The Tudor Rose

The beautiful sister of Henry VIII, the spoiled darling of the court, Princess Mary Tudor was married off to the ailing King of France against her will and, after his death, had to fight for the right to marry Henry's favourite companion, Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk. After bearing him four children, Mary Rose died in the full flower of her beauty. Her adored husband soon married the 14-year-old fiancee of their only surviving son, who shortly thereafter died of tuberculosis. Her older daughter, Frances, was the mother of the ill-fated Jane Grey, the 'Nine Days Queen'. Her second daughter, Eleanor, was the grandmother of Fernando, 5th Earl of Derby, intended by Henry VIII to inherit the throne after Elizabeth. The Tudor Rose is the tragic story of Mary Tudor, and the role she and her descendants played in Tudor England.