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Welcome to Noble Blood, a production

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of I Heart Radio and Grimm and Mild

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from Aaron Minky. Listener discretion

0:07

is advised. If

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you've ever been a child out a sleepover

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party, chances are you've played

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a game called Bloody Mary.

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This is how it works. You, the

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tiny sleepover attendee, go

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into a bathroom and turn the light off.

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You're holding a candle or maybe a

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flashlight. You closed the door

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behind you so that you're alone in

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the dark. It's at this point

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that the only sounds you can hear are

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your friend's muffled giggles from

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the other side of the door and your

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own breathing. You're

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supposed to look into the mirror, holding

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the candle aloft and repeat

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the name Bloody Mary

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ten times if you dare.

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Most often you get to about six

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or seven and bail on

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the experiment, shriek and

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explode from the bathroom and

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claim that you saw something that you were

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so freaked out. Then you

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and your friends all laugh and drink

1:11

some more diet coke and go watch

1:13

Adam's Family Values on VHS.

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Kids at slumber parties, at least in

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my experience, were too frightened

1:20

to get up to saying the name Bloody

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Mary ten times. According

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to the myth, if you were holding

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a candle and looking in a mirror

1:30

in a darkened bathroom, and you said

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the name Bloody Mary ten times,

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you would see her face reflected

1:36

in the mirror behind your own.

1:39

Who is Bloody Mary the specter

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of slumber parties? It's

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hard to find an exact answer. As

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with so much mythology and lore,

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rumors and speculations find

1:52

themselves together until they're impossible

1:55

to unravel from fact. Some

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say that Bloody Mary is actually

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a witch who was hanged at Salem,

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although evidence for that is fairly

2:04

non specific. But historically

2:07

the nickname Bloody Mary

2:09

was ascribed to an actual woman,

2:12

Queen Mary the First of England.

2:15

Mary Tudor, the oldest daughter

2:18

of King Henry the eighth, eventually

2:20

became a queen. She was

2:22

a devout Catholic who burned

2:25

Protestant heretics at the stake, an

2:27

act which eventually led to her bloody

2:29

nickname Mary. It became

2:32

a hated figure, decried

2:34

as one of the worst monarchs in

2:36

history, a woman tyrannical,

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monstrous. If you believe the

2:41

rumors, the cocktail Bloody Mary

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was named for her as well, the tomato

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juice for the blood of Protestant martyrs,

2:49

and vodka to symbolize the flames

2:51

of the pyre. God knows what

2:53

the clam juice was supposed to be, maybe

2:55

the way she expanded the navy,

2:58

but hated as Bloody

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Mary is in theory today.

3:03

Before her coronation, the

3:05

people rejoiced as Mary

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rode into London to claim her

3:10

crown. There was cheering

3:12

in the streets and a swell

3:14

of popular support. She was

3:16

a beloved figure, heroin

3:19

come home to save the kingdom

3:21

from usurpers. So

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how did the first female monarch

3:26

of England in her own right go from

3:28

becoming a populist hero to

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a monster out of a myth? The

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answer is, unsurprisingly

3:36

complicated. History

3:39

is written by the victors, and victors

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in the case of England's religious disputes

3:44

were the Protestants. For

3:46

Mary. The combination of an

3:48

unpopular marriage, military

3:51

losses, and the failure to produce

3:53

an heir became a perfect

3:55

storm, ensuring a legacy

3:58

that would be vulnerable to the reportation

4:00

of her enemies, and everyone

4:03

from children at slumber parties to historians

4:06

loves a bloody villain. I'm

4:10

Danish sports and this is

4:12

noble blood. Over

4:18

the course of six wives, Henry

4:20

the eighth had three children, but

4:22

even so the Tutor dynasty was

4:25

far from secure. His youngest

4:27

child, Edward, was the only boy

4:29

the heir, but he was still a

4:32

child, and a fairly sickly one

4:34

at that. As Henry the Eighth

4:36

approached death, he needed an order

4:38

of succession that accounted for young

4:41

Edward dying before he had children of

4:43

his own, but that issue was

4:46

fairly complicated. Remember

4:48

the whole six wives thing. Edward

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was the son of wife number three, sweet

4:54

beloved Jane Seymour, who died

4:56

of complications after the birth. Henry's

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other two would be legitimate children.

