A Biographical Dictionary of the Celebrated Women of Every Age and Country/Mary (Queen of England)
In her infancy her mother committed her to the care of the lady Margaret, countess of Salisbury, daughter to George, duke of Clarence, brother to Edward IV, and mother to the famous cardinal Pole, with a view, as is supposed, to marry the princess to one of the said countess's sons, to strengthen her title, by that alliance to the house of York.
Queen Catherine was very careful of her education, and appointed several excellent tutors to perfect her in the Latin tongue. Under their tuition she became so great a proficient in the Latin tongue, that Erasmus commends her much for her epistles in that language, as wrote in a good style. Towards the latter end of her father's reign, at the earnest request of Catherine Parr, she undertook the translation of Erasmus's paraphrase on the gospel of St. John; which Mr. Udall, a very good judge, says, was admirably performed. To this Mr. Udall wrote a preface, wherein he observes "the great number of noble women at that time in England, not only given to the study of human sciences and strange tongues, but also so thoroughly expert in holy scriptures, that they were able to compare with the best writers, as well in inditeing and penning of godly and fruitfull treatises, to the instruction and edifying of realms in the knowledge of God, as also in translating good books out of Latin or Greek into English, tor the use and commodity of such as are rude and ignorant of the said tongues."
In Mr. Fox's Acts and Monuments, are printed eight letters, written by the princess Mary to King Edward VI, and to the lords of the council, concerning her non-conformity to the establishment, and about the imprisonment and releasing her chaplain, Dr. Francis Mallet.
In the appendix to Mr. Strype's 3d vol. of Historical Memorials, No. 82, is a prayer of the lady Mary to the Lord Jesu, against the assault of vice. And No. 83, is a meditation touching adversity; made by lady Mary's grace, 1549.
In the Sylloge Epistolarum, at the end of T. Livy's Life of King Henry V, published by Mr. Hearne, is a large collection of Queen Mary's letters.
In the Bodleian library, B. 94, is a manuscript primer, curiously illuminated, which was formerly Queen Mary's, and afterwards Prince Henry's. It was given him by Richard Connock, Esq; July 7, 1615. Just at the beginning of the Psalms, is the following passage, written by Queen Mary's own hand, viz. 'Geate you such riches as when the shippe is broken may swyme away wythe the master. For dyverse chances take away the goods of fortune. But the goods of the soule, whych been only the trewe goods, nether fyr nor water can take away. If you take labour and payne to do a vertuous thyng, the labour goeth away and the vertue remaynethe. Yf throughe pleasure you do any vicious thyng, the pleasure goeth away and the vice remaynethe. Good njadam, for my sake remember thys.
- Your lovying mistress,
- 'Marye Princesse.'
What we have hitherto said of the lady Mary, relates to her literary character; what yet remains untold, respects her conduct after she ascended the throne.
King Edward her brother dying 1553, she was on the 20th of the same month proclaimed, and on the 1st of October following, crowned in the abbey church at Westminster, by Stephen Gardiner, bishop of Winchester; she was married to Philip, Prince of Spain, eldest son of the Emperor Charles V; and having reigned five years, four months and eleven days, died of a fever, occasioned by her disappointment in not having children, and by the absence and unkindness of King Philip, in her palace at St. Jameses 1558, in the 43d year of her age; and was buried on the north side of King Henry Vllth's chapel, Westminster.
It is painful to dwell on the events of Mary's reign. Her sour and bigotted temper, not only made herself unhappy, but deluged the kingdom with innocent blood, by the barbarous persecution of the protestants during her reign.
Some protestants seem to think, that the Queen, in herself, abstracted from her opinions and bigotted counsellors, was of a compassionate disposition, and that most of those barbarities were committed by her bishops without her privity or knowledge. But this must appear very unaccountable to any one who duly considers the vicinity of St. James's to the place where many of these inhumanities were put in execution. It seems next to impossible, that Smithfieid should be kept in flames almost five years together, and Mary know little or nothing of it; and if she was of so compassionate a nature, it is surprising that she should not relent at it. Can even charity itself excuse her unkind and inhuman treatment of her sister Elizabeth? Or can it be supposed, that a princess, so much inclined to shew mercy to her subjects, could admit of a council for the taking up and burning her father's body? The ungrateful and perfidious breach of her promise to her faithful and loyal subjects the Suffolk men, was a most flagrant instance of the ferocity of her temper! And after judge Hales had so strenuously defended and maintained her right of succession to the crown, she treated him in the most ungenerous and barbarous manner! neither was her usage of archbishop Cranmer less cruel; especially since his great and well known reluctance to the excluding her from the succession, and his preserving her life in the reign of her father, who would have sacrificed her to his fury, for not complying with the regulations he made in religion, had not the archbishop interposed and mollified his resentment, were obligations of such a nature, as would have engaged a temper the least susceptible of gratitude, not only to excuse the part which he acted in the affair of her mother's divorce, but also to afford him, if not her favour and confidence, yet at least her protection.
There are eight of her letters to King Edward and the lords of the council, on her nonconformity, and on the imprisonment of her chaplain, Mr. Mallet, in Fox's Acts and Monuments, In the Sylloge Epistolarum are several more of her letters, extremely curious: one on the subject of her delicacy, in never having written but to three men; one of affection for her sister; one after the death of Anne Boleyn; and one, very remarkable, of Cromwell to her. In Haynes's State Papers are two, in Spanish, to the emperor Charles V. There is also a French letter, printed by Strype, in the Cotton Library, in answer to a haughty mandate of Philip, when he had a mind to marry Elizabeth to the duke of Savoy, against the queen's and princess's inclination. It is written in a most abject manner, and in a wretched style.