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Mary Tudor: England's First Queen by Anna Whitelock
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Anna Whitelock
10 books77 followersAnna Whitelock gained her PhD in History from Corpus Christi College, Cambridge in 2004 with a thesis on the court of Mary I. Her articles and book reviews on various aspects of Tudor history have appeared in publications including the Guardian, the Times Literary Supplement and BBC History. She has taught at Cambridge University and is now a lecturer in Early Modern History at Royal Holloway, University of London.
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May 23, 2023
I wanted to read a sound biography of Queen Mary, the Tudor daughter of King Henry 8 and Katherine of Aragon, one that utilised recent research and document study. Two biographies were published close together at the start of this century, Mary Tudor the First Queen by Linda Porter and Mary Tudor England’s First Queen by Anna Whitelock. Porter published in 2007 and Whitelock in 2009; both claimed to be presenting a fresh new, fair biography, untainted by the old “bloody Mary” prejudices. Both were positively reviewed on publication, so it was unclear which might be considered the seminal work and therefore I decided to check both.
Having read them both, I don’t think there is much to separate their pictures of Mary or, for that matter, to separate the worth of the books themselves. I should say that the idea that writers had, until the arrival of either of these two works, presented a prejudicial anti-Marian portrait is, itself, not convincing. As far as I can see, a more balanced perspective has been in progress at least since early in the twentieth century. David Loades documents this in “The Reign of Mary Tudor: Historiography and Research” published in Albion: A Quarterly Journal Concerned with British Studies , (Winter, 1989, Vol. 21, No. 4 pp. 547-558), published a decade before either of these books. Porter acknowledges Loades’s work but still expresses the hope that her book “will persuade the sceptics that a historical reputation that has stood largely unchallenged for 450 years should be reconsidered.” And Whitelock claims that her book “seeks to resurrect the remarkable story of Mary, the first Queen of England.” Loades shows, in fact, that Catholic and Protestant apologists both weighed in on the argument in earlier times, although Elizabeth’s anger at her treatment by Mary, and her longevity after Mary’s death, meant that the anti-Mary analysis held sway for some time. But for the last two hundred years, historians have been producing balanced analyses.
Each of Porter and Whitelock includes some material absent in the other’s work. Having said that, I should note that Porter’s work is significantly bigger. My paperback edition of it comprises 418 pages, whereas Whitelock’s has 310. That additional 33% (and more, since Porter’s has more words per page) allows Porter to be more detailed. This is not necessarily always of benefit, but her additional detail on, for example, Katherine Parr’s marriage to Edward Seymour, the brother of Edward VI’s Lord Protector, Thomas Seymour, is valuable and it also sheds additional light on Mary. And when Seymour was ejected as Protector after a schism in the Privy Council, Porter notes that Seymour was accused by the other faction of claiming they had considered placing Mary as regent. This also is not mentioned by Whitelock – reasonably since it is a fairly obscure detail, not central to the story; nevertheless, it is an interesting obscure, non-central detail. On this count of thoroughness and detail, I am inclined to favour Porter. However, there are also some regards in which I do not.
My first issue is in regards to her tendency (and Whitelock is not immune to this, either) colourfully to create straw men to cut down: “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.” And, in dealing with Lady Jane Grey and her brief appearance in the landscape, Porter writes of “Protestant writers, seeking to make mileage from the picture they painted of an innocent girl sacrificed…” These generalizations remain unfootnoted, so uncheckable. And unconvincing.
My second concern with Porter is that she occasionally presents either fantasy or conjecture as part of the historical story. There is a curious “Prologue” in which a scene is described shortly after Edward VI’s death: “For a few seconds, she looks back over the events of her dramatic life. She has lost much and now stands to lose even more.” “All of this darts through her mind as she contemplates her situation.” “So she sits and prays for guidance, to the God her mother’s family has worshipped for centuries, as England itself did only six short years ago. And then it comes to her with absolute certainty that she will prevail. All the doubts and fears evaporate in that one moment of divine conviction. This time, at last, the Lord is with her. Besides, she has always loved a wager and there could be no greater gamble than the one she is now taking. She turns, smiling in the shadows, to the gentleman beside her and nods.” I suppose this is, at least, in the Prologue, and not in the main text, but it seems to me an unhelpful and self-indulgent piece of quasi-filmscript writing. Fortunately, she adopts a more conventional approach through most of the book. And generally acknowledges when she is guessing or assuming or, better still, noting that people’s thoughts, emotions and motives cannot be guessed at.
