Biography
The sad life of England's first female
ruler is rendered even more tragic in comparison with her half-sister
and successor's reign. Poor Mary Tudor, destined - like her
half-brother and predecessor - to languish between those two giants of
English history, Henry VIII and Elizabeth I. Yet there is much to
warrant even a brief examination of her life and reign. Though her
hated half-sister would outshine her in virtually every sphere -
physical, political, intellectual, artistic - Mary also had a formidable
impact upon English history. Throughout the first thirty-seven
years of her life, she was tossed about by the whims of her father and,
later and perhaps more galling, her Protestant brother and his
council. It was perhaps inevitable that when she first tasted real
power, the experience would be both intoxicating and unfortunate.
When Mary came to the throne, she
was thirty-seven years old. She had never been married though, in
her youth, several matches had been suggested and abandoned.
Contrary to later beliefs, Henry VIII was pleased with her birth in
1516, proudly displaying the infant Mary to visiting ambassadors and
noblemen. It was only years later, with Mary as his sole
legitimate offspring, that Henry began his desperate search for a
son. This search would forever brand him as a misogynist and cruel
tyrant who discarded, divorced, and beheaded the women who did not bear
him sons. But one must be fair to Henry and judge him by the
standards of his time, which certainly his contemporaries did. He
was only the second Tudor monarch and, as such, he understood the
necessity of stabilizing the English throne. Indeed, his father
had only won the crown in 1485, barely thirty years before Mary's
birth. And if Henry VII, born the unprepossessing earl of
Richmond, could steal the crown then his son's actions can be
understood. Above all else, Henry VIII was determined the crown
would remain in Tudor hands. Mary, like her half-sister Elizabeth,
was always recognized as his daughter. But England had never had a
woman ruler, one who ruled in her own right without a male consort or as
regent for an infant son. The only possible precedent was Matilda,
Henry I's heir, and the precedent was not good - Matilda was expelled by
the English barons and her cousin Stephen of Blois was made king.
Though this had happened four centuries before, its lesson was still
valid.
With this in mind, Henry's
treatment of Mary's mother becomes - if not palatable - at least
understandable. Certainly the petty cruelties and humiliations he
forced upon her were his own doing but the overall aim was to ensure the
Tudor succession. But all this happened years after Mary's
birth. From 1516 to about 1530, Mary led a happy, sheltered
life. She was considered one of the most important European
princesses and Henry used her as every king used his daughter - as a
pawn in political negotiations. She was also well-educated with a
fine contralto singing voice and great linguistic skill. Her
mother, Katharine of Aragon, was deeply devoted to Mary. This was
a reflection of Katharine's strongly domestic nature as well as the
numerous miscarriages she suffered. Any mother would naturally
love a child but Katharine had lost enough children to make her
especially devoted to the one who survived. When Henry proposed
the idea of divorce, Katharine fought it passionately, not least because
divorce would destroy her daughter's future. Katharine was the
youngest daughter of those great Spanish monarchs, Ferdinand of Aragon
and Isabella of Castile, the 'Catholic Kings' who united Spain
geographically and spiritually. Through her mother, she could
trace her lineage to John of Gaunt, that legendary figure in English
history. She grew up as an Infanta of Spain; and, unlike Henry,
her claim to royalty was not a mere few decades old. As such, she
was naturally proud and dignified. Mary inherited this pride as
well as her mother's enduring affection for Spain. When she became
queen, this affection was to have terrible consequences.
Educated by her mother and a ducal
governess, Mary was at last betrothed to her cousin, the Holy Roman
Emperor Charles V (Charles I of Spain.) Charles made the
unfortunate demand that she come to Spain immediately, accompanied by a
huge cash dowry. Henry ignored the request and Charles jilted
Mary, concluding a match with a more accommodating princess.
