It is February 1554, Sir Thomas Wyatt, and 3000 rebels are marching towards the city of London with the intention of deposing the Queen, The reigning monarch acts quickly and speaks to her people: “I am your lawful crowned Queen. With this ring, I wedded my realm. It has never left my finger and will never leave my finger. The crowds act to protect her and hold their defences by barring the city gates to the rebels, the rebellion fails and the supposed conspirators are duly executed without remorse by the Queen, Her name, Queen Mary Tudor, Bloody Mary. [Music] The woman known to history as Mary Tudor was born on the 18th of February 1516 at Greenwich Palace just outside London.
Mary’s father was, Henry VIII, the reigning King at the time of her birth, and son of Henry VII and Elizabeth of York. Her mother was Catherine of Aragon, first wife of Henry VIII, and daughter of Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile. All England, welcomed Mary’s birth with joy, relief, and hope, after a tragic series of miscarriages, stillbirths, and infant deaths, spanning the seven years since her parents’ marriage, and as Mary was the first and only child of Henry and Catherine to survive to adulthood, the very fact of her birth, contained the promise of a son eventually for Henry. The further fact that none of Henry and Catherine’s sons survived, made Mary’s life and existence all the more precious, and not just to her parents, who loved and doted on their only child, but for dynastic and political reasons as well, especially as no woman had ever ruled England as Queen Regnant, before this time. During the mid-12th century, King Henry I had designated his daughter, the Empress Matilda, as his heir, and the ensuing dynastic struggle and civil war had soured the English on any further experimentation with female monarchy. In early modern England, women were generally believed incapable of exercising power responsibly, rationally, and intelligently, and even those few who believed that women might be fit to rule, distrusted the concept of female monarchy for the instability it invited. That Mary was a girl, and the only royal child was naturally problematic. In past cases when the only heir to the throne was female, the solution was to arrange her marriage, so that a male heir could be produced, who could securely inherit the throne. Mary’s eventual marriage was therefore of greater interest to those in power, than anything else about her. In the absence of any other male heirs to the throne, it was believed that whoever became Mary’s husband would rule England, making her one of the most coveted brides in all of Europe, during the first half of the sixteenth century. At the time, England held the balance of power in Europe between Spain and France, whom together, ruled most of western and central Europe, as well as Italy. The monarch who wed Mary Tudor, might also absorb England into their expanding empires. Henry VIII capitalized on the lure of this proposition, by frequently using his daughter as a bargaining chip, to solidify international treaties, with his constantly shifting rivals and allies. Mary was first betrothed to the Dauphin of France, at just two years old, an engagement which, like several others made in the ensuing years, was abandoned when alliances shifted once again. At age 6, Mary was betrothed to her cousin, the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V, in order to cement Henry’s alliance with the Emperor, against the King of France, and just four years later, fortunes would shift once again, when Charles married Isabella of Portugal instead, an act which utterly enraged Henry. However, Mary was much more than Europe’s most attractive marriage proposition, and despite the objectification implied by her father’s frequent offer of his daughter on the marriage market, both Henry and Catherine adored Mary, and seemed determined that she would be honoured, exalted, and as rigorously educated and prepared for royal authority, as any Prince of Wales. Mary did indeed have quite a pedigree to live up to. Her grandfather, Henry VII, had ended the Wars of the Roses, leaving to his son Henry VIII, a state and a throne both wealthier and more stable than they had been in a century. Her maternal grandparents, Isabella of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon, had been the foremost monarchs in Europe, leading the continent in both military and naval prowess, and therefore, also conquest, exploration, and wealth. Mary was raised with the notion of herself as heir to the legacies of some of Europe’s greatest Kings and Queens. Catherine herself supervised Mary’s early education, providing foundational religious instruction, teaching her daughter to speak French and Spanish as fluently as English, and instilling great pride in both Mary’s English and Spanish heritage. Mary was also instructed in music and dance, both of which, like her parents, she showed a talent for. At four years old, she honoured a delegation from the King of France, with a performance on the virginal, a forerunner of the harpsichord. Catherine also provided Mary with foundational instruction in Latin, one of the most important aspects of an elite education. The language of the Church, of philosophy, of law, and of the classics, early modern European men learned Latin far more frequently than women. Yet, understanding that Mary might have to do a man’s job, Catherine was determined that Mary would be as educated, confident, and well-prepared to rule as any man. Catherine’s own experience of having a strong, independent, indeed, legendary mother like Isabella of Castile, a great military commander and Queen in her own right, almost certainly influenced Catherine’s approach to raising and educating her daughter. It is perhaps partly because her mother did not doubt that Mary could be Queen, that Mary herself acquired the confidence and conviction of her eventual right to accede to the throne. Mary’s father, King Henry VIII, also adored his daughter, lavishing frequent gifts and affection on her, and referring to her as “my pearl in the world.” Mary resembled her father in many respects, she had the same fair complexion, pale blue eyes, ruddy cheeks, and red hair. Like him, she loved music, dancing, and scholarly pursuits. Mary’s happy childhood as the much-loved and favoured Princess of England, lasted as long as her parent’s marriage remained happy, which it did for nearly 15 years. When Mary was nine years old, her father, still lacking a legitimate son, made her the de facto Princess of Wales, vaguely confirming that she was heir to the throne of England. He sent her to Ludlow Castle in the Welsh marches to “rule” Wales in his name, and to complete her education. This practice was typical for a king-in-waiting, but some historians emphasize the fact that, while Mary was treated in every other way as the heir to the throne, she was never officially invested with the title of Princess of Wales, which no woman in English history had ever held, except the wife of the Prince of Wales. This lack of formal investiture might suggest that Henry did not really intend that Mary should be Queen, and hoped that he might still have a son. Further, Henry did not officially designate Mary as his heir, until she was two years old. However when she was sent to Wales and given her own independent household for the first time, this seemed to indicate that Henry had finally accepted that Mary was his only heir, and that the next dynastic move should be to arrange her marriage, as carefully and strategically as possible. Henry’s failure to formally give Mary the title of Princess of Wales, may have been due to his unwillingness to flout the long-standing legal tradition, that women could not inherit the throne in their own right. Henry was in many ways a conservative, even as a young man. Yet, Henry also seemed to want people to view Mary as a legitimate Princess of Wales, even if he had withheld the title officially. He had spent generously on outfitting Mary’s household at Ludlow, with everything needed to advertise her position as heir to the throne of England, he financed her household to the tune of 1,100 pounds per year. There was a throne in Mary’s presence chamber, where she received ambassadors, dignitaries, and petitioners on her father’s behalf. Cloth-of-gold covered the altar in Mary’s chapel at Ludlow, and a staff of literally dozens served at her court, as well as this, her royal badges were plastered on every possible surface of the Castle. Historians have noted, however, that Henry spent about the same amount of money annually on the household of his illegitimate son, Henry Fitzroy, whom he had also made Duke of Richmond and Somerset. Some, therefore, still consider it an open question, as to whether Henry might have ultimately decided to leave his throne to his illegitimate son, had the young man not died in 1536, and had Prince Edward not been born the following year. Naming an illegitimate son as his heir would, after all, have been just as unprecedented, as designating a girl, to be Princess of Wales. However, despite the inability of women to inherit the throne themselves, medieval English history contains quite a few examples of kings, who claimed royal descent through female ancestors. Inheritance through the matrilineal line was uncommon in most of medieval and early modern Europe, but England was unique in this respect. Henry II, Edward IV, and Mary’s own grandfather, Henry VII, all claimed to have inherited a legitimate right to rule, from female forebears. Henry VII had simultaneously borrowed his legitimacy from his wife, Elizabeth of York, and his mother, Margaret Beaufort. Most scholars, therefore, assume that Henry VIII, in the absence of a son, intended that his daughter would be Queen, but that her power