From time to time, some of the guesswork seems shakily-founded. Porter suggests that the absence of any specified account-entry indicates that the young Mary had no schoolmaster. That seems reasonable but she then decides that, at that time, Mary would not have been taught by her mother Katherine, but by her chaplain and, for Latin, the royal physician. Yet, a few pages later, as Mary heads off to Wales and some formal education, Porter quotes Katherine: “‘As for your writing in Latin, I am glad that ye shall change from me to Master Federstone [sic] , for that shall do you much good to learn by him to write aright’”
Porter and Whitelock both accept the line that the foremost idea in Henry VIII’s mind as he decided to divorce Katherine of Aragon was his own moral danger in being married to her, contrary to biblical teaching, and fathering a child with her. Certainly that was the story that Henry promulgated, but I have never encountered anything which has proven to me that it was not the case that (a) he was tired of Katherine; (b) he liked the look of Anne and tried to seduce her but was rebuffed unless he married her; (c) the whole soul-in-mortal-danger story was a convenient camouflage. When he splashed titles on his acknowledged illegitimate son, Henry Fitzroy, and sent Mary to Wales to learn about government, he seems to have been reasonably comfortable with the concept of either an illegitimate or a female heir.
Both these books provided me with a number of points that I shall retain as part of the Mary story.
1. Henry treated Mary with calculated harshness when he was trying to bully Katherine into separating; Mary identified totally with her mother and her mother’s Catholicism. This seems to have contributed to the intractability of Mary’s later Catholicism. It is notable how stubborn she was in resisting her powerful father’s threats, a characteristic that seems to have surprised Henry – although both he and Mary’s mother clearly passed on stubborn, fighting genes. Porter makes some interesting points about this: “but, tellingly, it was not until her own status was directly threatened that she publicly opposed her father.” “Most of those at court who dared to support Katherine, and later Mary, were women. The influence of this on the Princess has been under estimated. She saw that her mother had friends who were not self-serving, like the menfolk, but brave enough to stand up and be counted.”
“In some ways, it is astonishing that he let Mary's defiance last as long as he did. Yet his patience, or indecision, did Mary no good. She had the spirit of her Castilian grandmother but not her armies. The support, often only tacit, of a handful of courtiers could not help her win her battle. In retrospect, it might have been better for her if Henry's eventual brutality had been administered at once. The delay raised false hopes and developed in her a pattern of opposition based on conscience and self-identity, where suffering almost became a goal in itself. This was unhealthy and damaging to a woman subject to depression, who never subsequently understood that to be strong, rather than pragmatic, was not always the best option.”
When Anne became queen, life was probably even more difficult for Mary as Anne strove to be domineering, and nudged her husband into being vindictive. Porter shows how brutal the battle of wills was between Anne and Mary: “A more subtle woman might have considered outmanoeuvring Mary by occasionally bringing her to court, treating her with kindness and consideration and letting her show the world that, if she continued to defy her father, she was just a sulky, jealous child and a disobedient daughter. The new queen, who liked to be the centre of attention, feared Mary too much to follow such a strategy. Their meetings during Anne’s reign, though few, followed a predictable course. Anne attempted to reason with Mary, holding out the promise of better treatment; Mary invariably responded with scathing rudeness, as only someone brought up as a Princess could; Anne, her temper barely in check at most times, then got very angry indeed. But the moral victory was clear. It was always Mary’s.” Whitelock refers to an account that has Anne, shortly before her execution, apologising to Mary for the way she had treated her. Ultimately, Mary found that Anne’s demise did not lead to a change in the demands being made of her. She capitulated to her father and was partially reconciled with him, although he would still not have her titled as Princess. She was, however, recognised as legitimate and was made second to Edward in succession.
2. While Mary’s relationship with her father was characterised by the two implacables banging their heads together, she showed a subservient obedience towards her cousin, Charles V, King of Spain and the Netherlands and Holy Roman Emperor. Following her father’s treatment of her mother, her resistance to Henry, and Henry’s enforcement of obedience, her loyalty to Spain competed with her loyalty to England.
