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The First Queen of England: The Myth of "Bloody Mary"
In this groundbreaking new biography of “Bloody Mary,” Linda Porter brings to life a queen best remembered for burning hundreds of Protestant heretics at the stake, but whose passion, will, and sophistication have for centuries been overlooked.
Daughter of Henry VIII and Katherine of Aragon, wife of Philip of Spain, and sister of Edward VI, Mary Tudor was a cultured Renaissance princess. A Latin scholar and outstanding musician, her love of fashion was matched only by her zeal for gambling. It is the tragedy of Queen Mary that today, 450 years after her death, she remains the most hated, least understood monarch in English history.
Linda Porter’s pioneering new biography—based on contemporary documents and drawing from recent scholarship—cuts through the myths to reveal the truth about the first queen to rule England in her own right. Mary learned politics in a hard school, and was cruelly treated by her father and bullied by the strongmen of her brother, Edward VI. An audacious coup brought her to the throne, and she needed all her strong will and courage to keep it. Mary made a grand marriage to Philip of Spain, but her attempts to revitalize England at home and abroad were cut short by her premature death at the age of forty-two. The first popular biography of Mary in thirty years, The First Queen of England offers a fascinating, controversial look at this much-maligned queen.
Daughter of Henry VIII and Katherine of Aragon, wife of Philip of Spain, and sister of Edward VI, Mary Tudor was a cultured Renaissance princess. A Latin scholar and outstanding musician, her love of fashion was matched only by her zeal for gambling. It is the tragedy of Queen Mary that today, 450 years after her death, she remains the most hated, least understood monarch in English history.
Linda Porter’s pioneering new biography—based on contemporary documents and drawing from recent scholarship—cuts through the myths to reveal the truth about the first queen to rule England in her own right. Mary learned politics in a hard school, and was cruelly treated by her father and bullied by the strongmen of her brother, Edward VI. An audacious coup brought her to the throne, and she needed all her strong will and courage to keep it. Mary made a grand marriage to Philip of Spain, but her attempts to revitalize England at home and abroad were cut short by her premature death at the age of forty-two. The first popular biography of Mary in thirty years, The First Queen of England offers a fascinating, controversial look at this much-maligned queen.
452 pages, Hardcover
First published September 27, 2007
126 people are currently reading
9160 people want to read
About the author
Linda Porter
28 books84 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.
Linda Porter was born in Exeter, Devon in 1947. Her family have long-standing connections to the West Country, but moved to the London area when she was a small child. She was educated at Walthamstow Hall School in Sevenoaks and at the University of York, from which she has a doctorate in History. On completing her postgraduate work she moved to New York, where she lived for almost a decade, lecturing at Fordham University and the City University of New York.
Since returning to England, Porter has had a varied career. She has worked as a journalist and been a senior adviser on international public relations to a major telecommunications company. But she has always stayed close to her roots as an historian. In 2004 she was the winner of the Biographers Club/Daily Mail prize which launched her on a new career as an author. Her first book, Mary Tudor: The First Queen was published in 2007. In 2010 her second book Katherine the Queen: The Remarkable Life of Katherine Parr was published. As of 2010[update] she is doing preliminary research for a third book.
Porter is married with one daughter. She lives in Kent.
Linda Porter was born in Exeter, Devon in 1947. Her family have long-standing connections to the West Country, but moved to the London area when she was a small child. She was educated at Walthamstow Hall School in Sevenoaks and at the University of York, from which she has a doctorate in History. On completing her postgraduate work she moved to New York, where she lived for almost a decade, lecturing at Fordham University and the City University of New York.
Since returning to England, Porter has had a varied career. She has worked as a journalist and been a senior adviser on international public relations to a major telecommunications company. But she has always stayed close to her roots as an historian. In 2004 she was the winner of the Biographers Club/Daily Mail prize which launched her on a new career as an author. Her first book, Mary Tudor: The First Queen was published in 2007. In 2010 her second book Katherine the Queen: The Remarkable Life of Katherine Parr was published. As of 2010[update] she is doing preliminary research for a third book.
Porter is married with one daughter. She lives in Kent.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 99 reviews
June 19, 2011
Truly the case of a victim (of sorts) being made out to be the blood-thirsty "bad guy", Mary Tudor unfortunately has a bad reputation. Although this viewpoint has been more than avidly blamed on Elizabethan propaganda, the image remains. Linda Porter dives past the traditional stereotypes and bad blood (pun intended); to present Mary's reasoning behind her actions and her remaining scars from childhood of much pain.
In terms of biographies, this is a rather inclusive portrait of Mary Tudor and wonderful for those seeking a book with more detail on her versus just an overview. Much overshadowed by younger half-sister Elizabeth, it is time for Mary to shine. I mean, she WAS England FIRST queen regnant. Although at times Porter seems to beg for pity, Mary true personality still shines through and one finally understands her convictions and actions. Mary is a strong and passionate female who could teach a thing or two to today's modern youth. Her zeal is beyond what an average child today can even try to encompass.
Smooth, easy-flowing, and filled with factual information over opinions and speculation, Linda Porter's work is intended to demyth Marian oppositions. Certainly recommended for those who merely root for Anne Boleyn and Elizabeth but wanting to see a clearer picture.
In terms of biographies, this is a rather inclusive portrait of Mary Tudor and wonderful for those seeking a book with more detail on her versus just an overview. Much overshadowed by younger half-sister Elizabeth, it is time for Mary to shine. I mean, she WAS England FIRST queen regnant. Although at times Porter seems to beg for pity, Mary true personality still shines through and one finally understands her convictions and actions. Mary is a strong and passionate female who could teach a thing or two to today's modern youth. Her zeal is beyond what an average child today can even try to encompass.
Smooth, easy-flowing, and filled with factual information over opinions and speculation, Linda Porter's work is intended to demyth Marian oppositions. Certainly recommended for those who merely root for Anne Boleyn and Elizabeth but wanting to see a clearer picture.
June 22, 2015
I was pleasantly surprised by how interesting this book turned out to be. In my quest to research Margaret Pole, I was directed to this book. Of course, the focus is on Mary, but as her governess through some of the most difficult times of her life, Margaret features heavily through the first quarter of this book.
The level of detail included in Porter's narrative is comprehensive without becoming overwhelming or boring. Even after I reached the point in Mary's life after Margaret's death I continued reading and was happy to learn more about this unpopular queen.
I had always felt that Elizabeth's greatest strength was PR. How else could this cruel, manipulative ruler end up with a reputation that is so much more positive than her father and sister? Porter's research supports this idea and explains that Mary was not truly as "bloody" as the myth suggests. In fact, she was far less violent than her father.
Reading about Mary's life makes it easy to understand some of the decisions that she made, some of which led to disastrous consequences. Porter provides information without injecting motive. She offers suggestions regarding why Mary may have chosen to do (or not do) things, but does not state with certainty, as some nonfiction writers do, why Mary made those choices.
Easy reading for nonfiction and great insight into the life of this much maligned queen.
The level of detail included in Porter's narrative is comprehensive without becoming overwhelming or boring. Even after I reached the point in Mary's life after Margaret's death I continued reading and was happy to learn more about this unpopular queen.
I had always felt that Elizabeth's greatest strength was PR. How else could this cruel, manipulative ruler end up with a reputation that is so much more positive than her father and sister? Porter's research supports this idea and explains that Mary was not truly as "bloody" as the myth suggests. In fact, she was far less violent than her father.
