Was the marriage between Mary Tudor and Charles Brandon a love match?
I think it was a love match on her side certainly, she seems to have been very anxious to marry him. He was probably attracted to her, she was a veyr beautiful woman, but perhaps not infatuated as she was. But marrying the king’s sister must have been both an attractive and an alarming prospect to him, not knowing how the King would react. In ‘Sisters to the King’ maria Perry writes about Brandon accompanying the royal party to France when Mary married King Louis. ‘There is no evidence that he entertained any feelings for Mary apart from loyal approbation for the way in which she was fulfilling her role and pleasure that he could report back to Henry that the French marriage was working out well.’ Brandon fought as Mary’s champion at the jousting that took place during the wedding celebrations, and Maria Perry writes: ‘if at any point Mary Tudor permitted herself romantic reveries, it was surely in the weeks immediately after the tournament. Technically Suffolk was fighting for her. Th