would be exercised primarily by her husband, until a male heir of hers came of age, as precedent dictated, but less than a year after Mary was sent to Wales, Anne Boleyn arrived at the English court and everything changed. Increasingly disenchanted with his wife, Henry fell deeply in love with Anne, and pursued her relentlessly, entreating her to become his mistress, which she refused,. protesting that she would only give up her virginity to her husband. The attraction between them developed into an ardent and very public relationship, which they carried on at court for the next seven years. Initially, this would not have been alarming because Henry had taken mistresses before. Henry Fitzroy had been born when Mary was just three years old. While the King had acknowledged his son, and endowed him with titles and property, he had not attempted to legitimize him. Thus, Mary had remained Henry’s heir for the next eight years, with, it seemed, no real threat to her position. Mary was eleven years old in 1527, when Henry VIII first began his campaign to divorce her mother. Henry sought an annulment of his marriage on the grounds that his union with Catherine had broken biblical law, because she had previously been married to his older brother Arthur, who had died in 1502. Henry and Catherine had received papal dispensation to be wed, when he became king, because Catherine had claimed that the brief marriage to Prince Arthur, had never been consummated. Madly in love and impatient for a son, Henry seems to have convinced himself that his lack of a male heir must be God’s punishment for the “sin” of marrying Catherine. Those that the king enlisted to argue his case cited Leviticus 20:21: “If any man should take his brother’s wife, it is an unclean thing….they will be childless.” In 1527, Henry secretly made his first overtures to Pope Clement VII, regarding his divorce. Unfortunately for Henry, the Emperor Charles V, on campaign in Italy, sacked Rome and made the Pope a prisoner. Charles was Queen Catherine’s nephew, and Henry’s hopes of a quick divorce shriveled, when he realized that the Pope now could not grant his divorce, without risking the Emperor’s vengeance. The succeeding Pope, Paul III, and the Roman curia would eventually refuse Henry’s request anyway, and affirm the legality of his marriage to Catherine. Henry would spend the next several years pursuing the “Great Matter” of his divorce, through various legal, academic, and theological avenues, by means of which he would eventually break with Rome, declare himself Supreme Head of the Church in England, and through his new Archbishop of Canterbury, the Protestant reformer Thomas Cranmer, Henry would finally obtain his divorce. The process of this fervent pursuit of a son and heir, radically altered the lives, positions, and happiness of both Henry’s wife and his daughter. In 1528, Henry recalled Mary to court for what, it seems, was to be a significant duration. This was unusual for the Prince of Wales, who typically remained more or less permanently at Ludlow, once their viceregal household had been established. Mary’s recall to London, suggests that her father anticipated that he would soon acquire his divorce, marry Anne, and produce a son. In that case, Mary would have outstripped her usefulness as a placeholder for a male heir. Yet, although Henry must have considered that his divorce would bastardize his daughter, he did not immediately withdraw her status as the de facto Princess of Wales, a title with which she had never been formally invested to begin with. Perhaps this was simply for practicality’s sake. After all, Henry could not be certain that he would get his divorce, or that Anne would give birth to a son. Mary had been recalled from Ludlow, but not disinherited. Even as Henry pursued the divorce which would make his daughter illegitimate, she remained Princess Mary, her servants continued to wear her badges, and Henry continued to support her household financially, both at Ludlow and at court. In terms of her position, Mary probably felt as if she were standing on shaky ground, but it is likely that the public humiliation of her mother, grieved Mary far more than anything else, for it represented a sharp, painful, and jarring break with her happy childhood. The ensuing years were indeed painful and humiliating for both Catherine and Mary. Mother and daughter were subjected to tales of Henry’s open intimacy with Anne, and Henry continued to browbeat Catherine, for denying that her marriage to Arthur had been consummated. She continued to insist that it had not been, but Henry, it seems, had convinced himself that she was lying, for why else did he have no son? It is also possible that Henry believed Catherine, but pursued the annulment on these grounds for convenience’s sake. He continually demanded that she submit to a dissolution of their marriage, either by cooperating with the annulment, or by renouncing her marriage vows and entering a convent. Resolute, Catherine refused, asserting that their marriage was valid and that she already occupied the place which God had decreed for her, as Henry’s wife and Queen of England. In retaliation, Henry forbade her to see or communicate with Mary, until she submitted to Henry’s will. Catherine never did. Henry’s apparent cruelty in these matters, is usually remarked upon as a given, but it deserves some exploration. Few historians dispute that Henry loved his family, Catherine and Mary both. At the same time, Henry was the King of England. It was his responsibility above absolutely everything else, to pass on the throne to a legitimate heir, in the most secure fashion possible. If history was any indication, the birth of only a single child, and a daughter at that, might signify that Henry had failed to uphold his father’s legacy. The closest male heir to England’s throne, at the time, was King James V of Scotland, and if Henry and England were united in nothing else, they certainly shared a horror of the idea of England becoming a vassal kingdom of Scotland, which also happened to be France’s closest ally. Henry was thus in a difficult position. However, his love for Anne and his desire to wed her surely encouraged him to believe, that his marriage was indeed cursed. In the end, it seems, Henry embraced whatever he found most conveniently supported his goals. Cut off from her mother and uncertain of her fate at her father’s hands, fifteen-year-old Mary’s health began to suffer. She began increasingly to experience irregular menstrual patterns and bouts of crippling depression. It is unclear what caused these symptoms. While adolescent girls frequently have unpredictable cycles, some sort of reproductive health issue is possible. It is also just as likely, that the intense stress of the changes taking place in her family, might have contributed to her symptoms. It is worth noting, however, that these health conditions persisted intermittently throughout Mary’s life, and that she almost certainly had major reproductive health problems in her final years. Having to watch her mother’s humiliation and endure separation from her was difficult. But equally stressful for Mary, as for any other English Catholic, was Henry’s increasingly visible movement toward certain Protestant religious doctrines, particularly the notion of a King’s right to rule the Church in his own realm, the idea of the Church hierarchy and monasteries as corrupt, and the Pope as a usurper and perverter of the authority of Kings, appointed by God. Having been balked in the pursuit of his divorce by the Roman Church, Henry was deeply attracted to these ideas, first expounded upon to the King by Thomas Cranmer, whom Henry had first met in the Autumn of 1529. The subsequent canvassing of university opinion across Europe, took more than a year, and was riddled with rigged committees, bribery, and threats to academics, across the continent to decide the matter of the divorce in King’s Henry’s favor. Most did not. In January of 1531, Henry received a communication from the Pope, ordering him to separate from Anne until Rome had made its final decision on his annulment, which continued to encounter delay after delay. The Pope warned Henry that he was not free to marry again, and assured him that any children born of his relationship with Anne, would be considered illegitimate and unfit for proper marriage or succession prospects. Henry was utterly enraged by this. A month later, on the 11th of February 1531, Henry addressed Parliament, making his intentions unmistakably clear for the first time. He demanded to be recognized as Supreme Head of the Church. Parliament acquiesced in principle, and Henry’s new title was proclaimed, but it would take more than a year to obtain a final submission from England’s clergy. By the time they finally gave in, in May of 1532, Catherine and Mary had not seen or communicated with one another for more than a year, and Anne and Henry had been living together quite publicly at court, with Anne firmly ensconced, in what had once been Queen Catherine’s chambers. It cannot be doubted that all of this hurt Mary deeply. Not only was she forced to witness the collapse of her parents’ marriage but, brought up to be a devout Catholic, like her mother, Mary also had cause to fear, not only for her father’s soul, but for the souls of all the English people, carried along by a current of what Catholics considered dangerous heresy, which threatened to plunge the country into chaos and damnation. One of the characteristics most often ascribed to Mary Tudor is a remarkable piety and an overly zealous devotion to Catholicism. However, it was not until much later in life, that her engagement with religion, would increase to the point of becoming especially noteworthy or extreme. It is likely that her long separation from her mother, and