Reading about Mary's life makes it easy to understand some of the decisions that she made, some of which led to disastrous consequences. Porter provides information without injecting motive. She offers suggestions regarding why Mary may have chosen to do (or not do) things, but does not state with certainty, as some nonfiction writers do, why Mary made those choices.
Easy reading for nonfiction and great insight into the life of this much maligned queen.
December 5, 2008
This biography was fascinating and left me wondering why she would be nicknamed "Bloody Mary" when the rest of her family (the Bloody Tudors!)was truly worse as far as I'm concerned. With the legacy/examples left by her father, her step-mother and others (as well as her passive-aggressive sister, Elizabeth) she was a strong, passionate, yet misunderstood and lonely woman who only lived her life as she had to, to survive and become the first ever Queen of England. I would think all of royalty of the past (and maybe current) would be lonely, not alone, but lonely. How would you ever know who to trust? Just makes me grateful to be "plain folk."
September 9, 2016
Overall, Linda Porter does a fine job of bringing England's first (and most notorious) Queen Regnant to life. Mary is often painted as a tragic, slightly mad, religious fanatic who had little agency in her life and reign. Porter puts those myths to bed and portrays a more human and well-rounded Mary, a woman with great courage but also many flaws. It is ironic that in a book that sets out to show Mary Tudor as a fully fleshed out woman, her sister is reduced to a two dimensional caricature. Elizabeth is portrayed as simply "Anne Boleyn Jr.", or an ungrateful, scheming harlot who tormented her sister. As anyone who has studied Tudor England can attest, this is simply not true and Elizabeth herself was a far more complex person. Porter also attempts to gloss over the burnings of over 300 people in less than four years, the event that gave Mary her nickname as "Bloody Mary," Porter tries to rationalize Mary's behavior and does succeed in giving Mary's motivations a depth and a foundation in the political reality of the time which paints Mary as a more human character. However, when Porter tries to whitewash the suffering of hundreds of people who were imprisoned, tortured, killed or exiled under Mary, it becomes too much. This biography gives Mary real depth which she deserves, but by glossing over the real tragedies of her reign, Porter does a disservice.
January 6, 2023
4,25 stars- English Ebook
The name Mary Tudor often conjures the image of a rather dull and unattractive Catholic queen. Mary is long remembered for her unpopular marriage to Philip of Spain and the burning of hundreds of Protestants. In the Myth of Bloody Mary: The First Queen of England.
In this book information that may change the image that has been overshadowed by Mary's negative personality written in many stories..
When you think of Queen Elizabeth's sister, you probably imagine a very stoic and reserved woman. While it is true that Mary did not share Elizabeth's people person personality, Mary Tudor was anything but dull.
She loved music and especially dance. She was also considered quite the fashionista trendsetter of her times. Mary loved beautiful gowns in the French design. She also loved beautiful jewelry and owned many exquisite pieces.
Like her sister, Elizabeth, Mary had coppery red hair, a long nose, and a heart shaped face. Porter writes that although Mary was not considered a beauty, she well known for her beautiful complexion and graceful manners.
Mary's decision to marry a foreigner, especially a Catholic one who clearly did not love her and was even physically repulsed by her, made Mary incredibly unpopular to some in her day.
However, Mary's marriage to Philip was made after much deliberations and careful planning. Mary saw marriage to a great European power as a way of bolstering England's power in sixteenth-century world politics.
After all, marriage to an English subject would bring nothing to the table for England. Instead. This plan carefully considered by Mary, looked at the pro and cons and made the best decision for her country.
This book was enlightening. I always thought I knew everything there was to know about Mary Tudor, but this book proved me wrong. You see, theirs always more than you think.
Behind the stories of Protestant executions and an unrequited love to a Spanish prince, there is a story of a brave and strong-willed woman who lost everything, her father, her mother, her title, and her place in the line of succession.
One thing Mary Tudor refused to ever give up is in her faith in the Catholic church. It is unfortunate that Mary's loyal devotion to the Catholic doctrine is what is what is most remembered.
The name Mary Tudor often conjures the image of a rather dull and unattractive Catholic queen. Mary is long remembered for her unpopular marriage to Philip of Spain and the burning of hundreds of Protestants. In the Myth of Bloody Mary: The First Queen of England.
In this book information that may change the image that has been overshadowed by Mary's negative personality written in many stories..
When you think of Queen Elizabeth's sister, you probably imagine a very stoic and reserved woman. While it is true that Mary did not share Elizabeth's people person personality, Mary Tudor was anything but dull.
She loved music and especially dance. She was also considered quite the fashionista trendsetter of her times. Mary loved beautiful gowns in the French design. She also loved beautiful jewelry and owned many exquisite pieces.
Like her sister, Elizabeth, Mary had coppery red hair, a long nose, and a heart shaped face. Porter writes that although Mary was not considered a beauty, she well known for her beautiful complexion and graceful manners.
Mary's decision to marry a foreigner, especially a Catholic one who clearly did not love her and was even physically repulsed by her, made Mary incredibly unpopular to some in her day.
However, Mary's marriage to Philip was made after much deliberations and careful planning. Mary saw marriage to a great European power as a way of bolstering England's power in sixteenth-century world politics.
After all, marriage to an English subject would bring nothing to the table for England. Instead. This plan carefully considered by Mary, looked at the pro and cons and made the best decision for her country.
This book was enlightening. I always thought I knew everything there was to know about Mary Tudor, but this book proved me wrong. You see, theirs always more than you think.
Behind the stories of Protestant executions and an unrequited love to a Spanish prince, there is a story of a brave and strong-willed woman who lost everything, her father, her mother, her title, and her place in the line of succession.
One thing Mary Tudor refused to ever give up is in her faith in the Catholic church. It is unfortunate that Mary's loyal devotion to the Catholic doctrine is what is what is most remembered.
January 19, 2010
This book offers the reader a balanced and insightful portrait of Mary Tudor or better know to most as 'Bloody Mary'. Mary was the daughter of Henry VIII and Katherine of Aragon and later wife of Philip of Spain and has been portrayed as the main instigator for the burning of hundreds of Protestant heretics at the stake during her reign.
This book shows that she was a better Queen than most historians grant and under her leadership she attempt to place England at the forefront of the European nations. I have read a few books on Elizabeth I and Mary Queen of Scots, this being the first on Mary Tudor and I found it to be a great read, well researched and presented and offers a decent account of a misunderstood monarch.
Overall this book is well worth the effort and I think most readers will be surprised at the true story of ‘Bloody Mary’ and have a good time learning about this forgotten Queen.
April 26, 2020
One of the best biographies on an English monarch produced in the last few years - sympathetic without being hagiographic, and impeccably researched, it’s a fantastic testament to Dr Porter’s work and very enjoyable.
February 18, 2009
"The First Queen of England: The Myth of "Bloody Mary" was a sympathetic, but not entirely vindicating, take on England's most vilified Queen.
The author did an excellent job supporting her opinions with historical fact. Mary has often been portrayed as a religious fanatic, determined to return England to the Catholic Church, without regard to how many Protestants she had to burn a the stake. While Mary certainly did burn many, the reasons are so much more complex than mere religion.
The authors bias against Mary's sister, Elizabeth, was obvious throughout the book. While generally accepted historical fact does indeed support many of the authors opinions, I felt that her view of Elizabeth is a bit clouded.
Mary's marriage to Phillip was explored in great detail, which is an area I feel has been neglected in most accounts of Queen Mary. While Mary's "love" of Phillip does not appear to have been reciprocated, he did appear to have a genuine fondness for her. Mary has often been painted as a love-sick schoolgirl pining for her distant husband. While her letters do indicate that she wanted her husband to return to England, my feeling was that she wanted him there for dynastic, rather than personal, reasons. Without an heir to the throne, her Protestant sister Elizabeth would inherit the crown upon Mary's death.
