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4	<meta name="page_topic" content="Queen Mary I of England half-sister of Elizabeth I 'Bloody Mary' : Biography, Portraits, Primary Sources 1553-1558">
5	<meta name="content" content="Queen Mary I: Biography, Portraits, Primary Sources 1553-1558">
6	<meta name="author" content="Marilee Mongello">
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11	<title>Queen Mary I: Biography, Portraits, Primary Sources</title>
12	<style fprolloverstyle>A:hover {color: #0000FF; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold}
13	</style>
14	</head>
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16	<body link="#0000FF" vlink="#0000FF" alink="#0000FF">
17
18	<table border="0" cellpadding="3" width="100%" height="667">
19	<tr>
20	<td width="25%" height="29"></td>
21	<td valign="top" width="50%" height="29">
22	<p align="center"><font size="4"><br>'In thee, O lord, is my trust, let me never be
23	confounded: if God be for us, who can be against us?' <BR></font><I><FONT
24	size=-1>Mary Tudor's constant exclamation as queen of England</FONT></I></p>
25	<p> </td>
26	<td width="25%" height="29"></td>
27	</tr>
28	<tr>
29	<td width="25%" height="3"></td>
30	<td width="50%" height="3">
31	<p align="center">
32	<img border="0" src="mary1cardinal.gif" alt="Queen Mary I" width="455" height="109"></td>
33	<td width="25%" height="3"></td>
34	</tr>
35	<tr>
36	<td width="25%" height="610"></td>
37	<td valign="top" width="50%" height="610">
38	<p align="center">
39	<img border="2" src="elizsister.jpg" alt="portrait of Queen Mary I, by a follower of Anthonis Mor, c.1555-58" width="350" height="522"></p>
40	<blockquote>
41	<p> </p>
42	<p><A
43	href="mary1.html#Biography">
44	<font size="4">Read the biography of Queen Mary I</font></A><font size="4">.</font></p>
45	<p><A
46	href="marygovt.html">Marian
47	government policies and religious legislation</A>.  </p>
48	<P><B><br>Primary Sources</B> <BR>Read
49	<a href="../primary1.html">the letter Mary
50	wrote to Henry VIII, acknowledging her illegitimacy,</a> <A
51	href="../maryspee.html">her speech at the
52	Guildhall</A>, and <A
53	href="../marydesc.html">a contemporary
54	description of the queen</A>. <BR>Read <A
55	href="../letters.html">a letter from
56	Katharine of Aragon to her daughter</A>.</P>
57	<p>Visit <a href="http://www.marileecody.com/mary1images.html">Tudor
58	England: Images</a> to view portraits of Mary, with commentary. <BR><br>Visit
59	the <A
60	href="aragon.html">Katharine of
61	Aragon site</A> to learn more about Mary's mother. <BR>Visit the <A
62	href="../relative/janegrey.html">Lady Jane
63	Grey</A> site to learn more about Mary's cousin.<br>Visit the
64	<a href="eliz.html">Queen
65	Elizabeth I</a> site to learn more about Mary's half-sister.</p>
66	<p></p>
67	<P>Test your knowledge of Queen Mary's life at <A
68	href="../tudor1.html">Tudor Quizzes</A>.</P>
69	<P><br><font size="2"><b>Links  <br></b>
70	<a href="http://home.earthlink.net/~elisale/index.html">Mary Tudor</a>
71	A comprehensive exploration of Mary's life, featuring a lengthy
72	biography and numerous portraits.  It also has ancillary studies of
73	music, portraiture, genealogy, etc</font></P>
74	<p align="left"> </p>
75	</blockquote>
76	</td>
77	<td width="25%" height="610"></td>
