ABSTRACT
Mary Tudor (1516-58), Henry VIII’s eldest child, enjoyed a privileged existence until she reached adolescence. Heir apparent to the English throne, she was well educated and the centre of her own household as Princess of Wales. But the collapse of her parent’s marriage destroyed the idyll: by 1534 she was the king’s bastard daughter, deprived of her rank and subject to harassment for her refusal to abandon her mother’s cause or her faith. The birth of her siblings, Elizabeth in 1534 and Edward in 1537, further eclipsed Mary. Henry grew increasingly angry with her for her tenacious grip on Catholicism, and she was shunted farther and farther from the court, subject to increased pressure, and, at times, in fear of her life. The accession of Edward VI in 1547 did little to improve her situation. The new king was in fact far more radical in his religious views than Henry had ever been, and he continued to pressure Mary to conform to Protestantism. But the years of mistreatment and psychological duress had only confirmed Mary in her devotion to Rome, and when Edward died in 1553, she came to the throne determined to restore England to the true faith.
