18 February, 1516

Tudor (King Henry VII, King Henry VIII, King Edward VI, Queen Mary I and Queen Elizabeth I).

Length of reign:

Six years, between July 1553 and November 1558.

Queen Mary married Philip of Spain, but the marriage was not a happy one. Mary loved her husband, but her husband did not love her. When Philip's father abdicated, he became King of Spain and left for his new kingdom, promising Mary that he would soon return. However he stalled and did not return for almost two years. The queen died heartbroken.

The couple had no children, although Mary was convinced on several occasions that she was pregnant. These hopes turned out to be false.

Mary was the first crowned queen of England, but in many ways it was a success that she came to the throne at all. At one point she was declared illegitimate by her father, King Henry VIII, and then, as she prepared to take the throne from her dying half brother, she learned that Lady Jane Grey had been nominated ahead of her. Mary had to fight for her throne. Lady Jane Grey was defeated after nine days - this is why history refers to her as the nine-day queen - and Mary finally acceded to the throne.

One of the greatest criticisms to be levelled against Mary's reign concerns the fact that so many people were executed in the name of religion. Mary returned England to a Catholic country again and it was decreed that heretics (those not believing in Catholicism) would be burned at the stake. Over 300 people perished in this way, earning the queen the title 'Bloody Mary'.

There were a number of rebellions within the country, such as that led by Sir Thomas Wyatt. Worse still, the queen's own half-sister seemed to be implicated in many of the plots. At one point the queen imprisoned Princess Elizabeth in the Tower of London and later kept her under guard at Woodstock, but no hard proof was ever found. 

In addition, England lost her last continental possession. For centuries, English rulers had controlled parts of France, but that was brought to an end with the fall of Calais in 1558. There was national outcry. This disaster coupled with the queen's unfulfilled marriage meant that she died a broken woman. To make matters worse, the queen must have suspected that all of her attempts at restoring Catholicism would be in vain, for in the wings waited the Protestant Elizabeth. It was no wonder that she considered her reign a failure.

Mary is possibly the most high-profile example of the religious changes of this time. Born a Catholic, the divorce of her father and mother led directly to the establishment of the Protestant Church of England. She and her mother were now heretics themselves and enormous pressure was brought on the young princess to renounce her Catholicism and follow the new religion.

On her accession she attempted to restore the country to the religious conditions of 1533 before the divorce of her parents. Perhaps if Mary had lived longer, her changes might have stuck but the end of her comparatively brief reign brought the Protestant Elizabeth to the throne and all of Mary's work was undone. Mary ultimately failed to restore Catholicism as Elizabeth's 45-year-reign would prove.

Such was the devastating effect of her unreturned love towards her husband as well as the loss of England's last continental possession, Calais, that the queen remarked, late in 1558:
'When I am dead, you will find Philip and Calais engraved on my heart'.