An excellent read.
The author did an excellent job supporting her opinions with historical fact. Mary has often been portrayed as a religious fanatic, determined to return England to the Catholic Church, without regard to how many Protestants she had to burn a the stake. While Mary certainly did burn many, the reasons are so much more complex than mere religion.
The authors bias against Mary's sister, Elizabeth, was obvious throughout the book. While generally accepted historical fact does indeed support many of the authors opinions, I felt that her view of Elizabeth is a bit clouded.
Mary's marriage to Phillip was explored in great detail, which is an area I feel has been neglected in most accounts of Queen Mary. While Mary's "love" of Phillip does not appear to have been reciprocated, he did appear to have a genuine fondness for her. Mary has often been painted as a love-sick schoolgirl pining for her distant husband. While her letters do indicate that she wanted her husband to return to England, my feeling was that she wanted him there for dynastic, rather than personal, reasons. Without an heir to the throne, her Protestant sister Elizabeth would inherit the crown upon Mary's death.
An excellent read.
August 17, 2019
This book is a tough one to review. It's definitely 5 star-worthy when it comes to research and detail. This book is impeccably researched! I give it 3 stars for general readability, though. The author is obviously a huge fan of Mary and tends to quantify her behavior with excuses or explanations. Probably the most egregious example of this is the author's treatment of the burning of 300 Protestants under the Marian regime. According to the author, Mary wasn't really responsible for more than a handful of these deaths. The rest were parsed out to localities. This I did not buy.
I would also have been more interested in Mary's two false pregnancies. Even during this time period, this must have been a highly unusual occurrence. What did the author think caused this phenomenon? Stress, an overwhelming desire for an heir (which harkens back to Mary's dad, Henry VIII), or a hormonal or health-related issue? How did Mary process this humiliating disappointment and did it have long-lasting effects on policy or her personal life? Perhaps this is another book in itself.
Overall this is a very comprehensive chronicling of Mary Tudor's life. If you can get past the obvious pro-Marianisms (often to Elizabeth I's detriment), then this is quite a fascinating historical piece.
I would also have been more interested in Mary's two false pregnancies. Even during this time period, this must have been a highly unusual occurrence. What did the author think caused this phenomenon? Stress, an overwhelming desire for an heir (which harkens back to Mary's dad, Henry VIII), or a hormonal or health-related issue? How did Mary process this humiliating disappointment and did it have long-lasting effects on policy or her personal life? Perhaps this is another book in itself.
Overall this is a very comprehensive chronicling of Mary Tudor's life. If you can get past the obvious pro-Marianisms (often to Elizabeth I's detriment), then this is quite a fascinating historical piece.
January 14, 2016
That was such a great reading! I always thought that Mary became that "vile" woman, because she was a victim since her childhood. She was separate from her mother, her father didn't want her to be a Queen and also made her sign a document, stating she wasn't from a vallid marriage and this way, became a bastard daughter. She was in constant fear! Henry VIII was a monster and kept changing his feelings, thinkings and this way, people around him, had to pay for the consequences. Mary was alone and sick! Whoever she had, Henry took from her! Reading this book, the author brings the most interesting events during Tudor court. And no matter how many books i read about it, my views about Henry VIII won't change. He was the most villain! He ruined everything, just for lust for Anne Boleyn. Mary didn't have the same luck as Elizabeth. She didn't have lots of people to trust. So, she wasn't that wise during her reign. Unfortunately, she became a fanatic catholic, and with that she brought bloody days for England. I think that her whole life was a struggle to become something, to be recognized. And in the end, Elizabeth ruled, but creating an even worse image, about her sister Mary.
March 22, 2015
I love anything about the Tudors and people surrounding them. I thought this book was very well written, although I want to find more on Mary and others. I feel like I got lost in some of it.
I was very sad for Mary and her upbringing. Obviously being Henry's child is not all it's cracked up to be. She went through so much with her father. That being said, she did have his Tudor blood and stood up for herself at all possible times. You would think that Henry would at one point think, she is definately my child!!
I am glad that he FINALLY saw reason and brought her back into her rightful place along with her sister Elizabeth. Then the little jerk brother takes it all away from them again and she has to fight to get her status back again! The brat! But she did and so did Elizabeth.
I was so sad to read in this book of Anne of Cleves passing. I know they all pass away at some point, but I really loved her and it was a little sad to read of her passing. Mary mourned her passing, along with many others.
I look forward to many more Tudor books.
I was very sad for Mary and her upbringing. Obviously being Henry's child is not all it's cracked up to be. She went through so much with her father. That being said, she did have his Tudor blood and stood up for herself at all possible times. You would think that Henry would at one point think, she is definately my child!!
I am glad that he FINALLY saw reason and brought her back into her rightful place along with her sister Elizabeth. Then the little jerk brother takes it all away from them again and she has to fight to get her status back again! The brat! But she did and so did Elizabeth.
I was so sad to read in this book of Anne of Cleves passing. I know they all pass away at some point, but I really loved her and it was a little sad to read of her passing. Mary mourned her passing, along with many others.
I look forward to many more Tudor books.
April 7, 2022
Un interessante libro, molto dettagliato e approfondito, della storia della prima regina regnante d'Inghilterra, che ripercorre la storia dei Tudor. Adesso vedo che anche filmati e documenti tv mettono in luce la novità assoluta della sua ascesa al trono e le sue motivazioni. Certo, una volta sposata con Filippo II ( con cui conversava in francese) il suo tentativo di ricattolicizzare l'Inghilterra fu disastroso, e soprattutto molto stigmatizzato dalle cronache protestanti e dai successivi governi, che emarginarono per secoli i cattolici. Elisabetta fece tesoro della sua esperienza, sia nel fare che nel non fare come lei.
August 11, 2021
A solid, thorough biography of Mary I. The author's deep research really shines through in the second half of the book where she mixes the story of Mary's life with an analysis of Mary's reign and how her policies set the stage for Elizabeth's later success. The author is clearly sympathetic towards Mary, though she still acknowledges her faults. While her argument that Mary's reign and personal qualities were more positive than history has acknowledged was not new to me, if the dust jacket is right and this book was the first popular biography of Mary in decades when it was published, it would have been a good corrective to the conventional wisdom at the time.
January 2, 2013
There have been perennial books popping up every now and then about Henry VIII and his six wives and his larger than life daughter, Elizabeth I. Although there have been several other biographies done in the past of Mary I that give a new perspective to this much maligned figure, I think no one has done what Porter has done -and this is work harder to dispel the rumors and the reputation she has gained over time as "Bloody" Mary.
Granted her treatment could have used more details as H.F.M. Prescott in the "Spanish Tudor" and "Mary Tudor" and (more recently) Whitelock (with "Mary Tudor") did. Nonetheless what she did is question the testimonies written about her at the time and put on the evidence of what her reign did that later Elizabeth continued but improved.
However my only nitpick is that though she was very thorough where the subject of her reign was concerned, she tended to excused her a lot which I found very troublesome at times. Nonetheless, it is a biography I recommend, that is greatly researched and a good eye-opener to this Queen.
Granted her treatment could have used more details as H.F.M. Prescott in the "Spanish Tudor" and "Mary Tudor" and (more recently) Whitelock (with "Mary Tudor") did. Nonetheless what she did is question the testimonies written about her at the time and put on the evidence of what her reign did that later Elizabeth continued but improved.
