The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - PREVIEW： Epochs #283 ｜ Bloody Mary

00:00:00.000 Hello and welcome back to Epochs. I shall be continuing my story, the narrative, all about

00:00:25.960 the English monarchs if you recall last time we did Lady Jane Grey so we've done Henry VIII

00:00:31.820 we did his son Edward VI and then Lady Jane Grey which was only a small interregnum some people

00:00:38.080 don't even count her she often doesn't appear on the official lists of the kings and queens and 0.95

00:00:43.140 so then now straight into her cousin Mary Mary I Mary Tudor known to history as Bloody Mary why

00:00:50.860 is that she wasn't known as Bloody Mary when she was younger and when she first ascended the throne

00:00:55.040 So let's talk all about it

00:00:56.820 I should be reading, as always, from Professor Charles Oman

00:01:00.540 Who was writing at the very, very beginning of the 20th century

00:01:03.480 So you don't have to worry about any revisionism or any wokeism

00:01:06.620 And from Sir Winston Churchill's History of the English-Speaking Peoples

00:01:10.100 Which was written sort of mid-century

00:01:11.940 And likewise doesn't really suffer from any sort of wokeism or silly revisionism

00:01:17.760 Okay, let's get straight into it then

00:01:19.300 So we pick up the story just as Lady Jane Grey's attempt

00:01:23.920 and the powerful men around her. Their attempt to place her on the throne has failed and Mary

00:01:29.380 enters London. Sir Charles O'Mehan wrote, quote, the rightful heiress was now set upon the throne 0.68

00:01:35.080 and England had leisure to look on her and learn her moods. Mary was in her 39th year,

00:01:42.460 ever since her unfortunate mother's divorce, Catherine of Aragon. She had been living in

00:01:47.820 neglect and seclusion. Her father had stigmatised her as a bastard and her brother had kept her 0.74

00:01:54.360 from court. For twenty years she had been nursing her own and her mother's wrongs in lonely country

00:02:00.480 manners, denied all the state and deference that were her due and closely supervised by the

00:02:07.380 underlings of the crown. It was small wonder that she had grown up discontented, suspicious and

00:02:13.920 morose. One help had sustained her through all her troubles, her intense faith in the old creed,

00:02:20.640 Catholicism, which she believed to be true, and therefore bound to triumph in the end.

00:02:26.840 Veritas temporis filia was her favourite motto. Mary's Catholicism was something more than

00:02:32.720 earnest. It was a devouring flame, ready to consume all that stood in its way. She was set 1.00

00:02:39.440 on avenging all the blood that had been shed by her father, all the insults to the old faith that

00:02:44.800 had been inflicted by the ministers of her brother. She thought that she had come with a mission not

00:02:50.540 merely to reconcile England to the papacy, but to scourge her of her past backsliding, end quote.

00:02:56.940 So the thing I want to say at this juncture is to give you a bit of an overview of the way history

00:03:01.980 is remembered Mary, and how some of the scholarship in recent times has changed. I talked about

00:03:07.340 revisionism at the beginning but it does need to be mentioned so the older view the view of Mary

00:03:12.360 that there has been ever since the age of Elizabeth through to the late 20th century was that just that

00:03:17.800 she was bad that she was bloody she was evil she was loyal to Rome over London and was just

00:03:25.960 basically an unhappy monarch. Modern scholarship has sort of changed perhaps it's just knee-jerk 0.96

00:03:31.500 knee-jerk reaction people want to sell books but a lot of modern scholars don't have such quite

00:03:36.520 such a dim view of her. But one thing, regardless of all that, one thing that does need to be said,

00:03:40.680 which Newman and Churchill don't really go into in a great deal of depth because it wasn't really

00:03:46.120 the type of history that were written then, but I'm going to talk about it because I think it's

00:03:49.720 interesting and important and people these days do think it's important. The Reformation and the

00:03:55.160 degree to which England in the 1550s was Protestant or Catholic. I talked about it a little bit last

00:04:03.240 time, I think, and in the age of Edward. Okay, not many people were calling themselves Protestant.

00:04:09.480 Hardly anyone would have. It's been said by a lot of people that it's not really that there were two

00:04:14.680 clear camps. There was the Catholic camp and there was the Protestant camp, a bit like Northern

00:04:20.360 Ireland today, say. It wasn't like that at all. The whole world was Catholic until Luther comes along.

