» Mary Tudor is the name of both Mary I of England and her father's sister, Mary Tudor, Queen of France.
Mary I (
18 February,
1516 –
17 November,
1558), also known as
Mary Tudor, was
Queen of England and
Queen of Ireland from
6 July1553 (
de facto) or
19 July 1553 (
de jure) until her death on
17 November,
1558.
Mary, the fourth crowned monarch of the
Tudor dynasty, after the uncrowned
Jane Grey and before
Elizabeth I, is remembered for briefly returning
England to
Roman Catholicism. To this end, she'd almost three hundred religious dissenters executed; as a consequence, she's often known as
Bloody Mary. Her reestablishment of
Roman Catholicism was reversed by her successor and half-sister,
Elizabeth I (1558–1603). Mary and Elizabeth were both first cousins once-removed of
Mary, Queen of Scots, granddaughter of their aunt
Margaret Tudor.
Childhood and early years
Mary was the only child of
Henry VIII and his first wife
Catherine of Aragon to survive infancy. A
stillborn sister and three short-lived brothers, including
Henry, Duke of Cornwall, had preceded her. Through her mother, she was a granddaughter of
King Ferdinand and
Queen Isabella of Spain. She was born at the
Palace of Placentia in
Greenwich,
London, on Monday
18 February 1516. She was
baptised on the following Thursday with
Thomas Cardinal Wolsey standing as her godfather. Mary was a sickly child who had poor eyesight, sinus conditions and bad
headaches. It has been speculated that her poor health was due to congenital
syphilis contracted ultimately from her father via her mother.
(External Link
).
Despite her health problems Mary was a precocious child. A great part of the credit of her early education was undoubtedly due to her mother, who not only consulted the Spanish scholar
Juan Luis Vives upon the subject, but also was Mary's first instructor in Latin. Mary also studied
Greek,
science, and
music. In July 1521, when scarcely five and a half years old, she entertained some visitors with a performance on the
virginal (a smaller harpsichord). Henry VIII doted on his daughter and would boast in company, "This girl never cries". When Mary was nine years old, Henry gave her her own court at
Ludlow Castle and many of the
Royal Prerogatives normally only given to a (male)
Prince of Wales, even calling her the Princess of Wales. In 1526, Mary was sent to
Wales to preside over the
Council of Wales and the Marches. Despite this, Henry was deeply disappointed that his marriage had produced no sons.
Throughout her childhood Henry negotiated potential marriages for her. When she was only two years old she was promised to the
Dauphin Francis, son of
Francis I, King of France. After three years, the contract was repudiated. In 1522, she was instead contracted to marry her first cousin, the
Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, then 22, by the
Treaty of Windsor. Within a few years, however, the engagement was broken off. It was then suggested that Mary wed, not the Dauphin, but his father Francis I, who was eager for an alliance with England. A marriage treaty was signed which provided that Mary should marry either Francis I or his second son
Henry, Duke of Orléans. However, Cardinal Wolsey, Henry VIII's chief adviser, managed to secure an alliance without the marriage.
Meanwhile, the marriage of Mary's parents was in jeopardy because Catherine had failed to provide Henry the male heir he desired. Henry attempted to have his marriage to her annulled, but, to Henry's disappointment,
Pope Clement VII refused all his requests. Some contend that the Pope's decision was influenced by Charles V, Mary's former betrothed and her mother's nephew. Henry had claimed, citing biblical passages, that his marriage to Catherine was unclean because she'd been previously married (as a child) to his brother
Arthur, although there was some debate as to whether that marriage had been
consummated or not. In 1533, Henry secretly married another woman,
Anne Boleyn. Shortly thereafter,
Thomas Cranmer, the
Archbishop of Canterbury, formally declared the marriage with Catherine void and the marriage with Anne valid. Henry then broke with the
Roman Catholic Church and declared himself head of the Church of England. As a consequence of this, Catherine lost the dignity of being queen and was demoted to Princess Dowager of Wales (a title she'd have held as the widow of Arthur). Mary in turn was deemed illegitimate and her place in the line of succession, as well as the title
princess, was transferred to her half-sister, the future
Elizabeth I, daughter of
Anne Boleyn. She was now just Lady Mary.