However my only nitpick is that though she was very thorough where the subject of her reign was concerned, she tended to excused her a lot which I found very troublesome at times. Nonetheless, it is a biography I recommend, that is greatly researched and a good eye-opener to this Queen.
June 3, 2016
Linda Porter gives a much more sympathetic portrait of Mary I than her reputation. She does it by giving many more details of her reign than some accounts have done and a much more rounded woman and Queen is the result.
She includes all the information she can find, but even so, if she left out all the speculation along the lines of 'Mary must have felt...', '...thought...' or '...wondered..', it would be a much slimmer volume.
I enjoyed her reassessment of a much misunderstood ruler. The book is written in an accessible way. I could not help wondering what sort of woman and Queen she would have been if Anne Boleyn had stayed in France.
She includes all the information she can find, but even so, if she left out all the speculation along the lines of 'Mary must have felt...', '...thought...' or '...wondered..', it would be a much slimmer volume.
I enjoyed her reassessment of a much misunderstood ruler. The book is written in an accessible way. I could not help wondering what sort of woman and Queen she would have been if Anne Boleyn had stayed in France.
May 24, 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.
July 3, 2024
'Bloody Mary' Tudor was for centuries maligned from all sides. A focus of anti-Catholic prejudice, she was reviled for her Marian persecutions which saw 280 martyred Protestant 'heretics' burned at the stake.
This was unremarkable in an age that saw religious persecution from both sides sweep reformation Europe. Mary's father before her, sister after her and Habsburg cousins alongside her oversaw similar barbaric acts of state, each in no short measure yet over many more years on their thrones - centring comparably more diluted pictures of what might today be tagged 'tyranny'.
Particularly notable was the rate at which Mary's victims fell in the few short years she reigned.
Her detractors have argued that, had she lived and ruled longer, burning religious dissenters at that same rabid rate, her record could have become outstanding on the basis of numbers alone. Yet hypothetical estimates, no matter how oft reiterated by anti-Catholic commentators, can never translate into historical fact.
Her apologists have maintained that, steering such horrific policies were lawmakers, ministers and parliamentarians rather than any sole monarch - especially not the staid Mary Tudor who, as England's first anointed female ruler, had no predecessors to follow the example of, relying girlishly upon her male decision makers.
Yet rulers of Mary's time held the final authority to accept or reject any policy.
Perhaps the bottom line is that, regardless how classically feminine or modest her regal persona, she had throughout her life displayed such superlative survival instincts and bravery as to well match her majestic pedigree, culminating in the sheer hardiness of successfully fighting for her throne against all odds.
And whatever her perceived passive nature, her victims still burned, at that notoriously high rate.
This book sets out to rationalise Mary's deeds and foibles by examining her tragic personal background and those challenging events, personal and political, influencing her reign.
As England's first queen regnant (excluding the disputed reigns of Lady Jane Grey and the Empress Matilda), she endured the 16th century chauvinism of her ministers and chroniclers, with their sexist attitudes continuing down the centuries by her many male biographers.
Outshone in posterity by her Protestant younger half-sister Elizabeth I, this monarch of only five years, brought down to us as dour, standoffish and neurotic, has stood little chance of a fair hearing to modern generations – until now.
The fourth and penultimate Tudor monarch, remembered for her restoration of Roman Catholicism after the short-lived Protestant reign of her half-brother Edward VI, Mary famously married Philip of Spain against considerable diplomatic advice to the contrary and despite public opposition to a foreign king consort.
Though many years his senior and initially against marrying at all, Mary adored and devoted herself to Philip, who showed little more than contempt towards her, remaining mostly oversees on business. In this loveless marriage she remained childless, dying young and alone after a series of phantom pregnancies.
Elizabeth I devotees will forever know Mary as her younger sister's jailer, as they read of young Princess Elizabeth's time in the Tower of London following her unproven links to various failed rebellions to overthrow Mary and replace her with Elizabeth.
Linda Porter demonstrates, at least in this book's first two-thirds to three-quarters, what a talented biographer she is. Her work sparkles for much of the piece. Her empathic approach, her commendable eye for detail, bring the milieu and its inhabitants beautifully to life, transporting the reader there to judge for ourselves.
The sense of being 'guided' through whom, what and why we ought judge, is apparent throughout, though at first seemingly benign. Porter is protective of Queen Mary like a lioness of her cubs, with only the scantest, tokenistic acknowledgement of her shortcomings.
This partisanship, whilst ever endearing, develops to the point of conspicuity in parts, raising the fundamental question of balance.
Not the first sympathetic take on Mary Tudor I have read, this is one of the most benevolent, verging on sounding agenda driven. Though I enjoyed it immensely, I have two criticisms:
Firstly, the book's last quarter or even third lost its momentum, with those dull patches inevitable to such detailed books extending to drawn out passages penned seemingly just for the sake of listing, rather than wasting, every last ounce of miscellaneous detail researched.
This becomes exasperating towards the book's conclusion, countering an otherwise brilliant telling. This flaw, however, is not uncommon in this increasingly popular genre, with each author competing to cram in the most arbitrary detail, often haphazardly in patches.
My other criticism is that I felt that the author, as a strident apologist of Bloody Mary and her destructive religion in that era, overstated her case throughout. There is a point to this – to counteract the literary destructiveness for so long piled upon this poor queen, who clearly had her good side. The second half of book's title, The Myth of "Bloody Mary", indicates this as being the book's semi raison d'être.
This was, after all, the only daughter of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon and a granddaughter of Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile. She had to have had some inherent greatness and indeed this was seen in her oratory prowess and her bravery in claiming the throne by force after it being so unjustly snatched from her by hostile forces driven by the politics of religion.
She was also an irrefutably kind and merciful figure – except when it came to religious dissent. Even most of her worst detractors she pardoned on assuming her throne.
We read about her torturous youth, bastardized and disinherited from the line of succession after her parents' history making divorce. About her enforced estrangement from her only close ally, her demoted and ostracized mother Queen Catherine of Aragon, under King Henry's cruel orders. We understand how this was all because of her half-sister Elizabeth's mother, Anne Boleyn. How Mary, in adulthood, saw Anne Boleyn in Elizabeth.
Her many psychosomatic illnesses are well documented and explained. She was indeed a melancholy younger figure before ultimately transcending her sorrows to triumph and take rule. Yet even then, her brief time in power was marred by heartache, right down to the loss of Calais to France, from which she was said to never recover.
Few, on true reflection, could not feel for Mary Tudor the woman, whatever her faults as a queen. Such is the compassionate footing of this biography, which aims to kill off the unjust legend of that bitter religious extremist so long portrayed in books like this. (Other recent biographers too have become kinder in their treatment of this queen).
Yet the overall effect of Linda Porter's unabashedly biased approach is to sound almost unbalanced. The reader becomes wary of being spun a propagandist commentary rather than the more rounded picture we expect from well-formed biographies.
That said, it should be noted that history's most noteworthy commentators, those from the opposing side of this classic propagandist divide, are equally guilty of this transgression.
There is no such thing as an impartial account in this genre – any such dispassionate efforts, so dry and soulless, can only be relegated to school textbook shelves. What makes any such work so heartfelt and gripping is not its indifference but the passion with which it is presented. Such is the key ingredient of an entertaining read, whether fiction or fact.
Despite its glaring subjectivity, which I see as standard in good historic biography, I loved this book.
Recommended reading.