78	</tr>
79	</table>
80
81	<blockquote>
82	<blockquote>
83	<blockquote>
84	<p><A name=Biography></A></p>
85	<hr>
86	<p><font size="4">'You have four certain and open enemies: the heretics
87	and schismatics, the rebels and adherents of the duke of Northumberland,
88	the king of France and Scotland, and the Lady Elizabeth.'  </font><i>
89	<font size="2">the Imperial ambassador Renard to Queen Mary, 1553</font></i></p>
90	</blockquote>
91	</blockquote>
92	</blockquote>
93	<blockquote>
94	<blockquote>
95	<blockquote>
96	<hr>
97	<p><B>Biography</B> <BR><FONT
98	face="Times New Roman,Times">The sad life of England's first female
99	ruler is rendered even more tragic in comparison with her half-sister
100	and successor's reign.  Poor Mary Tudor, destined - like her
101	half-brother and predecessor - to languish between those two giants of
102	English history, Henry VIII and Elizabeth I.  Yet there is much to
103	warrant even a brief examination of her life and reign.  Though her
104	hated half-sister would outshine her in virtually every sphere -
105	physical, political, intellectual, artistic - Mary also had a formidable
106	impact upon English history.  Throughout the first thirty-seven
107	years of her life, she was tossed about by the whims of her father and,
108	later and perhaps more galling, her Protestant brother and his
109	council.  It was perhaps inevitable that when she first tasted real
110	power, the experience would be both intoxicating and unfortunate.</FONT>
111	</p>
112
113	<P><FONT face="Times New Roman,Times">When Mary came to the throne, she
114	was thirty-seven years old.  She had never been married though, in
115	her youth, several matches had been suggested and abandoned.
116	Contrary to later beliefs, Henry VIII was pleased with her birth in
117	1516, proudly displaying the infant Mary to visiting ambassadors and</FONT><IMG height=387 alt="Princess Mary, age 28, painted by Master John"
118	src="maryage28.jpg" width=300 border=2 align="right"><FONT face="Times New Roman,Times">
119	noblemen.  It was only years later, with Mary as his sole
120	legitimate offspring, that Henry began his desperate search for a
121	son.  This search would forever brand him as a misogynist and cruel
122	tyrant who discarded, divorced, and beheaded the women who did not bear
123	him sons.  But one must be fair to Henry and judge him by the
124	standards of his time, which certainly his contemporaries did.  He
125	was only the second Tudor monarch and, as such, he understood the
126	necessity of stabilizing the English throne.  Indeed, his father
127	had only won the crown in 1485, barely thirty years before Mary's
128	birth.  And if Henry VII, born the unprepossessing earl of
129	Richmond, could steal the crown then his son's actions can be
130	understood.  Above all else, Henry VIII was determined the crown
131	would remain in Tudor hands.  Mary, like her half-sister Elizabeth,
132	was always recognized as his daughter.  But England had never had a
133	woman ruler, one who ruled in her own right without a male consort or as
134	regent for an infant son.  The only possible precedent was Matilda,
135	Henry I's heir, and the precedent was not good - Matilda was expelled by
136	the English barons and her cousin Stephen of Blois was made king.
