Mary I Tudor. Birth and family

 

Introduction

     I decided to take this topic because I was always interested in origin nickname of Mary I Tudor. Why was she called so? What did she do to deserve this nickname? There is even a cocktail with the same name. So, i found some information about this queen. And here it is.

     Mary I (18 February 1516 – 17 November 1558) was the Queen of England and Ireland from July 1553 until her death. Her opponents gave her the sobriquet "Bloody Mary".

     She was the only surviving child born of the ill-fated marriage of Henry VIII and his first wife Catherine of Aragon. Her younger half-brother, Edward VI, succeeded Henry in 1547. When Edward became mortally ill in 1553, he attempted to remove Mary from the line of succession because of religious differences. On his death, their cousin Lady Jane Grey was at first proclaimed queen. Mary assembled a force in East Anglia and successfully deposed Jane, who was ultimately beheaded. In 1554, Mary married Philip of Spain, becoming queen consort of Habsburg Spain on his accession in 1556.

     As the fourth crowned monarch of the Tudor dynasty, Mary is remembered for her restoration of Roman Catholicism after the short-lived Protestant reign of her half-brother. During her five-year reign, she had over 280 religious dissenters burned at the stake in the Marian Persecutions. Her re-establishment of Roman Catholicism was reversed after her death in 1558 by her younger half-sister and successor, Elizabeth I.

     Let's find out more about her, her life and such a strange nickname.

Birth and family

     Mary was born on 18 February 1516 at the Palace of Placentia in Greenwich, London. She was the only child of King Henry VIII of England and his first wife Catherine of Aragon to survive infancy. Her mother had many miscarriages. Before Mary's birth, four previous pregnancies had resulted in a stillborn daughter and three short-lived or stillborn sons, including Henry, Duke of Cornwall.

     Mary was a precocious child. In July 1520, when scarcely four and a half years old, she entertained a visiting French delegation with a performance on the virginals. A great part of her early education came from her mother, who consulted the Spanish humanist Juan Luis Vives for advice and commissioned him to write De Institutione Feminae Christianae, a treatise on the education of girls. By the age of nine, Mary could read and write Latin. She studied French, Spanish, music, dance, and perhaps Greek. Henry VIII doted on his daughter and boasted to the Venetian ambassador Sebastian Giustiniani, "This girl never cries".

     Despite his affection for Mary, Henry was deeply disappointed that his marriage had produced no sons.By the time Mary was nine years old, it was apparent that Henry and Catherine would have no more children, leaving Henry without a legitimate male heir.  In 1525, Henry sent Mary to the border of Wales to preside, presumably in name only, over the Council of Wales and the Marches. She was given her own court based at Ludlow Castle and many of the royal prerogatives normally reserved for the Prince of Wales. Vives and others called her the Princess of Wales, although she was never technically invested with the title. She appears to have spent three years in the Welsh Marches, making regular visits to her father's court, before returning permanently to the home counties around London in mid-1528.

     Throughout Mary's childhood, Henry negotiated potential future marriages for her. When she was only two years old she was promised to the Dauphin, the infant son of King Francis I of France, but the contract was repudiated after three years. In 1522, at the age of six, she was instead contracted to marry her 22-year-old first cousin, the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V. However, the engagement was broken off within a few years by Charles with Henry's agreement. Cardinal Wolsey, Henry's chief adviser, then resumed marriage negotiations with the French, and Henry suggested that Mary marry the Dauphin's father, King Francis I himself, who was eager for an alliance with England. A marriage treaty was signed which provided that Mary marry either Francis I or his second son Henry, Duke of Orleans, but Wolsey secured an alliance with France without the marriage. According to a Venetian observer, Mario Savorgnano, Mary was developing into a pretty, well-proportioned young lady with a fine complexion.

