Speaker 1: Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of I Heart Radio
Speaker 1: and Grimm and Mild from Aaron Minky. Listener discretion is advised.
Speaker 1: If you've ever been a child out a sleepover party,
Speaker 1: chances are you've played a game called Bloody Mary. This
Speaker 1: is how it works. You, the tiny sleepover attendee, go
Speaker 1: into a bathroom and turn the light off. You're holding
Speaker 1: a candle or maybe a flashlight. You closed the door
Speaker 1: behind you so that you're alone in the dark. It's
Speaker 1: at this point that the only sounds you can hear
Speaker 1: are your friend's muffled giggles from the other side of
Speaker 1: the door and your own breathing. You're supposed to look
Speaker 1: into the mirror, holding the candle aloft and repeat the
Speaker 1: name Bloody Mary ten times if you dare. Most often
Speaker 1: you get to about six or seven and bail on
Speaker 1: the experiment, shriek and explode from the bathroom and claim
Speaker 1: that you saw something that you were so freaked out.
Speaker 1: Then you and your friends all laugh and drink some
Speaker 1: more diet coke and go watch Adam's Family Values on VHS.
Speaker 1: Kids at slumber parties, at least in my experience, were
Speaker 1: too frightened to get up to saying the name Bloody
Speaker 1: Mary ten times. According to the myth, if you were
Speaker 1: holding a candle and looking in a mirror in a
Speaker 1: darkened bathroom, and you said the name Bloody Mary ten times,
Speaker 1: you would see her face reflected in the mirror behind
Speaker 1: your own. Who is Bloody Mary the specter of slumber parties?
Speaker 1: It's hard to find an exact answer. As with so
Speaker 1: much mythology and lore, rumors and speculations find themselves together
Speaker 1: until they're impossible to unravel from fact. Some say that
Speaker 1: Bloody Mary is actually a witch who was hanged at Salem,
Speaker 1: although evidence for that is fairly non specific. But historically
Speaker 1: the nickname Bloody Mary was ascribed to an actual woman,
Speaker 1: Queen Mary the First of England. Mary Tudor, the oldest
Speaker 1: daughter of King Henry the eighth, eventually became a queen.
Speaker 1: She was a devout Catholic who burned Protestant heretics at
Speaker 1: the stake, an act which eventually led to her bloody
Speaker 1: nickname Mary. It became a hated figure, decried as one
Speaker 1: of the worst monarchs in history, a woman tyrannical, monstrous.
Speaker 1: If you believe the rumors, the cocktail Bloody Mary was
Speaker 1: named for her as well, the tomato juice for the
Speaker 1: blood of Protestant martyrs, and vodka to symbolize the flames
Speaker 1: of the pyre. God knows what the clam juice was
Speaker 1: supposed to be, maybe the way she expanded the navy,
Speaker 1: but hated as Bloody Mary is in theory today. Before
Speaker 1: her coronation, the people rejoiced as Mary rode into London
Speaker 1: to claim her crown. There was cheering in the streets
Speaker 1: and a swell of popular support. She was a beloved figure,
Speaker 1: heroin come home to save the kingdom from usurpers. So
Speaker 1: how did the first female monarch of England in her
Speaker 1: own right go from becoming a populist hero to a
Speaker 1: monster out of a myth? The answer is, unsurprisingly complicated.
Speaker 1: History is written by the victors, and victors in the
Speaker 1: case of England's religious disputes were the Protestants. For Mary.
Speaker 1: The combination of an unpopular marriage, military losses, and the
Speaker 1: failure to produce an heir became a perfect storm, ensuring
Speaker 1: a legacy that would be vulnerable to the reportation of
Speaker 1: her enemies, and everyone from children at slumber parties to
Speaker 1: historians loves a bloody villain. I'm Danish sports and this
Speaker 1: is noble blood. Over the course of six wives, Henry
Speaker 1: the eighth had three children, but even so the Tutor
Speaker 1: dynasty was far from secure. His youngest child, Edward, was
Speaker 1: the only boy the heir, but he was still a child,
Speaker 1: and a fairly sickly one at that. As Henry the
Speaker 1: Eighth approached death, he needed an order of succession that
Speaker 1: accounted for young Edward dying before he had children of
Speaker 1: his own, but that issue was fairly complicated. Remember the
Speaker 1: whole six wives thing. Edward was the son of wife
Speaker 1: number three, sweet beloved Jane Seymour, who died of complications
Speaker 1: after the birth. Henry's other two would be legitimate children.