the pervasiveness of Protestant reform in England’s halls of power, made her cleave more closely, to what came to be called, the “old religion,” for comfort. Whatever the state of her faith, Mary nonetheless became a rallying symbol for English Catholics resistant to Henry’s reforms. As the daughter of the Catholic Queen Catherine, whom many still viewed as the true Queen of England, and also because Henry had always presented her as his heir, even unofficially, many continued to view Mary as Henry’s rightful successor, rather than her younger sister Elizabeth, daughter of Queen Anne whose Protestant and reformist sympathies were widely rumoured. Yet, through the years of Henry’s bitter remonstrance with Catherine, which permanently separated Mary from her mother, brought her position into question, and threatened to turn the world upside down, Henry continued to show affection and favour to Mary. The first truly bitter clash between father and daughter would unfold over Mary’s refusal to accept Henry’s new marriage, and it would not be the last. On the 25th of January 1533, Henry VIII married Anne Boleyn in a secret early morning ceremony in his private chapel at Whitehall Palace. She was already pregnant. Events then began to proceed apace, as Henry and his newly created Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer, acted to consolidate Henry’s control of the Church, to affirm England’s separation from Rome, and to finalize his divorce from Catherine of Aragon, who was now banished from court, and living at Kimbolton Castle in Cambridgeshire, her health already beginning to decline. In May of 1533, Archbishop Cranmer declared the King’s first marriage null and void and his marriage to Anne as valid. This supposedly made the now 17-year-old Mary illegitimate, yet Henry did not immediately proceed to declare her as such. In fact, she retained her title and her father’s financial support for her household, during the ensuing months. On the 1st of June, Anne Boleyn was crowned Queen of England, and on the 7th of September, Mary’s half-sister, Elizabeth, was born at Whitehall. Several weeks after Elizabeth’s birth, Henry instructed that Mary’s title of Princess should be revoked, and from then on, she should be referred to as “the Lady Mary.” Her servants were told to remove her royal badges, and to thenceforth wear only the King’s, and her household was dissolved, with Mary being sent to serve as lady-in-waiting to her baby sister Elizabeth, the new and legitimate heir to the throne. Traditionally, historians have emphasized Mary’s mistreatment while living at Elizabeth’s establishment at Hatfield. It was said that Anne Boleyn instructed Mary’s senior guardians to hit her and swear at her, if she in any way proclaimed herself princess, or put on such pretensions. Reportedly, letters had to be written to Henry, requesting that the budget for Mary’s support be expanded, because she was lacking enough meat in her diet. It is difficult to know whether, or how much, the descriptions of Mary’s treatment tend to exaggeration, but it likely would have been counter-productive to Henry’s political goals for him to treat his daughter with overt cruelty, especially because Mary and her mother remained popular with the English people. However, it is clear that Mary was constantly reminded that Elizabeth was now the heir and she was not. Henry and Anne made every effort to spend lavishly on Elizabeth’s wardrobe and household appointments and forbade Mary’s guardians to allow her to wear royal robes or to dress more ostentatiously than her sister. However, one recent study on the Tudor princesses theorizes that perhaps, Henry had not initially planned that Mary’s situation should be so. Some textual evidence suggests that while Henry might have stripped her of her title, he may have also offered to allow Mary to continue to keep her own independent household, as it was, provided that she acknowledged the illegitimacy of her parents’ marriage, and the validity of Henry’s new one, which Mary, like her mother, flatly refused to do. The considerable length of time, nearly two months in fact, between Elizabeth’s birth and the dissolution of Mary’s household, suggests that it may have been Mary’s refusal to acknowledge Anne Boleyn as Queen and herself as a bastard, which had made Henry behave vindictively by dissolving her household and forcing her to serve her sister. However, on the other hand, it was unusual for unmarried princesses to head their own households at all. Normally, all royal children except the Prince of Wales lived in a shared household. The Tudor princesses, Mary and Elizabeth, are unique in this aspect of English history and tradition. So, for most people, Henry’s act of merging his daughters’ households, was not necessarily as dishonourable for Mary, as was being disinherited. Nonetheless, while Henry continued to support Mary financially, and did allow her to retain most of her former servants at Hatfield, for the next three years, there would be little more than chilly silence between father and daughter. Bereft of both her parents, Mary’s depression worsened, her health became more delicate, and she became more devout, taking greater comfort from daily prayer. The following three years were full of both religious and dynastic upheaval. In March of 1534, the Act of Succession was introduced in Parliament, followed later in the year by the institution of the Oath of Succession, the Act of Supremacy, and the Treason Act. Taken together, these measures delegitimized Henry’s marriage to Catherine, legitimized his marriage to Anne, set the seal on Henry’s power as head of the English Church, and decreed that denial of any of this, was a treasonable offence and punishable by death. In January of 1535, Henry’s administration began to accelerate reforms, by abolishing England’s monasteries and appropriating their goods, resources, and funds for the crown. Additionally, legislation now dictated that funds which used to be paid to the Roman Church, were now paid directly into Henry’s treasury, eventually making him even richer than his father. These reforms were greeted with grave acceptance by most, and few dared to refuse taking the oath. Among them were Bishop John Fisher, Henry’s old friend, mentor, and erstwhile Chancellor, Sir Thomas More, Henry’s first wife Catherine, and their daughter, Mary. Fisher and More were executed for treason within a few weeks of each other, during the summer of 1535. Mary began to grow increasingly fearful that her father might proceed against her as well, but still she refused to submit. Meanwhile, despite the legal protections being enacted to defend her marriage and her daughter from accusations of illegitimacy, Anne Boleyn’s star was nonetheless fading. She had not given Henry the son he wanted following Elizabeth’s birth, and two miscarriages had occurred in the interim. By November of 1535, Henry’s attention had already wandered to Anne’s lady-in-waiting, Jane Seymour. Soon after, Anne announced she was pregnant again, and was once more restored to favour. On the 7th of January 1536, Catherine of Aragon died, it is believed, of cancer. Some who hated Anne Boleyn for usurping Catherine’s place whispered of poison, but Catherine’s health had, in fact, been steadily worsening for several years, and due to her continued intransigence to Henry’s will, he forbade Mary to attend her mother’s funeral. For Mary, her mother’s death was devastating, making her feel more alone in the world than ever.
With her mother gone and Queen Anne pregnant and back in the King’s graces once again, Mary considered that she might be vulnerable, and considered fleeing the country, going as far as to write to her cousin, Emperor Charles V. However, only a few months later, when Anne was accused of adultery and treason, imprisoned in the Tower, and executed, the now 20-year-old Mary’s fortunes had seemingly changed for the better. That Mary found the courage to write to her father in June of 1536 to seek a reconciliation, suggests that she at least partly blamed Anne’s influence, for her father’s reforms, and for his withdrawal of favour from her. Mary asked to be allowed to return to court, to serve Henry’s new Queen, Jane Seymour, and to be near him as well, so that their relationship might mend. However, Mary was to receive a rude awakening, when a reply came via Henry’s chief minister, Thomas Cromwell, that Henry had once again demanded that Mary submit to him, regarding the Act of Succession, which now rendered Elizabeth illegitimate as well, but also regarding the Act of Supremacy, which amounted to a denial of Mary’s Catholic faith. Mary wrote desperately to Cromwell, swearing that she had, quote: “done the utmost that her conscience would suffice” and could do no more, without risking her soul. Cromwell replied that if such were the case, then Henry would most likely find her guilty of treason, for which the punishment was death. Having witnessed the way her father had cast off two wives, deserting one and executing the other, and allowing Thomas More, one of his oldest friends, to be executed, Mary was convinced that she had no other choice, and so, terrified that her own father might execute her for refusing again, Mary signed the oath without even reading it, swearing that she would never forgive herself. Despite her fears that she might suffer for her Catholicism, or for her insistence on being legitimate, Mary did have allies who supported her for these very qualities. This was made especially apparent during the uprising known as the Pilgrimage of Grace, which began in October of 1536. The rebels not only demanded the restoration of the monasteries, which had been abolished and stripped, and a return of Catholic rituals and holy days, but also Mary’s restoration to the right of succession. Mary’s