137	Though this had happened four centuries before, its lesson was still
138	valid.</FONT>
139	<P><FONT face="Times New Roman,Times">With this in mind, Henry's
140	treatment of Mary's mother becomes - if not palatable - at least
141	understandable.  Certainly the petty cruelties and humiliations he
142	forced upon her were his own doing but the overall aim was to ensure the
143	Tudor succession.  But all this happened years after Mary's
144	birth.  From 1516 to about 1530, Mary led a happy, sheltered
145	life.  She was considered one of the most important European
146	princesses and Henry used her as every king used his daughter - as a
147	pawn in political negotiations.  She was also well-educated with a
148	fine contralto singing voice and great linguistic skill.  Her
149	mother, Katharine of Aragon, was deeply devoted to Mary.  This was
150	a reflection of Katharine's strongly domestic nature as well as the
151	numerous miscarriages she suffered.  Any mother would naturally
152	love a child but Katharine had lost enough children to make her
153	especially devoted to the one who survived.  When Henry proposed
154	the idea of divorce, Katharine fought it passionately, not least because
155	divorce would destroy her daughter's future.  Katharine was the
156	youngest daughter of those great Spanish monarchs, Ferdinand of Aragon
157	and Isabella of Castile, the 'Catholic Kings' who united Spain
158	geographically and spiritually.  Through her mother, she could
159	trace her lineage to John of Gaunt, that legendary figure in English
160	history.  She grew up as an Infanta of Spain; and, unlike Henry,
161	her claim to royalty was not a mere few decades old.  As such, she
162	was naturally proud and dignified.  Mary inherited this pride as
163	well as her mother's enduring affection for Spain.  When she became
164	queen, this affection was to have terrible consequences.</FONT>
165	<P><FONT face="Times New Roman,Times">Educated by her mother and a ducal
166	governess, Mary was at last betrothed to her cousin, the Holy Roman
167	Emperor Charles V (Charles I of Spain.)  Charles made the
168	unfortunate demand that she come to Spain immediately, accompanied by a
169	huge cash dowry.  Henry ignored the request and Charles jilted
170	Mary, concluding a match with a more accommodating princess.
171	Meanwhile, Henry invested his daughter as Princess of Wales in 1525 and
172	she held court at Ludlow Castle.  With this decision, Henry meant
173	to soothe Katharine's fears that Mary's position as the only legitimate
174	Tudor heir was being undermined.  Only a few weeks before the
175	investiture, Mary had attended a ceremony in which her father ennobled
176	his illegitimate son, Henry Fitzroy, as duke of Richmond (among various
177	other titles.)  And though he sharply rebuked Katharine for
178	criticizing his open affection for Fitzroy, and the accompanying titles
179	and wealth he gave the boy, Henry did not neglect his daughter.  In
180	fact, Mary was the first princess of Wales, and the first female royal
181	to hold court at Ludlow.  But of course, sending Mary to Wales was
182	not the same as sending a son and heir; Henry never intended her to rule
183	England, at least not as its sole ruler.  Her role in Wales would
184	be primarily symbolic, and she would be replaced as soon as he had a
185	legitimate male heir.  This elusive son - Henry's most fervent wish
186	- occupied his mind even as he continued to scour Europe for a suitable
187	husband for Mary.</FONT>
188	<P><FONT face="Times New Roman,Times">Yet even as new betrothal plans
189	were being made, the king's attention was increasingly elsewhere.
190	Henry had met Anne Boleyn, daughter of a simple knight and sister of a
191	former mistress.  His passionate attraction to Anne, coupled with
192	the increased need for a male heir, made Henry restless.  He looked
193	at Katharine, nine years his senior and as domestic as Anne was exotic,
194	with new eyes.  At first he sought a quiet, amicable annulment of
195	their long
196	marriage.  Certainly such a decision was not revolutionary; Henry
197	could cite numerous examples in European history where kings had
198	annulled marriages to barren queens.  Since he and Katharine had a
199	mutual respect and affection for one another, Henry anticipated her
200	cooperation.  Certainly he would tread with delicacy but - in the
201	end - his will would be done.</FONT>
202	<P><FONT face="Times New Roman,Times">But Henry had not anticipated his
203	wife's immediate and intense anger.  For he had based his argument
204	upon theology - in short, Henry argued that because Katharine had been
205	briefly married to his brother, Arthur, her marriage to Henry was
206	incestuous.  Katharine responded that this matter was already
207	resolved.  Before she wed Henry, the Pope had granted a
208	dispensation.  He did so under political pressure from Henry VII
209	and Ferdinand - but also because Katharine swore she and Arthur had
210	never consummated their marriage.  In short, she was a virgin when
211	she wed Henry, a fact Henry would be certain to know.  Cynics could
