Born 1516 – Died 1558 • Queen of England and Ireland 1553 - 1558

Mary I was the Queen of England and Ireland from July 1553 until her death. Her executions of Protestants led to the posthumous sobriquet "Bloody Mary".

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She was the only child of Henry VIII and his first wife Catherine of Aragon to survive to adulthood. Her younger half-brother Edward VI (son of Henry and Jane Seymour) succeeded their father in 1547.

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When Edward became mortally ill in 1553, he attempted to remove Mary from the line of succession because of religious differences. On his death their first cousin once removed, Lady Jane Grey, was proclaimed queen. Mary assembled a force in East Anglia and deposed Jane, who was ultimately beheaded. Mary was—excluding the disputed reigns of Jane and the Empress Matilda—the first queen regnant of England. In 1554, Mary married Philip of Spain, becoming queen consort of Habsburg Spain on his accession in 1556.

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Mary is remembered for her restoration of Roman Catholicism after her half-brother's short-lived Protestant reign. During her five-year reign, she had over 280 religious dissenters burned at the stake in the Marian persecutions. After her death in 1558, her re-establishment of Roman Catholicism was reversed by her younger half-sister and successor Elizabeth I, daughter of Henry and Anne Boleyn.

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At her funeral service, John White, bishop of Winchester, praised Mary: "She was a king's daughter; she was a king's sister; she was a king's wife. She was a queen, and by the same title a king also." She was the first woman to succeed in claiming the throne of England, despite competing claims and determined opposition, and enjoyed popular support and sympathy during the earliest parts of her reign, especially from the Roman Catholics of England.

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Catholic historians, such as John Lingard, thought Mary's policies failed not because they were wrong but because she had too short a reign to establish them and because of natural disasters beyond her control. However, her marriage to Philip was unpopular among her subjects and her religious policies resulted in deep-seated resentment. The military losses in France, poor weather, and failed harvests increased public discontent. Philip spent most of his time abroad, while his wife remained in England, leaving her depressed at his absence and undermined by their inability to have children. After Mary's death, he sought to marry Elizabeth but she refused him. Thirty years later, he sent the Spanish Armada to overthrow her, without success.

Coat of Arms of Mary I, combined with those of her husband, Philip II of Spain.

Source: wikipedia.org

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