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His daughters, Mary and Elizabeth, were

5:04

daughters of Catherine of Aragon and Anne

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Boleyn, respectively, and they

5:09

were both retroactively delegitimized.

5:13

Mary was delegitimized when

5:15

Henry annulled his own marriage with Catherine

5:18

to marry Anne, and then Elizabeth

5:21

when Henry declared that Anne was a

5:23

trader and had her be headed. But

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Henry's options for heirs were running

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short, and so in fifteen forty

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three, a few years before his

5:32

death, Henry the Eighth had Parliament

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passed his Third Succession Act, in

5:37

which he declared the line of succession

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would be first Young Edward

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and then Mary and then Elizabeth.

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The latter two were still considered a

5:48

legitimate but still getting

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back in the succession order at all for Mary

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was a massive coup. Her

5:54

relationship with her father, Henry

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the Eighth, had been a nightmare of chaos

5:58

and betrayal since she was about

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twelve years old. When Henry declared

6:03

that his marriage to Catherine wasn't legitimate,

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was never legitimate, that he was the head

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of Church of England, and that he was going to

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marry Anne Boleyn no matter what anyone

6:12

said about it. Young Mary's

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life was ripped out from under her. In

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the first part of this episode, series I

6:20

discussed that more in depth, the

6:22

betrayal of her father turning against

6:24

her, isolating her from the people

6:27

she loved and who loved her forbidding

6:29

her to see her mother even

6:31

as her mother approached death. It

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would be years before the

6:36

relationship between Mary and King

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Henry the Eighth became cordial

6:41

again, and only then it

6:43

was because she was willing to submit to the

6:45

terms he forced upon her acknowledging

6:48

that he was the head of the Church of England and

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that the marriage between her parents was

6:53

illegitimate. Mary

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was a devout Catholic and

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a devoted daughter to her proud

7:00

mother. Mary only signed

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her father's statement at the encouragement

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of her cousin, Charles five, the

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Holy Roman Emperor. Charles

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had been one of Mary's only allies

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since the time she was little. They

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were actually betrothed when she was a toddler,

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but their age difference was too large for Charles

7:19

to want to wait, so instead

7:21

of marriage, he merely tried to offer his

7:24

support to his cousin Mary and

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to Catherine of Aragon from Afar. After

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Henry turned against them,

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Mary swallowing her pride and signing

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the statement turned out to be the right choice.

7:38

She was welcomed back into the courtly

7:40

fold and given a household again, and

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just as important to marry, she was

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still observing secret Catholic mass

7:48

privately, Henry didn't really mind.

7:51

By the time Wife number three, Jane

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Seymour died, Mary was so

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back in her father's good graces that

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she was made godmother to the infant

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ed Word and she acted as chief

8:02

mourner for her stepmother's funeral.

8:05

Occasionally, when Henry was between

8:07

wives, Mary would act as hostess

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at court, a de facto Queen. Henry

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sixth and final wife, Catherine Parr,

8:15

was so patient and loving that she almost

8:18

made them all look like a happy family.

8:21

At certain points, Mary, Elizabeth

8:23

and Edward were all at court with their

8:25

father and on good terms

8:27

with their stepmother. But religion

8:30

sometimes has a way of tearing away

8:32

the facade of harmony. King

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Henry the Eighth died at age fifty

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five in fourteen fifty seven,

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and Edward, just nine years

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old, became King Edward

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the sixth Because he was still

8:50

a minor, he was only king in name.

8:53

Really, the country was being run by a

8:56

regency council, first led

8:58

by his maternal uncle at World Seymour,

9:00

Duke of Somerset, but later dominated

9:03

by a man named John Dudley, who

9:05

distinguished himself with his military

9:08

victories, particularly the

9:10

way he put down a group of anti landowner

9:13

rebels in Norwich in an

9:15

uprising called Cats Rebellion. The

9:18

regency council, operating on behalf

9:20

of Edward the sixth, started making

9:23

a lot of religious changes to the Church

9:25

of England. This is going to

9:27

be a vast, vast oversimplification

9:30

of a very complicated issue, But

9:33

this is an Edwards episode. So in

9:35

the broadest possible terms, even

9:38

though King Henry the Eighth had declared himself

9:40

separate from the Pope and head of the Church

9:42

of England, the Church of England

9:45

under Henry wasn't all that different

9:47

from Catholicism. But then

9:50

under Edward the six, particularly

9:52

under the influence of Thomas Cranmer, the Archbishop

9:55

of Canterbury, sweeping religious

9:57

reforms were enacted. The Book

10:00

of Common Prayer, written in English,

10:02

becomes the Church's liturgy.

