Noble Blood - The Early Life of Bloody Mary

Episode Date: June 22, 2021

The oldest daughter of Henry VIII, Mary Tudor, is commonly known today as "Bloody Mary" for her persecution of Protestants in England during her reign as queen. But as a young woman, she was a girl wh...ose life was ripped out from under her when her father declared that she was no longer a princess. [Side note: I wrote a book! It's a gothic love story about 19th century Edinburgh, and you can pre-order here: https://read.macmillan.com/lp/anatomy-a-love-story/] Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Starting point is 00:00:00 This is an I-heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. Readers, Katie's finalists, publicists. We have an incredible new episode this week for you guys. We have our girl Hillary Duff in here, and we can't wait for you to hear this episode. They put on Lizzie McGuire at 2 a.m. Video on Demand.
Starting point is 00:00:16 This guy's bobo-bubim. 2 a whatever time it is. Lizzie McGuire. And I'm like, the paper view. It was like a first closet moment from me where I was like, I don't feel like she's hot, like the rest of that. No, no, no. I was like, she's beautiful.
Starting point is 00:00:28 But I'm appreciating her. in a different way than these boys are. I'm not like, but listen to Los Coleristas on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or whatever you get your podcast. Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of IHeart Radio and Grimm and Mild from Aaron Manky. Listener discretion is advised.
Starting point is 00:00:56 When Mary Tudor was 17 years old, she was summoned back to court after years of exile. Her letters to her father at the king had been going on her. answered, or given Kurt replied by one of his courtiers. Mary was forbidden to even write to her mother, Catherine, who had obediently accepted exile at the hands of her husband, but who still refused to accept that their marriage had not been valid in the eyes of God. Young Mary, their teenage daughter, had been sent to live in the dreary palace of Hudson House in Hertfordshire, isolated. Her staff and her connections to the outside world slowly diminishing.
Starting point is 00:01:41 Her mother Catherine had been sent even further to a drearier, colder, and lonelier place. They said her health was failing. And so while a letter inviting Mary back to court might have seemed promising, a return to prominence for the young girl who had grown up as England's only princess, Mary was well aware that she was coming back
Starting point is 00:02:04 only as an exercise in humiliation. Even though the Pope hadn't dissolved Henry VIII's first marriage, Henry had broken from Rome and declared himself head of the Church of England. With that, he proclaimed that his marriage to Catherine had never been valid, and then he privately married the woman with whom he had already been infatuated with for years, Anne Boleyn. The creation of the Church of England is one of the, major seismic events of European history, with massive ramifications across the globe. But one of its first victims was the young teenage Mary Tudor. The princess was informed by her father's men,
Starting point is 00:02:50 that she was retroactively a bastard, that she was no longer Princess Mary, but Lady Mary. Mary was being summoned to Hatfield not to reconcile with her father, but to serve as a maid. for her new infant half-sister, Elizabeth. King Henry believed that isolating and humiliating his former wife Catherine and their daughter Mary would be the way to get the proud Catholic women to renounce their positions. They were stones in his shoe,
Starting point is 00:03:24 popular both domestically and with allies abroad, and they were guilty reminders that his gambit with Anne Boleyn was becoming a desperate one. Mary Tudor would outlast Anne Boleyn and go on to become England's first female monarch in her own right, barring the questionable claims of 12th century Empress Matilda and the nine-day attempted coup that crowned Jane Gray. The conflict between Mary's mother Catherine and Anne Boleyn and the larger conflict in England between Catholicism and Protestantism would define not only Mary's teeth. teenage years, but also her brief reign as queen. Today, she's most commonly known as Bloody Mary, but in her lifetime, Princess Mary Tudor was a girl whose life was torn out from under her.