Meanwhile, Henry invested his daughter as Princess of Wales in 1525 and
she held court at Ludlow Castle. With this decision, Henry meant
to soothe Katharine's fears that Mary's position as the only legitimate
Tudor heir was being undermined. Only a few weeks before the
investiture, Mary had attended a ceremony in which her father ennobled
his illegitimate son, Henry Fitzroy, as duke of Richmond (among various
other titles.) And though he sharply rebuked Katharine for
criticizing his open affection for Fitzroy, and the accompanying titles
and wealth he gave the boy, Henry did not neglect his daughter. In
fact, Mary was the first princess of Wales, and the first female royal
to hold court at Ludlow. But of course, sending Mary to Wales was
not the same as sending a son and heir; Henry never intended her to rule
England, at least not as its sole ruler. Her role in Wales would
be primarily symbolic, and she would be replaced as soon as he had a
legitimate male heir. This elusive son - Henry's most fervent wish
- occupied his mind even as he continued to scour Europe for a suitable
husband for Mary.
Yet even as new betrothal plans
were being made, the king's attention was increasingly elsewhere.
Henry had met Anne Boleyn, daughter of a simple knight and sister of a
former mistress. His passionate attraction to Anne, coupled with
the increased need for a male heir, made Henry restless. He looked
at Katharine, nine years his senior and as domestic as Anne was exotic,
with new eyes. At first he sought a quiet, amicable annulment of
their long marriage. Certainly such a decision was not
revolutionary; Henry could cite numerous examples in European history
where kings had annulled marriages to barren queens. Since he and
Katharine had a mutual respect and affection for one another, Henry
anticipated her cooperation. Certainly he would tread with
delicacy but - in the end - his will would be done.
But Henry had not anticipated his
wife's immediate and intense anger. For he had based his argument
upon theology - in short, Henry argued that because Katharine had been
briefly married to his brother, Arthur, her marriage to Henry was
incestuous. Katharine responded that this matter was already
resolved. Before she wed Henry, the Pope had granted a
dispensation. He did so under political pressure from Henry VII
and Ferdinand - but also because Katharine swore she and Arthur had
never consummated their marriage. In short, she was a virgin when
she wed Henry, a fact Henry would be certain to know. Cynics could
not help but mock the King's sudden attack of conscience, occurring some
twenty years into the marriage and in the midst of his affair with Anne
Boleyn.
It would be impossible to argue
that Anne had no role in his decision. In his mid-thirties, Henry
had entered into the most passionate romantic attachment of his
life. Indeed, after her death, he would complain that Anne had
'bewitched' him. It was true that Henry displayed an intensity of
feeling toward her which shocked their contemporaries. Today we
can read his love letters to her; across the span of four centuries,
they retain their power. Anne was not beautiful but she possessed
greater gifts - she was witty, graceful, and stylish. She had been
educated at the glittering French court so she sang and danced
beautifully, skills which Henry admired. She was also very
intelligent and confident. Unlike her older sister Mary, Anne
Boleyn had no desire to be the king's temporary mistress. In fact,
she had intended to wed Henry Percy, heir to the earl of Northumberland,
until the king - already enchanted - put a stop to the match. He
wrote to Percy's father, arguing against the unsuitable match. A
knight's daughter wed to one of the most important peers of the
realm? Percy's angry father immediately sent for his son, ending
the romance but not the attachment. Percy wrote poetry about Anne
and, at her trial, he had to be carried from the room. Unlike the
other peers, he could not bear to sit in judgment of her. For
Anne, the loss of Percy was undoubtedly galling. After all, had
the king ended the engagement simply to make her his mistress?
Henry's disregard for her personal feelings, his interference in her
personal life, was not endearing. But it convinced Anne of the
king's attraction and she resolved to be his wife or nothing.
For Mary, the sudden ascent of
Anne Boleyn signaled the end of her world. Her beloved mother,
equally loved by the English people, was being forced aside by a former
lady-in-waiting. Her father was determined to declare her a
bastard; in effect, Henry's charge of incest dissolved his marriage and
illegitimized his daughter. In the midst of this, Mary developed a
lasting hatred of Anne Boleyn which extended to Anne's daughter,
Elizabeth. She never openly blamed her father for his actions,
though she considered them unlawful and impious. Instead, she
persuaded herself that he had been Anne Boleyn's pawn. Such a
reaction was perhaps inevitable. However, it was to have an
unfortunate impact upon Elizabeth's life.
