The Unofficial British Royal Family Pages

Monday 16 August 2004

The Greatest Pearl in the Kingdom

Once called “the greatest pearl in the kingdom” by her father – the same man who revoked her legitimacy – it must have been a bittersweet pill for Queen Mary I of England to swallow when her new husband gave her an enormous pearl as a wedding gift in 1554. And while love must have been a confusing emotion to someone treated as schizophrenically as Mary had been by Henry VIII, the La Peregrina pearl did not symbolize the entrance of a new and more understanding relationship in her life. 

July 25^th, 2004 marked the 450^th wedding anniversary of Queen Mary to Philip II of Spain – a royal marriage remembered today more for its unrealized historical significance than for its contemporary nuances.  

Mary and Philip made an unusual couple, to say the least. To begin with, at 38, she was 12 years his senior. He was also highly sought-after in the royal marriage market, while contemporary accounts describe her as old and skinny with missing teeth. One look at any of her portraits (which, we may keep in mind, were meant to be flattering) confirm that the accounts weren’t simply tactless exaggerations. And while she was a middle-aged “maiden,” the marriage was his second.  

Although previously unmarried, Mary had been engaged – several times, in fact, including once to her first cousin (and Philip’s own father), the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, when she was just six years old. The engagement was broken off, however, when Charles decided instead to marry Princess Isabella of Portugal, with whom he parented Philip. But the slight against the young Mary didn’t affect the adult Mary’s desire to not only be allied with Spain, but to have the power of the Holy Roman Empire behind her. 

Philip, it seems, didn’t necessarily see the match in such desirable terms. His first wife – another cousin, Princess Mary of Portugal – had died almost nine years earlier, but not before leaving him a son and heir. Clearly, he was neither in immediate need of, nor in a hurry to take, a second wife. Unfortunately for Philip, he was also in no position to decide for himself while his father was alive, and he eventually consented to the match. 

If Philip wasn’t looking forward to the marriage, the English populace was even less thrilled. Uprisings were commonplace and most of what little popularity Mary ever had quickly disintegrated during the furore. None of this dampened Mary’s resolve to go through with the marriage. In fact, she seemed determined in spite of it all to go forward. When Philip took exception with Mary’s moderate treatment of Lady Jane Grey – and, symbolically, the Protestants – Mary promptly withdrew the nine-day queen’s suspended sentence and had her executed. 

If more evidence was needed that Philip was marrying Mary strictly for political reasons, we need only turn to his behavior in the days preceding and the years following his wedding. Contemporary accounts tell us that while he was polite to Mary at their first meeting (two days before the wedding), he was openly flirtatious to her attendants – even making a proposition or two. After the undignified end of Mary’s so-called pregnancy, Philip quickly departed England, staying away for nearly two years, returning – now as King of Spain – just long enough to gain England’s support in Spain’s war against France. Mary, of course, pledged that support, only to lose Calais as a result. Her husband gone once again, she suffered another phantom pregnancy and became severely depressed, finally dying barely a year after Philip’s second departure.  

With a typical lack of sentiment and an eye toward politics, Philip waited a total of about five minutes before he began making overtures to Mary’s successor, Elizabeth I. Luckily for Elizabeth, the advances, like La Peregrina, were returned – unwanted – to Philip. In one fell swoop, England lost the two “greatest pearls” in the kingdom and gained Gloriana.

Until next week, 

- Tori Van Orden Mart�nez