Starting point is 00:04:20 I'm Dana Schwartz, and this is Noble Blood. Princess Mary was born in 1516 beneath a four-poster bed with a golden canopy, on a daybed with red silk embroidered with the coats of of arms for her father, King Henry the 8th, and her mother, Queen Catherine of Aragon. Mary was christened with the name of Henry's favorite sister, and the chapel was lushly decorated for her baptism with jewel-encrusted tapestries. Mary was baptized Catholic in a font used exclusively for royalty. Her birth was a source of joy, but it was also a source of tension and disappointment. She wasn't the son her parents had so desperately been praying for. The couple had been trying for seven years to produce an heir.
Starting point is 00:05:20 Ever since Henry, then just 18 years old, had chosen to marry the pretty Spanish princess, Catherine, daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella. Catherine had originally been married to Henry's older brother, Arthur, the boy who was supposed to be king, But he was sickly, and mere months after he and Catherine wed, Arthur was dead, and Catherine was stranded in England, all but a prisoner of King Henry the 7th, who didn't want to return her generous dowry, but also didn't want to pay for her household. She was alone in a foreign country, with no husband and no prospects, until Henry the 7th died, and the young, dashing Henry the 8th. came in as her knight in shining armor to marry her. She was 23. Because she had been married to
Starting point is 00:06:21 Henry's older brother, this marriage required special papal dispensation from Rome, which they received. Catherine swore before a god and court that her marriage with Arthur had never been consummated. The people, Aunt Henry, rejoiced. They had a beautiful, patient, virtuous queen. and a virile young king. Young Henry the 8th had saved the Spanish dowry and the alliance with the important country. Within weeks of the wedding, Catherine was pregnant, but the months continued and no baby appeared.
Starting point is 00:07:01 She had miscarried, though her belly had remained swollen with an infection, a constant mocking reminder of her own failure, because, of course, in the 16th century, a woman unable to have a child was considered her failure. The miscarriages continued, the cycle of breathless hope and then bitter disappointment. Finally, one bright New Year's Day, Catherine gave birth to a living child, a son.
Starting point is 00:07:34 Henry rode out to a shrine, where he sank to his knees and gave thanks, and he began organizing a festival joust in honor of his new son, whom he of course named Henry. But their joy was short-lived. The infant lived for only three weeks. And so, the pregnancy and birth of the future Princess Mary was an event of tremendous superstition and anxiety. The birthing room was transformed into a cocoon for the mother. The floor lined with carpet, the walls hung with tapestries, though no tapestries with any specific or literal imagery, lest the mother be provoked into bad dreams. In the room, crucifixes, candlesticks, and relics
Starting point is 00:08:24 were carefully placed on an altar for Catherine to pray to. For the entire period leading up until the birth, no men were allowed into the chamber, male servants bearing food or fresh laundry, had to leave it at the door. The baby girl was born healthy, but she was born a girl. If Henry was disappointed, and of course he was disappointed, well, Henry hit it well. Already the ambassadors were making snide remarks about how he would have announced the sex of the infant already
Starting point is 00:08:59 if it had been a boy. When one ambassador congratulated him on the birth, Henry replied that he and Catherine were still young. If it be a daughter this time, God willing, sons may follow. In the meantime, the young Princess Mary was spoiled and pampered. As an infant, she had a full household, a mistress, a head of staff, a wet nurse, a laundress just for her own clothing, and three rockers to soothe her. She had an everyday cradle, and another cradle, a cradle of a state, with an embossed canopy
Starting point is 00:09:39 and an ear-mean quilt that Mary would be put in when she was expecting visitors. She was given a princely education, taught music and languages, a specialty curriculum that her mother had drawn up just for her. One of the most important figures in her young life, her godmother, the Countess of Salisbury, was assigned the role of her governess, and the two became so close that Mary came to see her almost as a second mother. Salisbury was one of the most fascinating women of the era in her own right, a distinguished noble woman, niece of King Edward IV and Richard III, and one of only two women to be a peerest in England at the time in her own right without a titled husband, and the fifth richest peer in all of England.
