February 18: Queen Mary I

Born on this date in 1516 was Queen Mary I, the queen of England before Elizabeth I. Here are ten things you might not know about her.

1. Mary I was the first queen regnant of England whose reign was not disputed.
2. She was the only child of King Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon to survive to adulthood. Her mother had had four stillborn or short-lived children before Mary was born at the Palace of Placentia in Greenwich, London on February 18, 1516.
3. She could play the virginals (a type of harpsichord) by the time she was four and could read and write Latin by the age of nine. Henry doted on her when she was a child, boasting that she never cried. When it became obvious Catherine would have no more children, Henry sent Mary to Wales and gave her her own court there and royal prerogatives normally reserved for the Prince of Wales. Mary was Princess of Wales in all but official title - she was never invested as such.
4. However, the good relations with her father weren't destined to last. When Henry's marriage to Catherine went sour and he married the already pregnant Anne Boleyn, he demoted Mary from Princess to merely "Lady Mary" and even though Anne's child was another girl, Elizabeth, he named her his successor. Mary refused to acknowledge Anne as queen or Elizabeth as heir. Mary and Henry didn't speak to each other for three years. Once Anne had fallen out of favour as well, and Elizabeth also declared illegitimate along with Mary, Mary did return to court.
5. Records of the time showed she spent her money on clothes and gambling with cards. She had pale skin, although her cheeks were ruddy, pale blue eyes and red-gold hair.
6. Throughout her childhood, beginning when she was just two years old, attempts were made to marry her off. At two years old, she was promised to Francis, the infant son of King Francis I of France; at the age of six, she was contracted to marry her first cousin, Holy Roman Emperor Charles V. Both engagements were broken off. Henry suggested that Mary marry King Francis I himself, because he wanted an alliance with England. A marriage treaty was signed in which Mary would marry either Francis I or his second son Henry, Duke of Orleans, but the alliance came about anyway and the marriage proved unnecessary. Later, Mary was courted by Duke Philip of Bavaria but he was rejected for being Lutheran. There were also plans to marry Mary off to the Duke of Cleves, who was the same age, but in the end, Henry and the Duke's sister Anne of Cleves were married instead. Once she was queen, Mary began looking for a husband for herself, and eventually married Prince Philip of Spain. For him, it was purely a political match, but Mary actually loved him and was distraught when he left for Spain. The marriage wasn't popular in England, because Mary, as a woman, would by law have to surrender all her titles and goods to her husband - so they could have ended up with a Spanish king. Philip's father had granted him the crown of Naples and his claim to the Kingdom of Jerusalem; so Mary became Queen of Naples and titular Queen of Jerusalem on her marriage.
7. Mary's brother, King Edward, didn't want her to succeed him because of religious differences - on the rare occasions during his reign that she attended court, they'd argue - one Christmas one such argument ended with both Edward and Mary in tears. He wanted to exclude Mary from the succession but was told he couldn't do that without disinheriting Elizabeth as well. It was Edward who declared his successor should be Lady Jane Grey. When Edward lay dying, Mary was called to court to visit him, but fearing a plot to have her captured and imprisoned, she didn't go. She went to East Anglia instead, from whence she orchestrated her campaign to win the throne. Less than a month after her brother died, Mary rode triumphantly into London with her half-sister Elizabeth and a procession of over 800 nobles and gentlemen. She was crowned the following October in Westminster Abbey.
8. Mary desperately wanted to produce an heir, but it wasn't to be. In 1544, possibly a result of her sheer desperation to have a baby, she suffered a phantom pregnancy. Everyone was so convinced Mary was pregnant that they put plans in place in case she died in childbirth, and called her sister Elizabeth out of house arrest to be a witness to the birth. Rumours circulated that Mary had given birth to a son, quickly followed by rumours that she'd never been pregnant at all. In July 1555, her abdomen receded. The pregnancy was dismissed as more likely to "end in wind than anything else". Mary was distraught, believing God was punishing her for tolerating heretics, and she became severely depressed. In 1557, after a visit from Philip, she again appeared to be pregnant, but again there was no child. Resigned to childlessness, Mary named Elizabeth as her successor.
9. Sadly, not only was Mary not pregnant, but may have been suffering from uterine cancer. She died aged just 42. Although Mary had stated in her will that she wished to be buried next to her mother, she was interred in Westminster Abbey in a tomb in which Elizabeth would also be buried.
10. Mary's persecution of protestants earned her the nickname "Bloody Mary".

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