Bloody Mary And "The Virgin Queen"

"Bloody Mary and the "Virgin Queen"

Mary and Elizabeth Tudor were both, by all accounts, strong and intelligent women endowed with many of the qualities that mark a successful ruler. However, only Elizabeth's legacy is a positive one; her reign has been called the "Golden Age" of England, and she remains a heroine in popular history and even modern film. Mary's reign is scowled at, and seen by most as a brief unpleasant period preceding the glorious ascension of Elizabeth. To account for this, one can examine each sovereign's maternal influences, governing styles, and choices regarding marriage.

Maternal Influence

Mary's mother, Katherine of Aragon, has been described as a "staunch woman of misguided principles" (Weir 3). Betrothed to the English prince Arthur at the age of three, and sent from her homeland of Spain during adolescence, Katherine was accustomed to unquestioningly following the orders of her father (Weir 22). This was the normal course for a woman of that day, and Katherine remained obedient and subservient, in most meaningful ways, to men all her life. She admired her mother, Isabella, as the "supreme example of Christian queenship" and piety, and sought to emulate her (Weir 20). During her widowhood following Arthur's death only 6 months into their marriage, Katherine became "the pawn of ambitious men" determined to use her availability to serve their own political interests (Weir 51). Eventually, it was decided that Katherine should marry Henry VIII, the new heir to the English throne. Upon this marriage, Katherine adopted the motto "Humble and Loyal", which fairly accurately described her behavior through their alliance, which was plagued by Henry's well-known infidelity (Weir 81, 107). She took comfort in her daughter, Mary, whom she made certain received the very best religious instruction, as befitted a future Catholic queen (127). When Henry sought an annulment of their marriage in order to re-marry and perhaps father a male heir, Katherine begged at his feet for justice (200). Though she felt her position as queen was blessed by God, and refused to accept the annulment or recognize Henry's new queen, she bore Henry's indignities with saintly patience until her death. She also "[bid Mary] to obey her father in all things save those that touched her conscience" (Weir 261). In this way Mary was presented with a feminine ideal that called for piety and strength, but also extreme obedience to male authority.

Not so Elizabeth Tudor. Though she was but a child when her mother, Anne Boleyn was executed, Elizabeth was undoubtedly influenced by both the relationship between her parents and the infamous downfall of her mother. Anne Boleyn was "an ambitious adventuress with a penchant for vengeance" (Weir 3). She used the novel lure of chastity to enrapture the king, spurring him to take drastic measures in order to bring her to the throne (Weir 173). She handled him with such "calculated cleverness" that, for a time, the powerful man was completely under her spell (Weir 173). However, after their marriage Anne failed not only to produce a male heir, but to act as a proper wife as well. "She was demonstrably unsuited to her role, and incapable of playing the part of a docile, submissive wife" (Weir 144). Once they were married, and her powerful sexual hold was weakened, Henry began to lose patience with Anne's obstinate pretensions of control and challenges to his authority. When she criticized him for his frequent infidelity, he "brutally advised herÐ'...to shut her eyes as her betters had done" (Weir 11). Yes, though he enjoyed the thrill of chasing one so stubborn and clever, Henry demanded obedience from a wife. Popular opinion was also against her, and when Elizabeth was born, though she was "Henry's recognized heir" she was not "the welcome one", people still preferring the castaway Katherine and her daughter, Mary (Weir 259). As she lost her hold on Henry, Anne lost all of her power and influence. Very few mourned her when she was executed on trumped-up charges of adultery. Elizabeth, it might be supposed, took to heart both her mother's extremely clever strategic influence that made her great, and her ultimate fall at the mercy of men with whom she had lost favor. Anne Boleyn is a good example of a woman of that age who, though possessing supreme cunning, wit and ambition, was still expected to submit to subjugation by men.

Mary's Reign

Mary Tudor lived her life on the fringe of royalty, deeply absorbed in religious devotion and the admiration of her pious mother (Erickson 148). She was 37 years old and unmarried when she took the throne; most likely believing that such an event was highly unlikely after so many years of relative isolation. She believed it to be somewhat of a miracle, and that her ascension had come "through divine intervention"(Erickson 305). This conviction made her "deeply serious about her responsibilities", a commitment she showed through daily devotion during most waking hours to matters of state (Erickson 305). Mary had inherited a country in peril. "As her reign opened, England stood lower in the estimation of the European states than at any time since the War of the Roses" (Erickson 315). Thus she began serious reforms, which would plunge the country deeper into debt but prevent inflation and foreign debasement of the English currency (Erickson 315).

Mary believed it was her destiny to "bring England back to the true faith", and though she at first professed the tolerant attitude that she "wished to force no one to go to mass" she soon began to enforce the restoration of Catholicism with the great fervor that was to mar her legacy (Erickson 309). She contracted a matrimonial alliance with her nephew Philip, another Catholic monarch (Erickson 331). Their marriage caused a general outcry; the British did not favor Spaniards and feared that, upon their union, Philip would rule England as king; or that, if she died childless, he would seek to seize the throne for himself and his future heirs (337). This seemed a valid fear in light of Mary's traditional feminine deference to male authority, but Mary declared that she would "wholly love and obey the man she married, following the divine commandment, and would not in any way act against his will, but if he tried to interfere with the government of the kingdom she would have to prevent it at all costs" (Erickson 333). For some, this was not enough; and the marriage contract specified that Phillip could not succeed. Thus,