Starting point is 00:10:30 When Mary was a toddler, Henry would parade through court with her riding on his shoulders. He called her his pearl, and he frequently deletive. in inviting her to perform music for visiting dignitaries. This child never cries, Henry bragged to an ambassador. He knelt down and kissed the young Mary's extended hand. She was a pretty child with red hair like her father and talented in all of her lessons. In other words, she was incredibly valuable as a diplomatic pawn when it came to her future marriage. When Mary was two, she was engaged to the Dauphan of France, Francis. Only four years later, she was engaged to her cousin, the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V,
Starting point is 00:11:18 an alliance against the French. The relationship between England and the Holy Roman Empire was essential in Henry's ambitions to reclaim his ancient birthright, the French throne. Charles agreed that, with marrying Mary, he would back in English for, force invading France. But the time finally came for an invasion, and the English troops were slowed both by bad weather and unexpectedly strong French resistance, and Charles V failed to initiate an offensive. Henry, disappointed and distrustful, considered breaking the betrothal and marrying Mary to someone else, maybe James V of Scotland. Those rumors reached Charles, who was equally skittish now,
Starting point is 00:12:10 about the future match, but Cardinal Wozley, the king's advisor, quelled their anxieties. He had young Mary send her cousin an emerald ring as a sign of her devotion and love. For young Mary, those feelings weren't just courtly politeness. She was infatuated with her older Spanish cousin, her mother's nephew, a dashing boy in his 20s who wore black velvet and always treated her kindly. Looking at portraits of him now, with a modern eye, you might not understand
Starting point is 00:12:46 why she was so enthused. Charles has what is generously referred to as a Habsburg chin. But Charles V shared a fondness for his young cousin. When he received the ring, he put it on his pinky finger and promised he would never take it off.
Starting point is 00:13:04 But it was still years before Mary would be old enough for marriage, and Charles was getting impatient. The lands he inherited were vast, and he wanted to get married sooner rather than later, so that he could set his wife up ruling Spain while he toured and consolidated his power elsewhere.
Starting point is 00:13:25 Tantalizingly close was Isabella of Portugal, already of marrying age. Rather than break up his engagement with Mary outright, Charles V insisted that Mary be handed over him immediately, so she could begin to learn Castilian and the habits of his court, so that when she did finally get her period, there would be no time wasted. Henry refused, and so the betrothal was broken. Almost immediately, Charles married Isabella of Portugal. Mary was heartbroken, her first love no longer destined to become her husband. Her mother Catherine was heartbroken
Starting point is 00:14:04 as well. The end of the betrothal meant the end of the Spanish Anglo alliance, a strong link between her homeland and her married home. But soon, the loss of that engagement would be the least of their worries. Henry was nervous. The War of the Roses, the devastating civil war between the Yorks and the Lancasters, was still within living memory. Some still suggested that Henry's father, Henry V. 7th, was a usurper. Without an air and a clear line of succession, the country was at risk of descending once more into civil war. Someone with an older families than Henry's could easily swoop in and overpower the claim of a young girl. Though Henry treated Princess Mary as his heir, informally positioning her as the Princess of Wales,
Starting point is 00:15:04 there was no indication that the country would accept a female ruler, at least not unanimously, until he had a legitimately born son, the tutor line was vulnerable. Henry was nervous, and he was nervous that he didn't have a son yet because he was being punished. In Leviticus, the Bible says, If a man marries his brother's wife, it is an act of impurity. He has dishonored his brother. They will be childless. He had married his brother's wife, hadn't he? And sure, they weren't childless?
