Mary Tudor: Don't call her Bloody!

I can’t remember exactly when it happened, but for some years now I’ve been fascinated with Queen Elizabeth Tudor and, subsequently, the Tudor Dynasty, and my fascination keeps expanding.  I recently finished a really insightful and interesting biography called Mary Tudor, you know, “Bloody” Mary.  I picked it up at a library sale.  It was published in 1953, so I’m sure there have been other biographies, but this one by H. F. M. Prescott is supposed to be, still, a premier biography.  OK, there were a couple parts in the several rebellions where I got bogged down in names and places—you’ll have that.  

The thing is, Mary’s gotten this terrible reputation, but she was simply a human, specifically a woman, and she had little rights or respect, even as a queen, and her childhood was, in the least, dysfunctional and emotionally exhausting.  I love how Prescott explores that in as much detail as she does the actual events of Mary’s life—the events that both caused and were caused by Mary’s remarkable fortitude in dealing with her father and her brother as Kings of England, as well as her unmovable faith even if, as Prescott readily points out, she did not possess the political intellect and ingénue of her half-sister Elizabeth. 

What Mary Tudor did have was an iron will.  She didn’t always make the best or right decisions, but when she made a decision, she stood behind it, even if and when it blew up in her face.  And boy, did it.

Mary was 17 when her father Henry VIII made himself head of the church in order to divorce her mother, Catherine of Aragon, or at least she was that old when the deed was finally done—it took around four years.  Henry declared his current marriage was illegal/immoral because Catherine had married his older brother first, even though the Spanish-born Queen insisted her marriage to Arthur, Henry’s older brother, had never been consummated before his death.  Catherine fought Henry, and she was one smart cookie.  But when Henry was able to divorce her, he declared Mary a bastard and kept her apart from Catherine for years—even when Catherine lay dying, Henry refused to allow Mary to see her mother, and Catherine her child.

Mary grew up Catholic like her mother, and even when her father the king began to crack down on those celebrating Catholic mass, Mary kept on.   Through her adolescence and young adulthood, Henry had her moved from house to house, took away her most beloved companion/servants, and humiliated her by forcing her to sign papers admitting she was no princess, but only the “Lady Mary.”  Signing those papers was wrenching for Mary, as the “Spanish Tudor” was filled with pride and faith, and she never believed Anne Boelyn was truly Queen nor Elizabeth truly royalty.  Imagine the poor young woman, forced to write the words that her mother and Henry’s marriage was never legal, her mother therefore no queen and herself, no princess.  Writing it out in triplicate while the king’s messengers waited. 

 Renouncing her title, though, was nothing to Mary compared to Henry and then Edward VI’s attempts to take away her religion.  For a while, Henry turned his head while Mary kept hearing mass, and her brother Edward did the same, even when his Act of Uniformity made it illegal to use any but the Protestant prayer book, but eventually he attempted to stop her mass altogether.  It’s believed, though, that Mary kept hearing mass as secretively as necessary. 

So Mary’s emotionally tortured for over a decade.  To the point that she just wants to leave England and go to Spain, her mother’s country, where she could practice her Catholic faith and live in the bosom of her kin, a warmth she had not felt since her connection with her mother was broken.  She attempted to escape to Spain but her attempts were foiled by various things.  That’s one of the parts where I got a little bogged down in the details.  Edward died, though, and Mary knew she had to make her move.  Because Edward had not named his older sister as heir to the throne.  His advisers had convinced the teenaged King to name a cousin, Jane Grey, a protestant who they figured they could control.  Well, they were wrong about that, and that’s a whole ‘nother story, but Mary was bold and quick and decisive in this case and she got her crown. 

Right away when she became queen, of course, since they believed a woman could and should not actually rule, Parliament began to float potential husband ideas around.  The only two that got real consideration appear to have been an Englishman named Courtenay and a Spanish prince, Philip.  Mary waffled for a long time, but I think she probably knew she was never going to marry Courtenay. She’d been hurt too much by Englishmen already and I think she leaned towards a Spanish match from early on.  The people of England were pissed about that, though, so she had to appear to entertain the idea of a marriage to Courtenay.  She did marry Prince Philip though, and his father made him a King by giving him some lands to rule, I forget which ones exactly, but that’s not important here.  So the match was made:  Philip late twenties, would marry Mary, a decade older. 

Well, England was pretty pissed, and as Prescott said, “A lesser woman would not have dared pursue the marriage; a greater would have realized the folly of it.”  A caveat for Philip was that Mary had had to agree that neither would Philip be crowned king, nor would he have a say in affairs of state.  Philip wasn’t happy about it but he probably figured he could win over Parliament, or Mary, to such degree that he would get his crown and drag England into the war between Spain and France, a war England had been determinedly staying out of.  Philip never got that, though it’s not for lack of Mary’s trying.  And that’s consoling, because Philip’s failings as a husband were gargantuan.  He left Mary for two years, then came back to try once more to get England as an ally against France.  He came back in March of 1557, got Mary to declare war on France in June, and he was gone again by July that same year.   He stayed away most of the time after that, pouting that Mary was unable to move the Council in his favor with regard to the crown, and also that she wouldn’t either have her sister Elizabeth killed or marry her off. 

“While Henri [ruler of France] was belatedly striving to keep England out of the war, Philip was as bent on bringing her in.  If Mary could not bear him a child, if she dared not crown him, if she would not, without the consent of Parliament, give Elizabeth to his friend and dependent the Duke of Savoy, there was only this one thing left.  Philip’s determination to have it was proportionate to his resentment at the other disappointments.”

During all of this, of course, heretics were being burned at the stake by the hundreds.  Mary had started out quite lenient, even sparing the lives of those who plotted for her throne.  Eventually, though, Prescott points out that Mary probably felt so betrayed by England and the Protestants who she had thought would come around, so desperate to prove something to her husband, that she hardened her heart, and the burnings went on. 

Maybe we could call it
Veggie Vodka instead?

Oh, it was a sad end for Mary.  The poor woman wanted so few things—to unite England in Catholicism, to be a good, godly wife.  She suffered through two false pregnancies, which is heartbreaking in itself.  Her husband did not deign to visit her on her death bed, though he sent envoys to express his concern or, more accurately, to urge Mary once again to marry Elizabeth to a Spaniard with promise of succession.  To her credit once again where Elizabeth is concerned, she refused.  Prescott says Mary did name Elizabeth as her heir, though a historical website mentions that Mary failed to name an heir, and therefore Elizabeth succeeded, because Henry had named her in his will after Edward.

 Mary heard mass one last time and died in 1558, leaving a terrible legacy behind, one that seems unduly harsh if a proper 16^th century context is imposed.   “Perhaps no other reign in English history has seen such a great endeavour made and so utterly defeated.  All that Mary did was undone, all she intended utterly unfulfilled.”  And even if I’m an ex-religioso, I gotta love the way Prescott wrapped it up, with the whole bit about casting the first stone.  “If her enemies could have brought her, as Pharisees brought another woman, to Christ…He might again have stooped down, written in the dust, and then, looking up, dismissed them with the same unanswerable word.”