Queen Mary I as a Single Lady

Hello five day weekend! I am so happy to have the next five days off of my day job so I can concentrate on my writing! I am being a little to loose with the explanation marks, so let me get them all out of the way!!!!!!!!!! Okay. It is time to start Mary's reign as queen! (One slipped in and I can't be held responsible! Drats.)

Mary as Queen 

Mary had her coronation on October 1st, 1553 at Westminster Abbey. No one can say she wasted any time learning the ropes of being queen, for she got involved in political matters only days after becoming official.  Her first act that she wanted passed was one that made the marriage between her mother and father valid. No one disputed this act and it passed relatively quickly. I doubt many people ever truly believed that the marriage between Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon wasn't valid. The king's reasoning behind declaring it invalid was full of cracks, in an almost comical way. But Mary wasn't going to stop at this simple victory, she wanted to help bring her subjects back into the Church of Rome.

Westminster Abbey

Now there is perhaps nothing more annoying, then someone trying to force their beliefs on you. I live in a state where this type of shenanigans are happening all the time. What one must try to remember, while your contemplating punching a religious fanatic in the face, is that they truly believe that they are doing what is 'best' for you. Mary was doing what she thought was the best for her subjects, she wanted to save their souls for all eternity--the problem was that many of them didn't want to travel that road to salvation, but another. The second act that Mary wanted to pass would discontinue all religious reforms made during her younger brothers reign. Unlike the act revolving her parents, this act met with some resistance. Eventually, however, the act passed.

Edward Courtenay

The next thing that Queen Mary needed to do was find a husband--'stat'. An unmarried queen would never be able to rule, or so people thought, before Mary's younger sister, Elizabeth I took the throne. The people of England largely wished for Mary to wed Edward Courtenay, an interesting choice as he had been imprisoned in the Tower for most of his life. He was the popular choice because he was one of the last living members to the house of york, making him an englishman and not a foreigner. Mary, however, fell in love with the portrait of another man--Phillip of Spain. Going against the wishes of her subjects, not the best choice since she was already unpopular at the time, she would marry Philip.

Phillip II of Spain

Next post we will go through the ups and downs of their marriage, if you can even call it that, and end with Mary's death--making our first study complete. Be thinking about who you would like to hear of next, and if you have any opinions feel free to comment!

Happy Journeys,
Lady Thiessen
    

No Son for Henry

Henry VIII

Our dearest bloody Mary was born in the year 1516 to Henry Tudor and Catherine of Aragon at Greenwich Palace.  Even at her birth Mary was already looked down upon as a problem. Mary was a girl, and what Henry VIII needed was a boy. Henry desired a son who could carry on the succession and avoid another civil war like the War of the Roses. But alas Mary carried two X Chromosomes and was the only child to survive the coupling between Henry and his first wife. I have a strong opinion, that is based on very little fact, that there was something wrong with Henry's sperm. So many of his children were miscarried or still born. It did not matter the woman, this sad fate seemed to always be the case. And thus Mary carried two X Chromosomes and was the only child to survive the coupling between Henry and his first wife.

Catherine of Aragon

Greenwich Palace

Instead of the reality of the situation, that the man's reproductive contribution determines the sex of the child, Henry blamed his wife for the lack of a son. It was Catherine's job to give him a son and soon Henry became so frustrated that he saw his lack of heir as a punishment from God. While these thoughts were swimming around in the kings head along came a dark haired lady, Anne Boleyn, and she claimed she would be able to give him his hearts desire, a son. But Henry needed a son that was legitimate and that meant that Catherine was in the way. Henry started his lawyers on a quest to get an annulment from his first wife on the grounds that her previous marriage to his older brother had been consummated, which would have made their marriage null and void. Catherine would deny this consummation for the rest of her life and I happen to believe her, she was so religious it was surprising she even consummated her second marriage. Life perhaps would have been kinder to Catherine if she was not born to a royal family and had entered a nunnery. Her God was her truest love.

The Catholic church refused to grant Henry VIII his divorce and so to make a long story short: Henry designed his own church. Once Catherine was out of the way, and their marriage deemed null, Mary too had to be declared a fraud and was stripped of her princess title. From the time of the annulment Mary would thus be referred to as 'The Lady Mary'. I can't imagine being the most important child in all the kingdom, the bell of a court such as Henry held, a princess one day and then being told that she was  a bastard the next. In order to deal with this sense of abandonment she did what her mother had taught her to and turned towards the church for comfort and reassurance. This strong bond with the church, perhaps the only stable thing in her life (stable for her, not the rest of the country that was split between the new church of England and the Catholic church of Rome), would latter be a big driving force towards the deaths she ordered that gave her the moniker 'Bloody Mary'.

Next time we will speed through the five other wives of Henry VIII and their relationship with Mary, along with her younger bother Edward's short reign.

Happy Journey's
Lady Thiessen