212	not help but mock the King's sudden attack of conscience, occurring some
213	twenty years into the marriage and in the midst of his affair with Anne
214	Boleyn.</FONT>
215	<P><FONT face="Times New Roman,Times">
216	<img border="0" src="aragonhorenbout1.jpg" alt="portrait of Katharine of Aragon by Lucas Horenbout" align="left" width="329" height="324">It would be impossible to argue
217	that Anne had no role in his decision.  In his mid-thirties, Henry
218	had entered into the most passionate romantic attachment of his
219	life.  Indeed, after her death, he would complain that Anne had
220	'bewitched' him.  It was true that Henry displayed an intensity of
221	feeling toward her which shocked their contemporaries.  Today we
222	can read his love letters to her; across the span of four centuries,
223	they retain their power.  Anne was not beautiful but she possessed
224	greater gifts - she was witty, graceful, and stylish.  She had been
225	educated at the glittering French court so she sang and danced
226	beautifully, skills which Henry admired.  She was also very
227	intelligent and confident.  Unlike her older sister Mary, Anne
228	Boleyn had no desire to be the king's temporary mistress.  In fact,
229	she had intended to wed Henry Percy, heir to the earl of Northumberland,
230	until the king - already enchanted - put a stop to the match.  He
231	wrote to Percy's father, arguing against the unsuitable match.  A
232	knight's daughter wed to one of the most important peers of the
233	realm?  Percy's angry father immediately sent for his son, ending
234	the romance but not the attachment.  Percy wrote poetry about Anne
235	and, at her trial, he had to be carried from the room.  Unlike the
236	other peers, he could not bear to sit in judgment of her.  For
237	Anne, the loss of Percy was undoubtedly galling.  After all, had
238	the king ended the engagement simply to make her his mistress?
239	Henry's disregard for her personal feelings, his interference in her
240	personal life, was not endearing.  But it convinced Anne of the
241	king's attraction and she resolved to be his wife or nothing.</FONT>
242	<P><FONT face="Times New Roman,Times">For Mary, the sudden ascent of
243	Anne Boleyn signaled the end of her world.  Her beloved mother,
244	equally loved by the English people, was being forced aside by a former
245	lady-in-waiting.  Her father was determined to declare her a
246	bastard; in effect, Henry's charge of incest dissolved his marriage and
247	illegitimized his daughter.  In the midst of this, Mary developed a
248	lasting hatred of Anne Boleyn which extended to Anne's daughter,
249	Elizabeth.  She never openly blamed her father for his actions,
250	though she considered them unlawful and impious.  Instead, she
251	persuaded herself that he had been Anne Boleyn's pawn.  Such a
252	reaction was perhaps inevitable.  However, it was to have an
253	unfortunate impact upon Elizabeth's life.</FONT>
254	<P><FONT face="Times New Roman,Times">The Pope refused to recognize
255	Henry's argument for an annulment or divorce and thus began a power
256	struggle between the Vatican, Spain, and England.  Katharine's
257	nephew, Charles V, naturally agreed with his aunt for personal and
258	political reasons. He exerted considerable military and political
259	pressure against the Pope.  Henry's numerous petitions were
260	disregarded.  Eventually he simply gave up and decided the matter
261	himself.  In 1534 Henry took the unprecedented step of breaking
262	with Rome, establishing the Church of England with himself as Supreme
263	Head.  The annulment was granted and Katharine and Mary were
264	officially outcasts.</FONT>
265	<P><FONT face="Times New Roman,Times">In the meantime, Mary continued
266	her somewhat restricted life.  Despite her declared illegitimacy,
267	Henry continued to propose various husbands for her.  The searches
268	were not particularly thorough or serious, however, and Mary remained a
269	spinster.  She was now in her late twenties, leaving behind her
270	youth and - most importantly for a woman - her safest reproductive
271	years.</FONT>
272	<P><FONT face="Times New Roman,Times">Even before the official decree,
273	Henry had stopped living with Katharine and recognizing her as
274	Queen.  He took Anne Boleyn with him to France to meet his rival
275	Francis I; this was an important state visit and her appearance was
276	commented upon.  Henry, however, had already ordered Katharine to
277	surrender her jewelry; Anne now wore it.  He also sent Katharine to
278	one decaying residence after another, dismissing several of her devoted
279	servants.  Though deprived of her title, home, jewels, and
280	companionship, Katharine never recognized the divorce.  She refused
281	the title of Princess Dowager, offered by Henry as recognition of her
282	marriage to Arthur, Prince of Wales.  She continued to assert that
283	she and Arthur had never consummated their marriage.  And, above
284	all else, she professed faith in the judgment of the Pope.  A
285	devout Catholic, daughter of the monarchs who introduced the Inquisition
286	to Spain, Katharine never acknowledged the Church of England.