00:04:26.760 Well, there were various sects, but nonetheless, well essentially, broadly speaking, the whole world

00:04:31.800 was Catholic. I'll say the whole world, sorry. Western Europe, you've got Eastern, you've got 0.92

00:04:37.300 the Great Schism and Eastern Orthodoxy, but Europe, Western Europe, or all of England, let's say, 0.66

00:04:43.000 was Catholic. Then the age of Luther and Calvin comes along and Henry VIII. And it wasn't that

00:04:50.180 suddenly, as soon as Henry VIII said, we're not Catholic anymore, the whole of England just said,

00:04:56.580 yep, we're not Catholic anymore. It didn't work like that. It didn't come close to working like

00:05:00.460 We're Protestants now. No, that's not how it worked. There were lots and lots and lots of shades of grey amongst this whole thing. Loads. 0.57

00:05:10.160 So, for example, just one example, Mary herself, an arch-Catholic, we're told, or she was, hell-bent on turning the clock back on what her brother and father had done with regards to their break from Rome.

00:05:23.620 She was hell-bent on that

00:05:25.440 Even she thought that

00:05:27.720 No, it's okay to read the Bible in the vernacular

00:05:31.240 In English 0.97

00:05:32.020 You're supposed to be this arch-catholic

00:05:34.940 But that's not a very Catholic thing

00:05:37.520 The Inquisition of Rome would not have agreed with that

00:05:40.780 The Pope in Rome would not have come close to agreeing with that

00:05:45.060 So right there, just one example

00:05:46.720 You can see how there's many, many shades of grey

00:05:48.420 Another example might be that

00:05:49.840 When Mary rose up to defeat Northumberland

00:05:52.960 and Lady Jane Grey's claim. Lots and lots of Protestants, hardline Protestants as we might

00:05:58.660 call them, they didn't really call themselves that, but people that had been absolutely for

00:06:03.200 the dissolution of the monasteries and had been happy to sign the oath saying that King Henry

00:06:09.100 and then his son was head of the church in England. People like that, that had gone along with Henry

00:06:14.960 and Edward's break with Rome, they were happy to turn out for Mary. They didn't see her as some

00:06:20.300 evil catholic that must be defeated at any price it wasn't like that so in other words it is quite

00:06:27.880 complicated it's just not as simple as two camps catholic and protestant and everyone knows who's

00:06:34.900 in what camp there were some of course that were so hard-line evangelical evangelical usually means

00:06:41.720 well means protestant in this age in this context there were some that were so hard-line protestant

00:06:47.760 quote-unquote Protestant, like the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Crammler, say that they could

00:06:53.420 never be reconciled with somebody like Mary or any reproach more with Rome. There were some Catholics

00:07:00.400 that were so hardline that they were happy to be martyred, happy to be burnt alive, rather than 0.55

00:07:06.700 sign an oath saying that the monarch was the head of a reformed church or anything like that. But

00:07:12.840 most people, the vast majority of people, were somewhere in between. And that's the way it stayed

00:07:17.560 for actually generations. Now, the other thing to mention, and we talked about in the last few

00:07:22.860 episodes, but needs reiterating here, is Henry VIII's form of breaking with Rome, on one level,

00:07:30.220 you could argue, was very straight down the line, a clean break with Rome. The Pope is no longer the

00:07:36.340 head of spiritual matters. He is. Some people would say, many people would argue, you can't get a

00:07:41.520 cleaner break than that. But others would say, no, in loads of different ways, in honestly dozens,

00:07:47.400 maybe hundreds of ways, Henry VIII purposely, actively kept as much of the Catholic tradition

00:07:54.560 as he could, you know, so keeping all sorts of affectations, all sorts of Catholic elements to

00:08:03.180 the way Christianity was practiced. Others would then counter by saying, yeah, but he did have

00:08:08.320 lots of monasteries, monastic houses closed down. That's very, very egregious, isn't it?

00:08:14.000 I mean, other people say, yeah, but no, wait, he didn't have lots of stained glass windows smashed.

