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In 1555, in an effort to produce a male heir, Mary I married prince Philip II of Spain
One of her first acts was to bring the Catholic faith back to England by initially scrapping the religious proclamations of her half brother, Edward VI. Mary replaced the proclamations with the old English laws. Heresy against the church was now punishable by death. The reintroduction of this act earned Mary the nickname, “Bloody Mary”. During her short, five-year reign, Queen Mary I had more than 300 subjects burnt at the stake for the act of heresy. The most notable of these was the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer.
In 1555, in an effort to produce a male heir, Mary married prince Philip II of Spain. This did not go down well with the people, as many viewed Spain as an enemy of England. Twice during her rule, Mary thought she was pregnant with child, displaying all the symptoms. Alas, this was not so as her symptoms were a sign of a false pregnancy. Mary had convinced herself that she was pregnant and the body reacted accordingly.
Following the advice of her husband, Mary allied herself with Spain during the war against France. The subsequent consequences of her actions were that England lost her only and last remaining foothold in the country – Calais. Sadly, in 1558, Philip II left her and went back to Spain to claim the Spanish throne.
Queen Mary I, childless and without a husband was forced to recognize her sister, Elizabeth, an Anglican Protestant, as the next ruler of England. Although Mary tried to persuade her sister to convert and accept the Roman Catholic faith, Elizabeth refused and went on to become Queen Elizabeth I.
England suffered under the leadership of Mary: the economy was in ruin, religious dissent reached its pinnacle and England lost her last foothold in Europe. Jane Austen wrote about Mary: "This woman had the good luck of being advanced to the throne of England, in spite of the superior pretensions, Merit and Beauty of her Cousins Mary Queen of Scotland and Jane Grey. Nor can I pity the Kingdom for the misfortunes they experienced during her reign, since they fully deserved them..."
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Mary I of England was born in 1516 to Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon and was the first British monarch to rule in her own right. Mary was pronounced queen in 1553, ruling for five years after the death of Edward VI.
