Opinion of Queen Mary I of England

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It's interesting how few people point out that she was married to the King of Spain and that, had they had kids, the two kingdoms would be in union for a time.  A pretty huge risk to national sovereignty...of course, Elizabeth ended up letting the throne be inherited by the King of Scotland, so her sister doesn't do much better on that front.

Except, of course, James VI/I was a Protestant (and that England dominated the union with Scotland, which wouldn't be a case in the union with Spain).

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The greatest Queen in English history. The definition of FF.

Only you could have mistaken greatness with horrid incompetency.

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One of the absolutely most horrid ancestors of the House of Windsor, and there have been many.

To be fair, Mary's presecution of Protestants was no more morally wrong than presecutions of Catholics under Henry VIII or Elizabeth I. But Henry and Elizabeth were great rulers on the "winning" side of history.

Mary was incompetent, which is enough for me to give her a negative vote. On human level, I feel somewhat sorry for her: traumatized by her childhood and youth.

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No excuses can be made for this deranged woman who had innocent people burned at the stake.

No, but if she were a Protestant burning Catholics at the stake, I doubt you would made this poll.

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No excuses can be made for this deranged woman who had innocent people burned at the stake.

No, but if she were a Protestant burning Catholics at the stake, I doubt you would made this poll.

Now that has got to rank as one of the silliest statements I have ever read on this forum, and there have been countless stupid statements made on this forum.

Nobody, Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, whatever, has any right to burn anybody else at the stake because of their religious beliefs.

That behavior is inhuman, revolting and abhorrent.

The depraved Mary Tudor well deserves her place as one of the most hated and reviled monarchs in the entire history of England, and England has a long history.

Yeah, because the other Tudors were paragons of religious tolerance

The other Tudors is a whole other story.

Without getting into the history of all of them, I will say that Henry VIII was a tyrant and a monster.  His murders and other assorted crimes are too numerous to mention.

The thing is, Mary's actions against Protestants, while indisputably abhorrent, were somewhat magnified by historiography, while her Protestant counterparts, whose prosecution of Catholics was of no lesser degree by any means, are getting a free pass. I mean, nobody calls Elizabeth I "Bloody Elizabeth".

I guess there are three main reasons for that. Due to Protestantism victory in England, Mary was on the "losing side". Second, she reigned for just 5 years, so it's easier to associate it primarily with religious persecution. Third, well, unlike Henry or Elizabeth, both quite outstanding political figures, she was just a pitiful monarch. Cassius is right she had a very bad luck, but that doesn't change the fact she was just not fit to rule. Period. Bad luck or not.

Sad thing is, her "crimes" weren't so special. Almost the entire Europe was ruled by an organized religious persecution with a very few exceptions such as, I'm quite happy to say, Poland-Lithuania (we were even called "A State without Stakes").