MARIA the Catholic, queen of ENGLAND. – Daughter of Enrico VIII and Caterina of Aragona;
b. at Greenwich on 19 February 1516, d. in London on 17 November 1558.
From her Spanish mother she was educated in Catholicism, and in this respect she also received the care of the countess of Salisbury. The latter’s son, Reginaldo Pole, was M.’s childhood friend; he became her confidant and principal adviser, especially when he rose to the archbishopric of Canterbury. Enrico VIII used M. to establish good relations with other states, betrothing her first to the Dauphin of France, then to the emperor Carlo V, and subsequently to the duke of Orléans. After Enrico VIII’s divorce, M. never saw her mother again; she lived with her half-sister Elisabetta, in conflict with her stepmother Anna Bolena (Boleyn), and was harshly treated also by her father, who had abandoned the Church of Rome. M. devoted herself to the study of religious problems, being more attracted by these than by the problems connected with the rising British nationalism. The reign of Edoardo VI (1547–53) was no less harsh for M., who grieved to see him as an inert instrument of the Calvinist party. An attempt was made to exclude her from the succession: the will that Edoardo VI signed on his deathbed, at the instigation of the duke of Northumberland, Dudley, placed the latter’s daughter-in-law, the sixteen-year-old Giovanna Grey, on the throne. Parliament did not recognize the arrangement: the Duke and Giovanna were killed; M. assumed the crown (July 1553) and asserted the rights of the Church of Rome: the deposed bishops were recalled to office, while the Protestant bishops were expelled. The revolts in several Calvinist centres were easily suppressed; Parliament remained favourable. This sort of “Counter-Reformation,” together with her marriage to Filippo II of Spain (25 July 1554), made M. unpopular, and the Reformation spread more widely: it was aided by the programme of colonial power, which opposed the Queen’s concern for Spanish interests. Soon she also lost the assistance of Filippo II, who returned to Spain (August 1555), disappointed in his hope that M. would bear a child. She devoted herself more intensely to her religious mission and intensified the condemnations against heretics. The opposition assumed violent forms. Giovanni Fox was its driving force. Death sentences were renewed, this time against Protestants: 220 of them were executed, including T. Cranmer, archbishop of Canterbury, and the bishops Ridley of London and Latimer of Worcester. Filippo II returned, but to request assistance (March 1557) in his final struggle against France: M. consented and imposed a forced loan. The assistance proved disastrous: the naval expedition led to the loss of Calais, which had been English for many years.
Some Protestant historians gave M. the title of “bloody,” portraying her as cruel and vindictive. It will suffice to note that the majority of those condemned were notorious rebels and common criminals, while the rest were persons who cloaked themselves in the mantle of heresy to pursue continual acts of revenge and rebellion. State Papers and the reports of ambassadors have vindicated the Queen’s memory: she had an upright and gentle character and resorted to rigorous measures only after exhausting every other means (cf. Pastor, VI, pp. 550–51).