Monday 18 February 2013

Happy Birthday Queen Mary I of England, or as I call her The Lady Mary

    Any longtime reader of this blog will know a bit about my love for Mary Tudor, Elizabeth I's older sister.

To be quite frank, I have thought of her quite a lot in the months since I lost my mother.
I never knew that grief could be physically painful, and I wonder if some of the health problems that Mary had were related to the grief that she could not appropriately express. I'd already felt like I understood Mary in relation to being set aside for Father's 'new life', but now I feel even more connected to her. Grief is a very powerful and sometimes completely overwhelming thing that no one can understand until you live it.

I've been following a Tudor related website called The Anne Boleyn files for some time now, and I can't say enough about not only the quality of the content but the continually fascinating posts by its creator, Claire Ridgeway. She does an amazing daily posts called 'Today in History' that I look forward to, and have been constantly inspired by.
She has three books, The Fall of Anne Boleyn: A Countdown, The Anne Boleyn Collection: The Real Truth About the Tudors, and On This Day In Tudor History that are available for download on Amazon. I just got them and I am looking forward to digging into them.

Here are a few links to posts about Mary from The Anne Boleyn Files, and its sister sight, The Elizabeth Files: 
http://www.theanneboleynfiles.com/4574/happy-birthday-mary-i/
http://www.elizabethfiles.com/mary-i-facts/3598/
http://www.theanneboleynfiles.com/8577/the-birth-of-mary-i-18-february-1516/8577/

 Any suggestions on a Mary related book/site/blog/movie/show I need to know about? Leave it in the comments section, or tweet me with the hashtag #mary and tell me about it! I am always looking for something new to read about her. I'd also love biography recommendations!

So, I ask today that you hug your mother and not only think of Mary and Catherine of Aragon, but of me. Because a time will come when she'll be gone, and you should cherish every single moment.

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