Speaker 1: His daughters, Mary and Elizabeth, were daughters of Catherine of
Speaker 1: Aragon and Anne Boleyn, respectively, and they were both retroactively delegitimized.
Speaker 1: Mary was delegitimized when Henry annulled his own marriage with
Speaker 1: Catherine to marry Anne, and then Elizabeth when Henry declared
Speaker 1: that Anne was a trader and had her be headed.
Speaker 1: But Henry's options for heirs were running short, and so
Speaker 1: in fifteen forty three, a few years before his death,
Speaker 1: Henry the Eighth had Parliament passed his Third Succession Act,
Speaker 1: in which he declared the line of succession would be
Speaker 1: first Young Edward and then Mary and then Elizabeth. The
Speaker 1: latter two were still considered a legitimate but still getting
Speaker 1: back in the succession order at all for Mary was
Speaker 1: a massive coup. Her relationship with her father, Henry the Eighth,
Speaker 1: had been a nightmare of chaos and betrayal since she
Speaker 1: was about twelve years old. When Henry declared that his
Speaker 1: marriage to Catherine wasn't legitimate, was never legitimate, that he
Speaker 1: was the head of Church of England, and that he
Speaker 1: was going to marry Anne Boleyn no matter what anyone
Speaker 1: said about it. Young Mary's life was ripped out from
Speaker 1: under her. In the first part of this episode, series
Speaker 1: I discussed that more in depth, the betrayal of her
Speaker 1: father turning against her, isolating her from the people she
Speaker 1: loved and who loved her forbidding her to see her
Speaker 1: mother even as her mother approached death. It would be
Speaker 1: years before the relationship between Mary and King Henry the
Speaker 1: Eighth became cordial again, and only then it was because
Speaker 1: she was willing to submit to the terms he forced
Speaker 1: upon her acknowledging that he was the head of the
Speaker 1: Church of England and that the marriage between her parents
Speaker 1: was illegitimate. Mary was a devout Catholic and a devoted
Speaker 1: daughter to her proud mother. Mary only signed her father's
Speaker 1: statement at the encouragement of her cousin, Charles five, the
Speaker 1: Holy Roman Emperor. Charles had been one of Mary's only
Speaker 1: allies since the time she was little. They were actually
Speaker 1: betrothed when she was a toddler, but their age difference
Speaker 1: was too large for Charles to want to wait, so
Speaker 1: instead of marriage, he merely tried to offer his support
Speaker 1: to his cousin Mary and to Catherine of Aragon from Afar.
Speaker 1: After Henry turned against them, Mary swallowing her pride and
Speaker 1: signing the statement turned out to be the right choice.
Speaker 1: She was welcomed back into the courtly fold and given
Speaker 1: a household again, and just as important to marry, she
Speaker 1: was still observing secret Catholic mass privately, Henry didn't really mind.
Speaker 1: By the time Wife number three, Jane Seymour died, Mary
Speaker 1: was so back in her father's good graces that she
Speaker 1: was made godmother to the infant ed Word and she
Speaker 1: acted as chief mourner for her stepmother's funeral. Occasionally, when
Speaker 1: Henry was between wives, Mary would act as hostess at court,
Speaker 1: a de facto Queen. Henry sixth and final wife, Catherine Parr,
Speaker 1: was so patient and loving that she almost made them
Speaker 1: all look like a happy family. At certain points, Mary,
Speaker 1: Elizabeth and Edward were all at court with their father
Speaker 1: and on good terms with their stepmother. But religion sometimes
Speaker 1: has a way of tearing away the facade of harmony.
