Queen Mary of England, daughter of King Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon, detested her father’s break with the Catholic Church and quickly returned the kingdom to the Roman faith after she was crowned. Growing up sickly and depressed, her childhood was made more miserable by her father's harsh treatment and his refusal to allow Mary to see her mother. It is no surprise that during her youth she refused to recognize her father as the rightful leader of the English Church.
After the death of her Protestant brother, King Edward VI, and a controversial nine-day reign of her cousin, Lady Jane Grey, Mary ascended the throne at age 37. Though her father executed numerous people for their religious leanings, Mary far surpassed him in number and cruelty, earning her the nickname “Bloody Mary.” The executions began less than two years after she took the throne, and before she died at age 42, nearly 300 more were killed for their Protestant faith and hundreds more fled the kingdom.
John Foxe’s book recounting Mary’s persecutions was a major influence on the Pilgrims of Plymouth. William Bradford, in the first pages of his journal, spoke of Foxe’s account of “those worthy martyrs and confessors which were burned in Queen Mary’s days and otherwise tormented.”
Though she ruled as queen since the previous July, it was on this day, October 1, 1553, that Mary was crowned the Queen of England, ushering in the horrors that would last throughout her reign.
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“These things have I said unto you, that ye should not be offended. They shall excommunicate you, yea, the time shall come, that whosoever killeth you, will think that he doeth God service.”
(John 16:1-2; 1599 Geneva Bible)
“And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus: and when I saw her, I wondered with great marvel.”
(Revelation 17:6; 1599 Geneva Bible)
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