Mary was expelled from Court, her servants were dismissed from her service, and she was forced to serve as a lady-in-waiting to Elizabeth. She wasn't permitted to see her mother Catherine, nor attend her funeral in 1536. Her treatment at this time was widely perceived as unjust. It is said that Anne Boleyn encouraged her ladies-in-waiting to slap Mary and verbally abuse her, though she was careful not to do this in front of the King. It is also said that because of this, Mary was very cold to Elizabeth during Elizabeth's teenage years, making false and rude comments on the beheading of Anne Boleyn, calling her a witch. Circumstances between Mary and her father worsened and she was tricked into reconciling with her father by submitting to him as head of the Church of England. By this she repudiated papal authority, acknowledged that the marriage between her mother and father was unlawful, and accepted her own illegitimacy.
Mary may have expected her troubles to end when Anne Boleyn lost royal favour and was beheaded in 1536. Like Mary before, Princess Elizabeth was now degraded to a Lady and removed from the line of succession. Within two weeks of Anne Boleyn's execution, Henry married
Jane Seymour, who died shortly after giving birth to a son, the future
Edward VI. Mary was godmother to her half-brother Edward and chief mourner at Jane Seymour's funeral. In return, Henry agreed to grant her a household and Mary was permitted to reside in royal palaces. Her privy purse expenses for nearly the whole of this period have been published, and show that
Hatfield House, the
Palace of Beaulieu (also called Newhall),
Richmond and
Hunsdon were among her principal places of residence. She was later awarded the Palace of Beaulieu as her own. When King Henry VIII was reminded by Mary of Catherine of Aragon, he'd banish her to Beaulieu. He would do this to Elizabeth, also, but she'd go to Hatfield, to the dismay of Mary, who liked to be with her to make sure Elizabeth prayed enough.
In 1543 Henry married his sixth and last wife,
Catherine Parr, who was able to bring the family closer together. The next year, through the
Third Succession Act, Henry returned Mary and Elizabeth to the line of succession after Edward. Both women, however, remained legally illegitimate.
In 1547, Henry died and was succeeded by his son, Edward VI. Since Edward was still a child, rule passed to a regency council dominated by Protestants, who attempted to establish Protestantism throughout the country. As an example, the
Act of Uniformity 1549 prescribed Protestant rites for church services, such as the use of
Thomas Cranmer's new
Book of Common Prayer. When Mary, who had remained faithful to the Roman Catholic church, asked to be allowed to worship in private in her own
chapel, she was ordered to stop. After appealing to her cousin Charles V, who threatened to go to war with England, she was allowed to worship privately. Religious differences would continue to be a problem between Mary and Edward, however. When Mary was in her thirties, she attended a reunion with Edward and Elizabeth for Christmas, where Edward reduced her to tears in front of the court for "daring to ignore" his laws regarding worship.
Accession
As Edward didn't want the Crown to go to Mary, who he feared would restore the Catholic faith and undo his reforms to the Church, he planned to exclude her from the succession. His advisors told him that he couldn't disinherit only one of his sisters but would have to exclude Elizabeth as well, even though she embraced the Reformed faith and Church of England. Guided by the Lord Protector, Edward excluded both of his sisters from the line of succession in his will. This exclusion was unlawful, as it was made by a minor and contradicted the
Act of Succession passed in 1544 which had restored Mary and Elizabeth to the line of succession. Under the guidance of
John Dudley, 1st Duke of Northumberland, Edward VI instead devised that he should be succeeded by Northumberland's daughter-in-law
Lady Jane Grey, a granddaughter of Henry VIII's younger sister
Mary. It was during this time that Lady Mary stayed in the country to hold off a siege of the attacking armies. After nine days, however, a popular upwelling of support for Mary who was living at
Framlingham Castle in
Suffolk resulted in her being universally acclaimed Queen, and Dudley and Grey ended up in the
Tower of London.
One of her first actions as Queen was to order the release of the Roman Catholic
Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk and
Stephen Gardiner from imprisonment in the
Tower of London (External Link). Also, Lady Mary had Lady Jane Grey imprisoned in the Tower of London. Mary feared that if left alive Lady Jane would be a rallying point for rebels who rejected Mary's rule. At this time, the Duke of Northumberland was the only conspirator executed for
high treason, and even that was after some hesitation on the Queen's part. Mary was left in a difficult position, as almost all the
Privy Counsellors had been implicated in the plot to put Jane on the throne. She could only rely on Gardiner, whom she appointed
Bishop of Winchester and
Lord Chancellor. Gardiner crowned Mary on
1 October 1553. In 1553, she repealed the controversial
Buggery Act 1533.