     Meanwhile, the marriage of Mary's parents was in jeopardy. Disappointed at the lack of a male heir, and eager to re-marry, Henry attempted to have his marriage to Catherine annulled, but Pope Clement VII refused his requests. Henry claimed, citing biblical passages (Leviticus 20:21), that his marriage to Catherine was unclean because she was previously married, briefly at age 16, to his late brother (Mary's uncle) Arthur. Catherine claimed that her marriage to Arthur was never consummated, and so was not a valid marriage.

From 1531, Mary was often sick with irregular menstruation and depression, although it is not clear whether this was caused by stress, puberty or a more deep-seated disease. She was not permitted to see her mother, who had been sent to live away from court by Henry. In early 1533, Henry married Anne Boleyn, who was pregnant with his child, and in May Thomas Cranmer, the Archbishop of Canterbury, formally declared the marriage with Catherine void, and the marriage to Anne valid. Henry broke with the Roman Catholic Church and declared himself head of the Church of England. Catherine was demoted to Dowager Princess of Wales (a title she would have held as the widow of Arthur), and Mary was deemed illegitimate and was to no longer be called "princess", but rather "The Lady Mary". 
 
     At her mother's death, in Jan. 1536, she was forbidden to take a last farewell of her. When Anne Boleyn gave birth to Elizabeth, Mary was sent to attend the new young Princess in her household. Soon Elizabeth would be declared a bastard as well since her mother also failed to produce a male heir for Henry. But in May following another change occurred. Anne Boleyn, her bitterest enemy, fell under the king's displeasure and was put to death. Mary was then urged to make a humble submission to her father as the means of recovering his favour and after a good deal of correspondence with the king's secretary, Thomas Cromwell, she eventually did so. The terms exacted of her were bitter in the extreme, but Mary, alone and at the mercy of her imperious father, at length subscribed an act of submission, acknowledging the king as “Supreme Head of the Church of England under Christ,” repudiating the pope's authority, and confessing that the marriage between her father and mother “was by God's law and man's law incestuous and unlawful.” 
       Henry was now reconciled to her and gave her a household in some degree suitable to her rank. During the rest of the reign her position was less difficult. She appeared at the court and a number of new marriage projects for her were made, though all of them came to nothing. Her privy purse expenses for nearly the whole of this period have been published and show that Hatfield, Beaulieu or Newhall in Essex, Richmond and Hunsdon were among her principal places of residence. Although she was still treated as of illegitimate birth, in 1544 she was restored by statute to a position in the succession next after Edward and any other legitimate children who might be born to the king, but under conditions to be regulated by Henry's will.

In October 1537, Queen Jane gave birth to Edward. Henry's longed for son and Mary stood as the young Prince's godmother at the christening. The court was soon plunged into mourning as Jane died two weeks after Edward's birth.

In January 1540, Mary gained yet another stepmother: Anne of Cleves. Although they shared different religions (Mary was Catholic, Anne a Lutheran), the two women became fast friends and would remain so until Anne's death in 1557. Unfortunately Anne's marriage to Henry wasn’t so long-lived and she was divorced in July of the same year.

Shortly after the annulment of his marriage to Anne of Cleves Henry took another wife (now his 5^th), Kathryn Howard. Kathryn was probably 18 years old, making Mary six years older than her new stepmother. Mary was apparently appalled at her father's action and there were come quarrels between Mary and Kathryn during the young Queen's reign. That reign turned out to be all too short, as she was arrested, tried and executed for adultery in 1542.

At this time of emotional upheaval Mary fell seriously ill and may have been in danger of losing her life. Her father was concerned enough to send his own doctors to look after her.

Henry's last Queen was Katherine Parr, who was about four years older than Mary. They were married in 1543, and she survived Henry at his death in 1547. All three of Henry's children attended the wedding at Hampton Court. Mary was friends with her last stepmother, although they too had religious differences, as Katherine was a strong supporter of the Reformed Church.

