The First Queen of England: The Myth of "Bloody Mary" - Hardcover

Porter, Linda

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0312368372 ISBN 13: 9780312368371

Publisher: St. Martin's Press, 2008

Synopsis

In this groundbreaking new biography of “Bloody Mary,” Linda Porter brings to life a queen best remembered for burning hundreds of Protestant heretics at the stake, but whose passion, will, and sophistication have for centuries been overlooked.

Daughter of Henry VIII and Katherine of Aragon, wife of Philip of Spain, and sister of Edward VI, Mary Tudor was a cultured Renaissance princess. A Latin scholar and outstanding musician, her love of fashion was matched only by her zeal for gambling. It is the tragedy of Queen Mary that today, 450 years after her death, she remains the most hated, least understood monarch in English history.

Linda Porter’s pioneering new biography—based on contemporary documents and drawing from recent scholarship—cuts through the myths to reveal the truth about the first queen to rule England in her own right. Mary learned politics in a hard school, and was cruelly treated by her father and bullied by the strongmen of her brother, Edward VI. An audacious coup brought her to the throne, and she needed all her strong will and courage to keep it. Mary made a grand marriage to Philip of Spain, but her attempts to revitalize England at home and abroad were cut short by her premature death at the age of forty-two.  The first popular biography of Mary in thirty years, The First Queen of England offers a fascinating, controversial look at this much-maligned queen.

About this title

About the Author:

Linda Porter has a Ph.D. in history from the University of York, England.  During a varied career, she has lectured at universities in New York, worked as a journalist, and been a senior adviser on international public relations to a major telecommunications company. She was the winner of the 2004 Biographers Club/Daily Mail prize in England, which launched her on a new career as an author. She is married with one daughter and lives near London.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:

