Download Bloody Mary: The Life and Legacy of England's Most Notorious Queen AudioBook Free
"WHENEVER I am dead and exposed, you shall find 'Calais' lying in my heart." (Mary I) Queen Mary I ruled Britain and its own conquered territories in Wales and Ireland for only five years, from 1553 to 1558, yet she has been remembered for practically 500 years as Bloody Mary, the Catholic oppressor of any Protestant country. The truth, as typical, is more difficult than the misconception. The oldest surviving child of Ruler Henry VIII, she grew up in an time of spiritual and political turmoil, both in Britain and abroad, and though united in its Christianity, the continent was divided in how it approached that faith. An evergrowing influx of protest and dissent had been fulfilled with brutal suppression in the 15th hundred years, only to emerge just like a phoenix from the flames by means of Protestantism. With spiritual faith and political practice deeply intertwined, countries were being torn aside in a growing conflict between Catholics and Protestants. Mary's life was molded by her experience of this, and by the twisted family politics of her dad, Henry VIII. Henry VIII's lone mail heir, his young child Edward, was a strong Protestant, but a sickly teenage. As it became clear that he would not endure to adulthood, Edward did not want his crown to go to Mary, a zealous Catholic, whose brutal reign would include 280 "heretics" being burned up at the stake through the Marian persecutions. However, Edward could see no constitutional, or indeed nonarbitrary, way to go over Mary and choose his more radiant sister, Elizabeth. Hence, in his typical schoolboy penmanship, Edward's will attemptedto override the Succession to the Crown Act of 1543 (advocated by his dad and approved by Parliament), pub both Mary and Elizabeth from the succession, and declare Girl Jane Grey, the granddaughter of Henry VIII's sister, as his heir.
