The first queen regnant of England; known as “Bloody Mary”; a devout papist embattled in a Protestant state; executed hundreds of suspected heretics; failed in her attempt to restore Catholicism to England
Born 18 February 1516, Mary was the sole surviving child of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon. Few births in English history were so anticipated and yet so disappointing. Her father had wanted a son to carry on the dynasty that his father, HenryVII, had started. Nevertheless, both Henry and Catherine doted upon Mary in her early years, providing her with a household befitting a princess and heir to the throne of England. Likewise, Catherine took a special interest in Mary’s education and took advantage of the newest learning available, Christian humanism, which emphasized the study of the classics and theology, by employing a humanist scholar in England, Thomas Linacre, as Mary’s tutor. She also commissioned the Instruction of a Christian Woman (Latin, 1523; English, 1529) from another humanist, Juan Luis Vives, a fellow Spaniard, who believed in the virtue of formally educating women so that they would become better wives and mothers. Mary excelled at her Latin, and she became quite adept at music, a skill inherited from her father.
As was the practice for all princesses of this period, Henry intended to use Mary in the dynastic marriage game. In 1522, wanting to eliminate France as a potential problem, Henry betrothed Mary, aged six, to her twenty-year-old cousin, Charles V, king of Spain and Holy
Mary I, queen of England and champion of Roman Catholicism (also known as “Bloody Mary”). Portrait by Anthonis Mor. Museo del Prado, Madrid, Spain. (Library of Congress)
Roman emperor, with the wedding to take place when she reached twelve. For his part, Charles wanted Henry’s assistance in his territorial struggles with France, and the proposed marriage could secure his designs. However, in 1525, Charles, largely unaided by Henry, soundly defeated the French, making his alliance with Henry unnecessary. Consequently, Charles broke off the engagement and married Isabel, princess of Portugal, who was closer to his age and brought immediate strategic advantages.
Charles’s abandonment of Mary was a hard blow to Henry’s prestige, so he punished the only Spaniard in his control, Catherine, developing a pattern he would continue for the remaining years of their marriage. First, he elevated his bastard son, Henry Fitzroy, to the peerage, naming him duke of Richmond as if grooming him to be heir. Second, he separated mother from daughter by sending Mary away to Wales, ostensibly to take up her responsibilities as the princess of Wales. Though Henry never invested her with the actual title, Mary lived at Ludlow Castle in the full splendor of a royal governor and carried out the duties with the assistance of loyal advisors, remaining there until 1527.
That year marked a major change in Mary’s life, when Henry decided to pursue an annulment of his marriage to Catherine of Aragon. Having convinced himself that his lack of a legitimate male heir was God’s punishment for marrying his brother’s widow, Henry sought freedom from his almost twenty-year marriage and soon received solace in the arms of his mis-tress, Anne Boleyn. Catherine, always maintaining that she was Henry’s legal wife, enlisted the assistance of her Spanish and Holy Roman relations in her fight against her husband. Between 1527 and 1530, Mary’s own relations with her father, though somewhat tenuous, remained civil. In 1531, however, in an attempt to crush Catherine’s opposition, Henry ordered Catherine away from his presence, also separating her from Mary. Mary bravely supported her mother in the dispute, a decision that held lasting repercussions. With the assistance of parliament, Henry separated England from the authority of the Catholic Church and then had his marriage to Catherine annulled so that he could marry Anne in 1532. Later, Henry would order his subjects to no longer refer to Mary as the “Princess Mary” but rather as “Lady Mary,” reflecting her illegitimate standing.
Mary’s status as Henry’s heir soon changed with the birth of Elizabeth Tudor on 7 September 1533, whom he recognized as his only legitimate child and heir. Life for Mary during this period remained difficult, with Henry repeatedly subjecting her to verbal threats if she did not surrender to his will. Mary’s love for her mother and her devotion to her Catholic faith kept her from yielding to her father’s desires, as did the support of representatives from Spain and the Holy Roman Empire, especially
Eustace Chapuys, Charles V’s ambassador, whom she used as a messenger to her mother and for emotional support when rumors suggested Henry would execute both mother and daughter. Her dependency upon these foreign advisors would have lasting consequences for her own reign.