THE MYTH OF "BLOODY MARY"
PART ONEThe Tudor Rose 1516-1528Chapter OneDaughter of England, Child of Spain'God send and give good life and long ... unto the excellent Princess Mary'.Proclamation at Mary's christening, 20 February 1516She was the child who survived.The midwinter baby born in the small hours of Monday, 18 February 1516, was bonny enough to dispel any immediate fears for her survival. After a difficult labour, Katherine of Aragon, queen consort of England, must have dared to hope that her prayers for a healthy child had, at last, been answered. Katherine did not know that news of her father's death had arrived in London only two days earlier; it was deliberately kept from her so that she could approach her delivery calmly.In the seven years preceding the arrival of this daughter, Katherine had not produced the heir that either her father, Ferdinand of Aragon, or her husband expected of her. She had endured four miscarriages, one stillbirth and the death of an infant son who was not quite two months old. Seven years was a long time for England, a country so notoriously plagued by political upheaval and civil war, to be without an heir. This catalogue of failure had hit hard at the pride of Henry VIII's Spanish wife. Her deep religious faith and the determination she inherited from her parents, Ferdinand and his formidable wife, Isabella of Castile, had taught Katherine how to endure. Nor was Henry her first husband; that had been the doomed Arthur, Prince of Wales, Henry VIII's elder brother, who had left her a young widow in 1502. But in 1516 all the suffering ofthe past evaporated, at least temporarily, in the joyful realisation that she and Henry were, at last, parents.The king's undoubted relief was evident. And any regrets about the baby's sex were disguised as optimism for the future. 'We are still young,' Henry told the Venetian ambassador, whose mingled congratulations and commiserations on the birth of a daughter evidently pricked him.1 He expressed his confidence that, with God's will, sons would follow. But, at 31, Katherine was nearly six years older than her husband, and her gynaecological history was discouraging. What she privately thought of her chances we do not know but it was evident from the outset that she saw her daughter as England's heir.Katherine and Henry were well matched intellectually. They had both received the benefits of an education by the leading humanists of Europe, at a time when learning was considered an essential part of the preparation for leadership among royal families. Both were the children of royal houses that had teetered before establishing themselves and there was a distant bond of consanguinity, going back to the marriage of John of Gaunt with Constance of Castile. They had known each other since Henry was ten and Katherine 15, when he had escorted her down the aisle at her first wedding. But, in 1516, the fact that Katherine had been his dead brother's wife was never mentioned.Physically and temperamentally, however, the couple were completely different. Katherine had been a personable young woman, petite and slim. But years of pregnancies had now given her a figure that could optimistically be described as matronly. Her husband's French rival, Francis I, ungallantly described her as old and deformed, by which he meant that she was fat. After the birth of her daughter, she grew even fatter. On state occasions, resplendent in cloth of gold or silver and weighed down by expensive stones, she certainly had all the trappings of a queen, even if she did resemble a stout jewellery chest. She had always been a pious woman and still kept Spanish priests in her household. No one minded. Londoners, in particular, loved Katherine and her devotion to religion in her daily life was greatly admired.That Henry no longer found her attractive is not surprising. But he respected her and she was still a force in politics, especially foreign affairs. In the first years of his reign she guided him through the turbulent waters of international diplomacy, with the dual aim of supporting Spanish interests and shaping her young husband as a serious force in Europe. She was an effective and energetic regent during theFranco-Scottish wars of 1513. Henry probably knew what he owed her, though he may not have acknowledged it.Yet apart from a commitment to their regal responsibilities, they never had much in common. Henry's main pastime was sport.A tall and imposing figure at this stage of his life, Henry was a prince in his prime, handsome, gallant, a king to admire and revere. Katherine adored him and would do so until the day she died. He gave every appearance (and the appearance may have been misleading) of preferring the field and the joust to government. His personal favourites were bear-like men of little brain, such as Charles Brandon, duke of Suffolk, who had daringly married Henry's sister, Mary, without royal permission. He got away with it, and they continued to wrestle and ride in the lists, to hunt and backslap and enjoy the physicality of life. And while Henry was pursuing boar and deer in southern England, Katherine visited shrines, made offerings and prayed. Religious tourism was common in the early 16th century and it was one of the queen's major recreations. It also made her visible and popular.Henry was an extrovert who loved music and public display. Katherine dutifully sat beside him and looked gracious, but her mind was increasingly elsewhere. Until 1516 she had played the role of consort with great aplomb, but her body had let her down. She could conceive easily but not bear healthy children. If she thought God was displeased, she kept her fears to herself and she turned, more and more, to religion. On that winter's day in the red-brick palace of Greenwich, it seemed that her devotions had finally been rewarded. It is easy to imagine that she felt that, at last, she had succeeded.The little princess was named Mary, after her aunt, the beautiful and feisty star of Henry's court. Katherine and her sister-in-law were on very good terms and would remain so, but the queen was no doubt pleased at the choice of name for religious as well as family reasons. The child, small but pretty, already showed signs that she had inherited the red-gold hair of both her parents and the clear Tudor complexion. Few royal children can have been so longed for and so privileged. Her grandparents had been the foremost monarchs in Europe and her father was the epitome of a Renaissance prince. At the very least, she could expect to make an impressive marriage in Europe. If no son was born to Henry and Katherine, her future would be even grander. She would rule as England's first sovereign queen.This was a glorious prospect, but not necessarily an enviable one. Mary was born into a turbulent Europe, where even the great floweringof art, literature, music and thought that characterised the Renaissance could not disguise the harsh nature of political realities. The balance of power might change but warfare was not just endemic, it was a prized way of life for the aristocracy. Europeans faced an existence that, for most, was indeed brutal and short. Recurring bouts of pestilence swept over the continent, decimating populations often weakened by famine. In 1485, the year of the accession of Mary's grandfather, Henry VII, England suffered its first outbreak of the sweating sickness, a type of virulent influenza that tended to be more prevalent in the warmer months. It struck swiftly and with frightening effect, killing seemingly healthy people in the space of 24 hours. By the time of Mary's birth the sweat, as it was known, was well established as an annual hazard. Just as deadly as the spectre of disease were the vagaries of the weather. Drought and flood ruined harvests, bringing further misery, and even the rich and high born, with more mobility and better diets, could not be sure of survival. Henry VIII spent every summer evading sickness by moving around the south of England, keeping well clear of London. His success in this respect did not make him less of a hypochondriac.2In a Europe where life was so uncertain, the needs of the dead naturally occupied the minds of those who survived. The existence of God and the survival of the soul coloured the daily lives of everyone, from king to poorest peasant. Prayer was the means by which the living could intercede for departed loved ones, shortening their time in purgatory and eventually freeing them, it was hoped, from the torments of hell. These abstractions were absolute certainties for 16th-century people, for whom religion was as much a part of everyday existence as breathing and sleeping. But by the second decade of the century, there were many concerns about the role of the religious establishment that governed the earthly structure of religion. One minor aspect that would shortly acquire an unexpected significance was irritation at the idea that the soul could be speeded to its repose by the purchase of indulgences. This appealed to the gullible or just the plain lazy-prayer and Church ceremonial took up a lot of time-and it appealed to the Church's accountants even more. Everywhere, the power of the Church was evident and resented. The early 16th-century popes ran an enormously wealthy-and equally worldly-business enterprise. The Vatican was a byword for double-dealing, promiscuity and greed. Even the most devout sadly recognised that Rome was full of bankers and whores. As war leaders, the popes stood shoulder to shoulder with the kings of Europe and weredetermined, wherever possible, to profit from the conflicts that they so happily embraced.But these failings and uncertainties were nothing new and they did not dent the enthusiasm of the rich and powerful in Europe for the good things of the Renaissance. When Mary was born the early artists were beginning to pass. Botticelli had died in 1510 and Leonardo, a refugee from his native Tuscany, died in France when Mary was three. Michelangelo, on the other hand, was at the height of his powers, having completed the Sistine Chapel in 1512. Desiderius Erasmus, the greatest of the humanist thinkers, was thriving in northern Europe, patronised by Mary's father and his fellow-monarchs. In the year before Mary's birth, Thomas More wrote his discourse on the ideal political state, Utopia, ensuring that the credentials of the English as contributors to the new ideas would be taken seriously. Universities throughout the continent thrived.Yet amid this ferment, fundamental questions about the nature of the relationship between the Church and the state, as well as the Church and the individual, had yet to find an effective outlet. Their first serious expression came from an unlikely source, when Mary was just one year old. An Augustinian monk in Germany, besieged by self-doubt and irritated by a friar from a rival order who was flagrantly selling indulgences on his doorstep, decided to raise an academic debate about the obnoxious practice of buying one's way out of sin. His name was Martin Luther. He would change the world, and, with it, the course of Mary's life. 
 