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Priests are allowed to marry. Worship

10:07

of idols and relics became discouraged.

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The Church of England was already Protestant,

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but it became Protestant.

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It should be noted that at this time Protestantism

10:19

was still considered the religion of a wealthy

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minority, the people with access

10:24

to education and new information about

10:26

culture and the goings on of Greater Europe.

10:29

England was still by larger Catholic

10:32

country, and Mary Tudor,

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eldest daughter of Henry the eighth, was

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still a Catholic woman. That

10:40

would be what would cause the most friction

10:42

in the relationship between Mary and her

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half brother King Mary,

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a woman in her thirties, spent most

10:49

of her time on her own estates, where she

10:51

was still privately attending Mass in Latin.

10:54

A representative from court arrived, telling

10:57

her to stop. Mary stood

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her ground, writing a letter back

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to her brother Edward the sixth diplomatically

11:04

saying how much she loved and honored

11:06

him and that she needed to remain

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true to her faith, and continued

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to attend Mass in the language that

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was good enough to be used at their father's

11:15

funeral. When Mary came

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to court in fifteen fifty for Christmas,

11:20

thirteen year old Edward publicly

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reprimanded her in person for her

11:24

disrespect. The scene

11:27

was a humiliation for both of them,

11:29

embarrassing for the boy pretending to

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be an all powerful king dressing

11:34

down his adult sister. The

11:36

scene ended with both of them in

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tears. By

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fifteen fifty three, Edward was

11:47

close to death, and maybe he knew

11:49

it because while he was still a young teen,

11:52

Edward, with the guidance of his chief counselor,

11:55

John Dudley, began making

11:57

secret plans to prevent

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Catholic Mary from taking the English

12:02

throne the way her father, Henry

12:04

the eighth had outlined it and his succession

12:06

plans. Edward, or

12:08

rather his advisers, didn't want

12:11

a Catholic sweeping in and undermining

12:14

all of the Protestant progress that

12:16

they had made. They would have much

12:18

preferred that the crown go next to Edward's

12:21

other half sister Elizabeth, also

12:23

a Protestant, but Elizabeth

12:25

and Mary were both illegitimate,

12:28

and to take one out of the line of succession

12:31

meant taking both out. Edward's

12:33

advisers positive that if Henry

12:36

the eighth was allowed to delineate the order

12:38

for succession after he was king

12:40

in his will, well why shouldn't

12:42

the current king also be able to do that?

12:46

And so before Edward's death,

12:48

he secured his own private succession

12:51

document saying that his cousin,

12:53

or I suppose actually his grand

12:55

niece, Lady Jane Gray,

12:58

would be the one to take the throne own after

13:00

him.

13:06

Lady Jane Gray was the granddaughter

13:09

of Henry the Eighth's younger sister, and

13:12

Lady Jane Gray also happened to be the daughter

13:14

in law of man pulling the strings

13:16

advisor John Dudley Dudley

13:19

began shoring up support for Jane

13:21

to become queen after Edward's death.

13:24

He knew it would be challenging, especially

13:26

because the people so loved Mary.

13:29

They had been rooting for her and for her

13:31

patient devoted mother Catherine

13:33

all through their periods of submission, and

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Mary, like most of the population,

13:39

still believed in the Catholic faith. All

13:42

of the changes that Dudley I

13:44

mean, Edward the six had

13:46

been making was too much, too

13:48

fast for many, and so

13:50

now an attempt to undermine

13:53

the locked in order of succession

13:55

was an ambitious move. Dudley

13:58

knew that his plan would have a far

14:00

greater chance of success if he literally

14:03

kidnapped Mary and prevented

14:05

her from raising her own support. Mary

14:07

received an invitation to London, summoning

14:10

her to visit her dying brother. She

14:13

knew it was a trap, and so

14:15

instead Mary fled from her property

14:18

to East Anglia Norwich to start

14:20

gathering in Army. Norwich

14:22

was a particularly smart strategic

14:25

move. They absolutely hated

14:28

Dudley there because that had been

14:30

where he had viciously put

14:32

down the catch rebellion. Edward

14:35

the sixth died on July sixty

14:38

three from a fever and a cough

14:40

that had been gradually worsening for months.