Speaker 1: King Henry the Eighth died at age fifty five in
Speaker 1: fourteen fifty seven, and Edward, just nine years old, became
Speaker 1: King Edward the sixth Because he was still a minor,
Speaker 1: he was only king in name. Really, the country was
Speaker 1: being run by a regency council, first led by his
Speaker 1: maternal uncle at World Seymour, Duke of Somerset, but later
Speaker 1: dominated by a man named John Dudley, who distinguished himself
Speaker 1: with his military victories, particularly the way he put down
Speaker 1: a group of anti landowner rebels in Norwich in an
Speaker 1: uprising called Cats Rebellion. The regency council, operating on behalf
Speaker 1: of Edward the sixth, started making a lot of religious
Speaker 1: changes to the Church of England. This is going to
Speaker 1: be a vast, vast oversimplification of a very complicated issue,
Speaker 1: But this is an Edwards episode. So in the broadest
Speaker 1: possible terms, even though King Henry the Eighth had declared
Speaker 1: himself separate from the Pope and head of the Church
Speaker 1: of England, the Church of England under Henry wasn't all
Speaker 1: that different from Catholicism. But then under Edward the six,
Speaker 1: particularly under the influence of Thomas Cranmer, the Archbishop of Canterbury,
Speaker 1: sweeping religious reforms were enacted. The Book of Common Prayer,
Speaker 1: written in English, becomes the Church's liturgy. Priests are allowed
Speaker 1: to marry. Worship of idols and relics became discouraged. The
Speaker 1: Church of England was already Protestant, but it became Protestant.
Speaker 1: It should be noted that at this time Protestantism was
Speaker 1: still considered the religion of a wealthy minority, the people
Speaker 1: with access to education and new information about culture and
Speaker 1: the goings on of Greater Europe. England was still by
Speaker 1: larger Catholic country, and Mary Tudor, eldest daughter of Henry
Speaker 1: the eighth, was still a Catholic woman. That would be
Speaker 1: what would cause the most friction in the relationship between
Speaker 1: Mary and her half brother King Mary, a woman in
Speaker 1: her thirties, spent most of her time on her own estates,
Speaker 1: where she was still privately attending Mass in Latin. A
Speaker 1: representative from court arrived, telling her to stop. Mary stood
Speaker 1: her ground, writing a letter back to her brother Edward
Speaker 1: the sixth diplomatically saying how much she loved and honored
Speaker 1: him and that she needed to remain true to her faith,
Speaker 1: and continued to attend Mass in the language that was
Speaker 1: good enough to be used at their father's funeral. When
Speaker 1: Mary came to court in fifteen fifty for Christmas, thirteen
Speaker 1: year old Edward publicly reprimanded her in person for her disrespect.
Speaker 1: The scene was a humiliation for both of them, embarrassing
Speaker 1: for the boy pretending to be an all powerful king
Speaker 1: dressing down his adult sister. The scene ended with both
Speaker 1: of them in tears. By fifteen fifty three, Edward was
Speaker 1: close to death, and maybe he knew it because while
Speaker 1: he was still a young teen, Edward, with the guidance
Speaker 1: of his chief counselor, John Dudley, began making secret plans
Speaker 1: to prevent Catholic Mary from taking the English throne the
Speaker 1: way her father, Henry the eighth had outlined it and
Speaker 1: his succession plans. Edward, or rather his advisers, didn't want
Speaker 1: a Catholic sweeping in and undermining all of the Protestant
Speaker 1: progress that they had made. They would have much preferred
Speaker 1: that the crown go next to Edward's other half sister Elizabeth,
Speaker 1: also a Protestant, but Elizabeth and Mary were both illegitimate,
Speaker 1: and to take one out of the line of succession
Speaker 1: meant taking both out. Edward's advisers positive that if Henry
Speaker 1: the eighth was allowed to delineate the order for succession
Speaker 1: after he was king in his will, well why shouldn't
Speaker 1: the current king also be able to do that? And
Speaker 1: so before Edward's death, he secured his own private succession
Speaker 1: document saying that his cousin, or I suppose actually his
Speaker 1: grand niece, Lady Jane Gray, would be the one to
Speaker 1: take the throne own after him. Lady Jane Gray was
Speaker 1: the granddaughter of Henry the Eighth's younger sister, and Lady
Speaker 1: Jane Gray also happened to be the daughter in law
Speaker 1: of man pulling the strings advisor John Dudley Dudley began
Speaker 1: shoring up support for Jane to become queen after Edward's death.