circumstances and family relationships improved markedly after she was received back at court. Henry was happy to welcome her back, once she had signed the oath, and father and daughter achieved a delicate but increasingly warm reconciliation. Henry gave Mary splendid chambers at court, as well as princely accommodations at the country estates of Hunsdon, Beaulieu, and Hatfield, the last of which had been taken from Elizabeth, along with her title and legitimacy, when her mother was executed. A warm relationship developed between Mary and her new stepmother, Jane Seymour, who is often credited with helping to restore Henry’s two daughters to favour. The relationship between Mary and Elizabeth changed too. Previously, Mary had not been able to develop much sisterly affection for the half-sister who had replaced her, and the 17-year age gap between them did little to encourage their closeness. But Elizabeth’s delegitimization effectively made the two sisters equals, both the “natural” daughters of a king, equally excluded from the line of succession. This likely made it easier for Mary to develop a closer and less complicated relationship with Elizabeth, who after all, was still barely five years old and now motherless, like Mary herself. She had resented the sister who had taken her place, but Mary was not cruel and rarely vindictive. She willingly added her voice to her stepmother’s, in persuading Henry to welcome Elizabeth back to court too. For the first time, a close and peaceful family life seemed possible. Indeed, all England rejoiced when on the 12th of October 1537, Queen Jane gave birth to Prince Edward. Being supplanted by a male heir, was likely much easier to accept for Mary, since it was the accepted convention, but Mary also loved her baby brother, and proudly stood as godmother to him. Sadly, Jane Seymour died of puerperal fever, then known as childbed fever, within two weeks of giving birth to her son, and Mary served as chief mourner at her stepmother’s funeral. During the last ten years of her father’s reign, Mary held an eminent place at his court, and their relationship remained on a positive footing. Henry mourned Jane’s death deeply, and despite pressure from his council, would not marry again for two years. By 1539, negotiations were underway for Henry’s marriage to Anne of Cleves. Mary was now 23 years old. Her life was considerably happier, more peaceful, and more stable than it had been in years, and her status had altered considerably. One thing which had not changed however, was the extraordinarily complex pitfalls surrounding her prospects for marriage. As Henry’s only child, her marriage had been virtually assured, it was just a question of which husband would be the best choice for the benefit of England. Now, her prospects of ever being married, were more complicated than ever. As the king’s daughter, she could not be married to an Englishman below her station, and if a foreign prince were to be the solution, the problem arose of how to make the safest choice, in a Europe of constantly shifting religious tides and political alliance, and even if she did marry and produce a male heir, ambitious people might attempt to place her on the throne ahead of her brother, Prince Edward. Mary would continue to be courted and to receive offers of marriage, but her peculiar position, left her in limbo for most of her life, as far as marriage and a family of her own was concerned. It is unclear how much this grieved her, but otherwise, Mary seemed happier than she had been for many years, presiding over her father’s court as hostess, and spending more time with her younger sister, Elizabeth, when she visited her at Hatfield. When Henry’s marriage to Anne of Cleves was arranged, a simultaneous offer was made for Mary’s hand by Anne’s cousin, Duke Philip of Bavaria. In December of 1539, Duke Philip arrived quietly in England in advance of his cousin Anne. Mary and Philip met in the gardens at Westminster Abbey where they got to know each other, first in German through an interpreter, and then in Latin, more privately. Philip expressed his eagerness to marry her. The fact that Mary’s prospects had diminished significantly in recent years, did not seem to bother Philip. She was illegitimate, neither she nor her children were expected to ever ascend the throne, and her dowry was now less than impressive to a Duke. However, it is believed by some historians that all this was proof that Philip, a Protestant no less, and thirteen years older than her, genuinely cared for Mary, and admired her for her personal qualities above all else. Whatever her feelings were at the time, Mary told Philip, in proper fashion, that she was not opposed to his suit for her hand, but that she would obey her father’s wishes, and only consider marrying the Duke, if Henry gave his official consent. Encouraged by this first meeting, Philip stole a brief kiss from Mary, and gifted her with an exquisite diamond cross with a pearl pendant. Philip continued to press his suit in the ensuing weeks, but Henry’s disappointment with his new bride, Anne of Cleves, made him immediately begin to seek avenues to have the marriage annulled. Henry therefore abandoned plans to wed his daughter to the Duke, and quickly put paid to their courtship, spending the next several months trying to divorce Anne. Henry’s marriage to another Protestant likely did not meet with Mary’s full approval. Yet even though Henry’s marriage to Anne only lasted six months, Mary developed a closeness with her new stepmother which outlasted the divorce. Anne of Cleves had made a special effort to develop warm relationships with Henry’s three children, which she maintained for years after her divorce. In July of 1540, before the ink was even dry on his annulment, Henry had wed Catherine Howard, the 17-year-old former lady-in-waiting to Anne of Cleves, and his fifth wife. Mary, now dealing with her fourth stepmother in seven years, found it excessively difficult to get along with her. Catherine Howard was nine years younger than Mary herself, and their personalities were almost opposed. Catherine was high-spirited, vivacious, more poorly educated, and to Mary’s mind, rather juvenile and silly. Mary, on the other hand, was now 26, far more reserved and dignified than Catherine, and one of the most educated women in Europe. She was also frequently haughty, despite her disinheritance, so it could not have pleased Mary, that she remained illegitimate and unmarried, while her father married a girl who, from Mary’s perspective, seemed little more than an empty-headed teenager. Queen Catherine soon began to complain to King Henry, that Lady Mary did not show her enough respect. Mary’s presence at court proved to be less frequent, during her father’s fifth marriage. Mary’s resentment for Catherine may have also stemmed from a misplaced resentment against Henry, who had cast off Anne of Cleves whom Mary admired, cared for, and undoubtedly would have preferred as her stepmother than Catherine Howard, despite the religious differences between Mary and Anne. Additionally, Mary may have resented Henry for sending Thomas Cromwell to, what proved to be, a cruelly hideous execution, for his role in arranging Henry’s disappointing marriage to Anne, and for his supposedly extremist Protestant sympathies. Cromwell was even said to have been plotting to arrange a marriage with Lady Mary for himself, so that their children might eventually ascend the throne, but it is highly unlikely this charge had any foundation. Some historians, however, have not ruled out the notion, that privately, there might have been a warm and friendly relationship between Mary and Cromwell. At first glance, they seem to be natural enemies: the lofty, dignified, devoutly Catholic daughter of a king, and the common Protestant bureaucrat, who had helped to engineer her parents’ divorce. Their surviving letters to one another, however, defy this picture, full of kind and even affectionate sentiments, there is little to no hint of romance in these textual sources, and historians caution students against reading too far into these letters, after all, it was the accepted convention to express oneself sentimentally in letters, even when writing to one’s bitterest enemy. In his frequent letters to the King of France, Henry usually referred to his lifelong arch-rival, Francis I, as his “dearest friend and brother." However, Mary was rumoured to have gifted Cromwell the diamond cross given to her by Duke Philip of Bavaria, sometime between the end of their courtship, and Cromwell’s execution. All of this might very well be speculative, but if true, it weakens the argument that Mary was always a hardline religious zealot, heaping judgment and condemnation on those who did not share her faith. Her warm relationship with Anne of Cleves also weakens this image of Mary. She had a great deal more reason to resent her father the following year. Not only was there bad blood between Queen Catherine and Mary, but Henry reacted to a potential coup, with the execution of nearly an entire family, of cousins to the Tudors, the Poles. Margaret Pole, the Countess of Salisbury, was the daughter of the long-dead George Plantagenet, Duke of Clarence, and younger brother of King Edward IV. Margaret’s family were amongst the few descendants of the old House of York, who remained after the Wars of the Roses. Each of her four sons represented a potential rival claimant to the throne. Moreover, the Poles were fervently Catholic, and traditionally supporters of Mary’s succession rights. When the Protestant reforms had advanced to the point of Henry’s excommunication from the Church, a faction began to form around Cardinal Reginald Pole, who was then living in Italy, to raise him to the throne. Henry made every effort to capture Cardinal