Full bio coming soon.
From The White Princess
We call the new baby Mary, in honour of Our Lady, and she is a dainty pretty little girl, with eyes of the darkest blue and hair of jet black. She feeds well and she grows strong and though I don’t forget her pale golden-headed sister, I find I am comforted by this new baby in the cradle, this new Tudor for England.
From Three Sisters, Three Queens
My sister Mary is brought in to make her curtsey, and Katherine makes herself ridiculous by going down on her knees so their faces are level and she can hear her childish whisper. Of course Mary cannot understand a word of either Latin or Spanish, but she puts her arms around Katherine’s neck and kisses her and calls her ‘Thithter’.
‘I am your sister,’ I correct her, giving her little hand a firm tug. ‘This lady is your sister-in-law. Can you say sister-in-law?’
News, always slow to reach the bedraggled Spaniards on the fringe of the royal court, filtered through that Harry’s sister the Princess Mary was to be married, gloriously, to Prince Charles, son of King Philip and Queen Juana, grandson to both the Emperor Maximilian and King Ferdinand.
From The King's Curse
Henry has decided that his friendship with France will be sealed by the marriage of his little sister Princess Mary and the queen has to see her sister-in-law married to the king that she regards as an enemy of herself, her father, and both her countries.
Princess Mary is bitterly opposed to this match – the French king is nearly old enough to be her grandfather – and she comes crying into the queen’s private rooms, whispering that she is in love with Charles Brandon and that she has begged the king to allow her to marry him. She asks the queen to take her part and persuade Henry that his sister can marry for love as he did.
From Three Sisters, Three Queens
There is only one bond that I trust: between a woman and her sisters. We never take our eyes off each other. In love and in rivalry, we always think of each other.
The two armoured men thundered towards each other, divots of earth flying out from the horses’ hooves. The lances were down like arrows flying to a target, the pennants on the end of each lance fluttering as the gap closed between them, then the king took a glancing blow which he caught on his shield, but his thrust at Suffolk slid under the shield and thudded into the breastplate. The shock of the blow threw Suffolk back off his horse and the weight of his armour did the rest, dragging him over the haunches, and he fell with an awful thud to the ground.
His wife leaped to her feet. ‘Charles!’ She whirled out of the queen’s pavilion, lifting her skirts, running like a common woman towards her husband as he lay unmoving on the grass.
Image: Detail from portrait of Mary Tudor and Charles Brandon, 16th century, Collection of the Earl of Yarborough, Brocklesby Park, Lincolnshire, via Wikimedia Commons
