is more of symbolism rather than something accurate. There’s no proof she ever wore pomegranate embroidery on her sleeve, but her official symbol was of a pomegranate, so I figure that was something important to her.

Katherine’s necklace is obviously a direct copy of the necklace she wears in several of the contemporary artworks depicting. This is pure speculation, but I personally believe that this necklace could have come from old English jewels that had been melted down and repurposed for her. Generally, people weren’t as sentimental in the same way we are today, nor worried about these aspects of preservation, so jewels were melted down and used for other purposes all the time. She also usually wore many strings of pearls, but it just would have looked like too much and would take away from the piece overall, so we decided just to do the necklace. Her gabled hood is also directly taken from her contemporary portraits, the gold and black with the red jewels was what she usually wore. She has a girdle belt with a long string of pearls. Sometimes she would wear a cross at the end or some black jewels that matched her necklace. What’s depicted in this is actually a pomander that turns into a rudimentary clock when it is opened. Katherine is recorded as having one of these; I thought that was very cool. I also asked for her to have some rings. She did have a wedding ring, but I found no description of it, so the artist just did basic gold. She’s wearing two which I think is pretty funny considering she was married twice, of course she wouldn’t have worn two wedding rings, but imagine if she did have the audacity to. Katherine had so much jewelry, more than any of Henry VIII’s wives. She had the royal collection available to her, pieces from Spain, and gifts from Henry specifically made for her. She usually decked herself out as expensively as possible.

Unfortunately, there is basically no information on how Mary dressed as a child. We know her mother dressed her and was having the clothes ordered herself, but beyond that, there’s really nothing available that I could find. I felt that Mary would be dressed similarly to her mother, but I wanted to give her a purple dress because purple fabric was generally the most expensive thing you could buy. I wanted to illustrate how loved and well taken care of she was. She has matching rings with her mother, but no girdle belt or necklace because I’m envisioning her as being 6-9 in this, so I wanted to give her something she could play in. She’s wearing a French hood. Katherine ordered her one in 1520, when she was four. My references on how hers should look is from portraits of her aunts Mary and Juana. I felt that Katherine would probably want to buy a style she was familiar with. Mary’s embroidery is of the Tudor rose. It turned out so beautifully. Similarly to Katherine, there’s no evidence that she actually wore that embroidery, but I wanted some symbolism in there.

My intention with this piece was to show the closeness between Katherine and Mary. Katherine loved Mary with all her heart and showed no outward indication of disappointment that Mary was a girl. She spent more time with Mary than any other highborn individual in this time period that I know of. I wanted to show that Katherine is someone that Mary deeply and completely trusted, even when court could be over the top and crowded, frightening for a child. I feel as if people other themselves from people in the past. People often feel as if people 500 years ago did not care as deeply about their children or weren’t attached to them. I believe this is true in some instances, but generally we are more like the people of the past than we like the believe. As far as any research I’ve done has shown, Katherine loved Mary as much as any mother of our time loves her children.

I believe Francy did a beautiful job, so all compliments go to her, I hope everyone checks out her page to see her amazing work. The caliber of this is unlike the commissions I’ve done in the past. I cannot thank her enough.

I hope this ended up being relatively historically accurate, I’m sure someone will let me know if it’s not haha.

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Catherine & Henry in Isabel 3x10

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The first recorded fireworks in England were at the wedding of King Henry VII and Elizabeth of York on january 18, 1486. Fireworks gained popularity during the reign of Henry VIII, and by Elizabethan times there was a fireworks master. Queen Elizabeth I created this post so that someone would be in charge of organising firework displays for great occasions. James II even knighted his fireworks master after a particularly excellent show of fireworks at his coronation. (x)

 [ luke evans & sarah gadon as henry vii & elizabeth of york ]

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"Your Loving Mother"

Catherine of Aragon writing to her daughter, Princess Mary c.1533/4.

from Catherine of Aragon: Infanta of Spain, Queen of England, Theresa Earenfight, 2021, page 179

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“It was said now that she usually slept for at most four hours at night. De Noailles was told by a lady who slept in the Queen's chamber that Mary's dreams of love and passion were so vivid that she often lost complete control of herself in bed, apparently reliving the delights of Philip's lovemaking. In her waking hours, he reported, she spent her time weeping, sighing and raging against her people, and was in such depths of melancholy that nothing seemed to remain for her but to imitate the example of Dido', who had committed suicide. 'But that she will not do,' for suicide was a mortal sin. Instead, she told her ladies, that 'As she had done all possible to induce her husband to return, and as she found he would not, she meant to withdraw utterly from men and live quietly, as she had done the chief part of her life before she married.' In future, religion would be her chief consolation”.