287	Since she had raised her daughter to be equally devout, Mary also
288	refused to acknowledge both the Church and her father's position as
289	Supreme Head.</FONT>
290	<P><FONT face="Times New Roman,Times">It should be noted that Henry
291	VIII, though ostensibly head of a new church which overthrew the
292	Catholic supremacy, remained a devout Catholic</FONT><FONT face="Times New Roman,Times"> throughout his
293	life.  He continued to attend Mass and heartily despised 'heretics'
294	like Martin Luther.  But Henry possessed the ability to separate
295	the secular from the spiritual, a quality which Mary completely lacked
296	and Elizabeth honed to fine perfection.  Though his son would
297	become a bigoted Protestant determined to stamp out Catholicism and his
298	eldest daughter a bigoted Catholic determined to stamp out
299	Protestantism, Henry was a Catholic who lapsed when it suited him.
300	Of course, he always asserted theological justification for the lapses.
301	However, he would not allow Katharine or Mary to deny his authority.
302	Both paid a stiff penalty for their refusal to submit.  Katharine,
303	as noted, was sent from court and deprived of all accustomed luxuries.
304	Mary was equally disgraced.  Now a bastard, declared such by
305	Parliament, she was denied any communication with her mother and made
306	lady-in-waiting to Anne and Henry's daughter, Elizabeth.  Unlike
307	Mary, Elizabeth was recognized as a Princess of the realm.  For the
308	seventeen-year-old Mary, the complete reversal of her fortune was
309	devastating.  She began to suffer from a variety of illnesses,
310	undoubtedly stress-related.  These plagued her until her death,
311	causing such symptoms as severe headaches, nausea, insomnia, and
312	infrequent menstruation.</FONT>
313	<P><FONT face="Times New Roman,Times">Anne took an equal dislike of
314	Mary.  It was a simple fact that if Anne and Elizabeth's fortunes
315	rose, Mary's would fall.  After all, Elizabeth was legitimate only
316	if Mary was not, and vice versa.  Anne would have been foolish to
317	encourage any reconciliation between Henry and Mary, quite possibly she
318	did the opposite.  But after her fall from grace, Henry offered to
319	pardon Mary and restore her to favor - but only if Mary acknowledged him
320	as head of the Church of England and admitted the 'incestuous
321	illegality' of his marriage to Katharine.  To Mary's credit, she
322	refused to do so until her cousin, Charles V, persuaded her
323	otherwise.  <A
324	href="../primary.html">She gave in to
325	Henry's demands</A>, an action she was to always regret.
326	Meanwhile, Katharine of Aragon had died at Kimbolton Castle, loving -
327	and defying - Henry to the last; <A
328	href="../letters.html">her final letter</A>
329	to him was signed 'Katharine the Queen.'  Katharine and Mary had
330	not seen one another for years though they had written one another,
331	against Henry's orders, in great secrecy.  Katharine's last
332	thoughts were undoubtedly of her daughter.</FONT>
333	<P><FONT face="Times New Roman,Times">Henry, however, was soon
334	reconciled to Mary.  Flush with marriage to the meek Jane Seymour
335	and her quick pregnancy, he welcomed Mary home.  She was given a
336	household befitting her position as his daughter and included in court
337	festivities; there were even rumors of a possible marriage in her
338	future.  Jane Seymour encouraged Henry's reconciliation with both
339	of his daughters.  Mary, in turn, respected and liked the new
340	queen.  She was named godmother to Henry and Jane's son, Prince
341	Edward, born in October 1537; and when Jane died shortly after her son's
342	birth, Mary was the chief mourner.  Their friendship was not so
343	unlikely.  They were relatively close in age and Mary, having lost
344	her mother and longing for her father's affection, was grateful for any
345	kindness.  Furthermore, she had the satisfaction of knowing
