The Tudors Dynasty podcast.

Hi, Kristen.

It's so nice to meet you.

It's wonderful to see you as well.

Yeah, so I am really, really excited to be talking to you about Mary Belin and different rumors that surrounded her during her time at the court of Henry the 8th.

But before we get to that time,

we need to go back in time a little bit

and talk about Mary's earlier life.

So we know that a teenage Mary Boleyn

served Henry the 8th sister, Mary Tudor,

in France and her time as the French queen

in the year 1514. So that my first question for you is,

is there any truth to the rumor that the French queen's son-in-law and Henry the eight's great

rival, King Francis I, called Mary Bolin his quote unquote English mayor. So what can you tell us about this relationship

between Francis and Mary? And did this quote actually happen? So, well, this is a long tale, but that quote is from a letter written by Rodolfo Pia, who is the Bishop of Fenza, in 1536.

Oh, okay.

So 1536, this is the same year that Anne Boleyn is executed, you know, this is way after Mary was actually at the court.

And in that letter, he says that the king said that she was a great prostitute and infamous above all.

But a careful reading of this letter will lead most people to understand that

Rodolfo Pio was referring to Anne Boleyn. Oh, okay. That's a plot twist. So the letter says that

Mary was with her sister and during a miscarriage of a son at Henry's court, right, later in 1534.

But the letter has so many falsehoods in it that it's hard to lend credence to one phrase when we know that so many other facts in it are wrong.

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