3. The 1536 Pilgrimage of Grace riots were put down savagely and it is suggested this motivated many to later ally themselves with Mary.
4. When Henry died, his son Edward VI continued with the reformation. At first, during the nine year-old’s minority, the nation was ruled by regency; Henry had intended this to be a council but it quickly became a one-man regency, under Edward Seymour, soon to become the Duke of Somerset. Both during the regency and when Edward, having reached his majority, ruled independently, Mary was subjected to the same pressures as she had been from Henry. She had been Edward’s godmother and a mother-figure in his infancy and she seems to have assumed that that hierarchy would continue even though he was now the king. In reality, Mary faced more of the same, while mistakenly believing that Edward’s reprimands were entirely dictated by the Privy Council, and that he would see things differently as he grew older. He didn’t; he found her patronising and he was hurt that his sister would stand up to his regal pronouncements.
5. In 1550, she persuaded the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V, to send ships for her escape from England. Porter argues that this was self-centred, with no regard for the future of Catholicism or for the later welfare of those who would assist her. When the ships arrived, she dithered, placing the participants in jeopardy. The situation was then managed by Robert Rochester, the controller of her household, who aborted the plan.
6. Mary’s strategy to take the crown after Edward’s death was masterly, but also fortunate. Moving quickly to avoid arrest, she set up a new base from which to send out friends to build up support both among the nobility and among the lower classes. None of the high nobility joined her, however. Meanwhile, the backers of Lady Jane Grey dithered and lost the advantage they had gained by making the first move.
7. After Edward’s death, Mary was strongly inclined to have him buried according to Catholic rites, believing this was the final gift she could give him. She was ultimately dissuaded from what would have been an act of utter disrespect for his beliefs, and agreed to a Protestant service; she had a private requiem mass for him in her chapel in the Tower.
8. As Queen, Mary was now in charge, but she almost played out with Elizabeth a mirror image of her fights with Henry, Anne and Edward,. Now, Mary was the one who was trying to impose her will, and Elizabeth was the one trying every strategy not to accept the imposition. There is a ringing irony in the way Mary was frustrated by Elizabeth’s non-compliance.
9. Mary initially offered the heretics (many of them ordinary people, not symbolic leaders) the chance to recant and avoid the flames. She and Cardinal Pole were surprised when so few did so and the offer was no longer made, and anyone comforting a heretic at the stake was to be imprisoned. Once again, the mental block which obscured the parallels between her and these heretics, seems extraordinary.
10. Mary’s mother, Katherine, had acted as Henry’s regent when he was at war with France, and she ruled very capably, including issuing an inspiration speech to the troops prior to their victory at Flodden Field.
11. Interestingly, Mary told the Spanish ambassador that it “would burden her conscience too heavily to allow a bastard to succeed”. She increasingly suspected that Elizabeth only went to mass “‘out of hypocrisy; she had not a single servant or maid of honour who was not a heretic, she talked every day with heretics and lent an ear to all their evil designs’”. Once again, one is struck by Mary’s inability to see the parallels between her and Elizabeth’s situations and actions. As she was dying, however, Mary confirmed the succession of the crown to Elizabeth.
12. Mary enjoyed the good life, loving fashionable clothes and, when able to do so, furnishing her homes stylishly.
13. Her marriage to Charles V’s son, Philip II, was a mess. She had lived independently and insisted she had no need of carnal pleasure, but she accepted that she had a duty to marry and produce an heir. When the marriage agreement was prepared, she insisted that Philip “leave to the queen the disposition of all offices, land and revenues of their dominions” and “ not promote to any office in England any foreigner…He shall make no innovation in the laws and customs of England”. Part of the pressure on her to marry evidently came because people were worried about the capacity of an unmarried woman to be an effective leader. Philip was unenthusiastic about the match, and was furious with the details of the agreement and claimed that he would follow it only out of loyalty to his father, and only until it conflicted with his conscience. After these unpropitious beginnings, once married, she could not bear his absences. At times she proved to be an effective leader, but, towards the end, her reliance on Philip’s presence, especially in the aftermath of the Wyatt/Carew conspiracy was hardly decisive leadership. And although the agreement stipulated that England would not become involved in the French-Spanish wars, she agreed to Philip’s demands for English troops and ships in 1557. Which ultimately led to England’s loss of its last foothold in France, Calais.