00:08:18.700 He didn't have lots of the icons of, say, Mary taken down. He didn't insist that there was no

00:08:25.520 incense. He didn't insist that a Church of England, an Anglican church, was nothing more than a

00:08:31.680 Whitewashed preaching hall

00:08:33.420 With plain wooden pews

00:08:35.140 He didn't insist on that

00:08:36.840 His son did though, Edward VI did

00:08:39.660 Edward VI was far more

00:08:41.320 Evangelical, far more Protestant

00:08:43.140 Than his father

00:08:44.500 And we talked, didn't we, in the Edward episode

00:08:47.200 About how Edward unleashed

00:08:49.560 His ministers, people like

00:08:51.420 Northumberland, or people like

00:08:53.260 The Seymour brothers in the first instance

00:08:55.460 And then the Dudley brothers

00:08:56.640 And the Archbishop

00:08:58.800 He allowed them, he unleashed them to go

00:09:00.980 really far, as far as possible. You know, a lot of scholars have said that the main part of the

00:09:07.460 Reformation, the most extreme change, happened in those five, six years of Edward VI. This change

00:09:14.840 from a classic, your idea of a classic Roman Catholic cathedral or church is replaced by a

00:09:22.000 very, very austere, pared down Anglican church. The biggest rate of change of that happened during

00:09:29.500 Edward VI years. Okay and so straight off the back of that now we've got Mary who was always a 0.86

00:09:35.600 Catholic. She only ever renounced it in the least terms she could in order to avoid being taken to

00:09:43.140 the tower completely disowned and perhaps even executed by her father. Everyone knew that in

00:09:48.780 her heart of hearts she was still Catholic and well when she comes to power she makes it perfectly 0.92

00:09:54.460 clear and in fact well she just wants to go the whole hog and reverse all of that reverse all of 0.84

00:10:02.280 it go back to the age before Anne Boleyn got involved in Henry and Henry decided that he

00:10:08.960 wanted to break with Rome repeal all of that okay Oman goes on saying this quote not only did she

00:10:14.680 release from bonds the imprisoned bishops Bonner and Gardner and and the old Duke of Norfolk a

00:10:20.700 captive since 1547, and all others who had suffered under her father and brother, but she

00:10:26.420 began to molest those who had taken a prominent part in the religious doings of the late reign.

00:10:32.400 Proceedings were begun against the Protestant bishops, including Cramner, the primate of

00:10:37.040 England, Archbishop of Canterbury that means, before she had been two months on the throne.

00:10:41.580 Some of them fled overseas and others were caught up into confinement, put in prison. The restoration

00:10:48.080 of the Latin Mass was everywhere commanded. That's that the priests speak in Latin, a language the

00:10:55.540 vast majority of English people didn't understand, the Latin Mass. All married clergy were threatened

00:11:00.680 with removal from their benefices. You know, a good priest should be married to the church,

00:11:06.420 not to a woman. Mary began to speak openly of placing her realm under the supremacy of the Pope 0.96

00:11:11.980 and even of restoring to the church all the monastic estates that her father had appropriated

00:11:17.920 an idea which filled every landowner with dismay, end quote. Remember when we talked about Henry VIII

00:11:23.760 when he was doing this? Lots and lots of people made lots and lots of money out of that,

00:11:29.120 the dissolution of the monasteries. Large amounts of lands and estates and real estate,

00:11:34.460 which the monasteries had been holding, had been accumulating and hoarding for centuries,

00:11:41.200 suddenly was up for sale, dirt cheap. Lots of people bought it, started making loads of money,

00:11:46.120 Loads of money

00:11:47.740 Lots and lots and lots of people

00:11:49.240 A whole class of people

00:11:51.060 Well, Mary's talking about taking that off of them

00:11:53.860 Giving it back to the church

00:11:55.660 They're not going to like that

00:11:57.520 A big, large, wealthy, vested interest

00:12:00.660 Are not going to like that

00:12:02.140 And one goes on saying

00:12:03.200 Meanwhile, another project was filling Mary's brain 0.51

00:12:06.740 She was determined to marry 0.95

00:12:08.420 And to rear up a Catholic heir to the throne 0.83

00:12:11.040 For she hated her half-sister 0.64

00:12:13.220 The Princess Elizabeth

00:12:14.640 Anne Boleyn's child

00:12:15.980 Just to interrupt myself there to say, did she?

