Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-v9fdk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-10T11:37:38.749Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Reign of Mary Tudor: Historiography and Research

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 July 2014

David Loades
Get access

Extract

Mary made the unfortunate mistake of antagonizing her successor, without being able to impose any limitations upon her freedom of action. Writing in 1557 the Venetian ambassador, Giovanni Michieli, observed “although it is dissembled, it cannot be denied that [the queen] displays in many ways the scorn and ill will she bears her [Elizabeth]….” The younger woman reciprocated such feelings in full measure, and a few days before her accession, when there was no longer any need to be discreet, the Count of Feria reported, “She is highly indignant about what has been done to her in the queen's lifetime….” Such personal antagonism may not go far in explaining Elizabeth's decision to reverse so many of her sister's policies, but it certainly helps to account for the animus that the new queen's most trusted servants so quickly developed against their predecessors. In the last days of 1558 a royal commission was issued “to discover by what means the realm hath suffered great harm” under the previous regime, and soon came up with a long list of secular and ecclesiastical grants. Most of the latter were immediately resumed in the succeeding Parliament. It was to be another quarter of a century before Elizabeth finally emerged as the winner, and Mary as the loser, of the English reformation struggle, but those in power after 1558 did not wait to celebrate their victory.

Type
Research Article
Information
Albion , Volume 21 , Issue 4 , Winter 1989 , pp. 547 - 558
Copyright
Copyright © North American Conference on British Studies 1989

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Calendar of State Papers, Venetian, ed. Brown, R., Bentinck, C., and Brown, H. (London, 1864-1998), VI, ii, 1058.Google Scholar

2 “The Count of Feria's despatch to Philip II of 14 November 1558,” ed. Adams, S. and Salgado, M. J. Rodriguez, Camden Miscellany, 28, 320/329.Google Scholar

3 Public Record Office, SP 12/1/64.

4 Foxe, J.The Actes and Monuments of these latter and perilous days touching matters of the church, ed. Cattley, S.R. and Townsend, G. (London, 1839-1944), 8: 625.Google Scholar

5 Froude, J. A., The Reign of Queen Mary (London, 1856), p. 320.Google Scholar

6 Sander, N., De origine ac progressu schismatis Anglicani (1585)Google Scholar; An epitaphe upon the death of the Moste excellent and our late vertuous Queene Marie (London, 1558).Google Scholar

7 The Life of Jane Dormer, Duchess of Feria, by Henry Clifford, ed. Stevenson, J. (London, 1887).Google Scholar

8 Pollard, A. F., The History of England from the accession of Edward VI to the death of Elizabeth (London, 1913), p. 172.Google Scholar

9 Hughes, P., The Reformation in England, 3 vols. (London, 1953-1956), 2: 185.Google Scholar

10 Stone, J. M., Mary the first, Queen of England (London, 1901).Google Scholar

11 White, Beatrice, Mary Tudor (London, 1935), p. vii.Google Scholar

12 Prescott, H. F. M., Spanish Tudor (London, 1940)Google Scholar; revised as Mary Tudor (London, 1952).

13 Waldman, Milton, The Lady Mary (London, 1972)Google Scholar; Ridley, Jasper, Mary Tudor (London, 1973)Google Scholar; Erickson, Carolly, Bloody Mary (London, 1978).Google Scholar

14 Muller, J. A., Stephen Gardiner and the Tudor Reaction (London, 1926); idem, The Letters of Stephen Gardiner (London, 1933).Google Scholar

15 Harbison, E. H., Rival Ambassadors at the Court of Queen Mary (Princeton, 1940)Google Scholar; also idem, “French intrigue at the court of Oueen Mary,” American Historical Review 45 (1940): 533-51.

16 Rival Ambassadors, p. 330.

17 Elton, G. R., The Tudor Revolution in Government (Cambridge, 1953)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Neale, J. E., Elizabeth I and Her Parliaments, 1559-1581 (London, 1953), and 1581-1603 (London, 1957)Google Scholar; Elton, , England under the Tudors (London, 1955).Google Scholar

18 Hughes's study is by far the most detailed to have appeared to date. He argues that Mary's government was canonically wrong to execute as heretics those who had been born and baptized after the schism began; also that many of those burned were anabaptists who would have been executed by a protestant government (see above, n. 9).

