On Sunday 1st October 1553, Mary I was crowned queen at Westminster Abbey by Stephen Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester. She was the first crowned queen regnant of England.
Here is a primary source account of the coronation ceremony from The chronicle of Queen Jane, and of two years of Queen Mary, and especially of the rebellion of Sir Thomas Wyat
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On the afternoon of Saturday 30th September 1553, Queen Mary I left the Tower of London to process to Westminster, where she would spend the night at Whitehall preparing for her coronation at Westminster Abbey the following day.
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On 29th September 1553, Michaelmas or the Feast of St. Michael and All Angels, Mary I created fifteen1 Knights of the Bath as part of her coronation celebrations.
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On 27th or 28th September 1553 (sources differ regarding the date), Mary I travelled in a decorated barge to the Tower of London to prepare for her coronation. She was accompanied by her half-sister, Elizabeth, and as they pulled up to Tower Wharf, they were greeted by music and cannons firing. It was traditional for monarchs to go to the Tower before their coronations and process from there to Westminster.
[Read More...]The following letter was written by Princess Mary, the future Mary I, to her brother Edward VI on 19th August 1551. Henry Ellis, editor of “Original Letters, Illustrative of English History…” explains:
“The following Letter from the Princess Mary to her brother, is preserved upon the Books of the Privy Council. It is probably the best specimen which we have in our power to give of her talent at writing: and, with the singular Paper which follows it by way of comment, will show her to have been a woman of more intellect than the world has usually supposed. Queen Catherine Parr took great pains in the education both of Mary and Elizabeth.
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On 25th July 1554, the feast day of St James, Mary I married Philip of Spain, son of Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor. The wedding took place at Winchester Cathedral and the ceremony was performed by Stephen Gardener, Bishop of Winchester and Mary’s chancellor.
In the appendix of The Chronicle of Queen Jane and of Two Years of Queen Mary, and especially of the Rebellion of Sir Thomas Wyatt, written by a Resident in the Tower of London, edited by John Gough Nichols, there is an official account of the preparations for the wedding and the wedding itself by the English Heralds:
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On 19th July 1553, thirteen days after the death of her half-brother Edward VI, Mary, eldest daughter of Henry VIII, was proclaimed queen in London in place of Queen Jane, who had been proclaimed queen on 10th July.
The Chronicle of the Grey Friars of London records:
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After declaring herself queen the previous day, in front of her household at Kenninghall, Mary Tudor, daughter of Henry VIII and half-sister of the late King Edward VI, wrote the following letter to the privy council:
“My lords, we greet you well and have received sure advertisement that our dearest brother the King and late sovereign lord is departed to God. Marry, which news, how they be woeful unto our hearts, He wholly knoweth to whose will and pleasure we must and do humbly submit us and our will.
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Mary was born on 18 February 1516 at Greenwich Palace and was the daughter of Henry VIII and his first wife Catherine of Aragon. She was an intelligent girl, was known as a linguist and loved music and dancing. Mary was made illegitimate and removed from the succession after the annulment of her father’s marriage to Catherine of Aragon in 1533 and the subsequent birth of her half-sister Elizabeth, daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn. She and Elizabeth (who had been removed from the succession in 1536 after the fall of her mother) were restored to the line of succession, after their half-brother Edward, by Parliament in 1543 but Edward VI chose to remove his half-sisters from the succession as he lay dying in 1553 and chose Lady Jane Grey as his heir. Mary was forced to fight for the throne and was proclaimed queen on 19 July 1553.
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An article by Adrienne Dillard on what life was like for Marian exiles like Catherine Carey and her husband Francis Knollys who fled to the Continent.
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On 22nd January 1554, Thomas Wyatt the Younger met with fellow conspirators at his home of Allington Castle in Kent to make final plans for their uprising against Mary I and her decision to marry Philip of Spain. This rebellion would become known as Wyatt’s Rebellion.
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Here’s the transcript/screen capture from the live chat with Linda Porter last night. There’s lots to read on this transcript and we had a fantastic time, Our thanks goes to Linda Porter for her expert talk and the time she spent in the chatroom.
[Read More...]Our December talk is by Linda Porter, author of “Crown of Thistles: The Fatal Inheritance of Mary, Queen of Scots”. In this talk, Linda looks at the lives of three queens of England – Katherine Parr, Mary I and Mary, Queen of Scots.
The live chat will be on Monday 15th December at 7:30pm UK Time (That’s 2:30pm Eastern time/11:30am Pacific time/8:30pm Central European Time).
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