00:12:19.320 Historians haven't always agreed on that

00:12:21.040 She was certainly suspicious and wary of Elizabeth

00:12:24.220 I'll say that, but did she hate her?

00:12:26.540 Historians don't agree on that 1.00

00:12:27.500 But Omonth just says she did, she hated her 0.99

00:12:30.140 And utterly refused to acknowledge her legitimacy 1.00

00:12:33.500 Or to own her as her next of kin 0.88

00:12:36.180 Mary had conceived a romantic affection

00:12:39.300 On hearsay evidence for her cousin

00:12:42.200 Philip of Spain

00:12:43.700 the son and heir to the Emperor Charles V, a young prince, 12 years her junior, whose charms

00:12:50.980 and merits had been grossly overpraised to her by interested persons. Okay, so this is the other

00:12:57.360 key element to Mary's reign, is that she still thinks, even though she's ruling as sovereign in

00:13:03.200 her own right, a true Queen of England in her own right, which hadn't really ever been done before,

00:13:08.120 you can point to the Matilda, the Empress Matilda, but she did reign in her own right, 0.84

00:13:13.280 But very, very briefly before the powerful men stole it from her.

00:13:17.220 So Mary's really the proper, the first proper queen of England, you could say.

00:13:21.840 Even though that's happening and playing out,

00:13:25.560 Mary herself still thought that she needed a son,

00:13:29.060 a legitimate son and heir to take over after her. 0.99

00:13:32.400 OK, so she wants to get married, obviously, kind of obviously,

00:13:36.000 to a Catholic because that's who she is.

00:13:39.380 That's her thinking. 0.58

00:13:40.060 who better than the son of the emperor. Now let's just quickly say if you're not already aware

00:13:47.420 the most powerful country in the world the richest most powerful country in the world

00:13:51.540 in the middle 16th century by far is Spain. The king of Spain is not merely the king of Spain

00:13:57.980 he's an emperor he has an empire which spans the globe well big holdings in the new world even if

00:14:05.460 they're not fully realized yet fully tapped for the resources yet though they're beginning to be

00:14:09.360 Though they are

00:14:10.120 They're Spanish treasure ships coming back from the New World 0.92

00:14:12.980 Ladened with gold and silver

00:14:15.400 And the same family control all sorts of holdings all over Europe

00:14:22.020 So the Emperor, Charles V, is the most powerful man in the world, basically

00:14:25.860 Some people might argue the Emperor of China might be more powerful

00:14:28.980 But let's not talk about him, he's not part of this story

00:14:32.200 The most powerful man in their world was the Emperor of Spain, Charles V

00:14:36.900 Well, he's got a son and heir, Philip. What if she was to marry him? Not only is he a Catholic,

00:14:44.040 he's the most eminent Catholic in the world. He is going to go, or should he live, he is going to go

00:14:50.220 on to be the most powerful man in the world. So there's no better match than that. Did mention

00:14:56.500 that he's her cousin, because remember, she's the daughter of Catherine of Aragon, who's Spanish,

00:15:01.960 Related to that whole family

00:15:03.760 So, okay, she wants to marry Philip 0.82

00:15:06.860 Now, will the Spanish want that? 1.00

00:15:09.240 Well, yes, they do 0.95

00:15:10.020 Even for them, they still consider England

00:15:12.920 The throne of England to be a great prize

00:15:15.600 Now, the real question

00:15:17.700 The ultimate question is

00:15:20.080 From the English point of view

00:15:21.580 From the average English person's point of view

00:15:23.920 And from the powerful magnates in England

00:15:27.920 Well, if she marries Philip

00:15:30.580 and even before he becomes emperor won't he just dominate her won't she be forced into the

00:15:37.660 sidelines and forced to be quiet and shut up and he will be our king the king of spain the emperor

00:15:44.440 of spain will be king of england we don't want that they're our enemies they're our perennial 0.73

00:15:49.320 enemies and besides a lot of us in the ruling elite are not even catholics not strong catholics

00:15:54.460 Anyway, you can see, can't you, how a lot of people in England would not be happy with that

