Does Mary I deserve the title of bloody Mary...

Mary I, Queen of England

Does Mary I deserve to be called ‘Bloody Mary’?

She lives on in our memories as the Catholic Queen who sent nearly three hundred Protestants to the stake. This act of brutality has forever doomed her, earning her the legendary name ‘Bloody Mary’. As a woman, daughter and Queen she was much maligned. But does she really deserve such a title? To understand such an act of persecution, it is vital we look at her early years.

Mary Tudor was born on 18^th February 1516, and was the sole surviving child of Henry VIII and Katherine of Aragon. English and Spanish blood ran through her veins, and the future of the Tudor dynasty lay in her hands. Heavily doted on by both parents, Mary’s life seemed destined for greatness, but upon reaching adolescence this happiness would begin to sour, and she would be left fighting for the survival of herself, her mother, her title, and her very soul. 

The cracks in Henry and Katherine’s marriage became apparent as early as 1527, for Henry had ceased sleeping with the ageing Katherine by this point. This was because Henry was being led to believe that the marriage was damned in the eyes of God, and that he would get no living children from her. Henry had married Katherine (the widow of his late brother Arthur) upon his accession to the throne, whether or not he was fulfilling his dying father’s wishes is unknown. Henry was a keen scholar, and made a great study of the scriptures. He was always particularly drawn to one extract from Leviticus: 

‘If a man shall take his brother’s wife, it is an unclean thing, they shall be childless’. 

It would seem that divorce was already playing through the young Henry’s mind, when he met the lady Anne Boleyn. At this stage in her life, Mary would have little knowledge of the dangers that Anne would later present. Henry began to court Anne, but it was soon apparent that she was unlike his past mistresses. Her bold nature appealed to the king, and she would push his thoughts on divorce from Katherine with the offer of marriage and bearing him sons. Henry started divorce proceedings against Katherine, who would refuse to grant Henry the divorce he craved, up until her very last breath. 

In these cold calculating years Mary was treated with little respect, and she was to be severely punished for siding with her mother, against her father and Anne. In 1531, mother and child were separated, with the Queen banished from court; they were never to see each other again. In the years that followed Mary was stripped of her title, declared a bastard when Anne gave birth to Elizabeth, and she was then humiliated even further by having to wait on her half sister Elizabeth. When in the infant Elizabeth’s household Mary would receive a secret letter from her mother, which would help to strengthen her resolve. 

‘Answer with few words, obeying the King, your father in everything, save only that you will not offend God and lose your own soul.’

Despite starvation, physical and verbal abuse, and being nearly destitute of clothes, and other necessities, Mary proved to be a worthy adversary. She would continually defy her father in defence of the succession, and the supremacy, and would infuriate Anne with her constant stubbornness.

She ‘knew no other Princess in England except herself, and the daughter of my Lady Pembroke had no such title’ 

Such harsh treatment would push the already devout Mary, further into the hands of God. Her soul would become one of her most cherished possessions, something which she believed was safe from others, but she was wrong. When Henry married Anne Boleyn he broke with the Church of Rome, creating a new Church within England called ‘The Church of England’. Effectively, this new church had a more Anglican outlook towards religion, with the scriptures becoming accessible to the people of England for the first time. The radical change in religion horrified most people and they were to swear fealty under oath, to the new ecclesiastical authority the King held. 

This oath was to be the nail in the coffin for Mary, after numerous refusals to sign the oath Mary gave in. Relations with her father had reached an all time low, but whatever her reasons, the decision to conform to the will of her father in religion (declaring her mother and fathers marriage invalid, declaring herself illegitimate, and risking her immortal soul) would haunt her for the rest of her life. 

Having looked at the evidence, it is clear to see that Mary’s persecution of the Catholics was heavily influenced from her youth. This I believe stems from the pressure that forced her to sign away her soul, after she had already lost so much. As Queen it was her job to protect the souls of her subjects (burning at the stake was the punishment for heretics), and Mary believed she was doing just that in the Marian reformation. I believe her piety had blinded her so much. We can not judge her purely on modern perspectives. I do not believe she deserves such a title, and that she has been very misunderstood.

*In the ‘Actes and Monuments of the English Martyrs’ by John Foxe, we first see the term used. The book itself celebrated the passing of Mary’s turbulent reign, giving a detailed account of the protestant martyrs in ‘the horrible and bloody time of Queen Mary. It seems the recasting of Mary’s name had started immediately after her death.*