Dr Kat and "Bloody Mary"?

hello and welcome back to the channel if you're new here hi you're very welcome this is reading the past and I'm dr. Kat and today I want to look at another purported villain from English history Mary Tudor later known as Mary the first of England and even later still perhaps by some better known as Bloody Mary but how does she earn this particular moniker in fact does she earn it does she deserve to be known in these quite unflattering terms well we're going to explore that today I want to look at her life her reign and her legacy let's go [Music] [Music] Mary Tudor was born to Henry the eighth of England and his first wife Katherine on the 18th of February 15 16 by this point had parents been married for nearly seven years this was not their first pregnancy in fact it was probably their fifth but Mary was the first and only child that would survive infancy Katherine and four pregnant two more times after the birth of Mary and in both cases those children would not survive either birth or infancy Henry as we know was desperate for a son and heir but in Mary he finally had a healthy baby a healthy child in the Royal cradle and in the Royal nursery and he is said to have called her his pearl of the world at least at first Mary sat at the center of the Tudor Court it was around her that everything orbited all of the hopes for the future she was beloved by both of her parents who wanted only the best for her the best education the appropriate place in the world and an advantageous match both for her and for her nation in 1518 the two-year-old Princess Mary was involved in a landmark celebration it's unlikely of course that she would actually remembered it but she was betrothed the first time to the dha'fana France Francois however this year was also a time of deep sadness in the royal household for 1518 was the year of her mother's last pregnancy she delivers a baby girl who was either stillborn or who died not long after birth also perhaps to add salt into the wound insult to injury this was also the year when Bessie Blount gave birth to Henry Fitzroy Mary now has a half-brother and Henry has a son albeit illegitimate but he claims him the surname Fitzroy literally meaning the son of the king in 1522 when Mary was age 6 her future husband changed the peace negotiation that had seen her betrothed the Dauphin of France fell apart now she was being betrothed to her cousin on her mother's side charles v of spain he was some 16 years her senior just two years later it looked like things were about to change once again discussions took place about marrying Mary to James the fifth of Scotland however no full betrothal actually took place in 1525 Mary's 9 years old and at this point she is sent to Ludlow castle in Wales where she takes up her position as the Princess of Wales and this is telling since the time of Edward the first all of the heirs to the English throne had taken up this seat as Prince of Wales now we have a princess this is a clear sign to everybody Mary is Henry's heir she needs to be educated as befits a prince of the realm and Catherine certainly was keen to ensure this she was going to do whatever she could to make sure that her daughter was ready for that most momentous of roles as reg'ment Queen of this land Mary is only at Ludlow for about 19 months and she returns the English Court in 1527 by this time her cousin Charles v has married elsewhere which is perhaps understandable he is 16 years older than Mary and presumably he was in want of an heir of his own and waiting for the girl to grow up to maturity may have seemed inconvenient so at this point they start trying to negotiate for her to marry either Francis the first the father of the doe farm that she had been engaged to previously or his second son Henry drew Cavalli on the court that may return to was however in turmoil Mary may or may not have been aware that her parents marriage was in peril it's around this time that Henry's attentions it seems were taken by another and Berlin by this point he seems to be aware that catherine is approaching or has gone through menopause there is not going to be another baby there will not be a male heir from her and his younger she is captivating and perhaps he hopes she can provide him with that son that he craves but why was a son so important a legitimate son of his blood he has Mary he has gone to the trouble of installing her at Ludlow as Princess of Wales so why is he still on this determined hunt to have a male heir perhaps Henry the eighth's was preoccupied with the fate of the dynasty of another former Henry Henry the first when he died in 1135 his only surviving child was a daughter the Empress Matilda before his death he had made his nobles swear an oath to support her as their ruler or the Lady of England when the time came however her cousin Stephen apparently had other ideas between 1135 at 11:53 was the period known as the anarchy within England it was a civil war fought between supporters of Matilda and Stephen about who would sit on the English throne the anarchy only ended when Matilda's son Henry was recognized as Stephens heir he ruled as henry ii from 1154 with this history of mind we can perhaps understand why henry was so keen to get himself a male heir the one time the experiment of female rulership was had in England it resulted in civil war and Anarchy women could not apparently successfully hold the throne of England nevertheless it is Matilda son that inherits it is her bloodline that sits on the English throne in 1531 when Mara was 15 years old a time of extraordinary tribulation and emotional pain was really just beginning for her in this year her mother Catherine