           When Henry VIII began to fall ill, he drafted his will declaring that Edward would be his heir and Mary was to follow him if the young Prince were to die childless. Elizabeth was also included, and she would take the throne if Mary were to die without an heir. As we know in hindsight, this is exactly what was to happen.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mary in Edward's VI reign

     Henry VIII died January 28, 1547, leaving his 9 year-old son as King. The young Edward was a supporter of the Protestant faith, although Mary seems to have hoped at one point he would see the error of his ways and return England to the Church of Rome.

       During the reign of her brother, Edward VI, Mary was again subjected to severe trials, which at one time made her seriously meditate escaping abroad. Edward himself indeed seems to have been personally kind to her, but the religious innovations of his reign soon brought her into conflict with the government. She had done sufficient violence to her own convictions in submitting to a despotic father and was not disposed to yield an equally tame obedience to authority exercised by a factious council in the name of a younger brother not yet come to years of discretion. Besides, the cause of the pope was naturally her own. In spite of the declaration formerly wrung from herself, most people did not regard her as a bastard although the full recognition of her rights implied the recognition of the pope as head of the church. Hence, when in 1549 Edward's parliament passed an Act of Uniformity enjoining services in English and communion in both kinds, she insisted on having mass in her own private chapel under the old form. When ordered to desist, she appealed for protection to her cousin, the emperor Charles V, who intervened for some time not ineffectually, threatening war with England if her religious liberty was interfered with.

     Some time in 1552, Edward began to show signs of the illness that would eventually claim his life. He was reported to have a hacking cough that eventually resulted in him spitting up blood and tissue. Medical historians generally agree that he had tuberculosis.

But Edward's court was composed of factions of which the most violent eventually carried the day. Lord Seymour, the admiral, was attainted of treason and beheaded in 1549. His brother, the protector Somerset, met with the same fate in 1552. Fearing Mary would return the country to the Catholic faith, powerful men in the realm such as John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland and Henry Grey, Duke of Suffolk began to make their plans. Although they made moves to court Mary's favor, they worked secretly with their own agenda. John Dudley, duke of Northumberland, then became paramount in the privy council and easily obtained the sanction of the young king to those schemes for altering the succession which led immediately after Edward's death (July 6, 1553) to the usurpation of Lady Jane Grey. Duke of Northumberland married his son Guildford to Suffolk's daughter Jane Grey, who would be in line for the throne after Mary and Elizabeth. By placing Jane on the throne in Edward's wake, they thought they would have a puppet they could control (although Jane seems to have had other ideas about that!).

Northumberland put his plans into action and convinced Edward to leave his crown to his cousin Jane.

  Dudley had, in fact, overawed the rest of the privy council, and when Edward died, he took such energetic measures to give effect to his scheme that Lady Jane was actually recognized as queen for some days, and Mary had to flee from Hunsdon into Norfolk. But the country was devoted to her cause, as indeed her right in law was unquestionable, and before many days she was royally received in London and took up her abode within the Tower.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mary and  "the nine days Queen"

Mary realized that a plot was being hatched to place Jane on the throne. She had been urged by some friends to flee the country since they feared her life would be in danger. Mary knew that if she fled, she would forfeit all chances of becoming Queen and returning England to Catholicism, so she chose to remain and make a stand for her crown.

Edward died on July 6, 1553. Shortly afterwards, Northumberland informed Jane at Syon house that Edward had left the crown to her and that she was now Queen of England. Mary, meanwhile, was in East Anglia. Northumberland and three of his sons went to take Mary into custody. Mary was at this time moving around with a growing army of supporters. She knew that he must have confirmation of her brother's death, because it would be treason to declare herself Queen otherwise. She received news from a reliable source that Edward was indeed dead, and promptly sent proclamations throughout the country announcing her accession to the throne. Mary went to Framlingham Castle in Suffolk, which was better fortified. Her number of supporters was increasing and Mary took time to inspect her troops personally. The people of Suffolk were flocking to Mary and many of the leaders who were supposed to take her into custody instead went and begged for her pardon.

