Mary Tudor, Queen of France

Younger sister of Henry VIII, married at eighteen to the fifty-two-year-old Louis XII of France as part of a peace settlement. Widowed within three months, she defied her brother and married for love — to his close friend Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, before either court could prevent it. Through her granddaughter Frances Brandon she was grandmother to Lady Jane Grey, whose nine-day claim to the English throne in 1553 rested on her descent.