Mary I of England

Mary was born on 18 February 1516 at the Palace of Placentia, in Greenwich. She was the only child of King Henry VIII and his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, to survive infancy.

Mary was a precocious child. In July 1520, when she was barely 4 and a half years old, she entertained a visiting French delegation with a performance on the virginals. By the age of 9, Mary could read and write Latin. She studied French, Spanish, music, dance, and perhaps Greek. Mary had, like both of her parents, a very fair complexion, pale blue eyes and red or reddish-golden hair.

In 1525, Henry sent Mary to the border of Wales to preside over the Council of Wales and the Marches. She was given her own court and many of the royal prerogatives reserved for the Prince of Wales. Some called her the Princess of Wales, but she was never invested with the title. Mary spent three years in the Welsh Marches and returned in mid-1528.

Throughout her childhood, Henry negotiated potential future marriages for her. When she was 2 years old, she was promised to Francis, the son of King Francis I of France, but the contract was repudiated after three years. In 1522, when she was 6, she was contracted to marry her 22-year-old cousin, Charles V, but this engagement was also broken off. Meanwhile, Mary was developing into a pretty, well proportioned young lady with a fine complexion.

However, the marriage of Mary’s parents was in jeopardy. Disappointed at the lack of a son, and eager to remarry, Henry attempted to have his marriage to Catherine annulled, but the Pope refused his request.

From 1531, Mary was often sick with irregular menstruation and depression. She was not permitted to see her mother, who had been sent to live away from court by Henry. In early 1533, Henry VIII married Anne Boleyn, who was pregnant with his child, and in May the Archbishop of Canterbury formally declared the marriage with Catherine void, and the marriage to Anne valid. Catherine was demoted to Dowager Princess of Wales and Mary was deemed illegitimate. She seized to be a Princess and was styled The Lady Mary; her place in the line of succession was transferred to her new-born sister, Elizabeth. Mary’s household was dissolved, her servants were dismissed and in December 1533, she was sent to join the household of Elizabeth.

Mary refused to acknowledge that Anne was the Queen of England or that Elizabeth was a Princess, further enraging her father. Under strain and with her movements restricted, Mary was frequently ill. The Imperial ambassador, Eustace Chapuys became her close advisor and interceded, unsuccessfully, on her behalf at court. Mary and Henry VIII did not speak to each other for three years. Although both she and Catherine of Aragon were ill, Mary was refused permission to visit her mother. When Catherine died in 1536, Mary was inconsolable.

In 1536, Anne Boleyn fell from favour and was beheaded. Like Mary, Elizabeth was declared illegitimate and stripped of her succession rights. Within two weeks of Anne’s execution, Henry married Jane Seymour, who urged her husband to make peace with Mary. Henry insisted that Mary recognise him as the Head of the Church of England, repudiate papal authority, acknowledge that her parents’ marriage was unlawful, and accept her own illegitimacy. She was eventually bullied into signing a document agreeing to all the King’s demands. Reconciled with her father, Mary returned to court. The following year, 1537, Jane died giving birth to a son, Edward.

Mary was courted by Philip, Duke of Bavaria, but he was Lutheran and his suit for her hand was unsuccessful. Over 1539, Thomas Cromwell negotiated a potential alliance with the Duchy of Cleves. Suggestions that Mary marry William, Duke of Cleves came to nothing, but a match between the King and the Duke’s sister, Anne of Cleves, was agreed. Henry and Anne’s marriage ended in 1540, because the King didn’t like his wife.

In 1541, Henry had the Countess of Salisbury (Mary’s old governess and godmother) executed on the pretext of a Catholic plot, in which her son Reginald was implicated. In 1542, following the execution of Henry’s fifth wife, Catherine Howard, the King invited Mary to attend the royal Christmas festivities. In 1543, Henry married his sixth and last wife, Catherine Parr. Catherine was able to bring the family close together, and Henry returned Mary and Elizabeth to the line of succession, after Edward. However, both remained legally illegitimate.

Henry VIII died in 1547, and Edward succeeded him. Since he was still a child, the rule passed to a regency council dominated by Protestants, who attempted to establish their faith throughout the country. Mary remained faithful to Roman Catholicism and defiantly celebrated the traditional Mass in her own chapel.

For most of Edward’s reign, Mary remained on her own estates and rarely attended court. The religious differences between Mary and Edward continued: Mary repeatedly refused Edward’s demands, and Edward persistently refused to drop his demands.

On 6 July 1553, Edward VI died, possibly from tuberculosis. He did not want the crown to go to Mary, because he feared she would restore Catholicism and undo his reforms, so he planned to exclude her from the line of succession. His advisors told him that he could not disinherit only one of his sisters: he would have to disinherit Elizabeth as well, even though she was a Protestant. Edward excluded both from the line of succession in his will.

Contradicting the Succession Act, which restored Mary and Elizabeth to the line of succession, Edward named Lady Jane Grey (granddaughter of Henry VIII’s sister, Mary) as his successor. Just before Edward’s death, Mary was summoned to London to visit her dying brother; however, she was warned that the summons was a pretext on which to capture her and ensure Lady Jane’s accession to the throne. Therefore, instead of heading to London, Mary fled into East Anglia, where many adherents to the Catholic faith lived.

