Mary, Bloody Mary: How To Lose Friends And Alienate People In Post-Reformation Britain

Mary I of England (and Ireland and Spain if you take her word for it), better known as “Bloody Mary”, reigned from 1553 to 1558 and regularly appears in lists of Britain’s worst monarchs. To save time this week you could just go into a darkened bathroom and say “Bloody Mary” three times into the mirror. I’m sure she’d be more than happy to fill you in on her life and reign and whether or not she is deserving of her infamous nickname. If that doesn’t work, however, then please feel free to read on.

Mary I, as seen in many a bathroom mirror.

Mary was born to Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon in 1516 and, until the age of 17, was the sole heir to the English throne. Catherine had six pregnancies in total, three of which were male children, but Mary was her only child to survive infancy. As disappointed as Henry VIII was with the birth of a daughter, due to his desperation to secure the Tudor dynasty, he doted on Mary and entrusted her with the privileges usually reserved for the Prince of Wales. Following Henry’s divorce from Catherine of Aragon in 1533 Mary was declared illegitimate and forced to serve in the household of her baby half-sister Elizabeth. She was also denied access to her dying mother despite her pleas to her father and threats in the form of Spanish intervention.

The birth of her half-brother Edward in 1537 to Henry’s third wife, Jane Seymour, further removed Mary from the line of succession and it was only after Catherine Parr, Henry’s sixth wife, convinced Henry to address his relationship with his daughters that Mary was reinstated in the 1544 Act of Succession. Much as this may seem like a dramatic change of heart from Henry, Mary (and Elizabeth) were only really included in this legislation as a precautionary measure as Edward would doubtless have several male heirs to continue the Tudor line. You’d think Henry may have noticed the potential issues with this plan.

Mary was further marginalised during her brother’s brief reign. Despite Edward’s aggressive attempts at reforming English religion Mary continued to hear Catholic mass in her private chapel and allowed growing numbers of Catholics to join her. To honour a British seasonal tradition Edward confronted Mary at a family reunion on Christmas Day 1550 which reduced both siblings to tears in front of the king’s court. Mary did not speak with her brother again. You’ve got to feel for Elizabeth who was left with no one to pull a cracker with.

Edward’s premature death without issue in July 1553 should have handed Mary the throne but, desperate to avoid a Catholic succeeding him, Edward altered the line of succession to pass the crown to his cousin Lady Jane Grey. The shortest reign in English history came to an end nine days later when Mary and her army arrived in London. The Duke of Northumberland, who has been wrongly blamed for orchestrating the changes to the line of succession, was swiftly arrested and executed but, despite Mary’s “bloody” reputation, Lady Jane Grey’s life was spared. For a while anyway. Mary’s eventual accession to the English throne was met with public support and Edward’s advisors wasted no time in attempting to save their own skins by making it clear that that nasty Northumberland bloke had bullied them into agreeing to disinherit the new queen.

The early days of Mary’s reign can hardly be described as bloody. Initially the fiercely Catholic queen exercised religious tolerance and focused on financial reforms alongside naval expansion. The relative success of these policies laid the foundations for the Elizabethan age of prosperity and naval dominance. Although some prominent Protestants were imprisoned or removed from high office the gradual reintroduction of Catholicism into England was gentle in comparison to Edward’s shift towards Protestantism. It was with the announcement of Mary’s plans to marry King Phillip II of Spain that public opinion began to turn against Mary and, in time, Mary began to turn on her public.

The general consensus is that the English public and Mary’s advisors were against her marriage to Phillip II due to his fierce Catholicism. This was after all the man who vowed to rid Europe of heretics and introduced the Inquisition to the Hapsburg Empire. In reality the main reason for this opposition was that Phillip was Spanish and the last thing the Privy Council wanted was to be told what to do by a foreigner. Maybe they should have had a referendum about it. Despite the best efforts of her advisors and a rebellion led by Thomas Wyatt in January 1554 Mary refused to be swayed on the matter and eventually married Phillip in July 1554.

Phillip II arrives in London, July 1554.

Mary’s marriage to Phillip was probably the only high point of 1554 for the queen. Phillip returned to Spain shortly after the marriage and was conspicuous by his absence in the remaining years of her life as he followed the kingly tradition of chasing mistresses. Mary believed herself to be pregnant in September 1554 but this proved to be a phantom pregnancy. As a result she was mocked by members of her court with the Venetian ambassador stating the pregnancy was more likely to “end in wind rather than anything else”. With Phillip gone and no child Mary believed that God had punished her for her toleration of heretics. With this in mind Mary began to negotiate with Pope Julius III to bring England back into the Roman Catholic Church and with the deal agreed by the beginning of 1555 things were about to get bloody.

Between January 1555 and her death in November 1558 approximately 284 Protestants were burnt at the stake under Mary’s Heresy Act. On top of this 800 prominent Protestants fled England to continental Europe denying Mary’s government of some of its most able ministers. Some of the executions were particularly vindictive. Thomas Cranmer, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, was forced to watch his colleagues Bishops Latimer and Ridley burnt at the stake in an attempt to force him to renounce his Protestant faith. Cranmer did recant which, in theory, would pardon him as a repentant. Mary refused to accept this and Cranmer was executed but not before he had dramatically and publicly withdrawn his recantation. Cranmer’s death was a huge propaganda coup for the Protestant cause and a serious blow to Mary’s reputation.

Thomas Cranmer looking remarkably relaxed about his execution.