00:16:00.380 And saying not happy is an understatement

00:16:03.820 They would despise it, they'd fear and despise a royal match

00:16:08.380 They would just think that England would become just one more of Spain's domains 0.98

00:16:13.160 It would just be one more holding for the Habsburg family

00:16:17.280 And yet Mary's got her heart set on it

00:16:19.920 So Charles Oman goes on saying

00:16:21.340 the prospect of winning England for his son allured the Emperor of Spain, and he warmly

00:16:27.200 pressed the marriage, though Philip did not view with satisfaction the pursuit of such an elderly

00:16:32.980 bride. When the Queen's intention of wedding Philip of Spain began to be known, it led to

00:16:38.680 great discontent, for such a match implied not only a close union with the Papal Party on the

00:16:44.660 Continent, but the resumption of the war with France, which had brought so much loss and so

00:16:51.200 little gain under Henry VIII and Edward VI, for Spain and France were still involved in their

00:16:57.100 standing struggle for domination on the continent, and alliance with the one meant war with the other,

00:17:03.300 end quote. Do you remember all the way through the reign of Henry VIII, there's this three-way

00:17:08.540 power struggle, to begin with, England was by far the inferior of the three, but a three-way

00:17:13.860 power struggle between France, Spain and England, and there was just an endless reshuffling of that

00:17:19.160 three-way power dynamic. If one of the three parties became overly powerful, or even looked

00:17:24.620 like they were becoming overly powerful, the other two would make an alliance against them, and just

00:17:28.860 keep reshuffling that dynamic, so that no one party becomes too strong. If Mary was to marry 0.96

00:17:36.420 Philip, well that just means, well in a lot of people's minds, they thought it meant that Spain

00:17:42.080 and England would sort of become one entity almost. Certainly England would just become

00:17:47.140 subordinate entirely to Spain and therefore definite all-out war against France. France

00:17:54.400 wouldn't like this match either. Everyone apart from Philip and Mary is not in favor of this match

00:18:00.640 really. Philip himself isn't overly keen but he gets the politics of it. Okay and acquiesces. Okay

00:18:09.260 Omar says, when the Queen's betrothal to Philip was announced, trouble at once followed. The

00:18:15.320 Protestant party had viewed with dismay the restoration of the mass, the Latin mass, and

00:18:20.960 foresaw persecution close at hand. Many who are not Protestants were anxious to stop the Spanish

00:18:26.740 marriage and the renewal of the foreign war. Hence came the breaking out of a dangerous rebellion

00:18:32.060 aimed at Mary's disposition and the substitution of her for her sister Elizabeth, who was, however,

00:18:38.040 kept in ignorance of the plot. Was she? This is me speaking now, not Oman. Was she? Was she

00:18:44.040 ignorant of it? Historians haven't always agreed on that, but we'll get into it. So a plot breaks

00:18:49.340 out, a new rebellion against Mary. Oman says, the conspirators intended her to marry Edward

00:18:55.740 Courtney, Earl of Devon, son of the Courtney Marquess of Exeter, whom Henry VIII had beheaded

00:19:02.200 in 1539, and last heir of the House of York. Courtney himself, a vain and incapable young man,

00:19:10.100 was not the real head of the conspiracy, which was mainly guided by the Duke of Suffolk,

00:19:14.640 the father of Lady Jane Grey, and by Sir Thomas Wyatt, a young knight of Kent. Incidentally,

00:19:21.100 this rebellion goes down in history as Wyatt's Rebellion. Courtney's babbling folly betrayed

00:19:26.780 the plot too soon, and the conspirators had to rise before they were ready. Their armed bands

00:19:33.080 were easily crushed in all parts of England, save in Kent. Wyatt raised 10,000 men in that very

00:19:39.740 Protestant county and boldly marched on London. The government had no sufficient force ready to

00:19:45.600 hold him back, and he nearly succeeded in seizing the capital and the Queen's person, for many of

00:19:50.960 the Londoners were ready to throw open the gates to him. But the Queen induced him to halt for a

00:19:56.220 day by sending offers for an accommodation, and when he reached London Bridge, he found it so

00:20:01.640 strongly held that after some heavy fighting, he gave up the passage as impossible, and started

