Known as a Catholic tyrant and branded a religious bigot for her ferocious persecution of Protestants, Mary I is a monarch who continues to divide opinions, 500 years after her death.
Mary seized the throne with unprecedented ambition, from those who sought to thwart her.
In what was to be a futile attempt to restore Catholicism in England, she is notorious for brutally burning around 300 Protestant heretics at the stake, over her short 5 year reign.
During the first year of her reign, many prominent Protestants fled abroad, but those who stayed behind and persisted in publicly proclaiming their beliefs, became targets of heresy laws that carried a brutal punishment ~ burning at the stake.
Such a death was an undoubtedly horrific sentence.
But in Tudor England, bloody punishments were normal.
ExEcution methods rangef from b~heading to boiling, burning at the stake, and being hanged, drawn and quartered.
Burning was the method used for heretics.
Death by burning at the stake gave recalcitrant heretics a taste of hellfire, offering them one final chance to recant and save their souls.
Mary and her advisors hoped the initial spate of burnings would act as a “short, sharp shock” warning errant Protestants to return to the fold of the “true” faith.
Languishing between those two giants of history, Henry VIII and Elizabeth I, many consider Mary’s reign unimaginative and ineffectual in comparison.
Disastrous war campaigns, epitomised by England’s loss of Calais in 1558, also designated Mary a military failure.
With an equally tragic personal life, thrust around by the whims of her father, a tempestuous relationship with her half-brother and outshone by her half-sister, there were significant periods where Mary was ostracised, bastardised and vilified.
Her marriage to Philip II of Spain, was loveless and extremely unpopular with the public.
Philip sought the union only for its political and strategic gains, Mary viewed the union as love, and hopes of a family.
To Mary’s distress the marriage did not produce the heir she so desperately desired and needed.
Plagued by gynaecological illnesses and heartbroken after suffering at least one phantom pregnancy, she was abandoned by Philip and subjected to national ridicule.
Her early death, not long after the loss of Calais, and in the midst of a flu epidemic and a disastrous harvest, only sealed her reputation as a disgraced, stubborn, vengeful queen.
In reality ‘Bloody Mary’ cuts quite a sad, and lonely figure.
Mary was England’s first acknowledged queen regnant.
In a world dominated by men, Queen Mary had to establish herself as a strong female monarch, able to rule a country.
She redefined royal ritual and law, with her 1554 Act of Parliament which declared that a female ruler, married or unmarried, would enjoy identical power and authority to a male monarch.
Even when she married Philip, she ensured that any Spanish influence was kept to a minimum, and that her legal rights as queen were upheld.
Often overlooked are the great advances Mary made during her relatively short time on the throne.
She restored the navy, introduced policies of fiscal reform, established new hospitals, and improved the education of the clergy.
While Mary left a terrible memory of religious persecution, she may not previously have been given the credit and recognition she deserves.
Her turbulent life was one of tragedy and triumph, insecurity and stubbornness.
Although her rule was ultimately ineffectual and unpopular, there were occasions where she proved her herself to be a courageous leader.
Mary around 28 years old, in 1544 by Master John.
