why was mary tudor such a committed catholic?

Answer 1

Because her mother Catherine of Aragon was a very devoted catholic and brought her up that way and Mary doted on her..also she wasn't too fond of her father King Henry and his actions so that might have steered her a little further from the Protestant church.

Answer 2

Mary ("Bloody Mary") was the daughter of Catherine of Aragon, the princess of Spain. At the time, the spanish were one of the biggest richest powers in Europe, and also in control of the Papal States and the Pope.

Henry VIII married Catherine, who was his older (dead) brother Arthur's original betrothed. The match was as much politics as anything, and Catherine was 8 years older. She had several miscarriages before and after Mary. Henry, who's father had finished off the War of the Roses by grabbing the throne under doubtful authority, was very aware how fragile his grip on the title was, and wanted to be sure there was a son to ensure that nobody started a civil war to claim the throne from him. He decided he should marry a younger heathier bride and try for more children.

The King of Spain did not want his daughter to be divorced, the pope therefore refused the request even though divorce for this reason not a very unusual thing in those days. Henry decided to split with the Catholic church to decree his own divorce. Catherine was sent out into countryside to a remote estate, and took Mary with her and raised her there, surrounded by her personal preists. So, Mary Tudor had a very traditional catholic upbringing. The priests educating Mary were probably the best that Spain and Rome could send, given the potential she might one day be queen.

Also, it was Henry who created such misery for Mary's mother, and started the English church - so mary was unlikely to have much sympathy for Henry's creation. Toward the end on Henry's life, radicals reformers in his goverment got into the church business and changed its doctrine to repudiat a lot that the Catholic church stood for. This was sure to antagonize a devout atholic like Mary.

To ensure the loyalty of his nobles, and make sure that they were equally guilty with him - there was no going back - Henry distributed the church's property to all of them. They stripped the churches and especially the abbeys of treasures. That's why most abbeys today in england are lard ruins. People even took the lead flashing off the roof, so the water rotted the roof beams and everything fell in - if they didn't steal the wood too.

Edward, Henry's son, was sickly and died young. When Mary became Queen, her Catholic advisors took on the task of rooting out the "heretics" and restoring the church to Rome. A lot of the protestant reformers were committed fanatics, and Mary's Jesuits had no compuction executing them as heretics -which is how she earned her nickname.

Elizabeth, OTOH, was raised (after her mother's execution for infidelity) in another backwater estate where she was educated by protestants. For quite a while, the Catholics prevailed and Mary decreed that Catherine's divorce was invalid, Elizabeth was illegitimate and therefore not the heir. Toward the end, cooler heads prevailed - allowing many competing claims from different heirs was a recipe for civil war and chaos. Elizabeth was declared the heir, and ruled in her turn. When she ascended the throne, she undid all the changes Mary had tried to put in place.

Answer 3

One reason would have been that if Henry had obeyed the Pope and not divorced her mother, Mary would not have been subject to the indignity of being called a bastard and seen her mother treated badly. I guess as well that she was brought up amongst fervent catholics (her mother was devout). Having had a rather sad life, it's not surprising that she devoted herself so fervently to religion. In the end her strong (if misguided) faith cannot be completely explained (like with most people who are very religious). She genuinely believed when she had protestants burned that she was saving the souls of her people that it was her duty as queen to do so.

Answer 4

Because she lived in a primitive age before science showed us the light.

Back in the mid 1550s when she was on the throne they still believed that the sun revolved around the earth. Anyone who dared imply that it was actually the earth which revolved around the sun was burnt as a heretic. They also still believed that the earth was only 6,000 years old and that it had been created in exactly the same way described in the Book of Genesis. Unbelievably it was not until the 19th century that this particular nonsense was debunked when Darwin published his Origin of the Species.

Unfortunately, there are still deluded individuals alive today who still hold true to this primitive religion. If any are reading this then they should try reading Richard Dawkin's The God Delusion as it will open their eyes to the light.

Answer 5

For one thing, just about everybody was back then. The Catholic church had been THE church for a while and the Protestant Reformation was just taking hold.

Also, Henry VIII had renounced Catholicism in order to divorce her mother and send her off to a less than royal life. It makes sense for her to be Catholic if Anglicanism had caused her so much pain.

Answer 6

Her father had divorced her mother by renouncing his Catholic faith and becoming a Protestant. Naturally, this kicked her on the line of succession to the throne behind her half-sister, Elizabeth, because Mary was technically illegitimate.
Her father took back his decision and made Mary second and placed Elizabeth third after he killed Anne Bolelyn, his second queen. Because of this family history, Mary clung to her mother's beliefs and tried to purge England later of Protestants.

Answer 7

Hello

There is no "one correct" answer; it actually depends on the level of detail you require and what you need the information for. If you are writing or working at A Level or above you could do worse than check these some of these publications :

http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/history/undergrad/modules/hi255/readingessays/topic11/

if you are looking for a spiritual insight into the mind of a long deceased monarch then the best thing is to try and imagine her mindset - i.e. put yourself in her shoes

Answer 8

Because she was schooled in the Catherlic faith as her father was, but he threw it of and adopted the prodistant faith so he could give the pope the old heave ho , by that time Mary Tudor was already a devout Catherlic and could not make the change.

Answer 9

she was a committed catholic because her mother was staunch catholic and gave her the same upbringing.Mary also rebelled against henry viii and edward vii other them bringing the protestant religion to england and henry viii divorcing catherine of aragon and making mary a illegitimate child

Answer 10

That was a point in history when England was torn between Catholosim and Protestantism, as were other countries. Mary was raised a devoted catholic. Her father Henry VIII supported it as the official religion of England, until the church turned against his tendancy of divorce.

Mary, the fourth and penultimate monarch of the Tudor dynasty, is remembered for returning England from Protestantism to Roman Catholicism. To this end, she had almost three hundred religious dissenters executed; as a consequence, she is often known as Bloody Mary. Her religious policies, however, were in many cases reversed by her successor and half-sister, Elizabeth I (1558–1603). Mary and Elizabeth were both cousins of Mary, Queen of Scots.

The marriage of Mary's parents was in jeopardy because Catherine had failed to provide Henry the male heir he desired. Henry attempted to have his marriage to her annulled, but, to Henry's disappointment, Pope Clement VII refused all his requests because of the influence of Catherine's nephew, the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V. Henry had claimed, by citing biblical passages, that his marriage to Catherine was unclean because she had been previously married (as a child) to his brother Arthur, although there was some debate as to whether that marriage had been consummated or not. In 1533, Henry secretly married another woman, Anne Boleyn. Shortly thereafter, Thomas Cranmer, the Archbishop of Canterbury, formally declared the marriage with Catherine void and the marriage with Anne valid. Henry then broke with the Roman Catholic Church and declared himself head of the Church of England. As a consequence of this, Catherine lost the dignity of being queen and was demoted to Princess Dowager of Wales (a title she would have held as the widow of Arthur). Mary in turn was deemed illegitimate and her place in the line of succession, as well as the title princess, was transferred to her half-sister, the future Elizabeth I, daughter of Anne Boleyn.

Mary was expelled from Court, her servants were dismissed from her service, and she was forced to serve as a lady-in-waiting to Elizabeth. She was not permitted to see her mother Catherine, nor attend her funeral in 1536. Her treatment at this time was widely perceived as unjust. Circumstances between Mary and her father worsened and she was tricked into reconciling with her father by submitting to him as head of the Church of England. By this she repudiated papal authority, acknowledged that the marriage between her mother and father was unlawful, and accepted her own illegitimacy.


Likely her feeling against Protestantism were cultured by these events under the banner of Protestantism.