346	Elizabeth, too, was bastardized; Anne Boleyn's execution on charges of
347	incest and treason had illegitimized her daughter.  It is revealing
348	to note that, upon her ascension, Mary revoked the Act of Parliament
349	which made her a bastard.  Elizabeth, upon ascension, didn't bother
350	to do so.</FONT>
351	<P><FONT face="Times New Roman,Times">However, Mary and Elizabeth were
352	not forgotten.  After Jane's death, Henry determined the line of
353	succession as follows:  first, Edward or Edward's heirs; if Edward
354	died without issue, the throne passed to Mary; after Mary, to
355	Elizabeth.  Henry recognized the fragility of his succession,
356	resting as it did upon just one son.  He, after all, was a second
357	son.  But there was little he could do.  His fourth marriage,
358	to Anne of Cleves, had ended disastrously.  She was too
359	unnattractive for the king so she was titled 'the king's sister' and
360	given a generous pension.  Anne preferred this solution to
361	returning home.</FONT><IMG height=352
362	alt="portrait of Queen Mary I" src="mary1-cr.jpg" width=270
363	align=right border=2><FONT face="Times New Roman,Times">  Soon
364	enough, Henry's attentions were captured elsewhere.  He wed
365	Catherine Howard, cousin to the infamous Anne Boleyn.  It was a
366	pathetic match.  Henry was old enough to be her grandfather,
367	plainly in lust with a young woman who exuded sex appeal.  Mary's
368	opinion on the match is not known but it would be safe to assume that
369	even if she disapproved, she would never say so.  Mary recognized
370	her father's secular authority as king even as she disapproved of his
371	spiritual authority as head of the English Church.  In any case,
372	there was barely time to know Catherine before she, too, was executed on
373	charges of adultery.  Whether she was guilty is a matter of
374	conjecture; if she was, one can hardly blame her and, if she wasn't, she
375	was yet another blot upon Henry's conscience.  In her defense, she
376	refused the easy path of divorce.  Henry offered to recognize a
377	pre-contract with another nobleman.  If she, too, recognized it,
378	their marriage would be invalid.  Catherine would be divorced but
379	still alive.  She refused to admit such an arrangement, however,
380	and met her end at the Tower of London.</FONT>
381	<P><FONT face="Times New Roman,Times">Henry's last queen was the
382	Protestant Katharine Parr, twice-widowed and chosen for her excellent
383	character and nursing abilities.  Like Jane Seymour, Katharine Parr
384	was determined to bring the royal family closer together.  To that
385	end, she provided the only true home and maternal guidance Edward and
386	Elizabeth would ever know.  She also befriended Mary, a difficult
387	task because of their opposing religious beliefs.  Mary, however,
388	did respect Katharine's intellectual accomplishments.</FONT>
389	<P><FONT face="Times New Roman,Times">Katharine Parr was the product of
390	the changing climate in Tudor England.  When he ended Catholic
391	supremacy in England, dissolving the monasteries and granting their
392	lands to various nobles and the crown, Henry had begun a process whose
393	end he never foresaw.  As mentioned, Henry never became a
394	Protestant.  But his decision to use Protestantism for his own ends
395	allowed Protestantism to flourish.  Toward the end of his reign,
396	there were few councilors who could remember the Catholic
397	supremacy.  They had benefited from the break with Rome, both
398	spiritually and materially; Henry, meanwhile, never understood the force
399	he had unleashed.  When Katharine made the mistake of arguing about
400	theology with him, she came very close to losing her head.  Only a
401	timely intervention and her own impassioned apology saved her.  But
402	upon Henry's death and Edward's ascension, the Protestant faction was in
403	control.  The new king, just nine years old, had Protestant tutors