of Aragon is banished from court by her father it seems that Mary never really gave up the belief that her parents marriage was legal but because of her accounts and that of her mother she would find the displeasure of her father very difficult to bear indeed because of the displeasure the two women Mary and Catherine were not allowed to meet or even correspond directly with each other from the July of 1531 in April 1533 Henry the eighth announces that he is married to Amber Lynn he presents her as his first legitimate wife and England's only true Queen Catherine of Aragon the marriage was a mistake she was really the Dowager Princess of Wales his dead brother Arthur's wife their daughter was born in error she is now the Lady Mary by September of 1533 elizabeth is born so now there is another princess of England and Mary no longer holds that title at least for Henry she is the Lady Mary and she is sent to serve in her half-sisters household so this seventeen year old girl who had been Henry's pearl of the world Princess of Wales and heir to the throne of England now finds herself the bastard child of separated parents who now must sit in service to her half-sister whose own mother is really quite the bully when it comes to Mary she demands that the people who are caring for Elizabeth and therefore Mary beat her box her ears and smack her for the in quotes cursed bastard that she is it seems also that her father Henry has little sympathy for her at the same time during the early 1530s and certainly by 1534 so the year after the announcement of amber Lynn's marriage and Elizabeth's birth Mary is also witnessed the destruction of the fate that she grew up him England by 1534 is all but divorced from Rome just as Henry the eighth was now divorced from Catherine Aragon some scholars have suggested that Mary's devotion to the Pope and the Roman Catholic faith which is evidence both in her time as the Lady Mary but also when she is Queen may impart be due to the fact that two traumas have overlapped the separation of England from the Church of Rome and therefore the loss of many of the things that Mary recognizes from her faith practice of childhood and the security it brought happens to occur at the same time as her parents are being divorced Mary goes from being princess and heir to the throne to being an accursed bastard it's telling for me that the Pope and the Roman Catholic faith recognized her parents marriage as being legal and valid for them Mary is the true princess of England and perhaps that may go some way to explain why where Mary does become queen she attempts so violently to bring England back in line with the Pope and with Rome on the 7th of January 1536 Mary experiences yet another tragedy her mother Catherine passes away on the 19th of May 1536 Catherine and Mary's enemy and Berlin is executed at the Tower of London if Mary had hoped that with this execution her father would welcome her back with open arms recognizing the folly of his marriage to Anne she was going to be mistaken Henry would forgive her but only on his terms Mary would have to acknowledge that her parents marriage was never valid and that she herself was a bastard just as Elizabeth now was to Mary fought for as long as she could and on the 22nd of June 1536 Mary folds she capitulates the Henry's every demand and signs the document that he has had prepared for her she acknowledges herself a bastard and the fact that her mother had never legally married to her father Mary was 21 years old in fifth in 37 when her baby brother was born England and Henry finally had their male heir in little Prince Edward and the relief that Henry and apparently Mary seems to have felt at this healthy baby boy being in the cradle was profound Mary acts as godmother at the christening of her little brother of course Henry's marital adventures do not stop with the death of Jane Seymour after giving birth to Edward indeed as we know he will marry three more times but by this point Mary as an adult she theoretically can have a household of her own she should certainly already be married so it's perhaps difficult to know quite how much this term I would have affected her certainly we know she is in Catherine Howard's household at the time of her fall although famously women were not great friends in July 15 43 Mary gets her final stepmother when Henry married Catherine Parr for the years following this up until her father's death it seems that Mary enjoyed a rare period of peace we see her being painted here in 1544 however with her father's death on the 28th of January 1547 her little brother Edward becomes Edward the sixth and his rule is managed by a Regency Council that at first is headed up by the apparently fervently Protestant protector Somerset Edwards uncle at various periods in Edwards reign Mary finds herself under extreme pressure to conform to the religious settlement set down by Edward and his counselors this resettlement is like none other that's been seen in England it is more stridently posture than anything put in place by her father and Mary simply cannot conform the Edwardian prayer book and also the desire for Edwin his counselors to remove any superstition as they saw it from the practice of English faith meant that for Mary and for people who grew up in the Roman Catholic faith like she did their faith practice would have to otter drastically the mysteries and miracles and imagery that they had grown up with were being stripped away perhaps Mary this was her last link with the mother that she loved they shared that faith together this new faith would be completely unrecognizable to her it was even more reformed even more Protestant than anything she