The Children of Henry VIII by Alison Weir (page 324)

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off the back of this, i also feel like there’s a worthwhile conversation to be had about how people criticise henry’s marriage to katherine howard with ableist language/rhetoric by centering condemnation of henry’s marriage to katherine to the ‘grossness’ of how disgusting his disability was. quite simply, people seem to be incapable of criticising henry without dehumanising him

henry’s disability is not a moral arbiter of his value as a husband. that he was old enough to be katherine’s father, and clearly had a toxic entitlement to women that facilitated his willingness to murder wives, is.

there definitely is something interesting and deeply tragic about henry’s disability at the time of the howard marriage in so far as it being a casualty of the kind of toxic masculinity that drove him to violent pursuits like military action and hunting, jousting etc. indeed: that toxic masculinity caused the injury that subsequently caused him to feel insecure in his masculinity enough to marry a teenage girl, and caused him to react so badly to her shattering his image of himself that the only outcome he could accept was cutting her head off. it’s this horrific ouroboros that ultimately claimed multiple lives simply because henry could not reconcile his sense of self, his masculinity, with his disability — because he lived in an intensely ableist and patriarchal context and upheld it even after it brutalised him. instead, he turned that brutality on katherine.

ultimately, i think one can argue that the howard marriage is what destroyed henry. true, he does not die for a few more years, but i think the popular idea of how monstrous henry became really develops after he married katherine howard — after his attempts to reclaim his youth to impress and keep up with her end in his leg wound closing up again and his barring her from his company. certainly, henry is the worst version of himself during those cold months of november-february 1541-2, i think when he realised that he wasn’t as young or able as he thought he was. i think that’s profoundly tragic, but i think it’s rarely — if ever — considered with henry’s humanity in mind. bc there’s a worthwhile conversation to be had about disability there, not just the fact that he was fat or smelled bad…

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The birth announcements of the first two children of Mary, dowager Queen of France and Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk. From Henry VIII Letters and Papers.

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Gary’s Sex Tips #1002

If she calls out her ex boyfriend’s name in bed go to his house and kiss him. See what the dick about! See what all the fuss is about!

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It's so funny how so many completely unqualified people will make claims about the identities of portraits based solely on appearances and yet be so completely wrong about how two sitters looking the same.

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I can’t believe that Mary I of England experienced a down bad, psychotic, feral horny, psychedelic lust for Philip of Spain :(

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Lilit Lesser as Lady Mary Tudor (Mary I) Wolf Hall: The Mirror and The Light | Episode one 'Wreckage'

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Lady Mary Tudor reunites with her father after their reconciliation. The Tudors 3x01 | Wolf Hall: The Mirror and The Light 2x01

Mary's capitulation was greeted with "incredible rejoicing" at court. Restored to favor, she was acknowledged as the king’s daughter once more and offered a sumptuous new wardrobe and a choice of servants. Cromwell returned to Hunsdon with “a most gracious letter” from the king and, “kneeling on the ground,” begged Mary’s pardon for his former harsh conduct.

Three weeks later, Mary journeyed to Hackney for a secret reunion with her father. It was their first meeting for five years. She had been a young teenager when Henry last saw her, and she was now a woman of twenty. Chapuys wrote that the kindness shown by the king to the princess was “inconceivable, regretting that he had been so long separated from her.” He showed her “such love and affection, and such brilliant promises for the future that no father could have behaved better towards his daughter.” Jane Seymour gave Mary a diamond ring and Henry 1,000 crowns for her “many pleasures.” They spent one night together and parted on Friday, July 7, with Henry promising that she would be brought to court to take her place immediately after the queen. (Whitelock, Anna. (2009) Mary Tudor: Princess, bastard, queen. London: Bloomsbury.)

edit suggested by @fideidefenswhore (you're the best)

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Anne Boleyn and Jane Seymour 👑