14. Mary and Philip’s wedding was held at Winchester Cathedral because of a concern that anti-Spanish opponents of the marriage would disrupt proceedings if it was in London.
15. There was support for Mary’s reintroduction of some of the “ bells and whistles” of Catholicism: “Her lords were happy for the ritual of the Catholic religion to be restored but they would not part with their wealth, nor were they keen to rush back to the jurisdiction of the papacy.” Too many of them had profited from the dissolution of the monasteries to agree to any restitution. Cardinal Pole hoped she would be more aggressive in her counter-reformation, but she evidently saw the dangers awaiting her.
By and large, both books are well-presented and edited, although some populist magazine lapses have slipped through in Porter’s: “Anne Boleyn is English history's most famous ‘other woman’, and before he became a wife-murderer…Henry VIII wrote her a series of beautiful letters”. “Wife-murderer”? I continued to be puzzled by Porter’s use of capitalisation: Mary was “head of a Church whose beliefs she did not share”, but the nobles’ titles, earls and dukes, are in lower case: the “earl of Surrey” and the “duke of Suffolk”. However, Lords are capitalised. Oddly, Katherine of Aragon is listed in the index as Katherine, but under “C”.
Porter’s work is marked by a certain cynicism which contributes to an overall balance; Whitelock’s, however, tends to hagiography at times: “a woman marked by suffering, devout in her faith and exceptional in her courage. From a childhood in which she was adored and feted and then violently rejected, a fighter was born. Her resolve almost cost her her life as her father, and then her brother, sought to subjugate her to their wills. Yet Mary maintained her faith and self-belief. Despite repeated attempts to deprive her of her life and her right to the throne, the warrior Princess turned victor, and became the warrior queen.” “Her queenship, which had lacked precedent, was defined in these moments with clarity, conviction and originality. She had pledged herself to her country in entirely feminine terms, but with an invocation of motherhood that was strong and resolute.”
There is not enough difference between Mary Tudor The First Queen and Mary Tudor England’s First Queen to warrant reading both. I think the better of the two, slightly, is Porter’s book, but for a shorter and more partisan work, Whitelock’s serves.
Having read them both, I don’t think there is much to separate their pictures of Mary or, for that matter, to separate the worth of the books themselves. I should say that the idea that writers had, until the arrival of either of these two works, presented a prejudicial anti-Marian portrait is, itself, not convincing. As far as I can see, a more balanced perspective has been in progress at least since early in the twentieth century. David Loades documents this in “The Reign of Mary Tudor: Historiography and Research” published in Albion: A Quarterly Journal Concerned with British Studies , (Winter, 1989, Vol. 21, No. 4 pp. 547-558), published a decade before either of these books. Porter acknowledges Loades’s work but still expresses the hope that her book “will persuade the sceptics that a historical reputation that has stood largely unchallenged for 450 years should be reconsidered.” And Whitelock claims that her book “seeks to resurrect the remarkable story of Mary, the first Queen of England.” Loades shows, in fact, that Catholic and Protestant apologists both weighed in on the argument in earlier times, although Elizabeth’s anger at her treatment by Mary, and her longevity after Mary’s death, meant that the anti-Mary analysis held sway for some time. But for the last two hundred years, historians have been producing balanced analyses.
Each of Porter and Whitelock includes some material absent in the other’s work. Having said that, I should note that Porter’s work is significantly bigger. My paperback edition of it comprises 418 pages, whereas Whitelock’s has 310. That additional 33% (and more, since Porter’s has more words per page) allows Porter to be more detailed. This is not necessarily always of benefit, but her additional detail on, for example, Katherine Parr’s marriage to Edward Seymour, the brother of Edward VI’s Lord Protector, Thomas Seymour, is valuable and it also sheds additional light on Mary. And when Seymour was ejected as Protector after a schism in the Privy Council, Porter notes that Seymour was accused by the other faction of claiming they had considered placing Mary as regent. This also is not mentioned by Whitelock – reasonably since it is a fairly obscure detail, not central to the story; nevertheless, it is an interesting obscure, non-central detail. On this count of thoroughness and detail, I am inclined to favour Porter. However, there are also some regards in which I do not.
