At Bury St Edmunds, St Mary's is one of the largest parish churches in England — but it owes its fame to a tomb: that of Mary Tudor, younger sister of Henry VIII, Queen of France by marriage, whose remains were received here after the destruction of the neighbouring abbey.
A great Perpendicular church
Built in the fifteenth century, St Mary's unfolds a vast Perpendicular nave, topped by an exceptional hammerbeam roof, adorned with eleven pairs of carved angels spreading their wings — one of the finest wooden ceilings in Suffolk. Its unusual width and its immense west window make it a church worthy of a cathedral, on the scale of the rich monastic town of Bury. Like neighbouring St James, it lived in the shadow of the formidable abbey.
The tomb of Mary Tudor
St Mary's shelters the grave of Mary Tudor (1496-1533), one of the most romantic royal figures of the reign. Younger sister of Henry VIII, she was briefly Queen of France by her marriage to the old king Louis XII (1514); widowed a few months later, she married for love, in secret, Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, her brother's favourite — a scandalous marriage that almost ruined Brandon. Dying in 1533, she was first buried in the abbey of Bury; after its Dissolution (1539), her remains were transferred to St Mary's, where she still rests — a direct memory of the Tudor royal family saved from the wreck of the abbey. To see: the tomb of Mary Tudor in the sanctuary (marble slab added in 1904), the hammerbeam roof with eleven pairs of angels, the immense west window.
Did you know?
Mary Tudor, Queen of France, was so beloved of her brother Henry VIII that a warship bore her name — the Mary Rose, one of the most famous vessels of the Tudor navy, named (according to a persistent tradition) in her honour and that of the Tudor rose. The queen who rests at St Mary's thus perhaps gave her name to the ship whose sinking in 1545, before Henry VIII's eyes, remains one of the great maritime dramas of the English Renaissance.
Notes
St Mary's Church lies at Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk; a working parish church, open to visits. A marble border was laid on the royal tomb in 1904 (Edward VII). Hours to check.
Quiz
- Which queen rests at St Mary's, Bury?
- Mary Tudor, Queen of France (sister of Henry VIII)
- Anne Boleyn
- Mary Stuart
- Why were her remains transferred here?
- After the Dissolution of the neighbouring abbey (1539)
- To hide her from the Spanish
- By order of the pope
- What is remarkable about the nave roof?
- It bears eleven pairs of carved angels
- It is of iron
- It is painted gold