Reign
Mary's first act of Parliament retroactively validated Henry VIII's marriage to Catherine of Aragon, and legitimised Mary herself.
The Spanish marriage
Then 37, Mary turned her attention to finding a husband and producing an heir that would prevent the Protestant Elizabeth (still her successor under the terms of Henry VIII's will) from succeeding to the throne. Mary rejected
Edward Courtenay, 1st Earl of Devon, as a prospect when her cousin Charles V suggested she marry his only son, the
Spanish prince Philip, later
Philip II of Spain. It is said that upon viewing a portrait of Philip, Mary declared herself to be "half in love with him."
Their marriage at
Winchester Cathedral on
July 25 1554, which for Philip was completely political (he admired her dignity but felt "no carnal love for her"), was extremely unpopular with the English. Lord Chancellor Gardiner and the
House of Commons petitioned her to consider marrying an Englishman, fearing that England would be relegated to a dependency of Spain. This fear may have arisen from the fact that Mary was England's first
Queen (excluding the brief, and controversial, reign of Jane) since
Empress Mathilda.
Domestic politics
Insurrections broke out across the country when she insisted on marrying Philip, with whom she was in love. The Duke of Suffolk once again proclaimed that his daughter, Lady Jane Grey, was queen. In support of Elizabeth,
Thomas Wyatt led a force from
Kent that wasn't defeated until he'd arrived at London. After the rebellions were crushed, the Duke of Suffolk, his daughter,
Lady Jane Grey, and her husband were convicted of
high treason and executed. Elizabeth, though protesting her innocence in the Wyatt affair, was imprisoned in the
Tower of London for two months, then was put under house arrest at
Woodstock Palace.
Mary married Philip on
25 July,
1554, at
Winchester Cathedral. Under the terms of the marriage treaty, Philip was to be styled "King of England", all official documents (including Acts of Parliament) were to be dated with both their names, and Parliament was to be called under the joint authority of the couple. Coins were also to show the heads of both Mary and Philip. The marriage treaty further provided that England wouldn't be obliged to provide military support to Philip's father, the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, in any war. Philip's powers, however, were extremely limited and he and Mary were not true joint sovereigns like
William and Mary.
Pregnancy
Mary, thinking she was pregnant, had thanksgiving services at the diocese of London in November 1554. This turned out to be the first of two
phantom pregnancies. Philip persuaded his wife to permit Elizabeth's release from house arrest, probably so that he'd be viewed favourably by her in case Mary died during childbirth. Philip found Mary, who was eleven years his senior, to be physically unattractive and after only fourteen months found an excuse to leave for Spain.
Religion
As Queen, Mary was very concerned about religious issues. She had always rejected the break with Rome instituted by her father and the establishment of Protestantism by Edward VI. She had England reconciled with Rome and
Reginald Cardinal Pole, the son of her governess the Countess of Salisbury and once considered a suitor, became
Archbishop of Canterbury after Mary had his predecessor
Thomas Cranmer executed. Mary would come to rely greatly on Pole for advice.
Edward's religious laws were abolished by Mary's first Parliament in the Statute of Repeal Act (1553). Church doctrine was restored to the form they'd taken in the 1547
Six Articles.
Mary also persuaded Parliament to repeal the Protestant religious laws passed by Henry VIII. Getting their agreement took several years, and she'd to make a major concession: tens of thousands of acres of monastery lands confiscated under Henry were not to be returned to the monasteries as the new landowners created by this distribution were very influential. The
Revival of the Heresy Acts took place in 1554. Mary also started currency reform to counteract the dramatic devaluation overseen by
Thomas Gresham that had characterized the last few years of Henry's reign and the reign of Edward VI. These measures, however, were largely unsuccessful. Mary's deep religious convictions inspired her to institute social reforms, although these were also unsuccessful.
Persecutions
Numerous Protestant leaders were executed in the so-called
Marian Persecutions. Many rich Protestants chose exile and around 800 left the country. The first to die were
John Rogers (
4 February,
1555),
Laurence Saunders (
8 February,
1555),
Rowland Taylor (
9 February,
1555), and
John Hooper, the
Bishop of Gloucester (
9 February,
1555). The persecution lasted for almost four years. It isn't known exactly how many died.
