The Vilification of Mary Tudor: Religion, Politics, and Propaganda in Sixteenth-Century England

The Vilification of Mary Tudor: Religion, Politics, and Propaganda in Sixteenth-Century England by Lorin Scott, BA Thesis In History Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of Texas Tech University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts Approved Dr. Abigail Swingen Chair of Committee Dr. Stefano D’Amico Dr. Emily Skidmore Mark Sheridan Dean of the Graduate School May, 2014 Copyright 2014, Lorin Scott ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to first and foremost thank my thesis advisor, Dr. Abigail Swingen, for all of her help, guidance, and the encouragement that she has provided me over the past two years. She was a constant source of wise counsel and patiently waded through draft after draft of my work. I truly feel that Dr. Swingen has helped me become a better historian and writer than I could have ever hoped for. I would also like to thank Dr. Stefano D’Amico and Dr. Emily Skidmore for their continual support, encouragement, and the guidance that they have graciously given me with over the past three years. I would further like to thank Dr. Richard Verrone for being an amazing advisor and friend to me during my years at Texas Tech. Dr. Verrone constantly offered me words of encouragement and gave me the confidence I needed to push through the pressures and difficulties of graduate school. Finally, I would like to thank the entire Texas Tech history department for providing me with such an amazing experience as I worked on my graduate degree. Between the funding to do research in London and the faculty’s constant willingness to stretch, train, and encourage my abilities as a historian, the Texas Tech history department has provided me with invaluable experiences and education. Finally, I would like to thank my family for their constant encouragement and support for me all throughout my thesis writing and graduate experiences. Specifically, I want to thank you my husband, Dr. Phillip Scott, for always having faith in me and my abilities as a historian. I appreciate you and your constant words of encouragement and love more than you can know. Lastly, I want to thank my mom, Robyn Lowrie, for always believing in me and always encouraging me to follow my dreams. You are the main reason that I am historian! Furthermore, thank you for editing my thesis over and over again over the past two years. ii Texas Tech University, Lorin Scott, May 2014 TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS .................................................................................... ii ABSTRACT ......................................................................................................... iv LIST OF FIGURES ..............................................................................................v I. INTRODUCTION ..............................................................................................1 Historical Background .....................................................................................10 II. THE HEALER AND THE HANDMAIDEN: MARY'S CATHOLIC PROPAGANDA CAMPAIGN 1553-155…………………..………………….198 III. THE HABSBURG MARRIAGE AND ENGLISH REACTION: THE MARIAN PROPAGANDA CAMPAIGN FOR HABSBURG AND ENGLISH RECONCILIATION…..………………………………………...….56 Habsburg Marriage and Marian Policy…….………………………………....56 Marian Propaganda Campaign for the Habsburg Marriage…………...…..…68 The Collapse of the Marian Propaganda Campaign………………...…….....78 IV. THE TRUMPETS AGAINST THE MONSTROUS REGIMENT OF "BLOODY MARY": PROTESTANT REACTIONS TO THE REIGN OF MARY 1553-1570………………………………………………..………....89 The Creation of the "Cruel Tyrant" and the beginning foundations of the idea of "Bloody Mary"………………………………………………..…106 V. Conclusion…………………………………………………………………...136 BIBLIOGRAPHY ..........................................................................................…146 iii Texas Tech University, Lorin Scott, May 2014 ABSTRACT Mary Tudor, the first reigning queen of England, has been one of the most despised rulers in English history. She was the Catholic queen whose policy of burning Protestant heretics earned her the regrettable moniker, “Bloody Mary.” The purpose of my thesis is to examine the reign of Mary I and the years preceding it to understand the origins of the “Bloody Mary” image that has dominated English historical tradition over the past four centuries. In the early stages of her reign, Mary and her advisors created a propaganda campaign by distributing images of her as a benevolent Catholic queen and loving Habsburg wife in order to garner popular support and ease fears over the Catholic religious policies she set into motion. I will argue that it was these images, created by the Marian government, that were used and manipulated by Mary’s Protestant adversaries to delegitimize her authority