Did Mary I had a false pregnancy?


Shortly after Mary wed at age 37, the queen and her doctors believed she was pregnant. She experienced morning sickness, her abdomen expanded and she reportedly felt the baby move. An official announcement was made that the queen was expecting and as the anticipated delivery drew near Mary retreated from public view for her lying-in period. Sometime afterward, word spread that Mary had given birth to a son and her subjects started celebrating. However, the news turned out to be only a rumor.



 More time passed, but a royal infant never appeared and eventually it became apparent one never would. Although it’s unclear exactly what happened, some medical experts now suggest the monarch might’ve suffered from pseudocyesis, a rare condition in which a woman has many of the symptoms of pregnancy (and in some cases even experiences labor pain) but isn’t in fact carrying a child.

Several years after her false pregnancy, Mary once again incorrectly thought she was expecting. She ultimately died childless.


In September 1554, Mary stopped menstruating. She gained weight, and felt nauseated in the mornings. For these reasons, almost the entirety of her court, including her doctors, believed her to be pregnant. Parliament passed an act making Philip regent in the event of Mary's death in childbirth. In the last week of April 1555, Elizabeth was released from house arrest, and called to court as a witness to the birth, which was expected imminently. According to Giovanni Michieli, the Venetian ambassador, Philip may have planned to marry Elizabeth in the event of Mary's death in childbirth, but in a letter to his brother-in-law, Maximilian of Austria, Philip expressed uncertainty as to whether his wife was pregnant


Thanksgiving services in the diocese of London were held at the end of April after false rumours that Mary had given birth to a son spread across Europe. Through May and June, the apparent delay in delivery fed gossip that Mary was not pregnant.Susan Clarencieux revealed her doubts to the French ambassador, Antoine de Noailles. Mary continued to exhibit signs of pregnancy until July 1555, when her abdomen receded. Michieli dismissively ridiculed the pregnancy as more likely to "end in wind rather than anything else". It was most likely a false pregnancy, perhaps induced by Mary's overwhelming desire to have a child. In August, soon after the disgrace of the false pregnancy, which Mary considered to be "God's punishment" for her having "tolerated heretics" in her realm,[109] Philip left England to command his armies against France in Flanders. Mary was heartbroken and fell into a deep depression. Michieli was touched by the queen's grief; he wrote she was "extraordinarily in love" with her husband, and was disconsolate at his departure.




Elizabeth remained at court until October, apparently restored to favour. In the absence of any children, Philip was concerned that one of the next claimants to the English throne after his sister-in-law was the Queen of Scots, who was betrothed to the Dauphin of France. Philip persuaded his wife that Elizabeth should marry his cousin Emmanuel Philibert, Duke of Savoy, to secure the Catholic succession and preserve the Habsburg interest in England, but Elizabeth refused to comply and parliamentary consent was unlikely.















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