Mary Tudor was not Myra Hindley

Mr G Harrison

The English, unlike the French, do not tend to add epithets to the names of their monarchs. ‘Louis the Fat’, ‘Louis the Stammerer’ and ‘Louis the Do-nothing’ – the chances were, for a French king, that they would become known for a characteristic they would not have chosen for themselves. Mary Tudor is one of the few English monarchs to be landed with a nickname. Adding ‘Bloody’ to her name does her no favours and stands in stark contrast with her successor, ‘Good Queen Bess’. She has, however, been unfairly judged and far from being a religious zealot, hellbent on forcing the Counter-Reformation on an unwilling population, she should be seen as one of the greatest queens of her era (and, indeed, any era).

Context, perhaps in the case of all candidates to be the greatest queen, is crucial. Before considering Mary’s reign, we ought to remind ourselves of the circumstances she faced before becoming queen. Bastardised in 1533 when her mother’s marriage to Henry VIII was annulled, she grew up as, at best, a semi-detached member of the court. Associated with those who refused to acknowledge both Henry’s supremacy over the English Church and those who saw his marriage to Anne Boleyn as adulterous, she was largely a non-person for anyone with political ambitions. Her reintroduction to the court in the 1540s and the legal reversal of her illegitimacy did little to improve her position and when her younger half-brother inherited the throne in 1547, she was a pariah figure when she refused to give up her allegiance to orthodox Catholicism. When Edward VI died, very few would have predicted that Mary would take the throne. Apart from Tudor blood in her veins, the odds were stacked against her. The Church was populated by evangelical reformers, the Duke of Northumberland (acting as de facto regent) was a successful military leader and had the backing of the regency council, her opponents controlled the capital and Mary was a woman. It is difficult to overstate the obstacle posed by her sex. England had never had a queen regnant (Matilda cannot qualify as such). Women were not trusted with political roles and save for Catherine of Aragon’s activities during the First French War of 1512-14, there was no precedent for what John Knox was later to call the ‘monstrous regiment of women’. Yet she prevailed. Northumberland’s support faded, London opened its doors to her and she was able to replace the usurper, Lady Jane Grey, with the minimum of force.

The reason Mary was able to beat the odds was largely down to her personal qualities and that’s why she qualifies as a strong candidate to be the greatest queen.

Her determination to claim the throne came from within: she was not the puppet of an aristocratic faction but the instigator and leader of her own campaign. True, she had the Tudor name, but if possession is nine tenths of the law, her opponents had a grip on the treasury, the nation’s armouries and religious apparatus. Once in power, it was her hand on the tiller. Advised by both her own Privy Council and also by parliament that it would be folly to marry Philip of Spain, she nevertheless married him. Warned about the dangers of entering the Franco-Spanish War (and particularly on the Spanish side), she took her country to war against France. Faced with a Church hierarchy largely populated by reformers, she took England back to Rome and restored as much of Catholicism as was practicable. There was a terrible human cost to these actions, magnified by her short five year reign, but judged by the standards of the century, she was no more bloodthirsty than her father. Henry’s response to the Pilgrimage of Grace had been blunt and brutal, with hundreds hanged. Burning so-called heretics both pre- and post-dated her reign and it is illogical to cast Mary as an anti-hero but rejoice in the actions of her half-sister, who had a cousin judicially murdered, priests burned and witnesses pressed to death largely in acts of royal self-preservation. Mary had guts, she understood that monarchs need to rule as well as to reign and she had a very clear sense of the realm she wanted to create. She set an example for English monarchs generally, not simply for queens.

If the argument for Mary does not persuade, then there is always Queenie, who ran a sweetie shop near Fye Bridge in Norwich from the 1950s to 1980s. Queenie’s face was covered in a white powder which was tinged pink as the massive rouge circles she put on her cheeks merged with the rest of her make-up. She seldom spoke but her collection of glass jars was the best in the city. Humbugs, sherbet lemons, pear drops, cola cubes, rhubarb and custards, strawberry bonbons, blackjacks and gobstoppers: who needs the flummery of a court when the shelves offer all the colours of the rainbow for eight pence a quarter? Sadly, her reign came to an end when she was sold to a travelling circus and the shop was redeveloped as Norwich’s first ever while-u-wait massage parlour.