This was unremarkable in an age that saw religious persecution from both sides sweep reformation Europe. Mary's father before her, sister after her and Habsburg cousins alongside her oversaw similar barbaric acts of state, each in no short measure yet over many more years on their thrones - centring comparably more diluted pictures of what might today be tagged 'tyranny'.
Particularly notable was the rate at which Mary's victims fell in the few short years she reigned.
Her detractors have argued that, had she lived and ruled longer, burning religious dissenters at that same rabid rate, her record could have become outstanding on the basis of numbers alone. Yet hypothetical estimates, no matter how oft reiterated by anti-Catholic commentators, can never translate into historical fact.
Her apologists have maintained that, steering such horrific policies were lawmakers, ministers and parliamentarians rather than any sole monarch - especially not the staid Mary Tudor who, as England's first anointed female ruler, had no predecessors to follow the example of, relying girlishly upon her male decision makers.
Yet rulers of Mary's time held the final authority to accept or reject any policy.
Perhaps the bottom line is that, regardless how classically feminine or modest her regal persona, she had throughout her life displayed such superlative survival instincts and bravery as to well match her majestic pedigree, culminating in the sheer hardiness of successfully fighting for her throne against all odds.
And whatever her perceived passive nature, her victims still burned, at that notoriously high rate.
This book sets out to rationalise Mary's deeds and foibles by examining her tragic personal background and those challenging events, personal and political, influencing her reign.
As England's first queen regnant (excluding the disputed reigns of Lady Jane Grey and the Empress Matilda), she endured the 16th century chauvinism of her ministers and chroniclers, with their sexist attitudes continuing down the centuries by her many male biographers.
Outshone in posterity by her Protestant younger half-sister Elizabeth I, this monarch of only five years, brought down to us as dour, standoffish and neurotic, has stood little chance of a fair hearing to modern generations – until now.
The fourth and penultimate Tudor monarch, remembered for her restoration of Roman Catholicism after the short-lived Protestant reign of her half-brother Edward VI, Mary famously married Philip of Spain against considerable diplomatic advice to the contrary and despite public opposition to a foreign king consort.
Though many years his senior and initially against marrying at all, Mary adored and devoted herself to Philip, who showed little more than contempt towards her, remaining mostly oversees on business. In this loveless marriage she remained childless, dying young and alone after a series of phantom pregnancies.
Elizabeth I devotees will forever know Mary as her younger sister's jailer, as they read of young Princess Elizabeth's time in the Tower of London following her unproven links to various failed rebellions to overthrow Mary and replace her with Elizabeth.
Linda Porter demonstrates, at least in this book's first two-thirds to three-quarters, what a talented biographer she is. Her work sparkles for much of the piece. Her empathic approach, her commendable eye for detail, bring the milieu and its inhabitants beautifully to life, transporting the reader there to judge for ourselves.
The sense of being 'guided' through whom, what and why we ought judge, is apparent throughout, though at first seemingly benign. Porter is protective of Queen Mary like a lioness of her cubs, with only the scantest, tokenistic acknowledgement of her shortcomings.
This partisanship, whilst ever endearing, develops to the point of conspicuity in parts, raising the fundamental question of balance.
Not the first sympathetic take on Mary Tudor I have read, this is one of the most benevolent, verging on sounding agenda driven. Though I enjoyed it immensely, I have two criticisms:
Firstly, the book's last quarter or even third lost its momentum, with those dull patches inevitable to such detailed books extending to drawn out passages penned seemingly just for the sake of listing, rather than wasting, every last ounce of miscellaneous detail researched.
This becomes exasperating towards the book's conclusion, countering an otherwise brilliant telling. This flaw, however, is not uncommon in this increasingly popular genre, with each author competing to cram in the most arbitrary detail, often haphazardly in patches.
My other criticism is that I felt that the author, as a strident apologist of Bloody Mary and her destructive religion in that era, overstated her case throughout. There is a point to this – to counteract the literary destructiveness for so long piled upon this poor queen, who clearly had her good side. The second half of book's title, The Myth of "Bloody Mary", indicates this as being the book's semi raison d'être.
This was, after all, the only daughter of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon and a granddaughter of Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile. She had to have had some inherent greatness and indeed this was seen in her oratory prowess and her bravery in claiming the throne by force after it being so unjustly snatched from her by hostile forces driven by the politics of religion.
She was also an irrefutably kind and merciful figure – except when it came to religious dissent. Even most of her worst detractors she pardoned on assuming her throne.
We read about her torturous youth, bastardized and disinherited from the line of succession after her parents' history making divorce. About her enforced estrangement from her only close ally, her demoted and ostracized mother Queen Catherine of Aragon, under King Henry's cruel orders. We understand how this was all because of her half-sister Elizabeth's mother, Anne Boleyn. How Mary, in adulthood, saw Anne Boleyn in Elizabeth.
Her many psychosomatic illnesses are well documented and explained. She was indeed a melancholy younger figure before ultimately transcending her sorrows to triumph and take rule. Yet even then, her brief time in power was marred by heartache, right down to the loss of Calais to France, from which she was said to never recover.
Few, on true reflection, could not feel for Mary Tudor the woman, whatever her faults as a queen. Such is the compassionate footing of this biography, which aims to kill off the unjust legend of that bitter religious extremist so long portrayed in books like this. (Other recent biographers too have become kinder in their treatment of this queen).
Yet the overall effect of Linda Porter's unabashedly biased approach is to sound almost unbalanced. The reader becomes wary of being spun a propagandist commentary rather than the more rounded picture we expect from well-formed biographies.
That said, it should be noted that history's most noteworthy commentators, those from the opposing side of this classic propagandist divide, are equally guilty of this transgression.
There is no such thing as an impartial account in this genre – any such dispassionate efforts, so dry and soulless, can only be relegated to school textbook shelves. What makes any such work so heartfelt and gripping is not its indifference but the passion with which it is presented. Such is the key ingredient of an entertaining read, whether fiction or fact.
Despite its glaring subjectivity, which I see as standard in good historic biography, I loved this book.
Recommended reading.
October 6, 2017
Definitely the best biography I have ever read on Mary I. It is meticulously researched, examining Mary's life, reign, relationships with her father, mother, stepmothers, brother, sister, husband etc.
Naturally their is focus on the burnings that took place during Mary's reign, and fortunately Linda Porter does not try to make excuses for these brutal acts, but she does put it in to context for the 16 century.
What is refreshing in this biography is to read about the achievements of Mary's short reign, it was far from the disaster that popular legend has sadly lead many people to believe. There were explorations just like in the reign of her half-sister Elizabeth, with the commissioning of the Queen Mary Atlas, and Mary's religious policy was far from straightforward as again, popular legend has led people to believe.
Occasionally perhaps the sympathy towards Mary can get a bit too much, but generally this is the best biography I have read on Mary so far. It doesn't seek to whitewash the controversies of the burnings (which sadly, some books on her do), or present her as a sad lonely little old woman, who would have been better off as a housewife, which, as Porter herself says, is equally as bad as the "Bloody Mary" reputation.
Instead, this biography attempts to place the reign of England's first crowned Queen Regnant as a success, highlighting the many obstacles she overcame. She was prepared for her throne, and was prepared to fight to keep it. She could be singleminded and argumentative towards members of her council, and she was certainly not ruled in any way by her husband. She was kind and generous to her friends and servants, and enjoyed music and her court was far from dull and dowdy.
Personally, I find the reigns of Mary and Elizabeth by far the most interesting among the Tudors. As Porter says, by praising one there is no need to vilify the other. And this biography highlights why their reigns should both be looked upon as successful periods in English history.
