Mary I

Mary I (1516-58), Queen of England, b. Greenwich, London.

Mary, daughter of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon, was a Catholic and she married the Catholic King Philip II of Spain.

Henry VIII had cut the Church in England off from the Pope in Rome. Mary succeeded to the throne in 1553 and said that the Pope, not the ruler of England, was the head of the Church.

Using old laws against heresy, she put to death 273 people including four bishops and the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer.

She became known as 'Bloody Mary', and after her death the Church of England flourished again.

Must see Linda Porter The First Queen of England: The Myth of "Bloody Mary"