Starting point is 00:15:40 but not having a son was as good as being childless for a king. There were rumors that Queen Catherine had stopped menstruating. It had been years even since a failed pregnancy, and a woman named Anne Boleyn had arrived at court, dazzling wit and a preternatural grace. At the Chateau Ver pageant, the new lady maid just arrived from a childhood in French court played the part of perseverance
Starting point is 00:16:09 in the evening's play, wearing a white satin gown. Henry's infatuation became an obsession. Anne represented everything that Catherine wasn't. Flirtacious where she was pious, dark-haired where she was fair, young where she was old. Anne represented the promise of a new dynasty, of sons. Their flirtation became an open secret. Catherine turned a blind eye. Henry had had affairs before. He had even born a son with a woman named
Starting point is 00:16:44 Bessie Blount. She didn't know how determined Henry was to make Anne the queen. Henry had sent his personal secretary to Rome to appeal to the Pope for an annulment of his marriage to Catherine, to overthrow the ruling of the previous Pope. Henry and Anne appeared together in public as a couple for the first time at the Greenwich Ball in May of 1527. Just 12 days later, Henry secretly met before a tribunal led by Cardinal Wolsey to discuss the religious problems with a marriage to a dead brother's wife. Catherine had had no idea that the threat to her position had become so serious, until Henry came to her chambers one evening
Starting point is 00:17:41 and gave a rehearsed speech about how his conscience had been troubling him that he wanted their marriage annulled. She and Mary would be cared for, of course, not as queen and princess, but provided for nonetheless. Henry didn't happen to mention his intention to Mary and Bolin,
Starting point is 00:18:01 but he didn't have to. Catherine, in her shock and fear, began to weep. Henry lost his nerve. He mumbled that everything was going to be done for the best, and he quickly told her to keep what he had said a secret. If Henry had been expecting Catherine to go quietly, to live a dignified retirement in a position as the king's sister,
Starting point is 00:18:27 he could not have been more wrong. Catherine was a deeply religious Catholic woman who had sworn that her marriage with Arthur had never been consummated. She knew that her marriage with Henry was valid, and she didn't want her daughter married to become a bastard. If Henry wanted their marriage to end, it would take the Pope. Unfortunately for Henry, his appeals to the Pope were not going to make much progress. Thanks to the sacking of Rome, where the Imperial Army had pillaged the city,
Starting point is 00:19:01 Pope Clement the 7th was basically a prisoner of the Holy Roman Emperor. The Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V. the Holy Roman Emperor, Catherine of Erdogan's nephew. Catherine wrote to her nephew, who immediately wrote to Henry in defense of the queen. Charles wrote that he couldn't believe, quote, that having as they have so sweet a princess of their daughter that the king would consent to have her or her mother dishonored, a thing so monstrous of itself, and wholly without precedent in ancient or modern history.
Starting point is 00:19:36 The Pope was stuck between a rock and a hard place. He didn't want to disappoint Henry, and he couldn't disappoint Charles. And so his strategy was just to deflect and delay. So for the time being, 12-year-old Princess Mary, she was still Princess Mary for the time being, Henry and Catherine, were living together at court, an uneasy period of distrust and anger on heaven. Henry's part, and growing fear on Catherine and Mary's.
Starting point is 00:20:11 Catherine continued to hope that Henry's feelings for Anne Boleyn would fade. In 1528, when the sweating sickness broke out in London, court was dispersed to protect themselves. Anne left the city to the seclusion of the Bolin resident at Hever Castle, but the sickness caught her. Princess Mary was nearly as religious as her mother, but I think the young girl could be forgiven if she had ill thoughts towards Anne's recovery. Anne was the other woman threatening not just her parents' marriage, but the very shape of her own life. Unfortunately for Mary, Henry sent his own personal physician to Hever to take care of Anne, and she recovered. The Pope had punted the
Starting point is 00:21:01 issue of Henry's marriage back to England, and so in 1529, the first public trial of the King's marriage to Catherine of Avergun, was held in the Parliament chambers of the Dominican friary at Blackfriars in London. Though Henry sent proxies, Catherine surprisingly arrived in person. She appealed, protesting that the trial was happening at all, saying that as a foreigner she couldn't expect a fair trial in England. The court adjourned, and when they reconvened the next week, the King was present in person too. He argued that Catherine, expecting their country, case to be settled in Rome was unreasonable as well, considering the whole her nephew holding the Pope hostage thing, but that she would definitely get a fair trial and that she could choose her