Naturally their is focus on the burnings that took place during Mary's reign, and fortunately Linda Porter does not try to make excuses for these brutal acts, but she does put it in to context for the 16 century.
What is refreshing in this biography is to read about the achievements of Mary's short reign, it was far from the disaster that popular legend has sadly lead many people to believe. There were explorations just like in the reign of her half-sister Elizabeth, with the commissioning of the Queen Mary Atlas, and Mary's religious policy was far from straightforward as again, popular legend has led people to believe.
Occasionally perhaps the sympathy towards Mary can get a bit too much, but generally this is the best biography I have read on Mary so far. It doesn't seek to whitewash the controversies of the burnings (which sadly, some books on her do), or present her as a sad lonely little old woman, who would have been better off as a housewife, which, as Porter herself says, is equally as bad as the "Bloody Mary" reputation.
Instead, this biography attempts to place the reign of England's first crowned Queen Regnant as a success, highlighting the many obstacles she overcame. She was prepared for her throne, and was prepared to fight to keep it. She could be singleminded and argumentative towards members of her council, and she was certainly not ruled in any way by her husband. She was kind and generous to her friends and servants, and enjoyed music and her court was far from dull and dowdy.
Personally, I find the reigns of Mary and Elizabeth by far the most interesting among the Tudors. As Porter says, by praising one there is no need to vilify the other. And this biography highlights why their reigns should both be looked upon as successful periods in English history.
April 2, 2025
An excellent biography of a much-maligned Tudor Queen.
December 19, 2024
A good book about Mary Tudor the first queen, but I haven't learnt anything new about her.
August 26, 2015
My book blog --------------> http://allthebookblognamesaretaken.bl...
Superbly written biography of a much-maligned, and undeservedly so, queen. Could not put it down. Full review to follow shortly.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++
Updated review:
This is one of the best biographies I have read this year. It is all the better for me personally in that it is a much more balanced look at the first queen of England, Mary I. In the matter of Henry and Katherine's divorce, I've always been firmly in Katherine's camp and found it heartbreaking in that Mary is so overshadowed by Elizabeth and her reputation so blackened by Foxe. It is as though even in death, she has continued to suffer at the hands of others, 500 years on. Mary went from both parents doting on her (as much as parents - especially royal parents - did in the 1500s), to being taken first away from her mother, the incomparable Katherine of Aragon, to slowly but surely having nearly every person who ever mattered to her taken away one after another. It can't be a surprise to anyone that she turned out the way she did/ Time and again she was subjected to terrible psychological torture as her father first separated Mary from her beloved mother, and then continued to force her hand in accepting the divorce of her parents. And you only have to look at the cruel execution of the elderly Countess of Salisbury and what can only be described as her state-sanctioned murder that was botched horribly, to see how this mental torture continued for Mary. However, I do also feel like the saying that references 'how Mary turned out' is not entirely accurate, as I feel like after reading this, a lot of peoples' perceptions of Mary will be quite different. There is no doubt that the religious aspect, the executions that gave her the nickname 'Bloody Mary' later on, had a major impact on her reign. But so often people are then willing to overlook, or do not know about at all, the similar experiences under the reign of Elizabeth.
I feel like this book was very all-encompassing and did not only look at Mary herself, but how the world around her impacted her life. We are privy to her life from birth, through her briefly happy childhood, to the horror of the divorce and being forced to attend Elizabeth, reconciling (so to speak) with her father, being subjected again religious battering from her brother, her triumphant ride into London to take the throne from her cousin Jane Grey, the subsequent terrible marriage to Philip, phantom pregnancies, and finally her death. (As a side note, this book presents quite possibly the saddest line I have ever read in regards to Jane's execution: "Then the axe fell swiftly and cleanly and this hideously manipulated, unloved slip of a girl was gone." UGH! It still gets to me.
Mary's marriage and phantom pregnancies are especially heartbreaking to me. As a young woman she had assumed she would end of not marrying. Then she becomes queen and it never occurs to any of her counselors that she can or should remain unwed. It seems fairly straightforward to me why she clung to Philip and the marriage so tightly, and why she wanted so desperately to be pregnant - from the time her mother passed away (and even before then, really, once they were split up), Mary had no blood family to call her own. Being married and having a child could have been a way for Mary to fill that void that had existed so long within her. I don't know how to describe it but heartbreaking. You can't help but have wanted her to have a child, to overcome everything terrible in her life that had occurred in her earlier years. I can't even imagine how devastated she was.
All in all, this is a superbly written account of a queen who deserves a second look and deserves much more respect than she has gotten in the centuries since her death. Porter gives a much more balanced and unbiased account of Mary's life. It is highly recommended for those interested in the Tudor era. As an additional note, I recently read somewhere that because of the way their tombs are designed, with Elizabeth's on top of Mary's, that Mary's is in danger of being crushed under Elizabeth's. This would be tragic, and yet one more time that Elizabeth gets the one-up on Mary. I hope this can be rectified before it is too late.
Superbly written biography of a much-maligned, and undeservedly so, queen. Could not put it down. Full review to follow shortly.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++
Updated review:
This is one of the best biographies I have read this year. It is all the better for me personally in that it is a much more balanced look at the first queen of England, Mary I. In the matter of Henry and Katherine's divorce, I've always been firmly in Katherine's camp and found it heartbreaking in that Mary is so overshadowed by Elizabeth and her reputation so blackened by Foxe. It is as though even in death, she has continued to suffer at the hands of others, 500 years on. Mary went from both parents doting on her (as much as parents - especially royal parents - did in the 1500s), to being taken first away from her mother, the incomparable Katherine of Aragon, to slowly but surely having nearly every person who ever mattered to her taken away one after another. It can't be a surprise to anyone that she turned out the way she did/ Time and again she was subjected to terrible psychological torture as her father first separated Mary from her beloved mother, and then continued to force her hand in accepting the divorce of her parents. And you only have to look at the cruel execution of the elderly Countess of Salisbury and what can only be described as her state-sanctioned murder that was botched horribly, to see how this mental torture continued for Mary. However, I do also feel like the saying that references 'how Mary turned out' is not entirely accurate, as I feel like after reading this, a lot of peoples' perceptions of Mary will be quite different. There is no doubt that the religious aspect, the executions that gave her the nickname 'Bloody Mary' later on, had a major impact on her reign. But so often people are then willing to overlook, or do not know about at all, the similar experiences under the reign of Elizabeth.
I feel like this book was very all-encompassing and did not only look at Mary herself, but how the world around her impacted her life. We are privy to her life from birth, through her briefly happy childhood, to the horror of the divorce and being forced to attend Elizabeth, reconciling (so to speak) with her father, being subjected again religious battering from her brother, her triumphant ride into London to take the throne from her cousin Jane Grey, the subsequent terrible marriage to Philip, phantom pregnancies, and finally her death. (As a side note, this book presents quite possibly the saddest line I have ever read in regards to Jane's execution: "Then the axe fell swiftly and cleanly and this hideously manipulated, unloved slip of a girl was gone." UGH! It still gets to me.
Mary's marriage and phantom pregnancies are especially heartbreaking to me. As a young woman she had assumed she would end of not marrying. Then she becomes queen and it never occurs to any of her counselors that she can or should remain unwed. It seems fairly straightforward to me why she clung to Philip and the marriage so tightly, and why she wanted so desperately to be pregnant - from the time her mother passed away (and even before then, really, once they were split up), Mary had no blood family to call her own. Being married and having a child could have been a way for Mary to fill that void that had existed so long within her. I don't know how to describe it but heartbreaking. You can't help but have wanted her to have a child, to overcome everything terrible in her life that had occurred in her earlier years. I can't even imagine how devastated she was.