Speaker 1: He knew it would be challenging, especially because the people
Speaker 1: so loved Mary. They had been rooting for her and
Speaker 1: for her patient devoted mother Catherine all through their periods
Speaker 1: of submission, and Mary, like most of the population, still
Speaker 1: believed in the Catholic faith. All of the changes that
Speaker 1: Dudley I mean, Edward the six had been making was
Speaker 1: too much, too fast for many, and so now an
Speaker 1: attempt to undermine the locked in order of succession was
Speaker 1: an ambitious move. Dudley knew that his plan would have
Speaker 1: a far greater chance of success if he literally kidnapped
Speaker 1: Mary and prevented her from raising her own support. Mary
Speaker 1: received an invitation to London, summoning her to visit her
Speaker 1: dying brother. She knew it was a trap, and so
Speaker 1: instead Mary fled from her property to East Anglia Norwich
Speaker 1: to start gathering in Army. Norwich was a particularly smart
Speaker 1: strategic move. They absolutely hated Dudley there because that had
Speaker 1: been where he had viciously put down the catch rebellion.
Speaker 1: Edward the sixth died on July sixty three from a
Speaker 1: fever and a cough that had been gradually worsening for months.
Speaker 1: Dudley decided to wait to announce the death for a
Speaker 1: few days while he gathered his own reinforcements and planted
Speaker 1: ships on the coast to prevent Mary's escape and also
Speaker 1: to prevent her from receiving backup from any European powers.
Speaker 1: It wasn't until July ten that the Council announced that
Speaker 1: Lady Jane Gray was going to be queen. She was
Speaker 1: taken to the Tower of London, where traditionally monarchs awaited
Speaker 1: their coronations. The people on the street when they heard
Speaker 1: the announcement were a little confused. They muttered amongst themselves,
Speaker 1: shot each other glances. Mary sent a message to the
Speaker 1: Privy Council stating that she intended to claim her right
Speaker 1: and title. The Privy Council responded that she was illegitimate,
Speaker 1: supported by quote a few lewed base people. They would
Speaker 1: soon see how very wrong they were. It didn't take
Speaker 1: long for the Council to hear rumors of Mary's growing
Speaker 1: number of supporters marching from East Anglia to London. It
Speaker 1: wasn't just religious conservatives who supported Mary. There were many
Speaker 1: who just genuinely believed that the legitimate succession shouldn't be
Speaker 1: overturned for religious purposes, and they saw Jane Gray as
Speaker 1: a political pawn, which she was by July deadly marched
Speaker 1: with three thousand men, Mary at Framlingham Castle in Suffolk,
Speaker 1: had twenty thousand. The rest of the Privy Council realized
Speaker 1: that they had made a serious miscalculation and bet on
Speaker 1: the wrong horse. They hastily proclaimed that Mary was the
Speaker 1: legitimate queen, effectively ending what some consider to be the
Speaker 1: nine Day Rain of Lady Jane Gray. Mary rode into
Speaker 1: London on horseback, victorious, with her half sister Elizabeth riding
Speaker 1: beside her. The city rejoiced. Some sources say that such
Speaker 1: a celebration had never been heard in the city before.
Speaker 1: Mary Tudor, who had and abandoned and cast aside, humiliated
Speaker 1: and hurt, was finally Queen of England. Lady Jane Gray
Speaker 1: became a prisoner of the Tower, where she had merely
Speaker 1: hours before been a would be queen awaiting coronation, but
Speaker 1: Mary decided on mercy. Though Jane Gray would be tried
Speaker 1: and convicted of treason, Mary chose not to actually act
Speaker 1: on the sentence death, although of course Jane Gray's father
Speaker 1: in law was killed. At this point, Mary was in
Speaker 1: her late thirties. The most important thing to her was
Speaker 1: restoring England to Catholicism, but she was well aware that
Speaker 1: if she failed to produce an air, the next Queen
Speaker 1: of England would be her Protestant half sister, Elizabeth, and
Speaker 1: so Mary Queen of England set out to decide on
Speaker 1: a husband. There were a few options for her, and
Speaker 1: more than several advisers vying for their favorites to get
Speaker 1: the position, but the only advice that Mary really cared
Speaker 1: for was that of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles five,
Speaker 1: who had been an ally to Mary and to her
Speaker 1: mother ever since she was a child, and she was
Speaker 1: briefly betrothed to him. Charles, her cousin, had advised her
Speaker 1: when to give into Henry's demands, and when Edward the
Speaker 1: sixth was making his Protestant reforms, Charles was there to
Speaker 1: offer Mary an escape to the continent if she needed it.