Starting point is 00:21:49 lawyers, the best lawyers, whoever she wanted. At this, Catherine came over to her husband and knelt at his feet. She begged him in broken English to consider the honor of her, her daughter, of him, and of her family abroad. At several. times during her impassioned speech, Henry, visibly uncomfortable, tried to get her to rise. She didn't. She said her peace, and then, without waiting for reply, stood and left the courtroom. The legate upon whom the decision rested, Campeggio, said that he couldn't make a decision and that the court would continue up again in a few months. It never did. Meanwhile, Mary found that her father was dodging her, becoming more reluctant to see her, not inviting her to the events
Starting point is 00:22:45 that she used to attend. Her father, who had once adored and praised and cherished her, now ignored her, all at the behest of the paranoid Anne Boleyn, who believed that if Princess Mary was alone with her father, she might turn him against her. Mary was sent away from court to Richmond without her mother. King Henry separating Mary and her mother, Catherine, was a strategic move, intending to make them unhappy and docile, hoping that then they would agree to his terms,
Starting point is 00:23:21 agreeing that the marriage was illegitimate. Then they would be able to see each other again. Henry demanded that Catherine choose between his company and that of their daughters, implying that if she left court to visit her, Mary, she wouldn't be allowed back. Catherine replied, saying, I won't leave you for my daughter, nor for anyone else in the world, breaking her own heart. Her loyalty to Henry and her self-sacrifice would ultimately be for nothing. Mary would never see her mother again. From 1531, Mary became
Starting point is 00:24:04 frequently sick to her stomach, sweating and pale, her cramps, so bad she could sometimes scarcely leave the bed. Historians aren't sure if they were symptoms of her regular menstruation or of the stress or depression at being kept from both of her parents,
Starting point is 00:24:24 the stress of her entire life being pulled out from under her, maybe all of the above. The girl who was the only legitimate child of the King of England was living in a distant palace, and then given word that she was being sent
Starting point is 00:24:39 to an even further palace, one with a dampness that even her loyal servants and the fires they let couldn't keep out. Though Mary was of marriageable age, there were no more talks of prospects for her betrothal. Her only company was her ladies and her governess Salisbury, but her staff was slowly disappearing. Henry was attempting to starve his daughter out. Queen Catherine was similarly isolated, sent to her own distant palace and forbidden from contacting the king in any way. When she tried to send him a gold cup, Henry scolded the servant who presented it to him, and the cup was sent back. For the first time in their lifetimes, Henry didn't send Mary or Catherine presents for the new years, and he insisted that his counsel do the same.
Starting point is 00:25:35 Anne, on the other hand, was gifted a room of gold and silver. silver cloth and crimson satin beautifully embroidered. She was living in the rooms that the queen used to occupy, and accompanied by as many ladies as if she were already the queen. While Mary and Catherine were still isolated, stranded in the countryside with fewer and fewer servants and no kindness, Henry declared himself head of the Church of England, and he married Anne Boleyn. workmen removed Catherine of Aragon's arms from Westminster and from the Royal Barge. Catherine's new title was Dowager Princess of Wales, the title she had only from being married to Henry's older brother,
Starting point is 00:26:26 and Catherine was kept under house arrest at Buckton Palace. The rumors came to Mary about her father's remarriage, her mother's banishment, and then subsequently diminishing health. Mary wasn't allowed to even write letters to her mother, not even simple letters just to ask about how she was feeling. She begged her father, saying that he could have someone vet the letters just to make sure that she was only asking about Catherine's health.
Starting point is 00:26:56 Or the king could himself read all of their correspondence. Just please, please, let her contact her mother. Henry refused. Anne Boleyn, the new queen of England, openly bragged that she would have the former Princess Mary serving as her ladies' maid, or that she would marry Mary off to some common varlet. Her stereotypical evil stepmother cruelty
Starting point is 00:27:23 came from a place of fear. She knew that Catherine and Mary both remained popular throughout England. People had hissed at Anne's barge when it came down the Thames. Catherine and Mary were still the queen and princess in the peace. people's minds, and Mary, still being eligible for prominent marriage, made her a threat. Anne Boleyn was pregnant immediately, but in September she gave birth not to the long-promised son that Henry had upended all of Christendom for, but to a daughter. Cordiers and ambassadors loyal to Catherine and Mary murmured that it was God's punishment.
