The History of Mary I, Queen of England as found in the public records, despatches of ambassadors, in original private letters, and other contemporary documents

We live in an age of criticism. Epithets will no longer serve in lieu of evidence, and we are called upon to revise the hasty judgments of past centuries, and to reconsider thei...

Courtenay was still on the horns of a dilemma, where the weakness and natural timidity of his character kept him irresolute. While he did not hesitate to play with treason, list...

It is doubtful, even had her hopes of an heir not proved vain, whether Mary would have been able to control the revolutionary movement that had now spread from London into vario...

Philip had married as his first wife the daughter of John III., King of Portugal, who had died in 1552, having given birth to a son, the unfortunate and notorious Don Carlos. Ch...

Mary had gone into retirement at Hampton Court, in the spring of 1555, and had refused to relinquish the cherished hope of maternity, till long after her physicians had pronounc...

Mary’s opportunity was in many ways a splendid one. From her earliest youth, the new Queen had been the hope, the admiration, the delight of the English people, and the poet exp...

Whether there was any truth or not in the sinister rumours concerning the manner in which Katharine had come by her death, it was natural that Mary should believe them, and prep...

A crisis of some sort was generally thought to be at hand, although its precise nature remained a mystery for a few days longer. The King’s subjects made no secret of their sati...

Mary was now the most prominent princess in Europe. The character, the accomplishments, the personal charms of none were so amply discussed, so widely known, so universally admi...

Want of money had hampered the Queen from the beginning of her reign, and was not the least among the causes which led to the unpopularity of her government. Her poverty was app...

At the time of her father’s death, Mary was thirty-one years old. Her youth had passed away amid storms such as few women are called upon to weather, and they had left their tra...

Mary’s whole life was clouded, with the first whisper of the King’s “secret matter”. Until then the Princess had been surrounded with all the charm of greatness, without any of...

It was characteristic of the times in which the Princess Mary was born, that she should be ushered into the world with a pageant. England had but lately been roused from the let...

The hereditary enmity between Charles V. and the King of France, which in its earliest stages had deluged Europe with blood, and had made of the city of Rome a shambles, was in...

Grief, anxiety and disappointment, perpetually assailing a constitution never one of the strongest, brought the Queen to her life’s end before she was forty-three. If her natura...

Amid all the fencing and diplomatic insincerities that went on between Henry and Charles, concerning Mary’s status, his cousin’s real welfare had but a small share in the policy...

When Mary was about ten years old, her father, mindful it was said of his Welsh origin, turned his attention towards that principality, thinking wisely by redressing some of its...

begged that neither in the future Council nor out of it, the subject might be mentioned, or anything done contrary to the wishes of the King of England, or for the sake of the K...