00:20:07.160 westward to cross the Thames at Kingston. This delay saved Mary. She displayed great courage and

00:20:13.760 activity, hurried up to London, all the trustworthy gentry within her reach, persuaded many of the

00:20:19.820 citizens to arm in her favour and was able to offer a firm resistance when Wyatt at last appeared in

00:20:26.600 Middlesex and pressed on into the western suburbs of the city. The Queen's troops and the insurgents

00:20:32.500 fought a running fight from Knightsbridge to Charing Cross. Wyatt, with the head of his column,

00:20:38.120 cut his way down to the Strand as far as Ludgate Hill, but his main body was broken up and dispersed

00:20:43.900 And he himself, after a gallant struggle, was taken prisoner at Temple Bar

00:20:48.600 So, a nice bit of action there

00:20:52.660 It hangs in the balance

00:20:55.160 History, I think, either doesn't, or most people's armchair view of Bloody Mary

00:21:00.220 Might not even have heard of Wyatt's Rebellion

00:21:02.960 Or if they had, they think it was just a minor thing

00:21:05.940 No, look at those details

00:21:07.960 He marched on London, 10,000 men marching on London

00:21:11.780 Couldn't quite get in

00:21:13.220 So he marches around London to come in from the other way

00:21:15.960 He does get in

00:21:16.820 Because London is a walled city

00:21:19.380 With walls and gates

00:21:20.980 So he does get in

00:21:22.260 And if anyone knows London well enough

00:21:24.300 You know that fighting at Charing Cross

00:21:27.020 Hand-to-hand running street battles

00:21:29.340 From Charing Cross to Ludgate Hill

00:21:31.520 Down to Temple

00:21:32.600 That's right in the middle of London

00:21:34.700 That's right in the middle of London

00:21:35.960 You can throw

00:21:38.040 I'm exaggerating a bit

00:21:40.480 I was going to say, you can throw a stone from Temple to Westminster. Not quite, but

00:21:44.160 you're right there. You're in view of the Tower of London. If you're at the top of the Tower of

00:21:49.820 London, it would all be happening right around you. So Mary comes very, very close to being

00:21:54.760 usurped militarily. Very close. Apparently, in all of this, she shows sort of personal bravery.

00:22:01.440 She says, a bit like parallels or shades of Queen Elizabeth many, many years later

00:22:07.200 with the spanish armada where she says you know i may only be a woman a weak and feeble woman but

00:22:14.160 i have the heart and stomach of a king and a king of england too mary does something similar she

00:22:19.480 says look i'm i'm a woman i'm a queen you know everyone can see that i'm not denying that but

00:22:24.180 i have got a will of iron my mind and heart and stomach are good for this fight join me let me

00:22:32.740 lead you. Let me be your talisman, your champion, if nothing else. I might not actually be leading

00:22:38.100 the charge like Joan of Arc. I'm not actually going to put on a breastplate and wield a sword.

00:22:43.820 But short of that, I am your leader. You'll have no captain but me. She plays that card and it

00:22:49.360 works. It works. It all hung in the balance there with Wyatt's rebellion, but it failed in the end. 1.00

00:22:55.940 Mary fought for and won her throne again. She had to fight for it a little bit, didn't she? 0.53

00:23:02.740 in the Lady Jane Grey years.

00:23:04.860 Well, not long after,

00:23:06.060 or is it only a year later or 18 months later,

00:23:09.060 she has to fight for it again, harder, much harder.

00:23:12.120 Northumberland's troops never entered London

00:23:14.240 in street fighting around Ludgate Hill.

00:23:16.960 No, men fighting and killing each other on the Strand.

00:23:20.700 It's right there.

00:23:21.540 It's right in the middle of the heart of London, really.

00:23:23.620 It couldn't really get any closer.

00:23:25.300 Shot with a siege of the Tower of London or something,

00:23:27.240 a siege of the Palace of Westminster.

00:23:29.080 Mary hulling herself up in in Westminster Abbey and hoping for clemency. It's the only way it

00:23:36.920 could have got any closer to the bone. We hope you enjoyed that video and if you did please

00:23:40.760 please head over to lotusseaters.com for the full unabridged video.

The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - October 04, 2026

PREVIEW： Epochs #283 ｜ Bloody Mary

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