The Pope refused to recognize
Henry's argument for an annulment or divorce and thus began a power
struggle between the Vatican, Spain, and England. Katharine's
nephew, Charles V, naturally agreed with his aunt for personal and
political reasons. He exerted considerable military and political
pressure against the Pope. Henry's numerous petitions were
disregarded. Eventually he simply gave up and decided the matter
himself. In 1534 Henry took the unprecedented step of breaking
with Rome, establishing the Church of England with himself as Supreme
Head. The annulment was granted and Katharine and Mary were
officially outcasts.
In the meantime, Mary continued
her somewhat restricted life. Despite her declared illegitimacy,
Henry continued to propose various husbands for her. The searches
were not particularly thorough or serious, however, and Mary remained a
spinster. She was now in her late twenties, leaving behind her
youth and - most importantly for a woman - her safest reproductive
years.
Even before the official decree,
Henry had stopped living with Katharine and recognizing her as
Queen. He took Anne Boleyn with him to France to meet his rival
Francis I; this was an important state visit and her appearance was
commented upon. Henry, however, had already ordered Katharine to
surrender her jewelry; Anne now wore it. He also sent Katharine to
one decaying residence after another, dismissing several of her devoted
servants. Though deprived of her title, home, jewels, and
companionship, Katharine never recognized the divorce. She refused
the title of Princess Dowager, offered by Henry as recognition of her
marriage to Arthur, Prince of Wales. She continued to assert that
she and Arthur had never consummated their marriage. And, above
all else, she professed faith in the judgment of the Pope. A
devout Catholic, daughter of the monarchs who introduced the Inquisition
to Spain, Katharine never acknowledged the Church of England.
Since she had raised her daughter to be equally devout, Mary also
refused to acknowledge both the Church and her father's position as
Supreme Head.
It should be noted that Henry
VIII, though ostensibly head of a new church which overthrew the
Catholic supremacy, remained a devout Catholic throughout his
life. He continued to attend Mass and heartily despised 'heretics'
like Martin Luther. But Henry possessed the ability to separate
the secular from the spiritual, a quality which Mary completely lacked
and Elizabeth honed to fine perfection. Though his son would
become a bigoted Protestant determined to stamp out Catholicism and his
eldest daughter a bigoted Catholic determined to stamp out
Protestantism, Henry was a Catholic who lapsed when it suited him.
Of course, he always asserted theological justification for the
lapses. However, he would not allow Katharine or Mary to deny his
authority. Both paid a stiff penalty for their refusal to
submit. Katharine, as noted, was sent from court and deprived of
all accustomed luxuries. Mary was equally disgraced. Now a
bastard, declared such by Parliament, she was denied any communication
with her mother and made lady-in-waiting to Anne and Henry's daughter,
Elizabeth. Unlike Mary, Elizabeth was recognized as a Princess of
the realm. For the seventeen-year-old Mary, the complete reversal
of her fortune was devastating. She began to suffer from a variety
of illnesses, undoubtedly stress-related. These plagued her until
her death, causing such symptoms as severe headaches, nausea, insomnia,
and infrequent menstruation.
Anne took an equal dislike of
Mary. It was a simple fact that if Anne and Elizabeth's fortunes
rose, Mary's would fall. After all, Elizabeth was legitimate only
if Mary was not, and vice versa. Anne would have been foolish to
encourage any reconciliation between Henry and Mary, quite possibly she
did the opposite. But after her fall from grace, Henry offered to
pardon Mary and restore her to favor - but only if Mary acknowledged him
as head of the Church of England and admitted the 'incestuous
illegality' of his marriage to Katharine. To Mary's credit, she
refused to do so until her cousin, Charles V, persuaded her
otherwise. She gave in to
Henry's demands, an action she was to always regret.
Meanwhile, Katharine of Aragon had died at Kimbolton Castle, loving -
and defying - Henry to the last; her final letter
to him was signed 'Katharine the Queen.' Katharine and Mary had
not seen one another for years though they had written one another,
against Henry's orders, in great secrecy. Katharine's last
thoughts were undoubtedly of her daughter.
