Description

She was the very first female to receive the throne of England, a vital participant in one of Britain’s stormiest times, and a chief whose unwavering belief and quick retribution gained her the moniker “Bloody Mary.” Today, within this impassioned and absorbing introduction, historian Anna Whitelock provides a contemporary perspective on Mary Tudor and sets the record straight once and for several on one of history’s many persuasive and maligned rulers.    However usually overshadowed by her long-ruling cousin, Elizabeth I, Mary lived a life saturated in defiance, despair, and success. Born the daughter of the infamous King Henry VIII and the Spanish Katherine of Aragon, youthful Mary was a queen in most sense of the word—schooled in noble traditions, informed by the very best students, desired by European royalty, and married before she'd attained age three. However in a decade’s period, in the aftermath of King Henry’s split with the pope, she was proclaimed a bastard, disinherited, and demoted from “princess” to “lady.” Actually her seriously passionate mother’s child, Mary refused to simply accept her new standing or even to identify Henry’s new wife, Anne Boleyn, as double. The fallout with her dad and his advisors almost ruined the adolescent Mary, who faced imprisonment and actually death. It would be an overall fight for Mary to perform himself back to the king’s benefit, claim her rightful devote the Tudor range, and eventually become king of England, but her coronation wouldn't finish her challenges.