Speaker 1: Mary trusted him. Her life had been a series of
Speaker 1: betrayals by her father, by Edward, by the Privy Counselors.
Speaker 1: Trust was hard won and valuable, and it was rare
Speaker 1: in Mary's life. Charles suggested that Mary Mary his son Philip,
Speaker 1: Mary and grade her counselors were outraged. Philip, a slightly
Speaker 1: younger man, was a Spaniard. That was bad enough, but
Speaker 1: his father, being the Holy Roman Emperor, as Mary's husband, legally,
Speaker 1: Philip would have control over her right and since she's
Speaker 1: the queen, did that mean he would have control over
Speaker 1: all of England's resources. Clearly, all of these things need
Speaker 1: to be straightened out. And again I think it bears repeating.
Speaker 1: He was a Spaniard gas, but Mary was queen and
Speaker 1: she intended to act as one. She said that she
Speaker 1: would put the issue of her marriage to Parliament and
Speaker 1: if they objected, only then would she withdraw her choice
Speaker 1: for a husband. And so Parliament put together something called
Speaker 1: Queen Mary's Marriage Act, a strange compromise where they ironed
Speaker 1: out the kinks of a woman in power for the
Speaker 1: first time. Philip would be styled King of England, and
Speaker 1: all acts of Parliament and official documents would have both
Speaker 1: his and Mary's names, but only for Mary's lifetime. England
Speaker 1: wouldn't need to provide any military support to Philip's family,
Speaker 1: and Philip couldn't act without Mary's consent or appoint foreigners
Speaker 1: to English offices. No one was really happy about this arrangement,
Speaker 1: not even Philip, who was miffed that he wasn't getting
Speaker 1: more power. He was only marrying Mary for political reasons.
Speaker 1: He wasn't actually in love with her. But when I
Speaker 1: say no one was happy about this arrangement, I do
Speaker 1: mean no one was happy except Mary, who did really
Speaker 1: love Philip and who had tremendous affection for him and
Speaker 1: was thrilled at their union. But the country was furious.
Speaker 1: Marriage act or not. Everyone knew that a woman submitted
Speaker 1: to her husband in marriage, and now their queen would
Speaker 1: be submitting to a foreigner. Add to that the anger
Speaker 1: among Protestants that Mary would be undoing all of the
Speaker 1: Protestant progress made in the country. There was outrage upon
Speaker 1: the announcement that she would be marrying Philip. There was
Speaker 1: a rebellion led by Thomas Wyatt the Younger, with the
Speaker 1: goal of deposing Mary and replacing her with Elizabeth. Mary
Speaker 1: put down the revolt handily and efficiently, and arrested all
Speaker 1: of the conspirators. She also arrested Elizabeth, although she wasn't
Speaker 1: personally involved. Elizabeth remained in the tower for two months
Speaker 1: before she was put under house arrest. But one of
Speaker 1: the conspirators in the Wyatt rebellion was Lady Jane Gray's father.
Speaker 1: That family was still causing trouble, trying to overthrow Mary
Speaker 1: yet again. It was at this point that Mary decided
Speaker 1: that mercy for the Grays was no longer necessary. Lady
Speaker 1: Jane Gray and her husband, Gilford Dudley were both executed
Speaker 1: by beheading shortly after putting down the rebellion. Mary would
Speaker 1: have another cause for celebration. Her period stopped, her belly
Speaker 1: became swollen, she began feeling sick in the mornings. Her
Speaker 1: doctors confirmed it she was pregnant. It was a miracle,
Speaker 1: a gift from God, and the most important step to
Speaker 1: securing her Catholic legacy in England. Mary even invited Elizabeth
Speaker 1: back to court into her good graces, to come back
Speaker 1: and be there for the birth. But then the birth
Speaker 1: never came. Mary waited, the court waited, They waited longer.
Speaker 1: It wasn't a baby, after all, just what sometimes referred
Speaker 1: to as a hysterical pregnancy. Mary's desperation had manifested into
Speaker 1: physical symptoms. Her husband, Philip left to fight his wars
Speaker 1: and Flanders. Their marriage would almost never have the two
Speaker 1: of them in the same place again. Mary rode with
Speaker 1: him to see him off to his ship. She aided
Speaker 1: until he was gone and she was alone. When she
Speaker 1: was standing on a cliff, and she believed that no
Speaker 1: one could see her before she started to cry. The
Speaker 1: false pregnancy Mary believed was God punishing her for tolerating heretics.