19 Loades, , “Popular subversion and government security in England during the reign of Mary I” (Ph.D. thesis, Cambridge University, 1961).Google Scholar

20 Dickens, , The English Reformation (London, 1964)Google Scholar devoted two chapters to Mary's reign, in a study which virtually ended with 1559; Anglo, , Spectacle Pageantry and Early Tudor Policy (Oxford, 1969)Google Scholar, discussed the entries and court festivities of the period as a distinctly down-beat appendix to the splendors of Henry VIII's reign; Knowles, , The Religious Orders in England, vol. 3, The Tudor Age (Cambridge, 1961)Google Scholar, devoted part four to the Marian revival, presenting the fullest and most balanced account to have appeared to date. Blench, J. W., Preaching in England in the Late Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries (Oxford, 1964)Google Scholar, also devoted a section to the revived Catholic tradition, suggesting that it was ornate and academic rather than popular and effective.

21 Loades, , “The press under the early Tudors,” Transactions of the Cambridge Bibliographical Society 4 (1964): 29–50Google Scholar, and “The enforcement of reaction, 1553-58,” Journal of Ecclesiastical History 16 (1965): 54–66.Google Scholar

22 Weikel, A., “Crown and Council; a Study of Mary Tudor and Her Privy Council” (Ph.D. diss., Yale University, 1966)Google Scholar; Lemasters, G. A., “The Privy Council in the reign of Oueen Mary I” (Ph.D. diss., Cambridge University, 1971)Google Scholar; Braddock, R. C., ‘The Royal Household, 1540-1560” (Ph.D. diss., Northwestern University, 1971)Google Scholar; Pogson, R. H., “Reginald Pole, Papal Legate to England in Mary Tudor's Reign” (Ph.D. diss., Cambridge University, 1972)Google Scholar; Loach, J., “Parliamentary Opposition in the Reign of Mary Tudor” (D. Phil, thesis, Oxford University, 1974)Google Scholar; among other relevant theses completed at the same time were: C. Erickson, G., “Parliament as a representative institution in the reigns of Edward VI and Mary” (Ph.D. diss., University of London, 1974)Google Scholar; Bradshaw, B., “The Irish Constitutional Revolution, 1515-1557” (Ph.D. diss., Cambridge University, 1975)Google Scholar, and Marmion, J. P., “The London Synod of Cardinal Pole” (M.A. thesis, Keele University, 1974).Google Scholar

23 Loach, , “Pamphlets and Politics, 1553-58,” Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research 48 (1975): 31–45CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Pogson, , “Revival and Reform in Mary Tudor's church,” Journal of Ecclesiastical History 25 (1974): 249-65CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and “Reginald Pole and the priorities of government in Mary Tudor's church,” Historical Journal 18 (1975): 3–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

24 Loach, J. and Tittler, R., The Mid-Tudor Polity, c. 1540-1560 (London, 1980)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, containing “Conservatism and consent in parliament, 1547-59” (Loach); “The Marian Council re-visited” (Weikel); “The emergence of urban policy, 1536-58” (Tittler); “Social policy and the constraints of government, 1547-58” (Paul Slack); “The Legacy of Schism; confusion, continuity and change in the Marian church” (Pogson); “Public Office and private profit; the legal establishment in the reign of Mary Tudor” (Lewis Abbott); and Davies, C. S. L., “England and the French war, 1557-59.” Loach, J., Parliament and the Crown in the Reign of Mary Tudor (Oxford, 1986).Google Scholar

25 Davies, C. S. L., Peace, Print and Protestantism (London, 1977)Google Scholar; Williams, Penry, The Tudor Regime (Oxford, 1979)Google Scholar. Some of these ideas had been put forward a decade earlier by Fisher, F. J. in “Influenza and inflation in Tudor England,” Economic History Review, 2nd ser., 18 (1965).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

26 In The Mid-Tudor Polity, see n. 24. See also Potter, D. L., “The Due de Guise and the fall of Calais,” English Historical Review 98 (1983): 481–512.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

27 Schenk, W., Reginald Pole, Cardinal of England (London, 1950)Google Scholar; Crehan, J. H., “The return to obedience; new judgement on Cardinal Pole,” The Month, n. s. 14, (1955): 221-29Google Scholar; and “St. Ignatius and Cardinal Pole,” Archivum Historicum Societatis Iesu 25 (1956): 72–98.Google Scholar

28 Fenlon, D. B., Heresy and obedience in Tridetine Italy (Cambridge, 1972).Google Scholar

29 Idigoras, J. I. Tellechea, “Bartolomé Carranza y la restauración católica inglesa (1553-58),” An-thologia Annua 12 (1964): 159–282Google Scholar; “Pole y Paul IV; una celébre Apologia inédita del Cardenal Inglés,” Archivum Historiae Pontificae 4 (1966)Google Scholar; “Una denuncia de los Cardenales Contarini, Pole y Morone per el Cardenal Francisco de Mendoza (1560),” Revista española de Teología 27 (1967): 33–51Google Scholar; “Pole, Carranza y Fresnada. Cara y cruz de una amistad y de una enemistad,” Dialogo ecuménico 8 (1974): 287–293Google Scholar; Fray Bartolomé Carranza y el Cardenal Pole (Pamplona, 1977).Google Scholar

