Parents, in particular mothers, have a way of distressing their unmarried daughters with such remarks as, When are you going to settle down and get married? or I want to be a grandmother or the real body blow, Youre not a spring chicken any more like you havent noticed!

Such comments give the impression that men are throwing themselves at you from every direction, and youre jus too darn picky to pick one. In fact, getting that man was never that easy. Ask Mary Tudor, the eldest daughter of Henry Vlll. Youd think with her connections shed have no trouble. But in fact, she barely managed to become a wife at all.

She started off pretty well. At the tender age of just two years of age, her affectionate father Henry Vlll, had her betrothed to the Dauphin of France, himself even younger than Mary, having barely escaped from his mothers womb. To mark the occasion a gold ring, suitably set with a diamond of appropriate value, was placed on her very tiny, two-year old finger.

Thus assured of her future, Marys childhood should have been one of looking forward to a happy ever after ending.

No such thing. By the time Mary reached the mature age of five, the young Dauphin seemed to have lost interest in his future bride, and her father, loking around for a suitable man, decided that her first cousin, the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V was just the man. Now, instead of robbing the cradle by marrying a younger groom, she would be marrying a man 17 years her senior.

Sleeping on this for couple of years, Marys future husband decided he didnt want to wait at least another ten years for his bride to grow up, and so this engagement was also broken off.

For a while there, it looked as though her first fiances Father, the King himself, might be a candidate. And just to be on the safe side, the contract stipulated that if the king had second thoughts about the marriage, then perhaps his second son, and brother to Marys first fiance, might be persuaded to marry the English rose.

However, these two candidates also had a change of heart. It would have probably broken Marys heart if she had been old enough to care. At the age of ten, it didnt seem such a big deal. Still, time marched on and still no husband.

Amost too late, Mary realised that if she wanted a husband she would have to find one herself. On becoming a queen, she was at last able to acquire, what had been promised to her over and over again, a husband. But perhaps it was something about Mary, because like her many fiances, her husband didnt really go for Mary. After a mere tweleve months, he decided to go home to mother. He did make a flying visit to Mary some some years later. But even then, he didnt stay.