Speaker 1: In England, the executions of Protestants began the next year,
Speaker 1: in February fifteen fifty five, almost as soon as Mary
Speaker 1: had become queen. Around eight hundred prominent Protestant leaders fled
Speaker 1: to the continent, but for those who were left and
Speaker 1: refused to recant their faith, a grim fate awaited. Approximately
Speaker 1: three hundred men and women were burned at the stake,
Speaker 1: including the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer, whom Mary
Speaker 1: replaced at his post with Reginald Pole, the son of
Speaker 1: her former governess Margaret Pole. Cranmer had renounced his faith
Speaker 1: before his execution, which should have meant that his life
Speaker 1: was spared. It wasn't. In Mary's mind. These early executions
Speaker 1: would act as a quote short, sharp shock a warning
Speaker 1: signal to the rest of Protestants in the country to
Speaker 1: frighten them into returning to Catholicism. Mary wrote that the
Speaker 1: executions should be quote so used that the people might
Speaker 1: well perceive them not to be condemned without just occasion,
Speaker 1: whereby they shall both understand the truth and beware to
Speaker 1: do the like. Her targets were religious leaders, people converting
Speaker 1: others away from what Mary saw as the true faith.
Speaker 1: By burning one person, she could be saving the souls
Speaker 1: of thousands. Grizzly, as it seems, burning at the stake
Speaker 1: was just the de facto execution for religious heretics. The
Speaker 1: idea was that it would give them a taste of
Speaker 1: the fires of hell, so that they might have the
Speaker 1: opportunity to confess and set themselves straight before death to
Speaker 1: prevent that fate eternally. Thomas Cranmer r I P. Was
Speaker 1: even planning to burn Catholics before Edward the sixth premature death.
Speaker 1: And again, awful as it sounds, three hundred executions is
Speaker 1: almost nothing compared to the number of executions Married's father,
Speaker 1: King Henry the Eighth ordered over the course of his reign,
Speaker 1: sometimes rumored to be as high as fifty thousand. Another
Speaker 1: source I read has that as high as fifty seven thousand,
Speaker 1: factoring in the citizens and nobles who he had brutally
Speaker 1: killed if they acted uprising against him, although that number
Speaker 1: might be exaggerated. Edward the six suppressed the Prayer Book rebellion,
Speaker 1: which led to the death of over five thousand Catholics.
Speaker 1: Elizabeth the First would go on to order executions of
Speaker 1: around eight hundred Catholic rebels, and she had a hundred
Speaker 1: and eighty three Catholics, mostly Jesuit missionaries, hanged, drawn and quartered.
Speaker 1: So why is Harry the only one with the bloody
Speaker 1: nickname that's carried through history. Well, it's a case of
Speaker 1: bad pr A few years after Queen Mary's death, the
Speaker 1: Protestant historian John Fox published his Book of Martyrs, an
Speaker 1: intimate account of the sufferings of Protestants under the Catholic
Speaker 1: Church in England and Scotland. It was also illustrated with
Speaker 1: incredibly visceral woodcut prints. The book was one of the
Speaker 1: most ambitious publishing projects to date, and it became ubiquitous,
Speaker 1: sometimes even in pews. Along with the Book of Common Prayer.
Speaker 1: Elizabeth the First would also be a little bit more
Speaker 1: savvy when it came to her executions. When she wanted
Speaker 1: to kill practicing Catholics, she convicted them as traders, which
Speaker 1: gave the people less to argue with. Even if people
Speaker 1: disagreed about religion, everyone hated traders, and as joyful as
Speaker 1: Mary's ascension was as queen, she became incredibly unpopular. Fairly quickly.
