From the Emperor’s Desk: I will not do a complete biography of Queen Mary on the anniversary of her birth, instead I will focus on how she came to marry King Felipe II of Spain.
Mary was born on February 18, 1516 at the Palace of Placentia in Greenwich, England. She was the only child of King Henry VIII and his first wife, Infanta Catherine of Aragon, to survive infancy. Her mother had suffered many miscarriages and stillbirths. Before Mary’s birth, four previous pregnancies had resulted in a stillborn daughter and three short-lived or stillborn sons, including Henry, Duke of Cornwall.
Throughout Mary’s childhood, Henry negotiated potential future marriages for her. When she was only two years old, Mary was promised to François, Dauphin of France, the infant son of King François I, but the contract was repudiated after three years.
In 1522, at the age of six, she…
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Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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