What were Queen Mary I, Mary Tudor, or Bloody Mary's achievments during her life?

Question

What were Queen Mary I, Mary Tudor, or Bloody Mary's achievments during her life? I have a report due and can't quite find anything on her. I need help finding ideas.

I also need to know if she was ever named Princess of Whales?

or any quotes she actually said, herself.

Answer 1

Not many. Here is a quote from Wikipedia:

"Mary did not have many successes; she was, however, known for her "common touch". She would wear a country's national dress when meeting its ambassador, and many of those who waited upon her personally later expressed great love and loyalty to her."

Having earned the title "Bloody Mary" by her persecution of Protestants, she is chiefly remembered for this and for the reviled marriage to Philip of Spain. He may have respected her, but he did not love her. (He flirted with her sister, Elizabeth.) Mary, however, did like him very much and at least twice thought she was pregnant. These turned out to be, possibly, phantom pregnancies, and highly humiliating for her as she retired to prepare for childbirth and nothing happened. She was also the Queen who said that when she died, "you will find Calais lying on my heart" - she had lost Calais which had formerly been in English hands for over 200 years. Perhaps the only real success was in dying so that Elizabeth could take the throne.

I can only say that, having read quite a bit about her, she was deemed to be a very kind person. What drove her to her persecutions of the Protestants seemed to be a very real concern for their spiritual health. She also did not want to execute Lady Jane Grey; it took quite a long time before she sanctioned it. She loved children; I think she had had a very sad life and was a deeply unhappy Queen.

Re the above: Jane Seymour, Henry VIII's third wife, was the one who gave him his only living, legitimate son, and they are buried together under a plaque in St George's Chapel, Windsor.

Edit:
"Henry invested his daughter as Princess of Wales in 1525 and she held court at Ludlow Castle...
http://englishhistory.net/tudor/monarchs/mary1.html
This is substantiated by Antonia Fraser in her book "The Lives of the Kings and Queens of England", where she says: "Once the rift between Henry and Katherine [of Aragon] developed, Mary was sent to Ludlow as Princess of Wales ... and was agonisingly deprived of her mother's company." (Joan of Kent was the first Princess of Wales.)

If you navigate about this site, you will find things that the sad Queen said:
http://englishhistory.net/tudor/monarchs/mary1.html

Answer 2

There have been loads of books written on the subject of Mary Tudor, from both sides of the story. Yes Mary Tudor burned people she considered to be heretics, but she wasn't the only one; look at her father Henry VIII - he had plenty of people put to death because they didn't agree with his religious views. In the time of the reformation there were both Catholic & Protestant Martyrs, and Mary Tudor wasn't the only culprit.

Answer 3

Queen Mary was Henry VIII's first child and was the daughter of Catherine of Aragon, Henry's first wife. Because Henry was dissatisfied with not siring a son, he attempted to divorce Catherine who was a member of the Spanish royal family. When the Pope would not grant Henry the divorce he desired, he formed the Church of England, also known as the Anglican Church. It was not until Henry's 3th wife, Jane Seamore, that he was given a son and he therefore loved and cherished her until her death. His successor and son Edward VI, ruled only shortly before dying, at which point Mary became Queen of England [and France]. Mary had her half-sister Elizabeth, whose mother, Anne Boyline, was Henry's 2nd wife, under house arrest. Unlike with Catherine of Aragon, Anne Boyline was sentenced to death for not bearing Henry a son. Queen Mary married into the Spanish Royal Family and was staunchly Catholic. She therefore fervently tried to undo her father and brother's Anglican church, considered Protestant, and was well known for executing anyone found worshiping in a Protestant way or not properly attending Catholic services. Protestant clergy were especially vulnerable. She tried for a number of years to become pregnant but to no avail. She did not do much to expand the empire but did maintain good relations with Spain. With her death came the reign of the highly successful Virgin Queen, Queen Elizabeth I, who broke ties with Spain, becoming more friendly with France and fighting on the side of the Dutch during the battle for Dutch Independence from Spain in the war commonly known as the Thirty-Years War.

However, be careful when referring to Mary Tutor, as she was actually Queen Mary's aunt (Henry VIII's sister). By becoming Queen, Mary is generally referred to by this title, not by her surname, which is historically reserved for her aunt.

Answer 4

She got a drink named after her!!