All in all, this is a superbly written account of a queen who deserves a second look and deserves much more respect than she has gotten in the centuries since her death. Porter gives a much more balanced and unbiased account of Mary's life. It is highly recommended for those interested in the Tudor era. As an additional note, I recently read somewhere that because of the way their tombs are designed, with Elizabeth's on top of Mary's, that Mary's is in danger of being crushed under Elizabeth's. This would be tragic, and yet one more time that Elizabeth gets the one-up on Mary. I hope this can be rectified before it is too late.
October 3, 2013
With The First Queen of England: The Myth of "Bloody Mary" Linda Porter offers a fresh look into the life of Mary the First. She was the queen best-known for her persecution and subsequent burnings of Protestants, but as Porter reveals, there was so much more to Mary Tudor. The daughter of Henry the Eighth and Katherine of Aragon, Mary was a privileged princess and heir to the English throne during her childhood. When Henry the Eighth set his sights on divorcing Katherine and marrying Anne Boleyn, Mary was declared a bastard, losing her title of princess and separated from her mother. It was a long, dangerous journey from that time to the time of her father's death, when she was declared second in line for the throne in Henry's will, after her brother Edward the Sixth. During this time period, Mary was bullied to give up her religion and in danger of losing her liberty for sticking with her beliefs. When Mary finally ascended the throne in 1553, it was after a long struggle throughout her life to become the queen she'd been born to be.
Linda Porter immerses the reader in 16th century England in this biography of Mary the First. She vividly captures the time period by having numerous primary sources throughout the book and providing great insight into the politics and lifestyle of the time. Most of all she captures the life of Mary, not providing a prejudiced account of her life like so many historians, but rather telling the facts of her accomplishments and short-comings. She shows Mary as the determined, proud woman that she was, deeply reliant on her Catholic faith during her very difficult life but also fond of fashion, entertainment and gambling. Porter shows the great strength Mary the First possessed in being the first female ruler to rule England on her own. Yet she also shows how Mary believed it was her duty to marry so she could provide an heir for England. Mary was a woman who longed to be loved and loved her husband, Philip of Spain, immensely, though he didn't return her affection. After reading The First Queen of England I felt great sympathy for Mary, but I also respected her as a queen who ruled to the best of her ability and could have done much for England, had she not died prematurely in 1558.
Throughout the biography, Linda Porter shows how much of the image of "Bloody Mary" comes from Queen Elizabeth the First's reign. Queen Elizabeth was Mary's younger sister and predecessor. Elizabeth blackened Mary's reputation not only by outshining her reign with her own glorious one, but by spreading propaganda against Mary. This book makes it clear that Mary doesn't deserve the bad reputation she's had for 450 years, because in her time persecuting people of other beliefs was a common practice. Mary was no more "bloody" than the other Tudors or rulers of her time.
I highly recommend The First Queen of England: Myth of "Bloody Mary". It is a highly fascinating, meticulously researched biography that turns the myth about Mary the First on its head. Definitely read this if you love history and learning about the Tudors.
Linda Porter immerses the reader in 16th century England in this biography of Mary the First. She vividly captures the time period by having numerous primary sources throughout the book and providing great insight into the politics and lifestyle of the time. Most of all she captures the life of Mary, not providing a prejudiced account of her life like so many historians, but rather telling the facts of her accomplishments and short-comings. She shows Mary as the determined, proud woman that she was, deeply reliant on her Catholic faith during her very difficult life but also fond of fashion, entertainment and gambling. Porter shows the great strength Mary the First possessed in being the first female ruler to rule England on her own. Yet she also shows how Mary believed it was her duty to marry so she could provide an heir for England. Mary was a woman who longed to be loved and loved her husband, Philip of Spain, immensely, though he didn't return her affection. After reading The First Queen of England I felt great sympathy for Mary, but I also respected her as a queen who ruled to the best of her ability and could have done much for England, had she not died prematurely in 1558.
Throughout the biography, Linda Porter shows how much of the image of "Bloody Mary" comes from Queen Elizabeth the First's reign. Queen Elizabeth was Mary's younger sister and predecessor. Elizabeth blackened Mary's reputation not only by outshining her reign with her own glorious one, but by spreading propaganda against Mary. This book makes it clear that Mary doesn't deserve the bad reputation she's had for 450 years, because in her time persecuting people of other beliefs was a common practice. Mary was no more "bloody" than the other Tudors or rulers of her time.
I highly recommend The First Queen of England: Myth of "Bloody Mary". It is a highly fascinating, meticulously researched biography that turns the myth about Mary the First on its head. Definitely read this if you love history and learning about the Tudors.
April 18, 2024
The problem with writing a book with the subtitle "Myth of Bloody Mary" is that the action that lead to Mary I getting that nickname is not a myth. It is a historic fact that Mary sent 300 people to a horrible death just on the basis of their religion, and this is an ugly fact about her. Now, she is far from the only person in 16th century Europe who had a policy of religious intolerance, that is true, but Marian apologists do not seem to have a good way to deal with this when it comes to Mary, and their natural instinct is to avoid it all together. That seems to be Porter's way to handle it as well, as she constantly seeks to downplay the way these executions would have affected Mary's subjects. Porter spends a lot of time trying to deny that John Foxe has any insight on Marian England, and while he was certainly a propagandist, to deny the popularity of his Book of Martyrs in the 1560s seems to deny that it struck something within the English people. She instead relies on the journal of Henry Mancyn, a catholic merchant, but seems to fail to see why his perspective would also be equally biased.
The other issue here is Porter's obvious dislike of Mary's sister Elizabeth, the future Elizabeth I, and while some historic figures interest you and some don't, that doesn't seem to be what's going on here. Elizabeth suffered nearly constant anxiety and genuine threat to her life under her sister's reign, Mary is well documented to be outright cruel to her sister. Porter takes all of this and decides Elizabeth was nothing more than a petulant young woman throwing a tantrum, this is an extremely strange take away on her character when Porter has spent hundred of pages telling us how deeply traumatic Mary's life as a teenager was and it's long lasting scars on her personality. Porter does not seem to see at all how Elizabeth had a nearly identical experience under her sister's reign.
Marian apologism similar to Ricardians seems to be an phenomenon that exists for no real purpose, we are far away from the anti-catholic pamphlets of the 16th century, Mary's life and reign has been more fairly re-assessed decades ago, this is now getting into an area that exists as pure apologism for her unsavoury actions as a queen. It is almost like if you demanded when look at Henry VIII you must ignore his actions to his six wives, that was the defining event of Henry's life, and he is rightly judged on it. Mary's was her religious repression and mass religious persecution of her subjects.
The other issue here is Porter's obvious dislike of Mary's sister Elizabeth, the future Elizabeth I, and while some historic figures interest you and some don't, that doesn't seem to be what's going on here. Elizabeth suffered nearly constant anxiety and genuine threat to her life under her sister's reign, Mary is well documented to be outright cruel to her sister. Porter takes all of this and decides Elizabeth was nothing more than a petulant young woman throwing a tantrum, this is an extremely strange take away on her character when Porter has spent hundred of pages telling us how deeply traumatic Mary's life as a teenager was and it's long lasting scars on her personality. Porter does not seem to see at all how Elizabeth had a nearly identical experience under her sister's reign.