Henry, however, was soon
reconciled to Mary. Flush with marriage to the meek Jane Seymour
and her quick pregnancy, he welcomed Mary home. She was given a
household befitting her position as his daughter and included in court
festivities; there were even rumors of a possible marriage in her
future. Jane Seymour encouraged Henry's reconciliation with both
of his daughters. Mary, in turn, respected and liked the new
queen. She was named godmother to Henry and Jane's son, Prince
Edward, born in October 1537; and when Jane died shortly after her son's
birth, Mary was the chief mourner. Their friendship was not so
unlikely. They were relatively close in age and Mary, having lost
her mother and longing for her father's affection, was grateful for any
kindness. Furthermore, she had the satisfaction of knowing
Elizabeth, too, was bastardized; Anne Boleyn's execution on charges of
incest and treason had illegitimized her daughter. It is revealing
to note that, upon her ascension, Mary revoked the Act of Parliament
which made her a bastard. Elizabeth, upon ascension, didn't bother
to do so.
However, Mary and Elizabeth were
not forgotten. After Jane's death, Henry determined the line of
succession as follows: first, Edward or Edward's heirs; if Edward
died without issue, the throne passed to Mary; after Mary, to
Elizabeth. Henry recognized the fragility of his succession,
resting as it did upon just one son. He, after all, was a second
son. But there was little he could do. His fourth marriage,
to Anne of Cleves, had ended disastrously. She was too
unnattractive for the king so she was titled 'the king's sister' and
given a generous pension. Anne preferred this solution to
returning home. Soon enough, Henry's attentions were captured
elsewhere. He wed Catherine Howard, cousin to the infamous Anne
Boleyn. It was a pathetic match. Henry was old enough to be
her grandfather, plainly in lust with a young woman who exuded sex
appeal. Mary's opinion on the match is not known but it would be
safe to assume that even if she disapproved, she would never say
so. Mary recognized her father's secular authority as king even as
she disapproved of his spiritual authority as head of the English
Church. In any case, there was barely time to know Catherine
before she, too, was executed on charges of adultery. Whether she
was guilty is a matter of conjecture; if she was, one can hardly blame
her and, if she wasn't, she was yet another blot upon Henry's
conscience. In her defense, she refused the easy path of
divorce. Henry offered to recognize a pre-contract with another
nobleman. If she, too, recognized it, their marriage would be
invalid. Catherine would be divorced but still alive. She
refused to admit such an arrangement, however, and met her end at the
Tower of London.
Henry's last queen was the
Protestant Katharine Parr, twice-widowed and chosen for her excellent
character and nursing abilities. Like Jane Seymour, Katharine Parr
was determined to bring the royal family closer together. To that
end, she provided the only true home and maternal guidance Edward and
Elizabeth would ever know. She also befriended Mary, a difficult
task because of their opposing religious beliefs. Mary, however,
did respect Katharine's intellectual accomplishments.
Katharine Parr was the product of
the changing climate in Tudor England. When he ended Catholic
supremacy in England, dissolving the monasteries and granting their
lands to various nobles and the crown, Henry had begun a process whose
end he never foresaw. As mentioned, Henry never became a
Protestant. But his decision to use Protestantism for his own ends
allowed Protestantism to flourish. Toward the end of his reign,
there were few councilors who could remember the Catholic
supremacy. They had benefited from the break with Rome, both
spiritually and materially; Henry, meanwhile, never understood the force
he had unleashed. When Katharine made the mistake of arguing about
theology with him, she came very close to losing her head. Only a
timely intervention and her own impassioned apology saved her. But
upon Henry's death and Edward's ascension, the Protestant faction was in
control. The new king, just nine years old, had Protestant tutors
and a Protestant step-mother. Indeed, Edward VI is revealed in his
journal as a priggish, unfeeling boy who noted the executions of his
uncles with no trace of compassion. His letters to Katharine Parr,
however, are the only examples of feeling and affection which he left
behind. To her, he confided his insecurity and
vulnerability.