404	and a Protestant step-mother.  Indeed, Edward VI is revealed in his
405	journal as a priggish, unfeeling boy who noted the executions of his
406	uncles with no trace of compassion.  His letters to Katharine Parr,
407	however, are the only examples of feeling and affection which he left
408	behind.  To her, he confided his insecurity and
409	vulnerability.</FONT>
410	<P><FONT face="Times New Roman,Times">Katharine Parr's influence on
411	Edward VI was to simply strengthen the Protestantism which his tutors
412	and the English court encouraged.  For Mary, the situation was
413	disastrous.  Edward, swayed by religious fervor and his advisors,
414	made English compulsory for church services.  Mary continued to
415	celebrate Mass in the old form and in Latin.  During the six years
416	of her brother's reign, she tread the fine line between piety and
417	treason.  Edward attempted to reason with her at court yet she
418	refused his advice.  Indeed, she was a woman in her thirties and he
419	was still a child.  Edward was also under the control of the Duke
420	of Somerset, Jane Seymour's staunchly Protestant brother.  Though
421	Henry VIII's will had specified a specific group of councilors to guide
422	his son's regency, his wishes were disregarded.  His fellow
423	councilors, most of whom had profited from the Catholic expulsion,
424	titled Somerset Lord Protector.  The nine-year-old king had no deep
425	affection for his uncle; Somerset kept Edward short of pocket money and
426	hired harsh tutors who regularly beat the boy.  But their religious
427	sympathies were similar.  Mary managed to disregard the combined
428	pressure of Somerset and Edward, largely because she stayed away from
429	court.  Her brother was firm with her.  He told her she was
430	misguided and occasionally threatened her.  Mary was intelligent
431	enough to not risk open disobedience, preferring the quiet celebration
432	of Mass in her country home.  Meanwhile, in 1549, Somerset had
433	overstepped his authority and was executed.  His fall was largely
434	engineered by John Dudley, Earl of Warwick and soon-to-be Duke of
435	Northumberland.  From then on, Edward was under Dudley's
436	control.</FONT>
437	<P><FONT face="Times New Roman,Times">Edward VI ruled for just seven
438	years.  The last year of his life was one of near-constant pain and
439	suffering.  Various illnesses have been suggested, </FONT>
440	<FONT face="Times New Roman,Times">consumption
441	being the most likely.  He had never been of robust health, unlike
442	his father, and the Protestant councilors did all they could to prolong
443	his life.  To that end, Edward was given arsenic and various other
444	poisons which were believed to prolong life even as they increased
445	suffering.  For Dudley and his supporters, Edward's death was
446	inevitable but they needed every available moment to prevent Mary from
447	ascending the throne.  They were not fools and knew their fate with
448	a Catholic queen.  Dudley hurriedly married his son Guildford to <A
449	href="../relative/janegrey.html">Lady Jane
450	Grey</A>, Edward VI's Protestant, scholarly cousin.  Like Edward,
451	Jane was a pawn in Dudley's schemes.  She was the granddaughter of
452	Henry VIII's younger sister Mary Tudor and, thus, a remote claimant to
453	the English throne.  Working together, Edward and Dudley
454	disregarded Henry VIII's will yet again and barred both Mary and
455	Elizabeth from the succession.  In turn, Edward willed the throne
456	to Jane and her heirs.  When he finally died, Jane was declared
457	Queen by Dudley and the Protestant lords.</FONT>
458	<P><FONT face="Times New Roman,Times">Jane Grey's ascension to the
459	throne lasted but nine days.  Though the Protestant councilors were
460	not fond of Mary's religious views, many still regarded her as the
461	rightful heir.  She was, after all, Bluff King Hal's daughter.