14:44

Dudley decided to wait to announce

14:46

the death for a few days while he

14:48

gathered his own reinforcements

14:50

and planted ships on the coast to

14:52

prevent Mary's escape and also to

14:55

prevent her from receiving backup from any

14:57

European powers. It

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wasn't until July ten that

15:01

the Council announced that Lady

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Jane Gray was going to be queen.

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She was taken to the Tower of London, where

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traditionally monarchs awaited their

15:11

coronations. The people

15:13

on the street when they heard the announcement

15:16

were a little confused.

15:19

They muttered amongst themselves, shot

15:21

each other glances. Mary

15:23

sent a message to the Privy Council

15:26

stating that she intended to claim her

15:28

right and title. The Privy

15:30

Council responded that she was illegitimate,

15:34

supported by quote a few

15:36

lewed base people. They

15:39

would soon see how very wrong

15:42

they were. It

15:48

didn't take long for the Council to

15:50

hear rumors of Mary's growing number

15:52

of supporters marching from

15:54

East Anglia to London. It

15:57

wasn't just religious conservatives who

15:59

supported Mary. There were many

16:01

who just genuinely believed that

16:03

the legitimate succession shouldn't

16:05

be overturned for religious purposes,

16:08

and they saw Jane Gray as a political

16:10

pawn, which she was

16:13

by July deadly

16:16

marched with three thousand men, Mary

16:18

at Framlingham Castle in Suffolk, had

16:21

twenty thousand. The

16:23

rest of the Privy Council realized

16:26

that they had made a serious miscalculation

16:29

and bet on the wrong horse. They

16:31

hastily proclaimed that Mary was

16:33

the legitimate queen, effectively

16:36

ending what some consider to be

16:38

the nine Day Rain of Lady

16:40

Jane Gray. Mary rode

16:43

into London on horseback, victorious,

16:46

with her half sister Elizabeth riding

16:48

beside her. The city

16:51

rejoiced. Some sources

16:53

say that such a celebration had

16:56

never been heard in the city before. Mary

16:58

Tudor, who had and abandoned and cast

17:01

aside, humiliated and hurt,

17:04

was finally Queen of England. Lady

17:07

Jane Gray became a prisoner of the

17:10

Tower, where she had merely hours

17:12

before been a would be queen

17:14

awaiting coronation, but

17:16

Mary decided on mercy. Though

17:19

Jane Gray would be tried and convicted

17:22

of treason, Mary chose not

17:24

to actually act on the sentence

17:26

death, although of course Jane

17:29

Gray's father in law was killed. At

17:32

this point, Mary was in her late thirties.

17:35

The most important thing to her was restoring

17:37

England to Catholicism, but she

17:40

was well aware that if she failed to produce

17:42

an air, the next Queen of

17:44

England would be her Protestant

17:46

half sister, Elizabeth, and

17:48

so Mary Queen of England set

17:51

out to decide on a husband. There

17:58

were a few options for her, and more

18:00

than several advisers vying for

18:02

their favorites to get the position, but

18:05

the only advice that Mary really cared

18:07

for was that of the Holy Roman

18:09

Emperor Charles five, who

18:12

had been an ally to Mary and to her

18:14

mother ever since she was a child,

18:17

and she was briefly betrothed to him.

18:19

Charles, her cousin, had advised

18:22

her when to give into Henry's demands,

18:24

and when Edward the sixth was making

18:26

his Protestant reforms, Charles

18:29

was there to offer Mary an escape to the

18:31

continent if she needed it. Mary

18:33

trusted him. Her life had

18:35

been a series of betrayals

18:37

by her father, by Edward, by the

18:40

Privy Counselors. Trust

18:42

was hard won and valuable, and

18:44

it was rare in Mary's life. Charles

18:47

suggested that Mary Mary his

18:49

son Philip, Mary

18:51

and grade her counselors

18:54

were outraged. Philip,

18:56

a slightly younger man, was a

18:58

Spaniard. That was bad enough,

19:01

but his father, being the Holy Roman Emperor,

19:04

as Mary's husband, legally,

19:06

Philip would have control over her right and

19:08

since she's the queen, did that mean he

19:10

would have control over all of

19:13

England's resources. Clearly,

19:15

all of these things need to be straightened out.