Foxe estimates in his
Book of Martyrs that 284 were executed for their faith, although this work is widely regarded as a biased and unreliable account. The
Marian persecutions are commemorated especially by
bonfires in the town of
Lewes in
Sussex: there's a prominent "martyrs' memorial" outside St John's church at
Stratford, London, to those Protestants burnt in
Essex, and others in
Christchurch Park Ipswich and the abbey grounds,
Bury St Edmunds, to those executed in East and West
Suffolk respectively.
Foreign policy
Under Mary's reign, in another of the
Plantations of Ireland, English colonists were settled in the
Irish midlands to reduce the attacks on
the Pale (the colony around
Dublin). Two counties were created in Ireland and named
Queen's County (now Laois) and
King's County (now Offaly) in honor of her and Philip. The county town of Queen's County was called
Maryborough (now Portlaoise).
Having inherited the throne of Spain upon his father's abdication, Philip returned to England from March to July 1557 to persuade Mary to support Spain in a war against France (the
Italian Wars). There was much opposition to declaring war on France. There existed an old alliance between Scotland and France; French trade would be jeopardized; and England had a distinct lack of finances due to a bad economic legacy from the reign of
Edward VI. As a result of her agreement to declare war (which violated the carefully-written marriage treaty), England became full of factions and seditious pamphlets of Protestant origin inflaming the country against the Spaniards. English forces fared badly in the conflict and as a result lost
Calais (
13 January 1558), England's last remaining continental possession. Although this territory had recently become financially burdensome, the effects of its loss were ideological and prestigious. Mary later lamented that when she died the words "Philip" and "Calais" would be found inscribed on her heart.
Trade and commerce
The most prominent problem was the decline of the Antwerp cloth trade. Despite her marriage to the
King of Spain,
Philip II, England didn't benefit from their enormously lucrative trade with the New World. The Spanish guarded their trading revenue jealously and Mary couldn't condone illegitimate trade (in the form of piracy) as she was married to a Spaniard. In an attempt to increase trade and rescue the English economy, Mary continued
Northumberland's policy of seeking out new commercial ports outside Europe.
Revenue and customs
The immediate problem here concerned the reconciliation between a modern form of government - with correspondingly higher spending - with a medieval system of collecting taxation and dues. A failure to apply new tariffs to new forms of imports meant that a key source of revenue was neglected. In order to solve this problem, Mary's government published the 'Book of Rates' (1558), listing the tariffs and duties for every import. This publication wasn't reviewed until 1604. Mary also appointed William Paulet, the
Marquis of Winchester as 'Surveyor of Customs' and assigned him to oversee the revenue collection system.
Death
During her reign, Mary's weak health led her to suffer two false pregnancies. After such a delusion in 1558, Mary decreed in her will that her husband Philip should be the regent during the minority of her child. No child, however, was born, and Mary died at the age of 42, most likely of ovarian cancer, at St. James's Palace on
17 November,
1558. She was succeeded by her half-sister, who became
Elizabeth I. Although her will stated that she wished to be buried next to her mother, Mary was interred in
Westminster Abbey on
14 December in a tomb she'd eventually share with Elizabeth. The Latin inscription on a marble plaque on their tomb (affixed there during the reign of
James I) translates to "Partners both in Throne and grave, here rest we two sisters, Elizabeth and Mary, in the hope of one resurrection".
Legacy
Although Mary enjoyed tremendous popular support and sympathy for her mistreatment during the earliest parts of her reign, she lost almost all of it after marrying Philip. The marriage treaty clearly specified that England wasn't to be drawn into any Spanish wars, but this guarantee proved meaningless. Philip spent most of his time governing his European territories, while his wife usually remained in England. After Mary's death, Philip became a suitor for Elizabeth's hand, but Elizabeth refused him.
The persecution of Protestants earned Mary the appellation "Bloody Mary" although many historians believe Mary doesn't deserve all the blame that has been cast upon her. During Mary's five-year reign, 287 individuals were
burnt at the stake, twice as many had suffered the same fate during the previous century-and-a-half of English history, and at a greater rate than under the contemporary
Spanish Inquisition. Several notable clerics were executed; among them were the former Archbishop of Canterbury
Thomas Cranmer, the former
Bishop of London Nicholas Ridley and the reformist
Hugh Latimer.