My first issue is in regards to her tendency (and Whitelock is not immune to this, either) colourfully to create straw men to cut down: “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.” And, in dealing with Lady Jane Grey and her brief appearance in the landscape, Porter writes of “Protestant writers, seeking to make mileage from the picture they painted of an innocent girl sacrificed…” These generalizations remain unfootnoted, so uncheckable. And unconvincing.
My second concern with Porter is that she occasionally presents either fantasy or conjecture as part of the historical story. There is a curious “Prologue” in which a scene is described shortly after Edward VI’s death: “For a few seconds, she looks back over the events of her dramatic life. She has lost much and now stands to lose even more.” “All of this darts through her mind as she contemplates her situation.” “So she sits and prays for guidance, to the God her mother’s family has worshipped for centuries, as England itself did only six short years ago. And then it comes to her with absolute certainty that she will prevail. All the doubts and fears evaporate in that one moment of divine conviction. This time, at last, the Lord is with her. Besides, she has always loved a wager and there could be no greater gamble than the one she is now taking. She turns, smiling in the shadows, to the gentleman beside her and nods.” I suppose this is, at least, in the Prologue, and not in the main text, but it seems to me an unhelpful and self-indulgent piece of quasi-filmscript writing. Fortunately, she adopts a more conventional approach through most of the book. And generally acknowledges when she is guessing or assuming or, better still, noting that people’s thoughts, emotions and motives cannot be guessed at.
From time to time, some of the guesswork seems shakily-founded. Porter suggests that the absence of any specified account-entry indicates that the young Mary had no schoolmaster. That seems reasonable but she then decides that, at that time, Mary would not have been taught by her mother Katherine, but by her chaplain and, for Latin, the royal physician. Yet, a few pages later, as Mary heads off to Wales and some formal education, Porter quotes Katherine: “‘As for your writing in Latin, I am glad that ye shall change from me to Master Federstone [sic] , for that shall do you much good to learn by him to write aright’”
Porter and Whitelock both accept the line that the foremost idea in Henry VIII’s mind as he decided to divorce Katherine of Aragon was his own moral danger in being married to her, contrary to biblical teaching, and fathering a child with her. Certainly that was the story that Henry promulgated, but I have never encountered anything which has proven to me that it was not the case that (a) he was tired of Katherine; (b) he liked the look of Anne and tried to seduce her but was rebuffed unless he married her; (c) the whole soul-in-mortal-danger story was a convenient camouflage. When he splashed titles on his acknowledged illegitimate son, Henry Fitzroy, and sent Mary to Wales to learn about government, he seems to have been reasonably comfortable with the concept of either an illegitimate or a female heir.
Both these books provided me with a number of points that I shall retain as part of the Mary story.
1. Henry treated Mary with calculated harshness when he was trying to bully Katherine into separating; Mary identified totally with her mother and her mother’s Catholicism. This seems to have contributed to the intractability of Mary’s later Catholicism. It is notable how stubborn she was in resisting her powerful father’s threats, a characteristic that seems to have surprised Henry – although both he and Mary’s mother clearly passed on stubborn, fighting genes. Porter makes some interesting points about this: “but, tellingly, it was not until her own status was directly threatened that she publicly opposed her father.” “Most of those at court who dared to support Katherine, and later Mary, were women. The influence of this on the Princess has been under estimated. She saw that her mother had friends who were not self-serving, like the menfolk, but brave enough to stand up and be counted.”
“In some ways, it is astonishing that he let Mary's defiance last as long as he did. Yet his patience, or indecision, did Mary no good. She had the spirit of her Castilian grandmother but not her armies. The support, often only tacit, of a handful of courtiers could not help her win her battle. In retrospect, it might have been better for her if Henry's eventual brutality had been administered at once. The delay raised false hopes and developed in her a pattern of opposition based on conscience and self-identity, where suffering almost became a goal in itself. This was unhealthy and damaging to a woman subject to depression, who never subsequently understood that to be strong, rather than pragmatic, was not always the best option.”