Pole, sending his agents to chase him all over Europe, but he did not succeed. Instead, Henry executed the Cardinal’s mother, the 67-year-old Margaret Pole, two of her sons, and imprisoned her grandson who died, most likely of starvation, within a year. Mary was deeply grieved by Lady Salisbury’s execution, which had been botched so significantly, that it degenerated into a horror show, requiring multiple strokes of the axe to complete the execution. Margaret had been Mary’s governess for many years, at Whitehall, at Ludlow, even accompanying Mary to Hatfield, when she had been sent there to serve her sister, Elizabeth. The two women had remained close, although Mary had outgrown the need for a governess many years before. Any anger or resentment she may have harboured toward her father, the King, however, could not be expressed, and throughout her life, Mary must have found this both painful and extremely challenging. Yet her place at court remained secure and favoured, and Mary, whatever resentment she may have felt, continued to serve graciously as her father’s hostess on all occasions, during the years when Henry was unmarried. Henry ordered the execution of his fifth wife, Catherine Howard, for adultery and treason in February of 1542, and less than a year later, he married his sixth wife, Catherine Parr. Like Jane Seymour and Anne of Cleves, Catherine Parr made efforts to be a loving stepmother to all three of Henry’s children, and encouraged a close family environment. While it might have been difficult for Mary to regard Catherine Parr as a maternal figure, since Catherine was only three years older than herself, the two had known one another for several years and got along well. Both women were highly educated, sharing a love of scholarly pursuits and intelligent company. Catherine is often credited with influencing Henry to restore his daughters to the line of succession, for which Mary was deeply grateful. By 1546, however, Mary started to become more wary of Catherine. A highly learned woman, Catherine had written, and was about to publish, her third book. This book, Lamentations of a Sinner, struck religious conservatives as Protestant extremism. Henry even issued a warrant for Queen Catherine’s arrest, but the two reconciled and the warrant was never served. Mary was at heart a Catholic and like her father, a conservative, she had observed that Catherine had hitherto kept hidden beliefs, which both she and Henry considered radical, and that both her brother and sister were being heavily influenced by them under Catherine’s care. Prince Edward’s uncles, Edward and Thomas Seymour, also attempted to influence the boy’s views. Henry’s declining health over the next two years, made Mary realize that soon, the man that held this strange family together, would be gone, and that the differences between herself and her siblings, might be harder to reconcile in future. She began to withdraw from court life and from her family more and more. Mary’s friendship with her stepmother fizzled out completely when Catherine secretly married Thomas Seymour, just a few months after Henry’s death. Henry VIII died on the 28th of January 1547, and three days later, his nine-year-old son was proclaimed King Edward VI, under a Protectorate and regency council, until the boy came of age. Henry was generous to his children in his will: he left vast estates and movable property to both of his daughters, and explicitly recognized them as heirs to the succession. If Edward died without an heir, Mary would succeed him first, and lacking any issue herself, the throne would then pass to Elizabeth. Henry left his daughter Mary, extensive estates in East Anglia, including lands in the counties of Norfolk, Suffolk, and Essex. Mary now headed her own independent household, an extremely rare state for an unmarried woman, even a princess, legitimate or not, she was wealthier than she had ever been, and it was both her wealth and her ongoing popularity with the English people, which would help her to maintain her position and rise still further after her father died. Henry’s children drifted apart from one another after his death. Mary rarely came to court, preferring to live quietly on her estates in East Anglia, rather than witness the advance of what she viewed as, increasingly radical Protestant reforms, which were emerging from Edward’s government. His regency council was dominated by Protestants, who sought greater reforms than the more religiously conservative Henry VIII had allowed. Henry had been a Catholic in virtually all aspects, except the matter of papal supremacy. Understanding that the English people were divided over matters of religion, Henry had sought a cautious middle way. His son, Edward, on the other hand, was heavily influenced by Queen Catherine Parr, his uncle Edward Seymour, and his tutors, Protestants all, and was thus himself a committed and confirmed Protestant reformer from an early age. In 1549, Edward’s government passed the Act of Uniformity, which abolished the Latin mass and introduced the English Book of Common Prayer, written by Thomas Cranmer, which prescribed a new, Protestant church service in English. Catholic processions, pilgrimages, and other ceremonies were prohibited. The Act also called for the removal of all Catholic-style display, and in churches and abbeys across England, stained glass windows were smashed, and crucifixes and religious images were torn down and burnt. This attack on traditional faith, combined with economic turmoil, sparked widespread rebellion in Devon and Cornwall. Within several months, Edward had crushed the rebellion, but remained uneasy. The most significant obstacle to his reforms, in his mind, was not his rebellious subjects who still clung to their religious traditions, it was the Catholic figurehead they looked to – his sister Mary. According to Henry VIII’s will, and the laws of England, Mary was Edward’s heir until he could marry and produce a son. The fervently Protestant Edward was horrified at the idea of his reforms sliding back into nothing, should his Catholic sister accede to the throne. It was therefore a source of anger and indignation to him, that Mary flouted the Act of Uniformity by continuing to hear the Latin mass, and not privately either, but frequently inviting other Catholic adherents to join her. It was when she was in her early thirties, and during her brother Edward’s reign, that Mary’s religious devotion began to be remarked upon as extraordinary. She reportedly began attending mass as many as four times daily, and spending hours at prayer. Edward resolved to put a stop to his sister’s open practice of Catholicism, which continually undermined his authority. He invited his two sisters to court for Christmas in 1550, for a rare family reunion. An exceptionally embarrassing episode occurred during the celebrations, when the 13-year-old Edward publicly chastised and denounced his 34-year-old sister, in front of the whole court, for her disobedience to Edward’s religious policies. The accusations and recriminations brought both brother and sister to tears, but Mary refused to bend. A few weeks later, when Mary was summoned to appear at court once again, she arrived with a large retinue, every last one of her attendants visibly carrying rosary beads. When Edward once again called upon her to submit, she invoked the protection of her cousin, Emperor Charles V. The Spanish ambassador then stepped forward and threatened Edward with war, should Lady Mary not be permitted to practice her religion freely. Enraged and humiliated, Edward was forced to back down. He grudgingly agreed to allow Mary to continue to hear the Latin mass, but only in private. Mary had scored a great victory, not just for herself, but for Catholics across England, who were encouraged and emboldened by her resistance. The struggle with her brother no doubt called up terrible memories of similar conflicts with her father, and Mary began to be afraid that she might have gone too far. Fearful that Edward might now seize upon any excuse to imprison her, Mary seriously considered fleeing into exile. In the spring of 1551, she wrote secretly to Emperor Charles V, seeking his help in escaping England. Charles organized an escape for Mary, via the Essex coast, and on the 5th of July, Charles’ emissary met with Mary herself. She was panicked, hurriedly and haphazardly packing things herself, and alternately pausing in an agony of indecision, over whether she should flee or remain, she continually repeated: “What shall I do? What’s to become of me?” Mary’s closest advisors had counseled her against leaving England. Edward had anticipated that Mary might attempt an escape, and the ports of East Anglia were being closely watched, furthermore, her advisors claimed that a horoscope had been secretly cast for the King, and it had predicted that he would die within a year. If Mary left England and Edward died, she would be unable to assert her claim to the throne, whereas if she remained, her brother might decide to proceed against her for treason. In the end, Mary summoned the courage and resolve to remain. She could only hope, that she would not live to regret it. Contrary to the traditional historical characterizations of him, Edward VI was not the weak and sickly boy he has often been portrayed to be. He was actually a strong, healthy, and athletic boy, much like his father had been as a young man. No one therefore had any serious expectation that the boy would not grow up. However, during the autumn of 1552, he suffered, in quick succession, an attack of measles, and then one of smallpox. These illnesses were catastrophic to his immune system, and Edward subsequently became perilously weak and sick. Fearing that he might die and leave the English throne to his Catholic sister, Edward personally wrote