Customer Reviews

Mary Tudor: The Spanish Tudor

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you won't find a "bloody Mary" here because this book deals with the relations between Spain and England during the 1500's. Mary was the daughter of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon.Seeing as Spain and England would go to war on numerous occasions culminating in the Spanish Armada defeat in 1588,Queen Mary's selection of a husband from Spanish royalty,seems like it would have been very unpopular in 1554. And indeed it was,one has to wonder if the objection of the English to Phillip of Spain had less to do with his Catholicism and more to do with his suspected Spanish sympathies.Sometimes a royal marriage between 2 rival nations can unite,but in this case it aggravated the rivalry.In this book the burnings and religious persecutions are downplayed deliberately to focus on the political rivalries between France,England, and Spain and about a dozen or more other countries. Indeed it is hard to keep track here.Still though it must have given Mary,secret delight to see Archbishop Cranmer burned however because he was the main prosecutor of Mary's mother,Catherine of Aragon and Cranmer sent her packing in humiliation.Headstrong Mary or "Bloody Mary" as she is known made in retrospect an unwise marriage in the Spanish union,and when you're the head of a nation,that can be a disaster.being the child of Queen Catharine of Aragon(of Spain),Mary saw her reign as a vindication of her mother and her catholic faith.All this at atime when England was becoming a world power and the main competitor was Catholic Spain.This book seems to see Mary's reign as a brief step backward and the Queens inability to govern because of infighting over numerous issues of religion and politics.It would take the reign of elizabeth 1 ,Mary's half sister to finally get england moving again.Other books however have been written that stress Mary's achievements,but this book focuses mainly on the Spanish/English conflict over European hegemony.As Oscar Wilde said,"people who have to go back to their childhood as the reason for their problems are boring"but in Mary Tudor's case this quote would not apply. The first 1/2 of this book is pretty much devoted to Mary's traumatic childhood where she is exposed to huge amounts of cruelty from her father and his cohorts.Her mother and her religion were Mary's only balm.when she became queen by accident,the results were not surprising.with Ann boleyn's title of "the great whore" and Mary tudor's "Bloody Mary",how is it everyone but henry the eigth gets a bad nickname yet he himself doesn't.At least Henry the Alehound maybe.Seems he was even bloodier than his daughter,sending people to the block on a whim,and his reputation even more tarnished than Ann Boleyn's could ever have been."Great Harry"!I don't think the author even hints the title.

Alls I can say about this book is Prescott goes through Mary's life with a fine tooth comb holy s***balls, you won't find a book with more detail. Its an intense read but if you're up for the challenge and Mary's life intrigues you, you'll find this most satisfying I can assure. The book starts right from the beggining of Mary's tragic life, which as you'll find is fundamentally important in explaining Mary's seemingly bad decisions later on in her life and explains why even though she knew it probably wasn't the best choice but why she chose them anyway. Like for example the Anglo-Spanish marriage Prescott highlights that the rejection and ill treatment from her father towards herself and her mother only fed the love and loyalty she felt for her mother and her Spanish roots, which I think its safe to say kinda backfires on Henry and the dreams he had for his legacy. What I also noticed is Prescott uses a lot of Primary sources which I have to admit I wasn't so keen on at first but you get used to them and they're brilliantly used that despite them usually being diffcult to read they allow you to get up close and personal to Mary. I especially liked reading about the correspondance between her and the Spanish ambassador just before and at the time she was planning to flee abroad to Spain during rule of her half-brother Edward VI. This book has an immense amount of detail and it may be because I am a slow reader but it took me a rather long time to finish but I found very easy at the same time to really sink into the book when usually books of this nature I might struggle. Its a very descriptive read really just a beautifully written factual account critical and sympathetic, someone's finally given poor Mary a break.....lets face it, if your fathers privy councillors threatened to smash your head against a wall until it was as soft as a boiled apple when you were at the tender young age of 17 to try and get you to sign a paper illegitimising you and effectively labelling your mother as a 'whore' I think its safe to say that's a pretty messed up life you've had that would surely leave behind scars leading to some unfortunate consequences...