Katharine Parr's influence on
Edward VI was to simply strengthen the Protestantism which his tutors
and the English court encouraged. For Mary, the situation was
disastrous. Edward, swayed by religious fervor and his advisors,
made English compulsory for church services. Mary continued to
celebrate Mass in the old form and in Latin. During the six years
of her brother's reign, she tread the fine line between piety and
treason. Edward attempted to reason with her at court yet she
refused his advice. Indeed, she was a woman in her thirties and he
was still a child. Edward was also under the control of the Duke
of Somerset, Jane Seymour's staunchly Protestant brother. Though
Henry VIII's will had specified a specific group of councilors to guide
his son's regency, his wishes were disregarded. His fellow
councilors, most of whom had profited from the Catholic expulsion,
titled Somerset Lord Protector. The nine-year-old king had no deep
affection for his uncle; Somerset kept Edward short of pocket money and
hired harsh tutors who regularly beat the boy. But their religious
sympathies were similar. Mary managed to disregard the combined
pressure of Somerset and Edward, largely because she stayed away from
court. Her brother was firm with her. He told her she was
misguided and occasionally threatened her. Mary was intelligent
enough to not risk open disobedience, preferring the quiet celebration
of Mass in her country home. Meanwhile, in 1549, Somerset had
overstepped his authority and was executed. His fall was largely
engineered by John Dudley, Earl of Warwick and soon-to-be Duke of
Northumberland. From then on, Edward was under Dudley's
control.
Edward VI ruled for just seven
years. The last year of his life was one of near-constant pain and
suffering. Various illnesses have been suggested, consumption
being the most likely. He had never been of robust health, unlike
his father, and the Protestant councilors did all they could to prolong
his life. To that end, Edward was given arsenic and various other
poisons which were believed to prolong life even as they increased
suffering. For Dudley and his supporters, Edward's death was
inevitable but they needed every available moment to prevent Mary from
ascending the throne. They were not fools and knew their fate with
a Catholic queen. Dudley hurriedly married his son Guildford to Lady Jane
Grey, Edward VI's Protestant, scholarly cousin. Like Edward,
Jane was a pawn in Dudley's schemes. She was the granddaughter of
Henry VIII's younger sister Mary Tudor and, thus, a remote claimant to
the English throne. Working together, Edward and Dudley
disregarded Henry VIII's will yet again and barred both Mary and
Elizabeth from the succession. In turn, Edward willed the throne
to Jane and her heirs. When he finally died, Jane was declared
Queen by Dudley and the Protestant lords.
Jane Grey's ascension to the
throne lasted but nine days. Though the Protestant councilors were
not fond of Mary's religious views, many still regarded her as the
rightful heir. She was, after all, Bluff King Hal's
daughter. Like her mother, Mary had enormous sympathy from the
English people, a gift she was to squander recklessly. Many viewed
her as the poor victim of Anne Boleyn's scheming, a quiet, kindly, and
pious woman. It should be noted that the English people cared not
so much for her religious views as they did her parentage. She was
the old king's child and therefore, she should follow Edward to the
throne. This loyalty to Mary's dynastic claims was something she
never fully understood. As queen, Mary was capable of both extreme
affection and disdain for her English subjects.
With Jane declared queen, Mary
fled to Norfolk. Though her closest friends advised against it,
she soon decided to ride to London and stake her own claim to the
throne. The people of London welcomed her ecstatically. Mary
arrested Jane Grey and Guildford Dudley, though she displayed her
typical leniency by not immediately executing them. When Jane's
fugitive father attempted to lead an uprising for her, Mary had him
executed along with John Dudley. Jane and Guildford, however,
remained in the Tower of London.
The PRIMARY
SOURCES section contains many documents related to Queen Mary I:
-read a letter to Mary from her mother, Katharine of
Aragon
-read the entire text of Mary's letter to her father, in which
she acknowledged Henry as head of the church of England, the dissolution
of his marriage to Katharine of Aragon & her own illegitimacy (a
letter she later disavowed)
-read a journal entry of
Edward VI, in which he recorded a religious dispute with
Mary
- read a letter from Catherine Parr to Mary
-read Mary's speech
at the Guildhall, in which she asked for loyalty in the face of Wyatt's
uprising
-read a letter from Lady Jane Grey to Mary, in which Jane
explains the circumstances which led to her becoming queen for nine
days
-read about the executions of Lady Jane Grey and Lord Guildford
Dudley
-read about the execution of Archbishop Thomas
Cranmer
-read a contemporary description of Mary I
etc.
Visit Tudor
England: Images to view portraits of Mary, with commentary.
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Monarchs
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England