i was just reading a very romanticized book on henry 8th... and as always for me the most interesting part was his youth - since my favorite king is henry 7th and all...
and i was just thinking there's a lot of similarities between the three tudor siblings that survived to adulthood (cause poor arthur did not quite reach adulthood imo) - if not in any other way but the way their personal life evolved.
all three of them married princes first - as arranged by others (henry 7th in the case of henry and margaret, henry 8th in the case of mary). margaret and henry managed to reach some kind of understanding with their spouses - probably mary would have too had she had the time. mary and margaret's husbands died. both of them then married in rather dubious circumstances people they shouldn't have married. henry did that too only much later and in a much more difficult manner. mary's marriage lasted (maybe because she died young...?) but both henry and margaret ended up divorcees, remarried and margaret was in the process of divorcing again when she died. not much different from her brother and his six marriages (again, maybe she would have remarried again had she had the time)...
it just strikes me as odd that these three siblings had the guts (i don't know how else to call it) to follow their hearts (not always in a wise way) in a time when marriages were supposed to be understandings between people of similar stations, more like business partnerships than personal relations. we all know that henry might not have been the way he was had he had a son with catherine, but the truth is that when he divorced and remarried (which i think we agree he did to have a son) he didn't marry a princess, duchess or something (it wouldn't have been so unusual, had he remarried dynastically), he married anne bolleyn whose most noble relation was her uncle (but on her father's side she wasn't that much). and then jane seymour, catherine howard and catherine parr were not exactly queen material genealogy wise either.
not many princes did what they did - and the fact that they were siblings makes me think that a part of the reason why they were the way they were (and did not comply with the vision on marriage that was around at the time) was the way they were raised. but then... they were the children of henry 7th who doesn't strike me as the most romantic guy in the world. and i'm sure the nannies and governesses and tutors were different from child to child.
the common element i can think of is their grandfather, edward 4th, who did what they did when he married elizabeth woodville. but he died long before any of them were born - so the heritage should have been passed through his daughter - elizabeth of york. on the other hand, mary was very young when her mother died. and elizabeth has this image of a goody-two-shoes type of person... which fits her posture as henry 7th's wife... could she have been a romantic at heart? could she have inspired the desire for love in her children?
so, if any of you hasn't fallen asleep yet, reading my random musings... i'm wondering if we can find a common influence for these three non-conformist (as far as marriage was concerned, anyway) siblings... something that might have given them a different view on life and marriage and social status. or maybe they followed each other's lead? (margaret was the first to rebel, then mary, then henry...). you think at any time, when the whole catherine-anne story happened, henry thought to himself "i can do it, my sisters did it" (marry whomever he wants, that is)?