a new plan for England’s succession. With a flourish of his pen, he nullified the last wishes of his father, and formally excluded both of his sisters from the succession. He observed that his sisters were both illegitimate, and as such, neither were fit to inherit the crown. Edward was no proponent of female monarchy, but the only legitimate Protestant candidate with a claim to the throne was a girl, the 15-year-old Lady Jane Grey, the granddaughter of Henry VIII’s youngest sister, Mary. To make his intent clear, Edward specified that if he died without issue, the throne would pass “to the Lady Jane Grey and her heirs male”, but because Jane had no children yet, Edward was forced to make her Queen in her own right, but only until a male heir was born to her. By early 1553, Edward’s condition had worsened. He had begun to cough up blood, and historians generally accept, that as a result of his massively compromised immune system, he was now suffering from tuberculosis. He continued to weaken through the spring and summer. Knowing that his time was short, Edward made plans to summon his sisters to court, and commissioned John Dudley, the Duke of Northumberland to capture and imprison them both when they arrived. The goal was to ensure that Lady Jane Grey would be proclaimed Queen without opposition. Mary received Edward’s summons on the 2nd of July 1553, she was aware that he had been ill, but believed he was recovering. In the months since she had abandoned her plan to escape, Mary had begun to relax. Her brother had not moved against her as she had feared. Therefore, when she received his summons, she was not worried, and departed Hunsdon House for London, with several retainers the following day. Mary and her retinue got as far as Hertfortshire, when they were intercepted on the road by a supporter of Mary’s from court. He had ridden hard to warn her of the trap her brother had set for her, and informed her that Edward was dying and was planning to place the Protestant Lady Jane Grey on the throne. Mary immediately turned around, and rushed back to East Anglia. She retreated to the fortress at Framlingham Castle, and began to mobilize her supporters, and she had many. On the 6th of July 1553, 15-year-old Edward VI died at Greenwich Palace. Lady Jane Grey was proclaimed Queen of England on the 10th of July and was brought to the Tower, as was the tradition for a king or queen before their coronation. However, she was never crowned, as while Jane waited in the Tower, the national tide shifted overwhelmingly in Mary’s favour. The Privy Council, seeing that Edward’s plan for the succession was proving to be wildly unpopular, transferred their support to Mary, and proclaimed her Queen on the 19th of July. Virtually all Catholics, and numerous Protestants as well, preferred to see Mary take the throne, rather than Lady Jane, an unknown cousin to the Tudors. Mary was Henry VIII’s eldest child, the daughter of Catherine of Aragon, and both mother and daughter were still widely beloved figures throughout England. In little more than a few weeks, Mary had mobilized a force of more than 15,000 supporters and departed for London to claim the throne. She met her sister Elizabeth just outside of London, who had ridden out with 1000 of her own liveried retainers to support Mary. This support did not necessarily imply genuine sisterly affection. Mary and Elizabeth had never had the closest relationship and they had grown apart in the preceding years, but if Mary should have no children, then Elizabeth was her heir. Her support for Mary was both a show of solidarity and stability for the ruling house of Tudor, but also an attempt to protect her own interests as heir to the throne. The stony silence that had greeted the announcement that Lady Jane Grey would be Queen, was explanation enough for the ecstatic welcome Mary received as she entered London. Instead of resistance and obstruction, Mary was showered with adulation. She rode at the head of her supporters, followed by Elizabeth, and they processed through the streets, hung with tapestries and lined with cheering people, towards the Tower. Mary’s accession to the throne, was greeted with a sense of both continuity and relief to many, who had feared the excesses of her brother’s reforms. Protestants on the other hand, fearing the religious upheaval to come, began to leave England for exile. Most historians identify Mary’s major objectives as Queen, as restoration of the Catholic faith in England, marriage, and the production of an heir. These were certainly cherished goals of hers, but they were certainly not the only ones. That these objectives were foremost in her mind, should not suggest that Mary’s ambitions ended with their achievement. In her mind, and according to conventional wisdom, they were foremost because nothing else could be achieved in any lasting way without them. Without an heir, she could have no stability, and therefore could not ensure that any reforms she might enact, would outlast her. Further, it is worth noting that England was still a mostly Catholic country, and Mary believed, as did many Catholics, that restoration would help to unite England, and save the souls of all who were forced, against their will, to dwell in religious disobedience. Mary moved first to secure London from those who had tried to elevate Lady Jane Grey to the throne. John Dudley, the Duke of Northumberland was the only leader of the Grey faction to be executed. Lady Jane was also found guilty of treason, but Mary understood well enough, that the 16-year-old girl had been little more than a pawn in Edward’s plan for the succession, and had not been given the choice to refuse the throne. Mary spared her life, but could not release her without risking further Protestant rebellion, additionally, Mary had to tread lightly on the religious question, because the Privy Council as it stood, was religiously mixed, and all had initially supported the elevation of Lady Jane Grey over Mary. The new Queen needed allies. Mary liberated noted Catholics from the Tower, to work closely with her in her new government, including Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk, and Bishop Stephen Gardiner, whom Mary made Bishop of Winchester, and Lord Chancellor, and it was Bishop Gardiner who placed the crown upon Mary’s head, at her coronation in Westminster Abbey, on the 1st of October 1553. Mary came to throne when it was in a bleak state. Her father’s spendthrift habits in the last decade of his reign, had seen the fabulous wealth built during the reigns of Henry and his father, drain away precipitously. A process of currency debasement had followed. The weight of gold and silver in coinage began to decrease, as the English treasury grew increasingly desperate, to hold onto their gold and silver bullion. Edward VI had been forced to continue debasement of the coinage, to maintain his own government, and by his death, the English coins were largely copper sandwiches, as well as this, massive inflation was compounded, by recent harvest failures and trade interruptions, and so the people were struggling with no short-term solution in evidence. Mary decided on a two-pronged strategy to resolve the problem, a budgetary retrenchment in key departments, and a re-organization and streamlining of the tax system. It would take years, and Mary would not live to see the better days for the English economy, but she laid the groundwork, for later effective fiscal reform. Mary was indeed her mother’s daughter, and comprehended a nation’s might, in much the same way as her Spanish royal forebears did. As such, she was keen to promote the development of navigation and cartography, exploration, particularly in pursuit of a Northwest Passage, and international trade. Mary chartered the Muscovy Company, the first joint-stock company in English history, under the governorship of famed explorer Sebastian Cabot, giving them a trading monopoly in Russia and the Baltic region. She patronized cartographers and navigators to produce maps and atlases, and sponsored naval adventurers to sail south to establish trade relationships with the west coast of Africa. These examples likely only scratch the surface, of what Mary foresaw for England, however, most historians continue to emphasize, the religious and marital dramas of her reign, which were the most sensational and highly publicized. As the first real Queen Regnant, Mary was in unfamiliar territory, and the best course seemed to be, to go with conventional wisdom. A female ruler needed a husband and an heir, and Mary confronted a serious dilemma in her choice of husband. Most Englishmen occupied a station too low to wed the Queen, and the few eligible, English Catholic nobles, proved unsuitable. Mary’s cousin, Charles V, offered her marriage to his only son, Prince Philip of Spain. A portrait of Prince Philip, painted by Titian, was sent to Mary in late 1553, and Mary was said to have instantly fallen in love with the young man in the portrait. This anecdote, if true, reveals a part of Mary’s personality, that hitherto, she had been forced to keep hidden. Like her father, Mary was a romantic. Years of failed betrothals, and years of living with her problematic status, had made her marriage a political hot potato and nearly impossible to arrange, without jeopardizing the security of either her father’s or brother’s reigns, now finally, Mary was Queen and could pursue marriage on her own terms, and so, at the age of 36, she insisted on marrying the handsome, 25-year-old Prince Philip, who was eleven years younger than herself at the time. Mary’s choice of husband was widely unpopular. Most English people were deeply suspicious of foreigners, and feared that Spain would swallow England politically. Protestants feared that the might of Catholic Spain, would result