Research Paper On Blood Queen Mary

Mary I of England
Mary Tudor of England, more commonly known as Bloody Mary, ruled England and Ireland from July 1553 to November 1558. She was the first daughter of King Henry the eighth, who famously broke away from the Catholic Church and formed the Church of England (Edmonds). Henry’s actions lead to the progression of reformation and expanding the protestant religion across England. Mary though, was extremely catholic and was always loyal to her faith; she wanted to restore Papal Supremacy and bring Catholicism back to England (Loach). This is why many people did not support her and did not want her to take over as Queen. Eventually, when she did take over she became the first Queen of England who didn’t reign because of marriage to a king. Bloody Mary had many negatively viewed actions during her reign, including her marriage, failed pregnancy, religion, and war failures.

Bloody Mary was born in Greenwich, London on February 18, 1516. Her mother was Catherine of Aragon, and her father was King Henry Eighth. It is well known that King Henry broke away from the Catholic Church just so he could divorce Mary’s mother (Edmonds). After the divorce Mary lost the title of Princess Mary and was downgraded to Lady Mary, she also was forbidden by her father to see her mother. She also was temporarily removed from the English line of succession after an act of Parliament declared her illegitimate in September 1533. Mary was added back to the line of succession ten years later in 1543 by another act of Parliament and her Father. Despite all of that, she received a great education, she learned could speak spanish, french, and latin. History tries to make Mary seem like a morbid person, when in reality she was a very cheerful and gossipy person who loved to dance (Eamon). Her Catholic faith led to her having conflicts with her Protestant half brother Edward the Sixth who became king after their father's death in 1547. Edward attempted to remove her from the line of succession because of the religious differences. When Edward died in 1553, he named his protestant cousin Lady Jane Grey his successor while on his deathbed. Her reign lasted only nine days as Mary gathered enough support to overthrow her and become Queen (Gerhardt).
Queen Mary did many things that can be looked at as negatives during her reign.

It started when she married Philip II of Spain, this marriage upset many people and led to a revolt (Stewart). This revolt was led by Sir Thomas Wyatt the Younger who was the son of Thomas Wyatt a famous poet. The rebellion gained much support, but Mary ended it quickly when she sent out a large force to stop it (Gerhardt). She then had Wyatt executed and sent her half sister Elizabeth to the Tower of London due to suspicions of involvement with the rebellion. Mary is also negatively looked upon for her pregnancy issues (Gerhardt). She wanted to have a child to secure that Elizabeth would not succeed her, and in September 1554 she showed all the signs of pregnancy. A few months later in April news spread that she has given birth to a boy, but in reality she had no child. It took her a few more months to accept that she wasn’t pregnant and this lead to her saying that her failed pregnancy was God’s punishment for tolerating Heresy. Her pregnancy was looked at as a laughing stock and it made her look really

bad.
Mary Tudor is also unsuccessful in war, in 1557 she was dragged into the Italian war. She only joined the war to support her husband Philip II who was leading Spain. This was a terrible decision because they would do terrible in the war and would lose Calais, their last territory in France, in January of 1558. Bloody Mary is most famous for her killings of over 300 poor protestant men, women, and Children through her five year reign (Eamon). Mary was very Catholic and wanted to reverse the Reformation. She tried to do this in England by reviving old heresy laws, where if you didn’t follow the state religion you would be burned to death. Some of the other things she did to bring back Catholicism in England was she abandoned her title of head of the church, restored Papal Supremacy, and reintroduced Roman Catholic Bishops. These actions made her unliked because many English people were Protestants (Stewart). Her action failed mostly because after she died many people converted to Protestantism (Gerhardt).
In conclusion, Bloody mary was negatively viewed as Queen because of her marriage, pregnancy problems, war failures, and religious beliefs. All of these factors made her one of the most disliked and negatively viewed English Monarchs. Her disliked reign came to end on November 27, 1558, it is suspected that her death was caused by uterine cancer. This cancer may have been the cause for her inability to become pregnant. Mary Tudor will forever be remembered for her many negative actions even though she did do some positive things.