Marian apologism similar to Ricardians seems to be an phenomenon that exists for no real purpose, we are far away from the anti-catholic pamphlets of the 16th century, Mary's life and reign has been more fairly re-assessed decades ago, this is now getting into an area that exists as pure apologism for her unsavoury actions as a queen. It is almost like if you demanded when look at Henry VIII you must ignore his actions to his six wives, that was the defining event of Henry's life, and he is rightly judged on it. Mary's was her religious repression and mass religious persecution of her subjects.
March 18, 2014
This by far has been one of the best books that I have read on Mary I. I have always been fascinated with her, I don't think she deserves the labels that have been placed on her. Yes, she did kill people for their religious beliefs, but this is not anything new given the time period. Monarchs before and after Mary have done the same thing, but it seems that only Mary is singled out and given the title as being *bloody*. Porter did a good job of dispelling a lot of myths in regards to Mary. Like for example, many people that Mary wanted to take England back to the time before Henry became supreme head ruler of the Church of England. Which is not true, she supported many of her father's policy, she didn't like the name of supreme head leader of church because it brought back to many bad memories for her from her childhood. Mary was not oblivious to the faults of the Catholic Church either; she was trying her with all her might to reform the Catholic Church from within as well. Cracking down on Priest who had lovers, she brought new waves of priest into the church; she also updated and reformed some of the literature to help bring in new members to the Catholic faith. Though Mary reign is seen as a failure to many people, but not a lot of people know that the success of Elizabeth reign came from ideas of those of her sister in the previous reign. I highly recommend this book, in it we see Mary as more of a person with faults, instead of the *Bloody Mary* title that has been unfairly cast on her.
April 15, 2014
(I'm re-reading this in April 2014 - since I couldn't include it the first time, this time I'll copy/paste my review from the Historical Novel Society Review November 2009 issue.)
This fascinating biography of Mary Tudor cuts through centuries of assumption, legend, and demonization to reveal a more even-handed portrait of the first true English queen regnant. Every aspect of Mary’s life is thoroughly reexamined: from her supposed religious fanaticism to her seemingly loveless marriage and the derangement resulting from two phantom pregnancies. Instead of a wizened crone who burned heretics to warm her frigid body, Mary is revealed as a woman of her time, a true Tudor whose every action bore careful forethought and purpose, even if those thoughts do not mesh with modern-day morality. We watch a vivacious and intelligent child, the delight of her parents, grow into a beautiful and articulate young woman, the trend-setter of her day, who endures terrible traumas and psychological torment to become a Queen whose heartbreaks eventually lead to a sad conclusion. Mary was by no means an innocent, but neither was she the unhinged monster of legend, the “bad Tudor” shelved away in the dark to make room for Elizabeth’s light. Mary’s life, like all lives, had its share of triumphs as well as failures, and Porter’s exhaustive research makes this passionately clear. Highly recommended for any Tudor library.
This fascinating biography of Mary Tudor cuts through centuries of assumption, legend, and demonization to reveal a more even-handed portrait of the first true English queen regnant. Every aspect of Mary’s life is thoroughly reexamined: from her supposed religious fanaticism to her seemingly loveless marriage and the derangement resulting from two phantom pregnancies. Instead of a wizened crone who burned heretics to warm her frigid body, Mary is revealed as a woman of her time, a true Tudor whose every action bore careful forethought and purpose, even if those thoughts do not mesh with modern-day morality. We watch a vivacious and intelligent child, the delight of her parents, grow into a beautiful and articulate young woman, the trend-setter of her day, who endures terrible traumas and psychological torment to become a Queen whose heartbreaks eventually lead to a sad conclusion. Mary was by no means an innocent, but neither was she the unhinged monster of legend, the “bad Tudor” shelved away in the dark to make room for Elizabeth’s light. Mary’s life, like all lives, had its share of triumphs as well as failures, and Porter’s exhaustive research makes this passionately clear. Highly recommended for any Tudor library.
June 14, 2016
I thought this was a fantastic portrait on Mary Tudor. She is so easily glossed over in the shadow of her long-reigning, younger sister, but what I learned from this book was that Elizabeth modeled herself after Mary in many ways after her succession. Mary served as a role model for her, exemplifying what to do (and what not to do) as a queen in her own right.
It's true that Mary, after 450 years, continues to be maligned under history's scrutinizing lens, but as with many popular ideas about historical figures during this era, I think that's due in part to the strength of Tudor propaganda. Porter does a wonderful job of showing a well-rounded view of Mary--her joyous birth, her tragic childhood, and the complicated relationships she had with her sister and husband.
This is a wonderful book for anyone looking to better understand Mary personally as well as politically. I think it's comprehensive enough that if you don't know much about the Tudors it's a good jumping off point, but there is also plenty of information in here that would interest seasoned historians.
It's true that Mary, after 450 years, continues to be maligned under history's scrutinizing lens, but as with many popular ideas about historical figures during this era, I think that's due in part to the strength of Tudor propaganda. Porter does a wonderful job of showing a well-rounded view of Mary--her joyous birth, her tragic childhood, and the complicated relationships she had with her sister and husband.
This is a wonderful book for anyone looking to better understand Mary personally as well as politically. I think it's comprehensive enough that if you don't know much about the Tudors it's a good jumping off point, but there is also plenty of information in here that would interest seasoned historians.
April 7, 2020
I wanted to enjoy this book. I’m a fan of everything Tudor with particular interest in Mary I. I’ve read many different biographies on the lives of Mary, as well as her half sister Elizabeth, and their father Henry VIII. I’m familiar with the facts, but have always appreciated how each author can always bring something new to the table. What did this book bring? A lot of conjecture. There was numerous occasions where the phrases “she may have thought”, “perhaps ____ happened”, etc occurred. There is bound to be speculation, of course. After all the focus of the history was a Queen from several hundred years past. However, with that said, the author brought nothing new to the table and instead of presenting a unique telling of a familiar story, spent too much time on the “may have happened”. I personally do not recommend to those versed in Tudor England. Writing was decent, which merits the two stars, but the substance just wasn’t there.
April 25, 2017
Ultimately, a very good book about Mary Tudor. It only really dragged in one place, and the who's who was explained very well.
I only wish we could have spent a little more time in her childhood, pre-divorce b/n Katherine and Henry. There also anecdotes I've seen in several other books but not in this one, such as Mary being so innocent that Henry came in and used a vulgar word and she didn't even flinch because she didn't know what it meant. Maybe that's apocryphal, but the author brought up several other apocryphal anecdotes and discussed the likelyhood of their veracity, so I wish she'd done it with some of the ones from Mary's earlier days as well.
Ultimately, let me just say that I would recommend this biography to my mother, who went to graduate school for British history, so that speaks pretty highly of the book.
I only wish we could have spent a little more time in her childhood, pre-divorce b/n Katherine and Henry. There also anecdotes I've seen in several other books but not in this one, such as Mary being so innocent that Henry came in and used a vulgar word and she didn't even flinch because she didn't know what it meant. Maybe that's apocryphal, but the author brought up several other apocryphal anecdotes and discussed the likelyhood of their veracity, so I wish she'd done it with some of the ones from Mary's earlier days as well.
Ultimately, let me just say that I would recommend this biography to my mother, who went to graduate school for British history, so that speaks pretty highly of the book.
February 5, 2014
I found this book to be a bit of a slog to get through - maybe I was just trying to read it at the wrong time of the day. For the most part I was able to read about 10 pages at a time. That being said, I am extremely happy that I did read this book. I have never before read a book that had Mary as anything other than a secondary character. From early on in the book I knew that I owed Queen Mary and her memory a huge apology as I like so many others, fell victim to the propaganda regarding Mary. I would definitely recommend this book.
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