19:18

And again I think it bears repeating.

19:20

He was a Spaniard gas,

19:24

but Mary was queen and

19:26

she intended to act as one. She

19:28

said that she would put the issue of her marriage

19:31

to Parliament and if they objected,

19:33

only then would she withdraw her choice

19:35

for a husband. And so Parliament

19:38

put together something called Queen Mary's

19:40

Marriage Act, a strange compromise

19:43

where they ironed out the kinks of a woman

19:45

in power for the first time. Philip

19:48

would be styled King of England,

19:51

and all acts of Parliament and official

19:53

documents would have both his and

19:55

Mary's names, but only for

19:57

Mary's lifetime. England

20:00

wouldn't need to provide any military support

20:02

to Philip's family, and Philip

20:04

couldn't act without Mary's consent or

20:07

appoint foreigners to English offices.

20:10

No one was really happy about

20:12

this arrangement, not even Philip,

20:14

who was miffed that he wasn't getting more

20:16

power. He was only marrying

20:19

Mary for political reasons. He

20:21

wasn't actually in love with her. But

20:24

when I say no one was happy about this arrangement,

20:26

I do mean no one was happy except

20:28

Mary, who did really

20:31

love Philip and who had tremendous

20:33

affection for him and was thrilled at

20:35

their union. But the country

20:38

was furious. Marriage act

20:40

or not. Everyone knew that a woman submitted

20:43

to her husband in marriage, and now

20:45

their queen would be submitting to a foreigner.

20:48

Add to that the anger among Protestants

20:51

that Mary would be undoing all of the

20:53

Protestant progress made in the country.

20:56

There was outrage upon

20:58

the announcement that she would be marrying Philip.

21:01

There was a rebellion led by Thomas

21:03

Wyatt the Younger, with the goal of

21:05

deposing Mary and replacing

21:07

her with Elizabeth. Mary

21:09

put down the revolt handily and efficiently,

21:12

and arrested all of the conspirators.

21:15

She also arrested Elizabeth, although

21:17

she wasn't personally involved. Elizabeth

21:20

remained in the tower for two months before

21:23

she was put under house arrest. But

21:25

one of the conspirators in the Wyatt rebellion

21:28

was Lady Jane Gray's father.

21:31

That family was still causing trouble,

21:34

trying to overthrow Mary yet

21:36

again. It was at this

21:38

point that Mary decided that

21:40

mercy for the Grays was no longer

21:42

necessary. Lady Jane

21:44

Gray and her husband, Gilford

21:47

Dudley were both executed

21:49

by beheading shortly

21:56

after putting down the rebellion. Mary would

21:58

have another cause for celebration. Her

22:01

period stopped, her belly

22:03

became swollen, she began

22:06

feeling sick in the mornings.

22:08

Her doctors confirmed it she

22:10

was pregnant. It was a

22:12

miracle, a gift from God, and

22:15

the most important step to securing

22:17

her Catholic legacy in England. Mary

22:20

even invited Elizabeth back to court

22:22

into her good graces, to come back

22:24

and be there for the birth. But

22:27

then the birth never came. Mary

22:30

waited, the court waited,

22:33

They waited longer. It

22:35

wasn't a baby, after all, just

22:38

what sometimes referred to as

22:40

a hysterical pregnancy.

22:43

Mary's desperation had manifested

22:45

into physical symptoms. Her

22:48

husband, Philip left to fight his wars

22:50

and Flanders. Their marriage

22:52

would almost never have the two of them in the

22:54

same place again. Mary

22:56

rode with him to see him off to his ship.

