Tudor Times is the online repository for all things Tudor and Stewart (1485–1625)

On 12th August 1570, Lady Ursula Pole, Lady Stafford died. Ursula was the only daughter of Margaret, Countess of Salisbury, and, aged about 20, in 1519 had married the oldest son of the Duke of Buckingham. Had matters gone as planned, this would have seen Ursula take rank as the highest lady in the kingdom after the royal family. Unfortunately, Ursula’s father-in-law, Edward Stafford, Duke of Buckingham, fell foul of Henry VIII and was executed in 1521. His title and lands were forfeit to the Crown. Ursula’s husband was restored to a barony in 1547. Two of Ursula’s brothers, and her mother fell victim to the axe in the wake of the Exeter Conspiracy.

The Staffords, like many other families, were divided by religion: whilst Ursula’s brother, Reginald, was the last Catholic Archbishop of Canterbury, her daughter, Dorothy, was in exile during his tenure with other radical Protestants in Geneva and her son, Thomas, was executed in 1557 for an attempt on the throne.

The picture is alleged to be Ursula, although we cannot find any provenance for it. The symbols of the white rose and the monstrance show both her Yorkist blood and her Catholic faith. These, together with her costume which dates from the 1540s, suggest that the picture, if it were painted during Henry or Edward’s reign, was not for public consumption, or else that it was commissioned during Mary’s reign.

On 11th August 1492 Rodrigo Borgia was elected Pope Alexander VI. His reign as Pope was almost a caricature of the worst excesses of the late mediaeval church – greed, lust, political chicanery and nepotism. Born in Valencia, Spain, Alexander was the nephew of Pope Calixtus III who promoted him within the church hierarchy and he continued the nepotism of the times with the promotions and marriages of his own children, whom he legitimated after being elected Pope.

In 1493, Alexander promulgated the Bull which resulted in the Treaty of Tordesillas, which demarcated the exploration zones of Spain and Portugal in the New World.

His main interest, however, was European politics and his attempts to take control of Italian affairs. It was through his invitation to conquer Naples that Charles VIII of France entered Italy in 1498, sparking the Italian Wars that would last for sixty years. Two of his children were Lucrezia, Duchess of Ferrara, and Cesare Borgia, model for Machiavelli’s ‘The Prince’.

On 10th August 1520, Queen Claude of France gave birth to her fifth child, a girl named Madeleine. Born at the royal palace of St Germaine-en-Laye, Madeleine was always a frail girl, and her father, Francois I, who had promised a daughter in marriage to James V tried to substitute another lady, believing that marriage and life in damp Scotland would not be healthy for her.

James V came in person to France and persuaded Francois to permit the marriage. Madeleine herself seems to have been eager to marry and be a queen. The couple were married at the Cathedral of Notre Dame on 1st January 1537 before returning to Scotland. Sadly, the worst prognostications proved true and Madeleine died before her seventeenth birthday. She was buried in the Abbey at Holyrood. Read more about Madeleine’s courtship and marriage here