      On 10 July 1553, Lady Jane was proclaimed queen. By 12 July, Mary and her supporters had assembled a military force at Framlingham Castle, Suffolk. Dudley's support collapsed, and Mary's grew. Jane was deposed on 19 July. She and Dudley were imprisoned in the Tower of London. Mary rode triumphantly into London on 3 August 1553 on a wave of popular support. She was accompanied by her half-sister Elizabeth, and a procession of over 800 nobles and gentlemen.

      One of Mary's first actions as queen was to order the release of the Roman Catholic Duke of Norfolk and Stephen Gardiner from imprisonment in the Tower of London, as well as her kinsman Edward Courtenay. Mary understood that the young Lady Jane was essentially a pawn in Dudley's scheme, and Dudley was the only conspirator of rank executed for high treason in the immediate aftermath of the coup. Lady Jane and her husband, Lord Guildford Dudley, though found guilty, were kept under guard in the Tower rather than executed, while Lady Jane's father, Henry Grey, 1st Duke of Suffolk, was released. Mary was left in a difficult position, as almost all the Privy Counsellors had been implicated in the plot to put Lady Jane on the throne. She appointed Gardiner to the council and made him both Bishop of Winchester and Lord Chancellor, offices he held until his death in November 1555. Susan Clarencieux became Mistress of the Robes. On 1 October 1553, Gardiner crowned Mary at Westminster Abbey.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Marriage

  Now, the question who should be the Queen's husband had given rise to a great deal of discussion. Some said Cardinal Pole was the man — but the Queen did not think so. Others said that the gallant young Earl of Devonshire was the man — and the Queen thought so too, for a while; but she changed her mind. At last it appeared that Philip, Prince of Spain, was certainly the man — but the people detested the idea of such a marriage from the beginning to the end, and murmured that the Spaniard would establish in England, by the aid of foreign soldiers, the Popish religion, and even the terrible Inquisition itself.

      These discontents gave rise to a conspiracy for marrying Earl of Devonshire to the Princess Elizabeth, and setting them up, with popular tumults all over the kingdom, against the Queen. This was discovered in time by Gardiner; but in Kent, the old bold county, the people rose in their old bold way. Sir Thomas Wyatt was their leader. He raised his standard at Maidstone, marched on to Rochester, established himself in the old castle there, and prepared to hold out against the Duke of Norfolk, who came against him with a party of the Queen's guards, and a body of five hundred London men. The London men, however, were all for Elizabeth, and not at all for Mary. They declared, under the castle walls, for Wyatt; the Duke retreated; and Wyatt came on to Deptford, at the head of fifteen thousand men. But these, in their turn, fell away. When he came to Southwark, there were only two thousand left. Not dismayed by finding the London citizens in arms, Wyatt led his men off to Kingston-upon-Thames, intending to cross the bridge that he knew to be in that place, and so to work his way round to Ludgate, one of the old gates of the City. He found the bridge broken down, but mended it, came across, and bravely fought his way up Fleet Street to Ludgate Hill. Finding the gate closed against him, he fought his way back again, sword in hand, to Temple Bar. Here, being overpowered, he surrendered himself, and three or four hundred of his men were taken, besides a hundred killed. Wyatt, in a moment of weakness (and perhaps of torture) was afterwards made to accuse the Princess Elizabeth as his accomplice to some very small extent. But his manhood soon returned to him, and he refused to save his life by making any more false confessions. He was quartered in the usual brutal way, and from fifty to a hundred of his followers were hanged. The rest were led out, with halters round their necks, to be pardoned, and to make a parade of crying out, “God save Queen Mary!" 

         Mary was to begin searching for a suitable husband. One of the possibilities was Edward Courtenay, who had spent most of his life in the Tower. He was younger than Mary, but he was one of the last descendants of the House of York and one of the most obvious choices for a husband. One of Courtrenay's greatest attractions in the view of the people was that he was an Englishman, not a foreign Prince. However, the Emperor Charles V (Mary's cousin), who had been an instrumental advisor to the English Queen, had other idea and was already making plans to suggest his son Prince Philip of Spain as Mary's best choice of husband. The ambassador formally suggested this to the Queen a short time after her coronation. After much thought and prayer on the matter, Mary accepted the proposal. Negotiations of the contract began, although the public sentiment was not in favor of the match.

