Mary I, Tudor 1516-58
Queen of England and Ireland

She was born in Greenwich, near London, the daughter of Henry VIII and his first wife, Catherine of Aragon. She was well-educated, a good linguist, fond of music and devoted to her mother and the Catholic Church. After her mother's divorce, Henry forced her to sign a declaration that her mother's marriage had been unlawful. During the reign of her half-brother Edward VI she lived in retirement, refusing to conform to the new religion. On his death (1553), being entitled to the Crown by her father's testament and the parliamentary settlement, she became queen. She upset the Duke of Northumberland's (Sir Thomas Percy) conspiracy to set Henry's will aside in favour of his daughter-in-law Lady Jane Grey, and, with the support of the whole country, entered London in triumph. Northumberland and two others were executed, but Lady Jane and her husband were, for the present, spared. Mary proceeded very cautiously to bring back Catholicism, reinstated the Catholic bishops and imprisoned some of the leading reformers, but dared not restore the pope's supremacy. In spite of national protests, she determined to marry Philip II, King of Spain. The unpopularity of the proposal brought about Sir Thomas Wyatt's rebellion (1554), quelled mainly through Mary's courage and coolness. Lady Jane, her husband and father were executed, and the Princess Elizabeth (later Elizabeth I), suspected of complicity, was committed to the Tower of London. Ecclesiastical laws were restored to their state under Henry VIII. In 1554 Philip was married to Mary; Cardinal Pole entered England as papal legate, parliament petitioned for reconciliation to the Holy See, and the realm was absolved from the papal censures. Soon after, the persecution of Protestant opposition which gave Mary the name of 'Bloody Mary' began. In 1555 Nicholas Ridley and Hugh Latimer were brought to the stake, Thomas Cranmer followed the next year, and Pole, now Archbishop of Canterbury, was left supreme in the councils of the queen. How far Mary herself was responsible for the cruelties practised is doubtful, but during the last three years of her reign 300 victims were burned. She died childless.

Bibliography: H F M Prescott, Mary Tudor (1940)