My review of Bloody Mary: The Life of Mary Tudor, by Carolly Erickson

Bloody Mary: The Life of Mary Tudor

by Carolly Erickson

My rating: 4 out of 5 stars

A terrific biography of a much maligned and grossly misunderstood historical figure, a scapegoat for generations of vicious religious and political propagandists.

Though she burned and persecuted 'heretics', so did most European monarchs of her era, Catholic and Protestant.

After a splendid start in life, Henry VIII's half-Spanish, half-English heir to the English throne was treated cruelly and heartlessly throughout her youth because of her genes, her gender and her parent's reformation-triggering marriage annulment.

Her mother Catherine of Aragon was her only close ally, but King Henry eventually forbade mother and daughter contact. Her younger cousin-husband Prince Phillip of Spain, who she adored, would treat her little better than her father had. 

Her maltreatment, heartache over her parents' unprecedented marriage annulment, her humiliation of being for a time displaced from the succession for her 'bastard' stepsister, Elizabeth, plus Mary's archly devout piousness in a changing religious milieu explains much about this tortured soul.

This granddaughter of Queen Isabella I of Castile and King Ferdinand II of Aragon become a marvellously tragic, at times right royal neurotic.

Despite this, and seemingly possessing the mother of all death stares (she was actually vision impaired), the chronically misrepresented Mary Tudor had the heart and makings of a great anointed queen. History might have treated her more favourably had she had more time to establish herself rather than dying so prematurely - some said of a broken heart - just a few years after ascending the throne.

Her poignant tale is told with compassion and aplomb. Erudite and humane, Carolly Erickson pumps blood into Mary's veins like no other biographer, without apology for the monarch's infamous personal shortcomings.

An enlightening tragedy that peels away the cobwebs of centuries, leaving the reader relieved to live in today's world and historically informed.