MARY

Queen Mary 1st

Mary was 37 when she came to the throne having ousted Lady Jane with the popular support of the people. Her nickname was Bloody Mary because of the huge numbers of people she murdered to return England from its Protestant regime back to the Catholic faith. Women were not considered suitable to rule in these times and the Spanish ambassador to London under instructions from her cousin Charles 5th the then Holy Roman Emperor, advised her to marry the then most powerful king in Europe, his son, Philip 2nd of Spain.

Mary was desperate for a son but at her age it was not surprising that she never became pregnant. English Parliament never allowed Philip to call himself King of England as the thought of little but proud England becoming part of Spain was something to be avoided at all costs. 

Fortunately for England Mary died after only 6 years on the throne still having time to murder hundreds of innocent Protestants and others who were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. She was succeeded by her attractive and very popular younger sister Elizabeth.

Mary’s life in Chronological order.

1516 Mary was born in Greenwich London the first child of Henry 8th and the only child who lived mothered by Spanish princess and devout Catholic, Katherine of Aragon.

1533 At 17 Mary’s world suddenly falls apart. She finds that her beloved mother the Spanish Catholic Katherine is divorced by her father and banished to a cold damp disused castle in the remote countryside and Mary is not allowed to visit her. Her new stepmother Anne Boleyn is only 32 and Henry looses interest in his daughter who does not now live at court and dotes on his new baby girl Elizabeth. Mary grows to hate Elizabeth. To cap it all Mary is declared illegitimate on the grounds that her father and mother were never married as the Catholic Church rules that a man cannot marry his brothers widow. She looses her right to the throne and her title is no longer princess just simple Lady Mary.

1536 Mary is not sorry when her father murders her step mother Anne.

1537 Mary has a new step mother and a new brother Edward.

1540 Mary’s father produces her 4th step mother the illiterate but sexy Katherine Howard aged about 15. Mary is now 24. Katherine Howard allegedly sleeps around and is soon beheaded.

1543 Mary meets her 5th step mother Katherine Parr who successfully reunites her with her father, sister and brother.

1547 Mary is 31 and her father dies to be succeeded by her step brother the 9 year old devout Protestant, Edward fully supported by a Protestant Uncle and a Protestant Archbishop Thomas Cramner. Mary stubbornly remains a staunch Catholic.

1553 Edward dies and is succeeded by the Protestant friend of both Edward and sister Elizabeth, the 15 year old Lady Jane Grey who is already married to Gilford Dudley. Elizabeth is 20.

Mary lies low in her huge royal estates in Norfolk where the arch schemer and father of Gilford Dudley, the Earl of Warwick and Duke of Northumberland with a huge army march to capture her. Fortunately for Mary Northumberland’s followers desert him and Mary can herself march south to London where she is greeted by an enthusiastic crowd.

Mary’s first action is to put Gilford Dudley and Jane Grey in the Tower along with father Northumberland who is immediately hung drawn and quartered for treason.

Mary is crowned in Westminster Abbey on the 1st October 1553.

Mary then sets to restore the Catholic faith throughout England with the able support of  Cardinal Reginald Pole as the Popes Special Envoy. This is the start of her bloody campaign of ruthless murders of Bishops and Archbishops, Earls and Dukes and innocent bystanders including women and young children. Her cruelty shows no bounds. The people of England will not forget this killing in the name of the Roman Catholic Church for centuries.  

1554 Mary now 38 and a virgin, on the advice of her cousin and Holy Roman Emperor Charles 5th, marries his powerful Catholic son, Philip of Spain a widower and 11 years her junior. Mary is besotted by young Philip who does his duty by sleeping with her but is actually more interested in Elizabeth and one or two other ladies around the court.

The concept of Mary marrying the most powerful Catholic prince in the world caused a major uprising under Sir Thomas Wyatt of Kent who attacked London. Mary saved the day by promising not to marry Philip without the consent of Parliament. Wyatt is locked in the Tower along with Mary’s sister Princess Elizabeth who Mary does not trust. Mary then beheads Wyatt along with Lady Jane Grey and her young husband Gifford Dudley. 100 or so suspicious looking commoners are publicly hung to ensure the message is clear that Protestantism is out and Catholicism is back.

Unsurprisingly Philip who is not allowed to call himself King of England leaves the country for sunny Spain.

1555/6 Under Mary’s Bishop of London, Stephen Gardiner, Mary commenced her ruthless killings of all the top Protestant Bishops. Those who did not agree with the Popes supremacy and the concept of Transubstantiation were burnt at the stake.

Transubstantiation is the process which allegedly takes place during Catholic Mass when the bread and wine offered to the congregation morphs into the body and blood of Jesus when everybody can see that it doesn’t. Top Bishops murdered in this manner included Cramner, Ridley and Latimer at Oxford and Rogers in London and Hooper in Gloucester in all 280 devout new Protestant Christians.

1557 Quite soon after Mary’s marriage to Philip she declares she is pregnant but although her stomach swells, after some 12 months no baby appears. Many historians feel she must have had an ovarian cyst.  Philip, now also King of Spain, returns to England and persuades Mary to attack France with a joint Anglo Spanish force. France has no chance against such odds but get their own back by capturing England’s last held territory in France the town port of Calais. This town which has been in English hands for hundreds of years is never retrieved.

1558 Mary dies in November in St James Palace London aged 42 and is immediately succeeded her younger sister the 25 year old and popular, religiously open minded but Protestant leaning Elizabeth