and villianize her reign in the eyes of her English subjects. This negative Protestant propaganda campaign in conjunction with Mary’s unpopular religious policies, thus set into motion the creation of the “Bloody Mary” image that began to spread through seventeenth-century Protestant England and into the twenty-first century. iv Texas Tech University, Lorin Scott, May 2014 LIST OF FIGURES 1 “Certain prayers to be used by the quenes heignes in the consecreation of the crampe rynges” .............................................54 2 “Mary Tudor curing the king’s evil”……………………………...54 3 Richard Beeard’s “A Godly Psalme of Marye Queene which brought us comfort al, through God, whom wee of dewtye prayse.” …………………………………………………………..55 4 John Heywood’s “A Spider and the Flie”………………………..55 5 Easter Plea Rolls 4 & 5 Philip & Mary Easter……………………87 6a Great Seal of Philip and Mary…………………………………….87 6b A detailed drawing of the Great Seal……………………………..87 7 Coins of Mary I and Philip………………………………………..88 8 Hans Eworth. Portrait of King Felipe II. Of Spain……………….88 9 “About the Origin of Monks. About the Origin of the Antichrist…………………………………………………………133 10 “Behold here a brief abstract of all genealogie of all the Kynges of England……………………………………………….133 11 John Foxe. “A Lamentable Spectacle of three women, with a sely infant brasting out of the Mothers wombe, being first taken out of the fire, and cast in agayne, and so all burned together in the Isle of Guernsey”…………………………………134 v Texas Tech University, Lorin Scott, May 2014 CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION According to English cultural and historical tradition, Mary I is perceived to be a villainous queen whose torture and persecution of English Protestants earned her the regrettable nickname “Bloody Mary.” From the time of her reign (1553-1558), Mary’s supporters and opponents characterized her between the extremes of the biblical heroine Deborah, who redeemed the country from religious destruction, and the villain Jezebel, who persecuted God’s faithful subjects. Until very recently, the prevailing image of Mary Tudor was as a cruel, tyrannical, and hysterical woman whose premature death saved England from Catholic and Spanish oppression. Over the centuries, the mutation of Mary’s character and reputation became a tool in the hands of Protestant historians who portrayed her as the antithesis of the Virgin Queen, Elizabeth I, and the subsequent rise of England’s glory as a world power in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. This traditional image of Mary Tudor even infiltrates popular culture today. Film director Shekhar Kapur’s interpretation in his movie, Elizabeth (1998) portrays Mary as an embittered and hysterical woman whose zeal for persecuting Protestants is depicted in the gruesome scenes of three individuals burning at the stake. This image was further perpetuated in 2010 when the popular tourist attraction, the London Dungeon, included the vile Queen Mary I among England’s most infamous and bloody scoundrels, such as Jack the Ripper, Sweeney Todd, and Guy Fawkes. In this exhibit, patrons were visually transported back to 1556 London to witness “Bloody Mary” fantastically condemning Protestants to death as well as to experience the sights, screams and stench of a fiery 1 Texas Tech University, Lorin Scott, May 2014 execution of helpless “heretics” burning alive. These haunting portrayals of Mary Tudor that dominate popular culture are the result of four centuries of anti-Catholic prejudice. In my thesis, I aim to examine how political propaganda during the 1550s and 1560s deleteriously contributed to the vilification of Mary I. While the moniker “Bloody Mary” was not coined until the latter seventeenth century,1 I argue that the origins of the degradation of Mary’s reputation was a result of the chaotic and divisive religious situation in England from the beginning of her reign, and her inability to transcend these divisions to unify her people under one religion and one English queen. I will argue that this failure was further exacerbated by her decision to marry Philip II of Spain, her alignment with the Roman Catholic Church, and later with Elizabeth I’s institutionalization of Protestantism in England. Rather than attempting to restore Mary Tudor’s reputation and reign, I will reevaluate the ways in which she came to be understood as a cruel and tyrannical queen and how this image has dominated English history and popular culture over the past four centuries. I will specifically evaluate Mary’s reign from 1553 to 1558 and the decade following her death to trace the evolution of her image from a Catholic savior to a cruel despot. I will argue that Mary and her advisors diligently worked to bind her rule and royal representation with images of Catholicism and the Spanish Habsburgs in order

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