The country into which Mary was born was regarded with varying amounts of condescension by its mainland European neighbours. The barbarity, duplicity and sheer effrontery of the English were often remarked upon. 'Pink, white and quarrelsome' was the splendid description of one group of disgusted Spanish visitors. England was not generally liked or respected in Europe. Ferdinand and Isabella considered it suitable only for their youngest daughter; they were not entirely convinced by the new dynasty's hold on power.When Mary was born, the Tudors had been ruling for only 30 years and Henry VIII's perception that his inheritance was not stable was real and alarming. England throughout Mary's lifetime was a dangerous, violent place, its political life characterised by faction and intrigue. Ambition could as easily bringdeath as power, and in this heated atmosphere men seldom kept their feelings in check. Tudor England was emotionally raw. It was not uncommon for blows to be exchanged in council meetings and Henry VIII himself apparently subjected his ministers to physical abuse. Cardinal Wolsey was known for his bad language; on one occasion he harassed a papal delegation who had come to see him and threatened them physically. Grown men wept readily, sometimes, no doubt, out of fear for their own survival. Ambassadors from France and Spain resident in London agreed on very little, but they both knew that you could not trust an English politician, no matter how much you paid him-and both countries often paid generously. The principled English politician seemed to be a contradiction in terms. Even worse were the general populace, a load of xenophobic drunks who would cut your throat sooner than offer you board and lodging.Mary's Spanish inheritance, on the other hand, though no less violent in some ways, placed her at the centre of the struggle for power in Europe. In understanding Mary herself, this part of her background is often misconstrued. Generations of English historians have been mightily displeased with the fact that Mary was half Spanish, as if this 'impurity' of blood, in contrast to the wholly English credentials of her half-sister, Elizabeth, was some sort of birth defect. Yet, in 16th-century Europe, where dynastic marriages were a vital part of the struggle for power, such a descent would have been viewed as an asset, not a liability. The English kings were unusual in marrying their own countrywomen. This 15th-century habit was a result of a combination of civil war and personal inclinations which had kept them out of the European marriage market, and out of European influence, during the long period between 1445, when Henry VI married Margaret of Anjou, and 1501, when Prince Arthur married Katherine of Aragon. In later life, Mary would find her Spanish ancestry a source of both solace and pride, and she would look to the power of her mother's family to give England a role in Europe that she believed would enhance, rather than detract from, its influence.Ferdinand and Isabella, Mary's grandparents, were, it has been said, the first 'power couple' in early modern Europe.3 Theirs was certainly an effective, if sometimes fraught, alliance. Isabella was a warrior queen, equally ruthless in the pursuit of power and of religious certainty. She saw off the stronger claims of her niece to the throne of Castile with as much single-mindedness as she undertook campaigning in the south ofSpain against the Moors. Her alliance with Ferdinand was politically expedient to both of them but does seem to have been characterised by passion, despite Ferdinand's infidelity. Isabella was a woman of great mental strength and physical determination. The inconvenience of successive pregnancies and a growing family did not stop her spending long months with her armies, much of the time on horseback. She was a woman untroubled by doubt and her narrowly focused vision did not permit her to recognise the damage done to Spanish culture by the destruction of its rich Moorish and Jewish heritage. In an intolerant age, Isabella was a true heir of the Crusaders, and fiercely proud of her achievements. Her portraits show a reserved but determined, almost ascetic woman. It is not hard to imagine her in a nun's habit, but Isabella's service to the Lord was offered outside the cloister, on the battlefields of Spain. Her calmness is evident in her face. She knew that God had given her victory.Nor does she ever seem to have questione...

About this edition

• Publisher: St. Martin's Press
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 0312368372
• ISBN 13: 9780312368371
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 464