Linda Porter - Tumblr Posts

She spoke no German and he no English but, as educated people, they were able to converse in Latin. An interpreter filled in any gaps when Latin did not suffice, and they seem to have communicated effectively. Philip gave her a magnificent diamond cross with a pendant pearl as a token of his affection and repeated that he wished to marry her. He was also bold enough to kiss her, something which no man who was a stranger had ever done. [x]

The Tudors vs History: 21/?

“She was still holding out in the second week of June [1536], but becoming increasingly disturbed that she had received no reply to her letters to her father. On the first day of the month she had written to the king desiring his blessing and asking forgiveness ‘for all the offences that I have done to your grace, since I had first discretion to offend’. She was, she said, ‘as sorry as any living creature.’ […] She also congratulated him on his marriage and asked to be allowed to see the new queen.”

– The Myth of ‘Bloody Mary’, Linda Porter

“ Rejoices to hear of the marriage between his Grace and the Queen now being. Desires leave to wait upon the latter and do her Grace service. Prays God to send him a prince. Hounsdon, 1 June.”

– Princess Mary to [Henry VIII].  

“Henry VIII: June 1536, 1-5.” Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII, Volume 10, January-June 1536. Ed.  James Gairdner. London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1887. 424-440.     

On one of her visits to court, [Mary] heard the Venetian organist, Dionysius Memo, playing for her father’s guests and ran after him calling, ‘Priest, priest!’ , not because she was interested in his religious role but to encourage him to play more. Henry was proudly indulgent of this slight lapse in his child’s otherwise dignified behavior. Her taste he could not fault, since it had been Henry himself who brought Memo, the organist of St. Mark’s, to England not long after Mary’s birth.

– The First Queen of England: the myth of ‘Bloody Mary’, Linda Porter

“The relationship between Anne and Henry was always tempestuous. Her outspokenness and involvement in politics did not make her an easy spouse; there was a great deal of love but also a great deal of temper. And Anne, for all her declamations, was less confident than she seemed. There had been many attacks on her and she stood at the centre of a storm that showed no signs of abating.”

— Linda Porter