By the birth of Princess Mary, Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon had suffered through four children stillborn or dying shortly after birth. Three of the babies were male. The second was a Prince Henry who died after a couple of months of causes that seem to have escaped the historical records.
A child living outside of the womb, then, was a cause of general celebration. Two dispatches from the Venetian ambassador, Sebastiano Giustiani, home to his masters, written two years apart, provide some detail, intimate and public.
Whether Henry shared in the mood of celebration we cannot be certain. That the child was not a male, however, seems to have dampened any gaiety to which he might have been tempted. He does not seem to have attended the christening of Princess Elizabeth either.
Mary’s mother, Catherine, must have been ambivalent. She had a mother’s love for her child, from the first moment, but a Queen’s “job” was to produce male heirs.
It was characteristic of the times in which the Princess Mary was born, that she should be ushered into the world with a pageant. England had but lately been roused from the lethargy to which the penuriousness of Henry VIII. had condemned it, and good-fellowship, display and revelry were the order of the day.
Music and masquerades delighted the young King, and were a fitting background to his florid beauty, brilliant talents and sanguine temperament. The country, in its recoil from the asceticism of parsimony, no less than from the asceticism of mediaeval piety, was well content to amuse itself, and Christmas revels, April jollities and May-day masques were supplemented by tilting at the ring, feasting and tournaments, that made the whole year round a "playing holiday".
But the desire of the nation was an heir to the greatness, wealth and glory which the English people rejoiced to see centred in their eighth Henry. Three times had their hope been doomed to disappointment, when on the 19th February 1516[1], Katharine of Arragon gave birth to a daughter. The universal satisfaction was scarcely lessened by the fact that the infant was not the longed-for prince, and in an ecstasy of joy, the Londoners lighted bonfires, roasted oxen whole, and caused the wine to flow merrily in the streets.
Two days later, the Princess, nearly the whole of whose life was to be so great a contrast to its rosy dawn, was baptised with much circumstance and pomp at Greenwich. From the palace gates to the church of the Friars Observants, the well-gravelled path was strewn with rushes, and hung with arras. At the great doors of the church a pavilion covered with tapestry had been erected, and here the child waited with her sponsors to receive the preliminary rites before being carried into the sacred building. Then the procession was formed, and swept through the grand entrance, only used on the most solemn occasions. The church was resplendent with cloth of gold, precious stones, pearl embroideries, and tapestries from the famous looms of Europe. First walked a goodly array of the nobility, preceding the silver font, brought the day before from Canterbury,…
The Te Deum was sung by the King's chaplain, after which Mary's style was proclaimed by the heralds: God give good life and long unto the right high, right noble and right excellent Princess Mary, Princess of England, and daughter of our sovereign lord the King," etc.
The Venetian ambassador, Sebastian Giustinian, to whose letter we owe the account of the royal christening, makes no mention of the King as having taken part in the procession, but it is probable that Henry witnessed the ceremony from the royal closet, which connected the church of the friars with the palace.[2]
Whether Henry celebrated the princess’s birth, or no, some two years later he was showing a clear affection for her. He was in the habit of proudly showing her off. The impression is of a magical life for the little girl. It must have been painful when the long years of demotion came.
After this conversation, his Majesty caused the Princess his daughter [Mary], who is two years old, to be brought into the apartment where we were, whereupon the right reverend Cardinal [Wolsey] and I, and all the other lords, kissed her hand, pro more, the greatest marks of honour being paid her universally, more than to the Queen herself. The moment she cast her eyes on the Reverend D. Dionisius Memo, who was there at a little distance, she commenced calling out in English "Priest!" and he was obliged to go and play for her;…[3]
Note: It apparently being impossible to find baby portraits of the female children of Henry VIII, this portrait is intended to be representative.
[1] Presently, Tudor aficionados have settled upon the 18th.
[2] Stone, J. M. The History of Mary I. Queen of England (1901). 1-3.
[3] Brown, Rawdon. Four Years Court of Henry VIII. Selection Of Despatches Written by the Venetian Ambassador, Sebastian Giustinian (1854). 161. Despatch of Sebastian Giustiniani, ambassador from Venice to the English Court. London, February 28, 1518.
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