Speaker 1: Her husband Philip pulled England into a war with France,
Speaker 1: which led to the French invading and reclaiming Calais, which
Speaker 1: was England's last possession in France. It was a humiliating
Speaker 1: loss and a visceral one. Upon hearing that Calais was lost,
Speaker 1: Mary declared, quote, when I am dead and opened, you
Speaker 1: shall find Philip and Calais lying in my heart. And
Speaker 1: there were also things fully beyond Mary's control. An outbreak
Speaker 1: of influenza failed harvests, Philip spent almost all of his
Speaker 1: time abroad, and Mary was left alone. Devastated by her
Speaker 1: inability to have children. She tried to make positive national
Speaker 1: policies like fiscal reform and expanding the navy, but she
Speaker 1: only barely got started before her sudden death. Elizabeth, her successor,
Speaker 1: would get most of the credit for policies that began
Speaker 1: in Mary's reign. In fifteen fifty seven, after a brief
Speaker 1: visit from her husband, Mary once again believed that she
Speaker 1: was with child. She was weak and her belly was swollen,
Speaker 1: but once again the do date came and went. The
Speaker 1: belly sank, but the weakness stayed, and Mary, it was privately,
Speaker 1: forced to reckon with the fact that she was closer
Speaker 1: to death than she might have hoped, and that her
Speaker 1: half sister Elizabeth would be the next Queen. Elizabeth a
Speaker 1: Protestant who would undo everything that she Mary had worked
Speaker 1: so hard to achieve. It was all for nothing. Clutching
Speaker 1: her stomach in pain from what might have been either
Speaker 1: uterine cancer or ovari insists, Mary the First died on
Speaker 1: November fifty eight at the age of forty two, after
Speaker 1: only five years as Queen. Philip, her husband, who was
Speaker 1: out of town at the time, wrote in a letter
Speaker 1: that he felt a reasonable regret upon hearing of Mary's death.
Speaker 1: Elizabeth the First would usher in what's considered to be
Speaker 1: a golden era in England's history, an era of culture
Speaker 1: and of European prominence, while Mary would remain a footnote
Speaker 1: the boogeyman in Protestant stories, the woman of faith who
Speaker 1: had failed and been failed again and again. That's the
Speaker 1: story of the reign of Mary the First But keep
Speaker 1: listening after a brief sponsor break to hear a little
Speaker 1: bit more about her death. And on a personal note,
Speaker 1: this is just a quick reminder that you can join
Speaker 1: the Noble Blood Patreon, where where recap episodes of the
Speaker 1: showtime series The Tutors, and where you can also get
Speaker 1: episode scripts and behind the scenes tidbits, photos, a little
Speaker 1: bit more information about the characters involved in these stories.
Speaker 1: Also another personal reminder, I wrote a novel called Anatomy,
Speaker 1: a love story, and if you're a fan of Noble Blood,
Speaker 1: I really think you're going to like it. It's a
Speaker 1: love story sort of. It's a very maccab Victorian version
Speaker 1: of a love story, but set in the underbelly of
Speaker 1: Edinburgh in the eighteen hundreds, mostly about body snatchers and
Speaker 1: how gruesome surgery was back there. So if you think
Speaker 1: it's sort of your kind of thing, that there's a
Speaker 1: link in the episode description. In her will, Mary stated
Speaker 1: that she wanted to be buried next to her mother,
Speaker 1: Catherine of Aragon. The other proudan who had refused to
Speaker 1: give up her faith and who had also failed in
Speaker 1: the goal of producing a son. Mary's request wasn't heated. Instead,
Speaker 1: she was interred in Westminster Abbey. Eventually she would be
Speaker 1: joined in her tomb by Elizabeth. The plaque above them
Speaker 1: reads in Latin consorts in realm and tomb, we sisters
Speaker 1: Elizabeth and Mary here lie down to sleep in hope
Speaker 1: of the resurrection. But here's the detail that I find
Speaker 1: so interesting. Elizabeth's coffin would be placed on top of Mary's.
Speaker 1: Elizabeth would overshadow Mary even in the grave. Noble Blood
Speaker 1: is a production of I Heart Radio and Grimm and
Speaker 1: Mild from Aaron Minky. The show was written and hosted
Speaker 1: by Dani Schwartz and produced by Aaron Minkey, Matt Frederick,
Speaker 1: Alex Williams, and Trevor Young. Noble Blood is on social
Speaker 1: media at Noble Blood Tales, and you can learn more
Speaker 1: about the show over at Noble Blood Tales dot com.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit the I
Speaker 1: heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
Speaker 1: your favorite shows. M