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| Background | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Mary was the only child of Henry VIII and his first wife Catherine of Aragon to survive infancy. Through her mother, she was a granddaughter of Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile. | |||||||||||||||||||||
| In 1522, Mary was initially contracted to marry her first cousin Charles I of Spain through the Treaty of Windsor. However, the events of the following ten years leading to England joining the League of Cognac against the Medici controlled Papacy and Charles lead to its failure. | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Her mother Catherine, secured an ultra-Catholic Habsburg upbringing for Mary, with Spanish scholar Juan Luis Vives an important influence. Mary remained steadfast in her loyalty to the Vatican (Roman Cult) and its agents throughout her life. | |||||||||||||||||||||
| In her early years, it appears she was a favourite of her father. Yet in 1529, the growing feud between Henry VIII and Charles boiled over. Henry VIII still without a male heir --responded with a counter claim to the ultra-Catholic Charles that the 1st marriage to his aunt--Catherine of Aragon-- had not been properly annulled by Pope Julius II and therefore she was a heretic by the laws of the Spanish Inquisition--with Henry free to re-marry whomever he chose. | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Charles-- now suffering the Habsburg curse of growing deformity due to continual incestous marriages between the family-- remained pre-occupied with eliminating the Schmalkaldic League (Lutheran Movement) spreading across Europe. Yet the threat from Henry was unmistakable--if Charles persisted, then Henry would ship Catherine back to Spain and the minute she stepped ashore, she would be subject to the Inquisition by the laws of Charles himself. | |||||||||||||||||||||
| By 1530, Henry VIII had the powerful Cardinal Wolsey murdered--and Catherine banished from court. Yet Giulio de' Medici (Pope Clement VII) refused to grant Henry VIII an official annulment in recognition of the marriage being unlawful. | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Events continued to deteriorate until finally in 1534, Henry VIII and his Parliament enacted the Act of Supremecy statute declaring himself the Supreme Head of the Church of England. England was now a firm member of the Reformation movement. | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Mary and her mother were banished from court and in 1534, Mary was legally demoted from a Princess to an illegitimate child with the title Lady Mary at the marriagable age of 18 forced to become a Lady-in-Waiting for her younger sister Elizabeth. A significant part of this punishment was almost certainly the refusal by Mary to recognize her own father as Head of the Church of England--then an executable offence under English statute. | |||||||||||||||||||||
| In a further act of cruelty, Henry VIII refused Mary to attend the funeral of her own mother --murdered by a poisoning orchestrated by one of the most beautiful women in the world at the time--Anne Boleyn in 1536. In all probability, the reasons were more to do with Henry trying to contain the immense political damage done by his beloved Anne in murdering so senior and respected Habsburg Queen consort. | |||||||||||||||||||||
| In any event, Anne Boleyn was executed soon after in 1536 on trumped up charges, designed to hide the obvious fact that she and her attendants were found guilty of the murder of Catherine of Aragon. Henry then restored Mary to the line of succession and downgraded Elizabeth of the status of Lady removing her from the line of succession. | |||||||||||||||||||||
| As testament to the repaired relationships between Henry and 20 year old Mary in 1536, Mary became godmother to Edward VI, the son of Jane Seymour whom Henry married soon after the execution of Anne Boleyn but died herself after childbirth--Mary as chief mourner at her funeral. | |||||||||||||||||||||
| In 1547, Henry died and was succeeded by his child son Edward VI. Mary once again found herself in danger at the hands of the Protestant nobles. When the Act of Uniformity 1549 was passed, prescribing Protestant rites for church services such as the use of Thomas Cranmer's Book of Common Prayer, Mary protested and demanded that she be permitted to remain faithful to Roman Catholicism--only granted after threats from her cousin Holy Roman Emperor Charles V. | |||||||||||||||||||||
| In July 1553, Edward VI died of tuberculosis. Guided by John Dudley, 1st Duke of Northumberland, Edward excluded both of his sisters from the line of succession--instead naming Dudley's daughter-in-law Lady Jane Grey as rightful Queen. | |||||||||||||||||||||
The plan failed and Lady Jane Grey was Queen for only a few days before Mary rode triumphantly into London on a wave of popular support to legally assume the crown at aged 37. The conspirators were arrested and John Dudley executed soon after. Mary then appointed Stephen Gardiner as her Lord Chancellor and Bishop of Winchester. |
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| Edward's religious laws were abolished by Mary's first Parliament in the Statute of Repeal Act (1553). Church doctrine was restored to the form it had taken in the 1547 Six Articles including the crime of death for heresy against the Vatican through the Revival of the Heresy Acts 1554. | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Under Mary, thousands died for the first time in England by the barbaric method of being burned alive beginning with Thomas Cranmer while Cardinal Reginald Pole was made her Archbishop of Cantebury. | |||||||||||||||||||||
| While beyond the optimum age for children, Mary still hoped to conceive a Catholic heir and in July 1554 married Prince Philip (later Philip II of Spain), son of Holy Roman Emperor Charles V. | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Rebellion immediate broke out by Protestant loyalists, with the Duke of Suffolk claiming his daughter Lady Jane Grey as Queen while Thomas Wyatt led a force from Kent to London on behalf of the claims of Elizabeth. Both rebellions were quickly crushed and Lady Jane Grey was finally executed. | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Mary was then to suffer the humiliation of two false pregnancies in 1554 and then in 1555--finally resulting in Philip leaving for Flanders to command his army against the French. The disgrace of her phantom pregnancies and the absence of her beloved husband sent Mary into deep depression. As a result, she became even more devoted to the cause of restoring the Catholic Church in England and eliminating Protestant dissent. | |||||||||||||||||||||
| In 1556, Philip became the new King of Spain upon his father's abdication and returned briefly to England to persuade Mary to support Spain in a war against France. She agreed, but the campaign turned out to be disasterous and the English lost Calais--the last remaining English continental possession in 1558. | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Mary died in the same year in November 1558. She was succeeded by her half sister Elizabeth. | |||||||||||||||||||||
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