catalina-de-aragon: The midwinter baby born at four o’clock on the morning of Monday, 18

catalina-de-aragon:The midwinter baby born at four o’clock on the morning of Monday, 18 February 1516, was bonny enough to dispel any immediate fears for her survival. It was the Queen’s fifth pregnancy. After a difficult labour, Katherine of Aragon, must have dared to hope that her prayers for a healthy child had, at last, been answered. The Queen did not know that news of her father’s death had arrived in London only two days earlier; it was deliberately kept from her so that she could approach her delivery calmly. The girl, small but pretty, already showed signs that she had inherited the red-gold hair of both her parents and the clear Tudor complexion.All the suffering of the past evaporated, at least temporarily, in the joyful realisation that Katherine and Henry were, at last, parents. The King’s undoubted relief was evident. When Sebastian Giustiniani, the Venetian Ambassador, congratulated him on the birth and commented that ‘the State would have been yet more pleased had the child been a son’, King Henry told him, ‘If it is a daughter this time, by the grace of God, boys will follow. We are both still young’ The little princess was christened three days after her birth. The nobility of England gathered at the royal apartments to form a guard of honour as the baby emerged from the queen’s chamber in the arms of the Countess of Surrey. Beneath a golp canopy held aloft by four knights of the realm, the baby was carried to the nearby church of the Observant Friars. The way to the church had been cleaned, gravelled and covered with rushes and the ceremony was carried out with all the pomp and circumstance required. The procession of gentlemen, ladies, earls and bishops paused at the door of the church, where, in a small arrascovered wooden archway, the baby was greeted by her godparents, blessed, and named Mary after her aunt, the Duchess of Suffolk, Henry’s favorite sister. Queen Katherine and her sister-in-law were on very good terms and would remain so, but the Queen was no doubt pleased at the choice of name for religious as well as family reasons. Mary (María) was also the name of her sister the queen of Portugal. Acting as Mary’s godmothers was her great-aunt, Katherine of York, Countess of Devon, and the Duchess of Norfolk. Her godfather was Henry’s chief minister, Cardinal Wolsey. After prayers were said and promises made, Mary was plunged three times into the font water, anointed with the holy oil, dried, and swaddled in her baptismal robe. As Te Deums were sung, she was taken up to the high altar and confirmed under the sponsorship of Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury. Finally, with the rites concluded, her tittle was proclaimed to the sound of the heralds’ trumpets: God send and give good life and long unto the right high, right noble and excellent Princess Mary, Princess of England and daughter of our most dread sovereign lord the King’s Highness.Once the ceremony was complete, the little princess was returned to her mother in the Queen’s chamber at Greenwich Palace.Sources:Mary Tudor: The First Queen by Linda Porter Mary Tudor: England’s First Queen byAnna Whitelock -- source link

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