in greater repression of their faith, and Mary’s determination to wed the Spanish prince, despite protestations from her Parliament, sparked rebellion in January of 1554, originating in Kent. Led by Sir Thomas Wyatt, 3000 rebels marched toward London, with the intention of deposing Mary, and either placing Lady Jane back on the throne, or failing that, Mary’s younger sister, Elizabeth. Mary had fewer loyal supporters in the capital than elsewhere in England, and was forced to act quickly to persuade London to hold its defenses against the rebels on her behalf. Mary stood up before restive crowds at London’s Guildhall on the 1st of February, and the speech she gave, found echoes in far more famous speeches, given years later, by her sister Elizabeth: “I am your lawful crowned Queen. With this ring, I wedded my realm. It has never left my finger and will never leave my finger. I am childless, so I have never known the love that a mother feels for her child. But I love you, my people, as a mother loves her child. And I swear to you that I never intended, nor ever shall, marry without the consent of my council, my Parliament, and you, my people.” Mary’s speech was received with acclaim, and as the rebels approached, Londoners acted decisively to bar the city gates to the rebels, leaving them with no other option, but to surrender. This time, Mary’s response was far more severe. Wyatt, Sir Henry Grey, his daughter, Lady Jane, and her husband, Guildford Dudley, were all executed for treason. Elizabeth, who insisted that she had not been involved in the plot, was arrested and imprisoned in the Tower for several months, but she was eventually released to a more appropriate situation of house arrest at the palace at Woodstock. This episode made Mary, no less determined to marry Philip, but more cognizant of the compromises she would have to make, to allay her subjects’ fears, surrounding her choice of husband. The solution was the Marriage Act. In April 1554, Parliament decreed that Prince Philip would bear the title, “King of England”, and have the right to summon Parliament jointly, with his wife. England, however, could not be obliged to provide troops for Spanish wars, and Philip could not enact anything or appoint anyone to any position, without the Queen’s approval. Effectively, the Marriage Act limited Philip’s powers during Mary’s lifetime, and removed them completely upon her death. Mary met Philip for the first time, at Hampton Court Palace on the 23rd of July 1554. She was strongly attracted to him, telling him that she looked forward eagerly to their marriage. One of Philip’s aides confided to a correspondent, that Philip did not find the now 37-year-old Mary attractive at all, but obeyed his father’s command to marry the Queen of England, for dynastic reasons of good sense, and for the influence Spain might now be able to exercise in England, despite the official limitations placed on the marriage by Parliament. The two were married at Winchester Cathedral two days later, on the 25th of July 1554. The wedding emphasized Mary’s commitment to simplicity and tradition. Rather than the fabulous display typical of royal weddings, Mary’s was rather simple. Her love of fine fashion was evident, with the bride in a gown of purple and gold tissue, but she wore a plain gold wedding band, and swore the old-fashioned marriage oath to her husband “to be bonny and buxom at bed and at board,” and to be “good and obedient” in her wifely duties. This time saw the blossoming of Mary’s happiness and her hope for the future. Little more than a month later, Mary began to show symptoms of pregnancy. She ceased menstruating, experienced morning sickness, and began to gain weight. On the 24th of November, Mary received Cardinal Reginald Pole at court, the official Papal Envoy, who would help begin the process of restoring England to the Roman Church. Cardinal Pole greeted the Queen by quoting the Ave Maria. In the Christian scriptures, the angel Gabriel salutes the Virgin Mary with this prayer, when delivering the news that she is pregnant with the Christ child. Mary later reported that, as she listened to Cardinal Pole speak, “the babe stirred in her womb.” In early modern Europe, even if a woman showed symptoms of pregnancy, she was not considered officially pregnant until she felt a “quickening,” that is, until she felt the baby move inside her. England rejoiced, and Parliament promptly passed an act, designating Philip as regent for Mary’s heir, should she die in childbirth. In April of 1555, Mary withdrew from the court for her “confinement”, about six weeks before her anticipated due date, as was the tradition. Mary’s sister Elizabeth, still under house arrest at Woodstock, more than a year after Wyatt’s rebellion, was summoned to court to attend her sister, along with numerous ladies and midwives, and to witness the birth of the child, who would replace her as Mary’s heir. The birthing chamber was an extremely rarified atmosphere, a world of women, not to be seen by public eyes. Still, Mary could not resist flaunting her joy, and on St. George’s Day, soon after she entered her confinement, Mary quite deliberately appeared at a window, to watch her husband lead the festivities, standing in a side profile, so that the crowd could see her big belly. England, and indeed, all of Europe waited with bated breath, for the child who would inherit one of the greatest royal legacies in European history – both the throne of England and the Spanish Habsburg Empire. On the 1st of June, Mary complained of pain and cramping, and the midwives and court physicians predicted the birth for no later than the 6th, but Mary’s due date came and went, and no baby was born. The summer stretched on, and Mary’s attendants became more uneasy. It was falsely reported that Mary had been delivered of a son on the 30th of April, in response to which many bonfires were lit, and celebrations planned. The public mood changed, however, when the reports proved false. As the summer passed, and still no child was born, more and more people began to doubt the Queen’s pregnancy, and the jokes began, that Mary was pregnant with a monkey or a lapdog, or that perhaps this supposed pregnancy “would all end in wind.” More serious than this, there were rumours that a new mother in London had been approached by conspirators in the service of the Queen, and asked to give up her newborn son as a substitute. By late July, Mary’s belly had begun to recede, and she had to admit the truth. There would be no baby. It had been a “phantom pregnancy,” a rare condition in which the fervent desire to conceive a child is so great, it causes a woman to physically manifest, all the symptoms of pregnancy. On the 1st of August, Mary quietly exited her confinement, and returned to court with no public announcement. Philip was deeply disappointed, that no child had been born, and to Mary’s grief, he departed England soon after, to manage his affairs on the Continent. Mary was heartbroken. Abandoned by her husband and humiliated in the eyes of her people, Mary grew despondent, lapsing into depression. The possibility cannot be denied, that her despair and precarious mental state, might have influenced her subsequent decisions and policies. Mary was heard to blame her misfortunes on the judgment of God, for her “toleration” and “mercy” towards heretics thus far. It is perhaps no accident, that the religious persecutions under Mary’s government accelerated, following the summer of 1555. Interestingly, a few weeks after she first ascended the throne, Mary had proclaimed that she would force no one to convert to Catholicism. Like Lady Jane, several influential Protestant clergymen were imprisoned but not harmed, likely for security’s sake, and at her first Parliament in early October 1553, Mary’s goals were two-fold: to legitimize her rule and to begin the restoration of Catholicism. As the first true Queen Regnant, she claimed that female monarchs, designated by God, had all of the power and authority of men. She revoked Thomas Cranmer’s declaration of 1533, and declared her parents’ marriage to be valid. Mary began to roll back Edward’s 1549 Act of Uniformity also. The Latin mass and Catholic ceremonies were once again permitted, monasticism was revived, clerical celibacy was re-established, and married clerics were removed from their offices and ordered to leave their wives. The Six Articles of Faith promulgated under Henry VIII were also reinstated. This satisfied most English people, but more conservative Catholics, including Mary, still wanted to abolish the royal supremacy, and return to the fold of the Roman Catholic Church. Mary had not changed her views on the papal supremacy, but she had practical reasons too, for wanting to reconnect with Rome: without the Pope’s authority, she could not support her claim, that her parents’ marriage had been lawful, and that she was therefore a legitimate claimant to the throne. The rapprochement with Rome was a delicate negotiation, which would take many months to complete, and because she needed their support, the settlement allowed Mary’s wealthiest and most powerful subjects, who had benefitted from Henry VIII’s dissolution of the monasteries, to keep the land and the abbeys that had been taken from the Church. Philip insisted on going further, and Mary agreed, that in addition, the old “heresy laws” should be re-established, and accordingly, in February 1555, as Mary eagerly anticipated her first child, the first executions of Protestants by burning at the stake, for which Mary would become known above all else, were carried out. The first executions took place in February of 1555, and were largely made up of Protestant leaders and clergy, but following Mary’s false pregnancy and humiliation later that year, they accelerated. Executions for heresy had