Just want to dedicate a post to Queen Mary I of England for a hot minute.
Mary has such a bad reputation: merciless, frothing at the mouth with religious zealotry, the dark to Elizabeth I’s light. We have John Foxe’s Book of Martyrs to thank for this, a work published a couple of decades after Mary’s death and loaded with misogyny and anti-Catholic sentiment. He called Mary’s reign “bloody” and thus, she gained her lasting sobriquet of “Bloody Mary”. In the early 2000s, Mary’s sister, Elizabeth, won a top spot in a poll held by the BBC called “100 Greatest Britons.” Contrastingly, Channel 4 held a similar poll at the same time called “100 Most Evil Britons” of which Mary was a number. ranking alongside and above literal murderers and criminals. Even today, we take Protestant propaganda (fiercely anti-woman, might I add) seriously and this idea of a bloodthirsty, flame-haired tyrant has entered the popular imagination in Britain and by extension, quite a fair portion of the Western world. Mary was polarising, complicated, occasionally difficult but to me, she ranks as one of the most severely maligned monarchs (and women) in history.
Remember her, now, with this singular fact in mind: she was the first legitimate and undisputed female monarch in English history. And what’s more, she successfully WON her throne by force, one of the only times this had been successful in the history of England. Mary essentially could’ve used a legal loophole and ruled above the law and above Parliament because all legislation regarding the power and authority of monarchy in England up until this point explicitly referred to the rights of men and the rights of kings. Instead, though, in 1554, Mary passed the Act of Regal Power, an incredibly important but forgotten act. This stated in absolute terms that female rulers in England had the exact same rights and amount of authority as their male predecessors. It was her idea, because she believed she was equally as a capable as a king and because she knew that kingdoms needed a basis of guidelines for authority. Later, when Elizabeth came to the throne, this act was incredibly helpful and allowed for a fairly smooth transition. Mary had essentially legitimised all female monarchical power for her subsequent successors. There were other times she proved to be so much more than an empty-headed bigot. She promised her people that she wouldn’t marry Philip of Spain without Parliament’s consent. She reminded everyone that she came from a long line of powerful females (her grandmother was Isabella of Castile, after all). She was, at first, perfectly prepared to spare innocent Lady Jane Grey and only punish the men who had manipulated Jane into taking the throne from Mary in the first place and was only forced to execute her when poor Jane became a focal point for shoddy, badly planned rebellions. And, during her coronation, Mary was crowned as both queen regnant and queen consort as a kind of answer to all those who asserted that the ceremony of kings couldn’t possibly apply to a woman (Elizabeth would be thankful for this move years later, too). She frequently flitted between whether she wanted to dominate or hold back but she was utterly convinced that she could do as good a job as a man.
As for her religious policy that she often gets called up on: it was not all about burning heretics. In fact, it was mainly preoccupied with re-education in order to introduce Catholicism as the dominant religion of England. It would be gradual and Mary knew this. She was a figurehead of the 16th century Counter-Reformation, so often painted as something entirely masculine. The burnings were atrocious, of course, and mainly acted as a deterrent. But you have to remember that burning was the accepted punishment for heresy in Europe at this time and was carried out before Mary and after her. The only difference for Mary is ferocity: however, this makes sense since Mary only reigned for 5 years. Nowadays, Marian historians agree that had Mary lived longer, her religious reforms would’ve been incredibly successful and secure and she could’ve reigned as a fairly peaceful and enlightened Catholic monarch.
That being said, Mary could be unfair and cruel. She occasionally let her bitterness about the tragedy of her childhood override what was probably the right thing to do. For example, Mary offered all the Protestant heretics a chance to recant and be saved EXCEPT for Archbishop Thomas Cranmer, who recanted twice but to no avail. Mary had no mercy for him because he was one of the main reasons behind her bastardisation and subsequent mistreatment by her father. She hated him and it showed.
But the major criticisms of Mary fall pretty flat when studied carefully and it is a damn shame that those criticisms have been so pervasive and continue to lead a character assassination on her legacy. If anything, we should feel pity for Mary. She famously said she had not been born for happiness, as she spent most of her life trying to make up for the love she had been denied by her father, who had once called her the pearl of his world until he decided that her existence was worth tuppence next to that of a son. She doted on her husband who, in turn, saw her as a bit of an unattractive blip and rather insultingly proposed marriage to her younger sister very soon after Mary’s death (Elizabeth tartly refused and became Phillip’s greatest enemy). But I think, above all, we should regard Mary as a milestone in the history of female authority and thank her for laying one of the foundation stones of equalising the power between men and women.
Not to mention she knew damn well how to get her way. She played the commonly accepted role of a weak and emotional female to perfection. At one of her first council meetings as Queen she dropped on her knees and, tears in her eyes, told them that she was a mere woman who had found herself in an extraordinary position. She moved that room of old men to tears and of course she garnered their support because who wouldn’t support a fragile and incapable little woman in a time of need,right? She knew exactly what she was doing. Yes she did regrettable things. But she was also the first Queen regnant England ever had. She was an extremely strong person who, like her sister Elizabeth, went through absolute hell and psychological suffering to get what was hers by right. Had she been born a boy it would have been handed to her on a silver platter. But whether they liked it or not, the Tudors bred some astonishing women. And no, this post isn’t anti-Elizabeth. You can support one woman without tearing down another.