Mary believed she had fallen pregnant again in late 1557 but this proved to be another false alarm. Her health declined throughout 1558 and she died on November 17^th. Whilst her death was not publicly celebrated it certainly wasn’t met with Dianaesque mourning. The ever doting and romantic Phillip II stated he “felt a reasonable regret for her death”. Charming.

Mary’s reign has become synonymous with the brutal religious persecution she carried out between 1555 and 1558. There is no doubt she is in some way deserving of her sobriquet “Bloody Mary” especially when you consider that both the Spanish and Papal ambassadors, hardly the most liberal Catholics, advised her to stop the burnings for fear of losing public support. There are mitigating factors to consider. Since Mary I there has only been one other English Catholic monarch (James II) meaning that the vast majority of her history has been written from a Protestant perspective. This is particularly true in the early Elizabethan era where those exiled during Mary’s reign returned with chips on their shoulders and points to prove – John Foxe’s “Actes and Monuments” is a prime example of such work and this remained popular for hundreds of years after Mary’s death. When compared to her father Henry VIII and her sister Elizabeth I, Mary executed relatively few people. Elizabeth went as far to execute 450 people in a matter of weeks in response to the Revolt of the Northern Earls in 1569 but that would take away from the “Gloriana” image somewhat. They were only Catholics anyway so it probably doesn’t count. Mary set out to provide England with much needed religious stability but her inability to conceive and her desperation to impress her fanatical yet disinterested husband led her to take increasingly erratic actions against her subjects. Unfortunately for her legacy “Heartbroken Mary” and “Trying to impress the Pope Mary” didn’t quite catch on.

Conqueror & Bastard: William, It Was Really Nothing

You know you’ve made it in history when you have more than one nickname. William, Duke of Normandy who went on to be William I of England is one of those lucky people immortalised with two monikers and in an elite group of monarchs better known by these than their regnal number. More on them at a later date when I run out of ideas for this blog.

By turning up with a huge army of mercenaries, a flat-pack fort and a rather large chip on his shoulder William secured his place in history by winning the Battle of Hastings and ensuring that generations of Year 7 students would have to try and work out which bloke in the Bayeux Tapestry was Harold. On Christmas Day 1066 he arrived at Westminster Abbey for his coronation which probably dampened the spirits of those gathered for the nativity play and by 1069 had more or less consolidated his control of England. There’s very little doubt that he earned the name ‘the Conqueror’.

William looking pretty pleased with himself.

William’s other sobriquet, however, was not quite as well received by the man himself partly because it questioned his right to rule both Normandy and England. In the legal sense William was a bastard as his mother, Herleva, was not married to his father Robert I of Normandy. When he succeeded his father in 1035 his illegitimacy led to several challenges to his control of Normandy although he did enjoy the support of King Henry I of France and his great-uncle Archbishop Robert. Despite his friends in high places there were numerous attempted rebellions and invasions over the next twenty-five years and those who made reference to William’s “bastard” nickname tended to find themselves losing their hands and feet (just ask the people of Alencon).

It was shortly after William had restored order to Normandy that Harold Godwinson, heir apparent to the English throne, arrived in France. During this visit, according to the ever reliable Bayeux Tapestry, Harold made an oath on sacred relics that William would become the next king of England upon the death of Edward the Confessor. When Edward died in January 1066 and Harold was announced as his successor it’s understandable that William was not in the best of moods and set about preparing an invasion force. Hard to believe that talks between English and French leaders over sovereignty could lead to such ill feeling between the two.

It’s worth remembering, however, that the Bayeux Tapestry was commissioned by Bishop Odo, William’s half brother, following the Norman conquest of England. Odo had done quite well out of William’s victory at Hastings landing the job as Archbishop of Canterbury for no real reason other than he shared a mother with William (she married Herluin de Conteville following Robert of Normandy’s death). The Bayeux Tapestry was hardly going to be Odo’s way of highlighting his brother’s flaws and actually provided an opportunity to further legitimise William’s seizure of the English throne.

Bishop Odo (left) making it clear to us that he was definitely a big influence on half-brother William.

William quickly set about establishing his control of England following the Battle of Hastings. Castles were built in all major towns and cities as well as along the coastline and borders with Wales and Scotland providing the National Trust and English Heritage with some excellent money-spinners as well as making a clear statement to the English people who was in charge. Additionally he laid the foundation for the British class hierarchy through the Feudal System and carried out a vast survey of land ownership in the form of the Domesday Book to guarantee the crown steady income through taxation.

It is in the years 1068-69 where William could be seen to live up to another meaning of his second sobriquet. There was strong opposition to William’s rule in the North of England and William’s attempts to gain control here had been fairly fruitless. His trusted ally Earl Robert had lost 900 soldiers in battle in 1068 against a Northern army supported by Viking forces trying to replace William with Prince Edgar, a distant relative of Edward the Confessor’s. In William’s own words he responded by attacking the North “like a hungry lion” taking “(his) revenge by giving them famine”. The Harrying of the North laid waste to people, crops and livestock in order to secure William’s throne and made it clear to the people of England that any further rebellions would be swiftly and ruthlessly dealt with.

For the illegitimate son of a French duke to succeed his father in the 11^th Century was no mean feat. For the illegitimate son of a French duke to succeed his father and then successfully invade and dominate a foreign country in the 11^th Century was frankly extraordinary. William fought tirelessly to assert his authority and legitimacy in Normandy and it is little surprise that he adopted a similar approach to establishing his control of England following the Battle of Hastings. For William to dispel any remaining doubts over his right to reign he took increasingly drastic action against the people he came to rule over. In short, to become the Conqueror William needed to be a bit of a bastard.

Yer bloody Norman bastard!