When Anne became queen, life was probably even more difficult for Mary as Anne strove to be domineering, and nudged her husband into being vindictive. Porter shows how brutal the battle of wills was between Anne and Mary: “A more subtle woman might have considered outmanoeuvring Mary by occasionally bringing her to court, treating her with kindness and consideration and letting her show the world that, if she continued to defy her father, she was just a sulky, jealous child and a disobedient daughter. The new queen, who liked to be the centre of attention, feared Mary too much to follow such a strategy. Their meetings during Anne’s reign, though few, followed a predictable course. Anne attempted to reason with Mary, holding out the promise of better treatment; Mary invariably responded with scathing rudeness, as only someone brought up as a Princess could; Anne, her temper barely in check at most times, then got very angry indeed. But the moral victory was clear. It was always Mary’s.” Whitelock refers to an account that has Anne, shortly before her execution, apologising to Mary for the way she had treated her. Ultimately, Mary found that Anne’s demise did not lead to a change in the demands being made of her. She capitulated to her father and was partially reconciled with him, although he would still not have her titled as Princess. She was, however, recognised as legitimate and was made second to Edward in succession.
2. While Mary’s relationship with her father was characterised by the two implacables banging their heads together, she showed a subservient obedience towards her cousin, Charles V, King of Spain and the Netherlands and Holy Roman Emperor. Following her father’s treatment of her mother, her resistance to Henry, and Henry’s enforcement of obedience, her loyalty to Spain competed with her loyalty to England.
3. The 1536 Pilgrimage of Grace riots were put down savagely and it is suggested this motivated many to later ally themselves with Mary.
4. When Henry died, his son Edward VI continued with the reformation. At first, during the nine year-old’s minority, the nation was ruled by regency; Henry had intended this to be a council but it quickly became a one-man regency, under Edward Seymour, soon to become the Duke of Somerset. Both during the regency and when Edward, having reached his majority, ruled independently, Mary was subjected to the same pressures as she had been from Henry. She had been Edward’s godmother and a mother-figure in his infancy and she seems to have assumed that that hierarchy would continue even though he was now the king. In reality, Mary faced more of the same, while mistakenly believing that Edward’s reprimands were entirely dictated by the Privy Council, and that he would see things differently as he grew older. He didn’t; he found her patronising and he was hurt that his sister would stand up to his regal pronouncements.
5. In 1550, she persuaded the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V, to send ships for her escape from England. Porter argues that this was self-centred, with no regard for the future of Catholicism or for the later welfare of those who would assist her. When the ships arrived, she dithered, placing the participants in jeopardy. The situation was then managed by Robert Rochester, the controller of her household, who aborted the plan.
6. Mary’s strategy to take the crown after Edward’s death was masterly, but also fortunate. Moving quickly to avoid arrest, she set up a new base from which to send out friends to build up support both among the nobility and among the lower classes. None of the high nobility joined her, however. Meanwhile, the backers of Lady Jane Grey dithered and lost the advantage they had gained by making the first move.
7. After Edward’s death, Mary was strongly inclined to have him buried according to Catholic rites, believing this was the final gift she could give him. She was ultimately dissuaded from what would have been an act of utter disrespect for his beliefs, and agreed to a Protestant service; she had a private requiem mass for him in her chapel in the Tower.
8. As Queen, Mary was now in charge, but she almost played out with Elizabeth a mirror image of her fights with Henry, Anne and Edward,. Now, Mary was the one who was trying to impose her will, and Elizabeth was the one trying every strategy not to accept the imposition. There is a ringing irony in the way Mary was frustrated by Elizabeth’s non-compliance.
9. Mary initially offered the heretics (many of them ordinary people, not symbolic leaders) the chance to recant and avoid the flames. She and Cardinal Pole were surprised when so few did so and the offer was no longer made, and anyone comforting a heretic at the stake was to be imprisoned. Once again, the mental block which obscured the parallels between her and these heretics, seems extraordinary.
10. Mary’s mother, Katherine, had acted as Henry’s regent when he was at war with France, and she ruled very capably, including issuing an inspiration speech to the troops prior to their victory at Flodden Field.
11. Interestingly, Mary told the Spanish ambassador that it “would burden her conscience too heavily to allow a bastard to succeed”. She increasingly suspected that Elizabeth only went to mass “‘out of hypocrisy; she had not a single servant or maid of honour who was not a heretic, she talked every day with heretics and lent an ear to all their evil designs’”. Once again, one is struck by Mary’s inability to see the parallels between her and Elizabeth’s situations and actions. As she was dying, however, Mary confirmed the succession of the crown to Elizabeth.