Starting point is 00:28:08 But it was still a legitimate child. Henry was married. married to Anne now, she was queen and her children were the ones in line for the throne. Mary was swiftly demoted, told that she was no longer Princess Mary, but Lady Mary. Her household was dissolved, and her loyal companion, the Countess of Salisbury, Margaret Pole, was dismissed, even as the Countess begged to stay on, stating that she would pay for the household in all expenses. She was refused. Henry couldn't risk treating Mary as a princess any longer. There must be no appearances that indicated that Henry's marriage to Catherine was or ever had been valid.
Starting point is 00:28:54 All loyalty to Mary and Catherine needed to be quashed. Symbolism would be effective, particularly having the new, quote, Lady Mary, serve as Princess Elizabeth's ladymaid. When Mary was informed that she had, was no longer a princess by an apologetic courtier, Mary wrote to her father, quote, This morning my Chamberlain came and showed me
Starting point is 00:29:20 that he had received a letter from Sir William Pollitt, comptroller of your household, wherein it was written that the, quote, Lady Mary, the king's daughter, should remove to the place Epherset, leaving out the name of princess, which, when I heard,
Starting point is 00:29:39 I could not a little marvel, trusting verily that your grace was not privy to the same letter as concerning the leaving out of the name of princess. For as so much I doubt not in your goodness, but that your grace doth take me for his lawful daughter, born in true matrimony. Wherefore, if I were to say to the contrary, I should in my conscience run to the displeasure of God, which I hope assuredly your grace would not that I should. And in all other things, your grace should have me always, as humble and obedient daughter and handmaid, as ever was child to the father. Mary signed the letter, Your most humble daughter, Mary, comma, princess.
Starting point is 00:30:30 Was it bravery, stubbornness, pride, self-preservation? Surely she had to know that she would be treated with more kindness and mercy if she just accepted the king's decision and agreed to live happily as his bastard daughter. But she couldn't. Her love for her mother was greater than her fear, her dignity greater than her vanity. The king didn't write back personally, but she received a letter from court. The king is surprised to be informed, both by Lord Hussie's letter and by his daughter's own, delivered by one of her servants, that she, forgetting her filial duty and allegiance, attempts in spite of the commandment given to her,
Starting point is 00:31:17 arrogantly to usurp the title of princess, pretending to be heir apparent, declaring that she cannot in conscious think that she is but the king's lawful daughter born in true matrimony and believes that the king in his conscious thinks the same. The rebuke was sharp. In December 1533, Mary was forced to join Princess Elizabeth's household at Hatfield.
Starting point is 00:31:44 Mary refused to denounce her own status or give in to her father's demands, and she wasn't allowed to see or speak to her mother even via messenger, even as rumors of Catherine's deteriorating health continued to swirl. Catherine was clearly ill. Some said that she was dying of heartbreak, but some said that the king or his men were poisoning Catherine to get her, out of the way. Catherine died in January of 1536. Mary never got to say goodbye to her mother. Just four months later, Anne Boleyn was beheaded. Their downfalls had coincided in the end.
Starting point is 00:32:26 Two weeks after Anne Boleyn's death, Mary had a new stepmom, Jane Seymour, who helped foster a reconciliation between Mary and her father. At the urging of Mary's longtime Alice, her cousin, Charles V, Mary eventually signed the documents agreeing to the king's terms and her new position at court. From that point on, at least, she was given her own household
Starting point is 00:32:52 and her own expenditures. It would remain a long journey for Mary until she became queen in her own right. Her loyalty to her mother, her fervent dedication to Catholicism. They were the keys to protecting her title,
Starting point is 00:33:08 but in the first of her, the end, they might also have been the factors that contributed to her downfall. Mary's younger half-sister would also become queen, of course, the future Elizabeth I. The two of them, Mary and Elizabeth, would be, in their lifetimes, both allies and enemies. But that's a story for a later episode. That was the story of young Princess Mary Tudor, but keep listening after a brief sponsor break to hear a little bit more about one of the main side characters in this story. Readers, Katie's finalists, publicists.