During this time, plots were being hatched to depose Mary and place Elizabeth and Edward Courtenay on the throne. It turns out that there were a total of four plots at hand. One involved Sir Thomas Wyatt the Younger (son of the poet Thomas Wyatt a courtly suitor of Anne Boleyn) and the Duke of Suffolk, Henry Grey (already released from the Tower after his involvement with the Northumberland plot) what would lead rebel armies from various parts of England. Wyatt's army reached London, but the rebellion was put down at the city gates. He and his fellow conspirators were arrested.

Mary realized the mistake she had made before in her lenient treatment of Northumberland's rebels, and vowed not to make it again. In all, roughly 100 rebels were hung, although the Queen pardoned 400 others. Lady Jane Grey and her husband would also have to be put to death now, as they may be the possible focal point for another rebellion. Edward Courtenay was put back in the Tower where he had spent much of his life. Elizabeth had been summoned to London for questioning and was eventually imprisoned in the Tower as well, although she was later sent to Woodstock.

        In March, 1554, Mary acted in a proxy betrothal, with the Count of Egmont standing in for Prince Philip. He eventually set sail for England on July 12, arriving at the Isle of Wight a week later. On July 23, he arrived at Winchester where he would meet his bride for the first time. It is not known exactly what language they used to converse (quite possibly Latin), but Philip and Mary talked into the evening and by all appearances seemed to be getting along well.

The marriage took place two days after their meeting, on July 25th, the day of St. James - patron saint of Spain. After the wedding, they proclaimed:  Philip and Mary, by the grace of God, King and Queen of England, France and Naples, Jerusalem 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 the Tyrol.

After dancing and dinner, the couple was put to bed in accordance with the ancient blessing ritual. In September, one of the Queen's physicians announced that she was pregnant. In fact, she did seem to show many of the signs including nausea and an enlarging belly.

 

 

 

''Bloody Mary''

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 leading reforming churchmen, such as John Bradford, John Rogers, John Hooper, Hugh Latimer and Thomas Cranmer were imprisoned.Mary's first Parliament, which assembled in early October 1553, declared the marriage of her parents valid, and abolished Edward's religious laws. Church doctrine was restored to the form it had taken in the 1539 Six Articles, which, for example, re-affirmed clerical celibacy. Married priests were deprived of their benefices.

       Mary had always rejected the break with Rome instituted by her father and the establishment of Protestantism by Edward VI. She and her husband wanted England to reconcile with Rome. Philip persuaded Parliament to repeal the Protestant religious laws passed by Mary's father, thus 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 monastery lands confiscated under Henry were not returned to the church but remained in the hands of the new landowners, who were very influential. By the end of 1554, the pope had approved the deal, and the Heresy Acts were revived.

     Under the Heresy Acts, numerous Protestants were executed in the Marian Persecutions. Many rich Protestants, including John Foxe, chose exile, and around 800 left the country. The first executions occurred over a period of five days in early February 1555: John Rogers on 4 February, Laurence Saunders on 8 February, and Rowland Taylor and John Hooper on 9 February. The imprisoned Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Cranmer was forced to watch Bishops Ridley and Latimer being burned at the stake. Cranmer recanted, repudiated Protestant theology, and rejoined the Catholic faith. Under the normal process of the law, he should have been absolved as a repentant. Mary, however, refused to reprieve him. On the day of his burning, he dramatically withdrew his recantation. All told 283 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 Philip's adviser, Simon Renard, warned him that such "cruel enforcement" could "cause a revolt". Mary persevered with the policy, which continued until her death and exacerbated anti-Catholic and anti-Spanish feeling among the English people. The victims of the persecutions became lauded as martyrs.