Execution never came for Mary, and, after Catherine’s death in January 1536 and Anne Boleyn’s execution four months later, her situation changed dramatically. Catherine had served as a symbol and as moral support in the battle with Henry. With both wives dead and Henry quickly remarried to Jane Seymour, Mary had to consider how best to conduct her life. After weighing her options, Mary decided to yield to her father’s authority, and, though not reinstated to the succession until 1544, Mary’s remaining years with her father passed reasonably quietly.
With Henry’s death in 1547, Mary’s half brother from Henry’s third marriage became Edward VI (1547-1553). As a minor, Edward could not directly rule; so a council, eventually led by John Dudley, duke of Northumberland, ruled for him. Heavily influenced by Reformed Protestantism, Edward’s council repeatedly attempted to force Mary into abandoning her Catholic faith. Steadfastly, Mary refused, arguing that she had a right to worship according to her conscience and continued to hear mass in her private chapel. Edward was a convinced Protestant and, under the influence of Dudley, chose to change the order of succession in favor of Lady Jane Grey, HenryVIII’s niece and Dudley’s daughter-in-law.
Soon after Edward’s death on 6 July 1553, the privy council, afraid of a return to Catholicism, proclaimed Lady Jane queen. Mary had already heard of the plot and quickly rode through the countryside, proclaiming herself queen and gaining an army from the public, sympathetic to her troubles. Though Dudley attempted to capture the queen, his supporters faded quickly, and nine days after Lady Jane became queen, the privy council deposed her.
Mary entered London on 24 July 1533 as the rightful queen of England.
From the outset of her reign, Mary demonstrated clemency toward her political enemies and set out to restore England to its ancient ways. Four days after her coronation in November, parliament reversed its previous decision and reinstated Henry and Catherine’s marriage. Furthermore, parliament passed legislation that guaranteed that Mary, as queen, had all of the authority and privileges of any monarch to sit on the English throne.
As expected, Mary attempted to restore Catholicism to England. She made it her mission to reestablish the supremacy of the pope and to bring back the mass and the ecclesiastical system of Rome. Though she met with great opposition, by 1554 the pope restored England to the Catholic faith and sent Cardinal Reginald Pole to act as his representative in the further restoration in England. Mary also had the ancient heresy laws reinstated. These laws made it possible to punish with death any individual who failed to follow the religious practice of their sovereign. Unanimity of the faith was an essential, and those who chose a different path were thought of as traitors.
Mary faced further opposition on the domestic front when she made it clear that she intended to wed Philip II, king of Spain and son of Emperor Charles V. Her continued close ties with the Spanish ambassador and her dependence on him for advice in domestic matters made many uncomfortable. Furthermore, there was a legitimate fear that if Mary married Philip, then, according to the gender and religious standards of the day, Mary would turn the kingdom over to Philip and the Spanish. Soon opposition arose in England, including one rebellion led by Thomas Wyatt, who wanted to eliminate the Spanish control of England and possibly put Elizabeth on the throne, too.
With these challenges, Mary realized that she could no longer afford to be generous with her forgiveness. Consequently, she ordered the execution of Lady Jane Grey and her followers, as well as Thomas Wyatt. Authorities even arrested Elizabeth Tudor because Mary believed Protestants would continue to threaten Mary’s reign if the Protestant Elizabeth was ITee.
Having failed to produce an heir and feeling great political pressure from religious dissenters, Mary became increasingly hostile toward the Protestants as if, like her father, she believed God was punishing her. Therefore, she made active use of the heresy laws, ordering the arrest and later execution of many Protestants, including the Protestant archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer. In all, Mary had about three hundred people burned at the stake for their religious beliefs and consequently earned the epithet “Bloody Mary.”
Mary’s own death finally arrived in November 1558 and came as a relief to many in England. Her unhappy life as the mistreated daughter of Henry VIII and the religiously persecuted sister of Edward VI set the stage for her own difficult reign. Mary would die believing she was an unloved monarch, distrustful of the Protestants and of the person they most rallied around, her successor Elizabeth Tudor.
Timothy G. Elston
See also Catherine of Aragon; Education, Humanism, and Women; Religious Reform and Women.
Bibliography
Loach, Jennifer. Parliament and the Crown in the Reign of Mary Tudor. Oxford: Clarendon Press; New York: Oxford University Press, 1986.
Loades, David. Mary Tudor: A Life. Oxford and Cambridge, MA: Blackwell, 1989.
Ridley, Jasper. Bloody Mary’s Martyrs:The Story of England’s Terror. New York: Carroll and Graf, 2001.
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