Starting point is 00:33:57 We have an incredible new episode this week for you guys. We have our girl Hillary Duff in here, and we can't wait for you to hear this episode. They put on Lizzie McGuire 2am video on demand. This guy's bo-u-a-m. Two-a-m-m-a-moyer. And I'm like, a wild batch you were with. It was like a first, like, closet moment from me where I was like, I don't feel like she's hot, like the rest of that.
Starting point is 00:34:16 No, no, no. I was like, she's beautiful. but I'm appreciating her in a different way than these boys are. I'm not like, but listen to Los Coleristas on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or whatever you get your podcast. I'm Iris Palmer and my new podcast is called Against All Od, and that's exactly what the show is about, doing whatever it takes to be the odds. Get ready to hear from some of your favorite entrepreneurs and entertainers as they share stories about defying expectations, overcoming barriers, and breaking generational patterns. I'm talking to people like award-winning actress, producer, and director, Eva Langoria. I think I had like $200 in my savings account and my mom goes, what are you going to do?
Starting point is 00:35:00 And I was like, I'll figure it out. We got a one-bedroom apartment for like $400 a month and we all could not afford. Like, I was like, how am I going to make $100 a month? I'm opening up like I've never before. For those of you who think you know me from what you've seen on social media, get ready to see a whole new side of me. Listen to Against All Odds with Iris Palmer as part. of the MyCultura Podcast Network, available on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. It's at this point in the show that I usually offer a tidbit about where the story went from there.
Starting point is 00:35:37 But I'm so fascinated about Mary's life and there's so much to say about her after she became queen that I'm going to give her reign its own entire episode. But do you remember Mary's beloved governess, the wealthy Countess Salisbury Margaret Pole? Well, she had her own wild story that could have merited its own episode. After King Henry's death, during the reign of his son Edward the 6th, Salisbury gets implicated in a plot of Catholic loyalty orchestrated by one of her sons. She's locked in the Tower of London and eventually beheaded. Famously, Henry VIII had hired a French swordsman to expertly remove Anne Boleyn's head.
Starting point is 00:36:22 The Countess of Salisbury, Margaret Pult, was offered no such grace. She was given an inexperienced axeman who required so many thrusts to cut through Salisbury's spine that her neck and shoulders were hacked to pieces before she was dead. Sorry to leave you on such a gruesome bummer of a note, but this is, after all, a podcast called Noble Blood. Noble Blood is a production of IHeart Radio and Grimmin Mild from Aaron Manky. The show is written and hosted by Dana Schwartz and produced by Aaron Manky, Matt Frederick, Alex Williams, and Trevor Young.
Starting point is 00:37:07 Noble Blood is on social media at Noble Blood Tales, and you can learn more about the show over at Noble Bloodtales.com. For more podcasts from IHeartRadio, visit the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Readers, Katie's finalists, publicists. We have an incredible new episode this week for you guys. We have our girl Hillary Duff in here and we
Starting point is 00:37:37 can't wait for you to hear this episode. They put on Lizzie McGuire 2 a.m. Video on Demand This guy's... 2 a.m. Lissie McGuire. And I'm like... Wild bat you were with. It was like a first like closet moment from me where I was like... You're like, I don't feel like she's hot like the rest of that. No, no, no. I was like,
Starting point is 00:37:52 she's beautiful. But I'm appreciating her in a different way than these boys are. I'm not like Buh. But... Listen to Laskol Dristas on the I-Hart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or whatever you get your podcast. This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.

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