John Foxe vilified her in his
Book of Martyrs. Spanish ambassadors were apparently aghast at how the English reviled her and at the jubilation and celebration of the people upon her death.
One popular tradition traces the
nursery rhyme Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary to Mary's attempts to bring Roman Catholicism back to England, although it's more likely about her Cousin Mary, Queen of Scots.
Style and arms
Like Henry VIII and Edward VI, Mary used the style "Majesty", as well as "Highness" and "Grace". "Majesty", which Henry VIII first used on a consistent basis, didn't become exclusive until the reign of Elizabeth I's successor,
James I.
When Mary ascended the throne, she was proclaimed under the same official style as Henry VIII and Edward VI: "Mary, by the Grace of
God,
Queen of England,
France and
Ireland,
Defender of the Faith, and of the
Church of England and also of
Ireland in Earth Supreme Head". The "supremacy phrase" at the end of the style was repugnant to Mary's
Roman Catholic faith; from 1554 onwards, she omitted the phrase without statutory authority, which wasn't retroactively granted by Parliament until 1555.
Under Mary's marriage treaty with
Philip II of Spain, the couple were jointly styled Queen and King. The official joint style reflected not only Mary's but also Philip's dominions and claims; it was "Philip and Mary, by the grace of God, King and Queen of England, France,
Naples,
Jerusalem,
Chile and Ireland, Defenders of the Faith,
Princes of
Spain and
Sicily,
Archdukes of
Austria, Dukes of
Milan,
Burgundy and
Brabant, Counts of
Habsburg,
Flanders and
Tyrol". This style, which had been in use since 1554, was replaced when Philip inherited the Spanish Crown in 1556 with "Philip and Mary, by the Grace of God King and Queen of England, Spain, France, Jerusalem, both the Sicilies and Ireland, Defenders of the Faith, Archdukes of Austria, Dukes of Burgundy, Milan and Brabant, Counts of Habsburg, Flanders and Tyrol".
Mary I's
arms were the same as those used by all her predecessors since
Henry IV:
Quarterly, Azure three fleurs-de-lys Or [forFrance]
and Gules three lions passant guardant in pale Or [forEngland]. Sometimes, Mary's arms were impaled (depicted side-by-side) with those of her husband.
Ancestors
Media portrayals
- Mark Twain's "The Prince and the Pauper" includes a monstrous depiction of Mary before her accession: "When his royal 'sister,' the grimly holy Lady Mary, set herself to reason with him against the wisdom of his course in pardoning so many people who would otherwise be jailed, or hanged, or burned (...) the boy [pauperpretending to be King Edward VI] was filled with generous indignation, and commanded her to go to her closet, and beseech God to take away the stone that was in her breast, and give her a human heart."
- Ann Tyrrell made a cameo appearance as Mary in the movie Young Bess (1953).
- Nicola Pagett played her in the 1969 film Anne of the Thousand Days where she made a brief appearance in a scene showing Catherine of Aragon's death. In reality, Mary wasn't present at the time.
- In 1971, the BBC broadcast the six-part television series The Six Wives of Henry VIII. In the first part, "Catherine of Aragon", the young Princess Mary was portrayed by Verina Greenlaw. She reappeared, played by Alison Frazer, in the third part, "Jane Seymour", and in the sixth, "Catherine Parr". The success of this series led to a sequel, Elizabeth R, where the middle-aged Mary was played by Daphne Slater.
- In the 1985 movie Lady Jane she was portrayed by Jane Lapotaire.
- In 1998, she was portrayed by Kathy Burke in the lavish costume drama Elizabeth.
- In 2003, Lara Belmont played her in the British television drama Henry VIII.
- In 2005 Joanne Whalley portrayed her in the BBC drama The Virgin Queen.
- In The Tudors (2007), Mary Tudor was portrayed as a young girl at the time of Henry's fascination with Anne Boleyn.
- In the novel Elizabeth I: Red Rose of the House of Tudor, part of the juvenile historical-fiction series The Royal Diaries, Mary is a prominent character and is portrayed as a bitter rival to her half-sister Elizabeth.
- Sarah Bolger will portray her in as a teenager in the upcoming series of The Tudors
External results
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