J.P.Sommerville

 

 

Queen Mary

 

bullet Mary was born in 1516 and given a humanist education. In 1534, she was declared illegitimate, but in 1544 Henry VIII restored her in the succession to the crown.
bullet Mary was half-Spanish, and on her accession she soon made it clear to Charles V's ambassadors that she wanted a Spanish husband.
 


Elizabeth in 1546

 One reason why Mary was eager to marry and bear a son was that she was well aware of the Protestant sympathies of Princess Elizabeth - Anne Boleyn's daughter and heir presumptive to the throne. Mary was already thirty-seven years old and needed to marry quickly if she were to have any chance of bearing an heir to the throne.
 

bullet A few prospective husbands were suggested as an alternative to an Hapsburg alliance. One was Reginald Pole:  although a Cardinal in the Catholic Church, Pole was not a priest. As the son of Margaret (daughter of George, Duke of Clarence) he was a descendant of the House of York, but he was fifty-three years old and reluctant to marry.
bullet Another name mentioned was that of Edward Courtenay, Earl of Devon. He too was of royal blood, for his mother was Catherine (daughter of Edward IV), but he was ten years younger than Mary, had spent most of his life in the Tower, and was generally regarded as rather stupid.
bullet

Without bothering to consult her Privy Council, Mary agreed in October 1553 to marry Philip - son of Charles V and heir to the thrones of Spain and the Netherlands.

 

 

bullet Mary's Privy Council (many of whom had also served under Northumberland) were unhappy with a foreign king, and public opinion too was hostile. The terms of the marriage treaty aimed to prevent Philip controlling appointment to English offices and to avoid English involvement in Spain's wars.
 
Philip II (1527-98) had been married once already to Maria of Portugal (1527-45).
He arrived in England in the summer of 1554 and stayed until September 1555. Mary soon fondly hoped herself pregnant, - in fact her symptoms were those of the uterine cancer that was killing her. Philip returned briefly to England in March 1557.


 
bullet Although Philip II exercised very little influence over the English government and its policies, the fact of the marriage itself convinced many people that England was being subordinated to Spanish interests.

Mary's religious policies

bullet Throughout the many changes instituted by Henry VIII and Edward VI, Mary had remained staunchly Catholic. She now regarded the restoration of the English church to Catholic orthodoxy as her main task.
bullet Parliament was summoned in October 1553 and all the ecclesiastical legislation of Edward VI was repealed. This restored the church to its position of 1547, but left the royal supremacy and the breach with Rome.
bullet Another Parliament was summoned in November 1554 and this was persuaded to repeal all the statues passed since 1529 against papal supremacy. (Parliament's compliance stemmed from Mary's assurances that the monastic lands would remain untouched).
bullet The same Parliament revived the heresy laws and extended the definition of treason.
A woodcut from Foxe's Book of Martyrs depicting the burning in May 1555 of John Cardmaker and John Warne.
(Warne tells the assembled crowd to "Bewar[e] of Idolatry".)
 

bullet Between February 1555 and November 1558, about three hundred people were burnt for heresy. These included a few prominent leaders (such as Archbishop Cranmer, Bishop Hugh Latimer and Bishop John Ridley), but most of those who died were mere artisans.
bullet Activity against Protestants was highest in the South East of England and East Anglia, but many areas were affected:
 

bullet Far fewer people were burnt proportionally than in Continental European repression. However, the burnings were concentrated in time and unprecedented by English standards. The executions became increasingly unpopular and promoted the Protestant cause rather than the Catholic one.
bullet Mary did appoint committed Catholics as bishops, but plans to improve the educational level of the parish clergy made little progress during Mary's short reign.
 

 

Society and economy under Mary

bulletEnglish voyages of exploration begun by Cabot continued under Mary.
 

Richard Chancellor and Sir Hugh Willoughby tried to discover a north-eastern route by sea to Asia, but without success. Willoughby died of exposure in Lapland, but Chancellor reached the White Sea and traveled by land to Muscovy, where he established links with Ivan IV.
In 1555, a Charter was issued to the Muscovy Company giving it exclusive trading rights in the region. Further expeditions were made in 1556, 1568 and 1580.
 

bullet New trade routes for English cloth were opened in Africa - especially Morocco, which provided sugar and saltpeter, and Guinea, a source of gold.
bullet Mary's government had good relations with England's merchants, and were able to increase both the level of custom duties and the number of commodities on which duty was assessed. The new Book of Rates was introduced in 1558 - a boon for Elizabeth, but too late to benefit Mary.
 
Elizabeth was also the beneficiary of Mary's continued efforts to restore the currency to purity. Mary issued fine silver coins and devised a plan to withdraw debased coins that came to fruition in 1560-61.

 
bullet The years 1555 and 1556 saw very bad weather (floods in Fall 1555, followed by drought in Spring 1556). This caused extremely poor harvests. The debilitated population was also hit by an epidemic of influenza that killed about in twenty of the population.
bullet The bad economic conditions did not spark peasant unrest. The one serious revolt of Mary's reign stemmed from religious and political discontent.