had known under her father is it any wonder that she rebelled against it that she sought out ways and means to continue to crush the faith in the manner that she best known and loved the year 15 53 was one of momentous importance for Mary arguably it was the most important year of her entire life it is marred by tragedy on the 6th of July her godson half-brother and King Edward the Sikh passes away and it must have stung I think when she realizes that her little baby brother Edward has written his own device for succession which writes her and their half-sister Elizabeth out of the running and instead places Lady Jane Grey their cousin has Edwards Protestant heir to England I think almost everybody is surprised that Mary doesn't take this lying down instead she rallies some troops and this armed militia marches on London determined to claim her birthright she is successful and by the 19th of July Lady Jane Grey's rule and government has fallen and Mary is recognised as England's Queen almost at once Mary seems keen to put writes what she perceives for some wrongs she has always known that her parents were legally married and that she was a legitimate daughter of that marriage she also knows that England should not be its own Church that it belongs more properly under the Holy See of Rome and the head of the Pope to achieve this she thinks it necessary that she marry and produced that Roman Catholic heir that will maintain that bond between England and Rome so she turns to her maternal family to charles v the holy roman emperor in spain they had been betrothed once he now feels that he is too old to offer his hand in marriage but he suggests his son Philip and Mary gladly accepts with news of this marriage spreading across England Pia become concerned if a wife must be ruled by her husband what does that mean when that wife is a queen will England become wife to Spain and the Holy Roman Empire will marry as Queen take England as a vassal to this other nation many people in England were unhappy with the idea of this Spanish match and in March 1550 for minor noblemen Sir Thomas Wyatt rebels he intends to depose and kill Mary and put her half-sister Elizabeth on the throne in her place as a Protestant Queen Mary puts the rebellion down Wyatt is beheaded and Elizabeth place in the tower on suspicion of treason although it cannot be proved and she is later released on the 19th of July 1554 Philip of Spain arrives in England and on the 25th of July Philip and Mary Mary in November 1554 the formerly exiled Cardinal Reginald Pole returns to England as papal legates in a ceremony held before Mary and Philip England rejoins the Holy See of Rome the English church is now once again part of the Roman Catholic Church which is headed of course by the Pope but this was just a ceremony a lot of words being spoken and it seems Mary recognizes that words are meaningless without deeds to back them up and if she wants England and roamed remained joined as a holy mother church she is going to have to act to change the very character of her populace and the way she chooses to act is with burning statistically Mary burns 300 Protestants of the stake for heresy many of these burnings are represented in foxes Book of Martyrs which I've got a video on that I'll link in a card up here perhaps the most shocking and arguably vindictive at these burnings occurred in the 21st of March 1556 it was the burning of Thomas Cranmer who had been Archbishop of Canterbury under Mary's father and also in the reign of Edward the sixth as Archbishop of Canterbury for Mary's father he was responsible for divorcing her parents and with ever vi he also move through a lot of doctrinal changes he also supported Lady Jane Grey as Edward the sixth successor Cranmer was put on trial and imprisoned by Mary for both treason and heresy his treason being the support of Lady Jane Grey and his heresy being his faith practices Cranmer would have been a man in his 60s while all this was taking place he would be 66 at the time of his death so perhaps we can understand why he was so frightened of the thought of being burnt to death so much so that it led him to recant his faith he was taken about the country and made to make public recantations the last of these were in Oxford by all rights by recanting his faith he should not have suffered the death of a heretic but it seems that Mary was resolute Cranmer would burn at his large recantation publicly in Oxford he had prepared a script that had been checked over by those who were making him speak but knowing he would burn at the last moment he decided to change this script he got up in public and recanted his recantation he renounced it and when it came time for him to be burnt it was his right hand that he placed into the flame and this we can see being represented by John Fox his right hand had signed that hated recantation what Mary seems have done he's taken an absolute propaganda win the public recantation of the leading post in church from of the age and she is then turns it against herself she has made him a martyr and in doing so it seems to me at least that she has taken personal feeling and a desire for vengeance and put it before the fate of her nation and also of her faith and its future in England these burnings coupled with the visceral weight they had been represented in John foxes Book of Martyrs might go some way to explain just how Mary's legacy became so blackened however while clearly 300 burnings is a terrible and frankly terrifying thing to even conceive of we perhaps put it into perspective what sorts of numbers of executions are happening before and after marry during the reign of Henry the eighth if we attempt to