On 10 July 1553, Lady Jane was proclaimed Queen of England. By 12 July, Mary and her supporters assembled a military force at Framlingham Castle, Suffolk. Lady Jane was deposed on 19 July and 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 sister, Elizabeth, and a procession of over 800 nobles and gentlemen. On 1 October 1553, Bishop Gardiner crowned Mary at Westminster Abbey.

At age 37, Mary turned her attention to finding a husband and producing an heir, which would prevent the Protestant Elizabeth from succeeding to the throne. Her cousin, Emperor Charles V suggested that she marry his only son, Prince Philip of Spain.

Bishop Gardiner and the House of Commons unsuccessfully petitioned Mary to consider marrying an Englishman, fearing that England would be relegated to a dependency of the Habsburgs. When Mary insisted on marrying Philip, insurrections broke out. Mary declared publicly that she would summon Parliament to discuss the marriage, and if Parliament decided that the marriage was not to the advantage of the kingdom, she would refrain from pursuing it. Elizabeth, though protesting her innocence in these insurrections, was imprisoned in the Tower of London for two months, and then was put under house arrest.

Mary was England’s first queen regnant. Under the English common law doctrine of jure uxoris, the property and titles belonging to a woman became her husband’s upon marriage, and it was feared that any man she married would become King of England in fact and in name. Under the terms of Queen Mary’s Marriage Act, Philip was to be styled King of England, all official documents were to be dated with both their names, and Parliament was to be called under the joint authority of the couple, for Mary’s lifetime only. England would not be obliged to provide military support to Philip, and Philp could not act without his wife’s consent. Philip was unhappy at these conditions, but he was ready to agree for the sake of securing the marriage. He had no amorous feelings toward Mary and sought the marriage for its political and strategic gains. Mary and Philip married at Winchester Cathedral on 25 July 1554, just two days after their first meeting.

In September 1554, Mary stopped menstruating. She gained weight and felt nauseous in the mornings. For these reasons, the court and her doctors believed her to be pregnant. Parliament passed an act making Philip regent in the event of Mary’s death in childbirth. In the last week of April 1555, Elizabeth was released from house arrest, and called to court as a witness to the birth, which was expected imminently. Through May and June, the apparent delay in delivery fed gossip that Mary was not pregnant. Mary continued to exhibit signs of pregnancy until July 1555, when her abdomen receded. There was no baby. It was most likely a false pregnancy, perhaps induced by Mary’s overwhelming desire to have a child. In August, Philip left England to command his armies against France in Flanders; Mary was heartbroken and fell into a deep depression. Elizabeth remained at court until October, apparently restored to favour.

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 Protestant churchmen were imprisoned. Mary’s first Parliament declared the marriage of her parents valid and abolished Edward’s religious laws. Mary had always rejected the break with Rome instituted by her father and the establishment of Protestantism by her brother’s regents. Reaching an agreement with Rome took many months; by the end of 1554, the Heresy Acts were revived. Under the Heresy Acts, many Protestants were executed in the Marian persecutions. Around 800 rich Protestants chose exile instead. The first executions occurred over a period of five days in February 1555. In total, 283 were executed, most by burning. Mary persevered with the policy, which continued until her death and exacerbated anti-Catholic and anti-Spanish feeling among the English people.

Philip returned to England from March to July 1557 to persuade Mary to support Spain in a war against France. Mary was in favour of declaring war, but her councillors opposed it because French trade would be jeopardised, it contravened the marriage treaty, and a bad economic legacy from Edward VI’s reign meant England lacked supplies and finances. War was declared in June 1557, when a rebel invaded England with French help to depose Mary. In August, English forces were victorious in the aftermath of the Battle of Saint Quentin. Celebrations, however, were brief, as in January 1558 French forces took Calais. Although the territory was financially burdensome, it was an ideological loss that damaged Mary’s prestige.

Financially, Mary’s regime tried to reconcile a modern form of government with a medieval system of collecting taxation and dues. A failure to apply new tariffs to new forms of imports meant that a key source of revenue was neglected. To solve this problem, Mary’s government published a revised Book of Rates, which listed the tariffs and duties for every import. English coinage was debased under both Henry VIII and Edward VI. Mary drafted plans for currency reform, but they were not implemented until after her death.

After Philip’s visit in 1557, Mary thought she was pregnant again, with a baby due in March 1558. However, no child was born, and Mary was forced to accept that 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. She was succeeded by her half-sister Elizabeth.

Although Mary’s will stated that she wished to be buried next to her mother, she was interred in Westminster Abbey, in a tomb she would eventually share with Elizabeth. The Latin inscription on their tomb, Regno consortes et urna, hic obdormimus Elizabetha et Maria sorores, in spe resurrectionis, translates to Consorts in realm and tomb, we, sisters Elizabeth and Mary, here lie down to sleep in hope of resurrection.

Mary I, Queen of England

Antonis Mor

1554