462	Like her mother, Mary had enormous sympathy from the English people, a
463	gift she was to squander recklessly.  Many viewed her as the poor
464	victim of Anne Boleyn's scheming, a quiet, kindly, and pious woman.
465	It should be noted that </FONT><FONT face="Times New Roman,Times">the
466	English people cared not so much for her religious views as they did her
467	parentage.  She was the old king's child and therefore, she should
468	follow Edward to the throne.  This loyalty to Mary's dynastic
469	claims was something she never fully understood.  As queen, Mary
470	was capable of both extreme affection and disdain for her English
471	subjects.</FONT>
472	<P><FONT face="Times New Roman,Times">With Jane declared queen, Mary
473	fled to Norfolk.  Though her closest friends advised against it,
474	she soon decided to ride to London and stake her own claim to the
475	throne.  The people of London welcomed her ecstatically.  Mary
476	arrested Jane Grey and Guildford Dudley, though she displayed her
477	typical leniency by not immediately executing them.  When Jane's
478	fugitive father attempted to lead an uprising for her, Mary had him
479	executed along with John Dudley.  Jane and Guildford, however,
480	remained in the Tower of London.</FONT>
481	<P> <P>
482	<HR width="100%">
483
484	<blockquote>
485
486	<P align="left"><b>
487	<font face="Times New Roman,Times">
488	<a href="../primary.html">The PRIMARY
489	SOURCES section contains many documents related to Queen Mary:</a></font></b> <BR>
490	<FONT
491	size=-1 face="Times New Roman,Times"><B>-</B>read a letter to Mary from her mother, Katharine of
492	Aragon</FONT> <BR><FONT
493	size=-1 face="Times New Roman,Times">-read the entire text of Mary's letter to her father, in which
494	she acknowledged Henry as head of the church of England, the dissolution
495	of his marriage to Katharine of Aragon & her own illegitimacy (a
496	letter she later disavowed)</FONT> <BR>
497	<FONT size=-1 face="Times New Roman,Times">-read a journal entry of
498	Edward VI, in which he recorded a religious dispute with
499	Mary</FONT> <BR><FONT
500	size=-1 face="Times New Roman,Times">- read a letter from Catherine Parr to Mary</FONT>
501	<BR><FONT size=-1 face="Times New Roman,Times">-read Mary's speech
502	at the Guildhall, in which she asked for loyalty in the face of Wyatt's
503	uprising</FONT> <BR>
504	<FONT
505	size=-1 face="Times New Roman,Times">-read a letter from Lady Jane Grey to Mary, in which Jane
506	explains the circumstances which led to her becoming queen for nine
507	days</FONT> <BR><FONT
508	size=-1 face="Times New Roman,Times">-read about the executions of Lady Jane Grey and Lord Guildford
509	Dudley</FONT> <BR><FONT
510	size=-1 face="Times New Roman,Times">-read about the execution of Archbishop Thomas
511	Cranmer</FONT> <BR><FONT
512	size=-1 face="Times New Roman,Times">-read a contemporary description of Mary I</FONT>
513	<BR><FONT size=-1 face="Times New Roman,Times">etc.</FONT>
514
515	</blockquote>
516
517	<P align="center"><font size="2">Visit <a href="http://www.marileecody.com/mary1images.html">Tudor
518	England: Images</a> to view portraits of Mary, with commentary. </font>
519	<CENTER>
520	<P><FONT size=-1><A
521	href="../monarchs.html">to Tudor
522	Monarchs</A></FONT> <BR><FONT size=-1><A
523	href="http://englishhistory.net/tudor.html">to Tudor
524	England</A></FONT></CENTER>
525	</blockquote>
526	</blockquote>
527	</blockquote>
528
529	</body>
530
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