Mary I of England

Mary I (18 February 1516 – 17 November 1558), also known as Mary Tudor and as Bloody Mary by her Protestant opponents, was Queen of England and Ireland from July 1553 until her death in 1558. She is best known for her vigorous attempt to reverse the English Reformation, which had begun during the reign of her father, Henry VIII.

Mary I of England

Her attempt to restore to the Church the property confiscated in the previous two reigns was largely thwarted by Parliament, but during her five-year reign, Mary had over 280 religious dissenters burned at the stake in the Marian persecutions.

Early life

Mary was the only child of Henry VIII by his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, to survive to adulthood. Her younger half-brother, Edward VI, succeeded their father in 1547 at the age of nine. When Edward became mortally ill in 1553, he attempted to remove Mary from the line of succession because he supposed, correctly, that she would reverse the Protestant reforms that had taken place during his reign.

Upon his death, leading politicians proclaimed Lady Jane Grey as queen. Mary speedily assembled a force in East Anglia and deposed Jane, who was ultimately beheaded. Mary was—excluding the disputed reigns of Jane and the Empress Matilda—the first queen regnant of England. In July 1554, Mary married Philip of Spain, becoming queen consort of Habsburg Spain on his accession in January 1556.

Religious policies

In the month following her accession, Mary issued a proclamation that she would not compel any of her subjects to follow her religion, but by the end of September 1553, leading Protestant churchmen were imprisoned. Mary's first Parliament, which assembled in early October, declared her parents' marriage valid and abolished Edward's religious laws. Church doctrine was restored to the form it had taken in the 1539 Six Articles of Henry VIII, which (among other things) reaffirmed clerical celibacy. Married priests were deprived of their benefices.

Mary rejected the break with Rome her father instituted and the establishment of Protestantism by her brother's regents. Philip persuaded Parliament to repeal Henry's religious laws, returning the English church to Roman jurisdiction. Reaching an agreement took many months and Mary and Pope Julius III had to make a major concession: the confiscated monastery lands were not returned to the church but remained in the hands of their influential new owners. By the end of 1554, the Pope had approved the deal, and the Heresy Acts were revived.

Around 800 rich Protestants, including John Foxe, fled into exile. Those who stayed and persisted in publicly proclaiming their beliefs became targets of heresy laws. The first executions occurred over five days in February 1555.

In total, throughout her reign, 283 people were executed, most by burning. The burnings proved so unpopular that even Alfonso de Castro, one of Philip's own ecclesiastical staff, condemned them and another adviser, Simon Renard, warned him that such "cruel enforcement" could "cause a revolt." Mary persevered with the policy, which continued for the rest of her reign and exacerbated anti-Catholic and anti-Spanish feeling among the English people. The victims became lauded as martyrs.

As long as the Queen remained childless, her half-sister Elizabeth was her successor. Mary, concerned about her sister's religious convictions (Elizabeth only attended mass under obligation and had only superficially converted to Catholicism to save her life after being imprisoned following Wyatt's rebellion, although she remained a staunch Protestant), seriously considering the possibility of removing her from the succession and naming as her successor her Scottish first cousin and devout Catholic, Margaret Douglas.

Death

After Philip visited her in 1557, Mary again thought she was pregnant, with a baby due in March 1558. She decreed in her will that her husband would be the regent during the minority of their child. But no child was born, and Mary was forced to accept that her half-sister Elizabeth would be her lawful successor.

Mary was weak and ill from May 1558. In pain, possibly from ovarian cysts or uterine cancer, she died on 17 November 1558, aged 42, at St James's Palace, during an influenza epidemic that also claimed Archbishop Pole's life later that day. She was succeeded by Elizabeth. Philip, who was in Brussels, wrote to his sister Joanna: "I felt a reasonable regret for her death."

Although Mary's will stated that she wished to be buried next to her mother, she was interred in Westminster Abbey on 14 December, in a tomb she eventually shared with Elizabeth. The inscription on their tomb, affixed there by James I when he succeeded Elizabeth, is Regno consortes et urna, hic obdormimus Elizabetha et Maria sorores, in spe resurrectionis ("Consorts in realm and tomb, we sisters Elizabeth and Mary here lie down to sleep in hope of the resurrection").

After Mary's death in 1558, her re-establishment of Roman Catholicism was reversed by her younger half-sister and successor, Elizabeth I.

Legacy

Protestant writers at the time, and since, have often condemned Mary's reign. By the 17th century, the memory of her religious persecutions had led to the adoption of her sobriquet "Bloody Mary".

Mary is remembered in the 21st century for her vigorous efforts to restore the primacy of Roman Catholicism in England after the rise of Protestant influence during the previous reigns. Protestant historians have long deplored her reign, emphasizing that in just five years she burned several hundred Protestants at the stake.

Although Mary's rule was ultimately ineffectual and unpopular, the policies of fiscal reform, naval expansion, and colonial exploration that were later lauded as Elizabethan accomplishments were started in Mary's reign.