occurred with some general regularity during her father’s reign, but both the scale and brutality of the Marian executions, shocked English Protestants. An important factor was also the coverage of these executions. They were exceptionally well-documented in John Foxe’s Acts and Monuments, more popularly known as Foxe’s Book of Martyrs. Besides the Bible, this book became the most commonly-read book in the English language, setting the seal on Mary’s historical reputation as a zealot and a butcher. The illustrations were particularly hideous, and remain some of the most haunting images in Western literature. Probably the most famous Marian martyr documented by Foxe, was the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer. Cranmer had been imprisoned almost as soon as Mary ascended the throne. He had seen fellow Protestant clergy, dear friends and colleagues, burnt at the stake. He had undergone a humiliating heresy trial, and finally, despondent and terrified that he too would be sentenced to burn, Cranmer renounced his Protestantism. Typically, it was the practice to spare the lives of repentant heretics if they recanted their previous beliefs in public. But in a rare move, Mary interfered. She decreed that not only would Cranmer be forced to repeat his recantation in public, but he would also be sentenced to burn, nonetheless. It is difficult not to see this action of Mary’s, as personally motivated revenge. Cranmer was an old man, imprisoned for nearly three years before his execution, and no significant threat to Mary, especially since, according to his own theology, monarchs were appointed by God, and all of their subjects bound to serve them, but he was also the man responsible for her parents’ divorce, and a major architect of the course her life had taken as a result. Mary also wanted the prestige, that a public recantation from the former Archbishop of Canterbury would bring to the cause of Catholic restoration, when Cranmer was paraded out for his second, and public recantation on the 21st of March 1556, he abandoned his prepared script. Realizing that he had nothing left to lose, he disavowed his recantation, reaffirmed his Protestantism, and denounced the Pope as the anti-Christ. Cranmer was roughly pulled down from his platform and taken to the scaffold. Cranmer died a magnificent martyr’s death: as the flames were ignited before him, Cranmer, who had been so terrified of what was to come, willingly thrust his right hand into the flames to burn first, for the sin of signing his recantation of Protestantism. This scene was immortalized in Foxe’s Book of Martyrs, and remains one of the most recognizable images in English history. Cranmer’s martyrdom not only dealt Catholic restoration a solemn blow, and served as glorifying propaganda to strengthen the Protestant movement, which at the time, was still quite small in England, but it also set the seal on Mary’s eternal reputation, as a murderous zealot and tyrant. Power and influence began to flow away from Mary. Her false pregnancy and her husband’s abandonment of her, tarnished her image. This was heavily compounded by ongoing harvest failures, caused by several years of excessive rain and flooding. In March of 1557, Philip, now King of Spain, returned to England to convince Mary, that England should provide troops to support the Spanish in their war against the French. Mary and her Parliament relented in light of a plot, backed by the French, to depose Mary. The English celebrated their victory against the French, at the Battle of St. Quentin in August of 1557, but disastrously, in January 1558, the French reclaimed Calais, the last English stronghold on the Continent. This loss was the final blow to Mary’s image as Queen. In addition, the fact that the Pope was allied with the King of France against Philip, strained England’s relationship with Catholic Rome, impeding Mary’s goals of a Catholic restoration in England – an incomplete restoration, which would fail to outlast the Queen’s short reign. Some months after Philip had returned to Spain in July 1557, Mary believed that she was pregnant once again, and announced that she would give birth in March of 1558. This time, few believed her claim, other than Mary herself. She even altered her will, leaving the throne to her unborn child, doubtless, vastly relieved that she would not have to pass the crown to her Protestant sister, Elizabeth. As the months wore on Mary’s abdomen initially swelled, but then, her appetite disappeared as she grew thinner and weaker, most suspected that she was terribly ill rather than pregnant, and likely to die. By the spring and summer of 1558, allegiances were already beginning to shift to her sister, Elizabeth. By the autumn, Mary faced facts and began to put her affairs in order. Mary instructed that her estate should settle the remaining debts of her father and brother. She endowed monastic and educational institutions with bequests and scholarships, and instructed that daily masses should be said for her soul and for those of her parents. Mary requested that her mother, Catherine of Aragon, be exhumed from her grave at Peterborough Cathedral, so that mother and daughter might be buried together at Westminster Abbey. This last request was never carried out, and indeed, few directives in Mary’s will were followed for long. Mary was pressured by her more hardline Catholic advisors, none of whom wanted to see a Protestant queen ascend the throne, to execute Elizabeth for treason. A death warrant was drawn up, and it is said that Mary very nearly signed it. Her hand hesitated over the document, and in the end, she refused to execute her sister. Historians believe that Mary most likely died of ovarian cancer, which she had probably been living with for years, some of the symptoms of which, may help to account for her phantom pregnancy. She died on the 17th of November 1558 and was buried in Westminster Abbey in a modest tomb, which would become much more elaborate when Elizabeth, forty-five years later, was buried next to her. Inscribed above their resting place, is a Latin inscription: “Consorts in realm and tomb, we sisters, Elizabeth and Mary, here lie down to sleep, in hope of the resurrection.” The overwhelming impression of the life of Queen Mary I, is one of tragedy and unfulfilled promise. It is an old and well-used cliché, that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. And Mary, no doubt, believed that her efforts for the Catholic restoration, would both appease God and unite the English people once again, restoring them to the fold of Catholic Europe. She had too little time to realize any of her ambitions, and during her reign, she did more damage to her own legacy with the heresy campaigns, than any Protestant propaganda would have been able to do, had she stuck to her initial offer of religious tolerance. The Marian persecutions still horrify students of history today, and even historical revisionists, seeking to rehabilitate Mary’s image, are hard-pressed to justify her actions, especially in light of how the shadow of genocide hangs over the history of the 20th century. The humiliation of the Queen’s marriage, and her unsuccessful pursuit of an heir, undermined and weakened her. She had not been free to marry until it was too late. The years Mary had spent in the grasp of her father, and later, her brother, were perhaps, at the root of her personal tragedy: that of a woman standing at an eternal precipice, waiting for her life to start, feeling lonely, bereft, and terrified of the future. A small, simple, rectangular black stone in Westminster Abbey marks Mary’s grave, and is dwarfed by an enormous monument to her sister and successor. Elizabeth, like her monument, dwarfs Mary in English history, to the point that people often forget that Elizabeth first emerged as England’s Queen, by standing on the shoulders of her sister, who was the first English Queen in her own right, the debated reigns of Empress Matilda and Lady Jane Grey aside. Mary laid a foundation of legitimacy, for female authority which Elizabeth built upon. Elizabeth’s accession to the throne was one of the smoothest in over a century, partly because Mary had gone before her. Elizabeth had learned important lessons from watching her sister, and was determined not to make the same mistakes, particularly regarding religious policy. But observing her sister undoubtedly influenced her own decision not to marry, and to remain “the mother of her people,” as Mary had once so winningly described herself. After Mary, Catholicism would never be England’s dominant religion again, but Elizabeth would continue to develop some of the non-religious reforms, which were first introduced during Mary’s reign, immortalizing herself as Gloriana, the Queen who ushered in a golden age. Over the last four decades, more and more historians have begun to challenge the traditional image of Mary Tudor, this first true Queen of England, as excessively conservative, overly zealous religiously, or inept at statecraft, but are also forced to confront the many mistakes and crimes of her short, turbulent reign. Mary I’s enduring legacy, is largely as “Bloody Mary,” during whose short reign hundreds of Protestants were burned, in the Queen’s campaign to restore Catholicism to England following the tumultuous religious reforms of her father, Henry VIII, and her brother, Edward VI, this legacy alone, however, does not fully do Mary justice, and obscures a woman who was, in reality, highly intelligent, a formidable politician, and as determined as any monarch to increase the prosperity, peace, and might of her country. What do you think of Queen Mary I? Have historians condemned her too harshly or not harshly enough? Please let us know in the comments section, and in the meantime, thank you very much for watching!