30 Garrett, C. H., The Marian Exiles (Cambridge, 1938Google Scholar; reprint ed., London, 1966); Mozeley, J. F., John Foxe and his Book (London, 1940)Google Scholar; Haller, W., Foxe's Book of Martyrs and the Elect Nation (London, 1963)Google Scholar; Firth, K. R., The Apocalyptic Tradition in Reformation Britain 1530-1645 (Oxford, 1979)Google Scholar; Osen, V. N., John Foxe and the Elizabethan Church (Berkeley, 1973)Google Scholar; Smart, S. J., “John Foxe and ‘The Story of Richard Hun, Martyr,’” Journal of Ecclesiastical History 37 (1986): 1–14CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Facey, Jane, “John Foxe and the Defence of the English Church,” in Lake, P., ed., Protestantism and the National Church in Sixteenth-Century England (1987)Google Scholar. Davies, Catherine and Facey, Jane, “A Reformation Dilemma: John Foxe and the Problem of Discipline,” Journal of Ecclesiatical History 39 (1988): 37–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

31 Loades, , The Oxford Martyrs (London, 1970).Google Scholar

32 Alexander, G., “Bonner and the Marian persecutions,” History 60 (1975): 374-92CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Jagger, M., “Bonner's episcopal visitation of London, 1554,” Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research 45 (1973): 306-11CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Powell, K. G., The Marian Martyrs and the Reformation in Bristol (Bristol, 1972).Google Scholar

33 Haigh, C., Reformation and Resistance in Tudor Lancashire (Cambridge, 1975)Google Scholar; and subsequently The English Reformation Revised (London, 1987)Google Scholar, reprinting articles originally published in 1982 and 1983. ProfessorDickens, A. G. has joined issue on this interpretation (“The Early expansion of protestantism in England,” Archiv fur Reformationsgeschichte 78 [1987]: 187–222).Google Scholar

34 Baskerville, Edward J., A chronological bibliography of propaganda and polemic published in English between 1553 and 1558 (American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia, 1979).Google Scholar

35 Tudor, P., “Religious instruction for children and adolescents in the early English Reformation,” Journal of Ecclesiastical History 35 (1984): 391–413CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Took, P. M., “The government and the printing trade, 1540-1560” (Ph.D. thesis, London University, 1979).Google Scholar

36 Loach, J., “The Marian establishment and the printing press,” English Historical Review 100 (1986): 138-51.Google Scholar

37 Loades, , The Reign of Mary Tudor (London, 1979).Google Scholar

38 Clark, P., English Provincial Society from the Reformation to the Revolution: Religion, Politics and Society in Kent, 1500-1640 (Brighton, 1977)Google Scholar; Thorp, M. R., “Religion and the Wyatt rebellion of 1554,” Church History 47 (1978): 363-80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

39 See above, n. 24.

40 Tittler, R., “The incorporation of boroughs, 1540-1558,” History 62 (1977): 24–42CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Pogson, see n. 24; Tittler, , The Reign of Mary I, Seminar Studies in History (London, 1983).Google Scholar

41 Collinson, P., The Birth Pangs of Protestant England (Cambridge, 1988).Google Scholar

42 Salgado, M. J. Rodriguez, The Changing Face of Empire (Cambridge, 1988)Google Scholar, which supersedes earlier accounts of Philip's policies during these years.

43 Glasgow, T., “The navy in the French wars of Mary and Elizabeth, 1557-1564,” Mariner's Mirror 53 (1967): 321-42; 54 (1968): 23-37CrossRefGoogle Scholar; “The maturing of naval administration, 1556-1564,” Mariner's Mirror 56 (1970): 3–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

44 “Philip II and the government of England,” in Cross, C., Loades, D., and Scarisbrick, J., eds., Law and Government under the Tudors: Essays Presented to Sir Geoffrey Elton (Cambridge, 1988), pp. 177–194.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

45 Loades', The Tudor Court (London, 1986)Google Scholar; Murphy, J. A., “The illusion of decline: the Privy Chamber 1547-1558,” in Starkey, D., ed., The English Court from the Wars of the Roses to the Civil War (London, 1987), pp. 119–146.Google Scholar

46 Calendar of Stale Papers, Spanish, ed. Tyler, Royall, vols. 12 (London, 1949) and 13 (London, 1954)Google Scholar. Other principal printed sources are: Madden, F., Privy Purse Expenses of the Princess Mary (London, 1831)Google Scholar: Acts of the Privy Council, ed. Dasent, J. R. (London, 1890-1907)Google Scholar; Calendar of State Papers, Venetian (see n. 1); Calendar of State Papers, Foreign, ed., Turnbull, W. (London, 1861)Google Scholar; Calendar of the Patent Rolb, Edward VI and Mary (London, 1924-1939)Google Scholar; The Chronicle of Queen Jane and of Two Years of Queen Mary, ed., Nichols, J. G., Camden Society, o. s., 48 (1850)Google Scholar; The Diary of Henry Machyn, ed., Nicholas, J. G., Camden Society, o. s. 42 (1848)Google Scholar; de Guaras, A., The Accession of Queen Mary, ed., Garnett, R. (London, 1892)Google Scholar; Statutes of the Realm, ed., Luders, A., et al. (London, 1810-1828)Google Scholar; Tytler, P. F., England Under the Reigns of Edward VI and Mary (London, 1839)Google Scholar; Hughes, P. L. and Larkin, J. F., Tudor Royal Proclamations, vol. 2 (New Haven, 1969).Google Scholar

47 A new edition by Dr. Charles Knighton is in preparation.

48 Donaldson, P. S., A Machiavellian Treatise by Stephen Gardiner (Cambridge, 1975).Google Scholar

49 Historical Journal 19 (1976): 1019.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

50 “The ‘Vita Mariae Angliae Reginae’ of Robert Wingfield of Brantham,” ed. MacCulloch, D., Camden Miscellany 28, Camden Society, 4th ser., 24 (1984).Google Scholar

51 See above, n. 2

52 Both Oxford, 1986.

53 London, 1988.

54 Barlett, K., “‘The Misfortune that is wished for him’: The Exile and Death of Edward Courtenay, eighth Earl of Devon,” Canadian Journal of History 14 (1979): 1–28CrossRefGoogle Scholar; “The English Exile Community in Italy and the Political Opposition to Mary I,” Albion 13 (1981): 223-41CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Martin, J. W., “Miles Hogarde, Artisan and Aspiring Author in Sixteenth Century England,” Renaissance Quarterly 34 (1981): 359-83CrossRefGoogle Scholar; “The Protestant Underground Congregations of Mary's Reign,” Journal of Ecclesiastical History 35 (1984): 519-59CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Robison, W. B., “The National and Local Significance of Wyatt's rebellion in Surrey,” Historical Journal 30 (1987): 769-90CrossRefGoogle Scholar; McCoy, R. C., “From the Tower to the Tiltyard: Robert Dudley's Return to Glory,” Historical Journal 27 (1984): 425-35CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Tittler, R. and Battley, S. L., “The Local Community and the Crown in 1553: The Accession of Mary Tudor Revisited,” Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research 57 (1984): 131-39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

55 The House of Lords in the Parliaments of Edward VI and Mary: An Institutional Study (Cambridge, 1981)Google Scholar; see also Graves, , “The House of Lords and the Politics of Opposition, April-May 1554,” in W. P. Morrell: A Tribute, ed. Wood, G. A. and O'Connor, P. S. (Dunedin, 1973).Google Scholar

56 “The Bishops of the Restored Catholic Church Under Queen Mary,” Miscellanea Historiae Ecclesiasticae 8 (1987): 343-55.Google Scholar

57 Ericson, see n. 22; Took, see n. 35; Boscher, P. G., “Politics, administration and diplomacy, the Anglo-Scottish border, 1550-1560” (Ph.D. thesis, Durham University, 1985)Google Scholar, Redworth, G. R., “The political and diplomatic career of Stephen Gardiner” (D. Phil, thesis, Oxford University, 1985).Google Scholar

58 Hoak, D. E., ‘Two Revolutions in Tudor Government: The Formation and Organisation of Mary I's Privy Council,” in Revolution Reassessed, ed., Starkey, D. and Coleman, C. (London, 1986), pp. 87–116Google Scholar. Loades, , Mary Tudor: A Life (Oxford, 1989).Google Scholar

59 The notes to this discussion do not pretend to mention everything of significance which has been published on the reign. In particular, there are a number of other biographies relating to important figures of the period, which it has not proved convenient to introduce into the text. For example: Emmison, F. G., Tudor Secretary [SirPetre, William] (London, 1971)Google Scholar; Gammon, S. R., Statesman and Schemer, William, First Lord Paget, Tudor Minister (Newton Abbot, 1973)Google Scholar; Bernard, G. W., The Power of the Early Tudor Nobility: A Study of the Fourth and Fifth Earls of Shrewsbury (Brighton, 1984).Google Scholar