For which Mary I of England received the nickname "Bloody Mary": Bloodthirsty fanatic or victim of political intrigue

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

Mary was the first Queen of England to rule on her own and is best known as "Bloody Mary". She received this unfortunate nickname thanks to the fanatical persecution of Protestants, whom she burned at the stake by the hundreds as heretics. But was she really such a bloodthirsty religious fanatic? Yes, she executed many dissidents, but other monarchs executed no less. Maybe the fact is that Mary was a Catholic who was inherited by a Protestant in a country that was and remained Protestant. History, as they say, is written by the winners.

During her five-year reign, Mary I of England burned more than three hundred religious dissidents at the stake during the so-called persecution. These statistics seem eminently barbaric. But her own father, Henry VIII, executed nearly a hundred people for heresy. Her half-sister, Elizabeth I, also executed many people for their faith. So why is only Mary's name associated with religious persecution? Why did Elizabeth remain in history as a beloved queen, while Mary was so hated by her subjects?

Burning at the stake was a typical punishment for heresy

First, it is important to understand that all of Europe in the early modern era considered heresy to be an infection of the political body, which had to be destroyed in order not to poison society as a whole. Across Europe, the punishment for heresy was not only death, but the complete destruction of the corpses of heretics to prevent the use of their body parts for relics. Therefore, most of these people were burned, and their ashes were thrown into the river. In this regard, the choice of Mary to be burned at the stake as an execution was completely standard practice for that time.

Her sister, Elizabeth I, was much smarter in this regard. During her reign, those who were convicted of Catholicism, learning from the priests or hiding them, were recognized as traitors. They were punished accordingly - they were hanged and quartered. The idea here was that people could endlessly challenge religious beliefs, but no one could ever agree that cheating was permissible.

However, there is one person who may be responsible for Mary's reputation. This is the Protestant "martyrologist" John Fox. His bestseller Acts and Monuments, better known as Fox's Book of Martyrs, was a detailed account of every martyr who died for his faith at the hands of the Catholic Church. This work was first published in 1563 and went through four editions only during Fox's lifetime, which testifies to his frenzied popularity.

Although the work covered early Christian martyrs, the medieval Inquisition, and the suppressed Lollard heresy, it was the persecution under Mary I that received and still receives the most attention. This was partly due to the custom-made, highly detailed and colorful woodcuts. It depicted the gruesome torture of Protestant martyrs and their gruesome death, surrounded by flames. In the first edition of 1563, thirty of the fifty-seven illustrations depicted the execution of heretics during the reign of Mary.

Fox's creative power also grew because the martyrs fulfilled their religious destiny. Whether his sources were accurate or not (and many believe they weren't always entirely accurate), it's hard not to get emotional with such colorful descriptions. Particularly memorable are descriptions of the execution of some of Mary's early martyrs, Bishops Hugh Latimer and Nicholas Ridley. “And they set fire to Bishop Latimer and Bishop Ridley. Latimer told Ridley: "Calm down and endure: today we will light a candle of faith by the grace of God in England that will never go out."

When the fire broke out, Latimer suffocated and died quickly, but poor Ridley was less fortunate. The tree burned too much at his feet, and therefore he writhed in agony and repeatedly shouted: "Lord have mercy on me, let the flame descend on me, but I cannot burn out."

Protestant martyrs became powerful folklore

Fox's work, first published five years after the death of Queen Mary, was a huge success. Printed in the form of a huge tome, the second edition was ordered to be installed in every cathedral church. Church officials were required to place copies of it in their homes - for servants and guests. By the end of the 17th century, Fox's work began to be cut. They included only the most sensational episodes of torture and death. Thus, graphic stories about pious Protestant martyrs who obediently go to their deaths on the orders of the "tyrant" became the folklore of the English Reformation.

Maria died at the age of 42 in 1558 during a flu epidemic (although she also suffered from abdominal pain and may have had cancer of the uterus or ovaries). Her half-sister Elizabeth inherited the throne. She was Protestant and England remained a Protestant country. Despite the fact that the various sects of this religion were then so hostile that they plunged the kingdom into civil war, Catholicism or "papacy" was worse for everyone than anything else.

Read more about the beloved queen of the British, Elizabeth I, read in our article secrets of the biography of the virgin queen who refused Ivan the Terrible.