12. Mary enjoyed the good life, loving fashionable clothes and, when able to do so, furnishing her homes stylishly.
13. Her marriage to Charles V’s son, Philip II, was a mess. She had lived independently and insisted she had no need of carnal pleasure, but she accepted that she had a duty to marry and produce an heir. When the marriage agreement was prepared, she insisted that Philip “leave to the queen the disposition of all offices, land and revenues of their dominions” and “ not promote to any office in England any foreigner…He shall make no innovation in the laws and customs of England”. Part of the pressure on her to marry evidently came because people were worried about the capacity of an unmarried woman to be an effective leader. Philip was unenthusiastic about the match, and was furious with the details of the agreement and claimed that he would follow it only out of loyalty to his father, and only until it conflicted with his conscience. After these unpropitious beginnings, once married, she could not bear his absences. At times she proved to be an effective leader, but, towards the end, her reliance on Philip’s presence, especially in the aftermath of the Wyatt/Carew conspiracy was hardly decisive leadership. And although the agreement stipulated that England would not become involved in the French-Spanish wars, she agreed to Philip’s demands for English troops and ships in 1557. Which ultimately led to England’s loss of its last foothold in France, Calais.
14. Mary and Philip’s wedding was held at Winchester Cathedral because of a concern that anti-Spanish opponents of the marriage would disrupt proceedings if it was in London.
15. There was support for Mary’s reintroduction of some of the “ bells and whistles” of Catholicism: “Her lords were happy for the ritual of the Catholic religion to be restored but they would not part with their wealth, nor were they keen to rush back to the jurisdiction of the papacy.” Too many of them had profited from the dissolution of the monasteries to agree to any restitution. Cardinal Pole hoped she would be more aggressive in her counter-reformation, but she evidently saw the dangers awaiting her.
By and large, both books are well-presented and edited, although some populist magazine lapses have slipped through in Porter’s: “Anne Boleyn is English history's most famous ‘other woman’, and before he became a wife-murderer…Henry VIII wrote her a series of beautiful letters”. “Wife-murderer”? I continued to be puzzled by Porter’s use of capitalisation: Mary was “head of a Church whose beliefs she did not share”, but the nobles’ titles, earls and dukes, are in lower case: the “earl of Surrey” and the “duke of Suffolk”. However, Lords are capitalised. Oddly, Katherine of Aragon is listed in the index as Katherine, but under “C”.
Porter’s work is marked by a certain cynicism which contributes to an overall balance; Whitelock’s, however, tends to hagiography at times: “a woman marked by suffering, devout in her faith and exceptional in her courage. From a childhood in which she was adored and feted and then violently rejected, a fighter was born. Her resolve almost cost her her life as her father, and then her brother, sought to subjugate her to their wills. Yet Mary maintained her faith and self-belief. Despite repeated attempts to deprive her of her life and her right to the throne, the warrior Princess turned victor, and became the warrior queen.” “Her queenship, which had lacked precedent, was defined in these moments with clarity, conviction and originality. She had pledged herself to her country in entirely feminine terms, but with an invocation of motherhood that was strong and resolute.”
There is not enough difference between Mary Tudor The First Queen and Mary Tudor England’s First Queen to warrant reading both. I think the better of the two, slightly, is Porter’s book, but for a shorter and more partisan work, Whitelock’s serves.
March 21, 2024
A little dry but very readable.the author tries to redeem Mary but she still lied and burned over 300 “heretics”. Was it the time period or just the Tudors lust for death and destruction? I think the author was impressed that Mary managed to cling to her right to succeed her brother. The book covers her life with her reign as Queen in just about 1/3 Or less of the book.
August 1, 2024
It was an easy read since most of the stuff is just basic stuff that I knew about Mary Tudor. However I didn't understand the part where she got married and thought she was pregnant when her husband was away most of the time...
January 19, 2025
Rise up older sisters!! Mary really did all that just so Elizabeth could take centre stage in history. Justice for the first Queen of England and for older sisters everywhere!!
June 27, 2025
A very readable account. Whitelock has a nice, brisk style that never flags. Will be happy to read more of her books.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews