Mary I

Mary I (18 February 1516 – 17 November 1558) was the Queen of England and Ireland from July 1553 until her death. Her executions of Protestants led to the posthumous sobriquet "Bloody Mary".

She was the only child of Henry VIII by 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.

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 quee
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The First Queen of England: The Myth of "Bloody Mary"
Her Highness, the Traitor
Mary, Bloody Mary (Young Royals, #1)
In the Shadow of the Crown (Queens of England, #6)
The Passionate Tudor: A Novel of Queen Mary I (Tudor Rose, #3)
Thomas Cranmer
The Lady of Misrule
Tudors: The History of England from Henry VIII to Elizabeth I (The History of England, #2)
The King's Daughter (Thornleigh, #2)
The Lady Elizabeth
The Children of Henry VIII
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Katherine the Queen: The Remarkable Life of Katherine Parr
Mary Tudor: Princess, Bastard, Queen
Wolf Hall (Thomas Cromwell, #1)
The Temptation of Elizabeth Tudor by Elizabeth NortonThe Creation of Anne Boleyn by Susan BordoAnna, Duchess of Cleves by Heather R. DarsieYoung and Damned and Fair by Gareth RussellThe House of Beaufort by Nathen Amin
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33 books — 10 voters
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129 books — 48 voters

Wolf Hall by Hilary MantelBring Up the Bodies by Hilary MantelThe Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa GregoryThe Boleyn Inheritance by Philippa GregoryThe Children of Henry VIII by Alison Weir
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Although these were not necessarily gifts Mary consciously gave to Elizabeth, as the first independent queen of England it was she who established a powerful rhetoric for female rule, which Elizabeth quite literally inherited. Mary’s claims include: (1) the idea the she was the virgin mother of her country; (2) the idea that England’s people were her children; (3) the idea that she was a virgin wedded to her kingdom, her coronation ring being, specifically, her wedding ring.
Maureen Quilligan, When Women Ruled the World: Making the Renaissance in Europe

In a short six weeks, the “Northern Rebellion,” as it was called, was summarily put down by southern forces loyal to the English crown. Elizabeth exacted a terrible revenge by calling for (specifying the number) seven hundred executions of the common people, even though there had been no uprising of the general populace in support of the rebel earls of the North. (Her sister “Bloody” Mary had burned a total of 284 Protestants at the stake, including two babies; another 400 had died of starvation ...more
Maureen Quilligan, When Women Ruled the World: Making the Renaissance in Europe

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