The Tudor Rose: Princess Mary, Henry VIII's Sister

Known as the beautiful sister of Henry VIII and the spoiled darling of the court, Princess Mary Rose 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 favorite companion, Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk. After bearing him four children, Mary Rose died in the full flower of her beauty. Her adored husband, too busy to attend her funeral, soon married the 14-year-old fiancee of their only surviving son, who shortly thereafter died of TB. 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. This is the previously untold story of Mary Tudor and the role she and her descendants played in Tudor England.