22:59

She aided until he was gone and

23:01

she was alone. When she was standing

23:04

on a cliff, and she believed that no one could

23:06

see her before she started

23:08

to cry. The false

23:10

pregnancy Mary believed was

23:13

God punishing her for tolerating

23:15

heretics. In England, the

23:18

executions of Protestants began

23:20

the next year, in February fifteen

23:22

fifty five, almost as soon

23:24

as Mary had become queen. Around

23:26

eight hundred prominent Protestant leaders

23:29

fled to the continent, but for those

23:31

who were left and refused to recant their faith,

23:34

a grim fate awaited. Approximately

23:38

three hundred men and women were

23:40

burned at the stake, including

23:42

the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas

23:45

Cranmer, whom Mary replaced

23:47

at his post with Reginald Pole,

23:49

the son of her former governess Margaret

23:52

Pole. Cranmer had renounced

23:54

his faith before his execution, which

23:57

should have meant that his life was spared. It

24:00

wasn't. In Mary's

24:02

mind. These early executions would

24:04

act as a quote short, sharp

24:07

shock a warning signal

24:09

to the rest of Protestants in the country

24:11

to frighten them into returning to Catholicism.

24:15

Mary wrote that the executions should

24:17

be quote so used that

24:19

the people might well perceive them

24:21

not to be condemned without just occasion,

24:24

whereby they shall both understand the

24:26

truth and beware to do

24:28

the like. Her targets were

24:31

religious leaders, people converting

24:33

others away from what Mary saw as

24:35

the true faith. By burning

24:37

one person, she could be saving

24:39

the souls of thousands. Grizzly,

24:43

as it seems, burning at the stake was

24:45

just the de facto execution for religious

24:47

heretics. The idea was

24:49

that it would give them a taste of the fires

24:52

of hell, so that they might have the opportunity

24:54

to confess and set themselves straight

24:57

before death to prevent that fate

24:59

eternally. Thomas Cranmer

25:01

r I P. Was even planning to burn Catholics

25:04

before Edward the sixth premature

25:07

death. And again, awful

25:10

as it sounds, three hundred

25:12

executions is almost nothing compared

25:14

to the number of executions Married's

25:16

father, King Henry the Eighth ordered

25:19

over the course of his reign, sometimes

25:21

rumored to be as high as fifty thousand.

25:24

Another source I read has that as high

25:26

as fifty seven thousand, factoring

25:29

in the citizens and nobles who he had

25:31

brutally killed if they acted

25:34

uprising against him, although that

25:36

number might be exaggerated. Edward

25:39

the six suppressed the Prayer Book rebellion,

25:41

which led to the death of over five thousand

25:44

Catholics. Elizabeth the First

25:46

would go on to order executions of

25:48

around eight hundred Catholic rebels,

25:51

and she had a hundred and eighty three

25:53

Catholics, mostly Jesuit missionaries,

25:56

hanged, drawn and quartered. So

25:59

why is Harry the only one

26:01

with the bloody nickname that's carried

26:03

through history. Well, it's

26:06

a case of bad pr A

26:08

few years after Queen Mary's death,

26:10

the Protestant historian John Fox

26:13

published his Book of Martyrs, an

26:15

intimate account of the sufferings of Protestants

26:18

under the Catholic Church in England and Scotland.

26:21

It was also illustrated with incredibly

26:24

visceral woodcut prints. The

26:26

book was one of the most ambitious

26:29

publishing projects to date, and

26:31

it became ubiquitous,

26:33

sometimes even in pews. Along with

26:35

the Book of Common Prayer. Elizabeth

26:38

the First would also be a little bit more

26:40

savvy when it came to her executions.

26:43

When she wanted to kill practicing Catholics,

26:46

she convicted them as traders,

26:48

which gave the people less to argue

26:50

with. Even if people disagreed

26:52

about religion, everyone hated

26:55

traders, and as joyful

26:57

as Mary's ascension was as

27:00

queen, she became incredibly

27:02

unpopular. Fairly quickly. Her

27:04

husband Philip pulled England

27:06

into a war with France, which

27:09

led to the French invading and reclaiming

27:11

Calais, which was England's last

27:14

possession in France. It

27:16

was a humiliating loss

27:18

and a visceral one. Upon

27:20

hearing that Calais was lost, Mary

27:23

declared, quote, when I am dead

27:25

and opened, you shall find Philip

27:28

and Calais lying in my heart.