look at the number of executions that are carried out on his orders the numbers vary wildly some people say that he executes thirty seven thousand which is a massively high number while others go even higher still saying that it was 72,000 some disagree completely saying that both numbers are a wild exaggeration and in the case of heretics if we are comparing like with like Mary with her father he only executes 81 now listen to say he wasn't incredibly barbaric he executes not one but two wives something that was unknown in English history equally in the execution of Margaret Pohl a woman of royal blood who was 67 years old her beheading by axe goes down in the annals is one of the most grotesque things to ever occur it is also during his reign but the first woman was tortured in the Tower of London and askew also his reign witnesses the first woman's head being displayed on London Bridge Elizabeth Barton the holy maid of Kent for Mary's sister Elizabeth during her reign she is credited for the execution of some six hundred people based on maths of faith however there aren't many burnings in these faith prisoners perhaps it's quite savvy of Elizabeth when she finds crypto Catholics or Jesuits she doesn't execute them based on their faith rather she makes their crime treason and they suffer a traitor's death instead in addition to her prisoners of faith it is often said that she is responsible for many other executions that may number in the thousands so why does Mary get all the flak she isn't the only one executing people based upon faith and certainly both her sister and her father have far higher numbers is it simply the fact that she's cramming all of this into a shorter time period or is it a case that history tends to be written by the victors and in the case of Mary her legacy is written during the reign of her sister Elizabeth it's during Elizabeth's reign that John foxes Book of Martyrs gets published is this the reason why Elizabeth has one mary has lost and Elizabeth gets to write her legacy but for a time at least it didn't look like Elizabeth is gonna be the winner it certainly looked too many that Mary had won the day soon after her marriage to Philip in the autumn of 1550 four doctors informed Mary that she could be assured that she was indeed pregnant with the return to Rome of November 1554 Mary had the full deck she had her Catholic husband her Catholic England and now a Catholic heir in her belly but by the following June 1555 it became clear this was not the case there was no baby to be born parentheses don't last that long and what many have called a phantom pregnancy is believed to have taken place that Mary so desperate to be a mother to provide a Catholic heir for her England that she essentially imagined herself into the symptoms of pregnancy that through her mind she made her body swell and while this does happen it is possible it is perhaps a little unfair it kind of feeds into this narrative of mad bad broody Bloody Mary doesn't it she's so unhinged and desperate for a baby that she fantasizes herself into seeming pregnant it's also possible that rather than this being a phantom pregnancy that Mary had ovarian cervical or womb cancer and the swelling that she experienced was down to that that this was the cancer that would eventually kill her in September of 1555 Mary experiences another loss with no baby in the cradle and perhaps if we're being kind to him with pressing matters to attend to ever sees Philip leaves England for the continent and he leaves Mary behind she was it said bereft to him having left and would sit watching the rivers of the Thames that had taken away in the hope that she would see him return once again Mary finds herself alone somebody that she loves has been taken from her between 1557 and 5th 58 Mary involves England in her husband Phillips wars on the continent these were Wars that really England had no business being part of except for the fact that Mary had married Philip if we think back to all of those people who had issues with the match perhaps we can see why now because in January 15:58 absolute disaster strikes England's last foothold in France Calais is lost on the 17th of November 1558 Mary is aged 42 when she passes away so I'd love to know what you think of this video and particularly what you think of Mary the first her life and legacy was she Bloody Mary for you and if so is she still do you think that the things that she did during her life and reign earned that title or do you think it's wildly unfair that her life legacy and name have been so mistreated down the centuries if you do think it's unfair what do you think the reason was what or who is responsible for her being so maligned in this way let me know in the comment section down below or come and find me over on my social media I'll leave links to my Instagram and Twitter in the description box down below so you can follow me there and we can continue this conversation I do hope you've enjoyed this video and found it useful if you did then please let me know by hitting the thumbs up please also subscribe to this channel and click the belly icon so that YouTube tells you when I've next uploaded I hope you're going to have a great day whatever you're doing and I look forward to speaking to you in my next video take care of yourselves bye bye for now [Music] [Music]

Channel: Reading the Past

Views: 100,747

Rating: 4.9568892 out of 5

Keywords: Mary I, Lady Mary, Bloody Mary, Tudor, Reformation, Counter-Reformation, Wyatt's Rebellion, Education, Literature, Culture, History, Early Modern, Renaissance

Id: n_OXBERijQo

Length: 26min 30sec (1590 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 15 2019