27:31

And there were also things fully beyond

27:33

Mary's control. An outbreak of

27:35

influenza failed harvests,

27:38

Philip spent almost all of his time

27:40

abroad, and Mary was left alone.

27:43

Devastated by her inability to have children.

27:47

She tried to make positive national policies

27:49

like fiscal reform and expanding

27:52

the navy, but she only barely

27:54

got started before her sudden death. Elizabeth,

27:58

her successor, would get most of

28:00

the credit for policies that began

28:02

in Mary's reign. In fifteen

28:05

fifty seven, after a brief visit

28:07

from her husband, Mary once

28:09

again believed that she was with child.

28:12

She was weak and her belly was swollen,

28:15

but once again the do date

28:17

came and went. The belly

28:20

sank, but the weakness stayed,

28:22

and Mary, it was privately, forced

28:24

to reckon with the fact that she

28:26

was closer to death than she might have hoped,

28:29

and that her half sister Elizabeth would

28:31

be the next Queen. Elizabeth

28:34

a Protestant who would undo

28:37

everything that she Mary had

28:39

worked so hard to achieve. It

28:42

was all for nothing. Clutching

28:44

her stomach in pain from what might have

28:46

been either uterine cancer or

28:49

ovari insists, Mary

28:51

the First died on November

28:54

fifty eight at the age

28:56

of forty two, after only

28:59

five years as Queen. Philip,

29:02

her husband, who was out of town at the time,

29:05

wrote in a letter that he felt a

29:07

reasonable regret upon hearing

29:10

of Mary's death. Elizabeth

29:12

the First would usher in what's considered

29:15

to be a golden era in England's

29:17

history, an era of culture and

29:19

of European prominence, while

29:22

Mary would remain a footnote

29:24

the boogeyman in Protestant stories,

29:27

the woman of faith who had

29:29

failed and been failed again

29:32

and again. That's

29:45

the story of the reign of Mary the First

29:47

But keep listening after a brief sponsor

29:49

break to hear a little bit more about

29:52

her death. And on a

29:54

personal note, this is just a quick reminder

29:56

that you can join the Noble Blood Patreon,

29:58

where where recap episodes of

30:01

the showtime series The Tutors,

30:03

and where you can also get episode scripts

30:06

and behind the scenes tidbits,

30:08

photos, a little bit more information

30:10

about the characters involved in these

30:12

stories. Also another

30:15

personal reminder, I wrote a

30:17

novel called Anatomy, a love

30:19

story, and if you're a fan of Noble Blood,

30:22

I really think you're going to like it. It's a

30:25

love story sort of. It's

30:27

a very maccab Victorian version

30:29

of a love story, but set in the underbelly

30:32

of Edinburgh in the eighteen hundreds,

30:34

mostly about body snatchers and

30:37

how gruesome surgery was back there.

30:39

So if you think it's sort of your kind

30:41

of thing, that there's a link in the episode

30:43

description. In

30:53

her will, Mary stated that she wanted

30:55

to be buried next to her mother, Catherine

30:57

of Aragon. The other proudan

31:00

who had refused to give up her faith and

31:02

who had also failed in the goal of

31:04

producing a son. Mary's

31:07

request wasn't heated. Instead,

31:10

she was interred in Westminster Abbey.

31:13

Eventually she would be joined in her tomb

31:15

by Elizabeth. The plaque

31:18

above them reads in Latin

31:20

consorts in realm and tomb,

31:23

we sisters Elizabeth and Mary

31:26

here lie down to sleep in

31:28

hope of the resurrection. But

31:31

here's the detail that I find so

31:34

interesting. Elizabeth's

31:36

coffin would be placed on top

31:39

of Mary's. Elizabeth

31:41

would overshadow Mary

31:43

even in the grave. Noble

31:50

Blood is a production of I Heart Radio and

31:52

Grimm and Mild from Aaron Minky.

31:54

The show was written and hosted by Dani Schwartz

31:57

and produced by Aaron Minkey, Matt Frederick,

32:00

Alex Williams, and Trevor Young. Noble

32:02

Blood is on social media at Noble Blood

32:05

Tales, and you can learn more about the show

32:07

over at Noble Blood Tales dot com.

32:09

For more podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit

32:12

the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,

32:14

or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. M